A29703:682
The privy key of heaven, or, Twenty arguments for closet-prayer in a select discourse…The privie key of heaven, or, Twenty arguments for closet-prayer in a select discourse…
The privy key of heaven, or, Twenty arguments for closet-prayer in a select discourse on that subject with the resolution of several considerable questions : the main objections also against closet-prayer are here answered ... with twenty special lessons ... that we are to learn by that severe rod, the pestilence that now rageth in the midst of us / by Thomas Brooks.The privie key of heaven, or, Twenty arguments for closet-prayer in a select discourse on that subject with the resolution of several considerable questions : the main objections also against closet-prayer are here answered ... with twenty special lessons ... that we are to learn by that severe rod, the pestilence that now rageth in the midst of us / by Thomas Brooks.
London : Printed for and are to be sold by John Hancock, 1665
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
'Twas an excellent saying of Ambrose, If thou canst not hide thy self 1from the Sun, which is Gods Minister of light, how impossible will it be to hide thy self from him, whose eyes are ten thousand times brighter than the Sun! Though a sinner may baffle his Conscience, yet he cannot baffle the eye of Gods omniscience. Oh that poor souls would remember, that as they are never out of the reach of Gods hand, so they are never from under the view of his eye. God is totus oculus, all eye; Jer. 16. 17. For mine eyes are upon all their ways; they are not hid from my face, neither is their iniquity hid from mine eyes. Job 34. 21, 22. For his eyes are upon the ways of man, and he seeth all his goings. There is no darkness, nor shadow of death, where the workers of iniquity may hide themselves. Jer. 32. 19. For thine eyes are open upon all the ways of the sons of men, to give ⟨p. 427⟩every one according to his ways, and the fruit of his doings. You know what Ahasuerus that great Monarch said concerning Haman, when coming in he found him cast upon the Queens Bed, on which she sate, What (saith he) will he force 2the Queen before me in the House? There was the killing emphasis in the words before me; will he force the Queen before me? what will he dare to commit such villainy and I stand and look on? O Sirs, to sin in the sight of God, to do wickedly under the eye of God, is a thing that he looks upon as the greatest affront, and as the highest indignity that can possibly be done unto him: What (saith he) wilt thou be drunk before me? wilt thou swear and blaspheme before me? wilt thou be wanton and unclean before me? wilt thou be unjust and unrighteous under mine eye? wilt thou profane my Sabbaths, and pollute my Ordinances before my face? wilt thou despise and persecute my Servants in my ⟨p. 428⟩presence? &c. This then is the killing aggravation of all sin, that it is done before the face of God, that it is committed in the Royal presence of the King of Kings; whereas the very consideration of Gods Omnipresence should bravely arm us against sin and Satan; the consideration of his all-seeing eye should make us shun all occasions of sin, and make us shy of all appearances of sin. Shall the eye of the Master keep the Scholar from blotting his Copy? shall the eye of the Judge keep the Malefactor from picking and stealing?