Israels Prayer in Time of Trouble, Title page 1 – To the reader
ISRAELS PRAYER In time of TROUBLE, WITH Gods gracious Answer thereunto: OR An Explication of the 14th Chapter of the Prophet HOSEA, In seven Sermons preached upon so many days of solemn Humiliation, By EDWARD REYNOLDS, Minister of the Word of God at Braunston in Northamptonshire, and a Member of the Assembly of Divines.
Published by Authority.
LONDON, Printed by Thomas Newcomb, for Robert Bostock, dwelling in Pauls Church-yard, at the Sign of the Kings-head, 1645.
THE FIRST SERMON UPON HOSEA, CHAP. 14. VERS. 1, 2. Preached in Margarets Church at Westminster, before the honorable House of Commons now assembled in Parliament; At the late Publique and Solemn FAST, Iuly 27. Anno Domini, 1642. By EDWARD REYNOLDS, Minister of the Word of God at Braunston in Northamptonshire, and a Member of the Assembly of Divines.
Published by Order of the said House. The second Edition, Enlarged.
LONDON, Printed by Thomas Newcomb, for Robert Bostock, dwelling in Pauls Church-yard, at the Sign of the Kings-head, 1649.
TO THE HONOURABLE House of COMMONS assembled in PARLIAMENT.
IN obedience to your Commands, I here humble present to your view what you were pleased with patience and readiness of affection lately to attend unto. I considered, that though the Choiceness of the Auditory might require the exactest preparation; yet both the condition of the Times, and the nature of the Duty did call upon us to lay aside our Ornaments. And therefore I speake with such plainness, as might commend the matter delivered rather to the Conscience of a Penitent, then to the fancy of a delicate hearer. The King of Nineveh was a King as well in his Sackcloth, as in his Robes: And the truth of God is indeed fuller of Majesty when it is naked, then when adorned with the dresse of any humane contribution, which many times takes from it, but never addes any value unto it.
I looked upon you in your double Relation, both Common as Christians, and Speciall, as men intrusted with the managing of those arduous and most pressing difficulties under which this distempered Kingdom is now groaning.
And for the quickning of those endevours which belong to you in both those Relations, I presented you both with the bottome of a Nations unhappiness, which is sin; and with the top of their felicity, which is Gods free grace and favour: That by your serious cares to purge out the one, and to procure the other, you might, by Gods blessing on your Consultations, dispell that black tempest which hangs over this Kingdom, and reduce the face of things unto calmness and serenity again.
When the Children strugled together in the womb of Rebekah, she was thereupon inquisitive, If it be, Why am I thus? Gen: 35, 22.and she addressed her self to God for a resolution. Surely this Nation is become like the womb of Rebekah, the children thereof strugling in their mothers belly together, and when God hath mercifully freed us from forain Enemies, Brethren are become enemies to brethren, and by their enmities likely to tear and torment the bowels of their mother, and to ruine themselves.
And what have we now to do, but to inquire the Cause of these sad cōmotions, Why are we thus? And surely the Cause is chiefly where the Disease is, within our selves. We have been like the womb of Rebekah, a barren Nation, not bringing forth fruits of so many mercies as God hath filled us withall. So that now it is no wonder, if God cause us to be in pain within our own Bowels, and to feel the throwes and struglings of a Travelling woman, Hos. 13.13.ready to bring forth her own Confusion, a Benoni, or an Ichabod, a son of Sorrow, and of Shame, to this hitherto so peaceable and flourishing a Kingdom.
All that we can comfort our selves with in these pangs and qualms of distemper is, that there are some Iacobs amongst us.Gen. 32.24. Hos. 12.3, 4. who insteed of supplanting their brethren, will wrestle, and have power with God. The people have often Petitioned, sometimes his sacred Majesty, sometimes this Honourable House, which are his great Councel, many overtures, & endeavor of Accommodation have been tendred,Isa. 26.17, 18. & yet we cry out in our pangs, & have, as it were, brought forth wind, neither have we wrought any deliverance in the earth.
I have here therefore presented a new Petition, dictated & drawn up to our hands by Gods own Spirit, unto which both King and Parliament, Peers and Prophets and People, must al subscribe, and offer it with prostrate & penitent hearts unto him who stands in the congregation of the mighty, Psal. 82.1.& judgeth amongst the gods, that he would take away all our iniquity, and receive us into favour again, and accept of a Covenant of new obedience.
And this Petition God is pleased to anticipate with an answer of grace in the consequent parts of the chapter whence the Text is taken, and that particularly to every branch of the Petition. He will take away iniquity. His Anger shall not punish, His Love shal heal our backslidings, the greatness of our sins shall not hinder the freeness of his Grace. He will do us good, and give us life, by the dew of his grace reviving us: and Glory clothing us like the Lilly of the field, with the beauty of holiness: and stability, fixing us by his grace, as the Cedars of Lebanon are fastned upon their Roots: and growth or enlargement as the branches spread forth themselves, and continual vigor & plenty, as the Olive tree, which is always green and fruitful, and glorious comforts by the sweet savor of the knowledg of God,2 Cor. 2.14. which like the spice trees of Lebanon shall diffuse a spiritual perfume upon the names, and into the consciences of penitent converts.
He will prevent us with the blessings of Safety, as well as of Sanctity and Comfort, we shall under his shadow finde shelter and protection from all our fears. Though like Corn, we be harrowed under the Clods, though like a lopped vine we seem naked, and reduced to lowness, though like crushed grapes we lie under heavy pressures: yet he will receive, and enlarge, and comfort us again, and when we are in our own eyes as fatherless children, He will set his eyes upon us as a Tutor and Guardian, He will hear and observe, and answer, and pity us, enabling us to make good our Covenant by his grace, and causing the fruits of his loving kindness to be found upon us. Thus God is pleased to borrow the various perfection of other things to adumbrate the united and calumniated mercies which he promiseth unto a converting and petitioning people.
You have the Petition sent you from God, and his Answer preventing you in all the members of it with the blessings of goodness. I have nothing else to do, but to beg of you, and of all this great people whom you represent, the Subscription of your hearts and lives unto this Petition: and to beg of God that he would graciously incline the hearts of this whole Kingdom, rather to wrastle with him for a blessing, then to struggle and conflict amongst themselves for a Curse. With which prayer I humbly conclude. Commending your persons and your weighty affairs to his grace; and rest,
Your most humble Servant in Christ, ED: REYNOLDS. From my Study in Braunston August the 8. 1642.
To the Reader.
CHristian Reader, Understanding that my Sermon, which was preached three years since before the Honorable House of Commons, on the day of their solemn Humiliation, was to be reprinted: I thought fit to peruse, transcribe, and enlarge six other Sermons, in which I had, at mine own charge in the Country, on the ensuing Fast days, briefly explained and applyed that whole Chapter, (a portion only whereof was in the first handled,) and to send them forth together with it unto the publique: Which I was the rather induced to do for these two Reasons: 1. Because it hath pleased God in his righteous and holy providence to make me, by a long infirmity, unserviceable to his Church in the principal work of the Ministry, the preaching of the Gospel (which is no small grief unto me.) So that there remained no other means whereby my life might, in regard of my function, be useful to the Church, and comfortable to my self, then by inverting the words of the Psalmist,Psalm 45.1. and as he made His Tongue as the Pen of a ready Writer, so to make my Pen the Tongue of an unready Speaker. 2. I considered the seasonableness and sutableness of these Meditations unto the condition of the sad and disconsolate times wherein we live, very like those which our Prophet threatned the ten Tribes withal throughout this whole Prophecy, unto which this last Chapter is a kind of Vse, and a most solemn Exhortation, pressing upon all wise and prudent men such duties of Humiliation and Repentance, as might turn threats into promises, and recover again the mercies which by their sins they had forfeited and forsaken: Which being restored unto them according to their Petition, they are here likewise further instructed in what manner to return unto God the praises due to his great Name. And these two duties of Humiliation and Thanksgiving are the most solemn duties which in these times of Judgments and Mercies so variously interwoven together, the Lord doth so frequently call us unto.
Places of Scripture I have for brevity sake, for the most part, only quoted and referred thee unto, without transcribing all the words, and have usually put many paralel places together▪ because by that means they do not only strengthen the doctrine whereunto they belong, but mutually give light unto one another.
The Lord make us all in this our day so wise and prudent, as to understand the righteous ways of our God towards us: That we may not stumble at them,Isai. 26.8▪9. but walk in them, and be taught by them to wait upon him in the way of his judgments, and to fix the desires of our soul upon his Name as our great Refuge, and upon his Righteousness as our great Business, till he shall be pleased, by the dew of his Grace, to Revive us as the Corn▪ to make us grow as the Vine, and to let the scent of all his Ordinances be over all our Land, as the smell, and as the wine of Lebanon.
It will be an abundant return unto my poor and weak endeavors, if I may have that room in thy prayers which the Apostle Paul desired to have in the prayers of the Ephesians,Ephes. 6.19. That utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly to preach the mystery of the Gospel.
The Lord sanctifie all the ways of his Providence towards us, that when we are chastened, we may be taught, and may be greater gainers by the voyce of his Rod,Psal. 94 12, Mic. 6 9. then we are sufferers by the stripes.