a tempest to an everlasting tranquillity through a rough Sea to an eternall harbour There are three things sweeten affliction 1. The pleasure of a promise Isa 43. 2. The promises are the believers bladders to swimme through the highest waters of Marah of miseries They are 2 Pet. 1. 4. pretious not only in their futurition as they shall be dissolved and melted into reward but as they are present balme in the wounds of affliction pretious balsame to a groaning and troubled Saint 2. The smile of a God that cannot only mitigate affliction and allay the pain of it but transforme the Serpent of misery into a blossoming rod of consolation the favour and smile Psal 119. 67. of Christ cannot only pare an affliction Psal 23. 4. take off the noxious skin of it and take out the sting the torment of it but can change the nature of it and turn a perplexity into a perfume into an advantage Can make the melancholy face of trouble it self look pleasant 3. The thoughts of eternity these contemplations Guttatim poend sumitur liquando bibitur per minutias transit In re muncratione torrens est voluptatis fluminis impetus inundans laetitiae flumen gloriae flumen pacis Bern. can carry up the soul above and make it look beyond trouble All the distresses of a Saint in the world they are but as one fit of the stone compared to eternity they are a little foul weather and plashie dirty way in his journey to a glorious eternity One moments fruition of eternall joy shall take away the smell of all our troubles here the very memory of these flashes of affliction shall not remain in eternity unlesse it be to enlarge the extasie of joy In all thy flames of trouble remember eternity what is this teare this sigh this single groan of misery to an Ocean of satisfaction when I shall sail upon a sea of boundlesse and endlesse mercy This moment as the Prophet speaks Isa 54. 8. this flash of lightning to an endlesse state When I have passed millions of ages in a blissefull everlastingnesse will this transient recollected What darknesse or woe doth Jeremiahs dungeon or Jobs Jer. 38. 6. dunghill cast upon their glorified souls Job 2. 8. now shipt upon the Ocean of a blessed eternity or doth the stench of either offend those enthroned Spirits Meditations on eternity would make the oil of gladnesse to swimme above the water of affliction There are four Questions one should aske his soul in the time of trouble 1. Quest 1 What is the spring of these bitter waters where is the fountain head Every one should then search for the Josh 7. per tot Achan What causeth this earthquake this perplexity Christians in affliction Psal 239. 23. should fadome their own hearts search their own wayes and observe what is it that jarres their prosperity and the harmony of it This is the first Question What is it that springs a leake in my happinesse 2. Quest. 2 What is the end of these thunderbolts these troubles which now are fallen upon me and seised upon me as an armed man What aime what errand have these miseries The rod speakes something as the Prophet Mic. 6. 9. hath it what is its language Every one should read the superscription of his trouble see the contents of his affliction and so answer Gods letter in it 3. Quest 3 What may be the improvement of this trouble how shall I refine it and make use of it to my spirituall good How shall I make it ancillari gratiae wait on my souls felicity How shall I turn this misery into gold by a rare Chymistry This should be another question As Manasseh 2 Chron. 33. 13. who turned his fetters into golden chains by holy and serious repentance But 4. Quest 4 What is this trouble to eternity this evaporating sparke to an everlasting condition How inconsiderable this gentle and short gale to a perpetuall estate Am I in Christ Is my everlasting estate sure Is the bond of God sealed to me Am I enrolled in the new covenant Hath Christ left me his bloud for a legacy Have I searched his will and found my name in it Is my name written Luk. 10. 20. in the book of the Lamb and transcribed in the volume of heaven Then what is this transient fit of misery this short-breathed affliction to my endlesse boundlesse and bottomlesse felicity Nay the very thoughts of eternity would yeild some comfort to the wicked in their calamities here in that they would re-inforce the industry of the sinner to get an interest in Christ that being tortured in present calamities he might find rest in eternity Thoughts of eternity would be Spirits in duty I hear for eternity I pray for eternity if I pray not my self into the sweets of Christs bosome I shall fall into the flames of Gods Joh. 9. 4. wrath what heat would eternity beget what zeal resolution invincible and unanswerable buldnesse in all our duties Now are my prayer-seasons Sermon-seasons and my everlasting estate depends on the good improvement of them How would this fire animate and awaken our soules in all ordinances and in all our services I now wrestle I now fight for eternity * Thalami in Sancta Ecclesia sunt illorum corda in quibus animae per amorem sponsae invisibili conjunguntur ut ejus desiderio mens ardeat praesentis vitae longitudinem poenam deputet Mens itaque quae jam talis est nullam praesentis seculi consolationem recipit sed ad illam quam diligit medul litus suspirat fervet anhelar anxiatur Vilis sit ipsa salus sui corporis quia transfixa est vulnere Amoris Greg. Hom. the crown lies at stake my everlasting joy and rest Mariners in a storme how do they pump work sweat throw overbord their lumber nay their richest Merchandise because their lives are concerned When thou hearest or prayest remember Thy eternity stands in competition Had those damned spirits who have tasted of the miseries of eternity but a renewed capacity of duty to pray and hear again how would they nail their eyes to heaven in holy contemplation chain their knees to the earth in prayer and turn their flesh into iron in a constant adoration as one in the Primitive times Eternity would make zeal leap in the wombe of duty And it is worth our considerations What a short breath would our duties be were our life but one constant service Did we seriously thinke of our future eternity it would be a good cure for all our frothinesse drowsinesse carelesnesse formality coldnesse indifferency infrequency extravagancy in duty Such thoughts would inflame the heart raise the minde fire the spirit set on worke the affection nay spiritualize and sublimate the body it self in holy services As Archimedes who was so intent on his Mathematicall studies that he heard not the Souldiers when they came
Zimri and Cosbi with their Numb 25. 14. own bloud The good mans zeal and the bad mans fury may either destroy the wicked man he hath no security his life is a prey for any that God will suffer to seize upon it He is outlawed a condemned man every tile on the house every thiefe on the way may dispatch him and this is to be considered his death and his damnation go both together when he dies he dies for good and all he dies everlastingly thus for the sinners danger And so for the disadvantage of a pendulous doubtfull wavering Christian that can shew nothing for eternity how doth this ambiguity and unsatisfiednesse discourage duty distract his spirits edge temptation make way for Satan and causeth himself to be a burden to his own soul What sighs doth this hesitancy raise what sorrows doth it ingender what teares doth spring and veyle the heart with perpetuall mourning especially when the poor trembling soul considers That every moment he is ready to be disrobed of the flesh turned out of the sinking cottage of his body and to be disinherited of all his patrimonies here and he knows not whether he may not beg with a vain importunity a drop of water to all Luk. 16. 24. eternity How then should every of us aske the question as the Spouse in another case the Spouse asketh Did Cant. 3. 3. ye see my beloved so our enquiry should alwayes be Is my name written in heaven have I an interest in Christ will the Lord make over glory to me did I ever enjoy the smile of God which is the porch to a glorious eternity I say rest not feast not delight not thy self sleep not till God hath morgag'd the lease of a joyous eternity to thee We should not sleep quietly till God had put the crown of immortality under our pillow till we were sure of an eternall rest And now on the contrary the assurance of eternity did God deliver the deeds of glory into our possession how would it wing duty fill the sales of grace of faith love joy c. sweeten affliction Jam. 2. 2. put a comelinesse on the blacknesse Cant. 1. 5. of trouble make Christs yoak not only easie but pleasant and complacentiall In a word How would a certainty of eternall glory make the Saints condition here even while he Gen. 47. 9. writes Pilgrime to be truely Angelicall Now to re-inforce this Argument that I may bribe your industry to get something under Gods hand for thy future eternity let it not seem a digression to supply your thoughts with some few Considerations Arg. 1 Consider Thou canst have assurance of nothing on this side eternity Death will strip thee of all thy enjoyments the grave shall find thee as bare as the womb delivered thee only with this Job 1. 21. difference the wombe delivered thee Quod dicitur nudus revertar illuc intelligitur in illum statum quem habuit in utero matris Aquin. in Job cap. 1. enricht with a life landed thee alive in the world but the grave shall receive thee only a cold dead piece of clay covered with a winding sheet Death is called an uncloathing 2 Cor. 5. 4. We that are in this tabernacle d◠groan being burdened not that we would be uncloathed that is not that we would die I say Death is an uncloathing because it pulleth off all outward things from a man it puls off his rayment his riches his land his honours yea death uncloathes the very bones our flesh quickly weares off in the grave There was little difference between Job on the dunghill and Job in the grave in point of poverty only that dunghil kept him a prisoner fettered with various miseries and the grave loosened him and enfranchised him to eternall liberty Death will rob and strip thee of all thy glittering titles flourishing revenues pleasing dalliances and sweetest most indeared relations will impoverish thee of all thy claimes and fruitions thou didst sport and pride thy self with the dust of the rich man and the poor the honourable and the ignoble promiscuously mingled will take away all the distances degrees and differences between them Death will bury indifferently the Crowns of Kings and the shackles of Prisoners the roabs of Princes and the rags of beggers the Gallants bravery and the peasants russet and the Courtiers luxury and shall cast them all into an equall denudation and poverty Pliny in the Natura noverca unum hominem animantium cunctorum alienis velat opibus caeteris veria tegumenta tribuit testas cortices coria spinas villos setas plumam pennas squammas pellem trunceos etiam arboris cortice interdū gemino a frigoribus calore tutata est hominem tantum nudum in nuda humo natali die abj ecit Plin. Nat. Hist Preface to the seventh book of his Naturall history complaines and doth as it were chide with nature it self for turning man into the world in such a helplesse forlorne condition as if men were dealt more hardly with then any other creature the birds of the aire or the beasts of the field I shall not commend the reluctancy of this Heathen against the Providence of God but shall only say the wombe doth not as before was hinted deliver us more helpelesse naked forlorne then death doth make us or the grave shall finde us Death shall fully Absalons beauty and spoile Herods bravery shall destroy Agags delicacy and put an end to all Solomons temporall felicity death is a worme that will consume all the felicities on this side 2 Sam. 18. 14. the veil but only the riches within 1 Sam. 15. 31 32. the veil as they are unsearcheable and admirable so they are immarcessible Act. 12. 23. and inamissible Therefore make sure of eternity all other things are fledged and will escape our embraces only the revenues of glory the Crown of Righteousnesse 2 Tim. 4. 8. the honours of heaven we shall Et ibi vita sine morte veritas sine eriore felicitas sine perturbatione finde for ever Neither death nor confusion shall make the triumphant Saint look pale or wither the magnificent preparations of a blessed eternity Aug. Enchir. Arg. 2 Consider in the next place as an argument to provoke you to make sure of eternity That a chief part of the Angels blessednesse consists in this that they Mat. 18. 10. are confirmed in their eternall happinesse Aeterna electio beatorum Angelorum est praedestinatio qua deus ab aeterno Angelos quosdam ex gratia constituit in communione sui perpetuo conservare in bono in quo eos creaturus erat confirmare ad beatitatis sempiternae fruitionem Polan that Jesus Christ is their Mediator sustentationis as our Divines speak and that they are incapable of following the cursed example of their fallen companions but are setled for ever in their triumphancies I say this
is one of the chiefest pearles in the Crown Now let us strive after and make it our great plot and designe to obtain this Angelicall happinesse Let the noblenesse of the argument be a golden spur to you to pursue this service It is the Angels happinesse to be confirmed in a glorious eternity and let it be your sollicitousnesse it is their felicity let it be you duty Those blessed Spirits who never eclipsed Gods glory with one single offence rejoyce in this that they are sealed to a blessed eternity And shall not we endevour after pray for draw out all our designes to attain the accomplishment of that happinesse which runs 1 Tim 5. 21. parallel with the felicity of the unsinning Angels viz. to get a bond for Luk. 20. 36. heaven This is to wit to make sure of eternity to be in an equality with the Angels Arg. 3 A third plea may be to promote this duty To lose eternity is not only a naked privation a meer losse a disappointment only of happiness When we lose heaven we do not onely as the mariner Mat. 25. 12. lose our good winde which Mat. 16. 26. would bring us to the harbour but the losse of eternity compriseth all Jon. 14 16. varieties of misery privative miseries the losse of God of Christ of the Poenae damnatis secundum corpus secundum animam infligentur Corpus quidem poenis variis quoad omnes sensus afficietur anima secundum omnes suas potentias cruciabitur Gerson soul of the Comforter of the Saints company of what we have enjoyed of what we did enjoy of what we might enjoy positive miseries torment of soul anguish of mind agonies of conscience exquisite dilacerating corroding torture of body as more â—ully hereafter The losse of eternity it comprehends accumulative exaggerated multiplied pullulated calamity Misery from God from Sâ—tan from the good Angels from our selves As Condemnation doth not only deprive the Prisoner of the liberty of his person the credit of his name the enjoyment of his possessions the refreshing of his friends but it exposes him to the burden of his chaines the reproach of the world and to the torment and shame of a suddain execution And therefore let this fire your hearts to secure eternity else ye will be exposed to as many varieties of misery as there are sparks in the surnace or wounds in your own conscience The losse of eternity includes all possibilities of future misery David complaines he Psal 44. 22. was killed all the day long but in losing eternity we shall be killed to all eternity Arg. 4 Let this incentive be added The neglect of this duty of making sure our eternity It disappoints the end of our creation the offers of grace the promises of the Gospell the voice of Christs bloud the cals of heaven and the constant courting and incitation of the Spirit within us All these with an unanimous voice cry out to the soul let your first worke be to secure your everlasting condition the methods Luk. 19. 42. thods of divine Providence the sweet Rev. 2. 10. yet severall varieties of Gospell dispensation Joh. 3. 16. the striving patience waiting Luk. 22. 29. importuning of God himself cry out Make sure eternity The promises of God are nothing but bonds for eternity the offers of grace invite us to eternall glory the rules counsels directions by a holy manuduction lead us in the way to eternity therefore the Gospell it selfe is called eternall Rev. 6. 14. And this omission of this duty will cast a reproach and defamation on all the indulgence of divine compassion Arg. 5 And lastly consider this duty of securing eternity is not only plausible but feasible Smiles from God may be had an interest in Christ may be gained a worke of grace may be acquired Rom. 8. 16. some token some pledge of Gods love may be purchased some internall Eph. 1. 4. testimony and witnesse may be suppenaâ—d 2 Cor. 1. 22. by prayers and tears and expectation some privy seal private bond for eternity may be found out and therefore let all thy capacities be De electione sua unusquisque nostrum securus esto securita e non carnis sed spiritus non sensus experientiae quae est alterius vitae sed fidei qua peâ—severamus in charitate Christi ad finem Polan Synt. wound up heart hand time talents strenght to get a bond for eternity The Apostle 2 Pet. 1. 10. cals upon us to make our Calling and Election sure Now Election is our eternity a priori and Glory is our eternity a posteriori the one before the creation of world and the other after the dissolution of it God I say imposeth it upon us as our duty to make our election sure and therefore our election to Psal 84. 11. eternity and our possession of it may be made sure God layes not commands on us which imply impossibilities No but as election so glory may be ascertained the spring of mercy is in election and it bubbles out in calling and runs to and fro in obedience and faith and at last it loseth it self in the Ocean of glory So that its possibility of accomplishment should be a good inducement to duty and how sweet a smile from God gained at last as most certainly it may be unlesse the default lie in us which God shall morgage to thy soul for thy security of eternall blessednesse will be I may admire but not depaint or describe And that this branch of the exhortation may not be incomplete let me carry the torch before you in some few directions Dir. 1 Be earnest in prayer Prayer perfumed in the bloud of Christ hath the key of the Treasury door where all blessings are stor'd up It is an omnipotent duty so God himself saith Isa 45. 11. Concerning the works of my hands command ye me The Prayer of faith can draw the curtain from before Gods face scatter the cloud between him and the soul cause God to hold forth the scepter of grace and can induce Rom. 5. 5. Jesus Christ to shed a dew of love upon the soul fervent invincible importunate believing irrefistible prayer can as it were take the ring from off Christs finger and put it upon the suppliants This Protomartyr Stephen Act. 7. 53. when he was breathing out his last breath in holy prayer God drawes the curtaines of the heaven and shewes him his glory and Christ at his right hand Prayer as it can banish that scrupulous muntinie of the soul so it can make way for a soul-satisfying smile And pray for these three things 1. A soft heart 1 Pet. 3. 16. 2. A serene conscience And 1 Tim. 1. 5. 3. A spirit fired with zeal This threefold cord hell it self cannot break these three divine characters are Christs marke for glory the pledges of that love he will be drawing out to
minded Psal 49. 14. his everlasting condition nor laid up for it he fals into the arrests of death But the Saints whose word all his life time hath been eternity and who hath been in all his conversation pronouncing this shibboleth he fals into the embraces of it he may be said as Christ was Joh. 10. 15. To lay Morte tabernas nostras pulsante non terremur down his life to lay down his head upon the cushion of the grave and sweetly to sleep being rockt to it by death Now what sweetens and facilitates death to a believer only he hath studied eternity and hath got the scarlet thread in the window eternity Josh 2. 18. is assured to them The Saint whose heart is landed at the staires of eternity before when he comes to die he doth but as the Sun breake thorough a cloud to shine both gloriously and eternally and indeed the body of a Saint is but the darke cloud the curtain drawn before his shining soul Rally therefore and muster up all your thoughts and let them meet with eternity this is the way to perfume the winding sheet to strow flowers on the coffin and to make death it self smile and become a pleasing presage to a more pleasing crown The thoughts of eternity would make death more welcome I long saith the Saint whose heart before is in heaven to come to the stage of eternity he Phil. 3. 20. is in a longing fit impatient as the longing woman and smiling with joy Rev. 22. 20. and triumph on approaching death cries welcome that parting blow that brings me into the everlasting embraces of my dear Redeemer CHAP. XVII Vse of Exhortation Branch 2 The next branch of the Use shall be That we would make sure of Eternity THere are two great ends Why the wombe delivered us into the world the one is to adore an eternall being the other to obtaine eternall life and where the first is rightly performed the second is infallibly accomplished It was a good question the young man proposed What shall I do to inherit eternall life Luk. 10. 25. And indeed the answering of this question cals for all our cares feares troubles time duties industry and what ever fals within the verge of our highest and most extended capacities Things that are most precious we most secure and expose to them to the least hazard our jewels are lockt up in our cabinets our gold seald up in the coffer Now the excellency of man is his soul the excellency of the soul is life and the excellency of life is eternity and with what ambitions should we graspe the diademe of a blessed eternity What artifices did Si peccandum est pro corona est peccandum Absalon use to secure his Fathers throne to himself he lies with his Fathers Concubines in the sight of the people 2 Sam. 16. 22. a most odious practise What 2 Sam. 13. 9. wayes did Ammon use to secure his beauteous Sister for his lustfull embraces he bolted out all that might interrupt his unnaturall incest What Luk. 12. 20 21. thoughts did the Rich man take to secure his plenties the overflowing abundance of his fruites he erects new barnes and leaves not his Corn either a prey for the birds or a morsell for the Gleaners And the Barbarous Turke he kils all his younger Brethren and sacrifices them to his bloudy ambition that he might secure the Crown to himself And shall we be Omnia ei salva sunt cui salva est aeternitas lesse solicitous in our fears cares our holy policies and sacred stratagems to secure etetnity that everlasting blessednesse which is the supreme gift of God the reward of Saints the honour of Angels the rich provisions of heaven and the totall of all Christs merits and bloudy passion How canst thou dear Christian be satisfied or thy heat chilled and ambitions surfeted till thou hast obtained the reversion of a glorious eternity and God hath entailed on thee a crown of 2 Pet. 1. 10. immortality Review with thy selfe the bowels of Gods pity the voice of Christs bloud the desperatenesse and activenesse of Satans malice the shortnesse and uncertainty of thy own life the accusations of thy guilt Nay the very present glory of the triumphant Saints all call upon thee to make sure of eternity Canst thou sleep on the main mast with the dreadfull Ocean under thee or take up thy lodgings in the enemies field What doest thou else when thou hast nothing to shew for eternity Consider thy danger and disadvantagein this Those who can clear up no propriety in a blessed eternity may be considered under a double notion I. As sinners and with what a multitude of dangers is every Christlesse soul encompassed He is but as a wanderer in the wildernesse who may be a prey for every beast he is out of all protection God may suffer 1. Satan to destroy him had not Job been a righteous man his disease Job 2. 4. probably had been his death and Satan had not only been his tormentour The danger that every wicked man is in but his executioner every wicked man is Satans prisoner and who knowes how soon he may be his prey 2. God may suffer the Creature to destroy him as the Lyon did the Prophet 1 King 13. 24. the Bears the children and the 2 King 2. 24. wormes King Herod in all his magnificent Act. 12. 23. pompe Every creature is up in armes against a wicked man and wants only the word of commission to fall on and destroy him Gods wrath and his wretchlesnesse can turne the persumes of the world into ponyards as the Pope who died with joy 3. God may suffer him to destroy himself as Judas did and to become his own assasinate It is only the untired boundlesse patience and infinite long-suffering of God that keeps the wicked mans knife from his own throat Every sinner did not Gods mercy throw a chaine over him he would make his grave in his own wounds he would with Saul fall on 1 Sam. 31. 4. his own sword or like the Jaylour Act. 26. 27. be ready to fall a sacrifice to his own bloudy distemper For God withdrawing his providentiall care from a sinner what should hinder but that nature it self should become a stepmother 4. God himself may destroy a wicked man by an immediate execution as he did Aarons two sons Lev. 10. 2. these unhappy brethren who were brethren not only in nature but in iniquity and misery who as they came from the same wombe so they found the same death I say these brethren offered up strange fire but once but a sinner is continually offering the strange fire of his lusts and therefore God himself may breake him in pieces as a Potters vessell 5. And lastly God may suffer good men to destroy him As Phinehas who quenched the lust of that adulterous couple