THE shepherd's FAREWELL TO HIS BELOVED flock OF S. B. E. L. Where He hath been above twenty years their weak, yet vigilant pastor, I. G. D. D. PSAL. 37. 25. I have been young, am old, yet never saw The just abandoned, nor those that draw From him their breath, with beggary oppressed, He lends in mercy and his seed are blessed. En me, peractâ parte vitae maximâ, Senecta jam cana premit: Nec me usquàm rectam persecutum tramitem, Meós ve, sensi deseri; Quaerelave vidi voce, Divitum ad Ostia, Miserum rogantes frustulum. Printed in the year 1645. TO THE PARISH OF St. BARTHOLMEWS EXCHANGE LONDON. BEloved in the Lord, you have your desire, and I have mine ease to betake me to a retired life, in my crazy estate and manifold infirmities of age crept on me, which makes it to me a disease and summoning to the Grave. God enable me, that patience in me may have the perfect work, and furnish you all with all his graces, that shall have their continuation in glory. This is my hearty prayer, to which God vouchsafe a blessed Ratification. For Preaching once yours, For Praying ever yours, JOHN GRANT, aged 67. THE shepherd's farewell to his beloved FLOCK of S. B. E. L. PHIL. 4. ver. 4. to 8. Rejoice in the Lord always; and again I say rejoice. Let your Moderation be known to all men: The Lord is at hand. Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. IN this present evil world, the dearest of God's Saints are often militant (in a warfaring condition often;) and whiles here they are, always itinerant (in a wayfaring condition always.) They have Enemies enough, and strangers are they unto all that are not right to Heaven-wards, that are open sinners, or but pretended Saints. They are hated by many, and not owned by the most; persecuted by not a few, deserted (in their extreme wants) almost by every one, by all, sure in whose hearts Christ dwelleth not by faith a Eph. 3. 17. ; So this apostolical exhortation is needful for their consolation, that they take none offence at the cross of Christ, but that they closely buckle themselves to be with him crucified, and soundly animated, peremptorily to deny their own selves, to take up their own cross daily, and so cheerfully and undauntedly to follow Christ b Luk. 9 23. , even unto death and in death to be his courageous and most constant Followers. I called this Text an Exhortation; I may fitly call it a chain of Exhortations, of suitable and seasonable Exhortations, and all of them closed up in a pithy apprecation. The first Exhortation is to the perpetuity of rejoicing; the next to the moderate behaving a man's self in all occurrences. The last, to a dependency upon God amidst the throngs of whatever cares the world presseth us withal, and enforceth continually upon us, to make us forgetful of our God. We are thus to the perpetuity of rejoicing, by our holy Apostle exhorted, and the Exhortation (to work us seriously unto it) is redoubled, rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice. The again and again rejoicing, is the Christian rejoicing, the rejoicing it is in the Lord. Worldlings rejoicings are in their vanities, ever with vexations accompanied; mad rejoicings are they, ever ending in horror: I have said of laughter, it is mad, and of mirth, what doth it c Eccles. 2. 2 . Mad laughter and profane mirth, doth it knoweth not what. Christ's woe is thereon; Woe unto you that now laugh, for ye shall mourn and weep d Luk. 6. 25. . Extremum gaudij luctus occupat, all rejoicing out of Christ is wound up in mourning, and that mourning shall have no ending, nor shall any of the tears thereof be put up into the Lords bottles. The right rejoicing (that shall be an evermore rejoicing) is the rejoicing in the Lord: That our names are written in the book of Life, is the very life of rejoicing e Luk. 10. 20 . All other rejoicing is but madness, it is groundless altogether; it knoweth not what it doth, it doth what it cannot know, that it shall have God's approbation; nay if it reflect upon God's revealings, cannot but know, that reprobation will thereof be the dismal conclusion. But the Christian rejoicing, is an evermore rejoicing; rejoice evermore, is our Apostles expression f Thes. 5. 16. . In the hope of the glory of God is their rejoicing, that have in their hearts this assurance by faith, that their names are in the records of Heaven indelibly registered. In the hope of the glory of God is their rejoicing g Rom. 5. 2. . And not only so, the Apostle adds further, in the three annexed verses; but we (the rejoicers in the Lord) glory in tribulations (not only rejoice, but even glory in them) as knowing that tribulation worketh patience, and patience experience, and experience hope, and hope maketh not ashamed, because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the holy Ghost, which is given unto us. You here may clearly see the wide difference now between the rejoicings of sinners and of Saints, of profane worldlings, and of religious Christians. The one is deceitful, vanishing, perishing and in perdition enwrapping; the other fixed, eternal, happy making, and so continuing in those in whom it takes place, being in prosperity and adversity still the same. Plenty's swell it not up, neither wants cast it down, calm times never make it forgetful of God, nor tumults deter them from the constant service of God, in whom God works it by the Ministers of his own appointing. This rejoicing in the Lord always, this again and again rejoicing, is the joy in the holy Ghost; it is that gladsome, that sweet, that comfortable motion of the heart by the Spirit of Adoption, stirred up in the elect Servants and Saints of God, upon the feeling of God's love to them-wards in Jesus Christ, as the forerunner and assurer of the life eternally happy. Both in earthly and spiritual blessings have we the tokens of God's love to us-wards in Christ, especially in the spiritual. The kingdom of God is righteousness and peace, and joy in the holy Ghost, writes our Apostle h Ro. 14. 17. . When Christ's joy remains in us, our joy becomes the Full joy i Joh. 15. 11. . It is the joy unspeakable, the glorious joy, so by Saint Peter styled k 1 Pet. 1. 8. : and fitly, because of heaven's kingdom, it is a main part. With all joy and peace through believing, are the elected and selected ones of God filled * Ro. 15. 13. . A very Heaven is in their consciences, and a constellation is there of all virtues and graces, beamed from the Father of Lights in his Irradiations upon them. This Saint Paul appreca●es to the Romans, and I in his words to you; The God of Hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in Hope through the power of the holy Ghost l Ro. 15. 13. . This were a fit bough always to be chirping on; but our Text is a Tree of many boughs and branches, and gladly bird-like, would I be upon them all in this one hour. To the next then do I swiftly betake me, and that is Moderation, Let your Moderation be known to all men. Christian moderation is the bridler in of our affections, and the bounder of our passions, throughout our conversation among men of all ranks and humours. The self-willed are the perpetual disturbers of themselves and others, even of all within their reach; they will do no right, they will endure no wrong; but the soberly moderate and wel-tempered Christian so balanceth himself, that he carrieth every thing even, and in all occurrences, keeps him (so near as possibly he can) in a stare of equality. To neither hand swerves he, but always steadily behaves himself (never at at any time giddily) in all manner affairs; extremity hurries not him on, but equity pouseth and guideth him; never is he rigidly strict, to press on others what is unmeet, but ever watchful to keep his feet from running into injurious ways and courses, and his hands from wrongful doings, upon whatever occasions or urgencies. Right Christians accommodate themselves unto one another by way of concord, whereas discord even in things trivial, maketh wounds and keeps them open by rigorous austerity and very niceties, not of conscience only but even of credit. That of Abraham, the Father of the faithful, is quite forgotten in these riged and rugged times. Saith he to Lot (the elder to the younger, the uncle to his Nephew) Let there be no strife I pray thee between me and thee, nor between my herdsmen and thy herdsmen, for we are Brethren m Gen. 13. 8 . When strife is not heeded soon and speedily moderated, a Gangrene makes it uncurable, and nothing but rooting out and cutting off will be the issue; a bloody issue, till the one or the other party even bleed to death (and not seldom both) there is no stay. Stories are fraught with such relations, and it were well that we seriously and closely studied them, that we (in the same kind) become not a tragic-history to the times ensuing ours. We are Brethren, is a strong argument to break off discords, and in the closest bonds of concord to be reunited. Nearness in blood presseth the duty upon us, nearness in the faith of Religion, and in the religiousness of faith, far much more. Look we on the Vocation wherewith we are called, that of Christianity, a right worthy Vocation, and be it our care (yea and our conscience) to walk worthy thereof; we have it from apostolical entreaty and Injunction n Eph. 4. 1. , and it were well we hearted what is by him there subjoined: Be your walking (that is, your Christian behaviour and converse in the world) in all lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering, forbearing one another in love, endeavouring to keep unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace: There is one body and one spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling. There is one Lord, one Faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in us all. And the close of the Chapter is suitable hereunto, and home to the point we are on in our Text, the expression of our Moderation o ver. 31. 32. ; Let all bitterness and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice, and be ye kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you. And note here with me, that the Apostle saith not bluntly, be ye moderate, but let your moderation be known; so evident, that it may be undeniably apparent, known, evident; apparent to men, to all men, to all men that have eyes and wils to see it, and judgements to conceive of it as it is. When we are moderate, not for vainglory, but for God's glory, not to be pointed at for such, but to be such indeed; not to be admired of others, but to build them up to Heaven-wards by our example, (in right ingenity and dovelike simplicity) is that which our Apostle laboureth to work us unto; and that of our Saviour likewise drives it home p Mat. 5. 16. : Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in Heaven. Which passage of our Saviour by that of his Apostle Saint Peter, is set forth to the very life q 1 Pet. 2. 11. 12. . Dearly beloved, I beseech you (as Strangers and Pilgrims) abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul, having your conversation honest among the Gentiles, that whereas they speak against you as evil doers, they may (by your good works, which they shall behold) glorify God in the day of Visitation. Pliny the younger, (Proconsul under Trajane the Emperor, of Christians the fierce persecutor) observing the Moderation of the Christians, then in all their demeanours and lightsome behaviour in the darksome world, recommended them for such to that Emperor, and it turned his enraged fierceness against them, into an order taken for their indemnity and security amidst the maliciously bent against them: When a man's ways do please the Lord, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him r Prov. 16. 7. : And this leads us by the hand to that which follows in the Text (as annexed with this Exhortation) The Lord is at hand. At hand the Lord God is, as being everywhere, at all times present; at hand the Lord is by the assistance of his grace, to bring his choice ones in Christ out of▪ all the endangerments they are in, by the sinfulness and weakness in their nature corrupted. At hand the Lord is in the course of his judgements, to help them to right that suffer wrong, and (in his last judgement) to render unto every man according to that he hath done in his body unpartially. Our only present help, in whatever troubles, is the Lord our God. At hand he is to rescue us out of our intricate dangers; at hand he is, to extract us out of whatever plunges; at hand he is to pull us out of the hells and horrors of our various sins and entangling perplexities, by sealing unto our believing souls the pardons by Christ's blood sealed and ratified by the Spirit of his promise: Let not the Epicures, Perepoteticks, Stoics of the times work their poisons into our hearts: the former (Epicures) deny the providence of God, and to the wheelings of Fortune ascribe the events of all the affairs in the world. The middlemost (Peripatecians, Aristotle's close Adherents, Admirers and Adorers) are in their Universalities (God with them, is no minder of particulars:) The last (Stoics) bind God so unto causes secondary, that by fatal necessity all things come to pass, and that nothing is by divine providence ordered. Besides these, the world hath a rabble of vainly superstitious, conceiting God after their own fancies, not as he hath in his Word revealed himself to us, namely, a God at hand and not a far off, to the moderators of themselves according to his prescriptions. Among all David's psalms be that familiar unto you by frequent meditation (Psal. 107.) A map it is of God's being at hand to all his punctually, and stirs up all (in all occurrences) to take notice of God's handiwork, and to praise him ever for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men (ver. 8. 15. 21. 31. of that precious psalm.) In the temporal blessings of our God, are his spiritual blessings therein chanted forth most harmoniously. At hand our God is to the wanderers in desert places; at hand God is to the shut up in desmal prisons (feitered and tormented there;) at hand God is to the cast upon their sick beds, and with various diseases tossed there, and grievously turmoiled. A fourfold exemplification of God's presence in men's troubles, and of his rescuing them graciously thereout, is in that psalm distinctly specified. The two former examples are of the calamitous in a vagring condition (in a tossing on the Land and on the Sea) represented so as if we even saw them tempest-beaten. The two latter examples are in a condition not vagring indeed, but fixed; yet so fixed, as trans-fixed, as put to pains above human supportment; external violence in prison-extremities, internal grievance in varieties of diseases, try the metals of Gods endeared ones; There is the patience of the Saints put to it; Therein the ●ryall and the proof of them to be true and sound, cleer●y evidenced; God's temporal deliverances in these kinds are remarkable, but our spiritual deliverances exceed all the temporal by far. The church's deliverances by her Saviour the Lord Jesus, should often be revolved in our thoughts, and all the year (yea all our years on Earth) should be a Christmas in this regard, a festival, continuated and celebrated rejoicingly. As Christ, before he was exhibited to the World in the flesh, was once promised, and often repromised, and our Forefathers in the faith thereby sustained in their longings for him and expectations of him; so after his manifestation in our nature, and finishing the work of our Redemption therein: First he gave direction for the Faith Christian, by the Apostles and their close Successors; and afterwards, when Heresies and schisms had tainted the same, he again reformed it, and continueth that blessed Reformation. I have here before me a world of matter, but I must take up and speed me to the next Bough, largely dispread and into many branches distinguished: Be careful for nothing, but in every thing, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. Be careful for nothing.) A double carefulness we read of, a carefulness forbidden, and an enjoined carefulness. This latter is a taking thought, both in what and how we may approve ourselves unto, and in our persons and whole deportment on earth please our good and gracious Father which is in Heaven, wherein his son our redeeming Lord he hath prepared the Mansions of eternity for us, after our pilgrimage in this vale of misery. By doing the will of our Father, as in his Word he hath revealed the same to us, is this care taken, and by us conscionably performed. This is to us recommended in the Corinthians s 2 Cor. 7. 11 , The sorrowing after a godly sort, what carefulness hath it wrought in you? This carefulness is a studiousness to avoid the tract of sin and sinners, and a closeness of adherence unto God in a way of holiness that leadeth to happiness. When we take due thought for the welfare of our own souls, and for the drawing of others with us on to God, this way are we careful, and God accepteth of us in Christ, and highly approveth us. Yea, a moderate carefulness for the things of this life, without distrustfulness in God, is both good and commendable; but when our Apostle chargeth us to take care for nothing, it is anxiousness he points at, and dissuades from. This is interpreted by that of our provident Lord; Care not for to morrow t Mat. 6. 34. , our faith on God's Providence must cast diffidence out of us. Saint Peter thus expresseth it; cast all your care upon God, for he careth for you u 1 Pet. 1. 7. . Where the word All is emphatical, and very expressive. It is not sufficient for a right Christian, to cast this care, or that care, or the other on God. Nothing must excrutiate us who have God for a Provider. It may fall out that the very lightest cares may so press us down, that we may become unfit to undergo the very lest burden of our callings, as not the greatest can be too heavy for us, when the whole load of our cares are on God, the perpetual care and provider for us. And in the word Cast likewise, an intimation is there worthy our closest observation. It signifies, that we should rouse up what perplexeth us, and roll it all on God. Be we rid of Anxieties, as for us over-masterful; but no burden is over-heavy for his Shoulders. And how shall we cast all our cares on God? by letting our requests be made known to God. God is ready to free us of our cares, and to take the charge both of our persons, and of what concerns us for good; but he will be requested of us, and then shall we be under his wings for shelter and for safety. It is not to inform God that we put up requests to God; no, he knows our thoughts afar off, he knoweth them ere they arise in us, knows them ere we can mould them up into requests, and so put them up unto the Throne of Grace. It is not simply for the manifesting of them to God, but to obtain God's approbation of them, and of us for them. Christ will disclaim the knowledge of hypocrites at▪ the last day (I never knew you▪) and yet who are more in prayer than they? but their prayers are but Ayrebeatings, as sounding brass, or tinkling Cymbals, all their devotions. Requests made known to God are such, as God by effects makes it known, that he hath with approbation admitted them. When we thrive to Heaven-wards, and are provided▪ for on earth to contentment, it appears, that we have not been at our prayers in vain. To all that call upon him God is near, but such must they be as in truth call upon him x Ps. 145. 18. . Otherwise he knows them not with approbation, with acceptation hears them not. When we are true of heart, God's Ears are full open to our requests, and never have we in them repulses from him. ask and it shall be given you, seek and ye shall find, knock, and unto you shall it be opened; for every one that asketh receiveth, and he that seeketh findeth, and to him that knocketh it shall be opened y Mat. 7. 78. . When our requests unto God are faithful, earnest and constant, God takes notice of them, and we from God have seasonable answers. Requests put up to men are often frivolous. Either to grant them is not in their power, or not in their will; but neither are in God wanting, and nothing shall be to them wanting who are nor deficient in this requesting duty, but are in it so earnest, that with Jacob the Patriarch, they will not let the Lord go, till from the Lord they find and feel a blessing, and in that blessing full sweetly enjoy God: Now our requests unto are God made known by prayer, supplication, thanksgiving; A touch must I needs give you of each of them, and God by his Spirit touch your hearts in the use of them all. {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}, Prayer is our request unto God our Heavenly Father, for the supply of what may sustain us and fit us for Heaven, that may enable us (both temporally and spiritually) to hold on and to hold out in our callings, till hence we are called to our abode in glory, to our Mansions of eternity. {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}, Supplication is our request to God, by way▪ of deprecation, either to have evils removed from us, or sweetened to us: sins and miseries involve us here, but God's providence is over us, and all shall work for the best unto us, who by constant supplication refer ourselves unto, and both always, and in all things depend on God, and although he even nay us, are fully resolved (with that man of the right mettle, holy and patient Job) to trust in him. {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}, Thanksgiving is a request to God to accept of our thanks (our poor thanks) for his richly multiplied benefits on us conferred in Jesus Christ. As it becometh the righteous to be thankful, so in all things rendering perpetuated thanks unto God, by them God is invited to the continuation of blessings, to their settled assurance of his eternal favours. In that which usually we do call the Lord's Prayer are all these requests uncomparably couched, Prayer, Supplication, Thanksgiving. Be it in our hearts always, and in our mouths often upon occasions. Thus pray we , and pray we this; when ye pray, say Our Father ; and never forget we that prayer, lest in our own (without an eye on that and close with that) we be lost as in so many Wildernesses full of intricacies, full of enormities, full of endangerments. I close with that of our English Bernard. In the Lord's Prayer, whether we regard the brevity, perfection, authority, method, efficacy or necessity of it, it is to be believed, that no Saint or angel is able to march the platform thereof; being large for matter, short for phrase, and sweet for order: Take withal (for the clearing of this branch in our Text, and for your right apprehending and using of the Lord's Prayer) the Explication and Application thereof from the same Author (and others) thus; Our Father (by the right of creation, by the merit of compassionate and bowell-mercies, by the gracious provision of things needful and useful for us;) which art in Heaven, (the Seat of thy Majesty in the very radiancy of glory, the Inheritance of thy children by adoption and grace, the kingdom of endless and undisturbed happiness;) hallowed be thy name (by the thoughts of our hearts, by the words of our mouths, by the works of our hands) thy kingdom come (that of grace to inspire us, that of power to defend us, that of glory to crown us;) thy will be done (in our weal and in our woe, in our fullness and in our needfulness, in our life temporal, and at our death the change of this for a better life;) in Earth as it is in Heaven, (in us below as it is in the glorious Angels above; done willingly, readily, cheerfully, faithfully; done without the very least murmuring, without any let or any manner hindering, without fraudulent and deceitful juggling, the cheating way of serving God▪ in the complementalness of Religion;) Give us this day our daily Bread, (for the nourishment of these our decaying bodies, for the spiritual feeding of our Heaven-bred souls, for the relief of all our necessities, whether bodily or spiritual, whether for our sustentation here for a time, or preparation for hereafter, to the days of eternity;) And forgive us our Trespasses, (those wher●by thou our Father art in the course of our sinful live dishonoured, our Neighbours any ways wronged, ourselves heedlessly endangered, and with many miseries perpetually even day by day enthralled;) as we forgive them that trespass against us, (that have hurt us in our bodies, that have hindered us in our goods and estates, that have wronged us in our good names and reputations;) And lead us not into tentation, (the tentation of the world, lying and rotting in all manner of wickedness; the tentation of the flesh, our bosom-inticing Dalilah, over-near and over-dear unto us; the tentation of Satan, our common adversary, the perpetual hunter of us to utter perdition and destruction:) But deliver us from evil, (forgive that is past, remove that is present, what is to come graciously so prevent, that nothing may ever make a separation between thee and us, thee our Father, and us thine adopted ones in the Lord Jesus Christ, the son, as of thy nature, so of thine entirest love:) For thine is the kingdom, (to rule and overrule all:) thine the power, to command and to do all:) thine the glory, (to be all in all to all thine:) and all these for ever and ever, (in the world that is present, and in the world that is to come,:) unlimited is thy kingdom, thy power and thy glory, Amen, (thou sayst it and so it is:) Amen, (thou dost promise it and so shall it be;) Amen is our echo to what thou sayst and promifest; so be it Heavenly Father, is the faithful Amen to all the requests our gracious Lord hath taught us, to put up affectionately unto thee. And now from the Apostles Exhortations to various duties, which (in a plain way) we have explained; proceed we in the last place, to the Apostles closing up of all with a right suitable apprecation; and the peaco of God which passeth all under standing shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. I shall briefly & closely open this, & leave it with you as an hearty farewell of your worn-out pastor, whose prayer ever shall be for your thriving to Heaven-wards. The peace of God was the Apostles apprecation to his Philippians, and is mine to you; once mine, but now left to your own choice of a Preacher, and God fit you with one that may fit you for God. By the peace of God (in this passage) conceive that peace which God worketh in believing consciences, as an effect of the gospel to them sincerely preached. My soul assures me, that I never delivered any thing from this Pulpit that was unsound, untrue; never hucstered the Word of God to the humouring of any, for by-ends of mine own, never hood-winked any Parishoner by forged interpretations, raked out either of the Channels of Rome, or dunghills of Amsterdum; otherwise (even of a child from my believing Parents, soundly Protestant) learned I Christ, and both in truth and clearness have so taught him. And this Testimony of mine own conscience (on itself seriously reflecting) is to me as thousands of Witnesses: God so deal with my soul, as I have been faithful to youwards (in the whole course of my ministry among you) for the solid good of your souls: And now my prayer is for you, that the peace of God may settle in you; only that peace is the peace surpassing, a peace that hath no bounds, no termination, no expiration. The peace it is the only peace that passeth all understanding. The World conceives the Godly to have no peace, but the godly know that the wicked World hath none, no not when it is at the quietest; we have it from him that had it immediately from God (Isaiah, that Prophet evangelical, or prophetical Evangelist) There is no peace (saith my God) to the wicked; and in that one Prophet we find it twice recorded b chap. 48. 22 & 57 21. . And he adds this comparison to set it forth to the very full; Sea-like the wicked cannot rest; when any winds trouble them, their waters cast up mire and dirt, and with their fulsomeness and noisomeness, not a corner is there anywhere that stinks not of them; yet even in their disturbances, a peace there is in godly consciences, a peace passing the capacity of worldly men's understandings, a settled and a settling peace. And no marvel, for it keepeth their hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Listen unto the legacy of Christ's bequeathing. The heart's keeper it is, and the minds keeper, and both in the right temper of undisturbed tranquillity▪ Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you, not as the world giveth give I unto you; let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid c Joh. 14. 27 . The peace of the world is like the world, fickle; now on, soon again quite off, ever giddy never steady: The children of men are deceitful upon the weights, light as vanity, yea then vanity itself lighter d Psal. 62. 9 . And wise Solomon (the son of religious David) proves throughout his Ecclesiastes, that book of proofs by him experienced. But the Peace of God through Jesus Christ, or that peace we have bequeathed us from Christ is such a peace, which as the world cannot give us, so it cannot take the same from us: Our peacemaker is the securer of the peace we have from him; our hearts and minds are in safe custody thereby. Out of Satan's reach they are, and above the malice of every satanically-minded and handed wretch (yea and tongued too) in both sexes. We may have our good names by slanderousness blemished, our estates by the violence of plunder ruined, our temporary lives by the bloodiness of war or by any manner of disease (Pestilential or otherwise) taken from us; but the peace made between the God of faithfulness and our believing souls is altogether unbereavable. Hell! gates cannot there be prevalent, where God's pardon and peace are entered; and where in the blood of Christ believers are sealed (by the spirit of Christ) to the day of full Redemption. I shall now refer you to the present close perusal (and to the practical use, whiles you have a day on earth to live) of that 91 Psalm, It begins thus, He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most high shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty: and it thus concludes, he shall call upon me and I will answer him, with long life will I satisfy him, and show him my salvation. Here (and in the rest of that Psalm) is the peace of God displayed, a peace passing the understanding of natural men, as not at all therewith acquainted a peace keeping the hearts and minds of the regenerate in an heavenly temper, and filling them with joy unspeakable & full of glory e 1 Pet. 1. 8. The Kingdom of God is righteousness, peace and joy in the holy Ghost f Ro. 14. 17. . And our Saviour tells us that this Kingdom is within us g Luk. 12 11. . A Kingdom it is that comes not with observation, lo, it is here, or, loe 〈…〉 there, is but frivolous discourse: for behold the Kingdom of God is within you, it consisteth (as formerly you heard from St. Paul) in righteousness, peace & joy in the holy Ghost, all within all in the hearts of believers. When Jesus Christ dwells in the heart by faith (as Saint Paul averreth he doth h Ephes. 3. 17. ) & every believer knoweth it) there is rejoicing in the Lord, there is the unstinted expression of Moderation, there is the assurance of the Lord's assistance, there is a casting on God the care of our welfare in a perpetuated laying down of our requests before him in prayer, supplication, thanksgiving, and there the peace of God which passeth all understanding keeps through Jesus Christ the hearts and minds of Christians. I hope what I have at this time delivered is generally understood, and my prayer is that it may particularly be derived into practice. If with this resolution you approach the Lord's Table, my hope is (and my prayer seconds it) that you will (Henceforward) prove thriving Christians, that you will grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ i 2 Pet. 3. 18. . Not to go forward in Religion is to go backward, is to pull down what formerly we have built up; is to end in the flesh, although we have begun in the spirit. And from any such course the Lord divert us all, and make our wills pliable to his will in all things, to his glory in our salvation. The Lord evermore bless you and evermore keep you all; the Lord make his face to shine perpetually upon you all & unto you all, & to all your posterity be unstintedly gracious; the Lord lift up his countenance upon you all, & give you all his peace that passeth all understanding, to the keeping of all your hearts and minds in all integrity through Jesus Christ the Righteous, to whom (with thee; O Father, & the holy Ghost, from you both our comforter, three Persons, one very God) b●●ll glory to all eternity, Amen▪ FINIS.