could not be so unwilling to be removed to it for no man is unwilling to be happy or to attain his end But stay a little and better consider of your Case Is it Christ that your heart is thus a verse to or is it only Death that standeth in the way You are not I hope unwilling to see the face of God nor unwilling to be translated from earth to heaven but unwilling to die It is not because you love the creature better then the Creator but because you are afraid of Death You may love God and long to be perfected in holiness and to see his Glory and to have the most near Communion with him and yet at the same time you may fear this Enemy that standeth in your way I mean not only the Pain of death but principally the dissolution of our natures and the separation of the soul from the body and its abode in a separated state and the bodies abode in dust and darkness Grace it self is not given us to reconcile us to corruption and make death as death to seem desirable but to cause us patiently to bear the evil because of the good that is beyond it It is not our duty to love death as death Had it not been naturally an evil to be dreaded and avoided God would not have made it the matter of his threatning nor would it have been a fit means to restrain men from transgression To threaten a man with a benefit as such is a contradiction Enquire therefore into your hearts whether there be not a belief of heaven a love to God a desire to enjoy and please him even while you draw back and seem to be a verse and whether it be not only a lothness to die and not a lothness to be with Christ For the fuller discovery of this because I find that our comfort much dependeth on it I shall try you by these following Questions Quest 1. What is it that is ungrateful to you in your meditations of your change Is it God and Heaven or is it Death If it be only Death it seems it is not the want of Love to God and Heaven that causeth your averseness If it be God himself that is ungrateful to your thoughts it is because you desire not his nearer presence or communion with him in the state of glory or is it only because you fear lest you have no interest in his Love and shall not attain the blessedness which you desire If it be the first I must confess it proves a graceless soul and signifieth the want of Love to God But if it be the latter only it may stand with grace For Desire is a true signification of Love though there be doubts and fears lest we shall miss the attainment of those desires Quest 2. Would you not gladly hear the news of your removal if you might be changed without Death and translated to heaven as Henoch and Elias were and as Christ at his Ascension Had you not far rather be thus changed then abide on earth If so then it seems it is not God and Heaven that you are against but death Nay if you could reach Heaven by travelling a thousand miles would you not gladly take the journey as soon as you had got assurance of your title to it and done the work of God on earth If it were but a Peter James and John to go with Christ into an exceeding high Mountain and there to see him in glory Mat. 17. 12. would you not gladly do it It seems that thou desirest to see the Lord and thy love is to him though thou be afraid of death Quest 3. Consider of the Nature of the Heavenly felicity and try whether thou love it in the several parts One part is our personal Perfection that oursouls shall be free from ignorance and error and sin and sorrow and enlarged for the perfect Love of God and our bodies at the Resurrection made like the glorious body of our Lord Phil. 3. 21. and wouldst thou not be thus perfected in soul and body Another part is that we shall live with the society of Angels and glorified Saints And wouldst thou not have such company of sinners and enemies and imperfect Saints on earth Another part is we shall see our glorified Head and be with him where he is that we may behold his glory And doth not thy heart desire this But the perfection of our Happiness is that we shall see the face of the glory of God which is the light of that world as truly as the Sun is the light of this and that we shall be filled up with the feeling of his Love and abound with Love to him again and perfectly delighted in this Communion of Love and express in the Praises of the LORD and thus make up the New Jerusalem where GOD will place his glorious presence and in which he will for evermore take pleasure And is there any thing in this that thy soul is against and which dost not value above this WORLD If thou find that all the parts are sweet and the Description of Heaven is most grateful to thee and that this is the state that thou wouldst be in it seems then it is not Heaven but Death that thou art averse from and that maketh thee so loth to hear the tydings of thy change Quest 4. Couldst thou not joyfully see the coming of Christ if it were this day if thou have done thy work and art assured of his love The Apostle hath told us by the word of the Lord that the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout with the voice of the Archangel and with the Trump of God and the dead in Christ shall rise first and then they which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air and so shall we ever be with the Lord 1 Thes 4. 15 16 17. And this is the doctrine that comforteth believers verse 18. Would it not rejoyce your hearts if you were sure to live to see the coming of the Lord and to see his glorious appearing and retinue If you were not to die but to be caught up thus to meet the Lord and to be changed immediately into an immortal incorruptible glorious state would you be averse to this would it not be the greatest joy that you could desire For my own part I must confess to you that death as death appeareth to me as an enemy and my nature doth abhor and fear it But the thoughts of the Coming of the Lord are most sweet and joyful to me so that if I were but sure that I should live to see it and that the Trumpet should sound and the dead should rise and the Lord appear before the period of my age it would be the joyfullest tydings to me in the world O that I might see his Kingdome come It is the Character of his Saints to love his appearing 2
penalty And if I grant as much of a natural disposition in the Body to a dissolution if not prevented by a Glorifying Change it will no whit advantage their impious cause But withall man was then so far Immortal as that he had a posse non mori a natural capacity of not dying and the mo ietur vel non morietur the actual event of Life or Death was laid by the Lord of Life and Death upon his obedience or disobedience And man having sinned Justice must be done and so we came under a non posse non mori an impossibility of escaping death ordinarily because of the peremptory sentence of our Judge But the day of our deliverance is at hand when we shall attain a non posse mori a certain consummate Immortality when the last Enemy Death shall be destroyed and how that is done I shall next enquire SECT II. YOu have seen the ugly face of Death you are next to see a little of the Love of our great Redeemer You have heard what sin hath done you are next to hear what Grace hath done and what it will do You have seen the strength of the Enemy you are now to take notice of the Victory of the Redeemer and see how he conquereth all this strength 1. The Beginning of the Conquest is in this world 2. The Perfection will not be till the day of Resurrection when this Last Enemy shall be destroyed 1. Meritoriously Death is conquered by Death The Death of sinners by the Mediators Death Not that he intended in his Meritorious work to save us from the stroke of death by a prevention but to deliver us from it after by a Resurrection For since by man came death by man also came the Resurrection from the dead 1 Cor. 15. 21. For as much as the children were partakers of flesh and blood he also himself likewise took part with them that he might destroy him through death that had the power of death that is the Devil and deliver them who through fear of death were all their life time subject unto bondage Heb. 2. 14 15. Satan as Gods Executioner and as the prosperous tempter is said to have had the power of death The fears of this dreadful Executioner are a continual bondage which we are liable to through all our lives till we perceive the deliverance which the Death of the Lord of Life hath purchased us 1. By Death Christ hath stisfied the Justice that was armed by sin against us 2. By Death he hath shewed us that Death is a tolerable Evil and to be yielded to in hope of following life 2. Actually he conquered Death by his Resurrection This was the day of Grace's triumph This day he shewed to Heaven to Hell and to earth that death was conquerable yea that his personal Death was actually overcome The blessed souls beheld it to their Joy beholding in the Resurrection of their Head a virtual Resurrection of their own Bodies The Devils saw it and therefore saw that they had no hopes of holding the Bodies of the Saints in the power of the grave The damned souls were acquainted with it and therefore knew that their sinful bodies must be restored to bear their part in suffering The Believing Saints on earth perceive it and therefore see that their bonds are broken and that to the righteous there is hope in death and that our Head being actually risen assureth us that we shall also Rise For if we believe that Jesus died and Rose again even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him 1 Thes 4. 14. And as Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more death hath no more dominion over him So shall we Rsie and die no more This was the beginning of the Churches Triumph This is the day that the Lord hath made even the day which the Church on Earth must celebrate with joy and praise till the day of our Resurrection We will be glad and rejoyce therein Psal 118. 24. The Resurrection of our Lord hath 1. Assured us of the consummation of his satisfacttion 2. Of the truth of all his Word and so of his promises of our Resurrection 3. That Death is actually conquered and a Resurrection possible 4. That believers shall certainly Rise when their Head and Saviour is Risen to prepare them an everlasting Kingdome and to assure them that thus he will Raise them at the last A bare promise would not have been so strong a help to Faith as to the actual Rising of Christ as a pledge of the performance But now Christ is risen and become the first fruits of them that sleep 1 Cor. 15. 20. For because he Liveth we shall live also John 14. 19. 3. The next degree of destruction to this Enemy was by the gift of his Justifying and Sanctifying Grace Four special benefits were then bestowed on us which are Antidotes against the Enmity of Death 1. One is the gift of saving Faith by which we look beyond the grave as far as to eternity And this doth most powerfully disable Death to terrifie and discourage us and raiseth us above our Natural fears and sheweth us though but in a glass the exceeding eternal weight of glory which churlish Death shall help us to So that when the eye of the unbeliever looketh no further than the grave believing souls can enter into Heaven and see their glorified Lord and thence fetch Love and Hope and Joy notwithstanding the terrours of interposing death The eye of Faith foreseeth the salvation ready to be revealed in the last time and causeth us therein greatly to rejoyce though now for a season if need be we are in heaviness through manifold temptations And so victorious is this Faith against all the storms that do assault us that the tryal of it though with fire doth but discover that â—t is much more precious than Gold that peâ—isheth and it shall be found unto praise and â—onour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ whom having never seen in the flesh we â—ove and though now we see him not yet believing we rejoyce with unspeakable glorious joy 1 Pet. 1. 5 6 7 8 9. and shall shortly receive the end of our Faith the Salvation of our Souls Thus Faith though it destroy not Death it self destroyeth the Malignity and enmity of DEATH while it seeth the hings that are beyond it and the time when â—eath shall be destroyed and the Life where death shall be no more Faith is like David's three mighty men that brake thorow the Host of the Philistines to fetch him the waters of Bethlehem for which he longed 2 Sam. 23. 15 16. When the thirsty soul saith O that â—ne would give me drink of the waters of Salvation Faith breaks thorow death which standeth in the way and fetcheth these living waters to the soul We may say of Death as it is said of the World 1 John 5. 4 5. Whatsoever is born of God overcometh
and the excellency of the Redeemers grace Adam was but to seek the continuance of his life and a translation to Glory without the terrors of interposing death He was never called to prepare to die nor to think of the state of a separated Soul nor to mind and love and seek a glory to which there is no ordinary passage but by death This is the difficulty that sin hath caused against which we have need of the special assistance of the example and doctrine and promse and Spirit of the Redeemer Adam was never put to study how to get over this dreadful gulf The threatning of death was to raise such a fear in him as was necessary to prevent it But those fears did rather hold him closer to the way of life then stand between him and life to his discouragement But we have a death to fear that must be suffered that cannot be avoided The strange condition of a separated soul so unlike to its state while resident in the body doth require in us a special Faith to apprehend it and a special revelation to discover it To desire and love and long for and labour after such a time as this when one part of us must lie rotting in the grave and the separated Soul must be with Christ alone till the Resurrection and to believe and hope for that Resurrection and to deny our selves and forsake all the world and lay down our lives when Christ requireth it by the power of this faith and hope this is a work that innocent Adam never knew This is the high employment of a Christian To have our hearts and conversations in Heaven Matth. 6. 21. Phil. 3. 20 when Death must first dissolve us before we can possess it here is the noble work of faith SECT VI. Use 4. MOreover this Enmity of Death may help us to understand the reason of the sufferings and Death of Christ That he gave his life a Ransome for us and a Sacrifice for sin and so to make satisfaction to the offended Majesty is a truth that every Christian doth believe But there was another reason of his death that all of us do not duly consider of and improve to the promoting of our Sanctification as we ought Death is so great an Enemy as you have heard and so powerful to deter our hearts from God and dull our desires to the heavenly felicity that Christ was fain to go before us to embolden the hearts of believers to follow him He suffered Death with the rest of his afflictions to shew us that it is a tolerable evil Had he not gone before and overcome it it would have detained us its Captives Had he not merited and purchased us a blessed Resurrection and opened heaven to all believers and by Death overcome him that had the power of death as Gods executioner that is the Devil we should all our life time have been still subjected unto bondage by the fears of Death Heb. 2. 14. But when we see that Christ hath led the way as the victorious Captain of our Salvation and that he is made perfect by sufferings in his advancement unto glory and that for the sufferings of death which by the grace of God he tasted for every man he is crowned with glory and honour Heb. 2. 9 10. this puts a holy valour into the soul and causeth us chearfully to follow him Had we gone first and the task of conquering Death been ours we had been overcome But he that hath led us on hath hew'd down the enemy before him and first prepared us the way and then called us to follow him and to pass the way that he hath first made safe and also shewed us by his example that it is now made passable For it was one in our Nature that calleth us his Brethren that took not the nature of Angels but of the seed of Abraham that is one with us as the Sanctifier and the sanctified are and to whom as children we are given Who hath passed through Death and the Grave before us and therefre we may the boldlier follow him Heb. 2. 11 12 13 16. Being found in fashion as a man he humbled himself and became obedient unto death even the death of the Cross and therefore God hath highly exalted him and given him a name above every name Phil. 2. 8 9. Hereby he hath shewed us that Death is not so dreadful a thing but that voluntary obedience may and must submit unto it As Abraham's faith and obedience was tryed in the offering up his Son to death at Gods command so the children of Abraham and the heirs of the promise must follow him in offering up themselves if God require it and in submitting to our natural death for that he doth require of all Examples work more then bare precepts and the Experiments of others do take more with us than meer directions It satisfieth a sick man more to read a Book of Medicinal Observations where he meets with many that were in his own case and finds what cured them then to read the Praxis or medicinal Receipts alone It encourageth the Patient much when the Physitian tells him I have cured many of your disease by such a Medicine nay I was cured thus of the same my self So doth it embolden a believer to lay down his Life when he hath not only a promise of a better life but seeth that the promiser went that way to Heaven before him O therefore let us learn and use this choise remedy against the immoderate fear of Death Let Faith take a view of him that was dead and is alive that was buried and is risen and was humbled and is now exalted Think with your selves when you must think of dying that you are but following your Conquering Lord and going the way that he hath gone before you and suffering what he underwent and conquered And therefore though you walk through the valley of the shaddow of death resolve that you will fear no evil Psal 23. 4. And if he call you after him follow him with a Christian boldness As Peter cast hinself into the Sea and walkt on the waters when he saw Christ walk there and had his command so let us venture on the jaws of death while we trace his steps and hear his encouraging commands and promises John 21. 7. Mat. 14. 28 29. SECT VII Use 5. MOreover from this Doctrine we may be informed of the mistakes of many Christians that think they have no saving grace because they are afraid of dying and because these fears deterr their souls from desiring to be with Christ And hence they may perceive that there is another cause of these Distempers even the ENMIMY of Death that standeth in the way You think that if you had any Love to Christ you should more desire to be with him and that if your treasure were in heaven your hearts would be more there and that if you truly took it for your felicity you
they have had tryal of cruel mockings and scourgings yea moreover of bonds and imprisonment they were stoned they were sawn asunder were tempted were slain with the sword Heb. 11. 35 36 37. Thanks be to God which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ 1 Cor. 15. 57. They overcome by the blood of the Lamb and love not their lives unto the death Rev. 12. 11. They fear not them that kill the body and after that have no more that they can do Luke 124. They trust upon his promise that hath said I will ransome them from the power of the grave I will redeem them from Death O Death I will be thy plagues O grave I will be thy destruction Hos 13. 14. Precious in the sight of the Lord is the Death of his Saints Psal 116. 15. Blessed are the dead which dye in the Lord from henceforth yea saith the Spirit that they may rest from their labours and their works do follow them Rev. 14. 13. SECT IX Use 7. MOreover from the Enmity of Death we may be directed which way to bend our cares and seeing where our difficulty most lyeth we may see which way our most diligent preparations must be turned Death cannot be prevented but the malignant influence of it on our souls may be much abated If you let it work without an Antidote it will make you live like unbelieving worldlings It will deterr your hearts from Heaven and dull your love to God himself and make your meditations of him and of your Everlasting Rest to be seldom and ungrateful to you And it will make you say It s good to be here and have sweeter thoughts of this present life than of your inheritance It will rob you of much of your heavenly delights and fill you with slavish fears of Death and subject you unto bondage all your lives and make you dye with agony and horrour so that your lives and deaths will be dishonourable to your holy faith and to your Lord. If it were meerly our own suffering by fears and horrours or meerly our loss of spiritual delights the matter were great but not so great But it is more than this For when our joyes are overwhelmed with the fears of Death and turned into sorrows our love to God will be abated and we shall deny him the thanks and cheerful praises which should be much of the employment of our lives and we shall be much discomposed and unfitted for his service and shall much dishonour him in the world and shall strengthen our temptations to the overvaluing of earthly things Think it not therefore a small or an indifferent matter to fortifie your souls against these malignant fears of death Make this your daily care and work your peace your safety your innocency and usefulness and the honour of God do much lie on it And it is a work of such exceeding difficulty that it requireth the best of your skill and diligence and when all is done it must be the illuminating quickning beams of grace and the shining face of the Eternal Love that must dothe work though yet your diligence is necessary to attend the spirit and use the means in subservience to grace and in expectation of these oelestiall rayes And above all take heed lest you should think that carnall mirth or meer security and casting away the thoughts of Death will serve to overcome these fears or that it is enough that you resolve against them For it is your safety that must be lookt to as well as your present ease and peace and fear must be so overcome as that a greater misery may not follow Presumption and security will be of very short continuance To dye without fear and pass into into endless desperation which fear should have wakened you to prevent is no desirable kind of dying And besides resolving against the terrours of Death will not prevent them When Death draws near it will amaze you in despight of all your resolutions if you are not furnished with a better Antidote The more jocund you have been in carnal mirth and the more you have presumptuously slighted Death it is likely your horrour will be the greater when it comes And therefore see that you make a wise and safe preparation and that you groundedly and methodically cure these fears and not securely cast them away Though I have given you to this end some Directions in other writings in the Saints Rest and in the Treatise of Self-denyal and that of Crucifying the world yet I shall add here these following helps which faithfully observed and practised will much promote your victory over Death which conquereth all the strength of flesh and glory of this world DIRECTION I. IF you would overcome the danger and the fears of Death Make sure of your Conversion that it is sound and see that you be absolutely devoted unto God without Reserves Should you be deceived in your foundations your life and hopes and joyes would all be delusory things Till sin be mortified and your souls reconciled to God in Christ you are still in danger of worse than Death and it is but the senselesness of your dead condition that keepeth you from the terrours of damnation But if you are sure that you are quickened by renewing grace and possessed by the sanctifying spirit and made partakers of the Divine nature you have then the Earnest of your inheritance Ephes 1. 14. 2 Cor. 1. 22. 5. 5. and the fire is kindled in your breast that in despight of Death will mount you up to God DIRECTION II. TO Conquer the Enmity of Death you must live by faith in Jesus Christ as men that are emptied of themselves and ransomed from his hands that had the power of Death and as men that are redeemed from the curse and are now made heirs of the grace of life being made his members who is the Lord of Life even the second Adam who is a quickning spirit The serious believing study of his design and office to destroy sin and death and to bring many Sons to glory and also of his voluntary suffering and his obedience to the death of the Cross may raise us above the fears of Death When we live by faith as branches of this blessed Vine and are righteous with his righteousness justified by his blood and merits and sanctified by his Word and Spirit and find that we are united to him we may then be sure that Death cannot conquer us and nothing can take us out of his hands For our life being hid with Christ in God we know that we shall live because he liveth Col. 3. 3. Joh. 14. 19. and that when Christ who is our life appeareth we shall also appear with him in glory Col. 3. 4. And that he will change our vile bodies and make them like to his glorious body by his mighty power by which he is able to subdue all things to himself Phil. 3. 20 21. In our own strength we
pained with these diseases And can we live in daily pain and weariness and not be willing of release Is there a gracious soul that groaneth not under the burden of these miseries yea in every prayer what do we else but confess them and lament them and groan for help and for deliverance And yet shall we fear our day of freedom and be loth that Death should bring us news that our prayers are heard and our groans have reached up to heaven and that the bonds of flesh and sin shall be dissolved and we shall have need to watch and strive and fear and complain and sigh and weep no more Shall the face of death discourage us from desiring such a blessed day When we have so full assurance that at last this enemy also shall be destroyed The Lord heal and pardon the Hypocrisie of our complaints together with the unbelief and cowardliness of our Souls Do we speak so much and hear so much and seem to do so much against sin and yet had we rather keep it still then be stript of it together with the rags of our mortality and yet had we rather dwell with sin in tempting troubling corruptible flesh then lay them by and dwell with Christ O Lord how lamentably have we lost our wisdom and drowned our minds in flesh and folly by forsaking thee our light and life How come our reasonable souls to be so bewitched as after all our convictions complaints and prayers to be still more willing of our sickness then of the remedy and more afraid of this bitter Cup then of the poyson that lodgeth in our bowels which it would expel and that after all the labour we have used we had yet rather dwell with our greatest enemy then by a less to be transmitted to our dearest friend and had rather continue in a troublesome weary restless life then by the sleep of death to pass to Rest And this sin in others also is our trouble though not so much as in our selves It maketh those our bitter enemies whose good we most desire and endeavour and causeth the unthankful world to requite us with malicious usage For telling them the ungrateful truth and seeking their salvation It makes our friends to be but half-friends and some of them too like our enemies It puts a sting into the sweetest friendship and mixeth smart with all our pleasures It worketh us grief from precious mercies and abateth the comfort of our near Relations So that our smart by the pricks is often greater then our pleasure in the sweetness of the Rose No friend is so smoothed and squared to the temper and interest of another but that some inequality and unevenness doth remain which makes the closure to be less near and stedfast Even Family-relations are usually so imperfectly jointed and cemented that when the when the winds of tryal are any thing high they shake the frame and though they are but low they find an entrance and cause such a coldness of affections as is contrary to the nature and duty of the Relations Either a contrariety of opinions or of natural temperature and humours or else of the dispositions of the mind Sometime cross interests and sometime passions and cross words do cause such discontents and sowrness such frowns or jealousies or distances that our nearest friends are but as sackloth on our skins and as a shoo too strait for us or as a garment that is unmeet which pinch and trouble us in their use and those that should be to us as the Apple of our eyes are as the dust or smoak to them that vex or blind them And the more we Love them the more it grieveth us to be crossed in our love There is scarce any friend so wise so good so suitable to us or so near that we can alwayes please And the displeasure of a friend is as gravell in our shoos or as Nettles in our bed oft-times more grievous then the malice of an enemy There is no such doing as this in heaven because there is no such guest as sin We shall love each other far more then we do here and yet that Love shall never be inordinate nor in the least divert our love from God but every Saint and Angel in the Society shall be loved with most chaste and pure affections in a perfect subordination to the love of God and so as that God himself in them shall be the chiefest object of that love It is there that our friends being freed from all their imperfections do neither tempt us to a carnal Love nor have any thing in them to discourage the love that is spiritual and pure We have here our passionate friends our self-conceited friends our unkind unthankfull selfish friends our mutable and unfaithful friends our contentions friends that are like to enemies and who have used us more hardly then our friends But when we come to God we shall have friends that are like God that are wholly good and are participatively turned into Love and having left behind them all that was unclean and noysome and troublesome to themselves they have also cast off all that could be troublesome to us Our love will be there without suspicions without interruptions unkindnesses and discontents without disappointments frustrations and dissatisfactions For God himself will fully satisfie us and we shall love his goodness and glory in his Saints as well as immediately in himself Our friends are now lost at the turning of a straw the change of their interest their company their opinions the slanders of back-biters and mis-representations of malicious men can cool their Love and kill their friendship But Heaven is a place of constant Love The Love of Saints as all things else is there eternal And yet it declineth not with age It is a world of Love that we are hasting to It is a life of love that we must there live and a work of love and perfect love that we must be there employed in for ever If here we have a pure a dear a faithful friend that is without false-heartedness and deceit that loveth us as his own soul how quickly is he snatcht away by death and leaves us melted into tears and mourning over his earthly relicts and looking upward with grieved hearts as the Disciples did after their ascending Lord Acts 1. 9 10 11. We are left almost as lifeless by such friends as the body is left by the departed soul We have nothing but grief to tell us that we live and that our souls are not departed with them we are left in greater lamentation then if we had never known a faithful friends And alas how quickly are they gone when once God sees them ripe for heaven When Droans and Dullards live much longer If we see a Saint that 's clear of judgement and low in humility and naked-hearted in sincerity and that abounds in love to God and man that 's faithful and constant to their friend and
in 12. In sum for strict close watchfull holy walking with God even her Husband professeth that she was a pattern to him As I hinted before she kept a daily acount in writing which is now to be seen from the beginning of the year 1654. especially of these particulars 1. Of the frame of her heart in every dayes duty in Meditation Prayer Hearing Reading c. whether lively of dull c. 2. Of those sins which she had especially to repent of and watch against 3. Of her Resolutions and Promises and how she kept them 4. Of all special Providences to her self Husband Brothers and others and the improvement of them As at the death of her Son who died with great sighs and groans she recorded her sense of the special necessity of holy Armour and great preparation for that encounter when her turn should come to be so removed to the everlasting habitation 5. Of her returns of Prayer what answers and grant of them she found 6. Of the state of her soul upon examination how she found it and what was the issue of each examination and in this it seems she was very exact and punctual In which though many times fears and doubtings did arise yet hath she frequent records of the discovery of evidences and comfortable assurance of sincerity Somtime when she hath heard Sermons in London that helped her in her search and somtimes when she had been reading writings that tended that way she recorded what evidences she found and in what degree the discovery was If imperfect resolving to take it up and follow the search further And if she had much joy she received it with jealousie and expectation of some humbling consequent When any grace languished she presently turned to some apt remedy As for instance it s one of her Notes Novemb. 1658. I found thoughts of Eternity slight and strange and ordinary imployments very desirable at which I read Mr. Bs. Crucifixion was awakened to Mortification and Humiliation c. The last time that she had opportunity for this work was two or three dayes before her delivery in Child-bearing where she finally recorded the apprehensions she had both of her bodily and spiritual State in these words Drawing near the time of my delivery I am fallen into such weakness that my life is in hazzard I find some fears of death but not very great hoping through grace I die in the Lord. I only mention these hints to shew the Method she used in her daily Accounts To those Christians that have full leisure this course is good But I urge it not upon all Those that have so great duties to take up that time that they cannot spare so much to record their ordinary passages Such must remember what others record and daily renew repentance for their daily failings and record only the extraordinary observable and more remarkable and memorable passages of their lives lest they lose time from works of greater moment But this excellent work of Watchfulness must be performed by all And I think it was a considerable expression of her true wisdom and care of her immortal soul that when any extraordinary necessity required it and she found such doubts as of her self she was not able to deal with she would go to some able experienced Minister to open her case and seek assistance as she did more than once to my dear and ancient friend Mr. Cross who in full age is since gone after her to Christ And therefore chose a Minister in Marriage that he might be a ready assistant in such cases of necessity as well as a continual help At last came that death to summon her soul away to Christ for which she had so seriously been preparing and which she oft called a dark entry to her Fathers Palace After the death of her Children when she seemed to be somewhat repaired after her last delivery a violent Convulsion suddenly surprized her which in a few dayes brought her to her end Her understanding by the fits being at last debilitated she finding it somewhat hard to speak sensibly excused it and said I shall ere long speak another language Which were the last words which she spake with a tongue of flesh and lying speechless eighteen hours after she departed August 17. 1659. Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord from henceforth yea saith the spirit that they may rest from their labours and their works do follow them Our turn is coming Shortly we shall also lay by flesh this is our day of preparation There is no preparing time but this Did men but know the difference between the death of the holy and the unholy which doth not appear to fleshly eyes how speedily would they turn how seriously would they meditate how fervently would they pray how carefully would they live how constantly painfully and resolvedly would they labour Did they well consider the difference between dying prepared and unprepared and of what difficulty and yet everlasting consequence it is to die well O then what manner of persons would men be in all manner of holy conversation and godliness and all their lives would then be a continued preparation for death as all their life is a hasting towards it And now I shall only desire you for the right understanding of all that I have here said and to prevent the cavils of blinded malice to observe these three or four particulars 1. That though I knew so much of her as easily maketh me believe the rest upon so sure a testimony and saw her Diary yet the most of this History of her life is the collection and observation of such faithful witnesses as had much better opportunity than I to know the secrets of her soul and life 2. That it is no wonder if many that knew her perceived not all this by her that is here expressed For that knowledg of our outward carriage at a distance will not tell our Neighbours what we do in our Closets where God hath commanded us to shut our door upon us that our Father which seeth in secret may reward us openly And many of the most humble and sincere servants of the Lord are so afraid of hypocrisie and hate ostentation that their Justification and Glory is only to be expected from the searcher of hearts and a few of their more intimate acquaintance Though this was not the case before us the example described being more conspicuous 3. That I over-pass the large expessions of her charity which you may hear from the poor and her intimate acquaintance as I have done that I may not grate upon the modesty of her surviving friends who must participate in the commendations 4. That it is the benefit of the living that is my principal end Scripture it self is written much in History that we may have matter of imitation before our eyes 5. If any say that here is no mention of her faults I answer Though I had acquaintance with her I knew them not nor ever heard from any other so much as might enable me to accuse her if I were her enemy Yet I doubt not but she was imperfect and had faults though unknown to me The example of Holiness I have briefly proposed They that would see examples of iniquity may look abroad in the world and find enough I need not be the accuser of the Saints to furnish them And I think if they enquire here of any thing notable they will he hard put to it to find enough to cover the accusers shame 6. It is the honour of Christ and Grace in his members more than the honour of his servant that I seek 7. And I would not speak that in commendation of the living which I do of the dead who are out of the reach of all temptations of being lifted up with pride thereby Unless it be such whose reputation the interest of Christ and the Gospel commandeth me to vindicate 8. Lastly I am so far from lifting up one above the rest of the members of Christ by these commendations and from abasing others whose names I mention not that I intend the honour of all in One and think that in the substance I describe all Saints in describing one I am not about a Popish work of making a wonder of a Saint as of a Phoenix or some rare unusual thing Saints with them must be Canonized and their names put in the Calender and yet their blind malice tels the world that there are no such things as Saints among us But I rejoyce in the many that I have communion with and the many that have lately stept before me into Heaven and are safe there out of the reach of malice and of sin and all the enemies of their peace and have left me mourning and yet rejoycing fearing and yet hoping and with some desires looking after them here behind And the faster Christ calls away his chosen ones whose graces were amiable in mine eyes the more willing he maketh me to follow them and to leave this world of darkness confusion wickedness danger vanity and vexation and to meet these precious souls in Life where we shall rejoyce that we are past this howling wilderness and shall for ever be with the Lord. FINIS
Two Treatises The first of DEATH On 1 Cor. 15. 26. The Second of JUDGMENT On 2 Cor. 5. 10 11. By Rich. Baxter LONDON Printed for Nevil Simmons at the Princes-Arms in St. Pauls Church-yard 1672. A Treatise of DEATH The last ENEMY to be destroyed Shewing wherein its enmity consisteth and how it is destroyed Part of it was Preached at the Funerals of Elizabeth the late Wife of Mr. Joseph Baker Pastor of the Church at Saint Andrews in Worcester By Rich. Baxter With some few passages of the life of the said Mrs. Baker observed Psal 15. 4. In whose eyes a vile person is contemned but he honoureth them that fear the Lord. 1 Cor. 15. 55 56 57. O death where is thy sting O grave where is thy victory The sting of death is sin and the strength of sin is the Law But thanks be to God which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ LONDON Printed for Nevil Simmons at the Princes-Arms in St. Pauls Church-yard 1672. To the Worshipfull the Major Aldermen and Sheriff of the City of Worcester with the rest of the Inhabitants especially those of the Parishes of Andrews and Hellens Worshipfull and the rest Beloved THE chief part of this following Discourse being preached among you and that upon an occasion which you are obliged to consider Isa 57. 1. being called to publish it I thought it meet to direct it first to your hands and to take this opportunity plainly and seriously to exhort you in some matters that your present and everlasting peace is much concerned in Credible fame reporteth you to be a people not all of one mind or temper in the matters of God but that 1. Some of you are Godly Sobe and Peaceable 2. Some well-meaning and zealous but addicted to divisions 3. Some Papists 4. Some Hiders seduced by your late deceased neighbour Clement Writer to whom the Quakers do approach in many opinions 5. And too many prophane and obstinate persons that are heartily and seriously of no Religion but take occasion from the divisions of the rest to despise or neglect the Ordinances of God and join themselves to no Assemblies 1. To the first sort having least need of my exhortation I say no more but As you have received Christ Jesus the Lord so walk ye in him rooted and built up in him and stablished in the faith as ye have been taught abounding therein with thanksgiving and beware lest any man spoil you by deceit c. Col. 2. 6 7 8. Walk as a chosen generation a royal Priest-hood a holy Nation a peculiar people to shew forth the praises of him that hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light having your conversation honest among the ungodly that whereas they are apt to speak against you as evil doers they may by your good works which they shall behold glorifie God in the day of visitation For so is the will of God that with well doing you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men 1 Pet. 2. 9 11 12 15. Your labour and patience is known to the Lord and how ye cannot bear them which are evill but have tried them which say they speak from the Lord and are Apostles and are not and have found them lyars even the woman Jezabel that is suffered to teach and seduce the people calling her self a Prophetess who shall be cast into a bed of tribulation and all that commit adultery with her except they repent and her children shall be killed with death and all the Churches shall know that Christ is he which searcheth the reines and hearts and will give to every one according to their work As for your selves we put upon you no other burden but that which you have already Hold fast till the Lord come Rev. 2. Be watchfull that ye fall not from your first Love and if any have declined and grown remiss remember how you have received and heard and hold fast and repent and strengthen the things that remain which are ready to die lest your Candlestick should be removed Rev. 3. 2 3 c. And beware lest ye also being led away with the error of the wicked fall from your own stedfastness but grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ 2 Pet. 3. 17 18. And I beseech you brethren do all things without murmurings and disputings that ye may be blameless and harmless the Sons of God without rebuke in the midst of a crooked and perverse Nation among whom you and your brethren shine as lights in the world Phil. 2. 14 15. And if in well doing you suffer think it not strange but rejoyce that ye are partakers of the sufferings of Christ that when his glory shall be revealed ye may be glad also with exceeding joy If ye be reproached for the name of Christ ye are happy for the Spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you being glorified on your part while he is evil spoken of on theirs 1 Pet. 4. 12 13 14. 2. To the second sort inclinable to divisions let me tender the Counsel of the Holy Ghost Jam. 3. 1. My brethren be not many Masters or Teachers knowing that ye shall receive the greater condemnation The wisdom that is from above is first pure and then Peaceable gentle and easie to be intreated full of mercy good fruits without partiality and without hipocrisie And the fruit of Righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace Who then is the wise and knowing man amongst you Let him shew out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts glory not and lye not against the truth This wisdom descendeth not from above but is earthly sensuall devilish For where envying and strife is there is confusion and every evil work Look on those Assemblies where the people professing the fear of God are of one heart and mind and walk together in Love and holy Order and people give due honour and obedience to their faithful Guides and compare them with the Congregations where professors are self-conceited unruly proud and addicted to ostentation of themselves and to divisions and see which is likest to the Primitive pattern and in which it is that the power of godliness prospereth best and the beauty of Religion most appears and Christians walk as Christians indeed If pride had not brought the heavy judgment of infatuation or insensibility on many the too clear discoveries of the fruits of divisions in the numerous and sad experiences of this age would have caused them to be abhorred as odious and destructive by those that now think they do but transcend their lower brethren in holiness and zeal I beseech you therefore brethren by the name of the Lord Jesus Christ that you all speak the same thing and that there be no divisions among you but that you be perfectly joyned together in the same mind and
saved before enquiring be too late Spend the Lords Day and what other time you can redeem in holy preparations for your endless Rest while you have such a happie day to spend O sleep no longer in your sins while God stands over you lest before you are aware you awake in Hell Patience and Mercie have their appointed time and will not alway wait and be despised O let not your Teachers be forced to say We would have taught them publikelie and privatelie but they would not We would have Catechized the ignorant and exhorted the negligent but some of them would not come near us and others of them gave us but the hearing and went away such as they came If once by forfeiting the Gospel the Teachers whom you slight be taken from you you may then sin on and take your course till time and help and hope are past The providence that called me to this work was some warning to you Though it was not the calling away your Teacher it was a removing of his helper a pattern of meekness and godliness and charitie and he is left the more disconsolate in the prosecution of his work God hath made him faithful to your souls and careful for your happiness He walks before you in humilitie and self-denial and Patience and peaceableness and in an upright inoffensive life He is willing to teach you publicklie and privatelie in season and out of season He manageth the work of God with prudence moderation and yet with Zeal carefullie avoiding both ungodliness and schism or the countenancing of either of them Were he not of eminent wisdom and integritie his name would not be so unspotted in a place where Dividers and Disputers Papists and Quakers and so manie bitter enemies of godliness do watch for matter of accusation and reproach against the faithful Ministers of Christ As you love the safetie and happiness of your City and of your souls undervalue not such mercies nor think it enough to put them off with your commendations and good word It is not that which they live and preach and labour for but for the Conversion Edification and Salvation of your souls Let them have this or they have nothing if you should give them all you have The enemies of the Gospel have no wiser Cavil against the painful Labourers of the Lord then to call them Hirelings and blame them for looking after Tithes and great matters in the world But as among all the faithful Ministers of this Countrie through the great mercie of God these adversaries are now almost ashamed to open their mouths with an accusation of Covetousness So this your Reverend faithful Teacher hath stopt the mouth of all such calumnie as to him When I invited him from a place of less work and a competent maintenance to accept of less then half that maintenance with a far greater burden of work among you he never stuck at it as thinking he might be more serviceable to God and win that which is better then the riches of this world And if now you will frustrate his expectations and disappoint his labours and hopes of your salvation it will be easier for Sodom in the day of judgment then for you Alas how sad is it to see a faithful Minister longing and labouring for mens salvation and manie of them neglecting him and others picking groundless quarrels and the proud unrulie selfish part rebelling and turning their backs upon their Teachers when ever they will not humour them in their own wayes or when they deal but faithfullie with their souls Some even of those that speak against disobedience conventicles and schism turn away in disdain if their Children may not be needleslie baptized in private houses and if that solemn Ordinance may not be celebrated in a Parlour-Conventicle How manie refuse to come to the Minister in private to be instructed or Catechised or to confer with him about their necesarie preparation for death and Judgement Is not this the case of manie among you Must not your Teachers say He sent to you and was willing to have done his part and you refused Little will ye now believe how heavie this will lie upon you one day and how dear you shall pay for the causless grieving and disappointment of your guides It is not your surliness and passions that will then serve turn to answer God Nor shall it save you to say that Ministers were of so manie minds and wayes that you knew not which of them to regard For it was but one way that God in the holy Scripture did prescribe you and all faithful Ministers were agreed in the things which you reject and in which you practicallie differ from them all What are we not all agreed that God is to be preferred before the world and that you must first seek the Kingdom of God his Righteousness that no man can be saved except he be converted and born again and that he that hath not the Spirit of Christ is none of his Mat. 6. 33 John 3. 3 5. Mat. 18. 3. Rom. 8. 9. and that you and your housholds should serve the Lord Josh 24. 15. Are we not all agreed that the Law of the Lord must be your delight and that you must meditate in it day and night Psal 1. 2 3. and that you must be constant and fervent in Prayer 1 Thes 5. 17. Luke 18. 1. c. and that all that name the name of Christ must depart from iniquitie and that if you live after the flesh ye shall die 2 Tim. 2. 19. Rom. 8. 13. You shall find one day that it was you only such as you that practicallie differed from us in these points but we differed not in these or such as these among our selves I never read that a man shall not see God because he is Episcopal Presbyterian Independant no nor Anabaptist or because he readeth not his Prayers or such like But I read that no man shall see God without holiness Hebrews 12. 14. It will not serve your turn in judgement to say that you were for this side or that side and therefore you hearkened not to the other side as long as all those sides agree in the necessitie of holiness which you neglect Why did you not learn of your own side at least to forsake your tipling and swearing and worldly-mindedness and to make it the daily trade of your lives to provide for life everlasting and make sure work in the matter of your salvation If you had learnt but this much of any side you would cast away your siding more and have loved and honoured them that fear the Lord of what side soever Psal 15. 4. and have contemned the ungodlie as vile persons though they had been of your side The Catholick Church is One and containeth all that heartilie and practicallie believe in God the Father Son and Holy Ghost the Creator Redeemer and Sanctifier and live a holy heavenlie life Leave
the world and this is the victory that overcometh the world even our Faith who is he that overcometh but he that believeth c. For greater is he that is in us than he that is in the world 1 John 4. 4. The believing Soul foreseeing the day when death shall be swallow'd up in Victory may sing beforehand the triumphing song O Death where is thy sting O grave where is thy Victory 1 Cor. 15. 54 55. For this cause we faint not though our outward man perish our inward man is renewed day by day For our light affliction though it reach to death which is but for a moment worketh for us a far more exceeding eternal weight of glory while we look not at the things that are seen but at the things which are not seen for the hings which are seen are temporal and therefore not worthy to be looked at but the things that are not seen are eternal and therefore more prevalent with a believing Soul than either the enticing pleasures of sin for a season or the light and short afflictions or the death that standeth in our way 2 Cor. 5. 16 17 18. Heb. 11. 24 25 26. 2. A second Antidote against the Enmity of Death that is given us at the time of our Conversion is The Pardon of our sins and Justification of our persons by the blood and merits of Jesus Christ When once we are forgiven we are out of the reach of the greatest terrour being saved from the second death Though we must feel the killing stroke we are delivered from the damning stroke Yea more than so it shall save us by destroying us It shall let us into the glorious presence of our Lord by taking us from the presence of our mortal friends It shall help us into Eternity by cutting off our Time For in the hour that we were justified and made the Adopted Sons of God we were also made the Heirs of Heaven even Coheirs with Christ and shall be glorified with him when we have suffered with him Rom. 8. 17. As Death was promoting the Life of the world when it was killing the Lord of Life himself So is it hastnening the deliverance of believers when it seems to be undoing them No wonder if Death be that mans terrour that must be conveyed by it into Hell or that imagineth that he shall perish as the beast But to him that knows it will be his passage into Rest and that Angels shall convey his Soul to Christ what an Antidote is there ready for his Faith to use against the enmity and excess of fears Hence faith proceedeth in its triumph 1 Cor. 15. 56 57. The sting of death is sin and the strength of sin is the Law But thanks be to God that giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ Let him inordinately fear Death that is loth to be with Christ or that is yet the heir of Death eternal Let him fear that is yet in the bondage of his sin and in the power of the Prince of darkness and is not by Justification delivered from the curse But joy and holy triumph are more seemly for the Justified 3. A third Antidote against the Enmity of Death is the Holiness of the soul By this the Power of sin is mortified and therefore the fears of Death cannot actuate and use it as in others they may do By this the Interest of the flesh is cast aside as nothing and the flesh it self is crucified with Christ and therefore the destruction of the flesh will seem the more tolerable and the fears of it will be a less temptation to the Soul By this we are already crucified to the world and the world to us and therefore we can more easily leave the world We now live by another Life than we did before being dead in our selves our life is hid with Christ in God and being crucified with Christ we now so Live as that it is not we but Christ Liveth in us the life which we Live in the flesh is by the faith of the Son of God that hath loved us Gal. 2. 20. The things that made this life too dear to us are now as it were annihilated to us and when we see they are Nothing they can do nothing with us Sanctification also maketh us so weary of sin as being our hated enemy that we are the more willing to die that it may die that causeth us to die And especially the Holy Ghost which we then receive is in us a Divine and heavenly Nature and so inclineth us to God and Heaven This Nature principally consisteth in the superlative Love of God And Love carrieth out the soul to the beloved As the Nature of a prisoner in a dungeon carrieth him to desire Liberty and Light so the Nature of a holy Soul in flesh inclineth it to desire to be with Christ As Love maketh husband and wife and dearest friends to think the time long while they are asunder so doth the Love of the Soul to God How fain would the holy loving Soul behold the pleased face of God and be glorified in the beholding of his glory and live under the fullest influences of his Love This is our conquest over the Enmity of Death As strong as Death is Love is stronger Eccles 8. 6 7. Love is strong as Death the coals thereof are coals of fire a most vehement flame which will not by the terrible face of Death be hindered from ascending up to God Many waters cannot quench Love neither can the floods drown it if a man would give all the substance of his house for Love that is to bribe it and divert it from its object it would utterly be contemned If the Love of David could carry Jonathan to hazard his life and deny a Kingdom for him and the Love of David to Absalom made him wish that he had died for him and the Love of friends yea lustful love hath carried many to cast away their lives no wonder if the Love of God in his Saints prevail against the fear of Death The power of holy Love made Moses say Else let my name be blotted out of the Book of Life And it made Paul say That he could wish that he were accursed from Christ for his brethren and kindred according to the flesh Rom. 9. 3. And doubtless he felt the fire burning in his breast when he broke out into that triumphant challenge Rom. 8. 35 36. to the end Who shall separate us from the love of God shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword As it is written For thy sake we are killed all the day long we are counted as Sheep to the slaughter Nay in all this we are more then Conquerours through him that loved us For I am perswaded that neither Death nor Life nor Angels nor Principalities nor Powers nor things present nor things to come nor height nor depth nor any other Creature shall be able
to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. You see here what it is that conquereth the enmity of death in our sanctification even that powerful love of God that is then given us which will go to him through the most cruel death 4. A fourth Antidote that is given us by Christ against the Enmity of Death is the Holy Ghost as he is the Comforter of the Saints He makes it his work to corroborate and confirm them As sin hath woven calamities into our lives and filled us with troubles and griefs and fears so Christ doth send his spirit to undo these works of Satan and to be a Comforter as well as a Sanctifier to his members As the Sanctifying Spirit striveth against the entising sinful flesh so the Comforting Spirit striveth against the troubling flesh as also against the persecuting as well as the tempting world and the vexing as well as the tempting Devil And greater is he that is in us than he that is in the world 1 John 4. 4. The Spirit of Christ overcomes the disquieting as well as the tempting Spirit But with some difference because our comforts are not in this life so necessary to us as our Holiness Joy being part of our Reward is not to be expected certainly or constantly in any high degree till we come to the state of our Reward And therefore though the Holy Ghost will carry on the work of Sanctification universally constantly and certainly in the Elect yet in many of them his Comforting work is more obscure and interrupted And yet he is a Conquerour here For his works must be judged of in reference to their ends And our comfort on earth is given us for our encouragement in holy wayes that we be not stopt or diverted by the fear of enemies and also to help on our love to God and to quicken us in thanks and praise and draw up our hearts to the life to come and make us more serviceable to others And such a measure of comfort we shall have as conduceth to these ends and is suitable to our present state and the employment God hath for us in the world if we do not wilfully grieve our Comforter and quench our joyes So that when Death and the Grave appear before and our flesh is terrified with the sight of these Anakims and say We are not able to overcome them and so brings up an evil report upon the promised Land and casts us sometime into murmuring lamentation and weakning-discouragements yet doth the Ho-Ghost cause Faith and Hope as Caleb and Joshua to still the soul Numb 13. and causeth us to contemn these Gyants and say Let us go up and possess it for we are well able to overcome it Ver. 30. The Comforting Spirit sheweth us his death that conquered death Heb. 2. 14 15. even the Cross on which he triumphed openly when he seemed to be conquered Col. 2. 15. He sheweth us the glorious Resurrection of our Head and his promise of our own Resurrection He sheweth us our glorified Lord to whom we may boldly and confidently commend our departing souls Acts 7. 59. And he sheweth us the Angels that are ready to be their Convoy And he maketh all these Considerations effectual and inwardly exciteth our Love and heavenly desires and giveth us a triumphing Courage and Consolation So that Death doth not encounter us alone and in our own strength but finds us armed and led on by the Lord of life who helps us by a sling and stone to conquer this Goliah If a draught of Wine or some spiritful reviving liquor can take off fears and make men bold what then may the Spirit of Christ do by his powerful encouragements and comforts on the soul Did we but see Christ or an Angel standing by our sick-beds and saying Fear not I will convoy thy soul to God this day shalt thou be with me in Paradise What an unspeakable comfort would this be to a dying man Why the Spirit is Christ's Agent here on earth and what the Spirit speaks Christ speaks And therefore we may take its comforting words as spoken to us by Christ himself who spoke the like to the penitent Thief to shew bellevers the virtue of his Cross and what they also may expect from him in their extremity And our Physician is most wise and keeps his Cordials for a fainting time The Spirit useth so sustain and comfort us most in our greatest necessities We need not comforts against death so much in the time of prosperity and health as when death draws neer In health we have ordinarily more need of quickening than of comforting and more need to be awakened from security to a due preparation for death than to be freed from the terrible fore-thoughts of it though inordinate fears of death be hurtful to us security and deadness hurts us more And therefore the Spirit worketh according to our necessities And when Death is neerest and like to be most dreadful he usually giveth the liveliest sense of the joyes beyond it to abate the enmity and encourage the departing soul And if the comfort be but small it is precious because it is most pure as being then mixed with no carnal joyes and because it is most seasonable in so great a strait If we have no more but meer support it will be yet a precious mercy And thus I have done with the third degree of the destruction of Deaths Enmity by these four Antidotes which we receive at our Conversion and the Consequents thereof 4. The fourth degree of this Enemies destruction is by it self or rather by Christ at the time and by the means of death which contrary to its nature shall advantage our felicity When Death hath done its worst it hath half killed it self in killing us It hath then dismissed our imprisoned souls and ended even our fears of death and our fears of all the evils of this life It hath ended our cares and griefs and groans It hath finished our work and ended all our weariness and trouble And more then this it ends our sinning and so destroyeth that which caused it and that which the inordinate fears of it self had caused in us It is the time when sin shall gasp its last and so far our Physitian will perfect the cure and our greatest enemy shall follow us no further It is the door by which the soul must pass to Christ in Paradise If any Papist shall hence plead that therefore allmenmust be perfect without sin before death or else go to Purgatory to be cleansed because as we die so Christ will find us or if they ask How death can perfect us I answer them It is Christ our Physitian that finisheth the cure and Death is the time in which he doth it And if he undertake then do it it concerns not us to be too inquisitive how he doth it What if the patient understand not how blood-letting cureth the infected blood that
is left behind Must he therefore plead against his Physician and say It will not be done because he knoweth not how it s done We feel that here we have our sinful imperfections we have for all that a promise that we shall be with Christ when death hath made its separation and we are assured that no sin doth enter there And is not this enough for us to know But yet I see not why the difficulty of the Objection should trouble us at all Death doth remove us from this sinful flesh and admits the soul into the sight of God And in the very instant of its remove it must needs be perfected even by that remove and by the first appearance of his blessed face If you bring a candle into a dark room the access of the light expelleth the darkness at the same instant And you cannot say that they consist together one moment of time So cold is expelled by the approach of heat And thus when death hath opened the door and let us into the immortal light neither before nor after but in that instant all the darkness and sinful imperfections of our souls are dissipated Throw an empty Bottle into the Sea and the emptiness ceaseth by the filling of the water neither before nor after but in that instant If this should not satisfie any let it satisfie them that the Holy Ghost in the instant of death can perfect his work So that we need not assert a perfection on earth which on their grounds must be the case of all that will escape Hell and Purgatory nor yet any Purgatory-torments after death for the deliverance of the soul from the relicts of sin seeing at the instant of death by the spirit or by the deposition of the flesh or by the sight of God or by the sight of our glorified Redeemer or by all this work will be easily and infallibly accomplished 5. The last degree and perfect conquest will be at the Resurrection And this is the victory that is mentioned in my Text. All that is fore-mentioned doth abate the enmity and conquer death in some degree But the enmity and the enemy it self is conquered at the Resurrection and not till then And therefore Death is the last enemy to be destroyed The Body lyeth under the penal effects of sin till the the Resurrection And it is penal to the soul to be in a state of separation from the Body though it be a state of glory that its in with Christ For it is deprived of the fulness of glory which it shall attain at the Resurrection when the whole man shall be perfected and glorified together Then it is that the Mediators work will be accomplished and all things shall be restored All that are in the graves shall hear the voice of the Son of God and shall come forth John 5. 28. For this is the Fathers will that sent him that of all that he hath given him he should lose nothing but should raise it up at the last day John 6. 39 40. We have hope towards God that there shall be a Resurrection of the dead both of the just and unjust Acts 25. 15. As by man came death so by man came also the Resurrection from the dead 1 Cor. 15. 21. Then shall there be no more death nor sorrow nor crying nor pain Rev. 21. 4. No more diseases or fears of death or grave or of corruption No terrible enemy shall stand betwixt us and our Lord to frighten our hearts from looking towards him O what a birth-day will that be when Graves shall bring forth so many millions of sons for Glory How joyfully will the soul and body meet that were separated so long Then sin hath done its worst and can do no more Then Christ hath done all and hath no more to do as our Redeemer but to justifie us in judgement and give us possession of the joy that he is preparing And then he will deliver up the Kingdom to the Father If you expect now that I should give you resons why Death is the last Enemy to be destroyed though much might be said from the nature of the matter the Wisdom and will of God shall be to me instead of all other Reasons being the fountain and the summ of all He knows best the Order that is agreeable to his Works and Ends to his honour and to our good and therefore to his Wisdom we submit in the patient expectance of the accomplishment of his promises SECT III. Use 1. I Now come to shew you the Usefulness of this Doctrine the for further Information of our understandings the well ordering of our hearts and the reforming of our lives And first you may hence be easily resolved Whether Death be truly penal to the godly which some have been pleased to make a Controversie of late though I am past doubt but the hearts of those men do apprehend it as a punishment whose tongues and pens do plead for the contrary Dust thou art and to dust shalt thou return was part of the sentence past on Adam and all his posterity which then proved it a punishment and it was not remitted to Adam that at the same time had the promise of a Redeemer nor is it remitted to any of us all Were it not for sin God would not inflict it who hath sworn that he takes no pleasure in the death of sinners And that he afflicts not willingly nor grieves the sons of men But my text it self decides the controversie Sin and punishment are the evils that Christ removeth And if death were no punishment as it is no sin how could it be an Enemy and the last enemy to be destroyed by the Redeemer When we feel the Enmity before described against our souls and also know its Enmity to our bodies we cannot think that God would do all this were it not for sin especially when we read that death passeth upon all for that all have sinned Rom. 5. 11 12. and that death is the wages of sin Rom. 6. 23. Though Christ do us good by it that proveth it not to be no punishment For castigatory punishments are purposely to do good to the chastised Indeed we may say O Death Where is thy sting because that the mortal evil to the Soul is taken out and because we foresee the Resurrection by faith when we shall have the victory by Christ But thence to conclude that Death hath no sting now to a believer is not only besides but against the text which telling us that the sting of death is sin and that the strength of sin is the Law doth inform us that Death could not kill us and be Death to us if sin gave it not a sting to do it with as sin could not oblige us to this punishment if the threatning of the Law were not its strength But Christ hath begun the Conquest and will finish it SECT IV. Use 2. FROM all this Enmity in Death we may see
and live not in a wounded state The face of Death will waken conscience and cause it to speak much lowder than it did in health and in prosperity And then sin will seem another thing and wrath more terrible than it did in your security Conscience will do much to make your burden light or heavy If Conscience groundedly speak peace and all be sound and well at home Death will be less terrible the heart being fortified against its enmity But to have a pained body and a pained soul a dying body and a scorched Conscience that is afraid of everlasting Death this is a terrible case indeed Speedily therefore get rid of sin and get your Consciences throughly cleansed by sound repentance and the blood of Christ For so much sin as you bring to your death-bed so much bitterness will there be in Death Away then with that sin that Conscience tells you of and touch the forbidden fruit no more and kindle not the sparks of Hell in your souls to make the sting of Death more venemous As it will quiet a believing soul through Christ when he can say with Hezekiah Isa 38. 3. Remember now O Lord I beseech thee how I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart and have done that which is good in thy sight and it will be our rejoycing if we have the testimony of our Consciences that in simplicity and godly sincerity we have had our conversation in the world 2 Cor. 1. 12. So will it be most terrible to dye in the fears of unpardoned sin and to have Conscience scourging us with the remembrance of our folly when God is afflicting us and we have need of a well-composed mind to bear the troubles of our flesh A little from without is grievous when any thing is amiss within Get home therefore to Christ without delay and cease not till you have peace in him that Death may find your Consciences whole DIRECTION VI. REdeeming time is another means to prevent the hurtful fears of Death When we foreknow that it will shortly end our time let us make the best of time while we have it And then when we find that our work is done and that we did not loyter nor lose the time that God vouchsafed us the end of it will be less grievous to us A man that studieth his duty and spareth for no cost or pains and is as loath to lose an hours time as a covetous man is to lose an hundred pound will look back on his life and look before him to his Death with greater peace and less perplexity than another man But the thoughts of Death must needs be terrible to a man that hath trifled away his life and been an unthrift of his time To think when you must dye that now you are at your last day or hour and withall to think how many hours you vainly lost and that you knew not the worth of time till it was gone will make Death more bitter than now you can imagine What else is Deaah but the ending of our Time and what can be more necessary to a comfortable end then faithfully to use it while we have it DIRECTION VII ANother help against the Enmity of Death is the Crucifying of the flesh with its affections and lusts and the conquest of the world by the life of faith and crucifying it by the Cross of Christ and dying daily by the patient suffering of the Cross our selves When we are loose from all things under the Sun and there is nothing that entangleth our affections on earth a great part of the difficulty is then removed But Death will tear the heart that is glued to any thing in this world Possess therefore as if you possessed not and rejoyce as if you rejoyced not and use the world as not abusingit for the fashion of this world doth pass away 1 Cor. 7. 29 30 31. It is much for the sake of our flesh that must perish that Death doth seem so bitter to us If therefore we can throughly subdue the flesh and live above its pleasure and desires we shall the more easily bear its dissolution Shut up your senses then a little more and let your hearts grow stranger to this world and if you have known any persons relations accomodations after the flesh from henceforth know them so no more How terrible is Death to an earthly-minded man that had neglected his soul for a treasure here which must then be dissipated in a moment How easie is Death to a heavenly-mind that is throughly weaned from this world and taketh it but for his pilgrimage or passage unto life and it hath made it the business of his dayes to lay up for himself a treasure in Heaven He that hath unfeignedly made Heaven his end in the course of his life will most readily pass to it on the hardest terms For every man is willing to attain his end DIRECTION VI. IT will much help us against the enmity of Death to be duly conformed to the Image of God in the hatred of sin and love of holiness and in special in the point of Justice When we hate sin throughly and find it so incorporated into our flesh that they must live and dye together it will make Death the more easie to us because it will be the dath of sin even of that sin which we most hate and that God hateth and that hath cost us so dear as it hath done When we are in love with holiness and know that we shall never be perfect in it till after Death it will make Death the more welcome as the passage to our desired life When the Justice even the castigatory and vindictive Justice of God is more amiable in our eyes and we are not blinded by self-love to judge of God and of his wayes according to the interest of our flesh we shall then consent to his dissolving stroke and that see the bitterness of Death proceedeth from that which is good in God though from that which is evil in our selves Doubtless as Justice is one of the blessed Attributes of God so should it be amiable to man there being nothing in God but what is lovely It is the prevalency of self-love that makes men so insensible of the excellency of Divine Justice while they speak so respectfully of his mercy So far as men are carnal and selfish they cannot love that by which they smart or of which they are in danger But the soul that is got above it self and is united unto God in Christ and hath that Image of God which containeth the impress and effect of all his Attributes hath such an habit of impartial justice in himself and such a hatred of sin and such a desire that the honour of God should be vindicated and maintained and such an approbation of the Justice of God that he can the more easily consent or submit to the dissolving stroke of Death He hateth his own sin
as they Am I now in flesh in fears in griefs so was David and Paul and all the Saints a while ago yea and Christ himself Am I beset with sin and compassed with infirmities and racked by my own distempered passion so were the many saints now glorified but the other day Elias was a man subject saith James to like passions as we are James 5. 17. Am I maliced by dissenting adversaries Do they privily lay snares for me and watch my halting and seek advantage against my name and liberty and life so did they by David and many other now with Christ But now these enemies are overcome Art thou under pains and consuming sicknesses are thine eyes held waking and doth trouble and sorrow wast thy spirits doth thy flesh and thy heart fail thee and thy friends prove silly comforters to thee So was it with those thousands that are now in Heaven where the night of calamities is past and the just have dominion in the morning and glory hath banished all their griefs and joyes have made them forget their sorrows unless as the remembrance of them doth promote those joyes Are thy friends lamenting thee and grieved to see the signs of thy approaching death do they weep when they see thy pale face and consumed body and when they hear thy sighs and groans Why thus it was once with the millions that are now triumphing with their Lord They lay in sickness and underwent the pains and were lamented by their friends as as thou art now Even Christ himself was once in his agony and some shake the head at him and others pitied him who should rather have wept for themselves than for him This is but the passage from the womb of mortality into the life of immortality which all the Saints have past before thee that are now with Christ Dost thou fear the dreafdul face of death Must thy tender flesh be turned to rottenness and dust and must thou lie in darkness till the Resurrection and thy body remain as the Common earth And is not this the case of all those millions whose souls now see the face of Christ Did they not lie as thou dost and die as thou must and pass by death to the life which they have now attained O then commit thy soul to Christ and be quiet and comforted in his care and love Trust him as the Mid-wife of thy departing soul who will bring it safe into the light and life which thou are yet such a stranger to But it is not strange to him though it be strange to thee What was it that that rejoyced thee all thy life in thy prayers and sufferings and labours was it not the hopes of heaven And was Heaven the spring and motive of thy obedience and the comfort of thy life and yet wilt thou pass into it with heaviness and shall thy approaches to it be thy sorrows Didst thou pray for that which thou wouldst not have Hast thou laboured for it and denyed thy self the pleasures of the world for it and now art thou afraid to enter in Fear not poor soul Thy Lord is there Thy husband and thy head and life is there Thou hast more there a thousand fold more than thou hast here Here thou must leave poor mourning friends that languish in their own infimities and troubled thee as well as comforted thee while thou wast with them and that are hasting after thee and will shortly overtake thee But there thou shalt find the souls of all the blessed Saints that have lived since the Creation till this age that are all uncloathed of the rags of their mortality and have laid by their frailties with their flesh and are made up of holiness and prepard for joy and will be suitable companions for thee in thy joyes Why shouldst thou be afraid to go the way that all the Saints have gone before thee Where there is one on earth how many are there in Heaven and one of them is worth many of us Art thou better then Noah and Abraham and David then Peter and Paul and all the Saints Or dost thou not love their names and wouldst thou not be with them Art thou loath to leave thy friends on earth And hast thou not far better and more in heaven Why then art thou not as loath to stay from them Suppose that I and such as I were the friends that thou art loath to leave What if we had dyed long before thee If it be our company that thou lovest thou shouldst then be willing to die that thou mayst be with us And if so why then shouldst thou not be more willing to die and be with Christ and all his holy ones that are so much more excellent than we Wouldst thou have our company Remove then willingly to that place where thou shalt have it to everlasting and be not so loath to go from hence where neither thou nor we can stay Hadst thou rather travel with us than dwell with us And rather here suffer with us than reign in Heaven with Christ and us O What a brutish thing is flesh What an unreasonable thing is unbelief Shall we believe and fly from the end of our belief Shall we hope and be loath to enjoy our hopes Shall we desire and pray and be afraid of attaining our desires and lest our prayers should be heard Shall we spend our lives in labour and travel and be afraid of comming to our journeys end Do you love life or do you not If not why are you afraid of death If you do why then are you loath to pass into everlasting life You know there is no hope of immortality on earth Hence you must pass whether you will or not as all your Fathers have done before you it is therefore in Heaven or no where that endless life is to be had If you can live here for ever do Hope for it if any have done so before you Go to some man of a thousand years old and ask him how he made shift to draw out his life so long But if you know that man walketh here in a vain shew and that his life is a shadow a dream a post and that all these things shall be dissolved and the fashion of them passeth away is it not more reasonable that we should set our hearts on the place where there is hopes of our continuance than where there is none and where we must live for ever than where we must be but for so short a time Alas poor darkned troubled soul Is the presence of Christ less desirable in thy eyes than the presence of such sinful worms as we whom thou art loath to part with Is it more grievous to thee to be absent from us than from thy Lord from Earth than from Heaven from Sinners than from blessed Saints from trouble and frailty than from glory Hast thou any thing here that thou shalt want in Heaven Alas that we should thus draw back from Happiness
and follow Christ so heavily and sadly into life But all this is long of the enemies that now molest our peace Indwelling sin and a flattering world and a brutish flesh and interposing death are our discouragements that drive us back But all these enemies shall shortly be overcome Fear not Death then let it do its worst It can give thee but one deadly gripe that shall kill it self and prove thy life as the Wasp that leaves its sting behind and can sting no more It shall but snuff the Candle of thy life and make it shine brighter when it seems to be put out It is but an undressing and a gentle sleep That which thou couldst not here attain by all our preaching and all thy prayers and cares and pains thou shalt speedily attain by the help of death It is but the messenger of thy gracious Lord and calleth thee to him to the place that he hath prepared Hearken not now to the great Deceiver that would draw thee to unbelief and cause thee to stagger at the promises of God when thou hast followed him so far and they are near to the full performance Believe it as sure as thou believest that the Sun doth shine upon thee that God cannot lye he is no Deceiver it was his meer love and bounty that caused him to make the promises when he had no need for himself to make them and shall he be then unfaithful and not fulfil the promises which he hath freely made Believe it faith is no delusion It may be folly to trust man but it is worse than folly not to trust God Believe it Heaven is not a shadow nor the life of faith and holiness a dream These sensible things have least reality These grosser substances are most drossy delusory and base God is a Spirit who is the prime Being and the cause of all created Beings And the Angels and other celestial Inhabitants that are nearest to him are furthest from corporeity and are spirits likest unto God The further any thing is from spirituality the further from that excellency and perfection which the creatures nearest God partake of The earth is baser than the air and fire The drossy flesh is baser than the soul And this lumpish dirty visible world is incomparably below that spiritual world which we believe and wait for And though thy conceptions of spirits and the spiritual world are low and dark and much unsatisfying remember still that thy head is there and it belongeth to him to know what thou shalt be till thou art fit to know it which will not be till thou art fit to enjoy it Be satisfied that thy Father is in Heaven and that thy Lord is there and that the Spirit that hath been so long at work within thee preparing thee for it dwelleth there And let it suffice thee that Christ knoweth what he will do with thee and how he will employ thee to all eternity And thou shalt very shortly see his face and in his light thou shalt behold that light that shall fully satisfie thee and shame all thy present doubts and fears and if there were shame in Heaven would shame thee for them Use 9. FRom the Enmity of Death and the necessity of a Conquest we may see what a wonderful mercy the Resurrection of Christ himself was to the Church and what use we should make of it for the strengthening of our Faith It was not only impossible to man to conquer Death by his own strength and therefore it must be conquered by Christ but it was also beyond out power to believe it that ever the dead should rise to life if Christ had not risen as the first fruits and convinced man by eye-sight or certain testimony that the thing is possible and already done But now what a pillar is here for faith What a word of Hope and Joy is this that Christ is risen With this we will answer a thousand Cavi's of the Tempter and stop the mouth of the enemies of our faith and profligate our infidelity As unlikely as it seems to flesh and blood shall we ever doubt whether we shall rise again when the Lord came down in flesh among us that he might die and rise again himself to shew us as to our faces that we shall rise This is the very Gospel which we preach and by which we must be saved that Christ dyed for our sins according to the Scriptures and was buried and that he rose again the third day according to the Scriptures and that he was seen of Cephas then of the Twelve and after that he was seen of above five hundred Brethren at once of whom the greater part remained alive when Paul wrote this who was the last that saw him 1 Cor. 15. 1 2 3 4 5 6. Read over this Chapter again and again where our Resurrection is proved by the Resurrection of Christ No wonder therefore that the Church in all ages ever since the very day of Christs Resurrection hath kept the first day of the week as a holy festival in remembrance of it wherein though they commemorated the whole work of our Redemption yet was it from the Resurrection as the most glorious part that the Spirit of Christ did chuse the day This hath been the joyful day to the Church this 1625 years or thereabouts in which the ancient Christians would assemble themselves together saluting one another with this joyful word The Lord is risen And this is the day that the Lord hath blessed with the New-birth and resurrection of millions of souls So that it is most probable that all the six dayes of the week have not begot half so many souls for Heaven as this blessed day of the Lords Resurrection hath done Let Infidels then despise it that believe not Christs Resurrection but let it still be the Churches joyful day This was the Lords doing and it is marvelous in our eyes This is the day which the Lord hath made we will be glad and rejoyce therein Psal 118. 23 24. In it Let us sing unto the Lord let us make a joyful noise to the Rock of our salvation Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving and make a joyful noise to him with Psalms Psal 95. 1 2. Every day let us Remember the Lords Resurrection but on this day let the joyful commemoration of it be our work We may see by the witness of the Apostles and their frequent preaching the Resurrection of Christ as if it were the summ of all the Gospel that this is a point that Faith must especially build and feed upon and that we must make the matter of our most frequent meditations Oh what vigour it addeth to our faith when we are encountred by the sight of Death and of a grave to remember seriously that Christ is risen Did he take flesh purposely that he might dye and rise and shew us how he will raise his members and will he after all this break his
these things shall be dissolved what manner of persons ought we to be in all holy conversation and godliness looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God wherein the Heavens being on fire shall be dissolved and the elements melt with fervent heat But we according to his promise look for new Heavens and a new Earth wherein dwelleth righteousness 2 Pet. 3. 7 8 9 10 11 12 13. Beza marvelleth at Tertullian for saying that the Christians in their holy Assemblics prayed pro mora finis Apologet. c. 39. And so he might well enough if it were not that to Christians the Glory of God is dearer than their own felicity and the salvation of millions more precious than the meer hastening of their own and the glory of the Church more desirable than our personal glory and the hallowing of Gods Name were not to be prayed for before the coming of his Kingdom and the Kingdom of grace must not necessarily go before the Kingdom of glory But as much as we long for the coming of our Lord we are content to wait till the Elect be gathered and can pray that he will delay it till the Universal Body be made up and all are called that shall be glorified But to our selves that are brought out of Aegypt into the Wilderness how desirable is the promised Land When we think on our own interest we cry Come Lord Jesus Come quickly The sooner the better Then shall our eyes behold him in whom we have believed Not as he was beheld on earth in his despised state but as the glorious King of Saints accompanied with the Celestial Host coming in flaming fire to render vengeance to the rebellious and Rest and Joy to believing souls that waited for this day of his appearance Then Faith and Patience shall give up their work and sight and fruition and perfect love shall everlastingly succeed them The rage of Persecutors shall no more affright us the folly of the multitude shall no more annoy us the falseness of our seeming selfish friends shall no more betray us the pride of self-conceited men shall no more disturb us the turbulency of men distracted by ambition shall cast us no more into confusions The Kingdom that we shall possess shall not be lyable to mutations nor be tossed with pride and faction as are these below There is no monthly or annual change of Governours and Laws as is in Lunatick Common-wealths but there will be the same Lord and King and the same Laws and Government and the same Subjects and obedience without any mutinies rebellions or discontents to all eternity The Church of which we shall then be members shall not be divided into parties and factions nor the members look strangely at each other because of difference of opinions or distance of affections as now we find it to our daily grief in the militant Church We shall then need no tedious debates to reconcile us Unity will be then quickly and easily procured There will be no falling out in the presence of our Lord. There will be none of that darkness uncharitableness selfishness or passion left that now causeth our dissentions When we have perfect Light and perfect Love the perfect Peace will be easily attained which here we labour for in vain Now there is no Peace in Church or State in Cities or Countries in families or scarce in our own souls But when the glorious King of Peace hath put all his enemies under his feet what then is left to make disturbance Our enemies can injure us no more for it is then their portion to suffer for all their former injuries to Christ and us Our friends will not injure us as here they do because their corruption and weakness is put off and the relicks of sin that caused the trouble are left behind O that is the sight that faith prepareth for that is the day the blessed day that all our dayes are spent in seeking and waiting and praying for then shall the glory of holiness appear and the wisdom of the Saints be justified by all that now is justified by her children Then it shall be known Whether faith or unbelief whether a heavenly or earthly mind and life was the wiser and more justifiable course then shall all the world discern between the righteous and the wicked between them that serve God and them that serve him not Mal. 3. 18. Then sin that is now so obstinately defended and justified by such foolish cunning shall never more find a tongue to plead for it or a Patron to defend it more Then where is the man that will stand forth and break a jest at godliness or make a scorn of the holy diligence of Believers How pale then will those faces look that here were wont to jear at piety What terrour will seize upon those hearts that here were wont to make themselves sport at the weaknesses of the upright servants of the Lord That is the day that shall rectifie all judgements and cure the errours and contemptuous thoughts of an holy life which no perswasions now can cure that is the day that shall set all straight that now seems crooked and shall satisfie us to the full that God was just even when he prospered his enemies and afflicted the souls that loved him and walkt in their integrity before him We shall then see that which shall fully satisfie us of the reason and equity of all our sufferings which here we underwent we shall marvel no more that God lets us weep and groan and pray and turns away his face and seems not to regard us We shall then find that all our groans were heard and all our tears and prayers did succeed which we suspected had been lost We shall then find that a duty performed in sincerity through all our lives was never lost no nor a holy thought nor a Cup of cold water that from holy love we gave to a Disciple We shall then see that our murmurings and discontents and jealous unbelieving thoughts of God which sickness or poverty or crosses did occasion were all injurious to the Lord and the fruit of infirmity and that when we questioned his Love on such accounts we knew not what we said We shall then see that Death and Grave and Devils were all but matter for the glorifying of Grace and for the triumph of our Lord and us Up then my soul and shake off thy unbelief and dulness Look up and long and meet thy Lord. The more thou art afraid of death the more desire that blessed day when mortality shall be swallowed up of life and the name of death shall be terrible no more Though death be thy enemy there is nothing but friendly in the coming of thy Lord. Though death dissolve thy nature the Resurrection shall restore it and make thee full reparation with advantage How glad would I have been to have seen Christ but with the Wise Men in the Manger or to have seen him
disputing with the Doctors in his Child-hood in the Temple or to have seen him do his Miracles or heard him Preach much more to have seen him as the three Disciples in his transfiguration or to have seen him after his Resurrection and when he ascended up to Heaven But how far is all this below the sight that we shall have of him when he comes in glory when the brightness of his shining face shall make us think the Sun was darkness and the glory of his attendants shall make us think what a sorbid thing and childish foolery was all the glory of this world The face of Love shall be then unvailed and ravish us into the highest Love and Joy that our natures are capable of Then doubt and fear and grieve if thou canst What then wilt thou think of all these disquieting distrustful Thoughts that now so wrong thy Lord and thee If going into the Sanctuary and foreseeing the end can cure our brutish mis-apprehensions of Gods providences Psal 73. 17. how perfectly will they be cured when we see the glorious face of Christ and behold the New Jerusalem in its glory and when we are numbred with the Saints that judge the world We shall never more be tempted then to condemn the generation of the just nor to think it vain to serve the Lord nor to envy the prosperity of the wicked nor to stagger at the promise through unbelief nor to think that our sickness death and grave were any signs of unkindness or unmercifulness in God We shall then be convinced that sight and flesh were unfit to censure the wayes of God or to be our guides Hasten O Lord this blessed day Stay not till Faith have left the earth and infidelity and impiety and tyranny have conquered the rest of thine inheritance Stay not till selfish uncharitable pride hath vanquished love and self-denyal and planted its Colonies of Heresie confusion and cruelty in thy dominions and Earth and Hell be turned into one Stay not till the eyes of thy servants fail and their hearts and hopes do faint and languish with looking and waiting for thy salvation But if yet the day be not at hand O keep up Faith and Hope and Love till the Sun of perfect Love arise and Time hath prepared us for Eternity and Grace for Glory FINIS Some imitable Passages of the Life of Elizabeth late Wife of Mr. Joseph Baker THough I spoke so little as was next to nothing of our dear deceased friend it was not because I wanted matter or thought it unmeet But I use it but seldom lest I raise expectations of the like where I cannot conscionably perform it But he that hath promised to honour those that serve and honour him Joh. 12. 26. 1 Sam. 2. 30. and will come at last to be glorified in his Saints and admired in all them that do believe 2 Thes 1. 10. I know will take it as a great and acceptable act of service to proclaim the honour of his grace and to give his servants their due on earth whose souls are glorified with Christ in Heaven though Serpentine enmity will repine and play the envious accuser It is not the history of the Life of this precious servant of the Lord which I intend to give you for I was not many years acquainted with her but only some passages which either upon my certain knowledge or her own Diurnal of her course or the most credible testimony of her most intimate judicious godly friends I may boldly publish as true and imitable in this untoward distempered generation She was born Novem. 1634. in Southwark near London the only child of Mr. John Godeschalk alias Godscall Her Father dying in her Child-hood she was left an Orphane to the Chamber of London Her Mother after married Mr. Isaac Barton with whom she had the benefit of Religious Education But between sixteen and seventeen years of age by the serious reading of the Book called The Saints Everlasting Rest she was more throughly awakened and brought to set her heart on God and to seek salvation with her chiefest care From that time forward she was a more constant diligent serious hearer of the ablest Ministers in London rising early and going far to hear them on the week dayes waiting on God for his confirming grace in the use of those ordinances which empty unexperienced hypocrites are easily tempted to despise The Sermons which she constantly wrote she diligently repeated at home for the benefit of others and every week read over some of those that she had heard long before that the fruit of them might be retained and renewed it being not novelty that she minded In the year 1654. being near one and twenty years of age after seeking God and waiting for his resolving satisfying directions she consented to be joyned in marriage to Mr. Joseph Baker by the approbation of her nearest friends God having taken away her Mother the year before With him she approved herself indeed such a Wife as Paul no Papist describeth as meet for a Bishop or Pastor of the Church 1 Tim. 3. 11. Even so must their Wives be grave not slanderers sober faithful in all things Some instances I shall give for the imitation of others 1. She was very exemplary in self-denial and humility And having said thus much what abundance have I comprehended O what a beauty doth self-denyal and humility put on souls Nay what a treasure of everlasting consequence do these two words express I shall give you a few of the discoveries 1. It appeared in her accompanying in London with the holiest how mean soever avoiding them that were proud and vain and carnal She desired most to be acquainted with those that she perceived were best acquainted with God neglecting the pomp and vain glory of the world 2. When she was called to a married state though her portion and other advantages invited persons of greater estates in the world She chose rather to marry a Minister of known integrity that might be a near and constant guide and stay and comfort to her in the matters which she valued more than riches And she missed not of her expectations for the few years that she lived with him Even in this age when the Serpent is hissing in every corner at faithful Ministers and they are cnotemned both by Prophane and Heretical Malignants She preferred a mean life with such a one for her spiritual safety and solace before the Grandeur of the world 3. When some inhabitants of the City of Worcester were earnest with me to help them to an able Minister Mr. Baker then living in Kent had about an hundred pound per annum and when at my motion he was readily willing to take a great charge in Worcester upon a promise from two men to make the maintenance fifty pounds a year by a voluntary Contribution of the continuance of which he had no security his Wife was a promoter and no discourager of his self