Restoratives God surely cannot be pleased with it He protests against thy refusal He complains of it he sees the wrong thou dost to thy Soul and seems even at a loss for a reason why thou wilt do so He that puts thee upon the neglect of this early and serious remembrance of thy God and Creator he it is that rejoyces at it His Agents thy evil Companions may rejoyce at it men as senseless as thy self may rejoyce at it but Angels mourn and all good men grieve to see thee so obstinate The Devil onely takes delight in it It doth him good to think that the number of his Infernal Companions will be encreased by thy company He lays Snares for thy Soul and is glad when thou art taken His envy is gratified to see thee averse from this early Fear of God He was afraid thou wouldest chuse the Wisdom which is from above and to see thee chuse that which is earthly and sensual that 's it which is some ease to him in his torments Why wilt thou be worse than other Creatures All other Creatures betimes prosecute the end for which they are created and wilt thou alone forget the end for which thou camest into the world The end for which thou wert created was to seek the things which are above and wilt thou directly contrary to that design and in that age too which is most proper to do it in like a Beast seek the things which are below Sure thou must take God to be some strangely tame and easie Deity that can see thee cross his Designs reverse his Intentions and walk opposite to the scope of all his wonderful Works and set thy self against his Purposes in thy Creation and sit down quietly under these abuses Thou believest some persons in the world why shouldest not thou believe good men who have tried this early remembrance of God found the greatest comfort and the strongest support in it and can testifie by experience that nothing is so beneficial so pleasant or so useful as an early self-denial such men are too honest to deceive thee they dread lying as thou dost the severities of Religion and they would not for a world assert and affirm these things but that they know these ways to be ways of pleasantness and these Paths end in peace Indeed that 's the happy Exit of these ways and when so many thousand wise men have said and do say so O Remember them which have spoken to you in the Name of the Lord whose faith follow knowing the end of their conversation Eighthly Our Remembring our Creator here is the way to have God remember us hereafter It is not with him as with Pharaoh's Butler who being lifted up to his former place forgot what Joseph had done for him His turn was serv'd and the others kindness signified nothing to him now God remembers what hath been done here for his Honour and Glory and this Remembrance he will at last express in rewards suitable to his Greatness and Majesty Darius before he sat on the Throne of his Ancestors had received a Garment as a Present from Syloson He remembred it when he was King and made him Governour of Samus Thus God will remember our remembrance of him here Not that we ascribe gratitude to God which would suppose him indebted to man a thing impossible For Who hath first given to him and it shall be recompensed to him again Rom. 11.35 but his remembrance of our Services is gratuitous He remembers them not because they deserve it but because he will not that they merit it but that he is pleased to do so It is not their worth but his goodness not their intrinsick value but his abundant Mercy that moves him to this remembrance The last day the great day of Judgement is that day of remembrance and even a cup of cold water given to a Disciple in the name of a Disciple shall be remembred then Matth. 10.42 Rejoyce Christians for God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love which ye have shew'd toward his Name in that ye have ministred to the Saints and do minister Heb. 6.10 Your Tears your Prayers your Alms your Feeding the Hungry your Clothing the Naked your Visiting the Sick your going to Prisoners will all be remembred one day not one of these works shall be forgotten God sets them down in his Book and they shall be proclaimed in the last day The Chronicles shall be open'd and the faithful Mordecai shall be remembred though for many years his good works have lain dormant yet at last they shall be brought forth as the light and his Righteousness as the noon day There is nothing that Christ seems to remember in the last day more effectually than our bounty to the poor and needy and the way and manner of his remembring it is lofty and great Come ye blessed of my Father receive the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world Matth. 25.34 He remembers our Charity here if it be great and signal and from a cheerful heart For the liberal Soul shall be made fat and he that scatters in a charitable way increases and of this experience is a sufficient witness so that it may well be said that Alms-giving is the gainfullest art and the right course to thrive But after death God remembers it more solemnly I shall not lay any great stress here upon the Examples of Stephen King of Hungary and Oswald sometime King of England of whom it is reported that their Right hands after after their death never putrified but while the rest of their Bodies mouldred into dust this part was preserved sound and entire because in their life-time they had made much use of their Right hand in bestowing their Goods on the indigent These may be reckoned among Gods miraculous Providences which though they appear but seldom yet may serve to confirm our Faith of Gods remembring hereafter what we do here for the houshold of Faith Of this nature is the famous story of Euagrius recorded by credible Witnesses This Heathen Philosopher being a great acquaintance of Synesius Bishop of Cyrene the Bishop frequently argued with him about the truth of the Christian Religion and was often at him to receive Baptism but all in vain One day the Bishop being very earnest with him to use no further delays or excuses the Philosopher told him there were several things in the Christian Religion which his reason could never digest and among the rest these two That men shall rise at last with the same Bodies that they carried about them here on earth And that what a man gives to the poor here God will repay it him in the other world The Bishop told him that all this was very true and that they had all the reason in the world to believe it insomuch that what with the Bishops confidence and what with the Arguments he used the Philosopher at last was perswaded to
not trouble their heads about Religion Swearers Drunkards Atheists Blasphemers Beasts and Brutes live to a prodigious age sometimes without the Fear of God yet is not therefore the conscientious man that lives long in the world a loser by his fear for though he that fears God and he that lives in contempt of his Laws do both enjoy the same blessing even long Life yet there is a vast difference in the causes of this Blessing for in the former Blessing comes from a Father's hand in the other from a Judges In the former it is a gift of love in the other of meer generosity In the former it comes by promise in the other by a large and diffusive bounty To the former it is given that he may be a blessing to his Neighbours to the other that he may be a Scourge and Rod to those who live neer him In the former it is an effect of vertue in the other of natural constitution The former receives it because of his universal Obedience the other hath may be done some little inconsiderable service to Gods Church or Servants which God scorns to leave unrewarded and as the service will bear no bigger reward so God puts him of with a blessing of his left hand And from hence it follows that there must be a great difference in the comforts of this blessing In the former this long Life is in order to greater Mercy in the other in order to his greater condemnation In the former like a gentle River which hath run many miles and enriched the neighbouring Grounds it mingles at last with the vast Ocean of Glory in the other though like the River Jordan it hath extended its course a great way yet falls at last into the dead Sea into endless howlings In the former it is a spiritual Blessing as well as a temporal in the other only a temporal In the former it is a sign that a great deal more is to be added to it in the other that after that all his Blessings are at an end and that he shall have no more By all which it appears that this Remembrance of God is no useless thing It is profitable to the Body as well as the Soul and by what I have said it should seem it is the best Physick in the world So wisely hath God ordered his Laws and Precepts that they signally advance the welfare not onely of the inward but outward man too O the blindness of poor Mortals that will not see this truth How calmly how sweetly how contentedly may a man live with the Fear of God while sin and pleasing his extravagant Lusts hurries the sinner on to a thousand troubles and inconveniencies Nay the unwary man sees how his sinful courses his drinking and keeping ill Company breaks his Estate his Body and his Health and perhaps the Heart of his Wife and Children The Fear of God would preserve all these yet the heedless wretch will take no warning Do these men believe another life do you think No if they did they durst as well eat fire as we say as venture upon sins to which the Almighty Judge hath affixed damnation by an irreversible Decree But what do we talk of another life If their temporal interest and the interest of their Bodies and Estate and health cannot make them wiser I know nothing but feeling the flaming anger of a just God that will do it To see men run into death and misery and diseases as if they were angry with their lives and took it ill that God hath given them a being in the world what can a man think but that they are distracted and out of their wits But it were well if their madness were invincible and that they could not help it but now have they both seen and known and might prevent their danger and will not therefore their sin remains But I will not stand upon the long and healthy life which the Remembrance of God or a holy Fear of his name procures in this life I will carry this motive farther as this long Life relates to everlasting and endless life Behold Christians this prize this mighty Commodity we set before you in his Name who hath sent us to be Embassadours for Christ Jesus Men Fathers and Brethren and ye that fear God give audience The God of our Fathers the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob hath raised his Son Jesus from the dead who hath brought life and immortality to light This immortal Life he offers you and by us entreats you to accept of it He doth promise you that you shall live eternally in his Bosom in the Sunshine of his Favour in the Beams of his inaccessible Light He doth promise you that you shall live eternally without Fear without Want without Poverty without Trouble without Sickness without Care and without Anxiety He doth promise you that vou shall live eternally in all the Ease and Plenty and Prosperity that reason can desire He doth promise you all this not that he stands in need of you or is in distress for your company or that this eternal Life lies like a Drug upon his hands or that he knows not what to do with it No but his Almighty Immense and infinite love moves him to offer all this and by way of exchange he requires not an Oblation of the Beasts of the field or of a thousand Rivers of Oyl but all he expects at your hands is this early Remembrance of your Creator a Remembrance without which you cannot live happy here without which you can never relish that eternal Life he doth promise you without which you are incapable of conversing with him and without which it is impossible you should ever be his Friends and Favourites And have you no ambition to live as long as Angels live Are you so low-spirited that you have no desire to live eternally Ye young people ye are loth to die behold this conscientious Remembrance of your God will make your days like the days of God whose Years do not fail and who endures from one Generation to another Ye that are stricken in age as old as ye are ye are unwilling to die If you are loth to die behold here is a Tree of Life if you stretch forth your hand and eat of this Tree you shall live for ever This Remembrance of God this Fear of his Name is the true Antidote again Death aye and the Gates of Hell shall not prevail against you And will ye refuse so great a Mercy and a Pearl of that inestimable value Did any of the damned see you loth and unwilling to embrace this offer what strange Creatures would they take you to be O then see that ye refuse not him that speaketh for if they escaped not that refused him who spake on Earth much more shall not we escape if we turn away from him that speaks from Heaven Heb. 12.21 Sixthly It is rational to
forget him thus cannot expect God should remember them in the day of Recompense as a Father doth his Children Great will be the terrour when the thoughtless Soul comes to appear before an all-seeing God and greater yet when to such forgetful sinners he shall say I know you not for so we are told Matth. 7.23 Then will I profess unto them I never knew you Depart from me ye that work iniquity How I never knew you How can any thing be hid from him when it is expresly said Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world Acts 15.18 True he knows them as his works but not as his Friends He knows them as Traitors but not as faithful Subjects He knows them as Creatures but not as his Children He knows them as Prodigals but not as Heirs of Heaven He knows them as Strangers but not as Domesticks How should he know them when they have lost the Character of his Sheep the mark whereby the Flock must be distinguished which is to hear his Voice And what a dismal condition must that man be in whom God will take no notice of and whom he doth not remember that ever he was of his Family If God knows him not no Angel in Heaven will know him no Saint no Spirit made perfect will know him He is shut out from Heaven excluded from the best and noblest Company no Society will receive him but that of hellish Spirits You may laugh at these Terrours now but when they come to pass what wise man would be under your circumstances As a Father plagued with a disobedient Son forgets that ever he had such a Child so God will forget that ever you had any relation to him He will remember your sins indeed he 'll remember how you have fought against him how you have doted upon the world how you have pleased your Flesh and counted his Laws as strange things how you have slighted his thunders and looked upon his offers of Mercy as words in course How you have enslaved your Souls to your Lusts and made the Mistress wait upon a pitiful Hagar how you have gone on in sin when your hearts have smitten you for it and thought your jolly life would never be at an end how you have loved unrighteousness more than goodness and turned the truth of God into a lie how you have thought the duties of Religion below you and put off God with the lame and with the blind for sacrifice how soon you have been weary of serving him and how you have looked upon your duties as things needless and unprofitable how you have had mens persons in admiration because of advantage and hearkned more to the perswasions of a Sot than to his wholesome Counsels how dear your credit and honour hath been to you and how you have valued it above his honour and glory how you have derided him that hath reproved you in the Gate and been wise to do evil how you have made the riches of the world the great end of all your endeavours and set your affections upon things perishable and inconstant This he 'll remember with a witness and none of all the hard Speeches you have vented against him or the power of godliness shall be forgotten But this Remembrance will be your misery and his thinking on your faults and wilful errours your condemnation Flatter not your selves that once you did remember his Will and Laws and Mercies with great sincerity though afterward tempted by the Devil and enticed by the frailty of your Flesh you departed from the holy Commandment delivered to you for he hath made already a Proviso against that Plea and protested that if the righteous man turn away from his righteousness and commit iniquity and doth according to all the abominations that the wicked man doth shall he live all his righteousness that he hath done shall not be mentioned in his trespass that he hath trespassed and in his sin that he hath sinned in them shall he die Ezek. 18.24 He 'll forget all your little Services and your petty hypocritical Devotions indeed they are not worth remembring fitter to be scorned than to be remembred To remember them so as to crown them with bliss is a thing they are not capable of for Love the great principle and sap that must feed them is wanting Suppose you were in danger of losing all you have even life it self and stood in need of some great Princes assistance who had formerly expressed more than ordinary kindness to you and should he upon your address turn away his face from you not onely make himself strange to you as Joseph did to his Brethren by way of tryal but be really so what a fright and confusion would you be in Behold God is that puissant Prince who hath formerly courted you by Kindnesses and Mercies and Entreaties If you forget him in your Conversation here you will certainly be in danger of losing not onely all your Goods but eternal Life to boot Before this powerful Prince who alone can save you from perishing you must stand e'er long his help and assistance will be more needful and advantageous to you than all the Advocates that Heaven and Earth can afford And if this immortal King instead of remembring you shall frown upon you be strange to you acknowledge no such forgetful Creatures for Members of his Family or Objects of his paternal care and tenderness Can any Language express the astonishment your Souls will be in when he shall put you in mind of all the sins you have forgotten and of all the secret Follies you kept concealed from the world and the eyes of men when he shall remember and lay open all that you have buried in oblivion and make the wounds you gave to your Souls and skin'd them over bleed afresh how dumb how pale how surpriz'd will ye be at the tremendous Charge O consider this ye that forget God lest I tear you in pieces and there be none to deliver Psal. 50.22 But after all methinks this Discourse is incompleat except I add something concerning our Deceased Brother whose death hath brought us hither Though I had no personal acquaintance with him yet I have some reason to believe that the account given me of him is impartial and agreeable to truth He was it seems a person faithful in his Generation a man of Conscience a pious Christian a good Church-man a loving Brother and an excellent Servant Onely of his Death it may be said as David said of a far greater man Did the Lad die as a fool dieth Thy hands were not bound nor thy feet put into fetters but as a man falleth before wicked men so fellest thou In a word Murthered he was by men bruitish and barbarous and who like the Judge in the Gospel neither feared God nor regarded man I will not be too inquisitive into the reasons of this Providence though it be natural enough when such accidents befall