Master Perkins' Prayer before His Sermons
WILLIAM PERKINS • SATAN'S SOPHISTRY
Master Perkins' Prayer before His Sermons O Almighty Lord God, most merciful and loving Father in Jesus
Christ, we are here assembled before Your glorious Majesty to partake in Your heavenly word, which, in Your infinite goodness and mercy, You have ordained as the ordinary means to work our salvation. We beseech You, therefore, most merciful Father, to bless each one of us in the hearing and speaking of Your holy word.
Good Lord, open our blind eyes, that we may understand it. And whereas our hearts are hardened, filled with sin and manifold rebellions, good Lord, soften our hard hearts. Grant that Your holy word may be the two-edged sword of the Spirit, cutting down sins and corruption within us, and making us new creatures in Jesus
Christ.
Whereas we are troubled by many impediments in hearing Your word, such as wandering imaginations in our hearts, suggestions of Satan, and the dullness of our own flesh, good Lord, remove these hindrances. Give us attentive grace to hear Your word in fear and reverence, as if in Your presence. Help us to receive it not as coming from man but as coming from Jesus Christ.
And when we have heard Your word, grant that it may not be the savor of death leading to deeper condemnation, but the savor of life bringing eternal comfort and salvation. Write Your word in each one of our hearts and transform us into obedience to it in our lives and conduct.
Because Satan is a deadly enemy of the ministry of Your word, good Lord, confound Satan. Dissolve in each one of us the cursed works of the Devil. Work Your own good works and show Yourself more merciful in blessing Your word than Satan is or can be malicious in hindering it.
Hear us, we beseech You, in these requests and grant these graces to each one of us, not because of our own merits (for we deserve nothing but eternal shame and confusion for our sins) but for the merits of Your dear Son, Jesus Christ, in whom You are well pleased.
WILLIAM PERKINS • SATAN'S SOPHISTRY
To Him, with You and the Holy Spirit, be given by each one of us all praise, honor, and glory, both now and forevermore. Amen.
The voice of a person Carnal, of Evil: I do it, and will do.
Good: I do it not, nor will do.
Regenerate, of Evil: I do it, but would not do it.
Good: I do not that I would.
Glorified of Evil:
I do it not, neither will I do it.
Good: I do it, and will do it.
To the right Honourable and virtuous Ladies, the Countess of Cumberland, and the Countess of Warwick, grace and peace.
Right Honourable, in the former discourse is the combat of Christ: in this latter is set down the combat of a Christian. He that fought with our head, will fight with the members, and he that assaulted Christ, will assail all Christians. But Christ did bear troubles, and was borne out of them: we must have troubles, and shall be borne out of them. If our afflictions were plagues, as to the Egyptians: curses, as to Ham: destruction, as to Sodom: desolation, as to Israel: then had we cause to flee from them, as Moses did from that miraculous serpent. But since they are but the trials of faith, corrections of a father, visitations from the Bishop of our souls: since they are as Phlebotomy to a Pleurisy, and a purgation to a Plethora, they are to be endured with all patience. How Christ did endure them, you may read in that Treatise: how a Christian must, you may see in this. The former Treatise I presented to your honourable brother: this latter to you most honourable sisters. I desired to annex this to the former discourse because it is suitable to that present argument: and I know not to whom I may better present it than to you who have experience of this Christian warfare. If it pleases you but to read these holy meditations, and to entertain this poor mite into your rich treasury by the reading I doubt not but you shall have much comfort; and by your entertaining, the church shall have much good. Now that good God who has given your mind to know him, give you also a heart to love him: and as
WILLIAM PERKINS • SATAN'S SOPHISTRY
you are Honourable in the eyes of this world, so he make you most honourable in the eyes of his Majesty. And thus craving pardon, I commit you to the grace of that God who will honour them that love him, and comfort them that seek comfort from him.
Your Honours in the Lord, Robert Hill.