the Midwife or rather the womb that brought death into the world and death must be the Grave to bury sin so the Mother is killed by the Daughter Again we may desire it as it brings us home to our Fathers house near our Head and our elder Brother so Saint Paul desir'd it Phil. 5.23 Secondly That none shall dye so but those that live so c. For as the effect follows the cause or the shadow the body so happiness is the attendant of holiness Would Balaam dye the death of the Righteous that was so far as a learned Author observes of him from living the life of the Righteous that he gave Pestilent counsel against the lives of Gods Israel and though here in a fit of compunction he seem a friend yet he was after slain by the Sword of Israel whose happiness he admires and desires to share in Carnal men care not to seek that which they would gladly finde some faint desires and short-winded wishes may be sometimes found in them but their mistake is in breaking Gods chain to sunder Holiness from Happiness Salvation from Sanctification the end from the means they would dance with the Devil and sup with Christ at night Live all their lives long in Dalilahs lap and then go to Abrahams bosom when they dye The Romanists have a saying that a man would desire to live in Italy a place of great pleasure but to dye in Spain because there the Catholick Religion as they call it is so sincerely profest And a Heathen being askt whether he would rather be Socrates a painful Philosopher or Craesus a wealthy King answer'd That for his life he would be Craesus but for the life to come Socracrates But stay not here and hereafter too you know what Father Abraham said to Dives in flames Son Remember that thou in thy life time receivedst thy good things and therefore now must look for evil That King Balaks proffers were so liberal that Balaam was loath to forgo so fat a Morsel his mouth watred and his fingers itcht to be dealing with Balak he will ask God again and again to gain such a prize and his heart again is ravisht with Israels happiness he would fain please Balak if he might not displease God in it and partake of both but as Balak had not his will so neither had Balaam either his wages or his wish God oftentimes fools wicked men of their expectations that whilst they strive to gain the happiness of both worlds at once finde neither so here I know not how fitter to compare Balaam then to a stranger travelling a far Countrey beholds the state and magnificence of the Court but no interest in the King or to a surveyor of Lands that takes an exact compass of other mens Grounds of which he shall never enjoy a foot I shall see him sayes Balaam so shall every eye and those also that pierc't him but not as Abraham saw him and rejoyced nor as Job Chap. 19.25 The pure in heart onely see him to their comfort when Balaam beholds him it shall be with terror and though when he made this prayer his soul danc't on his lips ready to flye off yet was he never nearer heaven then those Pisgah Hills Had Balaams works been answerable to his words or his worth to his wishes he might have reacht his desires But as Saul who was once among the Prophets fell after from God so Balaam is not long in these raptures and therefore for all his devotion though he were not so wicked as to kill himself is nevertheless so unfortunate as to fall by the Sword of the Israelites even among the thickest of Gods Enemies the Midianites as you may read at large in the one and thirtieth Chapter of this Book of Numbers v. 8. There is no man so much an enemy to himself but would be happy if happiness were to be gain'd with wishing for Ask the wickedst man upon earth if he does not hope to dye well he will tell you he does and so he will if a word upon his death-bed will do it A Lord have mercy upon me but alas Heaven is not to be attained on such easie tearms Cain may be distracted for his Murder Balaam and Saul may Prophesie Ahab walk in Sack-cloth Judas Preach and do miracles and all to no purpose 't was not Esau's blubber'd eyes that could recover either his Birth-right or his Fathers blessing I cannot but reprehend their folly that spend their dayes in sin and vanity and at the point of death think to turn suddain penitents as if that would do how foully are they mistaken that think so for he that lives like a devil upon earth though under an Angels vail shall never be a Saint in Heaven So I have now done with the parts propos'd what remains but that I in brief give some short directions how to lead this happy life how to reach that happy death and so I le conclude For the certain and speedy attainment of which be pleased seriously to weigh these following instructions First be conversant in the Scriptures make that your day and your night studies and take notice of the lives of all Gods Saints and endeavours to track them in those steps which brought them to glory Make Abrahams faith and Jobs patience Eliahs zeal and Hezekiahs Integrity patterns of your immitation Let Joseph be an example of unconquer'd chastity and Moses of meekness and humility Let Davids troubles teach us to depend upon Gods Providence and Pauls perseverance not to be weary of his Corrections Remember the Character which our Blessed Saviour gave of the Baptist That he was a burning and a shining light Indeed the Saints of God in all ages have serv'd as Beacons on hills to give light to a crooked and perverse generation Oh that we could but learn by their examples to adorn our profession and we shall be no losers in the end What sayes David Marke the upright man and behold the just indeed he is worth the noting for the end of that man is peace He it is that may be truly said to leave this world like a Lamb and shall for ever be owned in a better for one of Christs fold But above all look upon him that is the Author and finisher of your Faith strive to immitate the blessed steps of the holy Jesus whose feet were ever running Gods Commandements whose hands were ever busied in works of Charity his eyes ever looking for Objects of Mercy whose Soul was ever yerning with bowels of Compassion whose discourse was alwayes gracious and guile never found in his lips And that we may be the better fitted to write after such blessed copies let us set a narrow watch over our thoughts words and actions that we offend in neither but remember that he is an Almighty and Omniscient God with whom we have to do and all things naked and bare to his all-seeing eye and that we may make a happy progress in
Countrey which their posterity were after to be Lords of which as he would not without cost so he could not treat of it without tears Then Abraham stood up from before his dead where he had been weeping and requested the Sons of Heth to sell him a burying place that he might bury his dead out of his sight he was famous for his uprightness in that he would not take to the value of a shoe-latchet from those heathen Kings whose persons and all they had were at his disposal as the spoil of war Famous for his near and dear Communion with God in that he talkt familiarly with him as a man with his friend In a word he was a man so famous that before him the world had not his fellow nor hath it since scarce produc't his parallel yet in courting the Sons of Heth he sets forth himself in no other language then this I am a stranger and a sojourner among you Hence we are to observe that here the best of men are but Pilgrims the truth of which the Scriptures doth abundantly confirme witness old Jacob who being brought into King Pharaohs presence makes an ingenious confession Few and evil have been the dayes of thy servants Pilgrimage and have not attained to the dayes of my Fathers in their Pilgrimage so his Fathers were Pilgrims as well as he Job cries out that his dayes are swifter then the swiftest creatures either in the Earth Air or Sea then an Eagle Poste or ship and tells us that man that is born of a woman is of few dayes and full of trouble A life no less short then painful short enough for 't is measured out not by weeks moneths or years but dayes and miserable too for 't is as natural for frail mortalls to be sufferers as for sparks to fly upwards And David being ready to take his last farewel of this world saith I go the way of all the earth intimating that all men as well as he were to pass through the gates of death expressing the condition of his Fathers to be nothing different from his I am a stranger and a sojourner with thee as all my Fathers were Isaiah proclaims all flesh to be grass and their glory as fading as the flower of the field and this great Patriarck in the text I am a stranger and a sojourner among you Hence we may further observe that the Saints of God in all ages being throughly possest of their own mortality have ever entertained the meanest thoughts of themselves Abraham stiles himself dust and ashes Jacob tearms himself less then the least of Gods blessings David a worm and no man and the Son of David expresseth himself low enough or beneath himself as some think for many in these dayes deride and scorn the title I the preacher was King in Jerusalem Isaiah a man of polluted lips Jer. a child And the great Doctor of the Gentiles the least of the Apostles How hard a lesson is this to learn Humility is a grace contrary to most mens humors out of fashion or at least request in these times for now most men offer that violence to modesty as to make their tongues the trumpets of their own praises though they have none to brag of He is no body that cannot set forth himself without anothers help and on occasion smooth up others too with titles above their deservings When King Josiah past by the Grave of that Old Prophet he demanded what Inscription that was and may not we be as well startled at the inscribing and attributing high titles to popular greatness beyond the lines either of civility to tender or humility to accept which argues the givers folly and the receivers pride Young Elihu was of a better minde he would not give high titles to any lest his maker in fury should snatch him away Job 32.22 Thus having shewed what we are that we are all strangers and sojourners upon earth I now come to shew what we are to do and in order to the making our Pilgrimage happy and safely to arive at the blessed home as will make those eternally so that reach it be pleased to take notice of these five directions First to be mindeful of your home Secondly choose the best guides Thirdly set out betimes and hold out to the end Fourthly sort your selves with the best company Lastly I advise you as Joseph did his Brethren Take heed that ye fall not out by the way To the first Travellers use not to stand gazing or loitering on the way or to be drawn aside to behold Novelties they rise up early and come to their Inne late and travel hard to get home-wards nor are they satisfied till they reach it And shall not we that are Christians upon a better account be as mindeful of our home it being such a home that as far transcends the stateliest habitation here as the highest Heavens doth the lowest earth such a home as the quickest and sharpest eye would be dazied with beholding but a Glimpse of its glory and the eloquentest tongue or pen that ever was comes infinitely short to describe it The great Apostle who had once a view of that glory comes something near in describing it but 't is in the negative what 't is not not what 't is for saith he Eye hath seen nor ear heard or the capacity of man apprehend the splendor of it 'T is such a home as all the Patriarchs Prophets and Saints of God in all ages have left all to enquire after This was the City to come which they had ever in their eye and wandred about in Sheeps-skins and Goat-skins destitute afflicted and tormented to finde out 'T is such a home where you shall never be troubled with any loathed society and your beloved company shall never be taken from you No strugling of enemies there no David and Ishbesheth to contend for one Crown for none but Conquerors all heads shall be adorn'd with Crowns of glory such as never incircled the Temples of any earthly Monarch 'T is such a home where Satan nor any of his instruments shall be ever able to molest no siding or taking of parts there no Schisms or Divisions no room for Make-bates there What should such Salamanders do in Heaven there 's a fitter place prepared for such hot spirits and 't were well for them if one heat would extinguish another for fire and brimstone must be the portion of their cup. This place is onely for friends to dwell together in unity and none admitted here but those that live in peace here must be no spirit of Contradiction no dissenting Brethren no Non-conformists there but an unanimous conformity in all because that here is the God of Peace and the Peace of God which passeth all understanding 'T is such a home where you shall forthwith behold and enjoy the glorious beatifical Vision and be eternally unriddling that Mystery which Mortality could never reach to nor Reason apprehend the Tri-une-God the Trinity
whilst they were all fast bound up with a band they were secure either from cracking or bending but when once divided by one and one easily snapt asunder Whilst we are all under the bond of peace we are secured by Gods protection but when once divided at the Devils mercy Whilst we hold together we need not fear treating an enemy in the Gate but when once broke asunder with distractions a prey to them that hate us Remember that Joah and Abishai's united strengh put the Syrians and Ammonites to flight consider that ye have enemies enow abroad ye need not seek any so near home Make not those the objects of your malice that should be the bulwarks of your defence against the impetuous storms and batteries of an insnaring world a bewitching flesh and an envious Devil c. Know that there 's unity amongst wicked men for they hold together against the Righteous Simeon and Levi are Brethren in evil and shall we be at odds Nothing can be done well that 's not done in unity that 's not well done that 's done through discension The Apostle tells us That love is the fulfilling of the Law how then can the Law be fulfilled without love Those blessed Angells who wellcomed the new Born Saviour into the world with a Song did in a short sentence express both Tables They sang Glory to God on High Good will to men Peace on earth makes joy in Heaven and those that will not embrace peace on earth shall have nothing to do with the God of peace or the peace of God in Heaven You know what our Saviour said to his Disciples By this shall men know ye have an interest in me if ye love one another If ever therefore ye expect to end in peace or have peace in the end be peaceable in your Pilgrimage so shall ye in good time arive at your journeyes end and be no longer strangers abroad but Kings at home The Young mans Monitor AND Old Mans Admonisher A Meditation on Eccles 12.1 THis golden Book of Ecclesiastes was pen'd by the wisest King upon his repentance and may be fitly stil'd King Solomons Recantation which he wrote after he rose from that fall occasioned through his inordinate love of strange women and after he had with all his Wisdom found out the true Natures of all things here below then this wisest of Kings wrote this Book in the Front whereof he gives a briefe but full description of all the Glory and Pleasures of this world Vanity of vanities saith the Preacher all is vanity Saith the Preacher something must be said to that Solomon the son of David the richest wisest and mightiest Monarch that then reign'd vouchsafes to take upon him the title of Preacher though the Preacher in these dayes must not think much of the worst of titles but no more of that Solomon having thus truly weighed all the pomps and greatness of this world in the balance of his understanding and finding them too light to give satisfaction to the enjoyers thereof in the end of this Book he gives a heavenly Exhortation tending to the attainment of that true felicity as will make those eternally happy that reach it Fear God and keep his Commandments for this is the whole duty of man And for our better direction to keep Gods Commandments this last Chapter is usher'd in with a most excellent wholesome and seasonable Exhortation Remember now thy Creator in the dayes of thy youth Before I proceed further here must one Objection be remov'd Some may perhaps question the Preacher why he did not as well say Remember thy Creator in thy old age as in the dayes of thy youth I answer This memento is chiefly given to young men because they take the greatest liberty to wallow in all kinde of sensual pleasures and with the greatest eagerness to pursue the deceiving vanities of this world for now are their veins full of blood and their bones full of marrow and Repentance seems as unseasonable to them as Snow in Summer or Rain in Harvest Is not our youth say they given us to glut our selves with all kindes of pleasures and to walk in the wayes of our own hearts Shall I then sayes one grieve in my prime and repent for my crimes to hasten old age and make my smooth face full of wrinkles and bring gray hairs on my head ere I am an old man old age will fasten on me soon enough without all this let me therefore make hay while the sun shines and make the best use of my time I can to the utmost improvement of Pleasures and when I am growne so old as to be past using them I le cast them off and think of repentance and another world when 't is not possible to stay long in this These are the Common Pleas of Youth and therefore the Preacher looking upon them as the furthest from instruction and to stand in the greatest need of advice directeth his speech in a most especiall manner to them Remember now c. Young men have no more a lease of their lives then aged persons and there doth as many of them go to the grave as of older persons Death arrests some in their Cradles and many in their Infancy Childehood and Youth The dayes of man upon earth are but a shadow no certainty of any thing as of Death and nothing more uncertain then the time when and the maner how Come hither then thou darling of the world thou great favorite of flesh and blood thou whose Honors here are as blooming as the Lillies and Roses in thy youthful cheeks know Image that though thy Head be of Gold thy Body of Silver thy Feet are but of Clay If thou walk'st into the fields in the forward time of the Year thou canst not be unfurnisht of lively Emblemes of thy own Mortality how do the Lilly the Rose the Cowslip and the Gillyflower bemantle the earth as so many stars to represent Heaven glorious tapestry upon sight whereof you may easily be convinc't to believe That Solomon in all his glory was not arayed like one of these And yet how subject are they to fading pluck them and they are stubborn soon crapt assunder smell them and they wither and if the winde but blows over them they are gone and be no more And is it not so with thee doth not St. James compare our life to a vapor and that 's but short David to a span a thought a tale and those not long Isaiah to grass and the flower of the field and those you see not lasting But of all the sacred Limners in holy Scripture I finde Jobs pencil to be the freest in pourtraying man to stubble and that not standing neither to a leaf and that not fast but shaken and to a weavers shuttle and many other such transient resemblances He came something near the drawing man to the life who compared this life to a spot between two Eternities the time
the greatest threats nor the humblest intreaties shall not serve the turn The usurers gold cannot ransome him nor the mighty mans honour priviledge him those that shut up their bowels of compassion from others shall finde nothing but tyranny from him Here the luxurious Epicure that through the five Senses which are the cinque ports or rather the sinners ports of the soul did gulp down delightful sin like water shall now finde that those pleasant dayes are now blown over and that the end will prove them like the Angels book sweet in the mouth but bitter in the bowels in that he must in few moments be wafted to remorselesse flames Here the gorbellied Mammonist that piled up huge masses of refulgent earth purchased by all unconscionable courses shall have nothing left but a coffin and winding sheet and which is worst of all a guilty conscience now all his fair pretences and apologies will be but like characters drawn upon the sands or arrows shot up to heaven ward they cannot release him from Satans inexpiable Servitude Deaths warrants run very high Non omittas propter ullum libertatem attache them where ever thou findest them there are no places in the world free from the arrests of death and when once this grim Serjeant death hath arrested their bodies their souls must be presently sent to the bar of judgement for particular sentences then actum erit as one hath it the matter will be past cure now the day-book of their own consciences will be produced as a thousand witnesses against them for there the debt of sin is scored up and never to be crost till expung'd by repentance which is now too late to speak of and now shall not the Judge of all the world do right Yes surely and he will give the Devil his due as the Devil bought their souls so he must now have them The Devil is the Jaylour of Hell and thither the Judge commands them Take them Jaylour saith the Judge take them Devil and keep them till the general Judgement that then their miseries may be compleated and suffer in soul and body as they sinned in both The end comes when the earth shall tremble and the foundations of the hills shall be shaken when the Sun shall be turn'd into darkness and the Moon into blood to usher in the coming of that day at which time how wilt thou be beleagur'd with anguish and horror when thou shalt behold with thy mortal eyes the Cataracts of Heaven unsluced and hushing showers of sulphrous fires disperse themselves through all the corners of the Earth and Air the whole universe o're-canoped with a remorse lesse flame when thou shalt see the great and glorious Judge appear triumphantly in the Skies whilest mighty winged clouds with devouring flames fly before him as ushers to his powerful and terrible Majesty attended with innumerable multitudes of beautiful Angels golden wing'd Seraphims and Cherubims sounding their shrill alarms whose clamorous tonges shall affright the empty air and call and awake the drouzie Dead from their dark and duskie cabbins when thou shalt see the dissipated bones of all Mortals since the creation concatinate and knit in their proper and peculiar form amazedly start up and in numberless troops flock together all turning up their wondering eyes to gaze upon their high and mighty Creator When thousand thousands shal minister unto him ten thousand times ten thousand stand before him the Thrones set for judgement and the Books opened and nothing remain but a fearful expectation and looking for of judgement and fiery indignation which shall devour the adversaries Then will thy Conscience recommemorate a fresh thy past committed sins and with the coroding sting of guilt stab through thy perplexed soul Then indeed to be nothing were something but that will not be for Justice must now exact to the utmost farthing 'T will be too late to wish the mountains to fall upon thee for they themselves would if possible for fear shrink into their center Alas it cannot then be available to wooe the Waters to swallow thee for they would be glad to exclaim their liquid substance and be reduc't to a nullity What will it boot thee to intreat the Earth to entomb thee in her darkish womb when she her self will struggle to remove her local residence and to fly from the presence of the great Judge The Air cannot muffle thee in her foggy vastity that will be clearly refin'd there 's celestial flames uncontaminated with humane pollution so that thou must be forc't to appear before a most severe Judge carrying in thy own conscience thy Indictment ready written and a perfect Register of all thy misdeeds When thou shalt see him that was once a Saviour now a Judge whose Knowledge is infallible whose Power is infringible and his Justice inflexible of exceeding dreadful Majesty clothed in glorious apparel and his body shining through it like sparkling diamonds his eyes like burning lamps his face like flashing lightning his arms and legs like inflamed brass his voice like the shout of a multitude or of many waters prepared for thy idle words evil deeds time mispent and talent ill govern'd to pass the sentence upon thee against whom thou hast transgressed and he thy umpire whom by many offences thou hast made thine enemy And in order to a full and clear accomplishment of Justice a final separation shall be made no hypocrite shall closely lurk here among the Saints the Gold shall be taken from the Dross and the Silver from the Tin the Tares from the Wheat and the Corn from the Chaff the Sheep from the Goats the Vile from the Precious and the Elect from the Reprobates and plac't on each side the Judge those on the left hand to be doom'd to everlasting punishment and those on the right to life eternal How will it then perplex thy afflicted soul to see those on the Judges right hand whom thou contemnest as inferiour to the dogs of thy flock who shall now be one of that Jury that shall confirm thy condemnation and applaud the sentence of the Judge here shall be a general Audit the Widows tears and the Orphans cryes shall be here regarded what wouldst thou now give for a good conscience that were a jewel of price then Christian graces shall be more precious then natural gifts There the foolish and dumb may be more happy then the wise and eloquent there the ignorant Rustick may be preferred before the knowing Philosopher and the mean Beggar before the mighty Prince and the simple and ignorant before the witty and subtle There simple obedience shall be found better then cunning hypocrisie a clear conscience more pleasant then profound Philosophy zealous prayers of more worth then fine tales and good works more acceptable then sweet words then shall the poor and meek triumph and the proud shake and tremble then shall the memory of misery be sweet because they are past and the thoughts of pleasure be
THE PILGRIMS PASS To the New JERUSALEM OR The serious CHRISTIAN his Enquiries after HEAVEN With his Contemplations on himself reflecting on his Happiness by CREATION Misery by SIN Slavery by SATAN and Redemption by CHRIST Together with Observations on the Vanity and Inconstancy of worldly Glory And Considerations on the Saint and Sinner as to their disagreeing conditions and dispositions here their various Entertainments of Death and different Rewards after Death Relating to those four last and great things of Death Judgement Hell and Heaven Seasonable for these Times By M. R. Gent. Phil. 3.14 I press towards the mark c. 1 Cor. 9.24 So run that ye may obtain London Printed by R. W. for the Author and are to be sold by John Andrews at the White Lion near Pye-Corner and by William Lugger at the Sign of the Kings Head over against the Shire-Hall in the City of Hereford 1659. To all those that love the Peace of Zion and welfare of Jerusalem Grace and Peace be multiplied FRIENDS THe Life of a Christian is not onely Speculative but Active speculation and action like the Soul and Body attend each other in performing the Duties of Christianity The most Wise God hath ordered and determined a set time for Man upon earth to fit and prepare himself for an everlasting condition how then are we all concern'd to redeem that short time we have allowed us which we know not how soon may be taken from us to enter into a strict examination of our wayes knowing that one day all our thoughts words and actions even our most retired and secret sins shall be exposed to the view both of Men and Angels O Time one of the most glorious things that ever God made how many blessed and glorious Spirits are now in Heaven for making a right use of thee And how many damned Ghosts are now in Hell for abusing thee who would now give a thousand worlds had they so many to dispose of for to have that opportunity we now enjoy to improve thee For mine own part I am but a yong Man who came into the world but as yesterday ere to morrow for ought I know may be taken hence For how many dayes are alloted me upon Earth none but the Ancient of days know wherefore during my continuance in this Tabernacle I desire to walk circumspectly that when my Lord shall come to call me to a reckoning I may like a good steward be found faithful of the charge committed to me You know his doom that hid his Talent in a Napkin It was in this consideration that I did now put Pen to Paper and raised my contemplations above the things of this world to those of a better in order to the gaining and attaining a right and title to that glorious undefiled and unfading Inheritance purchaste for Believers in the highest Heavens Let not any taxe me of Ambition for exposing my Lines to Publike view and my self to open Censure 'T was not to get me a Name but to further the weak Christian in his approaches towards Heaven Neither let any contemn the Work of this Author for the Author of this Work but remember that God can by weal means perform great matters Ravens those unclean Birds by the Law were Caterers to Elijah in his extremity at the Brook Cherith brought him bread and meat to sustain him he neither scorn'd those strange kinde of Purveyors or the Viands which they brought but admired the hand that sent it The Gifts and Graces of Gods Spirit are not to be slighted where ever found I speak not this by way of Ostentation but with a desire that my Readers would judiciously read ere they rashly censure and instead of carping at my failings correct their own that Love which covers a multitude of faults may cast the favourablest construction on mine 'T is Charity to judge well of others and Piety to look well to our selves If any thing of worth appear in me more then in the meanest person upon earth attribute it to him who is the giver of every good and perfect gift What have we that we have not received And let me further request you that after the clashing of Armor thunderings of Canons sound of Drums and the alarm of Trumpets you would in this your day enquire after your everlasting Peace and contest no longer about Niceties Circumstances and Shadows not worth contending for but for that one thing necessary which will reward your labours with no less then a Crown Our present division is a sad Omen of our future miseries and our â—…y unity would abundantly faciliate our desired felicity I wish we did all practise what we all profess Faith and Love we should all procure what we all desire Truth and Peace were we all united in the Tri-une-God we should not be thus divided one from another The Lord in his good time compose all our Differences that Malice Errour and Debate may return to the cursed Womb whence they deriv'd and all our Strife may end in this to excel each other in the power of Godliness and Christian Love For my Conclusion let me request you to vouchsafe a serious perusal of this small Manual and the Lord make it in some measure beneficial to you for next the Glory of God your good is chiefly aimed at by the Author And if this finde civil entetainment I shall if God prolong my life to finish what I have begun present you with something else In the mean time accept this as the earnest of his Love who subscribes himself Your Servant in our Immanuel M. R. The Contents of the following Book 1. ABrahams Profession and the Pilgrims Condition Or the inquiring Sojourner Directed A Meditation on Gen. 23.4 2. The Young Mans Monitor and Olds Mans Admonisher A Meditation on Eccles 12.1 3. Sin the cause of Sorrow and Death the effect of Sin A Meditation on 2 Sam. 24.14 4. Balaam's happy Wish and unhappy End A Meditation on Numb 23.10 5. The meritorious Ransom or the unparalleld Sufferings of the Son of God for the sons of Men. A Meditation on 1 Tim. 1.15 6. Observations on the Vanity and Inconstancy of worldly Glory 7. Considerations on the Saint and Sinner as to their disagreeing conditions and dispositions here their various entertainments of Death and different Rewards after Death reflecting on the Temporizing Professor illustrated and interlaced with the Historical Examples of Dying men 8. Godliness bearing its Rewards with it both here and here after and Sins pursuit of the Sinner to the other world Of the last Judgement and those succeding Events that ensue thereupon A Meditation on 1 Tim. 4.8 To his Judicious Friend the Author TO praise thy Work I need not though Divine It is enough I tell the world 't was thine Good Wine needs not a Bash the more I look The more I love the more I like thy Book So grave so wise in Youth Nature did place An August in thy Pen
in Unity and Unity in Trinity There you shall see the Lamb with his train of Attendants Cherubims Seraphims Principalities Powers Thrones Dominions Archangels and Angels Patriarchs Prophets Apostles Martyrs and Confessours crying Holy holy holy Lord God of Sabbath And there shall those good Angels which were your Guardians upon earth be your everlasting Companions in Heaven In a word 't is such a home where you shall be made perfectly happy Time shall not rust or diminish your glory nor adversity with her frowns ever approach near those Mansions for you shall be ever in the Sun-shine of Gods favour and your happiness as everlasting as his that made it Oh! did we but all consider the shortness of the sweetest pleasure here in comparison of those endless and eternal joyes that the Saints shall there partake of and the shortness and smallness of the longest and greatest misery or torture that can be endured here to the Worm that never dyes to the fire that is never quencht to those everlasting torments that shall in full viols be poured upon the wicked in Hell for ever we should think less of this world and more to be happy in a better And this brings me from the first particular observable to the second From being mindful of our home to our choice of Guides to conduct us thither Choose the best guides These guides are in the Old Testament called Seers in the New Overseers and these are they whom God hath appointed to lead us the way to that home to which many Saints are already gone in Soul and many more shall in Gods due time arive and be fully glorified both in soul and body These Seers or Overseers are those that open the Scriptures and make plain the way of the Lord and cause his paths to be known to the sons of men they are also for their dignity term'd Ambassadors of Christ Christs Stewards Publishers of glad Tidings proclaimers of Salvation Fellow-workers together with Christ and Ministers of the Gospel These God hath set up as lights that by their soundness of Doctrine and Integrity of life many Souls may be recalled from darkness unto his marvellous light they are Cities set upon a Hill for men to see and Candles lighted upon candlesticks to light the Traveller the way and these by their eminency are or at least ought to be Men of excellent qualifications and rare endowments Angelicall persons men made up of Heaven and if we take such for our guides we need not fear crooked paths but may be confident of our way But because all is not Gold that glisters nor all such as they seem it behoves us to be very cautious in the choise of our guides for if the blinde lead the blinde whither will they go The way to Hell is broad and easily found 't is a pleasant way beset with Roses able to intice the foolish Traveller who is ignorant that it leads to death And on the contrary the way to heaven seems to flesh and blood very uncomfortable a narrow sharp steep and unpleasant way very intricate long tedious troublesome and hard to finde in which many a passenger hath stumbled and many a blinde guide lost his way But that we may be warned by others harms and reach that which they fell short of let 's bear with the sharpness of the way and be incouraged by the happiness of the end The advice of a late ingenuous Author to this purpose is worthy your observation Regard not saith he how difficult the passage is but whither it tends nor how delicate the journey is but where it ends If it be easie suspect it if hard endure it He that cannot excuse a bad way accuseh this own sloth and he that sticks in a bad passage can never attain a good journeyes end It cannot be denyed but that many a passenger hath suffered by bad guides such as have let them go out of their way and made them believe the pleasantest way was the best and the poor Traveller not sensible of the mistake till it hath been too late to talk of returning But of such we are cautioned to beware and though they speak never so smoothly This is the way walk in it we are to turn our deaf ear to erring Charms of such blinde guides and witless Councellours And this brings me from the second particular observable to the third from the choice of our guides to our haste in setting out and perseverance in our course Set out betimes and hold out to the end As this Exhortation is two-fold so shall be my discourse upon it I shall in the first place apply my self to young men who like my self are but newly risen or scarce set out And in the next humbly address my self to aged persons who are or at least ought to be near their journeys end And first to young men let me request you to make God and Heaven the constant objects of your thoughts the one of your fear the other of your love so walk that ye displease not the one and ye need not fear the attaining of the other Are you setting out lose no time remember that many have squandred away the morning and have not reacht their journeyes end ere night and with those foolish Virgins for their tardiness have been excommunicated that place of repose where the early Traveller safely and in good time ariv'd An hour in the morning you know is worth two at night and God is better pleased with young Zeal then decreped Holiness Josiahs forwardness makes him renown'd to posterity and young Timothy's Piety eternizes his name to future generations Are you on your way persevere in your Christian course and think upon the end whilst ye are at the beginnings and even now upon the race have an eye to the recompence so shall the splendid glory of the one faciliate the irksome tediousness of the other Every true Christian saith a learned writer is a Traveller His life his walk Christ his way and Heaven his home his walk painful his way perfect his home pleasing Let 's not therefore loiter lest we come short of home nor wander lest we come wide of home but be content to travel hard and to be sure to walk aright so shall our safe way find its end at home and our painful walk make our home welcome We are all concerned to make our best use of time lest too late we lament the abuse of it yesterday cannot be recalled to morrow cannot be assured to day therefore is onely ours which if we slight we lose which lost is lost for ever Young men remember this I mean you whose bodies are strong and healthful not beset with any sickness or besieg'd with any diseases nor loaded with those common infirmities incident to old age consider that you know not how short your time is your Sun for any thing you know may go down in the morning and your night may fall ere noon Therefore be early
up and earnest on your way towards home that if death shall snatch you away in a moment it may be onely to waft you to happiness whilst ye are inquiring after it David rose up early in the morning and was earnest in his inquiries after this Jerusalem he long'd after it panted for it and perpetually did he during his tedious Pilgrimage in Mesech lift up his hands with his soul towards it The Father of the Faithful rose up early too and did chearfully set out and held out to the end as all those must do that hope to reach his bosom I le now leave the young man on his march and after a good beginning expect a Perseverance in well doing and a happy conclusion And now come and direct my speech to the Ancients even to you whose decreped bodies signifie your night at hand when you shall lie down in the dust and rest in oblivion till the last Trumpet shall summon you before that dreadful tribunal Let me humbly request you now to be inquisitive after the other world have you trifled away the morning of your day and all this while not put one foot forward on your journey for Heaven Let me acquaint you that it may not now be too late if you defer no longer remember there were some called at the third hour as well as at the first and labourors entertained in the evening that were rewarded with those that came in the morning Are you on your way go chearfully along and you may yet finish the work of the day ere the approaches of the night wherefore be not weary of well doing but remember that the end crowns the work and he onely the gainer who endures to the end How many have set out betimes and made a promising beginning that have fainted on their journey and fallen short of Heaven that which hath a diadem in the end may well admit some bitterness in the beginning Let therefore the worth of the reward promp you in your greatest difficulties to undergo all with patience who would not do much for such a crown and what will not some do for a worse In Races all press towards the mark but the foremost onely wins the prize Not so here here 's a reward for every one that deserves it a prize for more then the foremost not onely he that runs swiftest and is soonest there but every one that runs well though he comes behinde shall have something My advice to you is that you would so prepare your selves in the evening of your day for the approaches of your night that all things being ready for a change you may court death to convey you from the work to the reward And it may not unfitly be said of you as of that glorious courser of Heaven The Sun knoweth his going down and your setting here may but make you rebound to shine more glorious in a higher Sphere And this brings me from the third particular observable to the fourth from our haste in setting out and perseverance in our walk to the choice of our Comrades to accompany us in our journey Sort your selves with the best company Remember thou art a Kings Son said Mindemus to his Pupil so say I to thee Christian Reader thou art son to a greater King then Mindemus was and wilt thou undervaluethy self with base company shall one so nearly allyed to the Prince of Light be a companion for a brat of darkness an heir of Heaven for a firebrand of Hell the son of a King for the slave of a Devil It may be guest by the company we keep to whom we belong for birds of a feather will flock together sayes our comon Proverb 'T is most certain that nothing of good can be gained by bad company and to shun the workers of evil is the way to decline an evil work for we are apt to be drawn more by example then precept and to intimate those we have most converse with be it to good or evil better therefore to have no company at all then not have good I had rather go to Heaven alone then to Hell with company How then are we all concern'd to make choice of such religious consorts as by their Heaven-like conversations may draw us to a trade of godliness such as may be thought fit by the most wise God to be both our companions upon earth and with us to be admitted Denizons of Heaven To keep company with our betters is the way to improve our selves for as a late Author wittily observes that to be best in the company is the way to grow worse and the best means to grow better is to be the worst there If therefore you have chosen such endear your selves each to other for there 's no such friend to a tedious journey as a good companion and let your souls be as it were linkt in the bonds of true friendship that as David and Jonathan ye may be lovely in your lives and in your deaths may not be divided And like the same David ye may bid defiance to the works and workers of iniquity with a depart from me ye wicked so shall ye clearly quit your selves from the number of those that shall at the last day be terrified with that direful excommunication of the great judge Depart from me for I know you not And this brings me from the fourth particular observable to the fifth from the choice of our company to our deportment in our journey Take heed that ye fall not out by the way For brethren and fellow so journers to disagree is against the rules both of Piety and Policy small harmony nor delight in that journey where Travellers do jangle When two Israelites fell at variance Moses a spectator of the discord useth no other arguments of perswasion to compose and appease the difference then this Sirs ye are Brethren intimating that 't was not for brethren to wrong one another The Father of the Faithful how tender was he in preserving friendship with his Nephew Lot Let there be no strife betwixt me and thee for we be brethren What manner of men were those whom ye slew at Tabor said Gideon to Zeba and Zalmunna Oh! they were my brethren Oh! had you favoured them I should have spared you For my Brethren and Companions sake saith David I will wish thee prosperity 'T is for enemies to fall out not for such near and dear allyes to disagree they must hold together live together and walk together in love as being related in an higher and nobler sense then that of Nature being fellows of one family Sons of one Father Children of one Mother Stones of one Building Branches of one Vine Sheep of one Fold Members of one Body and Professors of one Truth Made by one God Redeemed by one Jesus and Sanctified by one Holy Ghost one would think these tyes enough to debar division from among such friends Esops bundle of Cudgels in the Fable are very remarkable
past being dead the future unborn and onely the narrow compass of the present all that man can challenge We know not how soon death may overtake us when we are sent into the world the greatest part of our errand is to dye and the onely business of our life to prepare for death We are not certain to be Masters of one minute of time when we begin to breath the next moment may be our last How many have lien down to take a healthful sleep that have wak't in another world Death saith a learned man lies in wait for us in all places and there 's no escaping his tyranny Death borders upon our Births and our Cradles stand in our Graves How many have we seen carried from the Womb to the Tomb from the Birth to the Burial and what a short cut hath the longest liver from the Grave of the Womb to the Womb of the Grave Ever since the fall of our first Father death hath ranged through the world and made a general slaughter of mankinde sparing none The most eloquentest Orator that ever was could never charm him nor the potentest Monarch that ever breathed could never bribe him the greatest Warriour that ever was death hath civilized and made a green turf or weather-beaten stone cover that body that living a Lordship could not cloathe or the world contain the most famous persons that ever the world enjoyed hath death laid at his feet without regard either to Worth Dignity Majesty Youth or Age Sex or Condition he favours not the best nor spares the worst Samson with all his strength Absolon with all his beauty Josiah with all his zeal David with his conquests and Solomon with his glory Crasus with his wealth and Irus with his poverty Lazarus with his boyles and Dives with his bravery the Beggar with his rags and the Courtier with his robes all come under the rugged imbraces of this grim Sergeant He spared not Innocency it self but had the confidence to look the Son of the Highest in the face arrests him and keeps him three dayes his prisoner in the Grave The mortal Sythe is master of the Royal Scepter and it mows down the Lillies of the crown as well as the grass of the field death uses no civillity to Princes more then Pesants he findes them out in their Palaces and it may be in their most retired Closets and handles them no otherwise then the meanest person in the street Death saith a learned Divine suddainly snatcheth away Physicians as it were in scorn and contempt of Medicines when they are applying their preservatives and restoratives to others as it is storied of Caius Julius a Chyrurgeon who dressing a sore Eye as he drew the Instrument over it was struck by an Instrument of death in the act and place where he did it Besides diseases many by mischances are taken as a bird with a bolt while he gazeth at the bow Death is that King against whom there is no rising up which all men are sure to meet with whatever they miss of but when that 's unknown Of Dooms-day there are signs affirmative and negative not so of death every day we yield something to him our last day stands the rest run And how should this put us all in minde to prepare for death that he snatcheth us not away at unawares Whatsoever thou takest in hand therefore remember thine end saith the wise Man and thou shalt never do amiss No thoughts so wholsome as those of death and none so profitable as those of our end We read of Isaac that he brought his new Bride Rebecca into his Mother Sarahs Tent thereby to moderate those Nuptial pleasures with the thoughts of her Memory whose Corps but few dayes before were carried thence And King Saul was no sooner anointed but Samuel sends him by Rachels Sepulchre lest his new greatness of being a King might puff him up and make him to forget that he was a man We read of many heathens who did so much contemplate on their mortality as their discourses their houses and their tables should be constant Monitors of it The Aegyptians were wont to carry about their Tables a Deaths head at their greatest feasts and the Emperours of Constantinople on their Coronation day had a Mason appointed to present unto them certain Marble-stones using these words or to this purpose Choose mighty Sir under which of thesâ— Stones Your pleasure is ere long to lay your Bones And 't is storied of Philip King of Macedon that he caused a Lackey everâ— morning to awake him with that shâ— Memento of Sir remember that you arâ— a man Shall heathens be thus mindful 〈◊〉 their dissolution and shall we put thoâ—â— thoughts far from us surely no but â—â—ther cogitate of it and make every dâ—â— our last Certainly did we but considâ—â— that we are Men that all our actioâ—â— stand upon record and shall one day be impartially rewarded We should so demean our selves every day as men that endeavoured that no action of any day should be such as should stand against us at the last Young men remember this you that may promise your selves many dayes upon earth let not every day that is added to your life bring new sins with it but let grace be added to your dayes that so your last dayes may be better then your first and your burial day better then your birth as the wise Man speaks Make God the Alpha and Omega of all your actions and remember him in your work and he will remember you in the reward remember him as an Omniscient and Omnipotent God one that beholds all thy actions and will reward them remember him in thy youth and let him have thy best dayes as well as thy worst the blossoms of thy Youth as well as the leaves of thy Old age and be sure that thou spend the glory of thy years as well as the dregs of thy age in his service so shall thy life be prosperous thy death happy and thy resurrection glorious On the contrary if thou forget him now a day will come when he will not remember thee but strangely excommunicate thee with a depart from me for I know you not therefore ever bear this wholsome lesson in minde and forget it not Remember now thy Creator in the dayes of thy Youth It may be some may think that Old Men come not within the verge of this exhortation and that Solomon had nothing to say to them when he directed his speech to the Young Man I answer that Old Men are more concerned to take notice of this then the Young man and thus I prove it Young Men are but newly come into the world and they must have some time to look about them Old Men are ready to leave the World and 't is not long ere they must render an account to God for all their actions 'T is but the dawning of the day with the Young Man but night begins to shew it self
is briefly this That sin is the cause of sorrow or that all the miseries that ever hapned unto mankinde came by sin which I shall clearly demonstrate both by Scripture Reason and Experience with such perspicuous clearness as none but a son of contention will contradict 'T was sin that excluded Adam out of Paradise Gen. 3.24 Brought a deluge on the old world Gen. 7.12 Fire and Brimstone upon Sodom Gen. 19 24. Plagues upon Egypt Exod. 7.20 Destruction upon Pharaoh Exod. 14.28 Ruine upon Jericho Josh 6.24 And so many miseries upon Eli and his family that to hear would make the ears of any Israelite to tingle 1 Sam. 3.12 'T was sin that made Saul lose two Crowns the one on earth the other in heaven That brings a catologue of plagues on the head of the sinner Deut. 28.16 Makes the whole creation groan Rom. 8.22 Made the Sun withdraw himself the pale-fac't Moon to hide her head the twinkling Stars to disappear the Rocks to rend the Graves to open the vail of the Temple to part a general darkness to take place over the whole world brought the whole fabrick of heaven and earth out of course the Lord of Glory to a shameful end and the Prince of Life to an infamous death Luke 23.46 In a word I may truly say of sin as Abner did of war Knowest thou not that it will bring bitterness in the latter end 2 Sam. 2.26 God is so severe against sin that he would not spare his own Son when he undertook for the sins of the world and is so just in his chastising of sinners that he gives plagues answerable to the offence that oftentimes the world may read the sin by the punishment Instance the Sodomites who burnt with unnatural lust man with man therefore Hell comes from Heaven Fire and Brimstone out of Heaven upon Sodom Gen. 19.24 Pharaoh orders all the Hebrew males to be drown'd and he and his host are serv'd so in the Red Sea Exod. 14.21 Adonibezek in his wanton cruelty cut off the fingers and toes of seventy Kings and made them scramble for the crumbs of his Table and in the manner did God requite him 't is his own acknowledgement Judg. 1.7 Abimelech kills his seventy brethren upon one stone and his own brains are dasht out with a stone from the Tower of Thebes thrown by a Woman Judg. 9.53 Sauls sword slue eighty five of the Lords Priests and does the like courtesie for him 1 Sam. 31.4 Ahab and Jezabel who conspired to fool Naboth at once both of his Life and Vineyard ere long the dogs lick their blood on the plat of ground they so bloodily purchast 1 Kings 22.38 c. Zimri conspir'd against his master King Elah and put him to death for his Crown reigned but seven dayes but is forc't to be his own executioner 1 Kings 16.15 Queen Athaliah slayes all the blood Royal and she her self is sent with violence into another world to answer for her cruelty in this 2 Kings 11.20 Haman makes a Gallows of fifty Cubits high for Mordecai and sues for a general Massacre of all the Jews himself meets with a violent and infamous death on the Gallows he had prepared for Mordecai Esth 7.10 Those Persian presidents that conspired against Daniel to have him thrown into the den of Lions are themselves cast in and tore in pieces ere they came to the ground Dan. 6.24 Nebuchadnezzars pride transported himself beyond himself therefore Gods Justice brings him lower then a man makes him a beast by name that before was one in nature Dan. 4.33 Herods pride made him forget he was a man and therefore an Angel from the Lord makes him know himself to be but a man or rather a worm and smites one worm with many till he dyes Acts 12.23 'T was Jerusalems sin to stone the Prophets and her punishment was answerable not to have one stone upon another Mat. 23.37 The Judge objects against those on the left hand I was a stranger and ye took me not in naked and ye cloathed me not sick and in prison and ye visited me not and therefore their punishment is to finde no mercy themselves that would afford none to others and are for ever excluded the Judges presence and all happiness at once Mat. 25.41 Thus just is God in making the punishments so suitable to the sins But here is one Objection ready to be thrown into my way which I must not pass by without answering Doth God so severely punish sin and he the authour of all The Prophet Amos asks the question Can there be evil in the city and God hath not done it Amos 3.6 And that word when 't is put as an Interogatory in the beginning either of a Verse or Sentence 't is the highest affirmation and confirmation of a following Negative turth Instance Can a man take fire in his bosom and his clothes not be burnt Can a man that is old return a second time into his mothers womb and be born again Can we bring a clean thing out of an unclean a pure Spring from a polluted Fountain surely no. Can there be evil in the city and God hath not done it there cannot And did God move David to commit the sin of numbering the People and doth he yet punish that sin of Davids with the death of no less then seventy thousand men Is he so severe against that sin of which himself is the authour I answer 'T is the greatest blasphemy imaginable to make God the Authour oâ— sin Let not any man when he is tempted say I am tempted of God for God cannot bâ— tempted of evil neither tempteth he any to evil James 1.13 You are to know that there are two sorts of evils the evil of Sin and the evil of Punishment the one proper to God the other incident to man We read of several in Scripture that did evil in the sight of the Lord there is the evil of Sin and then we read how God did inflict judgements upon them for those sins there was the evil of Punishment The guilt of the one requires the Justice of the other Again God is said to be the Authour of sin because he swayes all the actions of men and were he pleased he could take off the sinner in the heat and height of his sin and with a word as he made the World of nothing bring all that is therein to nothing no sin can be committed or cruelty acted without his permission And here by the way you are to take notice of a great Truth viz. That God permits many things to be done which he doth not approve of when they are done and to make this plain to the meanest capacities I could heap multitudes of Examples to confirm it I am not ignorant that many have measured the justness of a Cause by the success of it and because God for the sins of a Nation or other reasons best known to his Divine wisdom oftentimes suffer
repose for Beasts far unfit for the King of kings Bed-chamber the Lamb which all the shepherds left their flocks to finde is laid in a Manger his attendants but mean and not many his reputed Father and the Blessed Virgin no sooner eight dayes old but the circumcising knife according to the Law must pass upon him that came to fulfill both the Law and the Prophets with the loss of his Blood as an earnest of that which after in a more abundant manner flowed from him And before two years old is forc't to flye for his Life when he could not go his whole Life 't was but a continual supply of Crosses from his Alpha in the Manger to his Omega on Mount Calvary from his Cradle to his Crucifixion and from his Womb to his Tomb he might truly be termed a man of Sorrows When once he shewed himself to the world how was he hunted like a Partridge upon the Mountains in often hazards of his Life ere his hour was come he should lay it down He had not his mean Birth for nothing for as he was born under another mans roof so all the time of his Life had he no house of his own he that was Lord of all possest nothing He was poorer then the Foxes and not so rich as the Fowls of the Aire for the one had holes the other had nests but he no place of his own to rest in For a house he hath not a hole for Lands he hath none but what he treads upon for moneys a fish brings him a piece to pay his Tribute with for pleasure the Cross is his Cognisance for Honour Contempt is his common Livery How much ignomy and contempt did he pass through and how many opprobrious words did he patiently receive from the foul-mouth'd Multitude who were ever guilty of putting the worst glosses and constructions on his â—ctions If he works miracles they presently twit him with his Parentage Is not this the Carpenters son and can good come out of Nazareth If he converse with sinners he must be one himself or at least a friend to them and in that they spake truer then they were aware 〈◊〉 for he was the best friend that Sinners or Publicans ever had If he heals a Cripple or do any other work of mercy on the Sabbath day he is presently censur'd for a profaner of the Sabbath If he cast out devils he doth it by Belzebub at last his Exit draws nigh that all the miseries of his life shall be infinitely transcended by a painful and shameful death as a sad preface to which in order to the compleating the work of mans Redemption begins his agony in the Garden where indeed he receiv'd the first relish of that bitter cup of his Fathers Indignation which he was to drink of Here began the travel and anguish of his Soul that produc't those drops of bloody sweat which in so plentiful a manner flowed from him in a cold Winters night The conflict must needs be sharp that put him in such a heat in so cool an Aire as doubtless it was for the sins of the whole world lay upon him 'T was thy sin O man caused this blood-shed Thy guilt this sweat that was the Sword this the fire which made this blood and sweat Adam sinn'd in a Garden Christ there sweats for it his day lust made this night sweat Mans spirit was distempered in Eden Gods body therefore is thus bedew'd in Gethsemane that we might not burn and fry in Hell he thus sweats and bleeds on earth he suffers this horrid Agony for a time that we should not endure a hellish and worse extremity for ever so he was Gods Holocaust that we might not be the Devils Burnt-offering Besides Gethsemane's pains Golgotha's was upon him those floods of blood foreseen made these drops trickle The passion then to be acted on his body was now imprinted in his minde the rage of Hell the wrath of Heaven the wretchedness of man ingrateful man for whose sake all this was suffered to save him from that wrath and Hell Heaven Earth and Hell all in Union to afflict one though God and Man must needs make a heavy conflict a bloody Agony And that it might not be long ere he finish that on Mount Calvary which he hath so sadly begun here that the one might be but a short and sharp preface to the other he is betrayed be that did eat at his Table with him kicks up his heel against him and traytor-like betrayes him with a kiss and delivers him into the hands of his cruel enemies who with an unlimited rage do begin to abuse him and is now tost like a Ball from one place to another whilsâ— malice is inventing new tortures He iâ— first brought to the house of Annas the high Priest who restrains not the inraged multitude from venting their malice in revenge thence is sent to Caiphas another of the Devils Sanedrims who had formerly in a councel resolved he should dye yet now paliating the designe with the scheme of a Tribunal They seek out for Witnesses and the Witnesses are to seek out for allegations and when they finde them they are to seek for proof and those proofs were to seek for unity and consent but all too short to reach his innocency he is sent to Pilate who understanding him to belong to Herods Jurisdiction sends him to Herod who sets him at naught and his men of War abuse him what else to be expected from rude Souldiers whose very sports are cruelty then sent back again to Pilate attended with the hiddeous exclamations of the Rabble-rout whose note as they pass along nothing but Crucifie The Roman President smelling malice in the business uses several arguments of perswasion to appease the multitude and asswage their malice in order to the saving of his life The first drawn from his Innocency I finde no fault in him nor yet Herod he is an innocent Person one so far from deserving death and that I cannot finde he ever did any thing to merit a reproof malice it self cannot tax him of any Crime except innocency be Criminal here I bring him forth to you that you may know that he is clear from all objections and nothing justly to be laid to his charge and no fault no sentence I that sit in the place of Judicature must not commit so great a piece of injustice as the sentencing an Innocent to death But this not satisfying the multitude he delivers him over to bloody chastisements so he is torn with Whips crowned with Thorns blind-folded derided and buffeted even to the wearying of his tormentors Pilate being himself mov'd with pitty at the sight presents him in this forlorne and dolorous condition to them that his blood might become a mantle to him that if his innocency could not speak sufficiently for him his sorrows might Behold the man behold an Innocent afflicted one without Crime miserably chastiz'd who can behold him without pitty
no heart unless harder then Adamant but must needs melt into tears at such a sight no malice except altogether implacable but would be appeas'd with such sharp and so underserved revenge I appeal to you all whether he be not an object of pitty rather then further cruelty and whether you have not greater reason to bewail his misery then increase it but this will not do No sorrows which are not mortal no sufferings which are not deadly no blood but the heart-blood can satisfie the malicious and therefore albeit crown'd with Thorns and flead with Whips they still cry Execution Execution Let him be crucified But Pilate notwithstanding these obstinate repulses again solicites them to save his life and that his arguments might be crown'd with success he changes his stile from a man of sorrows presents him as a king of sufferings that so his dignity might prevail where his miseries could not and that the majesty of the sufferer might aggravate his sufferings and their cruelty bespeaks them thus Behold your King behold a king deprived of his comforts spoiled of all his goods sold by his brethren apprehended by his subjects scourged as a villain derided as a fool Behold a King who hath no other use of majesty but to aggravate his misery Behold a King whose sufferings are as transcendent as his person Behold a King who hath suffered things bitterer then death Behold a King yea your King how he hath suffered every thing but death and shall that malice of yours pursue him even do death it self shall I crucifie your King will ye have me to bring innocent blood upon my own head as well as yours and be a sharer with you in so hateful a sin For my part I le have no hand in it and let me advise you to have none neither wherefore let me request you to desist from so bloody a design And if ye have no regard neither to his innocency sufferings nor majesty look upon your own reputations which will suffer much for putting such a person to death Do not you know I mean you that are the Doctors of the Law and the Elders of the People that the name of a King is sacred God owns it as one of his Titles and them as his Vicegerents that represent himself who is the great Monarch of Heaven and Earth and their persons as sacred as their names being subject to no Tribunal but that of Heaven no Judge but the highest Wherefore to offer violence to one that bears that Title were a piece of such unparallel'd cruelty for which your selves could produce no example nor the world a president all nations would cry shame at so horrid a fact and your own consciences would fly in your faces for committing so hainous a Crime A way then with so bloody a motion you that pretend your selves such Zealots stain not your hands with such blood nor your souls with the guilt of it left ye bring such an odium on your Nation which your selves nor posterity shall be ever able to take off But all his rhetorick will not serve turne for their guilty consciences told them that they had already done more then they could justifie Therefore the more he perswades the more they exclaim lest their King might have out-liv'd his wounds recover'd his losses and turn'd his Reed into a Scepter they earnestly importune the Judge to dispatch him Let him be be Crucified He is no King of ours If he were we should not thus prosecute him We have no King but Caesar and thou art not Caesars friend if thou let him go 'T is not his innocency nor his sorrows nor his majesty which thou so much plead'st for shall satisfie us 't is his deserved death which we sue for and nought but that shall excuse him Take thou no care if he dye unjustly the guilt shall lie on us not thee Wherefore act thou thy part perform thy office and we will ours as thou sittest in judgement to do justice express it by thy condemnation of this man Thou seest the proofs are clear and evidence perspicuous Therefore without any more delayes excuses or apologies pronounce the sentence we will see it executed Pilate finding all his reasons too short to convince unreasonable men is now brought to his last shift and that 's to make him a donative and freeman at the Petition of the People but they prefer Barrabbas a Rebel a Murderer before the Saviour of the World desire to have him Crucified who raised the dead to have the other released who destroyed the living Pilate now finding that all his projects were frustrated and no way left to save his life calls for water and washes his hands before them as innocent of his Blood but being a timerous Man affraid of the Jews lest they should mutiny or tel tales to his Master whereby he might lose either his place or Caesars favour delivers up the most unspottedperson in the world into the hands of malice to glut it self with revenge in the exercising the most exquisite torments and expatiating them to the longest thread of misery but as if all this did not adde enough to the sadness of his tragedy he must after all this dye and the worst of deaths the Cross onely inflicted on most notorious offenders and betwixt two infamous Thieves the worst sort of companions In order to which he is led forth of the holy now the bloody City Jerusalem to the place of execution bearing his own Cross his head adorn'd with his Crown of Thorns which was not at all pul'd off so it became the King of sufferings notto lay aside his imperial thorns til they were chang'd into Diadems of glory he advances Mount Calvary a place difficult in the ascent eminent apt forthe publication of shame a hil of death and dead bones where he is stript naked who cloaths the field with flowers and all the world with robes and the whole Globe with the Canopy of Heaven A gay spectacle to satisfie impious eyes who would not stay behinde but attend the hangman to see the catastrophe of this bloody tragedy he is now fastened to his Cross and heaven and earth all creatures in both vailed in blacks to lament his obsequies as if terrified at his sufferings whilst menand devils conspire to increase them that he might have no sense but that of misery How are all his senses at once tormented in him and he in all of them his eies in seeing nothing but what disconsolated and afflicted him either his enemies rejoycing at his sufferings or his friends those few poor friends he had lamenting his miseries His ears play'd upon from every side with whole volleys of fearful blasphemies If thou be the King of Israel descend from the Cross cry the Jews If thou be the Christ save thy self and us sayes one of his fellow sufferers For his smell I le not offend the nice and delicate with commemorating the noisomness of the place
and the abominable stench he there was sensible of For his taste he had nothing administred it to sweeten the bitterness of death but Gall and Vinegar For his feeling we have spoken of that before if it were not altogether unspeakable what he felt In a word all heads are working and all hands busied in lengthning his torments and now tormentors and tormented both weary the one in doing the other in suffering he yeilds up the ghost But their malice doth not terminate with him though he be dead their malice still lives which we shall see presently break forth for though Joseph of Arimathea one of their councel but not against his life had begg'd the body of Pilate they also go to Pilate fraught with malice against his memory that had done their worst to his person and bespeak Pilate Sir This deceiver said whilst he was yet alive that in three dayes he should rise again therefore let his Sepulchre be made sure with a guard lest his Disciples come and steal him away by night and say he is risen Pilate grants their request and now they triumph in their villany and think perpetually to keep him there whom they had brought thither Is this the Saviour of the world say they that could not save himself Where now are these dreaming shepherds who spake so big of a quire of Angels that should sing his Nativity Where those Angels that they come not to his Rescue Where are those besotted vulgar that rob'd the trees of their branches and themselves of their garments to strow his way to Jerusalem and sang Hosanna's to him as the son of David a Saviour of the world have not we laid their Hosanna's in the dust and he whom they adored as a Deity executed as a Malefactor Is this he that would deliver Israel that could not himself We do not expect ever to be delivered by so mean a hand and so slender a retinue we expect a glorious Prince with a princely train of unconquer'd warriors not a Carpenters son and silly fisher-men God never gave us any promise or president of such a Saviour We know that 't was by a strong arm he delivered our Fathers out of Egypt and that he gave them Saviours afterwards when they were in Canaan such as by force of arms broke the bonds of their oppressors and are not we involv'd in as miserable slavery and bondage as ever our fathers were hath not the invincible Roman Eagle spread his wings o're the greatest part of the world and seized many kingdoms with his ravenous talons making Kings his Prey and Scepters his Conquest and who but a mighty Saviour can deliver us and our Countrey from so potent an adversary If this be he that undertook to do it or were sent from God for the purpose where 's his power to make him so where 's his red-coat Souldiers whose very garments might speak nothing but blood and death to our insulting foes where 's his Magazin and Money his Swords and Pistolls his Granado's and Murdering-pieces his Captains and Officers to lead his Army that they did not perfect that happy work but suffer their Lord and Master thus to fall O fools and slow of heart to believe what the Prophets have spoken ought not Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into his glory was he not long before prophesied of to come in the form of a servant not in the gayish magnificence of an earthly prince that he should be a man of sorrows and by his sufferings should purchase freedom and happiness for inthral'd mankinde How exactly doth your Prophet Isay pourtray to the life both his person and sufferings and writes of him in the Present Tense not the Future as a thing then really acted not after to be fulfilled as more becoming an Evangelist then a Prophet in giving rather a History of his sufferings then a Prediction of them but lest ye should not think one witness enough look upon all the Prophets that have been since the world began you will finde they did all unanimously breathe with one mouth the mystery of his coming and of that redemption which by his death he was to accomplish Was not his Birth long before prophesied of as to the time manner and place of it his person names and offices his tribe and Family his eternal Generation the union of his God-head with his Humanity his Humiliation upon earth his perfect obedience to his Father his riding to Jerusalem in triumph the childrens Hosanna's his Agony in the Garden the manner of his delivery the price he was sold for the flight of his Disciples the parting his garments the piercing his hands and his feet his revilings on the Cross his companions in death his patience in suffering his dying words for whom be should lay down his life and whom he should conquer and what clearer proof could ye desire then the mouths and attestations of so many witnesses and could ye be so blinde as not to discover this to be he that was of old design'd and foretold to be the worlds Saviour did ye not behold a majesty in the sufferer did not the refulgent beams of his divinity shine through the greatest clouds of his adversity and did not Humility and Glory go hand in hand through the several passages of his life and death that by miracles as well as miseries he might convince the world That he should abase himself so low as to be born of a Virgin that spake his humility but to have his incarnation publisht by an heavenly host and kings to rise to the brightness of his coming this his glory to suffer himself to be baptized in the common river of Jordan that speaks his humility but there to be proclaim'd the onely beloved Son and Saviour of the world both by the testimony of the Father and presence of the Holy Ghost this his glory to receive the slaunders of his Countrey-men that he cast out devils by Belzebub that spake his humility but to make the devils confess him to be the Son of the Highest this his glory to suffer death even the death of the Cross that speaks his humility but to make the foundations of the world to shake the Sun to vail it self in black the moon to hide her head the rocks to rend and the vail of the temple to part in sunder at his yielding up of the ghost this his glory to be laid in another mans Sepulchre that shews his humility but to make the Graves to open to receive him as their Lord and the dead to rise to attest his Divinity this his glory to suffer himself to be seal'd up in his Sepulchre with a guard of Souldiers to keep him there that was humility but in that house of death to have the visits of Angels and to rise from thence by his own power this his glory to sojourn forty dayes on that earth where he had been so cruelly handled speaks his humility but
but for a time they did not last alwayes every Day hath his Night every Summer its Winter every Spring his Fall and every Life his Death and as some nights are darker then other some Autumns more unseasonable some Winters more sharp and some Death 's more yea much more cruel then others be some men fall like fruit others are cut down like trees some cut up as the flower others by the root some men dye onely others with torment which is two or more deaths in one but among all deaths that ever were suffer'd never any so strange never any so sad as our Saviours was for in it both pain and patience met in their extremities pain did her worst to overcome patience and patience her best to overcome pain and yet neither had pain the upper hand though it kil'd nor patience lost though Christ dyed such was his passion that the whole world cannot sample it with its parallel for Christs pain was such as never creature felt and his patience so great as for all the forrow he felt on the Cross he is not said to have utter'd a groan there so that it may easily be discerned that patience had the victory because pain could neither make her leave the field till she list nor bring her to any conditions but her own which were most honourable Though God be crucified Life be dead and Righteousness suster all effected yet nothing done to advance the contrary party For through his body Death slue it self and Sin and Satan took their deadly wounds for now the flesh hath lost her life and sin in that his throne and death with it his sting and the grave with this his power and hell with them her keys and the devil with all his victory whilst he hangs despicably on the tree of shame the powers of hell are dragg'd captive after the triumphant Chariot of his Cross Well might he therefore say 'T is finished for the Satisfaction is full Salvation sure Sin is nail'd Hell foil'd Satan chain'd the World baffled the Flesh wounded Death slain the Grave buried and every Adversary-power conquer'd by Christ Triumphant over all all is finished mans redemption compleated and that perfected he came about This is a true saying and worthy of all acceptation that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners But what is all this to us what is it to know that Christ is a Saviour if he be not ours what to know that he came to save the world if we are not one of the world he came to save what to know that his death is satisfactory to expiate the Justice of his Father if we have no interest in it I answer that as Christ hath done his part so must we do ours if ever we hope to have part in his sufferings he never came to save any that had no minde of salvation or to use those means which he hath appointed for all those that shall inherit eternal life as he did both do and suffer for us 't is requisite we should either do or suffer something for him His love to us and sufferings for us were unspeakable and they justly challenge our deepest affection and admiration that he should purchase our happiness at so dear a rate as his own Blood that God should be in Gore that man might be in Bliss the Prince of Life should dye that the Childe of Death might live that he should suffer on a Cross that we might not in Hell Did he sweat for our guilt and shall not we weep for our own and dissolve into love and tears for our dying Lord. O my soul shew thy affection to him that exprest so much to thee love him above thy life to serve him think milstones light to suffer for him make tortures pleasures hate sin more then death the Crown of pride as his Throns thy hearts lust as his spear thy iron neck and evil works and wayes as his nails their habit as his hammer which drives them home into his heart and his hands and feet Think not any thing enough thou sufferest for his sake that suffer'd so much for thine Though violent Tongues were laid on our Credit Hands of Rapine on our Estates of Bondage on our Persons of Blood on our Lives be so far from shrinking at it that hadst thou for one a thousand souls give all to his service a thousand bodies all to his suffering a thousand heads all to his study a thousand hearts bate not one to thy Saviour a thousand lives lay out all to his honour Hadst thou for two two thousand hands let them all do his business two thousand feet let them all go his errands if thou shouldst not thou wert unworthy of such a Saviour Now that we may know the cause or causes of Christs coming and understand our own duty in order to the making it a happy coming to us be pleased to take notice of these following particulars There are saith one four causes of mans salvation The Efficient cause The Meritorious cause The Instrumental cause And the Final cause First the Efficient cause which is the love of God 'T was Gods love to the world that caused him to send his Son into the world Had he not loved the world he would not have permitted his Son to dye for the world And he that denied us not his Son who is Heir of all things will not deny us any thing whereof he is heir Secondly the Meritorious cause That is Christ 'T was his Merits that purchast our happiness his Blood that gives us a right and title to that glorious undefiled and unfading Inheritance which he aforehand hath taken possession of Thirdly the Instrumental cause that is Faith Christ is the onely cure of our leprous souls Faith the hand to convey his merits to us Suppose a plaister of a soveraign nature were laid by a man dangerously wounded be the plaister never so excellent he may dye of his wounds if it be not applied to him for without an active hand to apply the plaister to the sore the worth of it is not at all available Christ saith one may be compared to sope Faith to the hand of the Landress though sope in it self be of a purifying nature yet without the hand of the Landress it does nothing The Apostle tells us that we are saved by Faith but that we may understand what that saving Faith is which the Apostle speaks of we are to present it first in the Negative what 't is not then in the Affirmative what it is Not an Historical Faith onely for that the Devils and damned in hell have that shall never receive any benefit at all by the death of Christ they know that Christ came into the world and that he suffered and that a day will come in which he shall be revealed from heaven in flaming fire when he shalâ— take vengeance on all the ungodly of the earth and compleat their torments Not a Temporary
shining on it well nigh puts it out so Vertue flames more brightly being blown on by the cold winde of adversity but is extinguisht by the sun-shine of prosperity like lime which is set on fire with water and as some report is quenched with oyl That prosperity doth draw more to ruine then adversity doth drive the Prophet David intimates where he sayes A thousand shall fall besides thee and ten thousand at thy right hand There is ten to one whose vertue the right hand of prosperity doth choak more then the left hand of adversity doth starve Afflictions are Gods troops and he their Captain intended for the perdition of the wicked for the purgation of the godly he will not lay any more on any of his servants then he shall enable them to bear alas the miseries of this life are not worthy of the felicities of the next nor may these crosses stand in competition with that crown nor are the greatest torments that can here be inflicted comparable to those endless and insufferable tortures which the wicked shall be sensible of the greatest that a Saint can suffer here is but the malice of men and devils the damned in hell shall taste the wrath of the Almighty The sufferings of the Saint and the triumphs of the sinner are but for a moment but the reward of the one and the plagues of the other are to eternity Suppose our life here spread with roses yet they are marcessible and if with thorâ—s yet they are dying The jewels of the Crown will receive a damp and the terrors of the Cross will soon be at an end Groans and joyes in this life are both expiring our troubles and our triumphs have both their setting The distresses of the world are a short and a sudden tempest and the delights of it are a shedding flower Now as an elegant Writer observes who would not rather endure the Hell of a few dayes miscries here and enjoy the Heaven of eternal happiness hereafter then enjoy the Heaven of a few days pleasure here and endure the eternal miseries of Hell hereafter Temporal pleasures are dearly bought with the loss of eternal and temporal sufferings are well requited with eternal pleasures That is a miserable happiness that must end in such miseries as must never end and those are happy miseries that shall soon end in endless happiness This life is but a journey towards death and but a short one and death is yet a shorter passage to a longer and a better life That life of joyes is worth the wishing that shall never have an end and that end of our life is full as worthy of our wishes that shall begin the joyes of that endless life and that end must be ere long for life is short Man that is born of a woman is but of few dayes and full of trouble He is of few dayes that he might not live too long in trouble and his dayes are full of trouble that he might not long for more of them then a few Mans dayes are full of trouble that a few might serve his turn and make him weary of them and his dayes of trouble are but few that he might not be too much wearied with them If it be mans misery that his few dayes are full of trouble 't is Gods mercy that mans days of trouble are but few The few dayes of mans life are full of trouble that man might be daily minded of his duty in seeking after another a better life and mans dayes of trouble are but few that man may not be wearied so as to leave seeking for the other life before that this doth leave him What but the happiness and glory of that better life held up the spirits of Gods afflicted servants in their greatest sufferings in this 'T was the recompence of reward that Moses had respect to which made him spurn at the treasures of Egypt and refused to be called the son of Pharaohs daughter and to slight all the discouragements and afflictions which he here met with Let the miseries therefore which accompany mortality wean us from all fondnesse towards this life present and the felity of life eternal make us the more earnestly to long after that The thoughts of the Elizian happinesse did so encourage a poor Grecian a meer Pagan at the instant of his death that he rejoyced much to think of going to Pythagoras and other learned Philosophers to Olympus and other skilful Musicians to Hecataeus and other approved Historians to Homer the prince of Poets and other famous Wits that were his followers that Poetical Paradise the Elizian Field could make a Pagan give his longum vale to this present world with notable resolution and shall not the real pleasures of the celestial Paradise the fulness of joy in the glorious presence of God encourage a Christian at his death to depart as comfortably as a faithlesse Grecian Shall fantasie in an Heathen be more powerful then faith in a Christian Is not the company as good which we believe to be at Gods right hand as that which he imagined to be in Elizio campo and are not the joys as many and as great Well therefore may a Saint chear up himself at his departure by thinking of his going to Saint Peter Saint Paul Saint James Saint John and to all that glorious company of Apostles and of his going to Elias and Elisha and Isaiah and Ezekiel and to Daniel and all that goodly fellowship of the Prophets and of his going to Saint Stephen the Proto Martyr and to Ignatius and to Justinus and to our Cranmer and our Ridley and our Hooper and our Taylor and all that noble army of Martyrs and of his going to that Reverend Patriarch Abraham the father of the faithful and to Isaac and to Jacob and to all the holy Patriarchs and of his going to the holy Angels and Arch-Angels and Thrones and Powers and Principalities and to the spirits of all just men made perfect Who can think of being thus transported and not be transported with the very thoughts of it Surely it must needs be a very consolatory Viaticum to the soul of a dying Saint to think of exchanging Earth for Heaven and the sordid company of sinners for the sweet society of Saints And this is it which makes the Saint entertain death as a friend whom the sinner fears as an enemy The Saints of God in all Ages have lookt upon him as a friend because by him they have been wafted to glory Moses sing when he was told his last Elijah had his Sufficit he desir'd his God to take away his life Old Simeon craved a dismission and St. Paul a discharge In the times of Persecution how did the Martyrs run in troops to the flames even to the amazement and admiration of their Persecutours which made a mortal Enemy to Christianity in the dayes of Queen Mary who speaking of some of the Primitive Christians and of the glorious Martyrs that
unto him by Michael Paleologus Emperour of Constantinople askt whether those things could drive away calamities diseases or death No this they cannot do as Henry Beauford that rich and wretched Cardinal found by woful experience in the dayes of Hen. 6. who perceiving death at hand askt wherefore he should dye being so rich if the whole Realm will save my life I am able either by policy to get it or by riches to buy it Fie quoth he will not death be hired will money do nothing No money in this case bears no mastery death as the Jealous man will not regard any ransom neither will he rest content though thou offer many gifts Prov. 6.25 'T was but a vaine conceit of one who when he heard that his sickness was deadly and that he was for another world call'd for a bag of gold and laid to his heart as if that which had solely swayed him in his life to the committing of many prepostrous actions should now do something for him but he finding no ease by it threw it away crying it would not do Nor was he less ridiculous who being ready to expire clapt a twenty shillings piece of gold in his mouth saying some wiser then some I le take this with me howsoever alas he and his gold must now perish together death shews him a dismal change for now Balaam and his Bribes Belshazzar and his Bowls Dives and his Dishes Herod and his Harlots the Usurer and his Bills the Merchant and his Measures shall part assunder for ever which made one that was ready to breath his last call for his bags of money and sadly took his leave of them in these words Ah! I must now leave you there is no remedy I tremble to think in how sad a manner the wicked leaves the world to think what a sad fit of trembling doth surprize him when the cruel Sergeants and merliless Officers of the King of Terrors do arrest him as it were in the Devils name when death shall come with a writh of Habeas corpus and the Devil with a writh of Habeas animam when the cold Earth must have his Body and hot Hell hold his Soul Reader now tell me which is the happiest man Adrian the Emperour when his soul was ready to fly from his body bespake it thus O animula vagula blandula quae jam abibis in loca Poor forlorn soul into what gloomy and dismal mansions art thou now departing but of those Mansions in my next discourse I shall now with a few words to the Temporizing Professor and my Readers in general bring this to a conclusion First to the Temporizing Professor you I mean that in all mutations will be men of the Times be they never so bad and call those Men and Times blessed and glorious which make you gainers that admire all men for their greatness and conclude those to be hated of God that are despised of men and censure all as Reprobates that are not of your spirit You that pretend to such a transcendent measure of perfection to such high notions and revelations as if with St. Paul ye had been wrapt up into the third heaven and understood more then all your forefathers did as if Christ had led his Church in ignorance and blindness for 1600 years and upwards till you came with your new Discoveries You that have prated Religion out of the Nation as if it consisted in nothing but words and instead of practising the Graces of the Spirit as Faith Repentance Humility Charity c. studied nothing but needless and unnecessary Questions not at all tending to Edification but Vain glory which have enlarg'd the Breaches of the Church instead of closing them up Remember that God is just as well as merciful and though he spares you long will pay you at last and though you feed your selves like porkets with the fat things of the world a time will come when you shall cast it up again and all your hypocrisie shall be unmaskt and unvail'd both to Angels and men Humble your selves therefore under the mighty hand of God left for your pride God inflicts on you the saddest Judgement that is mention'd in the Book of God of being deliver'd over to a Reprobate sense Oh take heed that Satan couzen you not to hell and there twit you as he did Saul in Samuels mantle when there is no place for repentance You know what a plausible speech he made in the mouths of Ahabs Prophets when he tic't that King to his ruine have a care that ye are not condemn'd one day for condemning others and spued out of the Bridegrooms mouth for your lukewarnnesse think not me your enemy for telling you the truth be not Solomons fools to hate instruction better repent these things here then in a worse place consider seriously the foregoing Discourse take notice of the sad exit of wicked men that the doleful sound of their sad and too late Repentance may seasonably caution you by their harms to beware One word more think not without Repentance ever to arrive at Glory there 's no going to heaven on beds of doun you have more cause to fear exchanging doun pillows for beds of flames there 's no leaping from Dives his diet to Lazarus his crown nor from Dalilahs lap to Abrahams bosom Lastly To my Readers in general Let me caution you to take notice of Gods Omnipotency Omnisciency and Justice and our own Mortallity and these severally and seriously considered may be a motive to startle us from the very thoughts of those sins that we commit with greediness First his Omnisciency Remember that he is an all-seeing God that discovers all our actions and beholds all our wayes to whom the day and the night the darkness and the light are both alike If we dare not commit our beastly sins before the eyes of men how dare we presome to commit them before him that is able everlastingly to damn us and throw our souls into Tophets endless flames Secondly his Omnipotency Let us adumbrageously fancy as one hath it the Firmament to be his face the all-seeing Sun his right eye the Moon his left the Winds the breath of his nostrils the Lightning and Tempests the troubled actions of his ire the Frost and Snow his frowns that Heaven is his throne the Earth his footstool that he is in all things that his Omnipotency fills all the vacuities of Heaven Earth and Sea that by his power he can ungirdle and let loose the seas impetuous waves to orewhelm and bury this lower Universe in their vaste wombs in a moment that he can let drop the Azure Canopy which hath nothing above it whereto it is perpendicularly knit or hurl thunderbolts through the tumerous clouds to pash us precipitate through the center into the lowest dungeon of hell and that all the creatures in their several ranges are as so many Regiments of the great King and that with the meanest of these he can avenge
himself on sinners as he did on Pharaoh Herod c. In the next place let 's acknowledge his Justice Remember that he is a jealous God a perfect hater of sin and will bring every work to judgement And last of all that we take notice of our own Mortality and let the thoughts of that debar us from sinning we know not whether we shall live to see another day and shall we be found sinning on our last Let the uncertainty of that which will certainly once come put us in a posture of preparation for its coming and since that upon this moment depends our either everlasting woe or welfare let 's lose no time For as the Poet no less sweetly then discreetly sung who knows o're night that he next morn shall breath Therefore take Davids early in the morning not the Devils stay till to morrow think not to be accepted in thy makers presence one day if thou crammest the devil with thy sap of strength full gorge him with the purest fruits of thy sinewy virility if at last when thou art not able to do God or the devil service thou comest limping on Times tottering Crutches to present unto him the offall husks and morosity of thy doting decrept age Think every day thy last and spend it as if it were so for we know that God will bring us to judgement yet we know not when nor in what year nor in what moneth of the year nor in what week of the moneth nor in what day of the week nor in what hour of the day nor in what minute of the hour nor in what moment of that minute for he will come like a thief in the night suddenly before with a wink thou canst lock up thine eye or within thy brain create the nimblest thought the apprehension of which must needs stir us up to live in Gods fear so shall we dye in his favour and rest in his peace and rise in his power and reign with him in his glory world without end Godliness bearing its Rewards with it both here and hereafter and Sins pursuit of the Sinner to the other World Of the last Judgment and those succeeding Events that ensue thereupon A Meditation on 1 Tim. 4.8 HAppinesse is the mark and center which every man aims at the next thing that is sought after being is being happy where David begins his Psalms we all hope to end and that 's with blessedness and no way to reach that but holiness That holinesse is the way to happinesse or that the godly man is the truly happy man I have already sufficiently manifested in my last Discourse and therefore shall be the more sparing here in my Allegations for I would not take the pains o're again to prove what is proved already but happinesse is such a subject that I could willingly dwell upon and fill a large Volumn with a discourse upon it desiring that my portion may rest here but I am confin'd to such narrow limits both of time and paper that I cannot insist long on any one particular I shall therefore briefly strike at that which is here chiefly intended and before I have worn my Readers patieence quite out shall draw to a conclusion That the godly man is the happy and onely happy man will be further manifested in the end after the end of all things but first in this life we will prove him happy here as well as hereafter in this world as well as the world to come though not so happy here as there Neither prosperity nor adversity can come amisse to him though the times vary his happinesse is still the same like his God that changes not all things still work together for good to him and albeit he hath no perogative above the sinner from those two beds of mankinde of sicknesse and the grave his priviledge lies another way No Kings except such hath like perogative to the Saints God is their Father Christ their Brother the Holy Ghost their Comforter Angels their Guardians Saints their Associates Death their desire the Grave their rest the Bar their joy God their portion the Trinity their propriety Heaven their home Eternity their term before death their perogative is much at it more after it most but from death and diseases none by death they have from it not Put the case that God permits wicked men to ride over him and men and devils to use their utmost extremity to him which is to put his dayes to a shameful and a painful period for the shame Christ hath taken that away and for the pain that will soon end in endlesse pleasures what unhappinesse in this when all they do or can do is but to open the prison-doors of his body to let out his soul to fly to rest from the labour of the servant to the joy of the master from the work to the reward and from the crosse to the crown there to solace it self in those rivers of pleasures at Gods right hand whilest his precious ashes are preserved as in a safe store-house till the last trumpet shall shall alarm it to give its beloved companion the meeting to be made eternally happy together never to part more a Saint at his death is assured that a few moments will bring his departing soul to endlesse happinesse and that Angels attâ—nd him to do their office of wafting it into Abrahams bosom And now judge Reader whether I may not upon good consideration say that godlinesse is gain I know there are some and they such whose hopes extend not further then this life that invert this saying and tell us that gain is godliness and no happinesse without gain their sordid gain and albeit it I have sufficiently exploded this errour in my last Discourse I shall now notwithstanding more fully if that may be give a confutation in this as ye will the more clearly apprehend if ye minde the conclusion The longest day with have a night and the longest life will have an end Let the sinner live as long as he can a miserable period will at last be put to his sinful dayes and that period will decide this controversie Those who in their life were the Diana's of the people that seem'd the most high and happy will at their death but more clearly afterward appear most miserable as they have spent their dayes in the unprofitable works of darknesse so they shall finde but an unprofitable reward for their works they shall for their pains meet with such pains as shall never have a period The Devil comes now to expect his due that as he was their slave for a time upon earth they may eternally be his vassals in a worse place that as they did the works of darknesse and workt for the Prince of darknesse now receive their portion in utter darknesse There 's no denying or forswearing of bargains no talk of circumventing this experienced Politician the richest presents nor the loudest cryes nor the saddest tears nor
shall be prickt with burning forks gluttons tormented with grievous hunger Epicures and voluptuous persons boyl in burning pitch and stinking brimstone the proud shall have shame and the coverous miserable penuty then thou wilt be convinc't to believe what before thou wouldst never credit that there is a Hell for sinners as well as an Earth for men a Firmament for stars a Heaven for Saints and a God in Heaven Then thou wilt wish if wishing would do it that thou hadst been created a loathsom toad that thy miseries might have closed up with thy life rather then to be dying perpetually and never dye for when thou hast languisht in unexpressible agonies tortures gnashings and horrid howlings ten thousand millions of years thou shalt not reach a conclusion 'T is a sad but certain truth that the damned in hell after ten thousand thousand millions of ages they have suffered such torments as none but one of those miserable tortur'd wretches are able to express shall be as far from an end as they were at the beginning That adjunct Eternal intimates such infinitness as neither thought can attract or supposition apprehend And further to amplifie it with the words of a worthy Authour Thóugh all the men that ever have or shall be created were Briarius-like hundred handed and should all at once take pens in their hundred hands and should do nothing else in ten thousand millions of years but sum up in figures as many hundred thousands as they could yet never could they reduce to a total or â—onfine within number this tri-syllable word ETERNALL The darkest Dungeon of Hell shall be the Reprobates everlasting Goal as the chains shall never be loosened or fil'd off so neither shall they change their dolefull habitation but the same prison and wrack the same place as well as degrees of torment shall shackle them to all eternity they shall not change their Tophet nor alter their bed of flames The bodies of the damned those deform'd â—ages of more deform'd souls shall never be blest with a dissolution Divine wrath shall make the bodies of the Reprobate like those stones which Naturalists speak of that alwayes burn they shall be butts for the arrows of Gods displeasure everlastingly to shoot at the smoak of the lake shall not smother them nor the flames of hell consume â—hem nor the least member twin'd into â—â—nders by everlasting burnings Their souls wax old but never die yet perpetually dying there they burn without consuming there they mourn without compassion here are torments without end and beyond imagination here fearful Dives that denied Lazarus a bit of bread now begs a drop of water which is denied him when whole rivers are not sufficient to extinguish his heat Mercy smiles not on these dismal Mansions the damned finde there 's a God to punish that will see execution everlastingly performed but none to pitty or ease those executions O the misery of the damned how intollerable how incomprehensible how unmeasurable Who can tell how hot Gods wrath is when turn'd into a flame or can any weigh the torments of the damned to say they rise to such a height As they are unsupportable so they shall be innumerable and inconceiveable God will then draw his arrow to the head and screw his wrath to an unconfin'd degree What shall limit or be a bank to the inundations of Gods everlasting displeasure Who knows how many drams of poison God will put into the cup of trembling which the wicked must be drinking of for evermore But not to undertake to express those inexpressible miseries or to be endlesse in this endlesse Subject I le leave these tortur'd wretches in the embraces of eternal flames wishing my self nor Readers may ever give a probatum est to those torments and return to the Bar and observe the sentence not of Malediction but Absolution not a go but come not cursed but blessed and possess the Kingdom and now those Saints which before saw but in part and knew but in part shall see and know God and be known of him when faith shall be turned into vision and hope into fruition Augustin wisht he might have seen three things before he died Rome in its glory Paul in the Pulpit and Christ in the flesh the Saints shall see a better sight they shall see not Rome but Heaven in its glory they shall see not Paul in the Pulpit but on the Throne and shall sit with him they shall see Christs flesh not vail'd with disgrace but in its spiritual embroidery as one hath it not a crucified but a glorified body They shall see the King in his beauty Isa 33.17 They shall know what those unseen things are what those fruitions of glory which free grace hath stretcht out to eternity that unshaken and unshaking crown what that everlasting joy they shall there partake of that unfading happiness they are to flourish in to all eternity that eternal house for the security of it 2 Cor. 5.1 the eternal glory for the renown of it 2 Tim. 2.10 that eternal inheritance for the riches of it Heb. 9.15 that eternal redemption for the love of it Heb. 9.12 that eternal salvation for the seasonabless of it Heb. 5.9 those glorious beatitudes which are reserv'd for believers entertainment which shall never receive either damp or death those rivers of pleasure that run at Gods right hand for evermore they shall to their everlasting comfort finde that no sorrow or benight heaven no grief shall thrust into the Brides chamber nor shall any trouble overshadow the everlasting festival of the glorified ones they shall weep no more as one excellently hath it unless it be for joy that they shall weep no more for grief all cause of grief is far remov'd from that presence they that enjoy it enjoy with it an absolute enfranchizement from all incumbrances and inconveniences They are free from want and free from war and free from death and free from devils they are free from want they can want nothing there except it be want it self they may finde the want of evil but never feel the evil of want evil is but the want of good and the want of evil is but the absence of want God is good and no want of good can be in God and what want can be endured in the presence of God where no evil is but all good nor are they free from want onely but wars too with all the mischiefs that are concommitant and all the miseries that are consequent The Kingdom of glory can never be turn'd into an Aceldama no forreign enemy can invade it nor home-bred enemy infest the happiness of it Moses and Aaron shall never be confronted there by any gain-saying Corahs or mutinous Abirams or complying Dathans or any of their confederates King David shall there be free from the pride of all ambitious Absolons from the presumption of all seditious Sheba's and from the wicked counsels of all contriving Achitophels No cursing Shimei's
nor railing Rabshake's shall come there to belch infectious gorges forth to poison the hearts of any subjects in that Kingdom of glory No Polubragmatical Michiavelians nor crafty Boutefews shall interrupt that Kingdoms endlesse peace No bold Sejanus can insinuate into that glorious presence to corrupt it No male-contented Cataline can lurk there either to traduce the glorious Majesty of the King of kings or to seduce inferiour Officers Nor is there any warlike Ammunition magazin'd there No Civil Warrings can destroy that glorious Kingdom nor can any factious Jarrings deface that glorious Church No new-fangled Athenians nor schismatical Corinthians can disturb the unity or destroy the uniformity of that Church No over-mastering Pope nor undermining Jesuit no new Church-making Familist nor no Church-making Atheist can gain such favour or get such footing there as to eject the settled Saints and work the ruine of all the Church No ravenous Wolves in sheeps clothing can creep by any Postern-gates into that fold to flea or fleece the flock and mistake feeding on them for feeding of them Nothing that worketh any abomination can come there and therefore every thing that tendeth towards the grand abomination of desolation must needs be for ever excluded thence the glory of all there must last for ever and all in that glory must live for ever being free from sin they shall be from death from death spiritual in it from death temporal by it and from death eternal for it that presence of the ever-living God doth set them free from all for ever there is no dying they that are there are sure to live for ever the glorified Saints shall never be reduc't to a nullity those crowned personages shall not be folded up in a confused Chaos death has no power here they are free from the sting of death and from the stroke free from all tendencies unto death and from all fears of dying Now who would not gladly live in such a priviledg'd place where that boldest Sergeant Death cannot come to arrest Such is the sanctuary of Gods glorious presence that 's free from all kinds of death and free from unkinde Devils too from Devils infernal and Devils incarnate too No evil Angels can ascend from the bottomless pit into the presence to tempt any there to sin nor hellish Furies to torment for sinning in times past No Devil of the lower hell nor any of this wicked world above it can finde any entrance thither There is indeed free quarter for Saints but none for sinners the Free men of that City and all the Denizons of that Kingdom are always freed from all unwelcome troublesome intruders the spirit of strife and debate can never thrust the Devils mysterious cloven foot into that presence to set Divisions to cause Distractions to bring Destruction No carnal pride can ever beget fond fashionists in the streets of that most holy City nor spiritual pride breed up fantastical Factionists in those Mansions No hideous blasphemies nor filthy obscenities nor thumping oathes not hellish cursings nor peevish censurings are used by any in that presence all profane and black-mouth'd monsters of men are exiled for ever from that society of Saints and so are all insinuating Sycophants and false-hearted Pharisees that place shall be free from all evil or tending to it no evil company no evil by company no company of evil no devils not be devill'd men no tempters no tormentors nor any other infernals no devils incarnate either white or black no kinde of death either temporal or eternal no kinde of wars no kinde of woes no kinde of sufferings surely they must needs be happy that are in such a case Yet let me tell you that it is not the absence of evil alone that can make a man truly and fully happy it may cause some joy but not the fulness of joy till the affluence of all good things be enjoyed with it Now in the glorious presence of God there is not onely the absence of all evil but the presence of all good All things that are desirable are there and all things there are desireable there are profitable pleasures and pleasurable profits things inconsistent here are all coincident there those gifts that go not here together are all united there those comforts which are divided here in several streams do meet all there as in their fountain or rather in the ocean No one here may look to enjoy all good things but all there do ever so There are the precious Merchandices of all Cities for that 's the City of all precious Merchandices there are the true Delights of all Countreys for that 's the true Countrey of all Delights There are all the real Honours of the the Court that can never be lost and that 's the right Court of Honour that can never be put down There are all the true pleasures of Paradise for that 's the true Paradise of all pleasures What does any of your souls take most delight in what do you most of all desire there you may have it in the fullest measure and there enjoy it in the finest manner There is to satisfie all desires do you desire or delight in Gold or precious Stones or costly Gems or stately Palaces there 's a City of pure Gold clear as crystal walled and gated and garnished with Jaspers and Saphires and all sorts of Pearls and precious stones as St. John describes it Revel 21.18 c. Or do you delight in glorious triumphs and pompous shews there are triumphs everlasting and the glory of all Nations shall flow into that City in triumphant manner Revel 21.26 Or do you delight as Massinissa and Dioclesian did in curious Gardens in fruitful Orchards in healthful Walks in pleasant Fountains there is the Celestial Paradise wherein the most curious and nice had he a hundred times as many eyes as Argus might employ them all at once with various curiosities and transcendent rarities All those admir'd Gardens of Adonis and Alcinous of Po. and Tantalus and the Hesperides could never boast no not in any fiction of the Poets of such a living Fountain as that which floweth in the middle of this Garden of Heaven and affords the Water of life nor yet of such a Tree as that of Life which bears twelve kinds of fruits and brings forth every moneth as Saint John expresses Revelations 22.1 Or do you delight in or desire peace there can you never want it that new Jerusalem is the true Jerusalem the blissful vision of Peace a City at Peace and unity in it self There endless triumphs of peace are solemnized by all the Citizens that 's the place of peace there 's the Prince of peace the Authour of peace the Maker the Creatour of it There 's the full enjoyment of that mother blessing and all other blessings with it the true God of peace is there and the true peace of God which passeth all understanding Or do you desire truth with peace there are both together the God of peace is the God of truth and the truth of God is there revealed fully the true worship of the most holy God is there established and the true God is worshipped there in the beauty of holiness Or do you delight in the melody of curious musick there are soul-ravishing Anthems chanted and warbled by the sweetest of all the heavenly Quire in that Mother Church that glorious Temple Christs Church Triumphant Or do you delight in ease and rest from wearisome labours there the true Christian Sabbath is kept holy whereof our Sunday Sabbath is but an adumbration or preparatory Eve Jerusalem below hath six dayes for working for one Sabbath day for rest but Jerusalem above is free to sanctifie an endless Sabbath as free from labour as from sin Or do you delight in the presence of great Personages there is the mighty and Almighty Monarch of Heaven and Earth the King of Kings and Lord of Lords and there is his second self his onely begotten Son the Son of his love in whom he is well pleased his right hand Favorite his Christ our Lord and Jesus in the height of his honour invested with power to unlock the Exchequer of his Fathers richest favours with the key of his eternal merits and to deal them forth in glory to those that followed him in grace In a word there are all sorts of rich delights that endless fountain can never be drawn dry for there is all in all to draw them forth there are soul-ravishing joyes and soul-admiring felicities everlasting joyes without any interrupted mutation such are those divine Raptures which shall flow from that communion they enjoy in that glorious presence with unspotted Angels and glorified Saints I shall shut up all in the words of the Apostle 1 Cor. 2.9 Eye hath not seen nor ear heard or is it possible for the minde of man to conceive the glory that God hath laid up for them that love him It being beyond the power of Mortals to imagine the glory of that Kingdom the brightness of that Diadem and the splendour of that Crown which no hand of treason shall be ever able to take off the Wearers head Having now brought this happy Pilgrim to the New JERUSALEM where I leave him to take his fill of those everlasting pleasures To which place through the merits of that all-sufficient and satisfactory Redemption may I and my Readers in his good time arrive FINIS