sufferings are prepared for the fearful and unbelieving in the World to come Rev. 21.8 How many sad examples do the Church-Histories of ancient and latter times afford us of men who consulting with flesh and bloud in time of danger have in pity to the Body ruined their Souls There be but few like minded with Paul who set a low price upon his liberty or life for Christ Act. 20.24 or with those worthy Iews Dan. 3.28 who yielded their Bodies to preserve their consciences Few of Chrysostoms mind who told the Empress Nil nisi peccatum timeo I fear nothing but sin Or of Basils who told the Emperor God threatned Hell whereas he threatned but a prison That is a remarkable Rule that Christ gives us Mat. 10.28 The sum of it is to set God against man the Soul against the Body and Hell against temporal sufferings and so surmounting these low fleshly considerations to cleave to our duty in the face of dangers You read Gal. 11 16. how in pursuit of Duty though surrounded with danger Paul would not conferr or consult with flesh and bloud i. e. ask its opinion which were best or stay for its consent till it were willing to suffer he understood not that the flesh had any voice at the Council-table in his Soul but willing or unwilling if duty call for it he was resolved to hazard it for God We have a great many little Politicians among us who think to husband their lives and liberties a great deal better than other plain-hearted and too forward Christians do but these Politiques will be their perdition and their craft will betray them to ruine They will lose their lives by saving them when others will save them by losing them Matth. 10.39 For the interest of the Body depends on and follows the safety of the Soul as the Cabin doth the ship O my Friends let me beg you not to love your Bodies into Hell and your Souls too for their sakes be not so scar'd at the sufferings of the Body as with poor Spira to dash them both against the wrath of the great and terrible God Most of those Souls that are now in Hell are there upon the account of their indulgence to the flesh they could not deny the flesh and now are denyed by God They could not suffer from men and now must suffer the vengeance of eternal fire 4. In a word it appears we love them fondly and irregularly in that we cannot with any patience think of death and separation from them How do some men fright at the very name of death and no Arguments can perswade them seriously to think of an unbodied and separated estate 'T is as death to them to bring their thoughts close to that ungrateful Subject A Christian that loves his Body regularly and moderately can look into his own grave with a composed mind and speak familiarly of it as Iob 17.14 And Peter speaks of the putting off of his Body by death as a man would of the putting off of his cloaths at night 2 Pet. 1.13 14. And certainly such men have a great Advantage above all others both as to the tranquillity of their life and death You know a parting time must come and the more fond you are of them the more bitter and doleful that time will be Nothing except the guilt and terrible charges of conscience put men into terrours at death more than our fondness of the Body I do confess Christless persons have a great deal of reason to be shie of death their dying day is their undoing day but for Christians to startle and fright at it is strange considering how great a friend death will be to them that are in Christ. What are you afraid of What to go to Christ to be freed of sin and affliction too soon Certainly it hath not been so comfortable an habitation to you that you should be loth to exchange it for an Heavenly one USE III. Of Exhortation TO conclude seeing there is so strict a friendship and tender affection betwixt Soul and Body let me perswade every Soul of you to express your love to the Body by labouring to get union with Jesus Christ and thereby to prevent the utter ruine of both to all Eternity Souls if you love your selves or the Bodies you dwell in shew it by your preventing care in season lest they be cast away for ever How can you say you love them when you daily expose them to the everlasting wrath of God by imploying them as weapons of unrighteousness to fight against him that formed them You feed and pamper them on earth you give them all the delights and pleasures you can procure for them in this World but you take no care what shall become of them nor your Souls neither after death hath separated them O cruel Souls cruel not to others but to your selves and to your own flesh which you pretend so much love to Is this your love to your Bodies what to imploy them in Satans service on Earth and then to be cast as a prey to him for ever in Hell You think the rigor and mortification of the Saints their abstemiousness and self-denial their cares fears and diligence to be too great severity to their Bodies but they know these are the most real evidences of their true love to them they love them too well to cast them away as you do Alas Your love to the Body doth not consist â—n feeding and cloathing and pleasing it but in getting it united to Christ and made the Temple of the Holy Ghost in using it for God and dedicating it to God I beseech you brethren by the mercies of God to present your Bodies living Sacrifices to God which is your reasonable serviceâ— Rom. 12.1 The Soul should look upon the Body as a wise Parent upon a rebellious or wanton child that would if left to it self quickly bring it self to the Gallows The Father looks on him with compassion and melting bowels and saith with the rod in his hand and tears in his eyes my child my naughty disobedient headstrong child I resolve to chastise thee severely I love thee too well to suffer thee to be ruin'd if my care or corrections may prevent it So should our Souls evidence their love to and care over their own rebellious flesh 'T is cruelty not love or pity to indulge them to their own destruction Except you have gracious Souls you shall never have glorified Bodies except you Souls be united with Christ the happiness of your Bodies as well as Souls is lost to all eternity Know you not that the everlasting condition of your Bodies follows and depends on the Interest your Souls now get in Christ O that this one sad truth might sink deep into all our considerations this day that if your Bodies be snares to your Souls and your Souls be now regardless of the future estate of themselves and them assuredly they will have a bitter parting at
death a terrible meeting again at the Resurrection and horrid reflections upon each other mutually charging their ruine upon each other to all eternity Whilst they that are in Christ part in hope meet with joy and bless God for each other for evermore TEXT 2 Peter 1.13 14. Yea I think it meet as long as I am in this Tabernacle to stir you up by putting you in Remembrance Knowing that shortly I must put off this my Tabernacle even as our Lord Iesus Christ hath shewed me AT the tenth verse of this Chapter The Apostle sums up his foregoing precepts and exhortations in one great and most important duty the making sure of their calling and election This exhortation he enforceth on them by a most solemn and weighty motive ver 11. Even an abundant entrance into the everlasting Kingdom No work of greater necessity or difficulty than to make sure our Salvation no argument more forceable and prevalent than an easy and free enterance into Glory at death an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a sweet and comfortable dissolution to enter the Port of glory before a wind with our full ladeing of comfort peace and joy in believing our Sails full and our Streamers flying Oh how much better is this than to lye Wind-bound I mean heart-bound at the Harbours mouth tost up and down with fears doubts and manifold temptations making many a board to fetch the harbour for so much is signified in his figurative and allusive expression v. 11. And for their encouragement in this great and difficult work he ingageth himself by promise to give them all the assistance he can whilst God should continue his life and knowing that would be but a little while he resolves to use his utmost endeavour to secure these things in their Memories after his death that they might not dye with him This is the general scope and order of the words Wherein more particularly we have I. His exemplary industry and diligence in his Ministerial work II. The consideration stimulating and provoking him thereunto I. His Exemplary industry and diligence in his Ministerial work in which two things are remarkable viz. 1 The quality of his work 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 excitare expergesacere i. e. mentes vestras tanquam do mitantes ac torpescentes c. Poli Synopsis which was to stir them up by putting them in remembrance to keep the heavenly flame of love and zeal lively upon the Altar of their hearts He well knew what a sleepy disease the best Christians are troubled with and therefore he had need to be stirring them up and awakening them to their duty 2 The constancy of his work as long as I am in this Tabernacle i. e. as long as I live in this World The Body is here called a Tabernacle in respect of its moveableness and frailty and in opposition to that house made without hands eternal in the Heavens And it is observeable how he limits and bounds his serviceableness to them by his commoration in his Tabernacle or Body as well knowing after death he could be no longer useful to them or any others in this World Death puts an end to all our ministerial usefulness but till that time he judged it meet and becoming him to be aiding and assisting their faith Our life and labour must end together II. We have here the Motive or consideration stimulating and provoking him to this diligence knowing that I must shortly put off this Tabernacle even as the Lord Iesus Christ hath shewed me in which words he gives an account of 1 The speediness 2 Necessity 3 Voluntariness of his death and the way and means by which he knew it All these must be considered singly and apart and then valued altogether as they amount to a weighty Argument or Motive to excite him to diligence in his his duty 1. He reflects upon the speediness or near approach of his death 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 brevi suturum Every Christian knows not the time of his death as Peter did by special Revelation But though we know it not by a word spoken to us in particular we know it by a word written for all in common Eccles. 9.5 the living know that they must die I must shortly put off this my Tabernacle which is a form of Speech of the same importance with that of Paul 2 Tim. 4.6 The time of my departure is at hand my time in the Body is almost at an end 2. The necessity of his death it is not I may but I must put off this my Tabernacle yea I must put it off shortly for so the Lord had shewed him Christ had signified it expresly to him Iohn 21.18 19. And besides this most Expositors think this clause refers to some special vision or Revelation which Peter had of the time and manner of his own death so that besides the natural necessity or the inevitableness of his death by the law of Nature he was certified of it by special Revelation We have here also 3. The voluntariness of his death for voluntariness is consistent enough with the necessity of the event Deponere dicit ut significet se voluntariè mortem obiturum esse pro Christo. Pool I must put off or lay down my Tabernacle he saith not I must be torn or rent by violence from it but I must depose or lay it down Camero will have the word here used for death properly to signifie the laying down of ones Garments he made no more of putting off his Body than his Garments Upon the consideration of the whole matter the speediness of his death which he knew to be at hand the Necessity of it that when it came he must be gone from them and could be no more useful to them and his own inclination to be with Christ in a better state being as willing to be gone as a weary Traveller to be at home he judged it meet or becoming him as he was called of Christ to feed his sheep as he was gifted extraordinarily for the Churches service full of spiritual excellencies all which in a short time would be taken away from them by death I say upon all these accounts he could not but judge it meet to be stirring them up and every way striving to be as useful as he might Hence the Note will be DOCT I. How sâ—rong soever the Affections and inclinations of Souls are to the fleshly Tabernacles they now live in yet they must put them off and that speedily (1) The certaintâ— of death Ioâ— 16.22 Anni numeri i. e. qui numerati sunt adeo ut brevissimi periodo circumscripti THE point lies very plain before us in the Scriptures That is a remarkable expression we have in Iob 16.22 When a few years are come I shall go the way whence I shall not return in the Hebrew it is when the years of number or my numbred years are come years so numbred that they are circumscribed in
was bound by thy command to obey them Therefore look to your own Souls if they be so desperate to cast away their own If some Children had not minded their own Salvation more than their Parents minded it they had never been saved 3. Let this consideration work upon the hearts and bowels of all serious Christians to pity and help those that are like to perish under this temptation and if their Parents be so ignorant that they cannot or so negligent that they do not instruct and warn their own Children you that at any time have an opportunity to help them have compassion on them and do it 'T is true they are none of your Children by Nature but would it not be a singular honâ—â—â— and comfort to you if God should make them so by 〈…〉 thousands of Children and it may be some of you 〈◊〉 more indebted to meer strangers upon this accoun◠〈…〉 their nearest relations you know not how much 〈…〉 nal word may do them all have not ability 〈…〉 ly useful this way as a late worthy Minister of our own Nation hath been who in compassion to the â—ark and barbarous corners in Wales where ignorance and poverty shut up the way of Salvation to them at a vast exâ—â—nce procured the Translation and Printing of the Bible in their own Tongue and freely sent it among them O you that have the bowels of Christians in you pity and help them What is it for the saving of a precious Soul to drop a serious Exhortation as you have opportunity upon them to bestow a Bible or suitable Book upon them Believe it these little summs of shillings and pence so bestow'd will stand for more in the Audit day than all the hundreds and thousands other ways expended The second way to Hell discovered II. A second way to Hell in which multitudes are found hastening to their own dâ—mnation is the way of affected ignorance The generality of people even in a Land enlightned with the Gospel are found grosly ignorant of Christ the true and only way to Heaven and of Repentance and Faith the only way to Christ and thus the people perish for want of knowledge Hosea 4.6 If the Tree of Knowledge had been hedg'd in from the common people as it is in Popish Countries and it had been criminal to find a Bible in our houses there might have been some cloke and pretence for our ignorance but to be stupidly ignorant of the most obvious plain and necessary Truths aâ—â— yet bred up among Bibles and Ministers O how ominous a darkness is this forboding the blackness of darkness for ever For if the hiding of the Gospel from the hearts of men be a token to them that they are lost Souls how much notional light soever they may have much more must they be lost to all intents from whose heads and hearts too it is judicially hidden They that know not God are in the Catalogue of the damned 2 Thess. 1.8 and if this be life eternal to know the only true God and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent then this must be death eternal to be grosly and affectedly ignorant both of God the 〈◊〉 and Christ the Way by the Rule of true Opposition Ioh. 17.3 〈◊〉 over the several Countries in the professing World go into the Families of Country-Farmers day-labourers and poor people and except here and there a family or person into whose heart God hath graciously shined what barbarous brutish ignorance overspreads them They converse from morning to night with Beasts though they have Souls which are fit Companions for Angels and capable of sweet converse with God The earth hath open'd her mouth and swallowed up all their time strength thoughts and Souls as it did the bodies of Corah and his Company They know the value of an House or Cow but know not the worth of Christ pardon or their own Souls They mind daily what work they have to do with their hands but forget all they have to do upon their knees Their whole care is to pay their Fine or Rent to their Landlord but not a thought who shall pay their debts to God They are so 〈◊〉 om putting unnecessary business aside to make way for the service of God that Gods service is put aside as an unnecessary business to make way for the World the world holds them fast till they are asleep and will be sure to visit them assoon as their eyes are open that there may be no vacancy or door of opportunity left open for a thought of their Souls or another life to slip in Or if at any time they think or speak of these matters then the world like Pharaoh when Israel spake of sacrificing is sure to speak of more work And thus they live and die without knowledge there is no key of knowledge as it is fitly called Luke 11.52 to open the door of the Soul to Christ he and his Ministers therefore must stand without pity they may but help they cannot till knowledge open the door Satan is Ruler of the darkness of this world Eph. 6.12 that is of all blind and ignorant Souls Ignorance is the chain with which he binds them fast to himself and till that chain be knockt off by Divine illumination they cannot be emancipated and made free of Christs Kingdom Acts 26.18 To turn them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God Ignorance indeed incapacitates a man to commit the unpardonable sin but what the near whilst it disposes him to all other sins which damn as well as that By ignorance it is that all the Essays of the Gospel for mens Salvation are frustrated that naked assent is put in the place of saving Faith Morality mistaken for Regeneration a few dead Duties laid in the room of Christ and his Righteousness Indeed it would fill a greater Book than this to shew the mischievous effects of ignorance and how many ways it destroys the precious Souls of men but seeing I can speak but little in this place to it let me bar up this way to Hell if it be possible by a few serious Considerations The second way to Hell shut up 1. Let the ignorant consider God hath created their Souls with a capacity of knowing him and enjoying him as well as others that are fam'd in the world for knowledge and wisdom There is a spirit in man and the inspiration of the Alâ—â—â—â—â—â— giveth them understanding The faculty is in man but the wisdom and knowledge that enlightens it is from God as the Dial shews the hour of the day when the Sun-beams fall upon it If therefore God be sought unto in the use of such helps and means as you have even the weakest and dullest Soul hath a capacity of being made wise unto Salvation Psal. 19.7 The testimony of the Lord is sure making wise the simple Augustine tells us of a man so weak and simple that he was commonly reputed a Fool in all the
his eyes upon the plaisterd wall within side the bed and whilst he was vehemently begging of God the life of his Friends there appeared upon the plaister of the wall before him the Sun and the Moon shining in their full strength The sight at first amaz'd and discomposed him so far that he could not continue his Prayer but kept his eye fixed upon the body of the Sun at last a small line or ring of black no bigger than that of a Text pen circled the Sun which increasing sensibly eclipsed in a little time the whole Body of it and turned it into a blackish colour which done the figure of the Sun was immediately changed into a perfect Death's head and after a little while vanished quite away The Moon still continued shining as before but whilst he intently beheld it it also darkned in like manner and turned also into another Death's head and vanished This made so great an impression upon the beholder's mind that he immediately awaked in confusion and perplexity of thoughts about his dream and awakning his wife related the particulars to her with much emotion and concernment but how to apply it he could not presently tell only he was satisfied that the dream was of an extraordinary nature At last Ioseph's dream came to his thoughts with the like Emblems and their interpretation which fully satisfied him that God had warned and prepared him thereby for a suddain parting with his dear Relations which answerably fell out in the same order his Father dying that day fortnight following and his Mother just a month afterwards I know there is much vanity in dreams and yet I am fully satisfied some are weighty significant and declarative of the purposes of God 3. Lastly An unusual and extraordinary elevation of the Soul to God and enlargement in Communion with him hath been a signifying forerunner of the death of some good men For as the Body hath its levamen anteferale lightning before death and is more vegete and brisk a little before its dissolution so it is sometimes with the Soul also I have known some persons to arrive on a suddain to such heights of love to God and vehement longings to be dissolved that they might be with Christ that I could not but look upon it as Christ did upon the box of Oyntment as done against their death And so indeed it hath proved in the event Thus it was with that renowned Saint Mr. Brewen of Stapleford as he excelled others in the holiness of his life so he much excelled himself towards his death his motions towards Heaven being then most vigorous and quick The day before his last sickness he had such extraordinary enlargements of heart in his Closet-Duty that he seemed to forget all the concernments of his Body and this lower World And when his wife told him Sir I fear you have done your self hurt with rising so early he answered If you had seen such glorious things as I saw this morning in private prayer with God you would not have said so for they were so wonderful and unspeakable that whether I was in the Body or out of the Body with Paul I cannot tell And so it was with learned and holy Mr. Rivet who seemed as a man in Heaven just before he went thither And so if hath been with thousands beside these I confess it is not the lot of every gracious Soul as was shew'd you in the last Question nor doth it make any difference as to the safety of the Soul whatever it makes as to comfort Let all therefore labour to make sure their Union with Christ and live in the daily exercises of grace in the duties of Religion and then though God should give them no such extraordinary warnings one way or another they shall never be surprized by death to their loss let it come never so unexpectedly upon them Quest. It may be also queried whether Satan by his Instruments may not foretel the death of some men How else did the Witch of Ender foretel the death of Saul And the Southsayers the death of Caesar upon the Ides i. e. the fifteenth day of March which was the fatal day to him Sol. Foreknowledg of things to come which appear not in their next causes is certainly the Lords Prerogative Isai. 41.23 Whatever therefore Satan doth in this matter must be done either by conjecture or commission As to the case of Saul 't is not to be questioned but that he knowing the Kingdom was made to David by promise and that the Lord was departed from Saul and saw how near the Armies were to a Battel might strongly conjecture and conclude and accordingly tell him To morrow thou shalt be with me 1 Sam. 28.19 And so for the death of Caesar The Devil knew the conspiracy was strong against him and the Plot laid for that day and so it was both easie for him to reveal it to the South-sayers and his interest to do it thereby to bring that cursed Art into reputation As for other signs and forewarnings of death by the unusual resort of doleful Creatures as Owls and Ravens vulgarly accounted Ominous Wall-watches upon this account called Death-watches and the eating of wearing-apparel by Rats I look upon them generally as supertitious fancies not worthy to be regarded among Christians God may but I know not what ground we have to believe that he doth commissionate such Creatures to bring us the message of death from him To conclude therefore Let no man expect or depend upon any such extraordinary premonitions and warnings of his change or neglect his daily work and duty of preparation for it We have warnings in the Word in the examples of Mortality frequently before us in all the diseases and decays we often feel in our own Bodies and by the signs of the times which threaten death and desolation Be ye therefore always ready for ye know not in what watch of the night your Lord cometh QUEST IV. Whether separated Souls have any knowledg of or commerce and intercourse with men in this life and if not What is to be thought of the Apparitions of the Dead 1. By separated Souls understand the departed Souls both of the Godly and Ungodly indifferently and not as it is restrained to one sort only in the Text for of both it is pretended there are frequent Apparitions after death 2. By the knowledge such Souls are supposed to have after death both of persons and things in this lower World we understand not a general knowledg which one fort of them have of the state and condition of the Church militant on earth for this we think cannot be denyed to the Spirits of the just made perfect seeing they are still fellow Members with us of the same mystical body of Christ and do behold our High-Priest appearing before God and offering up our prayers for us and long for the consummation of the Body of Christ as well as cry for vengeance
Dinner though an handsom Treat was provided these words were sounding in his ears frequently during the remainder of his life he was never shy or scrupulous to relate it to any that asked him concerning it nor ever mentioned it but with horrour and trepidation they were both men of a brisk humour and jolly Conversation of very quick and keen parts having been both Vniversity and Inns-of-Court Gentlemen The Apparition of the Ghost of Sir George Villiers Father of the Duke of Buckingham giving three solemn warnings by three several Apparitions to his Servant Mr. Parker is a known and credible Story But I will wade no farther into Particulars they are almost innumerable let these suffice for a taste 2 In the next place therefore I will lay down some Concessions about this matter and the First Concession is this That the separated Souls or Spirits of men are capable of performing and executing any Ministry or Service for God if he should please to commissionate them so to do as well as Angels are whom we know he frequently imploys about the persons and affairs of his people on earth Though they become not Angels by their separation as Maximus Tyrius calls them but remain Spirits specifically distinct from them yet are they Spiritual Substances as the Angels are This their nature capacitates them either to live and act out of the Body or to assume as Angels do an aerial Body for the time of their Ministry nor do I know any thing in Scipture or Philosophy repugnant hereunto Concession 2. It cannot be doubted but upon some special and extraordinary reasons and occasions some departed Souls have returned to and appeared in this World by order and commission from God This is too manifest to be doubted by any that understands and believes the instances recorded in Scripture Moses and Elias long after their departure appeared to and talked with Christ upon the holy Mount in the presence of some of his Apostles Matth. 17.3 nor is there any reason to question the reality of their Apparition or to think it to be no more than a Phantasm Non enim conveniâ—bat ut veritas mendacio vel imaginariis testibus probaretur Maldon Capellus in loc or imaginary resemblance of these persons but very Moses and Elias themselves For they came to be Witnesses to Christs Prophetical office and it was not fit so great a point should be attested by imaginary Witnesses or that they should be called Moses and Elias if they were not the very same persons 'T is therefore most likely they both appeared in their own Bodies Credibilius est verè corporibus suis apparnisse Parcus in loc for Moses's Body we know was hidden by the Lord aud Elias his Body immediately translated with his Soul to Heaven when therefore the Lord would send them upon this solemn errand the Soul of Moses probably re-assumed that Body which was never found by man and Elias was already embodied and fit immediately for this Expedition In like manner we read Matth. 27.52 53. that at the Resurrection of our Lord many Bodies of the Saints arose and appeared unto many these were no Phantasms but the very Souls of the departed Saints returned having re-assumed their own Bodies unto this World not only to confirm the truth of Christs Resurrection and adorn that great day But as a Specimen or handsel of the Resurrection of all the Saints in the vertue of his Resurrection at the great Day Nor will I deny but upon some lesser though never without weighty and solemn occasions and reasons God may sometimes send the Souls of the dead back again into this World as in the cases before recited to evidence against the Atheism of men c. Augustine relates a memorable example which fell out at Millan Aug. in lib. de cura promortuis agenda where a certain Citizen being dead there came a Creditor to whom he had been indebted and unjustly demanded the money of his Son The Son knew the Debt was satisfied by his Father but having no Acquittance to shew his Father appeared to him in his sleep and shew'd him where the Acquittance lay whether it were the very Soul of his Father or rather an Angel as Augustine thinks is not certain though the one as well as the other be possible But though rarely and upon some weighty and solemn occasions some Souls have returned and appeared yet I judge this is not frequently done upon slight and ordinary errands and therefore to give you my own thoughts I judge 3 That those Apparitions which seem to be and are generally reputed and taken for the Souls of the Dead are not indeed so but other Spirits putting on the shapes and resemblances of the Dead and for the most part tricks of the Devil to delude or disquiet men Religio Med. Sect. 37. p. 82. In this I think the learned Dr. Brown delivered his judgment more solidly and orthodoxly than in some other points when he saith I believe that the whole frame of a Beast doth perish and is left in the same State after death as before it was martialled into life That the Souls of men know neither contrary nor corruption that they subsist beyond the body and continue by the priviledge of their proper nature and without a Miracle that the Souls of the faithful as they leave earth take possession of Heaven That those Apparitions and Ghosts of departed persons are not the wandering Souls of men but the unquiet Walks of Devils prompting and suggesting us unto mischief blood and Villany And with this Opinion I concur as to the ordinary and common Apparitions of the dead and my Reasons are 1 Because the Scriptures every where describe the state of departed Souls as a fixed state either in Heaven or in Hell and assigns the good or evil done in this World by Spirits not to the departed Spirits of men but to Angels or Devils and it is our duty to regulate our Conceits by Scripture and not according to the vain Philosophy of the Heathens or the Superstitious Traditions and Opinions of Men. As for the Souls of the godly they are at rest with Christ Rev. 14.13 Isai. 57.2 and as fixed as pillars in the house of God Rev. 3.12 And for the wicked their Spirits are confin'd and secured in Hell as in a Prison 1 Pet. 3.19 there is a fixed Gulph betwixt them and the living Luke 16.27 28 29 30 31. What good offices are to be done by Spirits for us the Angels are Gods Commission-Officers to do them Hebr. 1.14 They are all ministring Spirits sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of Salvation these are the Spirits sent forth to walk to and fro through the earth Zech. 1.10 their Ministry was emblematically represented in Iacob's Vision where they were seen ascending and descending as upon a Ladder betwixt Heaven and Earth Gen. 28.12 Yea their very name Angel is a name of office
in se Peccata expurgat sanguine cuncta suo Horribilis mors est Fateor sed proxima vita est Ad quam te Christi gratia certa vocat Praesto est de Satana peccato morte triumphans Christus ad hunc igitur laeta alacrisque migra Which may be thus translated Cold death my heart invades my life doth flie O Christ my everlasting life draw nigh Why quiver'st thou my soul within my Breast Thine Angel's come to lead thee to thy rest Quit chearfully this drooping house of clay God will restore it in the appointed day Has't sinn'd I know it let not that be urg'd For Christ thy sins with his own blood hath purg'd Is death affrighting True but yet withal Consider Christ through death to life doth call He triumphs over Satan sin and Death Therefore with joy resign thy dying breath Much in the same chearful frame was the heart of dying Bullinger when his mournful friends expressed their sense of the loss they should sustain by his reâ—â—val Si Deo visum fuerit mea opera ulterius in Ecclesia ministerio uti ipse vires suffiâ—iet libens illi parebo sin me voluerit quod opto ex hac vita evocare paratus sum illius voluntati obsequi ac nihil est quod jâ—cundius possit mihi contingere quam ex hoc misero corruptissimo seculo ad Christum Servatorem mâ—um migrare idem ibid. Why said he If God will make any farther use of my labours in the Ministry he will renew my strength and I will gladly serve him But if he please as I desire he would to call me hence I am ready to obey his Will and nothing more pleasant can befal me than to leave this sinful and miserable World to go to my Saviour Christ. O that all who are out of the danger of death were thus got out of the dread of death too Let them only tremble and be convuls'd at the thoughts and sight of death whose Souls must fall into the hands of a sin-revenging God by the stroke of death who are to breathe out their last hope with their last breath Death is yours saith the Apostle 1 Cor. 3.22 your Friend your Priviledge your passage to Heaven 't is your ignorance of it which breeds your fears about it Inference II. GAther from hence the absolute indispensable necessity of your Vnion with Christ before your dissolution by death Wo to that Soul which shall be separated from its Body before it be united with Christ none but the Spirits of just men are made perfect at death Righteous Souls are the only qualified Subjects of blessedness 'T is true every Soul hath a natural capacity of happiness but gracious Souls only have an actual meetness for glory The Scriptures tell us in round and plain words that without holiness no man shall see the Lord Hebr. 12.14 that except we be regenerate and born again we cannot see the Kingdom of God John 3.3 You make the greatest adventure that ever was made by man indeed an adventure infinitely too great for any man to make when you shoot the Gulph of vast eternity upon terms of hazard and uncertainty What thinkest thou Reader darest thou adventure thy Soul and eternal happiness upon it that the work of Regeneration and Sanctification that very same work of Grace which the Spirit of God hangs all thy hopes of Heaven upon in these Scriptures is truly wrought by him in thy Soul Consider it well pause upon it again and again before thou go forth Should a mistake be committed here and nothing is more easie or common all the World over than such mistakes thou art irrecoverably gone This venture can be made but once and the miscarriage is never to be retrieved afterwards thou hast not another Soul to adventure nor a second adventure to make of this Well might the Apostle Peter call for all diligence to make our calling and our election sure That can never be made too sure which is so invaluable in its worth and to be but once adventured Inference III. HOw prejudicial is it to dying men to be then encumbered diverted and distracted about earthly concernments when the time of their departure is at hand The business and imployment of dying persons is of so vast importance and weight that every moment of their time need to be carefully saved and applied to this their present and most important concern How well soever you have improved the time of life believe it you will find work enough upon your hands at death dying hours will be found to be busie and laborious hours even to the most painful serious and industrious Souls whose life hath been mostly spent in preparations for death Leave not the proper business of other days to that day for that day will have business enough of its own Sufficient for that day are the labours thereof Let a few Considerations be pondered to clear and confirm this Inference Consideration I. The business and imployment of dying persons is of the most serious awful and solemn nature and importance it is their last preparatory work on earth to their immediate appearance before God their Judge Heb. 9.27 It is their shooting the Gulph into eternity and leaving this World and all their acquaintance and interests therein for ever Isai. 28.11 It is therefore a Work by it self to die a Work requiring the most intense deep and undisturbed exercises of all the Abilities and Graces of the inner man and all little enough Consideration II. Timâ— is exceeding precious with dying men the last sand is ready to fall and therefore not to be wasted as it was wont to be When we had a fair prospect of many years before us we made little account of an hour or day but now one of those hours which we so carelessly lavished away is of more value than all this World to us especially if the whole weight of eternity should hang upon it as often times it doth then the loss of that portion of time is the loss of Soul Body and hope for evermore Consideration III. Much of that little precious time of departing Souls will be unavoidably taken up and imployed about the inexcusable pressing calls and necessities of distressed nature all that you can do for your Souls must then be done only by fits and snatches in the midst of many disturbances and frequent interruptions So that it is rarely found that a dying man can pursue a serious Meditation with calm and fixed thoughts for besides the pains and faintings of the Body the Abilities of the mind usually fail Here also they fall into a sad Dilemma if they do not with utmost intention of mind fix their hearts and thoughts on Christ they lose their comfort if godly and their Souls if ungodly and if they do Friends and Physicians assure them they will destroy their Bodies These are the straits of men bordering close upon eternity they must hastily
man more than his two eyes certainly no Being at all is more desirable than a Being without these take away the true spiritual pleasure of life and you level the life of man with the beast that perisheth and take away the hope and comfort of the Soul in death and you sink him infinitely below the beast and make him a Being only capable of misery for ever Now there can be no true spiritual pleasure found in that Soul that hath neglected and lost his only season of Salvation all the solid delight and comfort of life results from the settlement and security of a mans great concern in the proper season thereof The true mirth of the converted Prodigal bears date from the time of his return and reconciliation to his Father Luke 15.24 Two things are absolutely prerequisite to the comfort of life viz. a change of the state by Justification and a change of the frame and temper of the heart by Sanctification To be in a pardoned state is matter of all joy Matt. 9.2 and to be spiritually minded is life and peace Rom. 8.6 no good news comes to any man before this and no bad news can sink a mans heart after this And for hope and comfort in death let none be so fond to expect it till his Soul have first complied with and obeyed the Call of God in the time thereof a careless life never did nor ever will produce a comfortable death What is more common among all that dye not stupid and sensless as well as unregenerate and Christless than the bitter dolorous complaints of their mis-spent time and losing their season of Mercy Reader if thou wouldst not feel that anguish thou hast seen and heard others to be in upon this account know the time of thy visitation and finish thy great work whilst it is day Argument VI. NEglect no season of Salvation which is graciously afforded you because your time is short Death and Eternity are at the door You know that you must shortly put off these Tabernacles 2 Pet. 1.13 14. that when a few years are come you shall go the way whence you shall not return Iob 16.22 All the living are listed Souldiers and must conflict hand to hand with that dreadful Enemy Death and there is no discharge in that War Eccles. 8.8 It will be in vain to say you are not willing to dye for willing or unwilling away you must go when Death calls you It will be as vain to say you are not ready for ready or unready you must be gone when Death comes your readiness to dye would indeed be a Cordial to your hearts in death but then you must improve and ply the time of life and husband your opportunities diligently carelesness of life and readiness for death are inconsistent and exclusive of each other the Bed is sweeter to none than to the hard Labourer and the Grave comfortable to none but the laborious Christian you know nothing can be done by you after death the Compositum is then dissolved you cease to be what you were to enjoy the means you had and to work as you did O therefore slip not the only season you have both of attaining the end of life and escaping the danger and hour of death The VSE I shall close all with a word of Exhortation perswading if it be possible the careless and unthinking Neglecters of their precious Time and Souls to awaken out of that deep and dangerous security in which they lye fast asleep upon the very brink of Eternity and to day whilst it is yet called to day to hear the Voice of God calling them to Repentance and Faith and thereby to Christ and everlasting Blessedness Behold he yet standeth at the door and knocks Rev. 3.20 the door of Hope is not yet finally shut there are yet some stirrings at certain times in mens Consciences God comes near them in his Word and in some rouzing acts of Providence the death of a near Relation the seizure of a dangerous Disease the blasting and disappointment of a mans great Design and Project for this World a fall into some notorious Sin these and many such like Methods of Providence as well as the convincing voice of the Word have the efficacy of an awaking voice to mens drowsie Consciences and if careless Sinners would but attend to them and follow home those motions they make upon their hearts who knows to what these weak beginnings might arise and prosper The Souls of men are as it were imbarked in the Calls of God your life is bound up in them if these be lost your Souls are lost if these abide upon you and grow up to sound Conversion you are saved by them More particularly consider 1. What a mercy it is to have your Lot providentially cast under the Gospel To be born under and bred up with the means and instruments of Conversion and Salvation We have lived from our youth up under the Calls of God and within the joyful sound of the Gospel God hath not dealt so with other Nations Psal. 147.20 Though others should seek the means of life they cannot find them and though you seek them not you can hardly miss them 2. How great a mercy is it to have your lives lengthened out hitherto by the patience of God under the Gospel That neither that golden Lamp nor the Lamp of your life both which are liable to be extinguished every moment are yet put out Thousands and ten thousands your Contemporaries are gone out of the hearing of the voice of the Gospel they shall never hear another Call the Treaty of God is ended with them the Master of the house is risen up and the doors are shut Your neglects and provocations have not been inferiour to theirs but the patience and goodness of God hath exceeded and abounded to you beyond whatever it did to them 3. Bethink your selves what an aggravation of your misery it will be to sink into Hell with the Calls of God sounding in your ears to sink into eternal misery betwixt the tender out-stretched arms of Mercy this is the Hell of Hell the Emphasis of Damnation the racking Engine on which the Consciences of the damned are tortured And thou Capernaum which art exalted to heaven shalt be brought down to hell Matt. 11.23 Such a fall after so high an exaltation is the very Strappado which will torment your Consciences Hell will prove a cooler and milder place to the Heathens that never enjoyed your light means and mercies in this world than it will to you None sink so deep into misery in the world to come as they that fall from the fairest opportunities of Salvation in this world 4 Let no man expect that God will hear his cryes and intreaties in time of misery who neglects and slights the Calls of God in the time of Mercy God calls but men will not hear the day is coming when they shall cry but God will not hear Prov. 1.24
grave and necessary Caution of the Poet Sumite materiam vestris qui scribitis â—quam viribus versate diù quid ferre recusent quid valeant humeri Horace to wield and poise the burden as Porters use to do before I undertook it Zuinglius blamed Carolostadius as some may do me for undertaking the Controversie of that Age because saith he Non habet satis humerorum his shoulders are too weak for it And yet I know mens labours prosper not according to the art and elegancy of the composure but according to the divine blessing which pleaseth to accompany them Ruffinus tells us of a learned Philosopher at the Council of Nice who stoutly defended his Thesis against the greatest Witts and Scholars there and yet was at last fairly vanquished by a man of no extraordinary parts of which Conquest the Philosopher gave this candid and ingenuous account Against words said he I opposed words and what was spoken I overthrew by the art of speaking But when instead of words power came out of the mouth of the Speaker words could no longer withstand truth nor man oppose the power of God O that my weak endeavours might prosper under the like influence of the Spirit upon the hearts of them that shall read this inartificial but well-meant Discourse I am little concerned about the Contempts and Censures of fastidious Readers I have resolved to say nothing that exceeds Sobriety nor to provoke any man except my dissent from his unproved Dictates must be his provocation Perhaps there are some doubts and difficulties relating to this Subject which will never be fully solved till we come to Heaven For Man by the Fall being less than himself doth not understand himself nor will ever perfectly do so until he be fully restored to himself which will not be whilst he dwells in a Body of sin and death And yet it is to me past doubt that this as well as other Subjects might have been much more cleared than it is if instead of the proud Contendings of masterly Wits for Victory all had humbly and peaceably applied themselves to the impartial search of truth Truth like an Orient Pearl in the bottom of a River would have discovered it self by its native lustre and radiancy had not the feet of Heathen Philosophers cunning Atheists and daring School Divines disturbed and foul'd the stream 2. And as the difficulties of the Subject are many so many have been the interruptions and Avocations I have met with whilst it was under my hand Which I mention for no other end but to procure a more favourable Censure from you if it appear less exact than you expected to find it Such as it is I do with much respect and affection tender it to your hands humbly requesting the blessing of the Spirit may accompany it to your hearts If you will but allow your selves to think close to the matter before you I doubt not but you may find somewhat in it apt both to inform your minds and quicken your affections I know you have a multiplicity of business under your hands but yet I hope your great concern makes all others daily to give place and that how clamorous and importunate soever the Affairs of this World be you both can and do find time to sit alone and bethink your selves of a much more important business you have to do My Friends we are Borderers upon Eternity we live upon the Confines of the Spiritual and Immaterial World We must shortly be associated with bodyless Beings and shall have after a few days are past no more concerns for Meat Drink and Sleep buying and selling Habitations and Relations than the Angels of God now have Beside we live here in a State of Tryal Man as Scaliger fitly calls him is Utriusque Mundi nexus one in whom both Worlds do meet his Body participates of the lower his Soul of the upper World Hence it is he finds such tugging and pulling this way and that way upward and downward both Worlds as it were contending for this invaluable prize the precious Soul All Christs Ordinances are instituted and his Officers ordained for no other use or end but the Salvation of Souls Books are valuable according to their Conducibility to this end How rich a Reward of my Labours shall I account it if this Treatise of the Soul may but promote the Sanctification and Salvation of any Readers Soul To your hands I first tender it It becomes your Property not only as a Debt of Justice the fulfilling of a Promise made you long since upon your joynt and earnest desires for the publication of it but as an acknowledgment of the many Favours I have received from you to one of you I stand obliged in the Bond of Relation and under the sense of many Kindnesses beyond whatever such a degree of Relation can be supposed to exact You have here a succinct account of the Nature Faculties and Original of the Soul of Man as also of its infusion into the Body by God without intitling himself to the guilt and sin resulting from that their Union You will also find the breath of your Nostrils to be the Nexus Tie or Bond which holds your Souls and Bodies in a personal Union and that whilst the due Crasis and Temperament of the Body remains and Breath continues your Souls hang as by a weak and slender thread over the state of a vast Eternity in Heaven or in Hell Which will inform you both of the value of your breath and the best way of improving it whilst you enjoy it The Immortality of the Soul is here asserted proved and vindicated from the most considerable Objections so that it will evidently appear to you by this Discourse you do not cease to be when you cease to breathe And seeing they will over-live all Temporal Enjoyments they must necessarily perish as to all their Joys Comforts and Hopes which is all the Death that can be incident to an Immortal Spirit if they be not in the proper season secured and provided of that never-perishing food of Souls God in Christ their Portion for ever Here you will find the Grounds and Reasons of that strong inclination which you all feel them to have to your Bodies and the necessity notwithstanding that of their divorce and separation from their beloved Bodies and that it would manifestly be to their prejudice if it should be otherwise And to overcome the unreasonable Aversations of Believers and bring them to a more becoming chearful submission to the Laws of death whensoever the Writ of Ejection shall be served upon them You will here find a representation of that blessed life comely order and most delightful employment of the incorporeal People inhabiting the City of God wherein beside those sweet Meditations which are proper to feast your hungry affections you will meet with divers unusual though not vain or unuseful Questions stated and resolved which will be a grateful entertainment
a thing composed of Earth and Fire Galen saith it is heat Hippocrates a Spirit diffused throughout the Body Plato a Self-moving Substance Aristotle calls it Entelechia that by which the Body is moved If my Opinion should be asked which of all these Definitions I like best I should give the same Answer which Theocritus gave to an ill Poet repeating many of his Verses and asking which he liked best Those said he which you have omitted Or if they must have the Garland as the prize they have shot for let them have it upon the same reason that was once given to him that always shot wide Difficilius est toties non attingere Because it was the greatest difficulty to aim so often at the Mark and never come near it One Word of God gives me more light than a thousand such laborious trifles As Caesar was best able to write his own Commentaries so God only can give the best account of this his own Creature on which he hath impressed his own Image Modern Philosophers assisted by the Divine Oracles must needs come closer to the Mark and give us a far better account of the nature of the Soul Yet I have endeavoured not to cloud this Subject with their Controversies or abstruse Notions remembring what a smart but deserved check Tertullian gives those Qui Platonicum Aristotelicum Christianismum procudunt Christianis Words are but the Servants of Matter I value them as Merchants do their Ships not by the gilded Head and Stern the neatness of their Mould or curious Flags and Streamers but by the soundness of their Bottoms largeness of their Capacity and richness of their Cargoe and loading The quality of this Subject necessitates in many places the use of Scholastick terms which will be obscure to the Vulgar Reader but apt and proper words must not be rejected for their obscurity except plainer words could be found that fit the Subject as well and are as fully expressive of the matter The unnecessary I have avoided and the rest explained as I could The principal fruits I especially aim at both to my own and the Readers Soul are that whilst we contemplate the freedom pleasure and satisfaction of that Spiritual Incorporeal People who dwell in the Region of light and joy and are hereby forming to our selves a true Scriptural Idea of the blessed state of those disembodied Spirits with whom we are to serve and converse in the Temple-worship in Heaven and come more explicitely and distinctly to understand the Constitution Order and Delightful imployment of those our everlasting Associates We may answerably feel the fond and inordinate love of this Animal life subacted and wrought down the frightful Vizard of death drop off and a more pleasing Aspect appear that no upright Soul that shall read these Discourses may henceforth be convuls'd at the name of death but chearfully aspire and with a pleasant expectation wait for the blessed season of its transportation to that blessed Assembly 'T is certainly our ignorance of the life of Heaven that makes us dote as we do upon the present life There is a gloom a thick Mist overspreading the next life and hiding even from the eyes of Believers the glory that is there We send forth our thoughts to penetrate this Cloud but they return to us without the desired success We reinforce them with a Sally of new and more vigorous thoughts but still they come back in confusion and disappointment as to any perfect account they can bring us from thence though the oftner and closer we think the more still we grow up into acquaintance with these excellent things Another benefit I pray for and expect from these labours is that by describing the horrid state of those Souls which go the other way and shewing to the living the dismal condition of Souls departed in their unregenerate state some may be awakened to a seasonable and effectual Consideration of their wretched Condition whilst they yet continue under the means and among the Instruments of their Salvation Whatever the fruit of this Discourse shall be to â—thers I have cause to bless God for the advantages it hath already given me I begin to find more than ever I have done in the separate state of sanctified Souls all that is capable of attracting an intellectual nature and if God will but fix my mind upon this state and cause my pleased thoughts about it to settle into a frame and steddy temper I hope I shall daily more and more depreciate and despise this common way of existence in a Corporeal Prison and when the blessed season of my departure is at hand I shall take a chearful farewel of the greater and lesser Elementary World to which my Soul hath been confined and have an abundant Entrance through the broad gate of Assurance unto the blessed unbodied Inhabitants of the World to come A Synopsis or View of the Soul in the state of Composition in six Particulars in this first Table of Life viz. The Soul of Man is considered in this Treatise two ways First in the state of Composition Secondly In the state of Separation 1. In its general Nature a Substance proved to be so 1. By its Creation Page 11 2. By its single Existence p. 11 3. By its Sâ—â—tentation of the Body p. 12 4. By the subjecting of Habits and Affections in it p. 13 2. In its Essential Properties which are six 1. It is a Vital substance whose life is not from it self but 1. It receives it from God p. 13 2. Communicates it to the Body p. 13 2. An Immortal substance proved by eight Arguments 1. The simplicity of its Nature p. 96 2. The Veracity of God in his promises and threats p. 98 3. The Consent of all Nations p. 100 4. It s everlasting habits which are inseparable p. 103 5. The Peculiar dignity of Man p. 105 6. His desires of Immortality p. 107 7. Its returns after death p. 108 8. The Absurdities clogging the Negative p. 109 3. Endued with Understanding to which belong 1. Thoughts to the Speculative 2. Conscience to the Practical understanding p. 20 4. And a Will which glorieth in 1. It s Liberty p. 23 And 2. It s Dominion both 1. Despotical p. 24 2. Political p. 24 Yet both restrained in some particulars 1. As to the Body p. 25 2. As to the thoughts p. 26 3. As to the Conscience p. 27 5. Affections and Passions where is shewed 1. Their rise in the Soul p. 28 2. Their use to the Soul p. 29 6. It s inclination to the Body which differenceth it from other Spirits p. 29 3. It s Excellent Original about which we have 1. Errors refuted that it was not 1. By Seminal Traduction p. 31 2. By Angelical Procreation p. 32 3. By Coâ—taneous Creation p. 33 2. It s true Original asserted â—y immediate Creation p. 34 3. Objections against this Assertion answered p. 37 â—â— 4. It s Union with the Body
bountiful â—enefactor from whom it hath received all and every mercy it ever had or hath to violate his laws slight his Soveraignty despise his goodness contemn his threatnings pierce his very heart with grief darken the glory of all his Attributes confederate with Satan his â—alicious enemy and strike as far as a creature can strike â—â— his very Being for in a sense Omne peâ—catum est Deicidium every sin strikes at the life and very existence of God Blush O Heavens at this and be ye horribly afraid O cursed sin the evil of all evils which no Epithere can match no name worse than its own can be invented sinful sin This is as if some venemous branch should drop poyson upon the root that bears it Love and gratitude to Benefactors is an indelible principle ingraven by nature upon the hearts of all men It teacheth children to love and honour their Parents who yet are but meeâ— instruments of their Beings O how just must their perdition be who casting off the very bonds of nature turn again with emnity against that God in whom they both live and move and have their Being O think and think again on what an holy * Mr. Bâ—â—rouâ—â—s excâ—llency of the Soul of Man p. 232. Man once said What a sad charge will this be against many a man at the great day when God shall say Hadst thou been made a Dog I never had had so much dishonour as I have had 'T is pity God should not have honour from the meanest creature that ever he made from every pile of grass in the field or stone in the street much more that he should not have glory from a Soul more precious and excellent than all the other works of his hands Surely 't is better for us our Souls had still remained only in the number of possible Beings and had never had an actual existence in the second rank of Beings but a very little lower than the Angels than that we should still be dishonouring God by them O that he should be put to levy his glory from us passively that it should be with us as it was with Nebuchadnezzar from whom God had more glory when he was driven out amongst the beasts of the field than when he sat on the Throne In like manner his glory will rise passively from us when driven out among Devils and not actively and voluntarily as from the Saints Inference V. IF God create and inspire the reasonable â—â—ul immediately this should instruct and incise all Christian Parents to pray earnestly for their Children not only when they are born into the world but when they are first conceived in the Womb. It is of great concernment both to us and our Children not only to receive them from the womb with bodies perfectly and comely fashioned but also with such Souls inspired into them whereby they may glorifie God to all Eternity 'T is natural to Parents to desire to have their children full and perfect in all their bodily members and it would be a grievous affliction to see them come into the world defective monstrous and mis-shapen births should a Leg an Arm an Eye be wanting such a defect would make their lives miserable and the Parents uncomfortable But how few are concerned with what Souls they are born into the world Good God! saith * 〈…〉 quà m paucoâ— reâ—erias qui tam 〈◊〉 quomodo pâ—è honestè 〈…〉 quà m câ—rant ut amplam relinquant 〈◊〉 haereditatem quâ post 〈◊〉 iâ—lorâ—â— splendidè otâ—â—se delâ—â—ientur Muâ—â— in 8 Gen. Musculus how few shall we find who are equally sollicitous to have such children as may live piously and honestly as they are to leave them Inheritances upon which they may live splendidly and bravely It pleaseth us to see our own Image stampt upon their bodies but O! how few pray even whilst they are in the womb that their Souls may in due time bear the image of the heavenly and not animate and use the members of their bodies as weapons of unrighteousness against the God that formed them Certainly except they be quickned with such Souls as may in this world be united with Christ better had it been for them that they had perished in the Womb whilst they were pure Embryoes and had never come into the number and account of Men and Women for such Embryoes go for nothing in the world having only the Rudiments and rough draughts of bodies never animated and informed by a reasonable Soul Iob 3.11 12. But as soon as such a Soul enters into them though for never so little a time it entails Eternity upon them We also know that as soon as ever God breathes or infuses their Souls into them sin presently enters and death by sin and that by us as the next Instruments of conveying it to them Which should have the efficacy of a mighty Argument with us to lay our prayers and tears for mercy in the very foundation of that union Think on this particularly you that are Mothers of children when you find the fruit of the Womb quickned within you that you then bear a creature within you of more value than all this visible world a creature upon whom from that very moment an eternity of happiness or misery is entailed and therefore it concerns you to travel as in pain for their souls before you feel the sorrows and pangs of travel for their bodies O! what a pity is it that a part of your selves should eternally perish That so rare and excellent a creature as that you bear should be cast away for ever for want of a new Creation superadded to that it hath already O! let your cries and prayers for them anticipate your kisses and embraces of them If you be faithful and successful herein then happy is the Womb that bears them if not happy had it been for them that the knees had prevented them and the breasts they have sucked O! you cannot begin your suits for mercy too early for them nor continue them too long though your prayers measure all the time betwixt their Conception and their Death IV A Vital Substance Inference VI. MOreover if God have created our Souls vital Substances to animate and act those bodies How indispensably necessary is it that a principle of spiritual life do quicken and govern that Soul which quickens and governs our bodies and all the members of them Otherwise though in a natural sense we have living souls yet they are dead whilst they live The Apostle in 1 Cor. 15.45 46. compares the animal life we live by the union of our souls and bodies with the spiritual life we live by the union of our souls with Jesus Christ. And so it is written viz. in my Text The first Man Adam was made a living Soul the last Adam was made a quickning spirit He opposes the animal to the spiritual life and the two Adams from whom they come And shews in both
made nigh Eph. 2.13 you that were not beloved are now beloved Rom. 9. v. 25. You were in the state of death and condemnation you are now passed from death to life by your free justification 1 Iohn 3.14 Your union with Christ hath set you free from condemnation Rom. 8.1 Dye you must though Christ be in you but there is no hazzard or hurt in your death The stopping of your breath can put no stop to your happiness it will hasten not hinder it If the pale Horse come for you Heaven not Hell will now follow him your sins are pardoned the covenant of your Salvation sealed death is disarmed of its fatal sting and what then should hinder you from a like Triumph even upon your death-bed with that 1 Cor. 15.55 O death where is thy sting O grave where is thy victory 3. And yet you have more room for joy whilst you consider where you must and shall be shortly You are now in Christ but in a few days you shall be with Christ as well as in him 't is well now but it will be better ere long Your sin is now fully pardoned but not fully purged out of your Souls Your Persons are freed from guilt but your Hearts are not either freed from filth or grief But in a little time you shall be absolutely and eternally freed from both your present condition is an Heaven compared with your former and your future state will be â—n Heaven indeed compared with your present The path of the just is as the shining light which shineth more and more unto the perfect day Prov. 4.18 II. But on the other side what meditation can be more startling and amazing to all the unregenerate and Christless world Ponder it thou poor Christless and unsanctified Soul Get thee out of the noise and clamour of this world which makes such a continual din in thine ears and consider how thou hangest over the mouth of Hell it self by the feeble thread which is spun every moment out of thy Nostrils As soon as that gives way thou art gone for ever What shift do you make to quiet your fears and eat and drink and labour with any pleasure 'T is storied of Dionysius the Tyrant that when Democles would have flattered him into a conceit of the perfection of his happiness as he was an absolute Soveraign Prince and could do what he pleased with others as his Vassals Dionysius to confute his fancy caused him to be placed at a Table richly furnished and attended with the most curious Musick but just over his head hanged a sharp and heavy Sword by one single hair which when Democles saw no meat would go down with him but he earnestly begged for a discharge from that place This is the lively emblem of thy condition thou unregenerate man There are three things in thy state sadly opposed to the former state last described 1. The state you were born in was bad 2. The state you are now in is worse 3. The state you shall shortly be in if you thus continue will be unspeakably worst of all 1. The State you were born in was a sad state you were born in sin Psal. 51 5. and under wrath Eph. 2.3 the womb of nature cast you forth into this world both defiled and condemned creatures 2. The state you are in now is much worse than that you were born in for what have you been doing ever since you were born but treasuring up wrath against the day of wrath Rom. 2.5 For every sand of time which run out of the glass of Gods patience towards you a drop of wrath hath been running into the Vials of his Indignation against you O what a treasure of sin and wrath then is laid up in so many years as you have lived in sin Every sin committed every mercy abused every call of God neglected and slighted adds still more and more to this treasure 3. It will be much worse shortly than it is now except preventing renewing grace step in betwixt you and that wrath into which you are hastning so fast 'T is sad to be under the Sentence of Condemnation but unspeakably worse to be under the Execution of that sentence To be a Christless man is lamentable but to be a hopeless man is more lamentable For though you be now without Christ yet whilst the breath of life is in your Nostrils you are not absolutely without hope but when once that breath is goneâ— all the world cannot save or help you Your last breath and your last hope expire together Though you be under Gods damning sentence yet that sentence through the riches of forbearance is not executed but assoon as you dye all that wrath which hang'd over your heads so many years in the black clouds of Gods threatnings will pour down in a furious storm upon you which will never break up whilst God is God O think and think again and let your thoughts think close to this sad and solemn Subject there is but a Breath betwixt you and Hell Inference IV. DOth God maintain your life by breath let not that breath destroy your life which God gave to preserve it No man can live without breath and yet some might live longer than they do if their breath were better imployed Some mens throats have been cut by their own Tongues 〈…〉 Scalig Arab. prov Cent 1. as the Arabian Proverb intimates Life and death saith Solomon are in the power of the Tongue Criticks observe that a Word and a Plague grow upon the same root in the Hebrew Tongue 'T is certain that some mens breath hath been baneful poison both to themselves and others It was a word that cut off the life of Adonijah â— King 2.23 and thousands since his day have dyed upon the point of the same weapon 'T is therefore wholsome advice that is given us Psalm 34.12 What man is he that desireth life and loveth many days that he may see good keep thy tongue from evil and thy lips from speaking guile And the more evil the times are the stricter guard we should keep upon our lips It is an evil time the prudent will keep silence Amos 5.13 When wicked men watch to make a man an offender for a word as it is Isai. 29.20 21. it behooves us to be upon our watch that we offend not with our lips 'T is good to keep what is not safe to trust David was as a deaf and dumb man when in the company of wicked men Psal. 38.13 he thought silence then to be his prudence It is better they should call you Fools than find you so Inference V. IMploy not that breath to the dishonour of God which was first given and is still graciously maintained by him for your comfort and good 'T were better you had never breathed at all than to spend your breath in prophane Oaths or foolish and idle Chat whereby at once you wound the Name of God draw guilt upon your own Souls
and help on the ruine of others That is a startling Text Matth. 12.36 But I say unto you that every idle word that men shall speak they shall give an account thereof in the day of Iudgment To give an account is here by a Metalepsis of the Antecedent for the Consequent put for punishment in Hell fire without an intervening change of heart and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus And there is more evil in this abuse of our breath than we can easily discern especially upon two accounts 1 Because it is a sin most frequently committed and seldom repented of The intercourse betwixt the heart and tongue is quick and the sense of the evil as easily and quickly passeth away 2 Because the poisonous and malignant influence thereof abides and continues long after Our words may mischief others not only a long time after they are spoken but a long time after the tongue that spake them is turned to dust How many years may a foolish or filthy word a prophane scoff an Atheistical expression stick in the minds of them that heard them after the Speakers death A word spoken is Physically transient and past away with the breath that delivered it but it 's Morally permanent for as to its moral efficacy no more is required but its objective existence in the minds and thoughts of them that once heard it And upon that very ground Suarez argues for a general Judgment after men have past at death their particular Judgment because saith he long after that abundance of good and evil will be done in this World by the Dead in the persons of others that oveâ—live them For look as it was said of Abel that being dead he yet speaketh so it may be said of Iulian Porphyry and multitudes of scoffing Atheists that being dead they yet speak O therefore get a sanctified heart to season your breath that it may minister grace to the hearers Inference VI. LEt your breath promote the spiritual life of others as well as maintain the natural life in your selves ' Though the maintaining of your natural life be one end why God gave you breath yet it is not the only or principal end of it Your breath must be food to others as well as life to you Prov. 10.21 The lips of the righteous feed many It will be comfortable to resign that breath to God at death which hath been instrumental to his glory in this life It was no low encomium Christ gave of the Church when he said Cant. 4.11 Thy lips O my Spouse drop as the Honeycomb Honey and Milk are under thy Tongue Sweet wholesome and pleasant words dropt from her lips They drop saith Christ as the Honeycomb Some drops ever and anon fall actually and others hang at the same time prepared and ready to fall Such a prepared and habitual Disposition should every Christian continually have Your Words may stick upon mens hearts to their Edification and Salvation when you are in your Graves Your Tongues may now sow that precious seed which may spring-up to the praise of God though you may not live to reap the comfort of it in this World Iohn 4.36 37. 't is a rich expence of your breath to bring but one Soul to God and yet God hath used the breath of one as his instrument to save edifie and comfort the Souls of thousands Proverbs 11.30 The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life and he that winneth Souls is wise The good Lord make all his people wise in this Surely whether we consider the invaluable worth and preciousness of Souls the benefits you have had from the breath of others your selves the innate property of grace whereever it is to diffuse and communicate it self how short a time you have to breath and how comfortable it will be when you breath your last to remember how it hath been imployed for God All this should open your lips to counsel reprove and comfort others as often as opportunity is ministred Did Christ spend his Blood for our Souls and shall not we spend our Breath for them O let our lips dispense knowledge If you will not spend your Breath for God How will you spend your Blood for him If you will not Speak for him I doubt you will not Die for him Away with a sullen reservedness away with unprofitable Chat all Subjects of Discourse are not fit for a Christians lips 'T is a grave Admonition God once gave his people by the Pen of a faithful * Mr. West Minister You may rue saith he the opportunities you have lost Here lay a poor Wretch with one foot in Hell would he not have started back if he had had light to discover his danger Well you are now together something you must say the same breath would serve for a Compassionate Admonition as for a Complacent Impertinency which will redound to neither of your advantages You part the man dies and in the midst of Hell cries out against you One word of yours might have saved me You had me in your reach you might have told me my danger you forbare I hardned The Lord reward your negligence Inference VII IF breath be the tye betwixt Soul and Body How are we concerned to improve and draw forth the precious breath of Ministers and Christians whilst it is yet in their Nostrills The breath of many Ministers is judicially stopt already their breath serves to little other use than to preserve their own lives it will be stopt ere long by death and then those excellent treasures of Gifts and Graces wherewith they are richly furnished will be gone out of your reach never to be further useful to your Souls You should do by them therefore as one aptly speaks as Scholars do by some choice Book they have borrowed and must return in a few days to its Owner They diligently read it Night and Day and carefully transcribe the most useful and excellent Notes they can find in it that they may make them their own when the Book is called for out of their hands But alas we rather divert than draw forth these Excellencies that are in them You may yet converse with them and greatly benefit your selves by these Converses but as one speaks by the stream of your impertinent talk that season is neglected afterwards you see your lack of knowledge but then the instrument is removed How must it gall an awakened Iew to think what Discourse he had with Jesus Christ Is it lawful to give Tribute to Caesar Why do not thy Disciples fast O had I nothing else to enquire of the Lord Jesus Would it not have been more pertinent to have asked What shall I do to be saved But he is gone and I dead in my sins How many persons have we sent away that had a word of Wisdom in their hearts Having only learnt from them what a Clock it is what Weather or what News Forgetting to ask our own hearts What is all
saith till it come to rest in God it is enougâ— because the faculty which produceth it is more 〈◊〉 spiritual and immaterial All matter hath its limits bounds 〈…〉 of 〈◊〉 till we attain the desired end which is God and just measures beyond which it cannot be extended But the Soul is boundless and its appetitions infinite is rests not but in the spiritual and infinite Being God alone being is adaequate object and able to satisfie its desires which plainly proves it to be a Spiritual immaterial and simple being And being so two things necessarily follow therefrom 1. That it is void of any Principle of corruption in it self 2. That it is not liable to any stroak of death by any adverse power without it self 1. It cannot be liable to death from any seeds or Principles of Corruption within it self for where there is no composition there is no dissolution the Spirituality and simplicity of the Soul admits of no Corruption 2. Nor is it liable to death by any adverse power without it self No Sword can touch it No instrument of death can reach it 'T is above the reach of all adversaries Matt. 10.28 Fear not them that can kill the Body but cannot kill the Soul The bounds and limits of creature-power are here fixed by Jesus Christ beyond which they cannot go They can wound torment and destroy the Body when God permits them but the Soul is out of their reach A Sword can no more wound it than it can wound or hurt the light and consequently it is and must needs be of an immortal nature But there seems to be a decay upon our Souls in our old Age Object and decaies argue and imply corruption and are so many steps and tendencies towards the death and dissolution thereof The experience of the whole world shews us how the Apprehensions Judgments Wit and Memory of old Men fail even to that degree that they become children again in respect of the abilities of their minds their Souls only serving as it were to salt their Bodies and keep them from putrefaction for a few days longer 'T is a great mistake Sol. there is not the least decay upon the Soul no time makes any change upon the essence of the Soul all the alteration that is made is upon the Organs and Instruments of the Body which decay in time and become inept and unserviceable to the Soul The Soul like an expert and skilful Musician is as able as ever it was but the Body its instrument is out of tune and the ablest Artist can make no pleasing melody upon an instrument whose Strings are broken or so related that they cannot be scrued up to their due height Let Hippocrates the Prince of Physicians decide this matter for us * Anima nostra quoad essentiam mutaâ—i non potest aut alterari siâ—â— cibi siâ—â— potus sive cujuscunque rei alterius accâ—ssu referends est enim omnium alterationum causa aut ad spiritus quibus se immiscet aut ad vasa sive organa que permeat Hippocrates lib. 1. de diaeâ—a The Soul saith he cannot be changed or altered as to its essence by the access of meat or drink or any other thing whatsoever but all the alterations that are made must be referred either to the Spirits with which it mixeth it self or to the Vessels and Organs through which it streameth So that this proves not its corruptibility and being neither corruptible in it self nor vulnerable by any creature without it self seeing man cannot and God will not destroy it the conclusion is strongly inferred that therefore it is immortal Argument II. THE Immortality of the Souls of Men may be concluded from the Promises of everlasting Blessedness and the Threatnings of everlasting miseries respectively made in the Scriptures of truth to the Godly and ungodly after this Life which Promises and Threatnings had been altogether vain and delusory if our Souls perish with our Bodies 1. First God hath made many everlasting Promises of Blessedness yea he hath established an everlasting Covenant betwixt himself and the Souls of the Righteous promising to be their God for ever and to bestow endless Blessedness upon them in the World to come Such a Promise is that Iohn 8.28 I give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish And Iohn 4.14 Whosoever drinketh of the Water that I shall give him shall never thirst but the Water that I shall give him shall be in him a Well of Water springing up into everlasting life And again Iohn 11.26 Whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never dye And once more Rom. 2.7 To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for Glory and Honour and Immortality eternal Life with multitudes more of like nature Now if these be no vain and delusory Promises as to be sure they are not being the words of the true and faithful God then those Souls to whom they are made must live for ever for if the subject of the Promises must fail consequently the performance of the Promises must fail too For how shall they be made good when those to whom they are made are perished Let it not be objected here That the Bodies of Believers are concerned in the promises as well as their Souls and yet their Bodies perish notwithstanding For we say though their Bodies dye yet they shall live again and enjoy the fruit of the Promises in eternal Glory And whilest their Bodies lie in the Grave their Souls are with God enjoying the covenanted Blessedness in Heaven Rom. 8.10 11. and so the Covenant-Bond is not loosed betwixt them and God by Death which it must needs be in case the Soul perished when the Body doth And upon this Hypothesis that Argument of Christ is built Matth. 22.32 proving the Resurrection from the Covenant God made with Abraham Isaac and Iacob I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. God is not the God of the Dead but of the Living q. d. If Abraham Isaac and Iacob be perished in Soul as well as in Body how then is God their God what is become of the Promise and Covenant-Relation for if one Correlate fail the Relation necessarily fails with it If God be their God then certainly they are in being for God is not the God of the Dead i.e. of those that are utterly perished Therefore it must needs be that though their Bodies be naturally dead yet their Souls still live and their Bodies must live again at the Resurrection by vertue of the same Promise 2. On the contrary many threatnings of eternal misery after this life are found in the Scriptures of truth against ungodly and wicked Persons Such is that in 2 Thes. 1.7 8 9. The Lord Iesuâ— shall be revealed from Heaven in flaming Fire to render Vengeance on them that know not God and that obey not the Gospel of our Lord Iesus Christ who shall be punished with
everlasting Destruction from the presence of the Lord and the Glory of his Power And speaking of the Torments of the Damned Christ thus expresseth the misery of such wretched Souls in Hell Mark 9.44 Where their Worm dyeth not and the fire is not quenched But how shall the Wicked be punished with everlasting Destruction if their Souls have not an everlasting Duration Or how can it be said That their Worm viz. the remorse and anguish of their Consciences dieth not if their Souls dye Punishment can endure no longer than its subject endureth If the being of the Soul cease its pains and punishments must have an end You see then there are everlasting Promises and Threatnings to be fulfilled both upon the Godly and Ungodly He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life and he that believeth not the Son shall not see Life but the wrath of God abideth on him Iohn 3.36 The Believer shall never see spiritual Death viz. the separation of his Soul from God and the Unbeliever shall never see life viz. the blessed fruition of God but the Wrath of God shall abide on him If Wrath must abide on him he must abide also as the wretched subject thereof which is another Argument of the Immortality of Souls Argument III. THE Immortality of the Soul is a Truth asserted and attested by the universal consent of all Nations and Ages of the World Multum dare solemus praesumptioni omnium hominium câ—m de Animae Aeternitate disserimus non leve momentum apud nos habit consensus hominum aut timentium inseros aut colentium Soneca Ep. 17. We give much saith Seneca to the presumption of all men and that justly for it would be hard to think that an Error should obtain the general consent of Mankind or that God would suffer all the World in all Ages of it to bow down under an universal Deception This Doctrine sticks close to the nature of Man it springs up easily and without force from his Conscience It hath been allowed as an unquestionable thing not only among Christians who have the Oracles of God to teach and confirm this Doctrine but among Heathens also who had no other Light but that of Nature to guide them into the knowledge and belief of it In omni re coâ—seâ—sio oâ—â—ium gentiam Lex Naturae putanda est esque instar mille demonstâ—ationum talâ—â— consensio apud bonos esse debâ—t Zanch. de imâ—ort Animarum p. 644. Learned Zanchius cites out of Cicero an excellent passage to this purpose In every thing saith he the consent of all Nations is to be accounted the Law of Nature And therefore with all good Men it should be instead of a thousand Demonstrations and to resist it as he there adds what is it but to resist the voice of God and how much more when with this consent the Word of God doth also consent As for the consent of Nations in this point the learned Author last mentioned hath industriously gathered many great and famous Testimonies from the antient Chaldeans Graecians Pythagoreans Stoicks Platonists c. which evidently shew they made no doubt of the Immortality of their Souls How plain is that of Phocylides 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Speaking of the Soul in opposition to the Body which must be resolved into dust he saith But for the Soul that is immortal and never grows old but lives for ever 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And Trismegistus the famous and celebrated Philosopher gives this account of Man That he consists of two parts being mortal in respect of his Body but immortal in respect of his Soul which is his best and principal part Pluto not only asserts the immortality of the Souls of Men but disputes for it and among other Arguments urges this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Si erim Mors dissolutio esset utriusque corporis sc. animae Iuâ—inâ— foret malis cuâ— moriâ—â—tur Plato in epist. That if it were not so wicked Men would certainly have the advantage of righteous and good Men who after they have committed all manner of evils should suffer none But what speak I of Philosophers the most barbarous Nations in the World constantly believe it * Quid de Tuâ—â—cis Tartaris Moschis Indis Persis aliisquâ— omnibus â—uâ—c temporis barbaâ—â—â— nationibus dicam Nemo tam barbarus aut impius est quin sentiat post montem sup 〈…〉 〈◊〉 in quibus anime aut pro Malefactis punlantur aut coâ—ountur celiciisq pâ—sâ—uantur pâ—o 〈◊〉 factis Zanch. ubi supra The Turks acknowledge it in their Alchoran and though they grosly mistake the nature of Heaven in fansying it to be a Paradise of sensual Pleasures as well as the way thither by their Impostor Mahomet yet 't is plain they believe the Souls immortality and that it lives in pain or pleasure after this life The very salvage and illiterate Indians are so fully persuaded of the Souls Immortality that Wives cast themselves chearfully into the Flames to attend the Souls of their Husbands and Subjects to attend the Souls of their Kings into the other World Two things are objected against this Argument Object 1. I. That some particular persons have denied this Doctrine as Epicurus c. and by Argument maintained the contrary Sol. To which I answer That though they have done so yet 1. this no way shakes the Argument from the consent of Nations because some few persons have denied it we truly say the Earth is Spherical though there be many Hills and Risings in it If Democritus put out his own eyes must we therefore say all the World is blind 2 It is worth thinking on whether they that have questioned the Immortality of the Soul have not rather made it the matter of their option and desire than of their Faith and Persuasion We distinguish Atheists into three Classes such as are so in Practice in Desire or in Iudgment but of the former sorts there may be found multitudes to one that is so in his setled judgment 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hieroc If you think it strange that any Man should wish his Soul to be mortal Hierocles gives us the true reason of it A wicked man saith he is afraid of his Iudge and therefore wishes his Soul and Body may perish together by Death rather than it should come to Gods Tribunal Object 2. II. Nor can the strength of the Argument be eluded by saying All this may be but an universal Tradition one Nation receiving it from another Sol. For as this is neither true in it self nor possible to be made good so if it were it would not invalidate the Argument for if it were not a truth agreeable to the light of nature and so easily received by all Men upon the Proposal of it it were impossible that all Nations in the World should embrace it so readily and hold it so tenaciously as they do Argument IV. THE Immortality of the
Religion upon which both our faith and comfort is founded and consequently it undoes and ruins us as to all solid hope and true joy The Doctrines or Principles it overthrows are among many others such as follow 1 It nullifies and makes void the great design and end of Gods eternal Election The Scriptures tell us that from eternity God hath chosen a certain number in Christ Jesus to eternal life and to the means by which they shall attain it out of his meer good pleasure and for the praise of his grace This was 1 an eternal Act of God Eph. 1.4 long before we had our being Rom. 9.11 2 This choice of God or his purpose to save some is immutable 2 Tim. 2.19 Iames 1.17 3 This choice he made in Christ Eph. 1.4 Not that Christ is the cause of Gods chusing us For we were not elected because we were but that we might be in Christ. Christ was ordained to be the Medium of the execution of this Decree and all the mercies which were purposed and ordained for us were to be purchased by the bloud of Christ He was not the cause of the Decree but the purchaser of the mercies decreed for us 4 This choice was of a certain number of persons who are all known to God 2 Tim. 2.19 and all given to Christ in the Covenant of Redemption Iohn 17.2 6. So that no Elect person can be a Reprobate no Reprobate an Elect person 5 This number was chosen to Salvation 1 Thes. 5.9 No less did God design for them than glory and happiness and that for ever 6 The same persons that are appointed to Salvation as the end are also appointed to sanctification as the way and means by which they shall attain that end 1 Pet. 1.1 2. 2 Thes. 2.13 14. 7 The impulsive cause of this choice was the meer good pleasure of his will 2. Tim. 1.9 Rom. 9.15 16. Ephes. 1.9 8 The end of all this is the praise of his glorious grace Eph. 1.5 6. to make a glorious Manifestation of the riches of his grace for ever This is the account the Scripture give us of Gods eternal choice But if our Souls be mortal and perish with our Bodies all this is a mistake and we are imposed upon and our understandings abused by this Doctrine For to what purpose are all these Decrees and contrivances of God from everlasting if our Souls perish with our Bodies Certainly if it be so he loseth all the thoughts and counsels of his heart about us and that counsel of his will which is so much celebrated in the Scriptures and admired by his People comes to nought For this is evident to every mans consideration that if the Soul which is the Object about which all those counsels and thoughts of God were imployed and laid out fail in its being all those thoughts and counsels that have been imployed about it and spent on it must necessarily fail and come to nothing with it The thoughts of his heart cannot stand fast as it s said Psal. 33.11 if the Soul slide about which they are conversant In that day the elect Soul perisheth the eternal consultations and purposes of Gods heart perish with it Kekerman tells us that Albertus Magnus with abundance of Art Albertus Magnus statuam hoâ—rinis construxit que cum libramentis quibusdam â—otis atque aliis machiâ—is iâ—tâ—a latentibus peritissimè câ—mâ—ositis liâ—guam quadam ratione disciplina noventibus articulâ—ta 〈◊〉 prenunciarit and the study of thirty years made a vocal Statue in the form of a Man It was a rare contrivance and much admired The cunning Artist had so framed it that by Wheels and other Machins placed within it it could pronounce words articulately Aquinas being surprized to hear the Statue speak was affrighted at it and brake it all to pieces Upon which Albertus told him he had at one blow destroyed the work of thirty years Such a blow would the death of the Soul give to the counsels and thoughts not of Man but of God not of thirty years but from everlasting If the Souls of men perish at death either God never did appoint any Souls to Salvation as the Scriptures testifie he did 1 Thes. 5.9 or else the foundation of God stands not sure as his word tells us it doth 2 Tim. 2.19 So then this supposition overturns the eternal Decrees and Counsels of God which is the first thing 2. It overthrows the Covenant of Redemption betwixt the Father and the Son before this World was made There was a federal transaction betwixt the Father and Son from Eternity about our Salvation 2 Tim. 1.9 Zech. 6.13 In that Covenant Christ engaged to redeem the Elect by his bloud And the Father promised him a reward of those his sufferings Isai. 53.12 accordingly he hath poured out his Soul to death for them finished the work Iohn 17.4 and is now in Heaven expecting the full reward and fruits of his sufferings which consist not in his own personal glory which he there enjoys but in the compleatness and fulness of his mystical Body Iohn 17.24 But certainly if our Souls perish with our Bodies Christ hath a very bad bargain of it Nor can that promise be ever made good to him Isai. 53.12 He shall see of the travel of his Soul and be satisfied He hath done his work but where is his reward See how this supposition strikes at the justice of God and wounds his faithfulness in his Covenant with his Son He hath as much comfort and reward from the Travel of his Soul as a Mother that is delivered after many sharp pangs of a Child that dies almost as soon as born 3. It overthrows the Doctrines of Christs Incarnation Death Resurrection Ascension and Intercession in Heaven for us And these are the main Pillars both of our faith and comfort take away these and take away our lives too for these are the springs of all joy and comfort to the people of God Rom. 8.34 His Incarnation was necessary to capacitate him for his Mediatorial work It was not only a part of it but such a part without which he could discharge no other part of it This was the wonder of men and Angels 1 Tim. 3.16 A God incarnate is the Worlds wonder No condescension like this Philip. 2 6 7. The Death of Christ hath the nature and respect of a Ransom or equivalent price laid down to the justice of God for our Redemption Matt. 20.28 Act. 20.28 It bought our Souls from under the curse and purchased for them everlasting Blessedness Galat. 4.4 5. The Resurrection of Christ from the Dead hath the nature both of a Testimony of his finishing the work of our Redemption and the Fathers full satisfaction therein Iohn 6.10 and of a Principle of our Resurrection to eternal life 1 Cor. 15.20 The Ascension of Christ into Heaven was in the capacity and relation of a forerunner Heb. 6.20 It was to prepare places for
death these witnesses of the spirit are Delusions and his earnests are given us but in jest 3 His Comforting work is a sweet fruit and effect sensibly felt and tasted by believers in this World He is from this Office stiled the Comforter Iohn 16.7 signanter eminenter He so comforts as no other doth or can And what is the matter of his comforts but the Blessedness to come the joys of the coming World Iohn 16.13 Eye hath not seen c. Upon the account of these unseen things he enableth believers to glory in tribulations Rom. 5.4 to despise present things whether the smiles or the frowns of the World Heb. 11.24 and v. 26. But if the being of our Souls fail at death these are but the Phantastick joys of men in a dream and the experiences of all Gods people are found but so many fond conceits and gross mistakes 5. This supposition overthrows the Doctrine of the Resurrection which is the consolation of Christians We according to the Scripture believe that after death hath divorced our Souls and Bodies for a time they shall meet again and be re-united and that the joy at their re-union will be to all that are in Christ greater than the sorrows they felt at parting This seems not incredible to us what ever natural improbabilities and carnal reasons may be against it Acts 26.8 And that because the Almighty power which is able to subdue all things to himself undertakes this task Philip. 3.21 We believe this very same numerical Body shall rise again Iob 21.27 by the return of the same Soul into it which now dwelleth in it and that we shall be the same persons that now we are The remunerative justice of God requiring it to be so We believe the Souls of the righteous shall be much better accommodated and have a more comfortable habitation in their Bodies than now they have 1 Cor. 15.42 43. seeing they shall be made like unto Christ's glorious Body Phil. 3.21 And that then we shall live after the manner of Angels Luke 20.16 without the necessities of this animal life These are the things we look for according to promise and this expectation is our great relief against 1 the fears of death 1 Cor. 15.55 2 against the death of our Friends and Relations 1. Thes. 4.14 3 against all the pressures and afflictions of this life Iob 19.25 26 27. But if the being of our Souls fail at death all hopes and comforts from the Resurrection fail with it for it is not Imaginable that the body should rise till it be revived nor how it should be revived but by the re-union of the Soul with it and if it be not the same Soul that now inhabits it we cannot be the same persons in the Resurrection we are now and consequently this supposition subverts not only the Doctrine of the Resurrection but 6 It overthrows also the faith of the Iudgment to come For if the Soul perish the Body cannot rise or if it rise by a new created Soul the person raised is another and not the same that lived and dyed in this World and consequently the rewards and punishments to be bestowed and awarded to all men in that day cannot be just and equal for we believe according to the Scriptures that 1 The actions which men perform in this life are not transient but are filed to their account in the world to come Gal. 6.7 here we sow and there we reap Actions done in this World are two ways considerable viz. Physically or Morally in the first consideration they are transient in the last permanent and everlasting A word is spoken or an Act done in a moment but though it be past and gone and perhaps by us quite forgotten God registers it in his Book in order to the day of account 2 We believe that God hath appointed a day in which all men shall appear before his judgment seat to give an account of all they have done in the Body whether it be good or evil 2. Cor. 5.10 3 And that in order hereunto the very same persons shall be restored by the Resurrection and appear before God the very same Bodies and Souls which did good or evil in this World shall not the Judge of all the earth do right Justice requires that the rewards and punishments be then distributed to the same persons that did good or evil in this World which strongly infers the immortality of the Soul and that it certainly overlives the Body and must come back from the respective places of their abode to be again united to them in order to their great account By all which you see the clearest proof of the Souls Immortality and how the contrary supposition overthrows our Faith Duties and Comforts Yet all this notwithstanding how apt are we to suspect this Doctrine and remain still dis-satisfyed and doubting about it when all is said which comes to pass partly from 1 the subtilty of Satan who knows he can never perswade men to live the life of Beasts till he first perswade them to think they shall dye as the Beasts do and partly from the influence of Sense and Reason upon us whereby we do too much suffer our selves to be swayed and imposed upon in matters of greatest moment in Religion For these being proper Arbiters and Judges in other matters within their Sphere they are arrogant and we easy enough to admit them to be Arbiters also in things that are quite above them hence come such plausible objections as these Object 1. The Soul seems to vanish and dye when it leaves the Body for when it hath strugled as long as it can to keep its possession in the Body and at last is forced to depart we can perceive nothing but a puff of breath which immediately vanishes into air and is lost Sol. We cannot perceive therefore it is nothing but what we do and can perceive viz. a puffe of vanishing breath By this argument the being of the Soul in the Body is as questionable as after its departure out of the Body for we cannot discern it by sight in the Body yea by this Argument we may as well deny the existence of God and Angels as of Souls for it is a spiritual and invisible being as they are our gross senses are incapable of discerning Spirits which are immaterial and invisible substances Object 2. But you allow the Soul to have a rise and beginning it is not eternal à parte antà and it is certain what ever had a beginning must have an end Every thing which had a beginning may have an end Sol. and what once was nothing may by the power that created it be reduced to nothing again But though we allow it may be so by the absolute power of God we deny the consequence that therefore it shall and must be so Angels had a beginning but shall never have an end And indeed their Immortality as well as ours
flows not so much from the nature of either as from the will and pleasure of God who hath appointed them to be so He can but never will annihilate them But the Soul depends upon matter in all its operations Object 3. nothing is in the Understanding which was not first in the Senses it useth the natural Spirits as its Servants and Tools in all its Operations and therefore how can it either subsist or act in a State of Separation 1. The Hypothesis is not only uncertain Sol. but certainly false There are acts performed by the Soul even whilst it is in the Body wherein it makes no use at all of the Body Such are the acts of Self-intuition and Self-reflection and what will you say of its Acts in Raptures and Ecstasies such as that of Paul 2. Cor. 12.2 and Iohn Revel 21.10 what use did their Souls make of the bodily senses or natural Spirits then 2. And though in its ordinary actions in this life it doth use the Body as its Tool or Instrument in working doth it thence follow that it can neither subsist or act separate from them in the other World Whilst a man is on Horseback in his Journey he useth the help and service of his Horse and is moved according to the motion of his Horse but doth it thence follow he cannot stand or walk alone when dismounted at his Journeys end We know Angels both live and act without the ministry of Bodies and our Souls are Spiritual Substances as well as they But many Scriptures seem to favour the total cessation of the Souls actions Object 4. if not of its being also after Separation as that in 2 Sam. 14.14 We must needs dye and are as Water spilt upon the ground which cannot be gathered up and Psal. 88.10 11 12. with Isaiah 38.18 19. The dead cannot praise thee Sol. Those words of the Woman of Tekoa are not to be understood absolutely but respectively and the meaning is that the Soul is in the Body as some precious liquor in a brittle glass which being broken by death the Soul is irrecoverably gone as the Water Spilt on the ground which by no humane power or art of man can be recovered again All the means in the World cannot fetch it back into the Body again She speaks not of the Resurrection or what shall be done in the World to come by the Almighty power of God but of what is impossible to be done in this World by all the skill and power of Man And for the expression of Heman and Hezekiah they only respect and relate to those services their Souls were now imployed about for the praise of God with respect to the conversion or edification of others as Psal. 30.8 9. or at most to that mediate service and worship which they give God in and by their attendance upon his ordinances in this World and not of that immediate Service and praise that is performed and given him in Heaven by the Spirits of just men made perfect such was the sweetness they had found in these Ordinances and Duties that they express themselves as loth to leave them The same answer solves also the Objections grounded upon other mistaken Scriptures as that Psal. 78.39 where man is called a wind that passeth away and cometh not again It is only expressive of the frailty and vanity of the present animal life we live in this World to which we shall return no more after death it denies not life to departed Souls but the end of this animal life at death the life we live in the other World is of a different nature Inference I. IS the Soul Immortal Then 't is impossible for Souls to find full rest and contentment in any enjoyments on this side Heaven All temporary things are inadaequate and therefore unsatisfying to our Souls What gives the Soul rest and satisfaction must be as durable as the Soul is for if we could possibly find in this World a condition and state of things most agreeable in all other respects to our desires and wishes yet if the Soul be conscious to it self That it shall and must over-live and leave them all behind it it can never reach true contentment in the greatest affluence and confluence of them Man being an immortal is therefore a prospecting Creature and can never be satisfied with this That it 's well with him at present except he can be satisfied that it shall be so for ever The thoughts of leaving our delightful and pleasant enjoyments imbitters them all to us whil'st we have them All outward things are in fluxu continuo passing away as the Waters 1 Cor. 7.31 Riches are uncertain 1 Tim. 6.17 They fly away as an Eagle towards Heaven and with Wings of their own making Prov. 23.5 i. e. as the Feathers that enable a Bird to fly from us grow out of his own substance so doth that vanity that carries away all earthly enjoyments This alone would spoil all Contentment Inference II. THen see the ground and reason of Satans envy and enmity against the Soul and his restless designs and endeavours to destroy it It grates that Spirit of envy to find himself who is by nature Immortal sunk everlastingly and irrecoverably into misery and the Souls of Men appointed to fill up those vacant places in Heaven from which the Angels fell No Creature but Man is envied by Satan and the Soul of Man much more than his Body 'T is true he afflicts the Bodies of Men when God permits him but he ever aims at the Soul when he wounds the Body Heb. 10. 37. This roaring Lyon is continually going about seeking whom he may devour 1 Pet. 5.8 'T is the precious Soul he hunts after that 's the Morsus Diaboli the Bit he gapes for as the Woolf tears the Fleece to come at the Flesh. All the pleasure those miserable Creatures find is the success of their temptations upon the Souls of Men. 'T is a kind of delight to them to plunge Souls into the same condemnation and misery with themselves This is the trade they have been driving ever since their Fall By destroying Souls he at once exercises his revenge against God and his envy against man which is all the relief his miserable condition allows him Inference III. DO the Souls of Men overlive their Bodies Then 't is the height of madness and spiritual Infatuation to destroy the Soul for the Bodies sake To cast away an Immortal Soul for the gratification of perishing flesh to ruine the precious Soul for ever for the pleasures of sin which are but for a moment yet this is the madness of millions of Men. They will drown their own Souls in everlasting perdition to procure unnecessary things for the Body 1 Tim. 6.9 They that will be rich c. Every cheat and circumvention in dealing every lye every act of oppression is a wound given the Immortal Soul for the procuring some accommodations to
oppose those things which God hath subordinated bring this home to your natural or civil actions eating drinking Plowing or Sowing and see how the consequence will look Object 3. Say not 't is a mercenary Doctrine and disparages free Grace for are not all the enjoyments and comforts of this life confessedly from free Grace though God hath dispensed them to you in the way of your diligence and industry Object 4. To conclude say not the difficulties of Salvation are insuperable 't is so hard to watch every motion of the heart to deny every lust to resist a suitable temptation to suffer the loss of all for Christ that there is no hope for overcoming them For 1 God can and doth make difficult things easie to his people who work in the strength of Christ Philip. 4.13 2 These same difficulties are before all others that are before you yet it discourageth not them Philip. 3.11 Others strive to the uttermost There are extreams found in this matter some work for Salvation as an hireling for his wages so the Papists these disparage Grace and cry up works Others cry down obedience as legal as the Antinomians and cry up grace to the disparagement of duties avoid both these and see that you strive but 1 think not Heaven to be the price of your striving Rom. 4.3 2 strive but not for a spurt let this care and diligence run throughout your lives whilst you are living be you still striving your Souls are worth it and infinitely more than all this amounts to Inference VI. DOth the Soul overlive the Body and abide for ever Then 't is a great evil and folly to be excessively careful for the mortal Body and neglective of the immortal Inhabitant In a too much indulged Body there ever dwells a too much neglected Soul The Body is but a vile thing Philip. 3.21 the Soul more valuable than the whole World Matt. 16.26 to spend time care and pains for a vile Body whilst little or no regard is had to the precious Immortal Soul is an unwarrantable folly and madness To have a clean and washed Body and a Soul all filth as one speaks a Body neatly cloathed and dressed Carzv p. 148.149 with a Soul all naked and unready a Body fed and a Soul starved a Body full of the Creature and a Soul empty of Christ these are poor Souls indeed We smile at little children who in a kind of laborious idleness take a great deal of pains to make and trim their Babies or build their little houses of Sticks and straws And what are they but children of a bigger size that keep such ado about the Body a house of Clay a weak pile that must perish in a few days 'T is admirible and very convictive of most Christians what we read in an Heathen I confess saith Seneca there is a love to the Body implanted in us all 〈◊〉 insitâ—m esse nobis corpoâ—is nostri charitatem Fateâ— nos hujus gereâ—e tutelam nec nego indulgendum illi serâ—iendum nego Multus enim serviet qui corpori servit qui pro illo nimium timet qui ad illud omnia refert hujus nos nimiâ—â— amor timoribus inquietat solicitudinibus onerat contumeliâ—s objicit bonesâ—um ei vile est câ—i corpus nimis charum est agatur ejus diligentissimè cura ita tamen ut cum exiget ratio cum dignitas cum fides mittendum in ignem sit Seneca Ep. 14. p. 545. we have the Tutilage and charge of it we may be kind and indulgent to it but must not serve it but he that serves it is a servant to many cares fears and passions Let us have a diligent care of it yet so as when Reason requires when our Dignity or faith requires it we commit it to the fire 'T is true the Body is beloved of the Soul and God requires that it moderately care for the necessities and conveniences of it but to be fond indulgent and constantly sollicitous about it is both the sin and snare of the Soul One of the Fathers being invited to dine with a Lady and waiting some hours till she was drest and fit to come down when he saw her he fell a weeping and being demanded why he wept O saith he I am troubled that you should spend so many hours this morning in pinning and trimming your Body when I have not spent half the time in Praying Repenting and caring for my own Soul Two things a Master commits to his Servants care saith one the Child and the Childs cloaths it will be but a poor excuse for the Servant to say at his Masters return Sir here are all the Childs cloaths neat and clean but the child is lost Much so will be the account that many will give to God of their Souls and Bodies at the great day Lord here is my Body I was very careful for it I neglected nothing that belonged to its content and well-fare but for my Soul that is lost and cast away for ever I took little care or thought about it 'T is remarkable what the Apostle saith Rom. 8.12 We owe nothing to the flesh we are not in its debt we have given it all more than all that belongs to it but we owe many an hour many a care many a deep thought to our Souls which we have defrauded it of for the vile Bodies sake You have robb'd your Souls to pay your flesh This is madness Inference VII HOW great a blessing is the Gospel which brings life and immortality to light the most desirable mercies to immortal Souls This is the great benefit we receive by it as the Apostle speaks 2 Tim. 1.10 Christ hath abolished death and brought life and immortality to light by the Gospel Life and immortality by a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is put for immortal life the thing which all immortal Souls desire and long for These desires are found in Souls that enjoy not the Gospel-light for as I said before they naturally spring out of the very nature of all immortal Souls But how and where it is to be obtained that is a secret for which we are entirely beholding to the Gospel-discovery It lay hid in the Womb of Gods purpose till by the light of Gospel Revelation it was made manifest But now all men may see what are the gracious thoughts and purposes of God concerning men and what that â—s he hath designed for their Immortal Souls even an Immortal life and this life is to be obtained by Christ than which no tidings can be more welcome sweet or acceptable to us O therefore study the Gospel This is life eternal to know thee the only true God and Iesus Christ whom thou hast sent John 17.3 And see that you prise the Gospel above all earthly Treasures 'T is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation you have two inestimable benefits and blessings by it 1 It manifests and reveals eternal life to you
to their preservation For were it not for this Propriety and Relation no Man would be at any more cost or pains for his own Body than for that of a Stranger 'T is Propriety which naturally draws Love Care and Tenderness along with it and these are ordered by the wisdom of Providence for the conservation of the Body which would quickly perish without it 2. The Body is the Souls antient Acquaintance and intimate Friend with whom it hath assiduously and familiarly conversed from its beginning They have been partners in each others comforts and sorrows They may say to each other as Miconius did to his Colleague with whom he had spent twenty years in the Government of the Thuringian Church Cucurriâ—â—s certavimus laboravimus pugnavimus vicimus viximus conjunctissimé We have run striven laboured fought overcome and lived most intimately and lovingly together Consuetude and daily conversation begets and conciliates Friendship and Love betwixt Creatures of contrary Natures Let a Lamb be brought up with a Lyon and the Lyon will express a tenderness towards it much more the Soul to its own Body 3. The Body is the Souls house and beloved habitation where it was born and hath lived ever since it had a being and in which it hath enjoyed all its comforts natural and supernatural which cannot but strengthen the Souls engagement to it Upon this account the Apostle calls it the Souls home 2 Cor. 5.6 Whilst we are at home in the Body 'T is true this house is not so comfortable an habitation that it should be much desired by many Souls we may say of many gracious Souls that they pay a dear rent for the house they dwell in or as it was said of Galba Anima Galbae male habitat their Souls are but ill accommodated but yet it is their home and therefore beloved by them 4 The Body is the Souls instrument by which it doth its work and business in the World both natural and religious Rom. 6.13 Through the bodily senses it takes in all the natural comforts of this World and by the bodily Members it performs all its Duties and Services When these are broken and laid aside by death the Soul knows it can work no more in that way it now doth Iohn 9.4 Eccles. 9.10 Natural men love their Bodies for the natural pleasures they are instrumental to convey to their Souls and spiritual men for the use and service they are of to 〈◊〉 own and others Souls Philip. 1.23 5. The Body is the Souls Partner in the benefit of Christs Purchaces It was bought with the same price 1 Cor. 6.20 sanctified by the same spirit 1 Thes. 5.23 interested in the same promises Matth. 22.32 and designed for the same glory 1 Thes. 4.16 17. So that we may say of it as it was said of Augustine and his friend Alippius they are sanguine Christi conglutinati glewed together by the bloud of Christ. And thus of the grounds and reasons of its Love Inference I. IS it so Learn hence the mighty strength and prevalence of Divine Love which over-powering all natural Affections doth not only enable the Souls of men to take their Separation from the Body patiently but to long for it ardently Philip. 1.23 While some need Patience to dye others need it as much to live 2 Thes. 3.5 'T is said Revel 12.11 They loved not their lives And indeed on these terms they first closed with Christ Luke 12.26 To hate their lives for his sake ie to love them in so remiss a degree that when ever they shall come in competition with Christ to regard them no more than the things we hate The love of Christ is to be the supream love and all others to be subordinate to it or quenched by it 'T is not its own comfort in the Body it principally and ultimately designs and aims at but Christs glory and so this may be furthered by the death of the Body its death thereupon becomes as eligible to the Soul as its life Philip. 1.20 O this is an high pitch of grace A great attainment to say as one did Vivere renuo ut Christo vivam I refuse life to be with Christ Or another when asked whether he was willing to dye answered Illius est nolle mori qui nolit ire ad Christum Let him be loth to dye that is loth to go to Christ So 2 Cor. 5. We are willing rather to be absent from the Body and present with the Lord. 'T is not every Christian that can arrive to this degree of Lovâ—â— though they love Christ sincerely yet they shrink from death cowardly and are loth to be gone There are two sorts of grounds upon which Christians may be loth to be unbodied 1. Sinful 2. Allowable 1. The sinful and unjustifiable grounds are such as these viz. 1 Guilt upon the Conscience which will damp and discourage the Soul and make it loth to dye It arms death with terrour the sting of death is sin 2 Unmortified affections to the World I mean in such a degree as is necessary to sweeten death and make a man a Voluntier in that sharp engagement with that last and dreadful Enemy It is with our hearts as with fewel if green and full of sap it will not burn but if that be dried up it catches presently mortification is the drying up of carnal affections to the Creature which is that that resists death as green Wood doth the fire 3 The weakness and and cloudiness of Faith You need Faith to dye by as well as to live by Heb. 11.13 All these dyed in faith The less strength there is in Faith the more in death A strong Believer welcomes the messengers of Death when a weak one unless extraordinarily assisted trembles at them 2. There are grounds on which we may desire a longer continuance in the Body warrantably and allowably as 1 To do him yet more service in our bodies before we lay them down This the Saints have pleaded for longer life Psal. 30.9 Psal. 88.11 12 13. and Isai. 38.18 19. 2 To see the clouds of Gods anger dispelled whether publick or personal and a clear light break out ere we dye Psal. 27.13 3 They may desire with submission to outlive the days of persecution and not to be delivered into the hands of cruel men but come to their Graves in peace Psal. 31.15 and 2 Thess. 3.2 That may be delivered from absurd men 3. But though some Christians shun death upon a sinful account and others upon a justifyable one yet others there are who seeing their Title clear their work done and relishing the Joys of Heaven in the praelibations of Faith are willing to be uncloathed and to be with Christ. Their love to Christ hath extinguished in them the love of life and they can say with Paul Act. 21.13 I am ready Ignatius longed to come to those Beasts that were to devour him and so many of the Primitive Christians Christ was so dear
is generally a burthened and a groaning life 2 Cor. 5.2 In this Tabernaele we groan being burthened Here the Saints feel 1 A burthen of sin Rom. 7.24 this is a dead and a sinking weight 2 A burthen of Affliction of this all are Partakers Hebr. 12. though not all in an equal degree or in the same kind yet all have their burthens equal to and even beyond their own strength to support it 2 Cor. 1.8 pressed above measure 3 A burthen of inward troubles for sin and outward Troubles in the Flesh both together so had Iob Heman David and many of the Saints Certainly this befals them not 1 Casually Iob 5.6 It rises not out of the Dust 2 Nor because God loves and regards them not for they are fruits of his love Heb. 12.6 Whom he loveth he correcteth 3 Nor because he takes pleasure in our groans Lamen 3. To tread under his feet the Prisoners of the earth the Lord hath no pleasure 'T is not for his own pleasure but his Childrens profit Heb. 12.10 And among the prâ—fits that result from these burthens this is not the least to make you less fond of the body than you would else be and more willing to be gone to your everlasting rest And certainly all the Diseases and Pains we endure in the Body whether they be upon inward or outward accounts by Passion or Compassion from God or Men will be found but enough to wean us and loose off our hearts from the fond love of life Afflictions are bitter things to our taste Ruth 1.20 so bitter that Naomi thought a name of a contrary signification fitter for her afflicted condition Call me Marah i. e. bitter not Naomi pleasant beautiful And the Church Lam. 3.19 calls them Wormwood and Gall. The great design of God in afflicting them is the same that a tender Mother projects in putting Wormwood to her Breast when she would wean the Child It hath been observed by some discreet and grave Ministers that before their remove from one place to another God hath permitted and ordered some weaning Providence to befal them either denying wonted success to their labour or alienating and cooling the affections of their people towards them which not only makes the manner of their departure more easie but the grounds of it more clear Much so it falls out in our natural death the comfort of the World is imbittered to us before we leave it The longer we live in it the less we shall like it We overlive most of our Comforts which engaged our hearts to it that we may more freely take our leave of it It were good for Christians to observe the voice of such Providences as these and answer the Designs of them in a greater willingness to die 1. Is thy Body which was once hail and vigorous now become a crazy sickly pained body to thee neither useful to God nor comfortable to thee a Tabernacle to groan and sigh in And little hopes it will be recovered to a better temper God hath ordered this to make thee willing to be divorced from it The less desireable life is the less formidable death will be 2. Is thy Estate decayed and blasted by Providence so that thy life which was once full of Creature-Comforts is now fill'd with Cares and Anxieties O 't is a weaning Providence to thee and bespeaks thee the more chearfully to bid the World farewel The less comfort it gives you the less it should entangle and engage you We little know with what aking hearts and pensive breasts many of Gods people walk up and down though for Religion or Reputations sake they put a good face upon it but by these things God is bespeaking and preparing them for a better State 3. Is an Husband a Wife or dear Children dead and with them the comfort of life laid in the dust Why this the Lord sees necessary to do to perswade you to come after willingly 'T is the cutting asunder thy roots in the earth that thou maist fall the more easily O how many stroaks must God give at our Names Estates Relations and Health before we will give way to the last stroak of death that fells us to the ground 4. Do the times frown upon Religion Do all things seem to threaten stormy times at hand Are desireable Assemblies scattered Nothing but Sorrows and Sufferings to be expected in this World By these things God will imbitter the earth and sweeten Heaven to his People 5. Is the beauty and sweetness of Christian Society defaced and decayed That Communion which was wont to be Pithy Substantial Spiritual and Edifying becomes either frothy or contentious so that thy Soul hath no pleasure in it This also is a weaning Providence to our Souls Strigelius desired to die that he might be freed ab implacabilibus Theologorum odiis from the Wranglings and Contentions that were in his time Our fond affection to the Body requires all this and much more to wean and mortifie them Inference IV. HOW Comfortable is the Doctrine of the Resurrection to Believers which assures them of receiving their Bodies again though they part with them for a time Believers must die as well as others their Union with Christ priviledges them not from a Separation from their Bodies Rom. 8.10 Heb. 9.27 But yet they have special grounds of Consolation against this doleful separation above all others For 1. Though they part with them yet they part in hopes of receiving them again 1 Thessal 4.13 14. They take not a final leave of them when they die Husbandmen cast their Seed-corn into the earth chearfully and willingly because they part with it in hope so should we when we commit our Bodies to the earth at death 2. Though death separate these dear Friends from each other yet it cannot separate either the one or other from Christ Luke 20.37 38. I am the God of Abraham c. Your very dust is the Lords and the Grave rots not the Bond of the Covenant 3. The very same Body we lay down at death we shall assume again at the Resurrection Not only the same specifical but the same Numerical Body Iob 19.25.26 With these eyes shall I see God 4. The unbodied Soul shall not find the want of its Body so as to afflict or disquiet it nor the Body the want of its Soul but the one shall be at rest in Heaven and the other sweet asleep in the Grave and all that long interval shall slide away without any afflicting sense of each others absence The time will be long Iob 14.12 but if it were longer it cannot be afflicting considering how the Soul is cloathed immediately 2 Cor. 5.1 2. and how the Body sleeps sweetly in Jesus 1 Thess. 4.14 5. When the day of their re-espousals is come the Soul will find the Body so transformed and improved that it shall never receive prejudice from it any more but a singuler addition to its Happiness and Glory Now it clogs us
a very short period of time when those few years are past then I must go to my long home my everlasting abode never more to return to this world The way whence I shall not return elsewhere called the way of all flesh Iosh. 23.15 and the way of all the earth 1 King 2.2 Eccles. 8.8 There is no man that hath power over the Spirit to retain the Spirit neither hath he power in the day of death and there is no discharge in that War By Spirit understand the natural Spirit or breath of life which as I shewed before connects or tyes the Soul and Body together this Spirit no man can retain in the day of death we can as one speaks as well stop the Chariot of the Sun when posting to night and chase away the shadows of the evening Mortem inquit Seâ—eca nulla diligentia evitat nulla soelicitas domat nulla potentia vincit as escape this hour of darkness that is coming upon us A man may escape the Wars by pleading priviledge of years or weakness of Body or the Kings protection or by sending another in his room but in this War the press is so strict that it admits no dispensation young or old weak or strong willing or unwilling all 's one into the field we must go and look that last and most dreadful Enemy in the face 'T is in vain to think of sending another in our room for no man dyeth by Proxy or to think of compounding with death as those self-deluding Fools did Isai. 28.15 Who thought they had been discharged of the debt by seeing the Sergeant no no there is no discharge in that War Nihil prodest ora concludere vitam fugientem retinere saith Hierom on that Text Let us shut our mouths never so close struggle against death never so hard there is no more retaining the Spirit than a woman can retain the fruit of her Womb when the full time of her deliverance is come Suppose a man were sitting upon a Throne of Majesty surrounded with armed Guards or in the midst of a Colledge of expert and learned Physicians death will pass all these Guards to deliver thee the fatal message neither can Art help thee when Nature it self gives thee up The Law of Mortality binds all good and bad young and old the most useful and desirable Saints whom the World can worst spare as well as useless and undesireable sinners Rom. 8.10 and if Christ or though Christ be in you the Body is dead because of sin Peter himself must put off his Tabernacle for they are but Tabernacles frail and moveable frames not built for continuance these will drop off from our Souls as the Shell falls of from the Bird in the Nest be our earthly Tabernacles never so strong or pleasant (2) The speediness of death The Scriptures borrow Metaphors from all the Elements to this purpose we must depose them and that shortly our lease in them will expire quickly we have but a short term Iames 4.14 Like a thin mist in the morning which the Sun presently dissipates this is a Metaphor chosen from the Air You have one from the Land where the swift Post runs Iob 9.25 So doth our life from Stage to Stage till its journey be finished and a third from the Waters there Sail the swift Ships Iob 9.26 which weighing Anchor and putting into the Sea continually lessen the Land till at last they have quite lost sight of it from the Fire Psal. 58.4 The lives of men are as soon extinct as a blaze made with dry thorns which is almost as soon out as in Thus you see how the Spirit of God hath borrowed Metaphors from all the Elements of Nature to shadow forth the brevity and frailty of that life we now live in these Tabernacles So that we may say 〈◊〉 one did before us Nescio an dicenda sit vita mortalis an vitalis mors I know not which to call it a mortal life or a living death The continuance of these our Tabernacles or Bodies is short whether we consider them absolutely or comparatively I. Absolutely if they should stand seventy or eighty years which is the longest duration Psal. 90.10 How soon will that time run out what are years that are past but as a dream that is vanished or as the waters that are past away It is in fluxu continuo there is no stopping its swift course or calling back a moment that is past Death set out in its journey towards us the same hour we were born and how near is it come this day to many of us it hath us in chase and will quickly fetch us up and overtake us but few stand so long as the utmost date II. Comparatively let us compare our time in these Tabernacles 1 either with Eternity or with him who inhabits it and it shrinks up into nothing Psal. 39.5 Mine age is nothing unto thee So vast is the disproportion that it seems not only little but nothing at all Or 2 with the Duration of the Bodies of men in the first Ages of the World when they lived many hundred years in these fleshly Tabernacles The length of their life was the benefit of the World because Religion was then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a thing handed down from Father to Son but certainly it would be no benefit to us that are in Christ to be so long suspended the fruition of God in the everlasting Rest. The Grounds and Reasons of this Necessity that lies upon all to put off their earthly Tabernacles so soon are 1. The Law of God or his Appointment 2. The Providence of God ordering it suitably to this Appointment 1. The Law or Appointment of God which came in force immediately upon the Fall Genes 2.17 In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely dye And accordingly it took place upon all mankind immediately upon the first Transgression Rom. 5.12 Death entred by sinâ—â— The threatning not his immediate actual personal death in the day that he should eat but a state of Mortality to commence from that time to him and his posterity hence it s said Heb. 9.27 It is appointed to all men once to die 2. The Providence of God ordering and framing the Body of man suitably to this his Appointment Quotidie moâ—imur quotidie enim demitur aliquâ— pars vita tunc quoque cum crescimus vitâ— decrescit Iâ—fantiam amisimus deinde Adolescentiâ—m usque ad besternam quicquid transit temporis perit a frail weak Creature having the seeds of death in his Constitution Thousands of Diseases and Infirmities are bred in his Nature and the smallest pore in his Body is a door large enough to let in death Hence his Body is compared to a piece of cloth which Moths have fretted Psal. 39.11 it 's become a seary rotten thing which cannot long hang together And indeed it is a wonder it continues so long as it doth
the matter of their Election which in it self is necessary and unavoidable so did Paul Philip. 1.23 but others are drawn or rent by plain violence from the Body Iob 27.8 when God draws out his Soul That man is happy indeed whose heart falls in with the Appointment of God so voluntarily and freely as that he dare not only look death in the face with confidence but go along with it by consent of will Remarkable to this purpose is that which the Apostle asserts of the frame of his own heart 2 Cor. 5.8 We are confident I say and willing rather to be absent from the Body and present with the Lord. Here is both Confidence and Complacence with respect to death 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The word signifies Courage Fortitude or if you will an undaunted boldness and presence of mind when we look the King of Terrours in the face We dare venture upon death we dare take it by the cold hand and bid it welcome We dare defie its Enmity and deride its noxious power 1 Cor. 15.55 O Death where is thy sting And that 's not all we have Complacence in it as well as Confidence to encounter it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We are willing the Translation is too flat we are well pleased it is a desirable and grateful thing to us to die But yet not in an absolute but comparative Consideration 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we are willing rather i.e. rather than not see and enjoy our Lord Jesus Christ rather than to be here always sinning and groaning There is no Complacency in death in it self it is not desirable But if we must go through that strait gate or not see God we are willing rather to be absent from the Body So that you see death was not the matter of his submission only he did not yield to what he could not avoid but he ballances the evils of death with the Priviledges it admits the Soul into and then pronounces 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we are content yea pleased to die We cannot live always if we would and our hearts should be wrought to that frame as to say we would not live always if we could Iob 7.16 I would not live always or long saith he But why should Iob deprecate that which was not attainable I would not live alway he needed not to trouble himself about that it being impossible that he should both Statute and Natural Law forbid it Ay but this is his sense supposing no such Necessity as there is if it were pure matter of Election Upon a due ballancing of the accounts and comparing the good and evil of death I would not be confined always or for any long time to the Body It would be a bondage unsupportable to be here always Indeed those that have their Portion their All in this life have no desire to be gone hence They that were never changed by grace desire no change by death if such a Concession were made to them as was once to an English Parliament that they should never be dissolved but by their own consent when would they say as Paul I desire to be dissolved But it 's far otherwise with them whose portion and affections are in another World they would not live always if they might knowing that never to die is never to be happy If you say Qu. this is an excellent and most desirable temper of Soul but how did these holy men attain it Or what is the course we may take to get the like frame of willingness Sol. They attained it and you may attain it in such Methods as these 1. They lived in the believing views of the invisible World and so must you if ever death be desirable in your eyes 2 Cor. 4.18 It 's said of all that died comfortably that they died in faith Hebr. 11.13 You will never be willing to go along with death except you know where it will carry you 2. They had assurance of Heaven as well as Faith to discern it Assurance is a lump of Sugar indeed in the bitter Cup of death nothing sweetens like it So 2 Cor. 5.1 so Iob 19.26 27. This puts Roses into the pale Cheeks of death and makes it amiable 1 Cor. 15.55 56. and Rom. 8.38 39. 3. Their hearts were weaned from this World and the inordinate affectation of a terrene life Philip. 3.8 all was dung and dross for Christ they trampled under foot what we hug in our Bosomes So 't is said Hebr. 10.34 Ye took joyfully the spoiling of your goods knowing in your selves c. And so it must be with us if ever we obtain a Complacency in death 4. They ordered their Conversations with much Integrity and so kept their Consciences pure and void of offence Acts 24.16 Herein do I exercise my self c. and this was their Comfort at last 2 Cor. 1.12 This is our rejoycing c. So Iob 27.5 My Integrity will I not let go till I die O this unstings death of all its terrours 5. They kept their love to Christ at the height that flame was vehement in their Souls and made them despise the terrour and desire the friendly assistance of death to bring them to the sight of Jesus Christ Philip. 1.23 so Ignatius O how I long c. Thus it must be with you if ever you make death eligible and lovely to you which is terrible in it self There is a loveliness in the death as well as in the life of a Christian. Let me die the death of the righteous said Balaam Inference II. MUst we put off these Tabernacles of Flesh Many cry out on a death-bed O â—end for Ministers and Christians to pray Alas What can they do then Is that a time for so great a work to be shuffled up in a hurry amidst distractions and Agonies How necessary is it that every Soul look out in season and make provision for another habitation If you must be turned out of one house you must provide another or lie in the streets This the Apostle comforted himself with that if uncloathed he should not be found naked 2 Cor. 5.1 a building of God an house not made with hands You must turn out and that shortly from these earthly Habitations O what provision have you made for your Souls against that day The Soul of Adrian was at a sad loss when he saw he must be turn'd out of this World O Animula vagula blandula heu quo vadis But it was Abraham Isaac and Iacob's Priviledge that God had preâ—â—â—â—d for them a City Heb. 11.16 I know it 's a common presumption of most men that they shall be in Heaven when they can be no longer on earth Praesumendo sperant sperando pereunt But a few moments will convince them of their fatal mistake their poor Souls will meet with a confounding repulse like that Matth. 7.22 There is indeed a City full of heavenly Mansions prepared for some but who are they
that are intitled to it and may confidently expect to be received into it To be sure not the presumptuous who make a Bridge of their own Shadows and so fall and perish in the waters Brethren it is one of the most solemn enquiries you were ever put upon And therefore I beseech you see whether your Characters set you among those men or no. 1. First Those that are new-born shall be cloathed with their new house from Heaven when death uncloathes them of these Tabernacles The New Ierusalem hath 〈◊〉 but new-born Inhabitants 1 Pet. 1.3 4. and Christ tells us Iohn 3.3 all others are excluded Glory is the Priviledge of Grace Let nature be adorned and cultivated how it will if not renewed by grace there 's no hope of Glory You must be born again or turned back again from the Gates of Heaven disappointed You must be regenerated or damned This alters the temper of thy heart and suits it to the life of God which is indispensably necessary to them that shall live with him Else Heaven would be no Heaven to us Rom. 8.7 and therefore we must be wrought this way to it 2 Cor. 5 5. No Priviledge of Nature no Duties of Religion avail without this Gal. 6.15 If Morality without Regeneration could bring men to Heaven Why are not the Heathens there If strictness in Duty without Regeneration Why not the Pharisees there Believe it neither Names nor Duties no nor the Blood of Christ ever did or shall bring one Soul to glory without it O then thou that boastest of an house in Heaven lay thine hand on thy heart and ask it Am I a new Creature i.e. Am I renewed 1 in my state and condition 1 Iohn 3.14 past from death to life 2 In my frame and temper Eph. 5.8 once darkness now light in the Lord. 〈◊〉 In my Practice and Conversation Eph. 2.12 13.1 Cor. 6.11 if not my Soul is destitute of an habitation in the City of God and when I die my Body must lie in the lonely house of the Grave that dark Vault and Prison and my Soul be shut out from God into outer darkness 2. Secondly Those that live as Strangers and Pilgrims on earth seeking a better place and state than this World affords them for them God hath made preparations in glory Hebr. 11.13 16. If you be strangers on earth you are the Inhabitants of Heaven Now there be six things included in this Character 1. They look not on this World as their own home nor on the people of it as their own people 2 Cor. 5.8 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be unpeopled These are none of my fellow Citizens we must go two ways at death 2. They set not their affections on things present as their portion 2 Cor. 4.18 Psal. 17.13 14. Their Bodies are here their Hearts in Heaven 3 Their carriage and manner of life not like the men of this World 1 Pet. 4.4 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So the Rule guides them Rom. 12.2 and so their course is steered at least intended Philip. 3.20 our 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 our Trade is in Heaven 4 Their Dialect and Language differs from the Natives of this World Their Language is earthly 1 Iohn 4.5 6. but these have a pure lip Zeph. 3.9 5 Their Society and chosen Companions are not of this World Psal. 16.3 They are a Company of themselves Act. 4 21. 6 Their Spirit and temper of heart is not after the World 1 Cor. 2.12 They have another Spirit Numb 14. 24. These things discover us to be strangers on earth and consequently the men for whom God hath prepared heavenly Habitations when we die 3. Thirdly Those that live and die by faith shall not fail to be received into a better Habitation by death This is another Character of them that shall be recâ—â—ved into glory laid down in the same place Hebr. 11.13 They lived by faith and when they died they died embracing the promises which is Characteristical of those that shall dwell in that heavenly City and implies 1 Intimate acquaintance with the promises they are things well known and familiarized to them The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Salutantes Saluting them is a Metaphor from the manner of parting betwixt two dear and intimate Friends The Faith of a Christian embraces the promises in its arms as dear friends use to do at parting and saith farewell sweet promises from which I have sucked out so much relief and refreshment in all the troubles of my life I must now live no more by faith on you but by sight O you have often cheared my Soul and been my Song in the house of my Pilgrimage 2. It implies the firm credit that a Believer gives to things unseen upon the grounds of the promises as if he did sensibly take and grasp them in his very arms and bosome They take Christ and all the invisible things in the promises into their sensible embraces 1 Pet. 1.8 faith is to them instead of eyes 3 It implies the sincerity of a Believers profession who dare trust to that at last gasp which he professed to believe in the midst of life and the Comforts of this World As he professed to believe in health so you shall find his Actings when his eye and heart strings are cracking Rom. 14.9 Christ in the promises was his professed joy in life and this is what he grasps at death and lays his last hold on 4 It shews you whence all a Believers comfort comes in life and death O 't is from the promises Christ in the promises is the Spring of their Consolation This they fetch their comfort from when the World cannot administer one drop of refreshment to them There be two great works faith performs for the Saints one in life the other in death In life it is the Principle of Mortification to their sins in death it is the spring of Consolation to their hearts It makes them die whilst they live and live when they die 4. Fourthly Those that love the Person and Appearance of Christ have a mark that sets them among the Inhabitants of Heaven and Glory 2 Tim. 4.8 but then this love must be 1 Sincere and without Hypocrisie 2 Supream and above all other beloveds 3 Conforming the Soul to Christ if sincere and supream it will be transformative 4 Longing to be with him Such love is a mark of Souls for whom Heaven is prepared Inference III. MUst we put off our Tabernacles and that shortly What a Spur is this to a diligent â—edemption and improvement of time This is the use Peter made of it here and every one of us should make It was said of Bishop Hooper he was spare in his diet spare in his words but most of all spare of his time You have but a little time in these Tabernacles what pity is it to waste much out of a little 1 Great is the worth and excellency of time all the Treasures of the World cannot
perfect in the Kingdom of God THAT the Spirits of just Men at the time of their separation from their Bodies do not utterly fall in their beings nor that they are so prejudiced and wounded by death that they cannot exert their own proper Acts in the absence of the Body hath been already cleared in the foregoing parts of this Treatise and will be more fully cleared from this Text. But the true level and aim of this discourse is at an higher mark viz the far more excellent free and noble life the Souls of the just begin to live immediately after their Bodies are dropt off from them by death at which time they begin to live like themselves a pleasant free and divine life So much at least is included in the Apostle Epithete in my Text Spirits of the just made perfect and suitable thereto are his words in 1 Cor. 13.10.12 When that which is pâ—rfect is come then that which is in part shall be done away For now we see through a glass darkly but then face to face now I know in part but then shall I know even as I am known These two Adverbs Now and Then distinguish the twofold state of gracious Souls and shew what it is whilst they are confined in the Body and what it shall be from the time of their emancipation and freedom from that clogg of mortality Now we are imperfect but then that which is perfect takes place and that which is imperfect is done away as the imperfect twilight is done away by the opening of the perfect day And it deserves a serious animadversion that this perfect State doth not succeed the imperfect one after a long interval as long as betwixt the dissolution and Resurrection of the Body but the imperfect state of the Soul is immediately done away by the coming of the perfect one The glass is laid by as useless when we come to see face to face and eye to eye The Waters will prove very deep here too deep for any line of mine to fathom there is a cloud always overshadowing the world to come a gloom and haziness upon that state fain we would with our weak and feeble beam of imperfect knowledge penetrate this cloud and dispel this gloom and haziness but cannot we think seriously and close to this great and awful subject but our thoughts cannot pierce through it we re-inforce those thoughts by a salley or thick succession of fresh thoughts and yet all will not do our thoughts return to us either in confusion or without the expected success For alas how little is it that we know or can know of our own Souls now whilst they are embodied much less of their unbodied state The Apostle tells us 1 Cor 2.9 That eye hath not seen nor ear heard neither have entred into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love him And another Apostle adds it doth not yet appear what we shall be 1 John 3.1 Yet all this is no discouragement to the search and regular enquiry into the future state for though reason cannot penetrate these mysteries yet God hath revealed them to us though not perfectly by his Spirit And though we know not particularly and circumstantially what we shall be yet this we know that we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is And it is our priviledge and happiness that we are come to the Spirits of just men made perfect i.e. to a clearer knowledge of that state than was ordinarily attainable by Believers under former dispensations These things premised I will proceed to open my apprehensions of the separate state of the Spirits of just men made perfect in twelve Propositions whereby as by so many steps we may orderly advance as far as safely and warrantably we may into the knowledge of this great Mystery clearing what afterwards shall remain obscure in the solution of several Questions relating to this Subject and then apply the whole in several Uses of this great point and the first Proposition is this PROP. I. THere is a'twofold Separation of the Soul from the Body viz one Mental the other Real Or 1. Intellectual by the mind only 2. Physical by the stroke of death Separatio per intellectum fit cum duo revera conjuncta separatim contipimus Conimbr de Anima p. 595. 1. Of Intellectual or mental Separation I am first to speak in this Proposition and it is nothing else but an act of the understanding or mind conceiving or considering the Soul and Body as separated and parted each from other whilst yet they are united in a personal oneness by the breath of life This mental Separation may and ought to be frequently and seriously made before death make the real and actual Separation and the more frequently and seriously we do it the less of horror and distraction will attend that real and fatal stroke when ever it shall be given For hereby we learn to bear it gradually and by gentle essays to acquaint our shoulders with the burden of it Separation is a word that hath much of horror in the very sound and useth to have much more in the sense and feeling of it else it would not deserve that title Iob 8.14 The King of Terrors or the most terrible of all terribles but acquaintance and familiarity abates that horror and that two ways especially 1. As it is preventive of much guilt 2. As it gains a more inward knowledge of its Nature 1. The serious and fixed thoughts of the parting hour is preventive of much guilt and the greatest part of the horrour of death rises out of the guilt of sin The sting of death is sin 1 Cor. 15.56 Augustine saith Nothing more recals a man from sin Nihil sie revocat à pâ—ccato quam frequens mortis meditatio August than the frequent meditation of death I dare not say it is the strongest of all curbs to keep us back from sin but I am sure it is a very strong one Let a Soul but seriously meditate what a change death will make shortly upon his person and condition and the natural effects of such a meditation Qui considerat qâ—alis eâ—it in morte semper pavidus erit in operatione atque inde in oculis sui Condiâ—oris vivet Nihil quod transit appetit pene mortuum se considerat quia se moriturum non ignorat Greg. Mor. 12. through the blessing of God upon it will be a flatting and quenching of its keen and raging appetite after the ensnaring vanities of this World which draw men into so much guilt a conscientious fear of sin and an awakened care of duty It was once demanded of a very holy man who spent much more than the ordinary allowance of time in Prayer and searching his own heart why he so macerated his own Body by such frequent and long continued Duties His answer was O I must dye I must dye Nothing could separate
ejusdem animae id est informationis seu unionis erga corpus Conimâ—r Some call it the privation of the second Act of the Soul that is its Act of informing or enlivening the Body Others according to Scripture phrase the departing of the Soul from the Body So Peter stiles it 2 Pet. 1.15 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 after my departure i.e. after my death Relictio câ—rporis depositio sarcine gravis modo aliea sarcina non patietur qâ—â homo praecipitetur in gehennem August Augustine calls it the laying down of an heavy burthen provided there be not another burden for the Soul to bear afterwards which will sink it into Hell In respect of the Body which the Soul now forsakes it is called the putting off this Tabernacle 2 Pet. 1.14 And the dissolving the earthly House or Tabernacle 2 Cor. 5.1 In respect of the terminus à quo the place from which the Soul removes at death it is called our departure hence Phil. 1.23 or our weighing Anchor and loosing from this coast or shoar to sail to another In respect of the terminus ad quem the place to which the Spirits of the just go at death it is called our going to or being with the Lord ibid. To conclude in respect of that which doth most lively resemble and shadow it forth it is called our falling asleep Acts 7. ult our sleeping in Iesus 1 Thes. 4.14 This Metaphor of sleep must be stretched no further than the Spirit of God designed in the choice of it which was not to favour and countenance the fancy of a sleeping Soul after death but to represent its state of placid rest in Jesus's bosom if it refer at all to the Soul for I think it most properly respects the Body Locus Sepulturae consecratus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hoc est dormitorium appeâ—iâ—tur and thence the Sepulchres where the Bodies of the Saints were laid got the name of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Dormitories or sleeping places This is its last farewel to this world never more to return to a low animal life more Iob 7.9 10. For as the cloud is consumed and vanisheth away so he that goeth down to the grave shall come up no more he shall return no more to his house neither shall his place know him any more The Soul is no more bound to a Body nor a Retainer to Sun Moon or Stars to meat drink and sleep but is become a free single abstracted being a separate and pure Spirit which the Latins call Lemures Manes Ghosts or Souls of the dead and my Text Spirits made perfect a being much like unto the Angels who are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 bodiless Powers An Angel as one speaks is a perfect Soul a Soul is an imperfect Angel I do not say that upon their Separation they become Angels for they will still remain a distinct Species of Spirits Semper à corporis compedibus nexibus liberi Max. Tyr. Angels have no inclination to Bodies nor were ever fettered with cloggs of flesh as Souls were And by this you see what a difference there is betwixt these two considerations of death How gastly and affrighting is it in its previous pangs how lovely and desireable in the issue and result of them which is but the change of Earth for Heaven men for God sin and misery for perfection and glory PROP. III. The Separation of the Soul and Body makes a great and wonderful change upon both but especially upon the Soul THere is a twofold change made upon man by death one upon his Body another upon his Soul The change upon the Body is great and visible to every eye A living Body is changed into a dead carcase A beautiful and comely Body into a loathsome spectacle that which lately was the object of delight and love is hereby made an abhorrence to all flesh Bury my dead out of my sight Gen. 23.4 What the Sun is to the greater that the Soul is to the lesser World When the Sun shines comfortably how vegete and chearful do all things look How well do they thrive and prosper The Birds sing merrily the Beasts play wantonly the whole Creation enjoyeth a day of light and joy but when it departs what a night of horror followeth How are all things wrapt up in the sable Mantle of darkness Or if it but abate its heat as in Winter the Creatures are as it were buried in the winding-sheet of Winters frost and Snow just so it is with the Body when the Soul shineth pleasantly upon it or departs from it That Body which was fed so assiduously cared for so anxiously loved so passionately is now tumbled into a pit and left to the mercy of crawling Worms The change which judgment made upon that great and flourishing City Nineveh is a fit emblemâ— to â—hadow forth that change which death makes upon humane Bodies That great and renowned City was once full of people which thronged the streets thereof there you might have seen children playing upon the Thresholds Beauties shewing themselves through the windows Melody sounding in its Palaces But what an alteration was made upon it the Prophet Zephaniah describes Chap. â— v. 14. Flocks shall lye down in the midst of her all the Beasts of the Nations both the Cormorant and the Bittern shall lodge in the upper lintels of it their voice shall sing in the windows desolation shall be in the thresholds for he shall uncover the Cedar work Thus it is with the Body when death hath dislodged the Soul Worms nestle in the holes where the beautiful eyes were once placed Corruption and desolation is upon all parts of that stately structure But this being a vulgar Theam I shall leave the Body to the dust from whence it came and follow the Soul which is my proper subject pointing at the changes which are made on it The essence of the Soul is not destroyed or changed by the Bodies ruine It is substantially the self same Soul that it was when in the Body The supposition of an essential change would disorder the whole frame and model of Gods eternal design for the Redemption and glorification of it Rom. 8.29 30. but yet though it undergo no substantial change at death yet divers great and remarkable alterations are made upon it by sundering it from the Body As 1. It is not where it was It was in a Body immerst in matter married unto flesh and blood but now it is out of the Body uncloathed and stript naked out of its garments of flesh like pure Gold melted out of the ore with which it was commixed or as a Birdlet out of her Cage into the open Fields and Woods This makes a great and wonderful change upon it 2. Being free from the Body it is consequently discharged and freed from all those â—ares studies fears and sorrows to which it was here enthralled and subjected upon the Bodies account It puts off all those
and perfect than when the Body in an Ecstasie is laid aside as to any use or assistance of the mind The Soul for that space uses not the Bodies assistance as the very words Ecstasie and Rapture convince us Si autem hoc non est ex natura animae sed per accidens hoc convenit ei ex to quod corpori alligatur sicut Platonics posuâ—runt de facili quaestio solvi possit Nam remoto impedimento corporis rediret anima ad suam naturam Aquin. p. 1. Q. 8. Art 1. 2. To understand by Species doth not agree to the Soul naturally and necessarily but by accident as it is now in Union with the Body Were it but once loosed from the Body it would understand better without them than ever it did in the Body by them A Man that is on Horse-back must move according to the motion of the Horse he rides but if he were on Foot he then uses his own proper motion as he pleaseth So here But though we grant the Soul doth in many cases now make use of Phantasms and that the agitation of the Spirits which are in the Brain and Heart are conjunct with its acts of Cogitation and Intellection Yet as a searching Scholar well observes The Spirits are rather Subjects than Instruments of those actions And the whole essence of those acts is antecedent to the motion of the Spirits As when we use a Pen in writing or a Knife in cutting How 's Blessedness pag. 174 175. there is an operation of the Soul upon them before there can be any operation by them They act as they are first acted and so do these bodily Spirits So that to speak properly the Body is bettered by the use the Soul makes of it in these its noble actions but the Soul is not advantaged by being tied to such a Body It can do its own work without it its operations follow its essence not the Body to which it is for a time united In summ 'T is much more absonous and difficult to conceive a stupefied benumbed and unactive Soul whose very nature is to be active lively and always in motion than it is to conceive a Soul freed from the shackles and clogs of the Body acting freely according to its own nature I wish the favourers of this Opinion may take heed lest it carry them farther than they intend even to a denial of its Existence and Immortality and turn them into down-right Sâ—matists or Atheists PROP. VI. That the separated Souls of the just having finished all their work of obedience on earth and the Spirit having finished all his work of Sanctification upon them they do ascend to God with all the habits of Grace inherent in them and all the comfortable improvements of their Graces accompanying and following them THis Proposition is to be opened and confirmed in these four Branches 1 When a gracious Soul is separated from the Body all its work of obedience in this World is finished Therefore death is called the finishing of our course Acts 20.24 the night when man works no more Iohn 9.4 There is no working in the grave Eccles. 9.10 for death dissolves the Compositum and removes the Soul immediately to another World where it can act for it self only but not for others as it was wont to do on earth I shall see man no more saith Hezekiah with the Inhabitants of the World Isaiah 38.11 that which was said of David's death is as true of every Christian that having served his Generation according to the Will of God he fell asleep Acts 13.36 I do not say this lower World receives no benefit at all by them after their death for though they can speak no more write no more pray for and instruct the Inhabitants of this World no more nor exhibit to them the beauty of Religion in any new acts or examples of theirs which is that I mean by saying they have finished all their work of obedience on earth Yet the benefit of what they did whilst in the Body still remains after they are gone as the Apostle speaks of Abel Hebr. 11.4 Who being dead yet speaketh This way indeed abundance of service will be done for the Souls of men upon earth long after they are gone to Heaven And this should greatly quicken us to leave as much as we can behind us for the good of Posterity that after our decease as the Apostle speaks 2 Pet. 1.15 they may have our words and examples in remembrance But for any service to be done de novo after death it is not to be expected We have accomplished as an Hireling our day and have not a stroke more to do 2 As all our work of obedience is then finished by us so at death all the Work of God is finished by his Spirit upon us The last hand is then put to all the preparatory work for glory not a stroke more to be done upon it afterward which appears as well by the immediate succession of the life of glory whereof I shall speak in another Proposition as by the cessation of all sanctifying means and instruments which are totally laid aside as things of no more use after this stroke is given Adepto fine cessant media Means are useless when the end is attain'd There is no work saith Solomon in the Grave How short soever the Souls stay and abode in the Body was though it were regenerated one day and separated the next yet all that is wrought upon it which God ever intended should be wrought in this World and there is no preparation-work in the other World 3 But though the Soul leave all the means of grace behind it yet it carries away with it to Heaven all those habits of grace which were planted and improved in it in this World by the blessing of the Spirit upon those means though it leave the Ordinances it loseth not the effects and fruits of them though they cease their effects still live The truth dwelleth in us and shall be in us for ever 1 John 2.17 The Seed of God remaineth in us 1 John 3.9 Common gifts fall at death but saving grace sticks fast in the Soul and ascends with it into glory Gracious habits are inseparable Glory doth not destroy but perfect them They are the Souls meetness for Heaven Col. 1.12 and therefore it shall not come into his presence leaving its meetness behind it In vain is all the work of the Spirit upon us in this World if we carry it not along with us into that World seeing all his works upon us in this life have a respect and relation to the life to come Look therefore as the same natural Faculties and Powers which the Soul had though it could not use them in its imperfect Body in the Womb came with it into this World where they freely exerted themselves in the most noble actions of natural life so the habits of Grace which by Regeneration are here
done to it in order to its preparation for our Souls So that no delay can be upon that account 2 The departed Souls of Believers are as ready for Heaven as ever they shall be For there is no preparation-work to be done by them or upon them after death Ioh. 9.3 Eccles. 9.10 Their justification was compleat before death and now their sanctification is so too Sin which came in by the Union going out at the separation of their Souls and Bodies They are Spirits made perfect 3 The Scripture is plain and full for their immediate glorification Luke 23.43 To day shalt thou be with me in Paradise Luke 16.22 The Beggar dyed and was carried by the Angels into Abraham's bosome Philip. 1.21 I desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ which is far better The Scripture speaks but of two ways by which Souls see and enjoy God viz. Faith and Sight the one imperfect suited to this life the other perfect fitted for the life to come and this immediately succeeding that for the imperfect is done away by the coming of that which is perfect as the Twilight is done away by the advancing of the perfect day 4 To conclude There is nothing in reason lying in bar to it It hath been proved before the Soul in its unbodied State is capable to enjoy blessedness and can perform its acts of Intellection Volition c. not only as well but much better than it did when embodied I conclude therefore That seeing Heaven is already as much prepar'd for Believers as it need be or can be and they as much prepar'd from the time of their Dissolution as ever they shall be The Scriptures also being so plain for it and no bar in reason against it All the forementioned Opinions are but the Dreams and Fancies of men who have forsaken their Scripture-guide and this remains an unshaken truth That the Spirits of the just go immediately to glory from the time of their Separation PROP. VIII At the time a gracious Souls separation from the Body it is instantly and perfectly freed from sin which till that time dwelt in it from its beginning But thenceforth shall do so no more IMmediately upon their separation from the Body Ideoque vocat conseâ—ratos vel perfectos quia carnis infirmitatibus non amplius sint obnoxii depositâ ipsâ carne Marl. in loc they are Spirits made perfect as my Text stiles them and that Epithet perfect could never suit them if there were any remaining root or habit of corruption in them The time yea the set time is now come to put an end to all the dolorous groans of gracious Souls upon the account of indwelling sin What the Angel said to Ioshua Zech. 3.3 4. The same doth God say of every upright Soul at the time of its separation Take away the filthy Garments from him and cloath him with change of rayments and set a fair Miter upon his head Thus the Garments spotted with the flesh are taken away with the Body of flesh and the pure unchangeable Robes of perfect holiness cloathed upon the Soul in which it appears without fault before the Throne of God Rev. 14.5 There is a threefold burdensom evil in sin under which all regenerated souls groan in this life viz. 1 The Guilt 2 The Filth 3 The Inherence of it in their nature And there is a threefold Remedy or cure of these evils The guilt of sin is remedied by justification The filth of sin is inchoatively healed by sanctification The inherence of sin is totally eradicated by glorification For as it entred into our persons by the union of our Souls and Bodies so it is perfectly cast out by their disunion or separation at death The last stroak is then given to the work of sanctification and the last is evermore the perfecting stroak Sin languished under imperfect sanctification in the time of life but it gives up the Ghost under perfected sanctification from 〈◊〉 after death Sanctification gave it its deadly wound but glorification its final Abolition For it is with our sins after Regeneration as it was with that Beast mentioned Dan. 7.12 which though it was wounded with a deadly wound yet its life was prolonged for a season And this is the appointed season for its expiration For if at their dissolution they are immediately received into glory as it hath been proved they are in our seventh Proposition they must necessarily be freed perfectly from sin immediately upon their dissolution because nothing that is unclean can enter into that pure and holy place They must be as the Text truly represents them The Spirits of just men made perfect For if so great holiness and purity be required in all that draw nigh to God upon earth as you read Psal. 93.5 certainly those who are admitted immediately to his Throne must be without fault according to Rev. 7.14 15 16 17. When a compounded being comes to be dissolved each part returns to its own principle so it is here The Spirit of man and all the grace that is in it came from God and to him they return at death and are perfected in him and by him The flesh returns to the earth whence it came and all that body of sin is destroyed with it neither the one or other shall be a snare or clog to the soul any more A Christian in this World is but Gold in the Ore at death the pure Gold is melted out and separated and the dross cast away and consumed Hence three Consectaries offer themselves to us Consectary I. That a Believers life and warfare end together We lay not down our weapons of war till we lie down in the dust 2 Timothy 4.7 I have fought a good fight I have finished my course The course and conflict you see are finished together Though they commence from different terms yet they always terminate together Grace and sin have each acted its part upon the Stage of time and the victory hovered doubtfully sâ—â—â—times over Sin and sometimes over Grace but now the â—â—r is ended and the quarrel decided Grace keeps its ground and sin is finally vanquished Now and never before the gracious Soul stands triumphing like that noble Argive In vacuo solus Sessor Plausorque Theatro not an Enemy left to renew the Combat the war is ended and with it all the fears and sorrows of the Saints Consectary II. Separated Souls become impeccable or free from all the hazard of sin from the time of their separation For there being no root of sin now inherent in them consequently no temptation to sin can fasten upon them all temptations have their handles in the Corruptions of our natures Did not Satan find matter prepar'd within us dry tinder fitted to his hand he might strike in temptations long enough before one of his hellish sparks could catch or fasten upon us Temptations are grievous exercises to Believers they are darts Eph. 6.16 they are thorns 2 Cor. 12.7 but
and admit the dreadful conclusion These are the last and therefore oft-times the most violent conflicts The malice of Satan will send them halting to Heaven if he cannot bar them out of it 3 To conclude The hidings of Gods face puts terror into the face of death and makes a dying day a dark and gloomy day All darkness disposes to fear but none like inward darkness They must like a Ship in distress venture into the Harbour in the dark though they see not their Land-marks 2. But others have the priviledge of an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 easy death a comfortable and sweet passage into glory through the broad gate of assurance 2 Pet. 1.11 Even an abundant entrance into the everlasting Kingdom What a difference doth God make not only betwixt those that have grace and those that have none but betwixt gracious Souls themselves in this matter The things which usually make an easy passage to Heaven are 1 A pardon cleared Isai. 33.24 The Sense of pardon swallows up the sense of pain 2 An heart weaned from this world Heb. 11.9 13 16. An heart loosed from the World is a foot out of the snare Mortified limbs are cut off from the Body with little pain 3 Fervent love to Christ and longings to be with him Philip. 1.23 He that loves Christ fervently must needs loath absence from Christ proportionably 4 Purity and peace of Conscience make a death-bed soft and easie The strains and wounds of Conscience in the time of life are so many Thorns in our Bed or pillow in the time of Death 1 Iohn 3.21 But integrity gives boldness 5 The work of obedience faithfully finished or a steddy course of holiness throughout our life is that which usually yields much peace and joy in death Acts 20.24 6 But above all the presence of the Comforter with us in that cloudy and dark day turns it into one of the days of Heaven 1 Pet. 4.14 And thus you see though all dying Christians be equally safe and all supported and carried through by the power of God yet their farewels to the Body are not alike chearful There are many external and internal circumstantial differences in the deaths of good men as well as a substantial and essential difference betwixt all their deaths and the death of a wicked man QUEST III. Whether any Souls have notices and forewarnings given them by Signs or Predictions in an extraordinary way of their approaching Separation Terms open'd The terms of this Question need a little explanation Let us therefore briefly consider what is meant by signs what by predictions and what by extraordinary signs and predictions A sign is that which represents something else to us than that which is seen Signâ—m est quod aliud repraesentat quam quod cernitur or heard And a sign of death is that which gives notice to our minds that our departure is at hand A Prediction is a forewarning of a person more plainly and expresly of any thing which is afterwards to fall out or come to pass Praedicâ—re est aliquem de re aliqâ—a eventuâ—a praemonere and a prediction of death is an express notice or message informing us of our own or of anothers Death to the end the mind may be actually disposed to an expectation thereof Of Signs some are ordinary and natural some extraordinary and supernatural or at least preternatural There are natural symptoms and prognosticks of Death which are common to most dying persons and by which Physicians inform themselves and others of the state of the Sick These are out of this Question we have nothing to do with them here but I am inquiring after extraordinary signs and predictions by words or things forewarning us immediately or by others of our approaching death The Question is whether such intimations of Death be at any time truly given unto men or whether we are to take them for fabulous reports and superstitious fancies For the Negative Reasons for the Negative the following grounds are laid REASON I. The sufficient ordinary provision God hath made in this case renders all such extraordinary notices and intimations of our Death needless And be sure the most wise God doth nothing in vain We have three standing ordinary and sufficient means to premonish us of our departure hence viz. the Scriptures Reason and daily Examples of Mortality before our eyes The Scriptures tell us our life is but a vapour which appeareth for a little while and then vanisheth away James 4.14 That our days are but to an hand breadth and that every man in his best estate is vanity Psal. 39.5 Reason tells us so feeble a tye as our breath is can never secure our lives long The living know that they must dye Eccles. 9.5 The radical moisture which is daily consuming by the flame of life must needs be spent ere long And all the Graves we see opened so frequently are sufficient warnings that we our selves must shortly follow Therefore as there was no need of Manna when bread might be had in an ordinary way so neither is there need of extraordinary signs when God hath abundantly furnished us with standing and ordinary means for this purpose REASON II. And as the Scriptures render such signs needless so they seem to be directly against them Christ commands us to watch because we know not in what hour the Lord cometh Yea even Isaac himself an extraordinary person and endued with a Spirit of Prophecy whereby he foretold the condition of his Sons after him yet it 's said Gen. 27.2 That he knew not the day of his death And it is not reasonable to think that common persons should know that which extraordinary and prophetick persons knew not REASON III. All mankind belong either to God or the Devil To such as belong to God such extraordinary warnings are needless for they have a watchful principle within them which continually prompts them to mind their change and besides death cannot endanger those that are in Christ how suddainly or unexpectedly soever it should befal them And for wicked men it cannot be thought God should favour and priviledg them in this matter above his own children and as for Satan he knows not the time of their death himself and if he did it would thwart his design and interest to discover it to them Luke 11.21 So that upon the whole it should seem such signs and predictions are of no use and the relations and reports of them fabulous But though these reasons make the common and daily use of such signs and predictions needless E contra yet they destroy not the credibility of them in all cases and at all times For I. There are recorded instances in Scripture of premonitions and predictions of the death of persons Thus the death of Abijah was foretold to his Mother by the Prophet and the precise hour thereof which fell out answerably 1 King 14.6 12. And thus the death of the
King of Assyria was foretold exactly both as to kind and place Isaiah 37.7 37 38. II. These predictions serve to other ends and uses sometimes than the preparation of the persons warned even to display the foreknowledg power and justice of God in marking out his Enemies for ruine And thus the Lord is known by the judgments that he executeth Psal. 9.16 Thus Mr. Knox predicted the very place and manner of the death of the Laird of Grange Clark's Lives p. 277. You have sometime seen the courage and constancy of the Laird of Grange in the cause of God and now that unhappy man is casting himself away I pray you go to him from me said Mr. Knox and tell him that unless he forsake that wicked course he is in the Rock wherein he confideth shall not defend him nor the carnal wisdom of that man meaning the young Leshington whom he counteth half a God shall help him but he shall be shamefully pull'd out of that nest and his carcase hung before the Sun And even so it fell out the following year when the Castle was taken and his Body hang'd out before the Sun Thus God exactly fulfilled the prediction of his death The same Mr. Knox in the year 1566. being in the Pulpit at Edenburgh upon the Lords day a paper was given up to him among many others wherein these words were scoffingly written concerning the Earl of Murray who was slain the day before Take up the man whom ye accounted another God At the end of the Sermon Mr. Knox bewailed the loss that the Church and state had by the death of that vertuous man and then added There is one in this company that makes this horrible murther the subject of his mirth for which all good men should be sorry but I tell him he shall dye where there shall be none to lament him The man that wrote the Paper was one Thomas Metellan a young Gentleman who shortly after in his Travels died in Italy having none to assist or lament him III. And others have had premonitions and signs of their own deaths which accordingly fell out And these premonitions have been given them sometimes by strong irresistible impressions upon their minds sometimes in dreams and sometimes by unusual elevations of their Spirits in duties of Communion with God 1. Some have had strong and irresistible impressions of their approaching change made upon their minds So had Sir Anthony Wingfield who was slain at Brest Anno 1594. At his undertaking of that expedition Sir Iohn Norris his Expedition p. 46. he was strongly perswaded it would be his death and therefore so setled and disposed of his Estate as one that never reckoned to return again And the day before he died he took order for the payment of his debts as one that strongly presaged the time was now at hand which accordingly fell out the next day Much of the same nature was that of the late Earl of Marleburrough who fell in the Holland War He not only presaged his own fall in that Encounter which was exactly answered in the event but left behind him that memorable and excellent Letter which evidenced to all the World what deep fixed apprehensions of Eternity it had left upon his Spirit Many examples of this nature might be produced of such as have in their perfect health foretold their own death and others who have dropt such passages as were afterwards better understood by their sorrowful friends than when they first dropt from their lips 2. Others have been premonished of their death by Dreams sometimes their own and sometimes others The learned and judicious Amyraldus gives us this well attested relation of Lewis of Bourbon Amyraldus of divine Dreams p. 122 123. That a little before his journey from Dreux he dreamed that he had fought three successful Battels wherein his three great Enemies were slain but that at last he himself was mortally wounded and that after they were laid one upon another he also was laid upon the dead Bodies The event was remarkable for the Mareschal of St. Andree was killed at Dreux the Duke of Guise at Orleans the Constable of Montmorency at St. Denis and this was the Triumvirate which had sworn the ruine of those of the Religion and the destruction of that Prince At last he himself was slain at Basack as if there had been a continuation of deaths and funerals Suetonius in the life of Iulius Caesar tells us that the night before he was slain he had divers premonitions thereof for that night all the doors and windows of his chamber flew open his wife also dreamed that Caesar was slain and that she had him in her arms The next day he was slain in Pompey's Court having received three and twenty wounds in his Body Pamelius in the life of Cyprian tells us for a most certain and well attested truth that upon his first entrance into Carubis the place of his banishment it was revealed to him in a dream or vision that upon that very day twelve-month he should be consummate which accordingly sell out for a litle before the time prefixed there came suddainly two Apparators to bring him before the new Proconsul Galeius Pamelius in vita Cyprian by whom he was condemned as having been a Standard-bearer of his Sect and an Enemy of the Gods Whereupon he was condemned to be beheaded a multitude of Christians following him crying Let us die together with him And as remarkable is that recorded by the learned and ingenious Doctor Sterne of Mr. Vsher of Ireland a man saith he Dr. Sterne's disseâ—tatio de morte p. 163. of great integrity dear to others by his merits and my kinsman in blood who upon the eighth day of Iuly 1657. went from this to a better World About four of the clock the day before he died a Matron who died a little before and whilst living was dear to Mr. Vsher appeared to him in his sleep and invited him to sup with her the next night he at first denyed her but she more vehemently pressing her request on him at last he consented and that very night he died I have also the fullest assurance that can be of the truth of this following Narrative A person yet living was greatly concerned about the welfare of his dear Father and Mother who were both shut up in London in the time of the great Contagion in 1665. Many Lettets he sent to them and many hearty prayers to Heaven for them But about a fortnight before they were infected he fell about break of day into this dream That he was in a great Inn which was full of company and being very desirous to find a private room where he might feek God for his parents life he went from room to room but found company in them all at last casting his eye into a little chamber which was empty he went into it lockt the door kneeled down by the outside of the bed fixing
and it's Body in the Grave This associated with Angels that prey'd upon by Worms Ioseph's case is the liveliest Embleme that occurs to my present thoughts to illustrate the point in hand He was advanced to be Lord over all Aegypt living in the greatest pomp and splendor there Gen. 43.29 30 31. but his Father and Brethren were at the same time ready to perish in the land of Canaan He had been many years separated from them but neither the length of time nor honours of the Court could alienate his affections from them O see the mighty power of Relation No sooner doth he see his Brethren and understand their case and the pining condition of Iacob his Father but his bowels yearned and his compassions rolled together for them Yea he could not forbear nor stifle his own affections though he knew how injurious his Brethren had been to him and betrayed him as the Body hath the Soul Yet all this notwithstanding he breaks forth into tears and outcries over them which made the house ring again with the news that Ioseph's brethren were come Nor could he be at rest in the lap of honour and plenty until he had gotten home his dear and ancient Relations to him Thus stands the case betwixt Soul and Body Argument III. THE regret reluctancy and sorrows expressed by the Soul at parting do strongly argue its inclination to a re-union with it when it is actually separated from it For why should we surmise that the Soul which mourn'd and groan'd so deeply at parting which clasp'd and embraced it so dearly and affectionately which fought strugled and disputed the passage with death every foot and inch of ground it got and would not part with the Body till by plain force it was rent out of its arms should not when absent desire to see and enjoy its old and endeared friend again Hath it lost its affection though it continue its relation that 's very improbable Or doth its advancement in Heaven make it regardless of its Body which lies in contempt and misery that 's an effect which Christs personal glory never produced in him towards us nor a good mans perferment would produce in him to his poor and miserable friends in this World as we see in the case of Ioseph but now instanced in It is therefore harsh and incongruous to suppose the Souls love to the Body was extinguished in the parting hour and that now out of sight out of mind Object But was it not urged before in opposition to this assertion that the Souls of the righteous looked upon their Bodies as their Prisons and sighed for deliverance by death and greatly rejoiced in the hope and foresight of that liberty death would restore them to How doth this consist with such reluctancies at parting and inclinations to re-union Sol. The objection doth not suppose any man to be totally free from all reluctancies and unwillingness to die The holiest Souls that ever lived in Bodies of flesh will give an unwilling shrug when it comes to the parting point 2 Cor. 5.2 But this their willingness to be gone arises from two other grounds which make iâ— consistent enough with its reluctancies at parting and inclination to a second meeting 1 This willingness to die doth not suppose the Souls love to the Body to be utterly extinguished but mastered and overpowered by another and stronger love There is in every Christian a double love one natural to the Body and the things below the other supernatural to Christ and the things above the latter doth not extinguish though it conquer and subdue the other Love to the Body pulls backward love to Christ pulls forward and finally prevails This is so consistent with it that it supposes natural reluctation and unwillingness to part 2 The willingness of Gods people to be dissolved must not be understood absolutely but comparatively In that sense the Apostle will be understood 2 Cor. 5.8 We are confident I say and willing rather to be absent from the Body and present with the Lord. i. e. Rather than to live always a life of sin sorrow and absence from God Death is not desireable in and for it self but only as it is the Souls outlet from sin and its inlet to God So that the very best desire it but comparatively and it is but few who find the love of this animal life subacted and overpowered by high raised acts of faith and love The generality even of good Souls feel strong renitencies and suffer sharp conflicts at their dissolution All which discovers with what lothness and unwillingness the Soul unclasps its arms to let go its Body Now as Divines argue the frame of Christs heart in Heaven toward his people on earth from all those endearing passages and demonstrations of love he gave them at parting so we here argue the continued love and inclination of the Soul to its Body after it is in Heaven from the manifold demonstrations it gave of its affection to it in this World especially in the parting hour No considerations in all the World less than the more full fruition of God and freedom from sin could possibly have prevailed with it to quit the Body though but for a time and leave it in the dust Which is our third Argument Argument IV. AND as the dolorous parting hour evidenceth it so doth the joy with which it receives it again at the Resurrection If it part from it so heavily and meet it again with joy unspeakable sure then it still retained much love for it and desires to be re-espoused to it in the interval Now that its meeting in the Resurrection is a day of joy to the Soul is evident because it is called the time of refreshment Acts 3.19 And they awake with singing out of the dust Isai. 26.19 If the direct and immediate scope of the Prophet point not as some think it doth at the Resurrection yet it is allowed by all to be a very lively allusion to it which is sufficient for my purpose And indeed none that understands and believes the design and business of that day can possibly doubt but there was reason enough to call it a time of refreshment a singing morning for the Souls of the righteous come from Heaven with Christ and the whole host of shouting Angels not to be speclators only but the subjects of that days triumph They come to re-assume and be re-espoused to their own Bodies this being the appointed time for God to vindicate and rescue them from the tyrannical power of the Grave to endow them with spiritual qualities at their second marriage to their Souls that in both parts they may be compleatly happy O the joyful claspings and dear embraces betwixt them who but themselves can understand And by the way this removes the objection forementioned of the miseries and prejudices the Soul suffered in this world in and from the Body For now it receives it a spiritual Body i.e. so
were in the World and if it should be ours also we should not be much startled at it considering these Bodies of ours must be shortly pent up in a straiter darker and more loathsome place of confinement than any prison in this World can be The grave is a darker place Iob 17.13 And your abode there will be longer Eccles. 11.8 These and all other our outward enjoyments are separable things and its good thus to alleviate our loss of them Inference VI. HOw Heavenly should the tempers and frawles of those Souls be who are Candidates for Heaven and must be so shortly numbred with the Spirits of just men made perfect 'T is reasonable that we all begin to be that which we expect to be for ever To learn that way of living and conversing which we believe must be our everlasting life and business in the World to come Let them that hope to live with Angels in Heaven learn to live like Angels on Earth in Holiness Activity and ready obedience There is the greatest reason that our minds be there where our Souls are to be for ever A spiritual mind will be found possible congruous sweet and evidential of our interest in that glory to all those holy Souls who are preparing and designed for it First it is possible notwithstanding the clogs and entanglements of the Body to be heavenly minded Others have attained it Philip. 3.20 Two things make an heavenly conversation possible to men viz. 1. The natural abilities of the Mind 2. The gracious principles of the Mind 1. The natural abilities of the mind which can in a minutes time dispatch a nimble messenger to Heaven and mount its thoughts from this to that World in a trice The power of cogitation is a rich endowment of the Soul such as no other creature on earth is participant of Though spiritual thoughts be not the natural growth of the Soul yet thoughts capable of being spiritualized are And without this ability of projecting thoughts all intercourse must have been cut off 2. The gracious principles implanted in the Soul do actually incline the mind and mount its thoughts heaven-ward Yea this will prove more than a possibility of a conversation in Heaven whilst Saints tabernacle on earth in Bodies of flesh it will almost prove an impossibility that it should be otherwise For these spiritual principles setting the bent and tendency of the heart heaven-ward we must act against the very law of our new Nature when we place our affections elsewhere Secondly A mind in heaven is most congruous decorous and comely for those that are the enrolled inhabitants of that heavenly City Where should a Christians love be but where his Lord is Our hearts and our homes do not use to be long asunder It becomes you so to think and so to speak now as those who make account to be shortly singing Allelujahs before the throne Thirdly 'T is most sweet and delightful no pleasure in all this World comparable to this pleasure Rom. 8.6 To be spiritually minded is life and peace 'T is a young Heaven born in the Soul in its way thither Fourthly To conclude It is evidential of your interest in it an agreable frame is the surest title Col. 3.1 2. Matth 6.21 If Heaven attract your minds now it will centre them for ever USE II. THis Doctrine of the separation of the Spirits of the Just from their Bodies as it lyes before you in this Discourse affords a singular help to all the people of God to entertain lovely and pleasant thoughts of that day to make death not only an unregretted but a most pleasant and desirable thing to their Souls I know there is a pure simple natural fear of death from which you must not expect to be perfectly freed by all the Arguments in the World And there is a reverential awful fear of death which it would be your prejudice and loss to have destroyed You will have a natural and ought to have a reverential fear of death the one flows from your sensitive the other from your sanctified nature But it is a third sort of fear which doth you all the mischief a fear springing in gracious Souls out of the weakness of their Graces and the strength of their unmortified affections A fear arising partly out of the darkness of our minds and partly out of the sensuality and earthlyness of our hearts this fear is that which so convulseth our Souls when death is near and imbitters our lives even whilst it is at a distance He that hath been over-heated in his affections to this World and over-cooled by diversions and temptations neglects and intermissions to that World cannot chuse but give an unwilling shrug if not a frightful screech at the appearance of death And this being the sad case of too many good and upright Souls for the main and there being so few even amongst serious Christians that have attained to that courage and complacence in the thoughts of death which the Apostle speaks of 2 Cor. 5.8 to be both confident and willing rather to be absent from the Body and to be present with the Lord I will from this discourse furnish them with some special assistance therein But withal I must tell you upon what great disadvantages I am here to dispute with your fears so strong is the current of natural and vicious fear that except a special hand of God back and set on the Arguments that shall be urged they will be as easily swept away before it as so many Straws by a rapid Torrent nor will it be to any more purpose to oppose my breath to them than to the Tides and Waves of the Sea Moreover I am fully convinced by long and often experience how unsteady and inconstant the frames and tempers of the best hearts are and that if it be not full home yet it is next to an impossibility to fix them in such a temper as this I aim at is Where is that man to be found who after the revolutions of many years and in those years various dispensations of providence without him altering his condition and greater variety of temptations within can yet say notwithstanding all these various aspects and positions his heart hath still held one steddy and invariable tenour and course Alas there be very few if any of such sound and Athletick temper of mind whose pulse beats with an even stroke through all inequalities of condition alike free and willing at one time as another to be uncloathed of the Body and to be with Christ. This heighth of faith and depth of mortification this strength of love to Christ and ardour of holy desire are degrees of grace to which very few attain The case standing thus it is no more than needs to urge all sorts of Arguments upon our timorous and unsteady hearts and it 's like to prove an hard and difficult task to bring the heart but to a quiet and unregretting submission to the appointment
of God herein though submission be one of the lowest steps of duty in this case If it be hard to fix our thoughts but an hour upon such an unpleasing subject as death how hard mâ—st it be to bring over the consent of the will If we cannot endure it at a distance in our thoughts how shall we embrace and hug it in our bosoms If our thoughts flie back with distaste and impatience no wonder if our will be obstinate and refractory We must first prevail with our thoughts to fix themselves and think close to such a subject before it can be expected we chearfully resign our selves into the hands of death We cannot be willing to go along with death till we have some acquaintance with it and acquainted with it we cannot be till we accustome our selves to think assiduously and calmly of it They that have dwelt many years at deaths door both in respect of the condition of their Bodies and disposition of their minds yet find reluctancy enough when it comes to the point Objection But if separation from the Body be as it is an enemy to Nature and there be no possibility to extinguish natural aversation to what purpose is it to argue and perswade where there is no expectation of Success Solution Death is considerable two ways by the people of God 1. As an Enemy to Nature 2. As a medium to Glory If we consider it simply in it self as an Enemy to Nature there is nothing in it for which we should desire it but if we consider it as a medium or passage into glory yea the only ordinary way through which all the Saints must pass out of this into a better state so it will appear not only tolerable but desirable to prepared Souls Were there not a shore of glory on the other side of these black Waters of death for my own part I should rather chuse to live meanly than to die easily If both parts were to perish at death there were no reason to perswade one to be willing to deliver up the other It were a madness for the Soul to desire to be dissolv'd if it were so far from being better out of the Body than in it that it should have no being at all But Christians let me tell you death is so far from being a Bar that it is a Bridge in your way to glory and you are never like to come thither but by passing over it except therefore you will look beyond it you will never see any desireableness in it I desire to be dissolv'd saith Paul and to be with Christ which is far better To be with Death is sad but to be with Christ is sweet to endure the pains of death is doleful but to see the face of Christ is joyful To part with your pleasant habitations is irkesome but to be lodged in the heavenly Mansions is most delightful A parting hour with dear Relations is cutting but a meeting hour with Jesus Christ is transporting To be rid of your own Bodies is not pleasing but to be rid of sin and that for ever What can be more pleasing to a gracious Soul You see then in what sense I present death as a desirable thing to the people of God And therefore seeing nature teacheth us as the Apostle speaks to put the more abundant comeliness upon the uncomely parts suffer me to dress up death in its best ornaments and present it to you in the following Arguments as a beautiful and comely object of your conditional and well regulated desires And Argument I. IF upon a fair and just account there shall appear to be more gain to Believers in Death than there is in Life reason must needs vote death to be better to them that are in Christ than life can be and consequently it should be desireable in their eyes 'T is a clear dictate of reason in case of choice to chuse that which is best for us Who is there that freely exercises reason and choice together that will not do so What Merchant will not part with an hundred pounds worth of Glass Beads and Pendents for a Tun of Gold A few Tinsell Toyes for as many rich Diamonds Mercatura est amittere ut lucreris that is true Merchandize to part with things of lesser for things of greater value Now if you will be tried and determined by Gods Book of Rates then the case is determined quickly and the advantage appears exceedingly upon deaths side Philip. 1.21 To me to live is Christ and to die is gain Objection True it might be so to Paul who was eminent in grace and ripe for glory but it may be loss to others who have not attained the heighth of his holiness or assurance Sol. The true and plain sense of the Objection is this whether Heaven and Christ be as much gain to him that enjoys it though he be behind others both in grace and obedience as it is to them who are more eminent in grace and have done and suffered more for its sake and let it be determined by your selves but if your meaning be that Paul was ready for death and so are not you his work and course was almost comfortably finished and so is not yours his death therefore must needs be gain to him but it may be loss to you even the loss of all that you are worth for ever To this I say the Wisdom of God orders the time of his peoples death as well as all other Circumstances about it and in this your hearts may be at perfect rest That being in Christ you can never die to your loss die when you will I know you will reply that if your Union with Christ were clear the Controversie were ended but then you must also consider they are as safe who die by an act of recumbency upon Christ as those that die in the fullest assurance of their interest in him And beside your Reluctancies and Aversations to death are none of your way to assurance but such a strong aversation to sin and such a vehement desire after and love to Christ as can make you willing to quit all that is dear and desireable to you in this World for his sake is the very next door or step to assurance and if the Lord bring your hearts to this frame and fix them there it is not like you will be long without it But to return Paul had here valued life with a full allowance of all the benefits and advantages of it To me to live is Christ that is if I live I shall live in Communion with Christ and service for Christ and in the midst of all those Comforts which usually result from both Here 's life with the most weighty and desireable benefits of it laid in one scale and he lays death and probably a violent death too for of that he speaks to them afterwards in Chap. 2.17 thus he fills the Scales and the Balance breaks on deaths side yea it
comes down with a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a far far better But here falls in * Mr. How in Mrs. Margaret Baxter's Funeral Sermon as an Excellent Person observes a Rubb in the way there are in this case two Judges the Flesh and Spirit and they cannot agree upon the values but contradict each other Nature saith It 's far far better to live than to die and will not be beaten off from it What then I hope you will not put blind and partial nature in competition with God also as you do life with death but seeing Nature can plead so powerfully as well as Grace let us hear what those strong reasons are that are urged by the flesh on lifes side and what the Soul hath to reply and plead on deaths side for the Body can plead and that charmingly too though not by words and sounds and then determine the matter as we shall see cause but be sure prejudice pull not down the Balance I. The Pleas of Nature for life and against dissolution And here the doleful voice of Nature laments pleads and bemoans it self to the willing Soul O my Soul What dost thou mean by these thy desires to be dissolved Art thou in earnest when thou saist thou art willing to leave thine own Body and be gone Consider and think again ere thou bid me farewel what thou art to me and what I have been and am to thee thou art my Soul that is my Prop my Beauty my Honour my Life and indeed all that is comfortable to me If thou depart what am I but a Spectacle of Pity an abhorred Carcass in a few moments A prey to the Worms a Captive to Death If thou depart my Candle is put out and I am left in the horrours of darkness I am thy House thy delightful habitation the House in which thou hast dwelt from the first moment of thy Creation and never lodgedst one Night in any other every Room in me hath one way or another been a Banquetting-room for thy entertainment a Room of pleasure all my Senses have been Purveyors for thy delight my Members have all of them been thine Instruments and Servants to execute thy Commands and Pleasure if thou and I part it must be in a showre thou shalt feel such pains such travelling throes such deep emphatical groans such Sweats such Agonies as thou never felt'st before For Death hath somewhat of anguish peculiar to it self and which is unknown though guessed at by the Living Beside when ever thou leavest me thou leavest all that is and hath been comfortable to thee in this World thy House shall know thee no more Iob 7.10 thy Lands thy Money thy Trade which hath cost thee so many careful thoughts and yielded thee so many Refreshments shall be thine no longer Death will strip thee out of all these and leave thee naked Thou hast also since thou becamest mine contracted manifold Relations in the World which I know are dear unto thee I know it by costly experience How hast thou made me to wear and wast my self in Labours Cares and Watchings for them But if thou wilt be gone all these must be left exposed God knows to what Wants Abuses and Miseries for I can do nothing for them or my self if once thou leave me Thus it charms and pleads thus it layeth as it were violent hands upon the Soul and saith O my Soul thou shalt not depart It hangs about it much as the Wife and Children of good Galeacius Carracciolus did about him when he was leaving Italy to go to Geneva a lively Emblem of the Case before us It saith to the Soul as Ioab did to David thou hast shamed my face this day in that thou lovest thine Enemy Death and hatest me thy friend O my Soul my Life my Darling my Dear and only one let nothing but unavoidable necessity part thee and me All this the Flesh can plead and a great deal more than this and that a thousand times more powerfully and feelingly than any words can plead the case And all its Arguments are backt by sense Sight and Feeling attest what Nature speaks II. The Pleas of Faith in behalf of Death Let us in the next place weigh the Pleas and Reasons which notwithstanding all this do overpower and prevail with the Believing Soul to be gone and quit its own Body and return no more to the Elementary World And thus the power of Faith and Love enable it to reply My dear Body the Companion and Partner of my Comforts and Troubles in the days of my Pilgrimage on earth great is my love and strong are the Bonds of my affections to thee Thou hast been tenderly yea excessively beloved by me my cares and fears for thee have been unexpressible and nothing but the love of Jesus Christ is strong enough to gain my consent to part with thee thy interest in my affections is great but as great as it is and as much as I prize thee I can shake thee off and thrust thee aside to go to Christ. Nor may this seem absurd or unreasonable considering that God never designed thee for a Mansion but only a temporary Tabernacle to me 't is true I have had some comfort during my abode in thee but I enjoyed those Comforts only in thee not from thee and many more I might have enjoyed hadst thou not been a snare and a clog to me 'T is thou that hast eaten up my time and distracted my thoughts ensnared my affections and drawn me under much sin and sorrow However though we may weep over each other as Accessories to the sins and miseries we have drawn upon our selves yet in this is our joint relief that the Blood of Christ hath cleansed us both from all sin And therefore I can part the more easily and comfortably from thee because I part in hope to receive and enjoy thee in a far better condition than I leave thee It is for both our interest to part for a time for mine because I shall thereby be freed and delivered from sin and sorrow and immediately obtain rest with God and the satisfaction of all my desires in his presence and enjoyment which there is no other way to obtain but by separation from thee and why should I live a groaning burthened restless life always to grantifie thy fond and irrational desires If thou lovedst me thou would'st rejoice and not repine at my happiness Parents willingly part with their Children at the greatest distance for their preferment how dearly soever they love them and dost thou envy or repine at mine I lived many Months a suffocating obscure life with thee in the Womb and neither thou nor I had ever tasted or experienced the Comforts of this World and the various Delights of sense if we had not cast the Secundine and strugled hard for an entrance into this World And now we are here alas though thou art contented to abide I live in thee but as we
and the Power of God q d. did you know and believe the Scriptures of God and the Power of God you would never question this Doctrine of the Resurrection which is built upon them both The Power of God convinceth all men that know and believe it that it may be â—o and the Scriptures of God convince all that know and believe them that it must be so as for his Power Who can doubt it At the Command and fiat of God the Earth brought forth every living Creature after his kind Gen. 1.24 25. at his Command Lazarus came forth Iohn 11.43 And was there not as much difficulty in either of these as in our Resurrection By this Power our Souls were quickened and raised from the death of sin and guilt to the Spiritual life of Christ Eph. 1.19 and is it not as easie to raise a dead Body as a dead Soul But what stand I arguing in so plain a Case when we are assured this mighty Power is able to subdue all things to it self Phil. 3.21 And then for his promise that it shall be so What can be plainer See 1 Thes. 4.15 16. This we say unto you by the Word of the Lord c. i.e. In the Name or Auhority of the Lord and by Commission and Warrant from him he first opens his Commission shews his Credentials and then publishes the comfortable Doctrine of the Resurrection and the Saints preheminence to all others therein Well then what remains in death to fright and scare a Believer is it our parting with these Bodies Why it is not for ever that we part with them as sure as the power and promises of God are true firm and sufficient to accomplish it we shall see and enjoy them again This comforted Iob chap. 19.25 26. over all his diseases when of all his enjoyments that once he had he could not say my Friends my Children my Estate yet then he could say my Redeemer When he looked upon a poor wasted withered loathsome Body of his own and saw nothing but a Skeleton an Image of death yet then could he see it a glorious Body by viewing it believingly in this glass of the Resurrection So then all the damage we can receive by death is but the absence of our Bodies for a time during which time the Covenant-relation betwixt God and them holds good and firm Matth. 22.32 He therefore will take care of them and in due time restore them with marvellous improvements and endowments to us again divested of all their infirmities and cloathed with Heavenly qualities and perfection 1 Cor. 15.43 44. And in the mean time the Soul attains its rest and happiness and satisfaction in the blessed God Argument IV. THE consideration of what we part from and what we go to should make the medium by which we pass from so much evil to so great good lovely and desireable in our eyes how unpleasing or bitter soever it be in it self No man desires Physick for it self There is no pleasure in bitter Pills and loathsome Potions except what rises from the end viz the disburthening of Nature and recovery of health and this gives it a value with the Sick and pained Under a like consideration is death desired by sick and pained Souls who find it better to dye once than groan under burthens continually Death is certainly the best Physician next and under Jesus Christ that ever was employed about them for it cures radically and perfectly so that the Soul never relapses any more into any distemper Other Medicines are but Anodynes or at best they relieve us but in part and for a time but this goes through the work and perfects the cure at once Methinks that Call of Christ which he gives his Spouse in Cant. 4.8 Come with me from Lebanon my Spouse with me from Lebanon look from the top of Amana from the top of Shenir and Hermon from the Lions dens from the Mountains of Leopards scarce suits any time so well as the time of death Then it is that we depart from the Lions Dens and the mountains of Leopards places uncomfortable and unsafe More particularly at death the Saints depart 1. From defiling corruptions inâ—o 1. Perfect purity 2. From heart sinking sorrows inâ—o 2. Fulness of joy 3. From entangling temptations inâ—o 3. Everlasting freedome 4. From distressing persecutions inâ—o 4. Full rest 5. From pinching wants inâ—o 5. Universal supplies 6. From distracting fears inâ—o 6. Highest security 7. From deluding shadows inâ—o 7. Substantial good 1. From defiling corruptions into perfect purity No sin hangs about the separated though it do about the sanctified Soul They come out of the Body suitable to that character and encomium Cant. 4.7 Thou art all fair my love there is no spot in thee It doth that for the Saints which all their graces and duties all their mercies and afflictions could never do Faith is a great purifier Communion with God a great cleanser sanctified afflictions a Refiner's fire and Fuller's Soap these have all done their parts and been useful in their places but none of them nor altogether perfected this cure till death come and then the work is done and the cure perfected All Weeping all Praying all Believing all Hearing all Sacraments all the means and instruments in the World cannot do what death will do for thee One dying hour will do what ten thousand praying hours never did nor could do In this hour the design of all those hours is accomplished as he that is dead by mortification is at present freedom from sin in respect of imputation and dominion Rom. 6.7 so he that being justified and mortified is dead naturally is immediately freed from the very indwelling and existence of sin in him We read of the washing of the Robes of the Saints in Rev. 7.14 The blood of the Lamb cleanseth them from every spot but it doth it gradually The last spot of guilt indeed was fetcht out by one act of justification but the last spot filth is not fetcht out till the time of their dissolution when they are come out of the Agonies of death which the Scripture calls great tribulation then and not till then are they perfectly cleansed Sin brought in death and death carries out sin O what a pure lovely shining Creature is the separated Spirit of a Just man How clear is its Judgment how ordinate its will how holy and altogether heavenly are all its affections now and never till now it feels it self perfectly well and as it would be 2. From heart-sinking Sorrows into fulness of Joy The life we now live is a groaning life 2 Cor. 5.2 where is the Christian that if his inside could be seen and his heart laid naked would not be found wounded from many hands From the hand of God of Enemies of Friends of Satan but especially by the hands of its own Corruptions Christ our Head was stiled a man of sorrows from the multitude of his Sorrows and it
these fears accompany many of Gods People from their Regeneration to their Dissolution O what would they not give what would they not do yea what would they not endure to get full satisfaction in those things Every working of Corruption every discovery made by Temptation puts them into a fright and makes them question all that ever was wrought in them And as their fears are great about the inward man so also about the outward man especially when such bloody preparations seem to be making by the same Enemies that have acted such and so many bloody Tragedies already in the World But at death they enter into perfect peace and security Isai 57.2 No wind of fear shall ever ruffle and disturb their Souls and put them into a storm any more 7. From deluding shadows into substantial good This World is the World of Shadows and delusive appearances Here we are imposed upon and baffled by empty and deceitful Vanities All we have here is little else but a Dream at death the Soul awakes out of its Dream and finds it self in the World of Realities where it feeds upon substantial good to satisfaction Psal. 17.15 Now the advantages accrewing to the Soul by death being so great and many though the Medium be harsh and ungrateful in it self yet there is all the reason in the World we should covet it for the benefits that come by it Argument V. THe foretasts we have had of Heaven already in the Body should make all the Saints long to be unbodied for the full and perfect fruition of that Joy seeing it cannot be fully and perfectly enjoyed by the Soul till it hath put off the Body by death That there are Praelibations First-fruits and Earnests of future glory given at certain seasons to Believers in this life is put beyond all doubting not only by Scripture-Testimonies but frequent experiences of God's People I speak not only with the Scriptures but with the clear experience of many Saints when I say there are to be felt and tasted even here in the Body the Earnests of our Inheritance Eph. 1.14 The first-fruits of the Spirit Rom. 8.23 The sealing of the Spirit Eph. 1.13 The very Ioy of the Lord 1 Pet. 1.8 of the same kind though in a remisser degree with that of the glorified That the fulness of this joy cannot be in us whilst we tabernacle in Bodies of flesh is as plain When Moses desired a sight of that face which the spirits of just men made perfect do continually behold and adore the Answer was No Man can see my face and live Exod. 33.18 19 20. q. d. Moses Thou askest a great thing and understandest not how unable thou art to support that which thou desirest should I shew thee my Glory in this compounded state thou now art it would confound thee and swallow thee up Nature as now constituted cannot support such a weight of Glory a Ray a glimpse of this light overpowers Man and breaks such a clay Vessel to pieces which is the reason why the Resurrection must intervene betwixt this state and that of the Bodies glorification And it is not to be doubted but one main end and reason why these foretasts of Heaven are given us in the Body is to embolden the Soul to venture through death it self for the full enjoyment of those Delights and Pleasures They are like the Grapes of Eshcol to the faint-hearted Israelites or the sweet Wines of Italy to the Gauls which once tasted made them restless till they had conquered that good Countrey where they grew Rom. 8.23 We which have the first-fruits of the Spirit even we our selves do groan within our selves waiting for the Adoption viz. The Redemption of our Bodies Well then reflect seriously upon those sweet tastes that you have had of God and his love in your sincere and secret addresses to him and converses with him What an holy forgetfulness of all things in this World hath it wrought How insipid and tastless hath it rendered the sweetest Creature-enjoyments What willingness to be dissolved for a more full fruition of it God this way brings Heaven nigh to your Souls out of design to overcome your Reluctancies at death through which you must pass to the enjoyment of it And after all those sights and tastes both of the truth and goodness of that state shall we still reluctate and hang back as if we had never tasted how good the Lord is O you may justly question whether you ever had a real taste of Jesus Christ if that taste do not kindle Coals of fire in your Bosomes I mean ardent longings to be with him and to be satiated with his love If you have been priviledged with a taste of thaâ— hidden Manna with the sight of things invisible with Joys unspeakable and full of glory and yet are loth to be gone to the fountain whence all this flows certainly you herein both cross the design of the spirit in giving them and cast a vile disgrace and reproach upon the blessed God as thinking there is more bitterness in death than there is sweetness in his presence Yea it argues the strength of that unbelief which still remains in your hearts that after so many tastes and tryals as you have had you still remain doubtful and hesitating about the certainty and reality of things invisible O what adoe hath God with his froward and peevish Children If he had only revealed the future state to us in his Word as the pure Object of Faith and required â—s to die upon the meer credit of his promise without such Pawns Pledges and Earnests as these are were there not reason enough for it But after such and so many wonderful and amazing Condescentions wherein he doth as it were say Soul if yet thou doubtest I will bring Heaven to thee thou shalt have it in thy own hand thy eyes shall see it thy hands shall handle it thy Mouth shall taste it how inexcusable is our Reluctancy Argument VI. IT should greatly fortifie the People of God against the fears of Dissolution to consider that death can neither destroy the being of their Souls by Annihilation nor the hopes and expectations they have of blessedness by disappointment and frustration Prov. 14.32 The Righteous hath hope in his death Though all earthly things fail at death upon which account dying is expressed by failing Luke 16.19 Yet neither the Soul nor the well grounded hopes can fail The Anchor of a Believers hope is firm and sure Hebr. 6.18 It will not come home in the greatest Storm that can beat upon the Soul For 1 God hath foreknown and chosen them to Salvation before the World was 1 Pet. 1.2 And this Foundation of God standeth sure having this Seal the Lord knoweth who are his 2 Tim. 2.19 His Decrees are as firm as Mountains of Brass Zâ—ch 6.1 2 God hath justified their persons and therein destroyed the power of death over them 1 Cor. 15.55 56 57. O death
themselves first into a deep guilt by compliance with Antichrist and receiving his mark then into an Hell upon Earth the remorse and horrour of their own consciences which gives them no rest day nor night he immediately subjoyns v. 13. Blessed are the dead that dye in the Lord yea from henceforth saith the spirit c. Oh 't is a special blessing and favour to be hid out of the way of those temptations and torments in a seasonable and quiet grave Argument IX YOur fixed aversation and unwillingness to die will provoke God to imbitter your lives with much more affliction than you have yet felt or would feel if your hearts were more mortified and weaned in this point You cannot think of your own deaths with pleasure no nor yet with patience Well take heed lest this draw down such troubles upon you as shall make you at last to say with Iob chap. 10. v. 1. My Soul is weary of my life An expression much like that 2 Sam. 1.9 Anguish is come upon me because my life is whole in me My Soul is hardened or become cruel against my life as the Chaldee renders it There is a twofold weariness of life one from an excellency of spirit a noble principle the ardent love of Jesus Christ Phil. 1.23 I desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ. Another from the meer pressures of affliction and anguish of Spirit under heavy and successive stroaks from the hand of God and men Is it not more excellent and desireable to groan for death under a pressure of love to Christ than of afflictions from Christ I am convinced that very many of our afflictions come upon this score and account to make us willing to dye Is it not sad that God is forced to bring death upon all our comfortable and desireable things in this World before he can gain our consents to be gone Why will you put God upon such work as this Why cannot he have your hearts at a cheaper rate If you could dye many of your comforts for ought I know might live Had Iacob come to Absalom when he sent for him the first or second time Absalom had never set his field of Barly on fire 2 Sam. 14.30 And if we were more obedient to the will of God in this matter 't is likely he would not consume your health and Estates and Relations with such heavy strâ—â—ks as he hath done and will yet farther do except your wills be more compliant Alas To cut off your comforts one after another and make you live a groaning life the Lord hath no pleasure in it but rather he had you should lose these things than that he should lose your hearts on Earth or company in Heaven Impatiens aegrotus crudelem facit Medicum Argument X. THe decree of death cannot be reversed nor is there any other ordinary passage for the Soul into Glory but through the gates of death Heb. 9.27 It is appointed for all men once to die but after that the Iudgment There is but one way to pass out of the obscure suffocating life in the Womb into the more free and nobler life in the World viz. through the Throes and Agonies of Birth And there is ordinarily but one way to pass from this sinning groaning life we live in this World to the enjoyment of God and the Glory above but through the Agonies of death You must cast as it were your Secundine once again I mean this vile body before you can be happy Heaven cannot come down to you you cannot see God and live Exod. 33.20 It would certainly confound and break you to pieces like an earthen Pitcher should God but ray forth his Glory upon you in the state you now are and it is sure you cannot expect the extraordinary savour of such a translation as Enoch had Hebr. 11.5 Or as those Believers shall have that shall be found alive at Christ's coming 1 Thes. 4.17 You must go the common road that all the Saints go but though you cannot avoid you may sweeten it God will not reverse his Decree but you may and ought to arm your selves against the fears of it Ahashuerus would not re-call the Proclamation he had emitted against the Iews but he gave them full liberty to take up arms to defend themselves against their Enemies 'T is much so here the Sentence cannot be revoked but yet he gives you leave yea he commands you to arm your selves against death and defie it and trample it under the feet of Faith Argument XI WHen you find your hearts reluctate at the thoughts of leaving the Body and the comforts of this World then consider how willingly and chearfully Iesus Christ left Heaven and the Bosome of his Father to come down to this World for your sakes Pr. 8.30 31. Ps. 40.7 Loe I come c. O compare the frames of your hearts with his in this point and shame your selves out of so unbecoming a temper of Spirit 1 He left Heaven and all the Delights and Glory of it to come down to this World to be abased and humbled to the lowest you leave this World of sin and misery to ascend to Heaven to be exalted to the highest He came hither to be impoverished you go thither to be enriched 2 Cor. 8.9 yet he came willingly and we go grudgingly 2 He came from Heaven to Earth to be made sin for us 2 Cor. 5.21 we go from Earth to Heaven to be fully and everlastingly delivered from sin yet he came more willingly to bear our sins than we go to be delivered from them 3 He came to take a body of Flesh to suffer and die in Heb. 2.24 you leave your Bodies that you may never suffer in or by them any more 4 As his Incarnation was a deep abasement so his death was the most bitter death that ever was tasted by any from the beginning or ever shall to the end of the World and yet how obediently doth he submit to both at the Father's Call Luke 12.50 I have a Baptism to be baptized with and how am I straitened till it be accomplished Ah Christians your death cannot have the ten thousandth part of that bitterness in it that Christ's had I remember one of the Martyrs being asked why his heart was so light at death returned this answer because Christs heart was so heavy at his death O there is a vast difference betwixt one and the other the Wrath of God and Curse of the Law was in his death Gal. 3.13 but there is neither Wrath nor Curse in your death who die in the Lord Rom. 8.1 God forsook him when he hanged upon the Tree in the Agonies of death Matth. 27.46 My God my God why hast thou forsaken me But you shall not be forsaken He will make all your Bed in sickness Psal. 41.3 He will never leave you nor forsake you Heb. 13.5 Yet he regretted not but went as a Sheep or Lamb Isa. 53.7 O reason
by treasuring up guilt for wrath and guilt are treasured up together in proportion to each other Every day of his life vast summs have been cast into this treasury and the patience of God waiteth till it be full before he call the sinner to an account and reckoning Gen. 15.16 PROP. II. All the sin and guilt contracted upon the Souls and consciences of impenitent men in this World accompanies and follows their departed Souls to judgment and there brings them under the dreadful condemnation of the great and terrible God which cuts off all their hopes and comforts for ever IF you believe not that I am he you shall die in your sins Joh. 8.24 and Job 20.11 His bones are full of the sins of his youth which shall lye down with him in the dust No Proposition lies clearer in Scripture or should lie with greater weight upon the hearts of sinners nothing but pardon can remove guilt but without faith and repentance there never was nor shall be a pardon Acts 10.43 Rom. 3 24 25. Luk. 24.46 47. Look as the graces of Believers so the sins of Unbelievers follow the Soul whithersover it goes All their sins who dye out of Christ cry to them when they go hence We are thy works and we will follow thee The acts of sin are transient but the guilt and effects of it are permanent and it is evident by this that in the great day their consciences which are the Books of record wherein all their sins are registred will be opened and they shall be judged by them and out of them Rev. 20.12 Now before that general judgment every Soul comes to its particular judgment and that immediately after death of this I apprehend the Apostle to speak in Heb. 9.27 It is appointed for all men once to dye but after that the judgment The Soul is presently stated by this judgment in its everlasting and fixed condition The Soul of a wicked man appearing before God in all its sin and guilt and by him sentenced immediately it gives up all its hope Prov. 11.7 When a wicked man dyeth his expectation shall perish Etiam spes valentissima and the hope of unjust men perisheth His strong hope perisheth as some read it i.e. his strong delusion for alas He took his own shadow for a bridge over the great waters and is unexpectedly plunged into the gulph of eternal misery as Matth. 7.22 This perishing or cutting off of hope is that which is called in Scripture the death of the Soul for so long the Soul will live as it hath any hope The deferring of hope makes it sick but the final cutting off of hope strikes it quite dead i.e. dead as to all joy comfort or expectation of any for ever which is that death which an immortal Soul is capable to suffer the righteous hath hope in his death but every unregenerate man in the world breaths out his last hope in a few moments after his last breath which strikes terror into the very centre of the Soul and is a death-wound to it PROP. III. The Souls of the damned are exceeding large and capacious subjects of wrath and torment and in their separate state their capacity is greatly enlarged both by laying asleep all those affections whose exercise is relieving and throughly awakning all those passions which are tormenting THE Soul of man being by nature a Spirit an intelligent Spirit and in its substantial faculties assimilated to God whose image it bears it must for that reason be exquisitely sensible of all the impressions and touches of the wrath of God upon it The Spirit of man is a most tender sensible and apprehensive Creature The eye of the Body is not so sensible of a touch a nerve of the Body is not so sensible when pricked as the Spirit of man is of the least touch of Gods indignation upon it A wounded spirit who can bear Prov. 18.14 Other external wounds upon the Body inflicted either by man or God are tolerable but that which immediately toucheth the Spirit of man is insufferable Who can bear or endure it And as the Spirit of man hath the most delicate and exquisite sense of misery so it hath a vast capacity to receive and let in the fulness of anguish and misery into it it is a large vessel called Rom. 9.22 a vessel of wrath fitted to destruction The large capacity of the Soul is seen in this that it is not in the power of all the creatures in the World to satisfie and fill it It can drink up as one speaks all the rivers of created good and its thirst not quenched by such a draught but after all it crys Give give Nothing but an infinite God can quiet and satisfie its appetite and raging thirst And as it is capable and receptive of more good than is found in all the Creatures So it is capable of more misery and anguish than all the Creatures can inflict upon it Let all the elements or men on Earth yea all the Devils and damned in Hell conspire and unite in a design to torment man yet when they have done all his Spirit is capable of a farther degree of torment a torment as much beyond it as a rack is beyond an hard bed or the Sword in his bowels is beyond the scratch of a pin The Devils indeed are the executioners and tormentors of the damned but if that were all they were capable to suffer the torments of the damned would be comparatively mild and gentle to what they are O the largeness of the understanding of man What will it not take into its vast capacity But add to this That damned Souls have all those affections laid in a deep and everlasting sleep the exercises whereof would be relieving by emptying their Souls of any part of their misery and all those passions throughly and everlastingly awakened which increase their torments The affections of joy delight and hope are all benummed in them and laid fast asleep never to be awakened into act any more Their hope in Scripture is said to perish i. e. it so perisheth that after death it shall never exert another act to all eternity The activity of any of these affections would be like a cooling gale or refreshing Spring amidst their torments but as Adrian lamented himself nunquam jocos dabis thou shalt never be merry more And as these affections are laid asleep so their passions are rouzed and throughly awakened to torment them So awakened as never to sleep any more The Souls of men are sometimes jog'd and startled in this World by the words or rods of God but presently they sleep again and forget all but hereafter the eyes of their Souls will be continually held waking to behold and consider their misery their understandings will be clear and most apprehensive their thoughts fixed and determined their consciences active and efficacious and by all this their capacity to take in the fulness of their misery
could have been made upon their state by death Little do their surviving Friends think what they feel or what is their estate in the other World whilst they are honouring their Bodies with splendid and pompous Funerals None on earth have so much reason to fear death to make much of life and use all means to continue it as those who will and must be so great losers by the exchange Inference XIII SEe here the certainty and inevitableness of the judgment of the great day This Prison which is continually filling with the Spirits of wicked men is an undeniable evidence of it for why is Hell called a Prison and why are the Spirits of men confined and chained there but with respect to the judgment of the great day As there is a necessary connection betwixt sin and punishment so betwixt punishing and trying the Offender there are millions of Souls in custody a world of Spirits in Prison these must be brought forth to their Tryal for God will lay upon no man more than is right the legality of their Mittimus to Hell will be evidenced in their solemn day of Tryal God hath therefore appointed a day in which he will judge the World in righteousness by that Man whom he hath ordained Acts 17.31 Here sinners run in Arrears and contract vast debts in Hell they are seiz'd and committed at Judgment tryed and cast for the same This will be a dreadful day those that have spent so prodigally upon the patience of God must now come to a severe account for all they have past their particular judgment immediately after death Eccles. 12.7 Hebr. 9.27 by this they know how they shall speed in the general judgment and how it shall be with them for ever but though this private Judgment secures their Damnation sufficiently yet it clears not the Justice of God before Angels and Men sufficiently and therefore they must appear once more before his Bar 2 Cor. 5.10 In the fearful expectation of this day those trembling Spirits now lie in Prison and that fearful expectation is a principal part of their present misery and torment You that refuse to come to the Throne of Grace see if you can refuse to make your appearance at the Bar of Justice You that brav'd and brow-beat your Ministers that warn'd you of it see if you can out-brave your Judge too as you did them Nothing more sure or awful than such a day as this Inference XIV HOw much are Ministers Parents and all to whom the charge of Souls is committed bound to do all that in them lies to prevent their everlasting misery in the World to come The great Apostle of the Gentiles found the consideration of the terror of the Lord as a spur urging and enforcing him to ministerial faithfulness and diligence 2 Cor. 5.11 Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord we perswade men and the same he presseth upon Timothy 2 Tim. 4.1 2. I charge thee therefore before God and the Lord Iesus Christ who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his Kingdom Preach the Word be instant in season and out of season reprove rebuke exhort with all long-suffering and Doctrine O that those to whom so great a trust as the Souls of men is committed would labour to acquit themselves with all faithfulness therein as Paul did warning every one night and day with tears that if we cannot prevent their ruine which is most desireable yet at least we may be able to take God to Witness as he did that we are pure from the blood of all men O consider my Brethren if your faithful plainness and unwearied diligence to save mens Souls produce no other fruit but their hatred of you now yet it is much easier for you to bear that than that they and you too should bear the Wrath of God for ever We have all of us personal guilt enough upon us let us not add other mens guilt to our account to be guilty of the blood of the meanest man upon the earth is a sin which will cry in your Consciences but to be guilty of the blood of Souls Lord who can bear it Christ thought them worth his heart blood and are they not worth the expence of our breath Did he sweat blood to save them and will not we move our lips to save them 'T is certainly a sore Judgment to the Souls of men when such Ministers are set over them as never understood the value of their peoples Souls or were never heartily concerned about the Salvation of their own Souls MATTH 16.26 For what is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul DIfficult Duties need to be enforced with powerful Arguments in the 24th verse of this Chapter our Lord presseth upon his Disciples the deepest and hardest duties of self-denial acquaints them upon what terms they must be admitted into his service If any man will come after me let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me This hard and difficult Duty he enforceth upon them by a double Argument viz. from 1. The vanity of all sinful shifts from it v. 25. 2. The value of their Souls which is imported in it v. 26. They may shift off their Duty to the loss of their Souls or save their Souls by the loss of such trifles If they esteem their Souls above the World and can be content to put all other things to the hazard for their Salvation making account to save nothing but them by Christianity then they come up to Christs terms and may warrantably and boldly call him their Lord and Master and to sweeten this choice to them he doth in my Text balance the Soul and all the World weighing them one against the other and shews them the infinite odds and disproportion betwixt them What is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul What is a man profited There is a plain Meiosis in the Phrase and the meaning is how inestimably and irreparably is a man damnified what a Soul-ruining bargain would a man make If he should gain the whole world There is a plain Hyperbole in this Phrase for it never was nor will be the lot of any man to be the sole Owner and Possessor of the whole world * Hypotheticâ â—âc hyperbole amissionis salutis aeternae atrocitas summa notatur S. Glassius Non magis juvabitur qâ—à m qui acquirit Venetias ipse verò suspâ—ndatur ad portam Pareus in loc But suppose all the power pleasure wealth and honour of the whole World were bid and offer'd in exchange for a mans Soul what a dear purchace would it be at such a rate What were this saith one but to win Venice and then be hang'd at the gate of it As that man acts like a
and plunge their Souls into guilt and danger This was the result of all their debates with the flesh in the hour of temptation Cannot we live but to the dishonour of Christ and ruine of our own Souls by sinful compliance against our Conscienceâ— then welcome the worst of deaths rather than such a life Look into the stories of the Martyrs and you shall find this was the rule they still governed themselves by a Dungeon a Stake a Gibbet any thing rather than guilt upon the inner man death was welcome even in its most dreadful form to escape ruine to their precious and immortal Souls One kissed the Apparitor that brought him the tidings of his death Another being advised when he came to the critical point on which his life depended to have a care of himself So I will said he I will be as careful as I can of my best self my Soul These men understood the value and precious worth of their own Souls and certainly we shall never prove couragious and constant in sufferings till we understand the worth of our Souls as they did Consider and compare these sufferings in a few obvious particulars and then determine the matter in thine own breast 1. How much easier it is to endure the torments of men in our bodies than to feel the terrors of God in our Consciences Can the Creature strike with an arm like God O think what it is for the wrath of God to come into a mans bowels like water and like oyl into his bones as the expression is Psal. 109.18 Sure there is no compare betwixt the strokes of God and men 2. The sufferings of the body are but for a moment When the Proconsul told Polycarp that he would tame him with fire he replied Your fire shall burn but for the space of an hour and then it shall be extinguished but the fire that shall devour the wicked will never be quenched the sufferings of a moment are nothing to eternal sufferings 3. Sufferings for Christ are usually sweetned and made easie by the consolations of the Spirit but Hell-torments have no relief they admit of no ease 4. The life you shall live in that body for whose sake you have damned your Souls will not be worth the having it will be a life without comfort light or joy and what is there in life separate from the joy and comfort of life 5. In a word if you sacrifice your bodies for God and your Souls freely offer them up in love to Christ and his Truth your Souls will joyfully receive and meet them again at the Resurrection of the Just but if your poor Souls be now ensnared and destroyed by their fond indulgence to their bodies you will leave them at death despairing and meet them at the Resurrection howling Inference IX TO conclude If the Soul be so invaluably precious how great and irreparable a loss must the loss of a Soul to all Eternity be There is a double loss of the Soul of man the one in Adam which loss is recoverable by Christ the other by final impenitence and unbelief cutting it off from Christ and this is irreparable and irrecoverable Souls lost by Adams sin are within the reach of the arms of Christ but in the shipwrack of personal infidelity there is no plank to save the Soul so cast away Of all losses this is the most lamentable yet what more common O what a shrlek doth the unregenerate Soul make when it sees whereto it must and that there is no remedy Three cries are dreadful to hear on Earth yet all three are drown'd by a more terrible cry in the other World The cry of a condemned Prisoner at the Bar the cry of drowning Seamen and Passengers in a shipwrack the cries of Souldiers conquer'd in the field all these are fearful cries yet nothing to that of a Soul cast away to all Eternity and lost in the depth of Hell If a man as Chrysostome well observes lose an eye an arm a hand or leg it is a great loss but yet if one be lost there is another to help him for omnia Deus dedit duplicia God hath given us all those members double animam verò unam but we have but one Soul and if that be damned there is not another to be saved And it is no small aggravation to this loss that it was a wilful loss We had the offers and means of Salvation plentifully afforded us we were warn'd of this danger over and over we were intreated and beseecht upon the knee of importunity not to throw away our Souls by an obstinate rejection of Christ and Grace we saw the diligence and care of others for the salvation of their Souls some rejoycing in the comfortable assurance of it and others giving all diligence to make their calling and election sure we knew that our Souls were as capable of blessedness as any of those that are in enjoying God in Heaven or panting after that enjoyment on Earth yea some Souls that are now irrecoverably gone and many others who are going after them once were and now are not far from the Kingdom of God they had convictions of sin a sense of their lost and miserable state they began to treat with Christ in Prayer to converse with his Ministers and People about their condition and after all this even when they seemed to have clean escaped the snares of Satan to be again intangled and overcome when even come to Harbours mouth to be driven back again and cast away upon the Rocks O what a loss will this be O thou that createdst Souls with a capacity to know love and enjoy thee for ever who out of thine unsearchable Grace â—entest thine own Son out of thy bosom to seek and save that which was lost pity those poor Souls that cannot pity themselves let mercy yet interpose it self betwixt them and eternal ruine awaken them out of their pleasant slumber though it be at the brink of damnation lest they perish and there be none to deliver them DOCT. II. How precious and invaluable soever the Soul of man is it may be lost and cast away for ever This Proposition is supposed and implied in our Saviours words in the Text and plainly expressed in Matth. 7.13 Wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction and many there be which go in thereat The way to Hell is throng'd with Passengers 't is a beaten rode one draws another along with him and scoffs at those that are afraid to follow 1 Pet. 4.4 Facilis descensus Averni 't is pleasant sailing with the Wind and Tide Infernus ab inferendo dicitur quia ita inferuntur praecipitantur â—t nunquam ascensuri sint Some derive the word Hell from a Verb which signifies to carry or thrust in millions go in but none return thence millions are gone down already and millions more are coming after as fast as Satan and their own lusts can
hurry them onward You read not only of single persons but whole Nations drown'd in this Gulph Psal. 9.17 The wicked shall be turned into hell and all the nations that forget God How rare is the conversion of a Soul in the dark places of the Earth where the sound of the Gospel is not heard the Devil drives them along in huge droves to destruction scarce a man reluctating or hanging back And though some Nations enjoy the inestimable priviledge of the Gospel of Salvation yet multitudes of precious Souls perish notwithstanding sinking into Hell daily as it were betwixt the merciful arms of a Saviour stretched out to save them The light of Salvation is risen upon us but Satan draws the thick curtains of ignorance and prejudice about the multitude that not a beam of saving light can shine into their hearts 2 Cor. 4.3 4. But if our Gospel be hid it is hid to them that are lost In whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not lest the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ who is the image of God should shine unto them If our Gospel Ours not by way of institution as the Authors but by way of dispensation as the Ministers and Preachers of it and certainly it was never preached with that clearness authority and efficacy by any meer man as it was by Paul and the rest of the Apostles and yet the Gospel so powerfully preached is by him here supposed to Be hid If not as to the general light and superficial knowledge of it yet as to its saving influence and converting efficacy upon their hearts this never reacheth home to the Souls and spirits of multitudes that hear it but it is never finally so hidden except To them that are lost So that all those to whom the converting and saving power of the Gospel never comes whatever other knowledge they have whatever duties they perform whatever names and reputations they may have among men yet this Text looks upon them all as a lost generation they may have as many amiable homilitical Vertues as sweet and lovely Natures as clear and piercing eyes in all other things as any others but they are such however Whose eyes the God of this world hath blinded Satan is here called the God of this World not properly but by a Mimesis because he challenges to himself the honour of a God aâ—d hath a world of Subjects that obey him and to secure their obedience he blinds them that they may never see a better way or state than that he hath drawn them into Therefore he is called the Ruler of the darkness of this World who rules in the hearts of the children of disobedience the eye of the Soul is the mind that thinking considering and reasoning power of the Soul this is as the Philosophers truly call it the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the leading faculty to all the rest the guide to all the other faculties which in the order of Nature follow this their Leader if therefore this be blinded the Will which is caeca potentia a blind power in it self and all the Affections blindly following the blind all must needs fall into the ditch And this is the case of the far greater part of even the professing World Let us suppose a number of blind men upon an Island where there are many smooth paths all leading to the top of a perpendicular cliff and these blind men going on continually some in one path and some in another but all in some one of those many paths which lead to the brink of their ruine which they see not it must needs follow if they all move forward the whole number will in a short time be cast away the Island clear'd and its Inhabitants dead and lost in the bottom of the Sea This is the case of the unregenerate World they are now upon this habitable spot of earth environed with the vast Ocean of Eternity there are multitudes of paths leading to eternal misery one man takes this way another that as it is Isa. 53.6 We have turned every one to his own way one to the way of pride another to the way of covetousness a third to the way of persecution a fourth to the way of Civility and Morality and so on they go not once making a stand or questioning to what end it will bring them till at last over they go at death and we hear no more of them in this world and thus one generation of sinners follows another and they that come after approve and applaud those miserable wretches that went before them Psal. 49.13 and so Hell fills and the World empties its Inhabitants daily into it Now I will make it my work out of a dear regard to the precious Souls of men and in hope to prevent which the Lord in mercy grant the loss and ruine of some under whose eyes this Discourse shall fall to note some of the principal ways in which precious Souls are lost and to put such bars into them as I am capable to put and among many more I will set a mark upon these following twelve paths wherein millions of Souls have been lost and millions more are confidently and securely following after among which 't is likely some are within one step one day or hour to their eternal downfal and destruction There is but one way in all the world to save and preserve the precious Souls of men but there are many ways to lose and destroy them it is here as it is in our natural birth and death but one way into the World but a multitude out of it And first The first way to Hell discovered 1. And to begin where indeed the ruine of very many doth begin it will be found that an ill Education is the high way to destruction Vice need not be planted if the Gardiner neglect to dress sow and manure his Garden he need not give the weeds a greater advantage but if he also scatter the seed of Hemlock Docks and Nettles into it he spoils it and makes it fit for nothing Many Parents and those godly too are guilty of too many neglects through carelesness worldly incumbrances or fond indulgence and whilst they neglect the season of sowing better seed the Devil takes hold of it if they will not improve it he will if they teach them not to pray he will teach them to curse swear and lye if they put not the Bible or Catechise into their hands he will put obscene Ballads into them and thus the off-spring of many godly Parents turn into degenerate plants and prove a generation that know not the God of their Fathers This debauched Age can furnish us with too many sad instances hereof Thus they are spoiled in the bud simple ignorance in youth becomes affected and wilful ignorance in age blushing sins in children become impudent sins in age and all this for want of a timely and prudent preventing care Others
Atheist bethink thy self pause a while examine thine own breast whatever thy vile Atheistical thoughts sometimes are is there not at other times a fear of the contrary A jealousie that all these things which thou deridest and sportest thy wicked fancy with may and will prove true at last When thou readest or hearest that Text Ioh. 3.18 He that believeth not is condemned already His Mittimus is already made for Hell Doth not thy Conscience give thee a secret gird like a stitch in thy side Dare you venture all upon this issue that if those things you find in the Word be true you will stand to the hazard of them If that be a truth Mark 16.16 He that believeth not shall be damned you will be content to be damned Or if Rom. 8.13 be a truth That they which live after the flesh shall dye you will run the hazard and bear the penalty of eternal death If Heb. 12.14 prove true That without holiness no man shall see God you will be content to be banished from his presence for evermore Speak your hearts in this matter and tell us Don't you live betwixt Atheistical surmises that all these are but cunning artifices and fears that at last they will prove the greatest Verities 4. Hath not God given you all the satisfaction you can reasonably desire of the undoubted truth and certainty of his Word What would you have which you have not already Would you have a Voice from Heaven the Scriptures you read or hear are a more sure Word than such a Voice would be 2 Pet. 1.19 or would you have a Messenger from Hell He that believeth not the written Word neither would believe if one should rise from the dead Luke 16 31. View the innate Characters of the Scriptures is it not altogether pure and holy full of Divine Wisdom and awful Majesty and in every respect such as evidenceth its Author to be the wise holy and just God who searcheth the hearts and reins Look upon the Seals and Confirmations of it hath not God confirmed it by divers Miracles from Heaven a Seal which neither Men or Devils could counterfeit And don't you see the blessing and power of God accompanying it in the Conversion and wonderful change of mens hearts and lives which can be done by no other hand than Gods Say not the Miracles which confirm the Gospel are but uncertain Traditions and except you your selves see them wrought you cannot believe them There are a thousand things which you do believe though you never saw them and what you require for your satisfaction every man may require the same for his and so Christ must live in all parts of this World and repeat his Miracles over and over in all Ages to satisfie the unreasonable incredulity of those that question their truth after the fullest Confirmation and Seal hath been given that is capable to be given or the heart of man can desire should be given and if all this should be done you might be as far from believing as now you are for many of those that saw and heard the things wrought by Christ contradicted and blasphemed and so might you 5. Satan who undermines your assent to these things is forced to give his own he that tempts you to look on them as Fables himself knows and is convinced that they are realities the Devils also believe and tremble Jam. 2.19 they know and feel the truth of these things though it be their great design and interest to shake your assent to them they know Christ is the Son of God and that there will be a day in which he will judge the World in righteousness and that there are Torments prepared for themselves and all whom they seduce from God Matth. 8.29 If you ungod God you must unman your selves yea not only make your selves less than men but worse than Devils 6. In a word let thy own heart O Atheist be Judge whether these be real doubts still sticking in your minds after you have done all that becomes men to do for satisfaction in such important cases Or whether they be not such Principles as you willingly â—oment and nourish in your hearts as a protection to your sensual lusts whose pleasures you would fain have without interruptions and over-awings by the fears of a Judgment to come and a righteous retribution from a just and terrible God! Examine your hearts in that point and you will soon find the cheat to be in that I here point you to you have not studied the word impartially nor brought your doubts and scruples with an humble unbiassed teachable spirit to those that are wise and able to resolve them much less prayed for the Spirit of Illumination but willingly entertained whatever Atheistical Wits invent or the Devil suggests as a Defensative against the checks of Conscience and fears of Hell in the way of sin You are loth those things should be true which the Scriptures speak and are glad of any colourable argument or pretence to still your own Consciences Is not this the case The Lord stop your desperate course your paths lead to Hell The ninth way of losing the precious Soul opened IX Precious Souls are daily plunged into the gulph of perdition by Prophaneness and Debauchery How many every where lye wallowing in this puddle glorying in their shame and running into all excess of riot The Hypocrite steals to Hell in a private close way of concealed sin but the prophane gallop along the publick road at noon-day They declare their sin as Sodom and hide it not Isa. 3.9 The shew of their countenance testifieth against them The Hypocrite hath devotion in his countenance and Heaven in his mouth you know not by his words or countenance whither he is going but the prophane hide it not they are past shame and above blushing at the horridst impieties Look as God hath some Servants more eminent forward and couragious in the ways of Godliness than others men that will not hide their Principles or be ashamed of the ways of Godliness in the face of danger so the Devil hath some Servants as eminent for wickedness who scorn to sneak to Hell by concealment of their wickedness but avow and owne it without fear or shame in the open sight of Heaven and Earth Where-ever they come they defile the Air they breathe in with horrid blasphemies and obscene discourses not to be named and leave a strong scent of Hell behind them This Age hath brought forth multitudes of these Monsters the reproach and shame of the Nation that bred them I have little hope to stop one of them in the career and full speed to Hell They have lost the sense of sin the restraints of Shame and fear and then what is left to check them in their course I cannot hope that such a Discourse as this shall ever come into their hands except it be to sacrifice it to the flames yet not knowing the ways of Providence which
without Plea or Apology for your supine neglects of the seasons of Salvation Argument II. SEcondly The consideration of the uncertainty and slippery nature of these spiritual seasons must awaken in us all care and diligence to secure and improve them This nick of opportunity is tempus labile a slippery season it is but short in it self and very uncertain To day whilst it is said to day saith the Apostle if ye will hear his voice Heb. 3.15 q. d. you have now a short uncertain but most precious and valuable season for your Souls lay hold on it whilst it is called to day for if this season be let slip the time to come is called by another name that is not to day but to morrow Your time is the present time take heed of procrastinating and putting it off till that which is called to day which is your only season be past and gone This precious inch of time though it be more worth than all the other greater parts and portions of your time yet it is as much in fluxu in hasty motion and expence as other parts of time are and being once lost is never more to be recalled or recovered Few men know or understand it whilst it is current other seasons for natural or civil actions are known and stated but the time of Grace is not so easily discerned and therefore commonly mistaken and lost and this comes to pass partly through 1. Presumptuous Hopes 2. Discouraging Fears 1. Presumptuous Hopes which put it too far forth and perswade us this season is yet to come that we have before us Praesumendo sperant sperando perâ—unt and that to morrow shall be as to day Thus through presumption men hope and by their presumptuous hopes they perish this is the ruine of most Souls that perish 2. Discouraging Fears put it too far back and represent it as long since past and gone whilst it is yet in being and in our hands By such pangs of desperation Satan cuts the very nerves of industry and diligence and causes Souls to yield themselves as by consent for lost and hopeless even whilst the Gospel is opening their eyes to see their sin and misery which is a part of the work in order to their recovery Thus the eyes of thousands are dazled that they cannot discern the season of Mercy and so it slides from them as if it had never been God came near them in the means of their Conversion yea and nearer than that in the motions of his Spirit upon their Consciences and Affections but they knew not the time of their visitation and now the things of their peace are hidden from their eyes Had those Convictions been obeyed and those purposes that were begotten in their hearts been followed home by answerable executions of them happy had they been to all Eternity but their careless neglects have quenched them and the door is shut and who knows whether it may be opened any more O dally not with the Spirit of God resist not his calls his motions upon the Soul are tender things they may soon be quenched and never recovered Argument III. NEglect not the seasons of Mercy the day of Grace because opportunity facilitates the great work of your Salvation it is much easier to be done in such a season than it can be afterwards an impression is easily made upon wax when it is melted but stay a while till it be hardned and if you lay the greatest weight upon the seal it leaves not its impress upon it Much so it is with the heart there is a season when God makes it soft and yielding when the affections are thawed and melted under the Word Conscience is full of sense and activity the will pliable now is the time to set in with the motions of the Spirit there is now a gale from Heaven if you will take it and if not it tarrieth not for man nor waiteth for the sons of men Neglect of the season is the loss of the Soul The heart like melted wax will naturally harden again and then to how little purpose are your own feeble essays Heb. 3.15 't is both easie and successful striving when the Spirit of God strives in you and with you you are now workers together with God and such work goes on smoothly and sweetly that which is in motion is easily moved but if once the heart be set you may tug to little purpose Argument IV. THE infinite importance and weight of Salvation is alone instead of all motives and arguments to make men prize and improve every proper season for it It is no ordinary concern it is your life yea it is your eternal life The solemnity and awfulness of such a business as this is enough to swallow up the spirit of a man O what an awful found have such words as these Ever with the Lord Suppose you saw the Glory of Heaven the full reward of all the labours and sufferings of the Saints the blessed harvest of all their prayers tears diligence and self-denial in this world or suppose you had a true representation of the Torments of Hell and could but hear the wailings of the damned for the neglect of the season of Mercy and their passionate but vain wishes for one of those days which they have lost would you think any care any pains any self-denial too much to save and redeem one of these opportunities Surely you would have a far higher estimation of them than ever you had in your lives A Tryal for a mans whole Estate is accounted a solemn business among men the Cast of a Dye for a mans life is a weighty action and seldom done without anxiety of the mind and trembling of the hand yet both these are but Childrens Play compared with Salvation-work Three things put an unspeakable solemnity upon this matter it is the precious Soul which is above all valuation that lies at stake and is to be saved or lost The saving or losing of it is not for a time but for ever and this is the only season in which it will be eternally saved or cast away all hangs upon a little inch of time which being over-slipt and lost is never more to be recalled or recovered Lord with what serious spirits deep and weighty consideration fears and tremblings of heart should men and women attend the seasons of their Salvation Believe it Reader since thy Soul projected its first thought there never was a more weighty and concerning subject than this presented to thy thoughts O therefore let not thy thoughts trifle about it and slide from it as they use to do in other things of common concernment Argument V. IF we set any value upon the true pleasure of life or solid comforâ— of our Souls at death let us by no means neglect the special seasons and opportunities of Salvation we now enjoy These two things the pleasure of life and comfort in death should be prized by every