care taken that they should be fed and clothed but when the day comes away they are bound and to the cart and gallows they go Thou prisoner for so thou art in the decree of God before thou come to that prison of hell he will feed thee and clothe thee and yet all this while intends to destroy thee if thou repent not Ai but say you there is another reason of our unbelief why truly God hath threatned such great things that they are incredible VVhy what are they God threatens prisons for Spirits Alas we can't understand how this spirit should live after our bodies are dead that when our bodies are rotting in the grave our souls should be roaring in flames And then again God tells us of the Resurrection of our bodies How is it possible it should be so And then again God threatens to throw our bodies and souls into Hell to be burned for ever an incredible thing who can believe this when we can hardly live fifty or threescore years How can we be alive for ever and ever And that Christ should judg the world it is now sixteen hundred years ago wonderful things Here has been a great deal of talking but no performance A company of fables we can't believe them and who would go and venture to make themselves sad and miserable in the world with fear and repentance with fear of these things that are never like to come to pass I know it sinners that these are the workings of thy heart as well as if I was within thee VVhy do you think there are any such here that are of such a mind why truly it is likely for there were such in the Apostles days and of this sort of people the Apostle speaks in 2 Pet. 3.2 That in the latter days there should come scoffers walking after their own lusts one after the lust of uncleanness another after the lust of drunkenness VVhat are these walkers Scoffers VVhat do they scoff at why they scoffed at the burning of the world and the day of Judgment VVhy do these men scoff at it why I will tell you they scoff because the Scripture does threaten the eternal burning of these sort of men that walk after their own lusts and they cry Tush we believe no such thing VVell and thus they argue saying Where is the promise of his coming Christ said He would come and he would come quickly Here is a talk of his coming but here is no Christ come when will this Trumpet sound No no for since the fathers fell asleep all things continue as they were from the beginning of the Creation The Sun rises as it did and the Moon observes its course we have Summer and VVinter and we see all things just as they have been for these five thousand years and we see no change No saith the Apostle don 't you But saith he if you are ignorant of this one thing you are wilfully ignorant VVhat is that why saith he That by the Word of God the heavens were of old and the earth standing out of the water and in the water whereby the world that then was being overflowed with water perished But the heavens and the earth which are now by the same word are kept in store reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men I 'le tell thee thou scoffer and walker after thy lusts Dost thou not know that God once drowned the world if thou art ignorant 't is a wilful ignorance And I pray you scoffers is it not as easie a thing to conceive how God should burn the world as drown the world he hath done one already the Lord open your ears and hearts to understand it You scoff now as the old world scoffed at Noah but they found that Noah's words were true and you will find that our words are true too The Lord strike you with the authority of the VVord that you may receive it as the Oracle of God This is the VVord of God and do you oppose it and rebel against it and slight it if you dare But I know you have that impudence to do it But then I summon you to answer it at the day of judgment do you remember it then There are several other workings of carnal hearts by which they encourage themselves in their wicked lives What are they Come let me name them O say you we don't deny but God will condemn men and we don't deny but God can make good all his threatnings But say you we are in such a body and our bodies are in such want you know we must not starve and suffer our poor wives and children to famish for want of bread and truly we are poor and must work for our livings and we are so taken up that we have no leisure to hear what God says or what Christ says we have scarce leisure to read or hear the word of God This is another thing I know you would fain be gone but I will tell you why I stay you so long I would fain before you go out of them doors have you to believe If Gods Ministers do so compassionate you you should compassionate your selves Ah But say you I can't attend it I must be gone my dinner waits for me no nor to morrow neither I have no time at all to think of these things No Have you no time to think of them Do you think that they don't deserve your thoughts Why What are your poor bodies for which you labour so much in a compare to your souls I tell thee man if it were put to thy choice that thou shouldst either starve or make use of the means of Grace thou shouldst rather go and read and kneel and pray till thou art faint and canst scarce rise up If one must perish soul or body let the body starve Thou poor creature Thy soul is more worth than thy body 't is a thousand times better that thy body should starve than that thy poor soul should be damned But Starve Thou poor unbeliever Thy wretched heart of unbelief deceives thee I tell thee man but that thou hast no faith to entertain what I say I tell thee if thou wilt but set thy self first to mind this great work of saving thy soul and preparing thy Ark if thou wilt set thy self to look upon thy ways and confess thy sins to turn to the Lord to cry mightily and to pour out thy soul in secret to God that he would pardon thee and sanctifie thee and reform thee and give thee grace I tell thee I dare promise thee in the name of the Lord that thou shalt live more comfortably as to this world than ever thou didst in all thy life Why will you promise that we shall grow richer by it This I will promise thee in the name of the Lord and I am sure 't is true that either thou shalt thrive more in the world or else thou shalt be better contented with
days together And if still he were impenitent to declare him unfit for Communion with the Church and require the people to avoid him and binding him over to the judgment of God who will not pardon the impenitent I will recite part of a short Writing which his Hearers gave me now since his death in their own words At his first coming to Newington-Butts which was about 1653 He preached constantly twice every Lords-day And had monthly meetings with us where he prayed and preached In the Summer for half a year he preached a Lecture And in the winter every day of the week except Saturdays neither cold nor wet did keep him from his work which was Praying and Expounding which he constantly performed at seven a Clock in the morning And on Saturdays he spent the afternoon in Catechizing And finding much ignorance in the Parish he was the more laborious for their instruction and once every week in the Winter he would be-speak a house in the Street at the end of an Alley and thither he would send for the poor people out of the Alleys and spend much time in instructing them and praying with them the next week he would do the same in another place and where he himself had been the former week he would appoint one that could write well to follow him and repeat a Sermon and pray with the people in the same place to keep on their hearts what had been wrought and such of the willing persons as could not repeat sufficiently he appointed to read some fit Book to the hearers usually the book called A Call to the Unconverted And that against Making Light of Christ which in a great measure answered his ends And finding by going thus through all his Parish that not only Children but Servants and Ancient persons were very ignorant and the more because they could not read he sent to the Vniversity for a young man who is now a Minister in Sussex and gave him his maintenance to go three days a week to teach people to read by which means aged persons some of sixty years of age and some more did learn to read to their great comfort And to farther their understanding of the Principles of Religion he Printed a short Catechism of Twelve Questions and Answers and gave them freely to all the Parishioners that would come for them and for them that were poor and old he bought a great number of Testaments and gave them to the elder poor people and servants that could not buy them and when he asked many poor people why they came not to the Publick Worship of God and they would answer because they had not cloaths he would stir up some friends which he had in London to relieve them and so got cloth and clothed them His health calling him to abide most in the Country at Theobalds he got a grave Minister Mr. Parsons to be his Assistant in Southwark and so divided his labours to Two Congregations being one day with one and the next with the other And having a competency of his own he never took any Stipend or Maintenance from either of them but lived as believing that it is more honourable to give than to receive That very small proportion which was Contributed he left his Assistant who needed it to receive This faithful Servant of Christ did for many years perform these hard but pleasing labours under that sore disease the Stone in the Reins which some think was Paul's prick in the flesh though others rather take it for Reproach or Persecution And though by the ordinary use of North-hall-Waters he seemed long to keep it under yet leaving the Country coming to abide again at London after twice preaching with very great fervency he fell into that extremity of pain which in a short time brought him to his Death which how peaceably and comfortably he underwent to the last Mr. Brag hath told you in his Funeral-Sermon His dissected body shewed that a Stone in the Bladder as well as his calculous and corrupted Kidneys was his Death The affection of his Flock to their departed Pastor made them desirous that his last Sermons might be published not because they excelled all the rest for in these you may see his ordinary fervency and familiarity in preaching but the last words of our friends affect us most and as we remember them best so we are desirous to commemorate them to others It will be thought by some an injury to the deceased Author that such popular and plain Exhortations should be published when no doubt had he lived to publish them himself they would have appeared in a less homely dress But I take it for no disgrace but a great and necessary duty to speak the important matters of Salvation not in a slovenly but in as plain and familiar and fervent a manner as its well known the common ignorance and dullness of most Hearers do require Who can speak too plainly or too earnestly to such And Writings must be suited to such Readers Capacity as well as Sermons to such hearers Two instances encourage me to this recommendation viz. The works of Mr. William Fenner and of Mr. Thomas Hooker which were popularly delivered and taken from their mouths in so broken and rude a manner as greatly injured the Authors and are not to pass as the notice of their judgments in points of Controversie yet did more good by their plainness and familiar earnestness than most Books that I have known But those that the same men published themselves in a closer stile have far less profited the world of ordinary Readers That is good which doth good To shew the reasonableness that all Ministers should deal thus faithfully and plainly with such as are under their Ministry I will lay open somewhat of the case before you and then judg reasonably of it as you are men The Eternal God delighting in the wonderful diversity of his Creatures hath made man of a middle nature between Bruits and Angels giving him Vital-power Reason and Free will He hath placed him in this World as for a race or warfare resolving that as he behaveth himself it shall go with him in another World for ever For though his body be dust and must to dust return his soul is from above and liveth in blessedness or misery for ever By Sin we have all forfeited our right to Heaven But Eternal Love hath given us a Redeemer who is God and Man who as our Surety became a Sacrifice for our sins and by his Merits hath purchased a Conditional Grant of free forgiveness and of renewing Grace and endless Glory And being ascended into Heaven possesseth it in our nature and intercedeth for us being now as Redeemer Lord of all And as the Sun above us sendeth down its beams on Earth so doth our Glorified Lord his Spirit to quicken enlighten and sanctifie Souls who were dead and dark and disaffected to God to Holiness and Heavenly
perfection And he hath appointed the Ministerial Office that men might be his messengers to men to acquaint them with his Grace and with the Glory which he prepareth for them that they may truly believe it soberly think of it duly value it heartily chuse it and diligently seek it and live and die in the joyful expectation of it And as our Souls converse not with our neighbours immediately but in and by our bodies in which they work so the Spirit of Christ doth not ordinarily work on mens Souls without any means but by his Word and Works which his Ministers must declare Man is not now put upon satisfying Gods Justice or purchasing his Salvation by a price Christ hath done these and made a free gift of Grace and Glory to all that will but penitently and believingly accept it Under Gods Grace mens everlasting Salvation now lieth on their own wills no men or devils can damn or undo any one soul but by his own consent to the cause of his damnation No men or devils can keep our souls from the Heavenly Glory but by tempting him to refuse it undervalue and neglect it and prefer the pleasures of sin before it and by keeping him from loving desiring and seeking it For every one shall certainly have it who had rather be a holy Christian on earth and live in perfect love and joy with God in Heaven for ever than for his filthly pleasure to enjoy the prosperity of this world To acquaint men with this is our Ministerial Office we are charged to set before them the great Salvation which Christ hath procured and importunately to beseech them to mind it believe it and accept it that it may be theirs for ever we believe God and therefore we speak to men as he hath commanded us We intreat them in his Name to turn from sinful enmity and folly and to be reconciled to God and be wise for their Salvation We tell them but what Gods word sent from heaven telleth us and them That holiness is the love of God and goodness and the hatred of sin that the pure in heart are blessed for they shall see God But without holiness none can see him We tell them from God That heaven is won or lost on earth and that none shall have it but such as hence learn to love a holy and heavenly life and that the dislike of holiness is the forfeiture of happiness and the beginning or forerunner of Hell We assure them That God will never say Depart from me ye workers of iniquity if they do not first by iniquity depart from God and that God will not damn them except they damn themselves by the obstinate final refusing and resisting of his mercy We intreat men therefore but to live as men should do that love themselves and that are not indifferent whether they live in Heaven or Hell for ever We intreat them not to be worse to themselves than the Devil and all their enemies are who cannot make them commit one sin against their wills And yet after all this warning intreaty and importunity there are thousands and ten thousands that will not be perswaded nor regard the warning given them from God some will not believe but that a man dies like a Dog and what wonder if such live like Dogs And some will not believe but that they may be saved without regenerating-grace and holiness though Christs own mouth hath protested the contrary and told us verily that it cannot be John 3.3 5 18 19. Mat. 18.3 Heb. 12.14 Rom. 8.6 7 8 9 13 c. Multitudes will not be brought to understand what we say but when we talk of Redemption Sanctification and Salvation they hear us as if we spake Greek or Hebrew to them and under teaching grow old in sottish grossest ignorance multitudes are taken up with the love of prosperity the love of this deceiving world multitudes are carried away with aspiring ambition and foolish pride and more with the love of fleshly pleasures and satisfying their appetites and lusts Many poor people who every where are the most are so opprest with want and wearied with their daily labour and taken up with cares to pay their Rents and Debts and maintain their Families that they think it excusable in them if they little mind the pleasing of God and saving of their souls supposing that they have no leisure for it and God requireth it not at their hands And the same most servants think who have time little enough for their Masters work Multitudes have such dead and hardened hearts that when we tell them that they must shortly be in Heaven or Hell as they are here prepared we speak almost as to blocks or men asleep they feel not what we say as if they did not hear us We are bid cry aloud and tell them of their sin and danger Isa 58.1 2. and yet we cannot get them to regard and feel God saith Awake thou that sleepest and Christ shall give thee light and yet we cannot get them to awake nor hear us like men that have the use of reason and love themselves Alas how many thousands are there whom we could never perswade to consider with deep and serious thoughts what will become of their Souls when they are dead nor to seek to be resolved of it from the infallible Word of God! that never set a part one hour in their lives to consider seriously Whether they have any title to Salvation which they can make good by the Word of God by which they must be judged Sirs This this is the case of multitudes of our neighbours and what would you have a Minister to do in such a case should we flatter and smooth them up in an unholy life what thanks would they give us for this ere long when they find themselves in hell Would you have us stand by in silence and look on while Satan thus leadeth thousands to perdition Would you have us let them quietly go to hell for fear of displeasing them or others or seeming to be unmannerly or uncivil with them Would you have us whisper to men that must be awakened or undone for ever whom thunder and lightening will not awake Alas we see men dying daily and we are dying our selves and daily look when we speak our last and when they hear their last even all that ever they shall hear more for their Salvation We see how Time doth pass away much is lost already the rest is short and utterly uncertainâ— and the ignorance unbelief hard-heartedness fleshliness worldliness pride malignity and unholiness of sinners are deep-rooted strong and damnable evils We see men when they are convinced that they must repent or perish Luk. 13.3 5 putting it off from day to day when they are certainly to be gone ere long and never certain of one more hour And alas a long life is little enough for a willing awakened serious Christian to work out his Salvation and make
theirs who have made a covenant with hell and with death and cry a short life and a sweet who forget they have souls while they thus speak and resolve and will not believe there is a God till they wish for rocks and mountains to fall upon them to hide them from him nor believe there is a hell till they feel it O what a deep sense had the Apostle Paul of the misery and immergent ruins of his Country-men Rom. 10.1 His hearts desire unto God for them was that they might be saved he could wish himself accursed that they might escape I know no man more like-minded to him than this Servant of God who is with the Lord who delighted in nothing no work in the world like plucking brands out of the fire saving men from hell and sending men and women before him to heaven if he could I hope the impression upon my heart from the consideration of that incomparable transport of his Soul in the Preaching the last Sermon as if he had known his time was so short and that Sermon his last shall still remain fresh upon me After Sermon I told him of it and he told me His heart was carried out with zeal and pity that he could not keep to method but he could not help it All that knew him can bear him witness that he was able to write or speak for matter and form gratefully to any but he studied plainness and therefore purposely declined great Auditories to my knowledg a clear proof of his meek and self-denying spirit Gain-say it who can He sought not honour from men whilst alive and now he is dead let his own Works praise him in the gates If any should enquire why or who call'd me to interpose these few rude lines I only say It is pia fraus to steal an opportunity to testifie more publickly the great veneration I have for the name of this holy man who indeed was one of the Sons of Davids Worthies As also to signifie my longing after the Souls happiness of all that were his ordinary Hearers Whom again I beseech to read and afterwards to ponder who and what moved him to speak his heart in these last words unto them if peradventure God may give them repentance unto life by the Ministry of him who not only saved himself but shall then save also them that heard him A.P. 1 Peter III. the later part of the 18 the 19 and part of the 20 Verse Being put to death in the flesh but quickned by the Spirit By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison Which sometimes were disobedient when once the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah while the Ark was a preparing IN the opening of this portion of Scripture we will First Consider its Scope and then we will consider the words themselves and give you a short Explication thereof and then we shall draw that Practical Observation from them which the Lord bless unto your Edification As for the Scope of them in the former part of the 18 Verse I have shewed you how the Apostle was acquainting us with the great benefit that sinners do receive from the death of Christ that I have already opened to you Christ hath once sufferd for sins the just for the unjust that he might bring us to God Now in the following Verses the Apostle passeth on from the death of Christ unto the life of Christ and shews that we have not only benefit by a Christ dying but by a Christ living For Christ is our Saviour both ways We are saved by his death meritoriously we are saved by his life as he lives for to see the purchased-blessings of his death made good to us Now the Apostle in these words I have already read considereth the life of Christ two ways First With respect to the world before he came in the flesh with respect to the old World above Two thousand years before he came in the flesh Jesus Christ the Eternal Son of God was alive then yea before the World was he was alive and was God blessed for ever by him the World was made To the old World even that world that was destroyed by the Flood to that world he was a Saviour by designation and he took care of them The care of mankind from the fall hath been deposited in the hands of Christ he hath taken care of sinners from the fall of man into sin Then Secondly The Apostle does speak of the advantages that the Church hath by a living-Christ upon his Resurrection from the dead as he speaks in the 21 v. The figure whereunto even Baptism doth also now save us then there comes in a Parenthesis How does Baptism save us Why by the Resurrection of Jesus Christ When he was on earth he preached the Gospel promised pardon and salvation to the penitent believing sinner and died for him when he had done preaching and arose from the dead and is gone to Heaven to make good every word We are now upon the consideration of the benefits that the old World had from Christ above two thousand years before Christ was born in the flesh Why what was the benefit that the old World had Why Christ by his Spirit did send Noah a Preacher of righteousness to preach repentance to the old Word the Spirit of Christ was in Noah by which Spirit Noah Prophesied of the destruction of the world By which Spirit he was directed to build the Ark to prepare for himself and those that should repent for that time that the Floold should come upon the world Christ by his Spirit preached then to that world of sinners that were drowned then and not only drowned but their spirits damn'd which was for disobeying Christ for disobeying the Spirit of Christ in Noah Having now given you the Scope of the place we shall proceed according to that light I have to give you the understanding of the words and phrases of this Scripture for it seemeth to be a Scripture that is not without its difficulties We will begin at the First First What it is to be put to death in the flesh that we must enquire into Secondly What is it to be quickned by the Spirit What does the Apostle understand hereby Thirdly What is this preaching What are Fourthly These Spirits that are in prison And what 's the prison And so we shall take in what follows in its order Being put to death in the flesh Who put to death Christ By whom By the unbelieving wicked Jews they were his accusers Put to death in the flesh by whom By Pontius Pilate as his Judg. Put to death in the flesh by whom Why by those Executioners that were employed by Pontius Pilate to see him Crucified The Jews Pontius Pilate and the Soldiers put him to death Put to death in the flesh What 's that That is after he was made flesh he was put to death as he was man he hung