afraid to look death in the face of whom then should they be afraid they may by grace do what t is said the horse doth by nature even mock at fear when it cometh We may say as David doth the Righteous is hold as a Lion A righteous man may say with David Psal 3.6 I will not be afraid of 10000s of people that have set themselves against me round about or as in Psal 46.2 Although the earth be removed and the mountaines cast into the midst of the Sea I will not fear Although the greater world fall this lesser world need not shake or be moved And so we are here taught 3ly the great Blessednesse of Christians in miserable times these are the happy men and women in times of war plague famine Miser Christianus videri potest non potest inveniri he may outwardly seem miserable he shall never be truly miserable Are ye by Christ freed from the slavish fear of death temporall and eternall Use 2 then let not such men as you be terrified at the newes of the approach of death and be not unwilling to die when the God of our lives calls for you When once good old Simeon had got his Saviour in his armes he presently sings his Now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace Luk. 2.29 Rebeckah that went so willingly with Abrahams servant to Canaan to be Isaacs wife may rise up in the day of Judgment and condemn us if we hang back when our bridegroome the Lord Christ comes or sends for us She went to an earthly Canaan we to a heavenly she went to Isaac a type of Christ we to Christ himselfe she to Sarahs tent we to Abrahams bosome she to a moveable tent or Tabernacle we to Mansions to a building that has foundations whose builder and maker is God himselfe she went from her own kindred and fathers house to live and die in a strange country we go to our own country and fathers house to dye no more death shall no more have dominion over us Consider for I speak to those who are passible and mortall and to whom no day can bring a priviledge nor place be a Sanctuary from the arrest of death no though our breasts be full of milk and our bones of marrow consider I say 1. that death can but bruise our heel he cannot break our head when death hath killed the body he hath done all God sayes to this destroying Angell or Messenger of his when he hath taken away the life of our bodies stay now thine hand it is enough put up thy sword into the scabbard and therefore do not fear death for the sword of death is like the sword of the magistrate he beareth it indeed not in vain but to be a terror to evill doers and a praise to them that do well 2. Death will cure thee of thy body and soul diseases The long-sick writ upon his grave stone hîc ero sanus here I shall be well And as for sin the disease of thy soul death will perfectly cure that leprosie and stop that bloudy issue and be the death of that body of death within thee 3. As the fining pot for silver and the furnace for gold so shall the grave be to our drossy bodies our bodies like the China dishes after they have been buryed for some generations under ground shall be taken up and made vessels of honour fit for our masters use in heaven The soul is now indeed a Pearl but set in clay but at the Resurrection in the day when God makes up his Jewels when he takes them up out of the dust and dirt he will then set them in bodies of gold yea in bodies like the Sun for we shall be made like unto the glorious body of Christ Phil. 3. Revel 1.16 last And his body is like the Sun when it shineth in its full strength 4. Death is the beaten road to everlasting life Christ the King of heaven and earth went this way and it may suffice Christians to walke to heaven even as Christ walked in and by the way of death 5. Consider Death is Christs messenger he will not run before he is sent he is Christs Angel or Minister sent out for the good of them who are heires of Salvation In the 2 King 6.32 we read that when Jehoram sent a messenger to take off Elisha's head the Prophet bid shut the door for saith he is not the sound of his masters feet behind him But let us use death kindly and not handle him roughly at the door but rather say turn in turn in my Lord for is not the sound of his and our Masters feet is not the sound of Christs feet behind him 6ly and lastly consider that so long as thou art slavishly afraid of death and judgment thou art either not a son or surely a son under age thou art not made perfect in love I shall never think my soul in good case said one so long as I fear to think of dying And Luther in a Sermon on Luk. 21.25 saith that untill we can from our hearts desire the day of judgment we cannot say boldly that we are Christians he would therefore have us pray to God for this day thus fac si fieri potest ut hâc horâ veniat I desire it may come even this very hour But yet truly I think that the house of our soul may sometimes lie so unswept and out of order that we may be for a season willing that our Lord and husband should delay a little his comming But t is our duty and let it be our study and endeavour to set the house of our soule in order daily not knowing but that any day we may dye and not live To this purpose le ts meditate often on death thus le ts die daily thus le ts acquaint our selves with it and prepare for it and so shall we be at peace and so shall we not be afraid We read in the Gospell of one mad man who lived among the tombs the world think all mad that do so Joh. 19.41 42. compared with Math. 27.59.60 although but by meditation and yet we read that devout Joseph of Arimathea had his tomb in his garden where he probably used to walk And oh that my people were wise Deut. 32.29 that they would consider their latter end were some of the last words of Moses This is the way to prepare for death and watchfulnesse and preparation may prevent a surprisall may turn death into a sleep the longer and more we watch for death our sleep and rest will be the sweeter In vita vigilant justi ideo in morte dicuntur dormire August the righteous watch whilst they live and their death is a sleep And what weary long waking man is afraid of a sound and sweet sleep Use last And so I come to the last Use of the Doctrine If Christians ought not to fear death neither temporall nor eternall of whom or what then should believers be afraid Let us not fear the Devill he is an enemy but a conquered enemy but an enemy bound in chaines he is a Lyon but led in chains and so muzled that a child of God need not fear him Le ts not fear the day of judgment t is a time of refreshing from the presence of the Lord t is the day of Redemption of our bodies Let it be the object of our hopes not of our feares Le ts not fear the world not all the evill the men of the world can do unto us let us march on in the way of truth and holinesse and that although the whole world should be against us although our dayes should prove daies of darknesse of clouds and of thick darknesse daies of rebuke and blasphemy to us yet let us Christians whether Prophets or Prophets children or professors of the Gospell which is the truth and the Doctrine according unto godlinesse let us be zealous and couragious for truth against error and for holinesse against profanenesse let us quit our selves like men and be strong let us stand up to and for the truth our hearts never once failing us for fear of what may come upon us no not if it should come to a worship the golden Image or be cast into the fiery furnace cōsidering as one saith that Dei miles nec in dolore deseritur nec in morte finitur Gods souldier is neither deserted in sufferings nor ended in death And again quanto plus tormenti tanto plus erit gloriae the more torment the more glory For although we must not have amorem mercenarium yet we may have amorem mercedis though not a mercenary love yet a Respect to the recompence of reward Let us know that although t is a blessed thing to dye in the Lord yet t is a more glorious thing to dye for the Lord. Let us therefore look unto the cloud of witnesses of the martyrs of Jesus who have gone before us either in the Primitive or in the Marian times yea let us look unto Jesus the Author and finisher of our faith Heb. 12.2 who for the joy that was set before him endured the crosse and despised the shame and is now set down at the right hand of God from whom he came into this world that he might deliver us out of the hands of all our enemies that we might serve him without fear 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. saith Dr H. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in safety in holinesse and righteousnesse all the daies of our lives To conclude all In all our qualms and faintings of heart le ts endeavour to revive and encourage our selves with this soveraigne cordiall and Antidote that it was one great end wherefore Christ took upon him flesh and blood which could suffer and dye that so by his death and resurrection he might not only rescue one day our bodies after death from the power of the grave giving us a glorious Resurrection unto eternall life but also might by his victorious death on the crosse destroy our Arch-enemy the Devill who had the power of death a deadly power or a power to kill and deliver us who through fear of death otherwise ought and should have been all our life time subject unto bondage FINIS
A CORDIALL AGAINST THE FEARE of DEATH Delivered in a Sermon before the Vniversity of OXFORD May 28. 1654. By THOMAS HODGES B. D. Rector of Souldern in Oxfordshire OXFORD Printed by H. H. for Thomas Robinson 1659. To his much Honoured Friend Mr WALTER PELL of Aldermanbury in LONDON Merchant SIR SHould I be blamed for Printing this single Sermon I desire the great and Universall concernment of the Subject here treated on the seasonablenesse of it at all times especially in these sickly times after the observation of three generall Fasts for the diseases and mortality in severall parts of the Nation together with the eminency of the Auditory to which for the main it hath been Preached namely the two Universities successively may be my Apology for adventuring it to the presse And if you should admire my confidence in this manner of addresse to you I pray you be pleased in part to charge it upon your own account and to assure your selfe that your late civilities and favours to me and respects for me have encouraged me to this undertaking And if the observation hold good elsewhere which I lately heard from a Neighbour Mr Wilde of Ayno Minister at a Funerall Sermon namely that God in this visitation seemed especially to levell at aged persons having taken away 10 persons of his parish in one yeer all of them about or above threescore yeers old when you shall number your own daies and behold your own face in a glasse and see how the fields are already white unto the harvest and consider how the very streets you walke in might in some measure be paved with the skuls of those who have dyed since you first lived in the City though you should censure the Preacher as impertinent yet may you judge the Sermon here presented not altogether improper T is true indeed the mention of Death is an unpleasing note in the eares of those usually who are full of the comforts of this life I have heard or read of a King who upon pain of death forbad any to mention Death in his presence and of a great Queen who was highly displeased with a favourite for preaching a Sermon minding her how age had furrowed her face and besprinckled her haire with its meal but I hope you have better learned Christ and sure I am dare talke of death and touch this harsh key your selfe and will not therefore I perswade my selfe judge me your enemy meerly because I tell you the truth Now Sir whilst I preface this Sermon to you I desire I may Preach to my selfe and to all that read this Epistle whether old men or maidens young men or children Let us get oyle in out lamps before the Bridegroome comes and all things ready for death before death comes for who now so young so strong so good but there are younger and stronger and better already in their graves The Jewes have a proverb there are skulls of all sizes in Golgotha and the Apostle John tells us he saw the dead small and great stand before God Rev. 20.11 12. Let us not then put farre from us the evill day but consider that some sudden blast may blow out the Candle as well as it may goe out in the socket Physitians say there are 300 diseases incident to the body of man but if we escape all other diseases old age that incurable disease reckoned one of the three messingers of Death will creep upon us ere we are aware if we do not think of it Oh! that we could as we dye daily so get our selves more ready for death daily Let us meditate often how the two axes of time day and night are continually chopping at the root of the tree of every mans life and how some fruits are blown off the tree whilst in the bud or green aswell as some others fall off when they are ripe and how some flowers of the field are trod down or crop'd by man or beast aswell as others stand and wither till they be cut down 1 Let us know that death is the wages of sin and forasmuch as all have sinned it is a Statute enacted by the Parliament of Heaven that all must dye once so t is ordinarily for it is thought Lazarus dyed twice and those who shall be found alive at the day of judgment shall not dye at all but be changed Now if death be our wages let us Consider that wages may be payd in any lawfull coyne gold silver or brasse in any place the house street or field at any houre of the day or watch of the night as the master pleaseth and so Death may be inflicted diverse wayes and manners at any time and in any place Further know we that t is a solemn thing to dye because after death the Iudgment Eternity treads on the heels of death so that there 's no place here for a second Error 2 Let us often think of Death T is observed that Beasts cannot think of dying le ts shew our selves therefore men meditate of it not put far from us the day of Death that may be a meanes to make us secure for we read that the wise virgins slumberd as well as the foolish whilst the bridegroom delayed his coming and t is observed that God therefore keeps secret from us the day of death and judgment that men should watch alway and be ever prepared 3 Though we think of death which the beasts cannot doe yet let us not slavishly feare it but therein endeavour to be as the Angels of heaven who though they understand Death yet doe not feare it being out of the reach of it Consider we may that the sting of Death which is sin is taken out and our death is the Death of Death to us that out of this eater comes meat and out of the strong out of the bitter comes sweetnes Indeed if we looke upon death as the punishment of sin as the dissolution of the most excellent creature on earth as the parting of two old friends and intimate acquaintance the soul and the body as an end and period of service to God and man in the Church and comonwealth on earth so t is rather terrible than desirable yet again if we consider that t is a period to sin and sorrow an inlet to glory a dark entry to a lightsome palace no other than the Portall or entry into the house of God and the gate of heaven to the godly and that death is ours for our benefit and advantage as well as life that our death is precious in Gods eyes and that when we are dead and our vile bodies in the dust when the wormes are spread under them and the wormes cover them even then are we Gods Jewels when we are dissolved then are we like gold melted in the furnace precious in the eyes of the owner thereof Le ts consider that we goe to our friends and acquaintance who are gone before us to heaven yea we goe to God
Christ and the holy Angels and all the company of heaven and though our body and soul part yet the mysticall union betwixt us and Christ the Head continues firme and indissoluble and we are still members of his body that death is a sleep after our labour and travell here and who feares to put off his clothes to goe to sleep in his bed that Christ our Lord dyed to free us from the slavish feare of death I say if we consider all these things we shall not need to be alway way in bondage through feare of death Though death was odious and accounted an enemy to the * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hesio 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gods of the Heathen yet it hath been welcomed and entertained as a friend by godly Christians I have heard or read of a godly man who rejoyced exceedingly when he saw the plague spots upon his arme looking on them as certain signes of his approching dissolution and of a gracious Gentlewoman who being told by a friend that her change probably was not far off brake out after such a manner saying Now blesse the Lord O my soul and all that is within me blesse His Holy Name I would not goe back again for a world or to the like effect And 4ly that we may not feare the approach of Death le ts prepare and provide daily for his comming put on the whole armour of God especially the shield of Faith and the sword of the spirit which is the word of God Cant. 4.4 this is like the Armory of Solomon wherein hung a thousand shields even the shields of the mighty Keep close to our Captaine Christ who leads us and loves us and laid down his life for us and ever lives in heaven to make intercession for us through him we shall doe valiantly through him we shall tread down our enemies and be more then Conquerors over Sin Death and the Divel Le ts take heed of every Sin get and grow in and act as we have opportunity every grace labour to be abundantly fruitfull in every good thought word and worke and be sure to be found upon our watch and upon our guard when death comes And now Sir to return unto you having never preached to you from the Pulpit accept I pray this Sermon from the Presse You who feare God do not you feare Death Let not such a man as you seek to flee but rather stand in your tent door ready to meet him when he comes To this end be rich in Faith and rich in good Works let your own eyes be your Overseers and your own hands in some good measure your Executors Be eyes to the blind feet to the lame deale your bread to the hungry cloath the naked shew your faith by your works Thus whilst others may be compared to Dives or to the rich fool in the Gospell we shall behold you as the wise Merchant in the Parable who though you have indeed a great portion in the things of the world yet are not contented to have the world for your portion and though you have had your share of the treasures hid in the sands yet not satisfied therewith lay up for your selfe treasures in Heaven Thus returning you hearty thanks for the favours and respects you have been pleased to doe me hoping since you are reputed a lover of Ministers you will give a Minister leave still to love and honour you I shall conclude praying for you that when you shall have served your Generation according to the will of God and fall asleepe your soule may be received up into Heaven and your body rest in the Lord so that when you shall awake in the morning of the resurrection and your body and soule be reunited you may be still and ever with the Lord which is best of all Sir This is and shall be the Prayer of your Humble Servant in the Gospell of Christ THOMAS HODGES Souldern Decemb. 23. 1658. Heb 2.15 And deliver them who through feare of Death were all their life time subject to bondage IN this and the verse immediately foregoing we have a rationall account of the Incarnation of the Son of the God why it was expedient that the Messiah should be Emanuel the Word should be made Flesh wherefore the Son of God should become the Son of Man an everliving and all-quickening Spirit partake of flesh and blood like unto us his brethren onely without sin i. e. be of a nature passible and mortall or obnoxious to sufferings and Death namely it was for these two ends 1. That by his death he might destroy our great enemy there named the Divel and described to be him that had the power of Death And 2ly That he might deliver us his own brethren and friends out of the hands of this cruel tyrant and out of the mouth of this roaring Lyon of whom by reason of our sins we either were or had just cause to be all our life time afraid lest we should by him be punished both with temporall and eternall Death There are three observations which I desire to speak to and which I suppose contain the very marrow of these words 1. That t is a grievous bondage to be all our life time in continuall feare of Death 2. Unbelievers or those who are out of Christ either are or have just cause to be through feare of Death all their life time subject unto bondage 3. Believers or they who have part in Christ and they onely are delivered and freed by his death from this intollerable bondage Of the 1. I shall proceed by these steps 1. To shew that feare is a bondage 2. That to fear all on s life time aggravates the bondage 3. That to feare Death all our life time consummates the bondage 1. Feare is a passion which speaks a man a servant t is the badge and cognizance of a Servant whereas Love is the principle and character of a Child to feare our Lords or our Masters anger is servile servile est ac servum arguit saith Rolloc in loc And t is very observable that Rom. 8.15 the spirit of fear is cal'd a Spirit of bondage but the spirit of Adoption or the spirit of Sons is in the Scripture cal'd a spirit of love and distinguished from that spirit of feare or that principle of fear whereby servants commonly do act or are acted rather 2 Tim. 1.7 Feare hath torment sayth the Holy Ghost 1 Joh. 4.18 This foul fiend this torturing Affection was worshipped by the Lacedemonians as a God I suppose for the same cause that the Romans and Indians worshipped the Divel viz. that it should not torment them And truely they say Fear was commonly adored and painted in their Temples with a Lyons head and so very terrible not unlike the Devill that roaring Lyon who goeth about continually seeking whom he may devoure and truly if it be not like the Devill yet some have said Cardan that feare
dreadfull thing to fall into the hands of this cruel tyrant and tormentor Death comes to our chamber-doors and to our bedside accompanyed and guarded with Legions of Devils who all greedily gape for their prey And so we come to The 4th and last consideration in respect whereof death is very formidable or terrible namely if we consider the Consequents of death the second Death followes at the heels of the first i. e. Hell treads on the heels of death Death comes riding on a red or pale horse with a drawn sword in his hand and hell followes on a black horse with a flaming sword turning every way to cut off all the branches of our tree of life yea so to cut down the tree of life as that he leave us neither root nor branch Ubi coram Deo reatus ibi protinus Inferi se ostendunt sayth Calvin where the soul is yet under guilt before God there hell stares us in the face so terrible must death be to those who are yet in their sins who are indeed out of Christ And this is our second observation Observa 2 That unbelievers either actually are or of right have just cause to be through feare of death all their life-time subject to bondage Every unbeliever may be named magor-missabib feare round about within him are feares when all is calme and there are no fightings without Foure sorts of men there are in the world whose condition is a condition of feare 1 Minors or children and servants or vassals who are under hard Masters 2. Such as are weake and of no strength and yet have many powerfull and revengefull enemies 3. Poore debtors who owe millions who have nothing to pay and yet have creditors who will not abate them a â—arthing or mite And fourthly malefactors or transgressors of the Law who are obnoxious to justice and so lyable continually to punishment for the breach of the Law Now the condition of unbelievers may be likened to all these and therefore must needs be a condition of feare 1 And at best he is under the Law as a schoolmaster yea as a taskmaster too who requires of him difficultyes and impossibilities demands brick and gives no straw and he is or ought to be afraid of being beaten daily Then he is a servant yea a slave to sin the worst master the greatest tyrant in the world he is as Paul said of himself Rom. 7.14 Carnall sold under sin as to his unregenerate part or as t is said of Ahab 1 Kings 21.25 he is one that sells himselfe to worke wickednes being a servant of Sin he is made a servant of death and serves him daily with feare and trembling as oft as he thinks of him yea he is carryed captive by the Devil at his pleasure so right is that quà m multos habet Dominos qui unum non habet How many Lords and Masters hath he that hath not one that is God for his Lord and master 2 An unbeliver is weak and of no strength and yet hath many potent enemys to grapple withall 1 he hath one omnipotent enemy and that is God one who is said to be angry with him every day Psalm 5.5 11.5 and to hate him who whets his sword and bends his bow and prepares for him the Instruments of Death And surely t is a fearfull thing to be a child of wrath and to be lyable daily to fall into the hands of this living God as ones deadly enemy and yet this is the state of unbelievers Again all the Angels in heaven and all the creatures in heaven and earth and all the Devils in hell are his enemys they all stand ready some nearer some farther off the Iudges bench as it were saying Away with such a fellow from the Earth he is not worthy to live He that kills thee may think he doth God good Service An unbeliever like Cain may feare every one that meeteth him lest he should slay him 3. He is extreamly indebted unto the Justice of God and is never able to pay a farthing and God will one day say if he live and die in this state take him and bind him hand and foot and cast him into the dungeon into utter darknesse verily he shall not come out thence untill he hath paid the uttermost farthing And 4ly he is a transgressor a malefactor God looks on him so in the womb and from the womb as soon as he comes into life he is lyable to the law sentence and punishment of death he is as we say a dead man in law as soon as he begins to live Yea and that which aggravates his bondage and misery is this that he knows of no reprieve no not for a day or hour or moment death and hell may seize on him every minute behold as it were a flaming sword with a twine-thread hangs over his head continually so that all his honors sweet pleasures wealth is nothing to him if his eyes be but open to see his misery his head is as it were alway upon the block and death is ready with his axe for ought he knows to sever soul and body every moment and if he die presently he knowes not what will become of his soul to eternity or he knows that the Devills will come and fetch away his soule he looks on death quasi aeternae mortis exordium C. Alap on death temporall as but the beginning or inlet into eternall death he enters into the prison of hell as never hoping to come out againe If the eyes of his understanding be enlightned he sees Legions of Devills ready to fly upon his soule before his soule goes out of his body reaching after and catching at his soule before his friends begin to scramble for his goods or the wormes to feast themselves with his flesh To conclude this an unbeliever hath just cause to feare death as one that will deprive him of life and all that he accounted happinesse and as a Serjeant sent to arrest attach and hale him to prison and judgment and so deliver him up to the Devill and the torments of hell for ever And now if any be troubled at these sayings and say in their hearts this is a hard saying who can bear it who then can be saved I answer our Lord Jesus Christ dyed to deliver all those that will come to him for Salvation from the feare of death under which they were before time held in bondage and so we come to treat of our 3d and last observation All true Christians or those who are justified by faith Observ 3 in Christ are by him and especially by his death for them or his dying for them freed from being all their life time through fear of death subject unto bondage 1 They are delivered they do not slavishly feare death temporall and eternall or they ought not so to doe 2 They are delivered by Christ and 3 by Christ dying for them 1 True Christians do not or