a man to wait upon God it is but a short time and resolve in the time of thy waiting upon this that when thou art fittest for mercy it shall come and when it cometh it shall come with an abundant weight and sweetness such as shall countervail all thy expectation and waiting Thus I have told you how men should exercise patience by exercising their faith and how they should strengthen patience by hope and how they should perfect patience by selfe-denyal The reason why I took this Text for the present occasion is that there might be a concurrence between the rule and the example Here is the rule Let patience have her perfect work that you may be perfect and intire wanting nothing One reason among others was this because we know not what changes and tryals God hath reserved any of us to therefore we had need of patience Our Sister here is the example a pattern to others of those tryals of life whereto a Christan may be exposed even to extremity Howsoever it pleased God to give many other mercies to her yet nevertheless she had a continual exercise of patience in extream anguish of body in a vexing tormenting pain that a long time for many years together held her under such extremity of torture that a man on the rack or in any other extremity could hardly have greater torments then she sometime felt in the time of that extremity upon her God laid this affliction upon her to perfect her patience and that she might be a pattern of patience to you that you might study and pray for Patience and endeavour after it that when afflictions fall upon any of you you may not be found wanting and destitute of patience So much for this time A RESTRAINT OF EXORBITANT PASSION OR GROUNDS AGAINST Unseasonable Mourning SERMON V. 2 SAM 12.22 23. And he said while the child was yet alive I fasted and wept for I said who can tell whether God will be gracious to me that the child may live But now he is dead wherefore should I fast can I bring him back again I shall go to him but he shall not return to me THese Words contain Davids answer to a question that was put to him in the Verse going before the Text by some of his servants The question was grounded upon their observation of his divers carriage when the child was sick and when the child was dead When the child was sick he fasted and wept and lay upon the ground and prayed When the child was dead he forbeareth weeping washeth himself calleth for bread c. And now they ask him the reason for they thought rather that he would have exprest a greater sorrow then he had done before as it may be discerned in the consultation among themselves every man was loth to tell David of the great losse that was beâ—…llen him that his child was dead When he heard of it and altereth his carriage and sheweth himself more chearful contrary to their expectation they plainly put the question to him What should be the reason of this The words I have read to ye 〈◊〉 an Answer to that question He telleth them the reason both of his fasting and weeping in the time of the sicknesse of the child and of his calling for meat and forbearing to weep now at the death of the child The reason of his former carriage he giveth in the 22. verse While the child was yet alive I fasted and wept for I said who knoweth whether the Lord may be gracious to me that the child may live The reason of the alteration of his carriage why he exprest himselfe in another manner upon the death of the child he giveth in the 23. verse But now he is dead wherefore should I fast 〈◊〉 shall return to him he shall not return to me In the former part the reason of his sad and mournful carriage during the time of the sicknesse of the child then saith he I did fast Yea have first the declaration of his action and behaviour and carriage at that time While the child was yet alive I fasted and wept And the reason of this action and carriage for I said Whoâ—… aâ—… tell whether the Lord will be gracious to me that the child may live I shall be brief in speaking of this part only First for his carriage I fasted and wept These are â—…ut external actions fasting of it self is not a worship of God but as it helpeth and furtheâ—… another 〈◊〉 as it helpâ—…th a man in prayer as it fuâ—…eretâ—… the work of humination and declareth that For neither if we eat are we the better nor if we eat not are we the worse as the Apostle speaks And the kingdom of God consisteth not in meat and drink There is a fast inforced by necessity that which either is by sicknesse or want and is meerly civil and outward without any respect to God And there is a fast too which hath a pretence of respect to God which is not acceptable as that of the Pharisees that rested only in the external action There is a fast that is religious and accepted of God and that is that which is both a testimony of the inward humiliation of the soul as also a help and furtherance of it Such a fast was this that David speaks of here A fast that did arise from a sense of his unworthinesse of the creature and did expresse the sorrow of his heart for sin A Fast which he did set upon only for this end that he might be more free and more fit for prayer And so likewise for the mourning and weeping he speaks of It was not such a weeping as ariseth meerly from the temper of the body as in some that are more apt for tears are such as the tears of Esau to his father he lift up his voice and wept hast thou not one blessing more blesse me even me also oh my father But they were tears that did arise from a holy affection from a gracious disposition of heart from inward contrition and sorrow like the tears that Peter shed when he went out and wept bitterly They were tears that discovered the inward vehemency of his spirit in prayer like those tears of Jacob when he wrestled with the Angel the Prophet Hosea telleth how he wrestled he prayed and wept Such tears were these as did expresse the fervency of his spirit in prayer the earnestnesse of his desire in putting up this request he had now to God like those of Hezekiah I have heard thy prayers and seen thy tears saith God such tears as God putteth iâ—…to his bottle such tears as he takes special notice of There are no tears that are shed for sin our of an inward sorrow of heart that are shed in prayer to exprese a holy desire that proceed from an inward inflamed affection and fervency of spirit but they are very precious with God as far I say as
shall he no more As there shall be no more sorrow and pain so there shall be no more death and sin All tears shall be wiped from our eyes I will ransom them from the power of the grave and redeem them from death More then this This yet addeth to our comfort Christ will so destroy Death as be will not only subdue him for us but also reconcile him to us not only foil him as an Enemy but propitiate and make him our friend We have all our enemies subdued to us but some are so subdued that they are reconciled Death is one of them it is a reconciled as well as a subdued enemy Instead of bringing forth children for bondage it becometh a purchaser of our freedom it is so far from plucking us from Christ as rather it letteth us into Christ so far from being a loss as it bringeth gain so far from being a dammage that it is part of our Dowry therefore the Apostle reckoneth it as a prerogative as he saith that the world and life and Christ is ours so Death is ours Indeed if Death were not ours life were not ours for our only way to life now is by Death Such a friend is this Enemy become that it is a Bridge to pass to heaven the Chariot that we are took up to heaven in What we get of life toward life we lose in death but what we get in death toward life we never lose Now for the Application and conclusion of all Something I have to say by way of comfort and something by way of counsel First by way of comfort Against the fear of Death or against over-much sorrow for those that Death takes away It is true Death is an Enemy But to whom only to the wicked that are out of Christ to those that have no benefit at all by his Death and Resurrection and Ascension When Death cometh and findeth out these they may say as Ahab did to Eliah and more truly a great deal hast thou found me oh mine Enemy It is the worst Enemy they have in the world It is a cruel Sergeant that catcheth them by the throat and arresteth them for a debt that they are never able to pay It draggs them to the Jayl casteth them into the Dungeon to the chains of Darkness I have not a word of comfort to say to them They have no more comfort in Death then they have in Hell where though they shall lie in torments and pain they shall not have a drop of water to cool their tongue But to the saithful in Christ there is comfort upon comfort For though Death be an Enemy yet remember first it is a subdued Enemy Secondly a reconciled Enemy Thirdly and lastly an Enemy that one day shall not be at all It is a subdued Enemy that is one comfort The strength and sting of it is gone When a Bee hath lost his sting and is a Droan it can hurt no more So Death is a Droan to a Christian it hums and buzzeth it doth no hurt it cannot sting the sting is gone Against all those Enemies that I formerly told ye of that are attendants on Death here is comfort First it is true Death cometh with ill Harbingers it bringeth sicknesses and aches and pain but there is comfort against this For when God sendeth pain remember he promiseth to send patience too that he will put his hand under to help His left hand shall be under us and his right hand over us to catch us he hath promised comfort upon our sick beds to make our bed in our sickness We need not make such an Allegory as Ambrose doth this sweet flesh of ours the Bed of our soul it is under infirmities and weaknesses God helpeth us he makes our bed he saith to the sick of the Palsey Take up thy bed he turneth our bed in our sickness either he sends us health so some exponds it he turns the bed of sickness into a bed of health or God turneth our bed for us in our sickness that is he refresheth us giveth us ease when we lie upon our sick beds It is a Metaphor borrowed from those that attend sick persons that help to make their Beds easie and soft and turn them that they may lie at ease So God hath promised his children in the painfull time of sickness to make their Beds easie and soft to cause them to lie at ease by the Patience that he will give them Secondly it is true Death bringeth dissolution and dissolveth the frame of nature it separateth and divorceth those two loving companions the Soul and the Body But there is comfort in this For though it divorce the Soul and the Body yet it cannot destroy the soul and the body even the body is in the hand of god when it is rotting in the earth as the Soul is translated to heaven Again though they be separated yet it is but for a time one day they shall meet more joyful and glorious then ever before and after that they shall never be separated again Lastly though he separate the soul from the body and the body from the soul yet neither from Christ nor Christ from them Nay it is so far from separating that it helpeth to unite us to Christ as I said before the dssolution of those shall be the conjunction with him I desire to be dessolved and to be with Christ Thirdly it is true the horrour of the Grave attendeth Death and the putrifaction of this flesh of ours that must turn to corruptness it makes it terrible and fearful But there is comfort against this For after that time of putrifaction there shall be a time of restitution and though the worms devour this flesh of ours yet in thâ—… very flesh of ours we shall see God another day These eyes shall see him There is comfort in that that when God shall come to restore us with himself what the Grave hath cloathed with corruption he will cloath with glory these vile bodies he will make them like the glorious body of Christ without all corruption Fourthly it is true Death depriveth us of worldly friends of worldly imployments this makes it terrible Yet there is comfort against this Though we be deprived of worldly friends it carries us to heaven to better company to Angels to the spirits of just and perfect men to God the Judge of all to Jesus the Mediatour of the New Testament Nay besides one day he will restore again those very friends of which here we are deprived though we lose them for a time in heaven we shall meet again and there renew a perpetual league of society and love So though it deprive us of worldly benefits it cannot of heaven and those are better they are not pleasures of sin that last for a season but at the right hand of God that endure for ever So though it deprive us of worldly
is called His because by it he bringeth life and immortality to light as I said before which in former times was hid as it were in the dark and not made known so publikely to the sons of men The Gentiles knew little or nothing of it The Jewes knew what they knew with much darkness and obscurity He that was almost the first Preacher of this Gospel in clear terms without any vail or darkness John Baptist who was as it were between both he did delives this doctrine not so darkly as the Prophets before him nor so clearly as after it was by our blessed Saviour and those that succeeded him Therefore I say it is the Saying of Christ by an excellency because he did in a manner first begin to teach and declare the same in the cleareness and sweetness thereof and he sent his Apostles abroad to make it plain and manifest to all the world that a man may run and read it And His likewise it is called because he is the Author of it for he is the worker of that salvation which it declareth to us Now his Doctrine of the Gospel hath two parts The first acquainting us with our misery The second with the Remedy For as the Bond and Acquittance specific the debt but to different purposes the one to 〈◊〉 the Debtor to the payment the other to absolve and acquit him even so the Law and the Gospel both declare the misery of man the one to tye it fast upon him the other to help him the better to lease it from him The Physitian intreateth of the sickness as well as the Cure but of the sickness alone for the cures sake The Judge passeth a sentence of condemnation and then largly rehearseth the crime and punishment due to the offender the Pardon likewise makes mention of the fault and the punishment but in a different manner and to a different end So the Gospel declareth mans misery and borroweth so much of the Law that may lay down our wretched estate in our selves and so draw in that which is the main and principal part of it the remedy of our souls And this part of the Gospel the Apostle St. Paul succinctly delivereth in a few words Rom. 3.23 All have sinned and are come short of the glory of God All have sinned and All have sinned in such a short and measure and degree that they are fallen short of the glory of God by which the Apostle I think meaneth life Eternal that Glory that had it not been for sin he would have bestowed upon the sons of men by vertue of the first Covenant he made with them The second part of the Gospel the words of Christ is concerning the Remedy whereby a man may be helped against this misery And for that purpose it sheweth us Who helpeth us And how he helps us And what is to be done by our selves that we may obtaine and enjoy this help The Person that helpeth us is the Son Manifest in the flesh the Son of God taking our nature upon him and cloathing himself in the similitude of sinful flesh the Eternal Son of the Father assuming I say the very nature of man into the unity of his Person so becoming God and Man in the same Person he is the sole Redeemer neither is there any other name under heaven by which we can be saved but by his alone Again it sheweth us by what means he saveth us as the Apostle speaks plain enough in the next verse to that I spake of before being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ To the intent that he might free us from the Curse of the Law and wrath of God and the danger of eternal Death he vouchsafed to be made sin for us to satisfie the justice of his Father by enduring the Curse of the Law and to accomplish the Righteousness of the Law by being made in our stead under the Law so he became a Propitiation for the sins of the sons of men as the Apostle saith in that place Thus Christ by his perfect satisfaction made to his Father and by that perfect Righteousness whereby he was subject to the Law for our sakes hath absolutely and fully delivered us from the power of sin and of Death and performed the work of our Redemption by vertue whereof by the merit and worth and value whereof we are delivered and saved and Redeemed from this Death and from all other evils that crosse our eternal happiness And thirdly the Gospel sheweth us by what means we may become partakers of this happiness and Redemption in Christ and telleth us of three things as it were Conditions of the Covenant of Grace of the New Covenant which is ratified by the bloud of Christ I say of three things the Conditions on our parts of that Covenant which if we do we shall certainly be saved by the Redemption in Christ. The first is Repentance The second is Beleeving The third is our New obedience All and each of these plainly exprest in the word of God As for Repentance it is that where with John the Baptist began his Preaching It is that that our Saviour commanded his Apostles to declare to the Jewes Repent for the kingdome of heaven is at hand It is that which himself preached at the first as Saint Mark witnesseth chap. 1.15 It is that which Saint Paul began with when he came to the Athenians Acts. 17. and now he admnisheth all men every where to repent It was the first of the foundations of the Doctrine of the beginning of Christ that was wont to be taught in the Ancient Church as withesseth the Authour to the Hebrewes chap. 6. not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and then he proceedeth to the rest This Repentance is that which the Lord requireth absolutely of the sons of men as a condition of the new Covenant the Covenant of Grace without which they cannot possibly be made partakers of the same And this Repentance hath four parts every one of which is so needful that without it the rest is little worth First lamenting for our sins and being sorry for our iniquities as David said of himself Psal 38. I will declare my iniquity and be sorry for my sins And so the Apostle Saint James expresseth it chap. 4.9 Afflict your selves mourn and weep let your laughter be turned into sorrow and your joy into tears Therefore Christ you know was sent to Preach glad tydings to the Prisoners and Captives and the opening of the prison to the prisoners and to bring the oyle of gladness to those that mourned in Sion A man must first be a Mourner in Sion one that simiteth on his thigh and saith with Jeremy Woe to me because I have sinned Secondly to this Sorrow must be joyned acknowledgement and confession of sin to Almighty God
iniquities you shall die in your sins Oh why do not we make our eyes as fountains to bewayle our sins that man is possest with extream hardness that lamenteth not his iniquity and he treasureth up unto himself wrath against the day of wrath and the declaration of the righteous judgement of God Well if we will not mourn for our sins here to repentance we shall mourn heareafter in hellish horrour without hope of help or mercy In the third place this Doctrine that God will Jugde us should make us preserve in our selves a good conscience It is the very use that the Apostle makes Acts 24.15 16. He had hope that there should be a resurrection of the dead both of the just and unjust therefore he did exercise himselfe to have alwayes a good conscience voyd of offence toward God and toward men Blessed faith Christ are those that are pure in heart There is nothing that will be so rewarded and so regarded at the last day as a good conscience But for those that have stayned their consciences with all wickedness and sin and have not washed their consciences with the bloud of Christ and the tears of true repentance these shall have their portion without amongst those that are unclean Lastly this Doctrine should teach us to fear God and to give glory to him As Saint John speaks in the Revelation the day of his Judgment is coming therefore fear him and give glory to him If the particular judgments of God that light upon men in this life should make us reverence his holy Name how much more should this last Judgment that is so terrible and unavoidable ABRAHAMS PURCHASE OR A POSSESSION FOR BURIAL SERMON XIX GEN. 23.4 I am a stranger and sojourner among you give me a posseâ—…ion of a burying place with you that I may bury my dead out of my sight THis is the Conclusion of all Flesh they were never so dear before but they come to be as loathsome and intollerable now When once the lines and picture of Death is drawn over the Fabrick of Man or Womans body as it is said here of Sarah all their glory ceaseth all their good respect vanisheth away their best friends would be fainest rid of them even Sarah that was so goodly and amiable in Abrahams sight must now out of his sight he must bury his dead out of his sight Oh the strange misery that sin hath brought us to when it devolveth and throweth down all our glory at once and the ruff of Man-kind in their chiefest pride in their greatest jollity all is tumbled in an instant in a moment to baseness and stink and misery How should we be diligent to get the hope of a better life seeing this is so little worth having And how should our thoughts alwaies flie up to God since there is nothing but rottenness and putrifaction found here in the world But Abraham as the Father of faithful men and a pattern to all loving Husbands in all ages insuiug doth not this till such time as the dead Sarah groweth noysome to all that look upon her As long as he could by his mourning and lamentation prosecute her without offence to his eyes and danger to his health he did it but now the time is come when earth must be put to earth and dust must return to dust There is no place for the fairest beauty above ground when once God hath taken life and breath from it it must go to its own elements and to the rock and pit from whence it was hewen thither it must return This holy man therefore being well resolved of this and knowing the doom already uttered by God upon our first Parents Dust thouart and to dust thou shalt return he cannot keep his dead longer by him he knoweth the bed wherein now she must be laid therefore he seeks for it to these Country-men that he lived withall that were Heathens and Pagans but very moral and civil men as we may see in this whole Discourse And he desireth them that he might have a place for his own use and turn not intimating so much to them as that there should be a separation in their very death from Pagans and Heathens but he keepeth that to himself and covereth it with smooth speech and elegancy of language as his manner was For indeed it was not lawful for Abraham to bury his dead amongst the Canaanites the sons of Heth of whom he demanded this peculiar favour at this time but God would have his children as they differ in all their life from Heathens that knew no God so they should differ in every point even in their Graves after death that there might be no commixtion and mingling of light and darkness and no fellowship between Christ and Belial Therefore to continue this hope and confirm it in all his Posterity that were a peculiar and chosen people It was necessary he should chuse his Grave his place of Sepulture that they might be sequestred from them in their death as they were in the course of their life Now after he had performed that duty that every man oweth to his dead friend especially to his Wife the mate of his bosome he cometh to move this to the sons of Heth that were Lords of the soil He was abundant in tears before he comes to move it for God which commandeth us not to lament for the Dead as men without hope doth notwithstanding not forbid us to mourn and sorrow for them and to lament he giveth us leave nay he rather alloweth and approveth of natural affection when we weep with them that weep and mourn with them that mourn and rejoyce with them that rejoyce Abraham knew well in what estate his Wife was he knew she was in a happy condition he knew she was the Mother of the Faithful and was translated to the heavenly Paradise and he was not angry with God for taking away his Wife he disdained not the act of his providence notwithstanding he resolveth into tears and laments And these may well stand together if they be not as S. Jerome saith rebellious teares against God and against hope and against the faith of the Resurrection they are qualified and allowed and accepted with the Lord as a testimony of that good affection and brotherly love that he commandeth to be in every one After he had performed this perhaps mourned three or four dayes for his wife he knew this mourning must have an end he knew that he must commit her to the ground and make away with her that she might not be a means further to continue and aggravate his sorrow to no purpose for with that condition a man is allowed the use of affections as that he respects the glory of God and give way to weak nature rather then to any indulgent affection that is too head-strong and unruly as though there were no hope in the promise of the Almighty Therefore I say when he had thus
heart and sorrow for sin If earnest and constant prayer unto God If lamenting of youthful miscarriages and the not answering of time and means and opportunities and religious education and that godly care that was exercised in order to his spiritnal welfare and building of him up in the knowledge of God and of Christ If I say the lamenting of the neglect of opportunities of this kind If so be the desire of the prayers of others for him and that out of a sense of his own disability to plead his own cause If so be a gracious communication of God unto him in wayes of comfort in the time of his sickness supporting him under divers pressures and many sore and grievous temptations that lay upon him If so be his setled resolution concerning his spiritual estate and the satisfying of others in many doubts and disquiets of spirit that rose within him If so be the due respect to the Lords day the desire of promoting the sanctifying of it both by himself and others with a continual grief proceeding from a sense of his own disability to answer to the occasion and duties of the day If there be any thing to be concluded of concerning Religion from such passages as these then brethren I have all these as so many materials put into my hand to build withall and so to reare up a testimony before you concerning this disceased And thus in brief have I testified of him and to you all he though dead now speaks but in a more special manner to you that are young men his death and that example we have in him of mortality is as a loud Sermon preached unto you concerning the care you ought to have to bethink your selves in your younger years of the things that concern your spiritual and eternal welfare and how much it concerns you now to give all dilligence to make your calling and election sure Your thoughts it may be are too much upon your patrimony and inheritances your houses and possessions your great estates and your matches that thereby you may as you use to say raise your fortunes too too apt you are to be taken up with these considerations and to pursue thoughts of this nature but you see by this example how God may come and prevent the accomplishment of all these and in that day in that very day all these thoughts will perish death may come marry you to the dust and call you not to your fathers mansions but to the common house appointed for all living where you must say to corruption thou art my father and to the worme thou art my mother and my sister this was his condition and so may yours be too Therefore you young men remember you your Creatour in the dayes of your youth and know you that God hath provided instructions and counsels in his Word that are directed to young men that they may know how to cleanse their way and to flie the lusts of youth and betimes to begin with God that so whether they live to old age or be cut off in youth they may be gathered to their Fathers in a good and a full age like a Shock of Corn and so receive the blessing of the promise SPIRITUAL HEARTS-EASE OR The VVay to Tranquility SERMON XXXI JOHN 14.1 2 3. 1 Let not your hearts be troubled you beleeve in God beleeve also in me 2 In my Fathers house are many Mansions if it were not so I would have told you I go to prepare a place for you 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you I will come again and receive you unto my self that where I am there ye may be also IN the 33. verse of the former Chapter our Saviour Christ told his Disciples that he must now go away from them Little children yet a little while I am with you and you shall seek me and as I said to the Jews whether I go you cannot come so say I now to you This message of the departure of Christ from the earth of his being took from them did exceedingly sad their hearts and very much perplex and disquiet their spirits they knew what a comfort they had in the presence of Christ they knew what a faithful Teacher he was what a mighty Protector he had been how gracious and full of Heavenly comfort he had manifested himself to them at all times in his being with them and they could not now think of parting with him without much perplexity and disquiet and trouble of spirit Therefore the words that I have now read are the speech of our blessed Saviour to comfort them strengthening their hearts against those disquiets under which they were exercised In which words you may briefly observe these three things for time will not suffer me to stand much upon them First a duty whereunto they are exhorted Secondly the means whereby it may be performed Thirdly the lets that were to be removed that hindered them in the performance of the duty in the use of these means The duty that is to be performed is in the beginning of the first verse Let not your hearts be troubled The means whereby to perform it in the words following You beleeve in God beleeve also in me The lets and impediments of the performance of it in the use of these means are so many objections and doubts as are wisely prevented by the wisdome of God in the two verses following I shall take them as I come to them in order and but give a brief touch upon every one of them First the duty that is to be performed it is this to stablish comfort their hearts Let not your hearts be troubled The word that is here translated trouble it signifieth such a trouble as is in water when the mud is stirred up or when the waves and surges are raised by some tempest or storm It signifieth such a trouble as is in an Army when the Souldiers are disranked and routed when they are disordered and it shewes thus much that those distempers that are in the hearts of men in the affections of men do exceedingly hinder their judgments that they can see no more nor discern things no better then a man can do in a muddy water All the affections are as so many Souldiers in an Army disordered that keep not their due subordination to their leader and guide by reason that the understanding that should guide the will and affections is now made a servant to them And this distemper of spirit ariseth from the inordinacy of the affections the inordinate motion and agitation of them This is called trouble Let not your hearts be troubled Be not disturbed thus and disquieted and disordered So that no faculty of the soul can perform its own work So as that it is disabled to judge of things according to truth but that you are misled and deluded by mists and appearances It is with the mind in sorrow as it
fruits of sin you shall keep your estate and keep it with comfort as far as it is good for you your sins provoke God even to curse your blessings You shall not lose your pleasure if you part with sin nay you shall gain pleasures All sorrow and grief of heart and disquiet of spirit that ariseth from terrour of conscience are they not hence because of sin Would you have joy and pleasure unspeakable and glorious part from sin that is the cause of sorrow When we bid you part with sin we speak to you to part with a needless thing it is a superfluity as well as hurtful superfluity of malice what need one sin in the world cannot you live and be happy without it cannot you live comfortably and die blessedly without sin Nay is it not that that hinders your blessedness and happiness The Angels in heaven they are blessed because they are without sin but those of them that sinned they are reserved in chains of darkness to the judgnent of the great day Adam in Paradise in the state of innocencie he was blessed he was without sin but as soon as he sinned he was cast out of Paradise and a Cherubin set with a flaming sword to keep the way of the Tree of life that man should not come at it You your selves the best comfort the best peace the best evidences you have are those that do arise from your hatred of sin Therefore do but consider how needless a thing it is Can you get any thing by it can you live a day longer or an hour more happy can you be a whit better by it If you could enjoy any present good by sin there were somewhat to be pleaded but what is it you get a little wealth by unrighteousness is it gain Job saith their belly shall be filled with gravel If a man sill his belly with gravel what hath he gotten by it you will get that that you must cast up again you get that that one day you will wish you had never known as Israel when they turned to God they should say of their garments of silver and gold that they had made for their Idols Get you hence So every worldly man that raiseth his estate by unrighteous means the time will come that he shall wish all the money that he hath gotten were in the bottome of the Sea that he had never known what a penny or a house or apparel had meant that he hath gotten or made or appropriate to himself by any unrighteousness whatsoever What Use is there of it And will you lose your souls for that that is nothing and will you lose heaven for that that is needless and eternal happiness for that that will not do you a moment of time not a little present good not a little present ease not a little present comfort But lastly the great benefit that redounds by it that is spoken of in the Text it is that you shall live and live to God The more you die to sin the more you shall live to God through Jesus Christ Now we come upon a strong motive to perswade you to set more heartily against those evils that are daily reproved the more you die to them the more you shall live to God Suppose the work of repentance be a hard task suppose it should be somewhat painful suppose it be something that vex and disquiet the natural spirit of man as there is pain in repentance and mortification of sin yet nevertheless if you may get eternal life by it is it not worth the while Consider what you do for natural life suppose a member of the body be gangrened that it is in danger to be spread over the whole body and the taking away of natural life the loss of a hand and the loss of any member though it be never so useful rather then the body shall be in danger and a man deprived of life you will lose a useful member and when you have done you do it but in hope to preserve life for you are not sure when you have cut off that member to live a day after but yet because it is possible because it is the way to natural life and yet if you have that life granted suppose for term of years as Hezekiah had for fifteen years yet it is but a natural life a life full of misery a life exposed to many vexations and disquiets a life that hath so many troubles in it that men in the best estate of health with sometimes that they were dead through disquiets and troubles and yet for the preservation of a troublesome life if you were sure of that you would lose a member I know when we come and speak of renouncing your former wayes your cove ousness and prophaneness and pride and vanity and wickedness in any kind we speak of cutting off of hands of members of the body they are so dear therefore Christ saith If thy hand off end thee cut it off if thine eye off end thee pull it out it is better to go to heaven with one hand then to hell with both This I say I know you apprehend it a hard lesson there is no life no Christ without such a death to sin Yet it is a truth and a necessary truth for you to know and therefore consider it and that seriously what you lose If we come and perswade you to cut off some useful member yet you yeeld to that for a natural life you wil cut off a hand that is as useful as any member of the body but we bid you cut off superfluous members those needless members the members of sin that will be your death We would have you but to be rid of the Ulcer that is all we would have you deprived of to preserve spiritual life and to live to God If I were to speak for a natural life it were but temporal it were but upon conjecture but we speak for a life upon certainty When we perswade you to die to sin that you may live to God we assure you that this will certainly follow on it you shall live to God if sin die in you and we speak not only upon certainty but for eternity too you shall do it for eternity too you shall do it for eternity it is not a life that ends Nay we speak for a life wherein there is true happiness that hath no mixture of misery to make you weary but a life that hath perfect peace and joy a life that hath blessedness begun and shall have blessedness perfected in heaven this life we perswade you to live Consider now what we say if there were more you shall live to God the more you die to sin Skin for skin faith Job and all that a man hath he will give for his life but if it be such a life as this to live to God a spiritual life what to live as the Angels do that live with God! to live as
the best Ermine It is nothing to be born a Gentleman it is all in all to live and die a good Christian This was the sweet expression of this your honourable Neighbour feeling a want of Grace in his heart wherewith he desired to be satisfied Oh says he to me one drop of grace in the heart is more worth than all the wealth and honour in the world I shall not commend to you the goodness of his Nature the sweetness of his Disposition because he bewailed it as a Snare and an occasion of sin to him A mans good Nature leads him many times into sin and the loving temper of his spirit temps him and puts him forward to sin Where Grace does not command there a good disposition is soon marr'd and drawn aside This likewise was matter of grief to him that his frail Nature was soon wrought upon and carried aside to that which his own heart soon after told him was sinful and displeasing to God What need I tell you that he was an affable friendly and obliging Gentleman winning and gaining upon all that came near him He that look'd but upon his Face might have seen goodness and courtesie looking out of his Eyes And what 's all this when he did acknowledge with tears that this pleasantness of his countenance was suddenly clouded with a violent and over-ruling storm of passion which carried him beyond himself But it is strange to see what a command grace hath over the Soul which speaks to these unruly passions as Christ did to the boisterous billows of the Sea Peace be still Mar. 4.39 as easily as the Nurse charms the crying Infant in the Cradle As prevalent as these passions were in the time of his health they were so allayed by God in his sickness as that all his friends about him did rejoyce to see the patience and calmness of his Spirit all the while the hand of God was upon him And that I may give you a clear proof of the mortified Spirit and happy change which God wrought in his Soul When I took the boldness to mind him of a late difference between himself and the Reverend Pastor of this place he burst out with tears and laid this charge upon me That I would right him so far as to acquaint him that he did heartily desire him in particular to forgive him and all other good Christians that he had wrong'd in the heat of his passion either rich or poor Judge ye now what could I have spoken more for his honour than I have done in this discovery of his frailty and his happy conquest of it Therefore I thought good to make this publication of it to the world that ye may know ye never honour you selves more than when ye glorifie God by shaming of your selves when we are most vile in our own eyes we are most honourable in the repute of God and good men But all this that I have spoken is nothing to that which is yet behind Therefore go along with me a little further and I shall in brief relate unto you such comfortable passages as fell from him in the time of his sickness and then leave him to your Christian Charity to judge how well he acted the latter part of his life and with what earnestness of spirit he strove to gain the love and favour of God in Christ At my first coming to him I found him deeply toucht with a serious apprehension of the former errours of his life how far he had provoked a good God by the many sins which his Conscience then charged him with Then dâ—d he break forth into 〈◊〉 free and voluntary confession of all his sins and exprest with many tears his loathing and detestation of them I was glad to see those Limbecks of his eyes distilling and dropping down in such a plentiful manner to find his heart thus smitten and bruis ed with the remembrance of his sins and prest him to a greater measure of sorrow as knowing such clouds of grief would make way for the beams of joy and comfort to shine in his Soul The truth is I have not come near a man that hath reckoned up his fins wiâ—h greater abhorrency and detestation than he did I askt him whether if God should be pleased to grant him a further respite in this world he would become a new man and take off his heart from his former vanities He answered I would not for the gain of the whole world live such a life as I have done and I desire next to Gods glory to live for this very end that I might testifiâ— the truth of my repentance to the world I askt him whether his heart did witness the truth of all this Oh sayes he my heart is deceitful and treacherous but if I know my own heart all that I speak is in truth and sincerity I should be the most cursed Hypocrite alive if I should either dissemble with God or man at such a time as this Oh remember to deal faithfully with your own hearts if you speak otherwise than ye find it to be in your own breasts you turn Imposters to your selves and deludes your own Souls not us It is the integrity of the heart which God looks at if there be no rottenness there there is a good foundation of joy and comfort laid in the Soul 1 Job 3.21 Beloved if our heart condemn us not then have we confidence towards God And now from the example of this good Knight let me press this one thing upon you That when ye find your hearts opprest with the weight of your sins ye would give them a speedy vent and seek to ease your hearts of so mighty a clog by a serious confession of them He that smothers sin in his breast will in the end be choaked with the noisome scent of it What is a man the better for hiding and locking up his sin in his bosome Let me advise you to open a vein in your own hearts and let out the corrupt blood that lies there The longer we hide sin in our bosoms the more it festers and what man will not do his best to get rid of a bruise before it rots and putrisies Confession is a soveraign Remedy to procure the pardon of our sins Prov. 28.13 Who so confesseth and for saketh his sins shall have mercy He is most likely to find mercy that is most ready to acknowledge that he deserves none We see what David gain'd by an humble confession of his sins He no sooner cried Peccavi 2 Sam. 12.13 I have sinned against the Lord then the Prophet return'd him a comfortable answer from the Lord The Lord also hath put away thy sin thou shalt not die Quantum valent tres syllabae Peccavi How prevalent are three syllables pronounced by a penitent heart I have sinn'd to move the God of mercy to mercy And here I hope I shall seasonably cast in a word of advice to my Brethren of
3.11 1 Pet. 3.4 Prov. 31.29 Coherence Division The person judging God Opera Triditatis ad extra suns indivisa Opera Trinitatis ad intra suns divisa cuique persona incommunicabiliter propria Object 2 Cor. 5.10 1. Cor. 6.2 Answ How Christ is said to be the Judg. Rom. 2.16 Joh. 5. Why God hath committed the power of the execution of Judgment to Christ Three properties requisit in a Judg. 1. Knowledg to discern Heb. 4. 2. Power to execute Psal 149. Rev. 15. 3. Justice in the Execution Gen. 18. The Judgment 1. It shall be Types of the last Judgment Luk 17. Rule 1. Reas 2. Reas 3. Act. 1731. Reas 4. 2. In what manner it shall be 1. The summons Job 5.28 Matt. 24.31.1 Cor. 15. 1 Thes 4 16. 2. The Appâ—…arance 2 Cor. 5 10. Rom. 14 12. 1 Cor. 1.7 3. The seperaration 4. The tryal Rev. 20.12 The books that shall be opened at the day of Judgment 5. The Sentence The general things observable in the words 1. The duty 2. The motives The duty exprest 1. Generally 2. Particularly The general duty expressed 1. In the Object 2. In the Acts that are exercised on the Object 3. In the manner of exercising The Object 1. God Simile Simile 2. The name of Cod. The Acts that are exercised on the Object 1. Of the understanding Memory 2. Of the will and affections Desires Desires an argument of a gracions heart Joyned with endeavours Desires without endeavours false The manner of exercising these acts 1. They must come from inward principles 2. They must he sincere Simile Simile 3. They must be pitched on God alone 4 They must be universal 5. They must be constant Simile The particular duties In times of mercy 1. Chearfulness 2. Fruitfulness In times of judgment Simile 1. Perseverance Simile 2. Diligent exercise of our graces Simile 3. Patience 4. Prosiciency The Motives to the duties God seeth and Judgeth all our wayes 1. This alone differenceth the godly from the wicked Division of the words Obser 1. The Saints on earth have a heavenly conversation What it is The priviledges thereof 1. Their names are written in heaven Luk. 10.20 2. They are governed by the law of God 3. They are safety kept 4. They have interest In God Mat. 6 32. Chap 7 11. In Christ Dan 12 1. In the holy Ghost 2 Cor 13 10. In the Angels In the Saints that are in heavenâ—… That are on carte 5 They are Inriched with heavenly treasure Mat 13. Isa 55 1. The traffique of a Christian what How to know whether our conversation be in heaven By our affections Note Obser 2. While the Saints are on earth they are stated in heaven 1. In respect of right and title 2. In respect of present possession John 14. Presumption to hope for heaven without union with Christ first on earth Ezra 2.62 Christ in respect of his bodily presence is only in heaven Transubstantiation Cell 3.1 Obser 3. Expectation of Christs coming to Judgement the best means to work a man to a holy conversation The continual expectation of the Saints is for Christ coming A threefold coming of Christ Proved 2 Tim. 4.8 Heb. 6.8 Vse For tryal How to know whether our expectation of Christ coming be right 1. By the ground of it Heb. 11.1 2. By the companions of it Which are 1. Patience 2. Love Manisested in secret longings Care to walk in Christ 3. delight in the ordinances 3 By the effects and fruits of it The expectation of Christs coming the best means to procure a heavenly Conversation Proved 1. It is the worker of Mortification Collos 3.17 1 Joh. 3.2 3. Guilt of sin causeth the apprehension of death to be terrible 2 Subdues out worldly affections Collos 3 1. 3. Keeps us from sinful actions Act. 3 â—…8 Acts 17 30. 4 Quickness to holiness of life 2 Pet. 3 11 12. 5 Furthers our perseveranâ—…e in godliness 1 Iohn 2.28 Rev 6. Vse For tryal Rev. 6.15 Heb. 2.14 1 Thes 1 10. Division 1 The duty commanded Meaning of the worsd What is meant by the saying of Christ viz. The Doctrine of the Gospel Two parts of the Gospel 1. Shewing out raisery Rom. 3.63 2. The remedy against this misery 1 The Redemer 2. The manner how we are redeemed Rom. 3.24 3. The means how to enjoy the remedy 1. The Conditions of the Covenant of Grace 1 Repentance Mark 1.15 Heb 6. The parts of Repentance Godly sorrow for sin Psal 38. Jam 4.9 Confession of sin Pro 28. Psal 32 4. 1 Joh 1 9. Firme purpose of amendment Joh 5. Petition for pardon in the name if Christ Hos 14.2 Repentance only taught in the Gospel Mans repentance tends to the honour of Gods justice 2 Faith John 6 29. Desinit on of Faith Faith only taught in the Gospel 3. New obedience How differenced from that required under the Law 2. The benefit What it is to see Death What Death is here meant Joh. 6.68 Act 5.20 Acts 11.14 Reas 1. 1 Joh. 2.24 Reas 2. Vse 3. Incitatton to thankfulness Vse 2. Reprehension Vse 3 Exhortation Vse 4. Consolation Obiect Answ Coherence Division of the words 1. The sin of young men 2. The Cure Doct. 1. It is the sin of young men to rejoyce inordinately Gen. 6.11 Isa 22.14 Eccles 12.1 1 Tim 2.22 Tit. 2.6 Job 1. Reas 1. Natural corruption Reas 2. Forgetfulness of Judgement Deut 32 29 Reas 3. Freedome from crosses Jer 31. Reas 4 Want of spiritual joy Vse 1. For Admonion 1. To take notice of their carnal joy Young mens rejoycing proved to be inordinate 1 Because it is not placed there where it should be 2 Because it is placed there where it should not be 3 Because it is excessive in lawful things 4 Because it terminates not in God 2 Of their walking after their own heart Hosea 7. 3 Of their walking after the sight of their eyes Iob 31.1 Ier 9. Heb 11. Vse 2. For Fxhortation 1 To abandon carnal joy Luke 6.26 Iob 20.6,7 Directions how to avoid carnal joy 1 To labour for sorrow for sin 2. Consider the vanity of things 1. Of humane wisdome Eccles 1 13. Eccles 1 15. 1 Cor 1 19. Eccles 9 10. 2 Of worldly honour and cred it Eccles 1 16. John 5 44. John 10 43. Gal. 5 26. 3 Of worldly pleasures Eccles 2 2. Vers 4. 1 Cor 7 19. Luke 8 4. 4 Of riches Jer 5 27. Eccles 5 12. Rev. 18.18 2 Tim. 1.16 Luk. 12.25 5 Of friends and Allies Psal 62 9. Psal 49 7. 3 Labour for spiritual joy Rom 5 1. A twofold ground of spiritual joy 1 The good things exhibied 2 The good things promised The second Exhertation not to walk after their own heart The third Exhortation not to walk after the sight of their eyes Joshu 7 21. 2 Sam 11 1. Vse 3. To old men Doct. 2. God will bring men to judgement for all their sins Masa 3 18. Eccles 12 14. 2 Cor 5 10. 2 Thes 4
tongue And so for every member and for every sense I cannot stand upon particulars Thou must give an account likewise for the gifts of thy mind how thou hast imployed thy wisdome and learning and experience c. For all thy passions he that is angry with his brother unadvisedly is in danger of judgment For all the disposition and inclinations of thy heart for out of the heart cometh thefts and murthers and adulteries In a word whatsoever ability thou hast whereby thou mightest have been benificial and serviceable to the Church and Common-wealth thou must give an account of it in particular unto God he will call thee to a reckoning of every parcel by it selfe The Master in the Gospel that gave the talents to his servants he called them to an account for every talent he gave them so there must be a particular enumeration to God of all those severall abilities wherewith he hath fitted thee for his service how thou hast behaved thy selfe in matter of health strength and time in thy senses in the members of thy body how with thy mind how with the dispositions of thy soule how in all the gifts and endowments he hath intrusted thee with for the service of the Church and Common-wealth Secondly it is called a reckoning because in this reckoning God will go by a method keep an order such an order as men doe in reckoning with their accountants every thing hath his due place God will proceed to give every one in the day of judgment his due place and ye shall find then many sinnes that ye have accounted the lightest of all will be the most heaviest and grievous at that day I will set thy sinnes in order before thee saith God in Psal 50. He had reckoned them up confusedly here these things thou hast done but I will set them in order before thee God will observe such an order as every thing shall have its due place its due head In the first place shall be that Apostacie whereof all Adams posterity are guilty This David saw and therefore when he judged himselfe he judged himselfe as one born in sinne I was borne in sinne and in sinne hath my mother conceived me In the next place shall bee that concupiscence that depravation of nature from whence all actual sinnes proceed This Saint Paul knew and therefore he bewaileth it as the original and root of all other actual sinnes Rom. 7. God will begin first with the sins of the heart because thence cometh all the outward actions of the whole man Then all the outward actions Hee will begin first with those against the first Table Atheisme Infidelity Prophanenesse contempt of God and his service neglect of his glory and the opportunites he hath given us And when the Law and the Gospel come together he will proceed more severely for the sinnes against the Gospel then the Law That is the reason that our Saviour telleth us that it shall be easier for Sodome and Gomorah then Capernaum at the day of Iudgment Why so Sodome and Gomorah had the Law but Capernaum had the Law and the Gospel too And faith the Apostle Heb. 10. If they that obeyed not Moses law died of how much sâ—…rer judgment shall they be guiltie of that disobey the Gospel of Christ the Law of faith Thus God will proceed And therefore when ye would exercise repentance follow Gods order mourn more for impenitency and infidelity then for other things Be more humbled for sinnes against the first Table for prophannesse for Atheisme and neglect of God then for sinnes against the second though these must be lamented and repented of too Againe be more in lamenting the inward sinful disposition of thy heart then thy outward sinful actions and forget not the original root of all which we brought with us into the world I say mark Gods method and his order that which he takes most notice of at the day of judgment lay that to thy thoughts and take greatest notice of it now It is a grievous thing for a man to be borne in sinne but to adde actual sinnes to that it is more grievous For a man to sinne in thought and in heart is grievous but to adde actual sinnes to those it is more grievous It is a grievous thing for a man to sin against righteousnesse to deale unjustly with men but to deale unrighteously with God in point of his worship is more grievous It is a grievous sinne for a man to disobey the law of God but to disobey the law of faith to delay repentance to deferre turning unto God is far more grievous Thus we should mark Gods order that he will observe when he bringeth us to a reckoning Thirdly It is called a reckoning because God will proceed with men at that day as Masters with their servants by writings by books In the tenth of Daniel the booke was opened and in the 20. Revel there is mention made of bookes that should be opened God will proceed with all his Stewards upon books that shall be opened The bookes are either the book of the law that shewes what wee should have done The words that I speak faith Chirst the same shall judge you at the last day And there is one that judgeth you even Moses that is read daily And then secondly there is the book of conscience that shewes what wee have done here God will put the memories of men to the taske as Abraham did Dives Son remember that thou in thy life-time hadest thy pleasure So remember that thou in thy life time haddest riches but how didst thou imploy them remember that thou hadest Authority and office and place in the Church of the Common-wealth but what service didest thou doe to God remember that thou haddest wisedome and learning and knowledg but what good had the Church or Common-wealth by it God I say will put every mans memory to the task what opportunities are lost carelesly nay what opportunities he avoyded wilfully when he might have done God better service yet lest he should be disadvantaged in his by-respects in the world he bauked them remember this The sins of Judah saith God are written with a pen of Iron and with the point of a Diamond they are graven upon the table of their hearts God hath the sins of men graven on the table of their hearts Little dost thou that art an old man think of a thousand things that God will bring against thee that were done in thy youth Job little thought till the day of his affliction when God made him possesse the sins of his youth that there was such aboundance of guilt against him as there was God will remember that that thou hast forgot God will proceed by bookes and this will clear Gods justice in his proceedings and make every thing appeare righteous in the sight of men and Angels because every mans conscience shall testifie against himselfe and
parts the main matter whereof things were made and shall that be the destruction of that whereof it is made Yes saith the Apostle All things were made by water too and yet they were destroyed by water and why not then by fire But God deserreth the promise of his coming What of that He putteth it not quite off though he deferre yet it is not long with God for there is no time long to him that is eternal and in that he deserreth it is that some men may be brought to salvation and others made inexcusable Thus the Apostle takes off all objections of the Atheists of the world and sheweth that there shall be a day of Judgment Secondly it serveth for instruction If there shall be such a Judgment to come if God will have such a time of rekconing with all his Stewards in the world Then it teacheth us first not to busie our selves in judging one another why because there shall a time come of Gods Judgment Who art thou saith the Apostle that judgest thy brother we shall all stand before the Judgment seate of Christ As if he should say What a bold part what a presumptuous part is this that thou shouldest judg thy brother Dost thou not know that there is one that shall judge him and thee is it fit that he that is a prisoner at the Barre should come and leap up into the place of the Judg and sit in his seat Ye are all fellow prisoners together and ye must all stand before the Judgment fear of Christ So in another place the same Apostle when he would take men off from judging saith he Judg nothing before the time Why for the Lord will come who both will bring to light the hidden things of darknesse and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts and then shall every man have praise of God As if he should say Thou art not able to judg aright it may be that man that thou dispraisest at that day may find praise with God Secondly Turn the Judgment on thy own heart be more in Judging of thy self that thou mayest not be Judged of the Lord. Will God call thee to a reckoning then begin to call thy self to a reckoning first How shall that be done There is a double reckoning that every man must undergoe that will avoid this reckoning with God First he must reckon with his own heart Secondly with others First with his own heart Every man must take all the advantages opportunities that God hath given to reckon with himselfe Doth God awaken thy conscience by the preaching of his word Descend into thy own heart It is that that the Lord looks for that a man should say What have I done Doth God smite thee with some afflictions if with losses reckon with thy self how thou hast gained thy wealth If with disgraces reckon with thy selfe about thy pride and ambition and vanitie of thy heart If God smite thy body with sicknesse reckon with thy self about the imployment of thy health and the well usage of the times and seasons of grace Every evening call thy self to an account What have I done this day where have I been In what company how have I carried my self there what good have Idone what good have I received In the matters of thy calling reckon with thy self with what heart thou hast followed it with what care to conforme thy selfe to Gods word the rule of righteousnesse If thou hast been in pleasures whether they were lawful and if they were whether they were lawfully used Thus must every man reckon with his own heart as the Church in Lament 3.39 Wherefore is the living man sorrowful Man suffereth for his sinâ—… let us search our wayes and turne again to the Lord. There are many that 〈◊〉 to out-face God and men in their sins but know this who-ever thou art that if thou forbear to reckon with thy own heart God will assuredly reckon with thee thou must reckon here or hereafter with thy self or with God therefore saith David Psal 4 Commune with your own hearts upon your beds that is be sure to take time from your sleep rather then to neglect this businesse of reckoning with your own hearts Secondly Reckon with others too Let that man that is in authority a Magistrate so carry himself in his imployments that he may reckon with the people and give an account to them if need be as Samuel did Whose oxe have I taken or whose asse have I taken or whom have I defrauded whom have I oppressed or of whose hand have I received any bribe to blind mine eyes therewith The Lord saith he is a witnesse that ye have not found any thing in my hand And not only so but that they may be able to witnesse that they have been great instruments of Gods glory and of the good of others Let Ministers reckon with the people committed to their charge as Paul did when he took his leave of the Ephesians and was to go up to Jerusalem I take you to record this day saith he that I am pure from the blood of all men for I have not shunned to declare to you the whole counsel of God and I have kept back nothing that was profitable unto you but have shewed you and tought you publikely and from house to house And because I know that after my departure there will somewhat remain to be done for Grievous wolves will enter in not sparing the flock therefore I will be carefull that there be a succession of faithfull Ministers afther me and therefore I give carge to the rest that follow that they take heed to themselves and to the stook over which the holy Ghost hath made them overseers to feed the Church of God which he hath purchased with his own bloud Let Masters reckon with their Familes their servants and children whether they have done their duty as faithful Masters not only in furthering the service of God but also in furthering of them by instruction and example to all good Let those that are in a way of traffique learn to reckon with those that they deal withal If thou hast wronged any by unjust gain thou must reckon with him by restitution there is nothing that thou hast gotten unjustly for which thou dost not reckon now but as Saint James saith at that day shall eat they flesh as it were fire Therefore Zacheus when salvation was brought to his house If I have done uujustly and wronged any I restore it Doubtless there are many men that cloath themselves in Sattin and Velvet and abound in all variety and bravery that would now be houseless and moneyless and apparelless it may be if they should make restitution of their unjust gain Well do it as ye love your own souls you shall reckon as you are Gods Stewards with him how you have come by every penny that you have in the world and
ever Lot was got up to Zoar presently the Lord rained down fire and brimstone upon Sodom and Gomorrah Assoon as ever the mourners are marked presently cometh the destroying Angel upon the rest Beloved when we see those that are mourners for the evils of the times and places where they live look away we should lay it to heart and consider it as a sign of Gods displeasure as a sign that he is a going and departing when he takes away his jewels as a sign that he is a coming to judge the world when he beginneth to separate to take to himself his own Certainly as soon as ever that number of the elect shall be accomplished when the company of those that God hath determined to eternal life shall be fulfilled when the sheep of Christ that are yet to be brought into his fold are gathered together when the fulnesse of the Gentiles is come in and the nation of the Jewes added then the world shall he burnt with fire and the day of Judgement shall come nothing shall hinder that general destruction that shall be the end of all things here below As it is with the general Judgement of the world so with particular Judgements upon Nations when God takes away his people when the Saints go out of Jerusalem to Pila then cometh the sword of the enemie upon Jerusalem when God drawes out his own people presently cometh judgement upon the rest It is good to observe Gods method and order that he takes in governing of the world at this day that in the death of the servants of God we may consider our own time that we may prepare for those evils that are a coming and for those greater judgments that are hastning Thus you see what use may be made of laying to heart the death of others God is much glorified thereby For all his attributes are seen in all his works and the glorifying of God is a declaring of God to be as glorious as he hath revealed himself to be in his attributes which is by shewing of them forth in his works When men can see the wisedome the justice the power the mercy the truth the soveraignty of God and all in the death of others then they glorifie God in taking to heart the death of others You see likewise what good cometh to a mans self by laying to heart the death of others He sees thereby the certainty of his own death He sees the nature of death and what the proper work of it is viz. to separate between him and all those outward comforts all those props and staies whereupon his heart rested too much on earth in the dayes of his vanity And lastly he sees the end and cause why God sendeth Death into the world sometime in judgement that men should take heed of sin sometimes in mercy in mercy to the men themselves and in mercy also to those that live that they seeing the servants of God lodged up before the tempest may learn to fear and to hide and secure themselves under Gods special providence who can either hide them amongst the living or the dead in the worst times Now let us conclude with some application to our selves In the first place it serveth for the just reproof of that great neglect that is in the world at this day that men lay not to heart the death of others I wish that this were only the sin of worldly men I know to a worldly man it is of all things the most unpleasant thought that can be to think of death he cannot indure to hear this they shall fetch thy soul from thee It is as unpleasant to him as it is to a Bankrupt to hear of a Sergeant coming to arrest him as unpleasant as it is to a Malefactor to hear of being brought before the Judge And that is the reason why men in the time of feasting cannot endure such discourses at their Tables as might put sad thoughts of death into them oh these are too melancholly thoughts Yea but in the mean time it is thy folly thy want of wisedome He that was guided by the spirit of wisedome and had now bought some wisdome at a deare rate by woeful experience of his former follies he now seeth that it was farre better to go to the house of mourning that is seriously to consider of that which men account the most ordinary cause of mourning that is the death of others and of themselves then to go to the house of feasting that is to sport a mans selfe in the pleasures of the world and to give liberty to a mans selfe to all manner of delights But I say I wish that this were their fault onely and that it may die with them But it is too much the fault of Gods own people Moses is fain to pray for Israel in the Wildernesse where they saw so many die before them that God would give them wisdom to number their dayes And Ministers have still the same cause to pray for the people and Christians to pray one for another that God would give them wisdome to lay to heart the death of other men Have you well considered of Death when you can only discourse that such a one that was profitable in his instruction is dead such a one by whom we have had good in conversing with is dead such a one that was young and likely to live many years longer is dead What of all this this is but idle and empty discourse What use makest thou of this to thy self dost thou gather from thence the certainty of thy own death Dost thou consider what death will do to thee when it cometh how that it will separate between thee and all things in the world as it hath done them Dost thou consider for what cause God sendeth Death abroad into the world Dost thou consider this with thy selfe as thou oughtest to do This is an act of wisdome This is that we call due consideration when the soul reflects upon it self it is their case now and it will be mine and mine in the same manner therefore it is good for me to set my accounts strait with God When thou accompaniest another to the grave dost thou conclude thus with thy self the very next time that any death is spoken of it may be mine or as Saint Peter speaks to Saphirah after the death of Annanias the feet of those that have buried thy husband are at the door and shall carry thee out also This is reason of all that worldly-mindednesse of all that earnestnesse and invention to gain the favour of men by indirect means this is the reason of all that immoderate care about our businesse with the neglect of our souls this is the reason of all that carnal security of all that forgetfulnesse of God and the account that shall be made at the day of Judgment this is the reason of the unfruitfulnesse of our lives of our unprofitable spending of our times or
they declare the inward truth of the heart and the inward sense of our wants and the weight of the petitionâ—… we put up to God Such were these tears here I fasted and wept I will not stand upon this The reason of this action why he fasted and wept I did it for this end for saith he I said who knoweth whether the Lord will be gratious to me that the child may live A man may wonder if he read the former part of the chapter whence this perswasion and hope should come into the heart of David that there should be a possibility of having the life of this child by his prayer whereas the Lord had said before by Nathan to him that the child should die Nathan had told him in expresse terms that the child should die yet he putteth up his prayer for it and said Who knoweth whether the Lord will be gracious to me that the child may live We must know therefore that God sometime even in those sentences that seem absolute implies and intends a condition David had respect to such a course as God ordinarily took he knew well that God at other times had threatned things yet neverthelesse upon the repentance and prayers and tears upon the humiliation and contrition of the hearts of his servants he hath been pleased to alter the sentence to suspend nay it may be wholly to take away and change the Execution Thus it hath been It was so in the case of Hezekiah The Lord sent as express a message by Isaiah the Prophet to Hezekiah as he did by Nathan to David Set thy house in order for thou shalt die and not live Yet neverthelesse Hezekiah turneth his face to the wall he wept and laid open his request before the Lord Remember now oh Lord I beseech the how I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart c. Ye see the Lord presently sendeth the Prophet to tell him that he had added fifteen years to his life and yet the message was carried in expresse words and in as peremptory terms as a man would have thought it had been absolute and no condition intended The like in the case of Niniveh Jonah cometh to Niniveh and began to enter the City a dayes journey and he cried and said Yet forty dayes and Nineveh shall be destroyed Here was the time limited the judgement declared and no condition exprest yet the King of Nineveh humbleth himself and the people they fast and pray and go in sackcloth c. and the Lord was pleased to alter this sentence But some will say these Examples were after Davids time What were these to him upon what ground did he take this course had he any promise or example before time of any such thing as this that did give him incouragement to fast and pray in hope that though God had said the child should die yet it should live Certainly David had examples before time of the like nature when God had threatned judgements and they did not know whether the issue would prove or no as they desired yet they sought God As in the case of Saul When the Lord sent an expresse message by Samuel that the kingdom should be taken from him and given to another because he had not dealt faithfully in the execution of Gods command concerning Amaleck yet saith the text Samuel mourned for Saul still Insomuch as the Lord questioneth him How long wilt thou mourn for Saul seeing I have rejected him from raigning over Israel Yet Samuel continued in seeking God as if he should say Who knoweth what the Lord will do But more expresly David had examples before his time not only of seeking the Lord but of a gracious successe and answer that those had that sought him As in the case of the Israelites when there was a discontent among the people because of the ill report that the Spies put upon the good land the people began now to murmur against God Well saith the Lord to Moses let me alone and I will destroy this people at once Moses setteth himself to seek the Lord and prayeth and presseth the Lord with many arguments for his own glory for his peoples sake for his Covenant sake and many other wayes to spare them What was the issue of it He was heard the Lord told him that he had heard his prayer and granted his request though he would fill the earth with his glory and all the world should know what a jealous God he was another way yet in this particular he had granted his request they should not be cut off at this time So that David had good experience that though judgement hath been threatned before yet neverthelesse courses have been taken that the sentence hath been altered with a change of Gods purpose at all For God ever intended it to be understood with a condition if they returned not to him he would go on if they returned to him he would not go on So the purpose of God remaineth unchangeable yet the sentence according to the externall expression seemeth altered to us so the change is in us and not in God Hence let us note something briefly for our selves and that is this First how to understand all these threatnings in Scripture that seem peremptory and absolute by this rule A judgement is threatned against a nation against a person or family c. Yea and it is absolutely threatned in divers places because thou hast done such and such evils therefore such and such things shall come upon thee All such as these are to be understood conditionally though they seem to be expressed absolutely And the rule God himself giveth At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom to pluck up and to pull down and to destroy it If that nation against whom I have pronounced turn from their evil I will repent of the evil that I thought to doe unto them Whatsoever I threatned in my Word if they turn to me by true repentance I will turn all that evil from them that I have threatned against them and would certainly have brought upon them if they have not returned I say thus we are to understand all these and upon this ground we may build some further uses that I will but touch First to take off those discouragments that lie upon the hearts of many When they find themselves guilty of a sin against God when they see that sin threatned with severe punishment and judgement in the word of God now they conclude their case to be disperate it is in vain to seek further to use the means the Lord will proceed in judgement and there is no stopping of him This is an addition to a mans other sins to conclude thus Mark how the Lord expresseth himself in Ezekiel 33. The people were much troubled about such things there say they Our transgressions and our sins
Death Every sin vertually is the sting of death there is an aptitude in every Sin but in the event that sin proveth the sting of death that is untouched uncontrouled Not every sin in the event proveth the sting of death but that sin that liveth in us or rather that sin that we live in that ruleth in us that we affect and love this is the Sin that putteth a sting into death That very sin that thou lovest and likest so much and pleadest for that sin will make death terrible Secondly Sin may be considered as it is galled and vexed and mortified in the Soul When a man setteth upon the root of Sin and the way of Sin and falleth a crucifying the body of Sin and the members of it I say howsoever there be divers motions and stirrings of Sin in the soul yet if these be disavowed disaffected and mortified if there be a crucifying vertue pass over them if they come not within the judgment to approve them or within the affections to embrace and like them if they come not to be a mans trade and way and walk but fall within the improbation of the judgment to disavow them and the misliking of the affections to sorrow for them These shall not be the sting of death whatsoever the motions are But these untouched unmortified sins these are the sting of death Now these are the sting of death in a double respect First in respect of the guilt Secondly in respect of the corruption First they are a sting in respect of guilt Every Sin remaining unsatisfied for remaineth with his guilt and when Sin is not satisfied for there is the sting of death When the sinner hath nothing to oppose to the justice of God for the sin he hath committed if the Sin be in the book of God uncrossed be a debt there not blotted out by the blood of Christ if Christ have not satisfied for it if the sinner have not part in him as we shall hear anon then Sin is the sting of death And then secondly they are a sting in respect of the corruption and filthiness of Sins unmortified Those filthy sinful motions those depraving qualities in thy soul that thou likest and practifest in thy conversation they give thee up into the hand of Death to execute his Sting upon thee And therefore you that applaud your selves in sin and will go on in Sin do so But know this when thou comest to the full strength of thy Sin let it be what it will when Death cometh it findeth the strongest weapon it hath in thy sin the very power of thy sin armeth Death against thy soul No man is more obnoxious and open to the sharpest dart of Death then that man that will go on in Sin So you see what Sin is spoken of that is the sting of death that Sin is the sting of Death that a man loveth and doteth on The third Question is in what respect Sin is the sting of Death First by way of Eminencie because that then the sting of Sin beginneth most sensibly to work in a man Not but that Sin hath a sting before Death but then the deluded sinner feels his sin there be divers times that Sin can sting a person before that but then howsoever the sinner hath deluded himselfe and the word of God and the world he can delude them no more Death then most ordinarily sixeth his sting in the soul and makes the sinner feel the smart of his sin There be three times wherein Sin can sting a man Before death At death After death Before Death God sometimes letteth loose the conscience of a man even of the most resolved sinner of him that bears himselfe up alost in his own eyes in scrone and contempt of the ministry of the Word sometime I say God singleth out such a person and rippeth up all his heart strikes his Arrows into his very soul and stings his conscience so irresistably that he knoweth not which way to turne form the wrath that boyleth in his soul And it is one thing to deal with the Minister and another to deal with God When God strikes his Arrows of vengeance into the soul of a sinner then such a one is stung indeed this God doth sometimes before death Nay sometimes God stingeth the consciences of his own children for sin David cries out he roared for the disquietness of his spirit his bones were broken he was sore vexed Lord how long faith he If there be such deep disquiet by reason of this sting in the consciences of good persons tell me then what is the disquiet that springeth from sin in a Cain a Judas when it meets with a dispairing disposition Thus you see Sin hath this time to sting and therefore think not that Sin will never sting till death sometimes Sin stingeth a man before death Another time is at death When Death cometh and arresteth a sinner in an Action from God seizeth on a person that is under the power of Sin on one that is in his sins unrouched howsoever he behaved himself in his life-time yet then the very name of Death breaks his heart it apaleth him and then it stings such a Person It is appointed beloved for all of us once to die Death will one day arrest every man but when Death appeareth before a man that hath not a part in Christ that is under the power of his sins when it cometh to a Belshazar it makes his very joynts to smite one against another it is a sting to him amidst all those sweet morsels his sins which he so much affected and so earnestly pursued it is a very poyson to him nothing is a poyson now to us but sin only but then at the time of death sin is a poyson indeed Lastly Sin can sting not only before and at but after death Bothat the day of Judgment and after At the day of judgement Is not the concience of a sinner think you stinged and his spirit deeply affected by reason of the great wrath of God that is to be poured out when he shall cry to the mountains to cover him when he shall call to those insensible creatures that are not able to lend him that courtesie to crush him to nothing Make this our one cause think of it it will be our case as It is appointed for us all to die so we must all come to judgement And after the Judgement when the sentence go you cursed is past the sting of Sin ceaseth not no the worm for ever gnaweth in Hell It were a happiness for a sinner if he might only hear the sentence if this worm might not still gnaw his conscience but then this is his burthen Sin shall sting him for ever This is the first respect in which sin is called the sting of death because then Sin stingeth more eminently and sensibly Secondly it is called the sting of death in
respect of the metaphor the Apostle aludeth unto it is taken from the sting of a Serpent and so Sin is a sting in a double respect First in respect of the fearfulness and then in respect of the hurtfulness of it First in respect of the fearfulness It is Sin that makes Death fearful to a man Indeed I confess that in the best Christian though Christ have pulled out the sting of death yet there are natural grudgings and shruglings As to a Serpent though the sting be pulled away yet there are some abhorrings and dislikes in a man But then how terrible is Death when it cometh in a compleate Armour as it doth against a person in whom Sin remaineth in its full power it must needs then be terrible See the differences between two persons the one is afraid of every one he meeteth the other is not what is the reason the one is greatly indebted and ingaged the other is free So it is with a Christian and another man the one cannot hear of Death but his heart breaks he is full of fear and horrour the other heareth of Death and is only somewhat affected in the hearing of it but not possessed with that fear as is the other what is the reason the sting of death remaineth in one and not in another Sin therefore is a sting in that respect Secondly it is a sting in respect of hurtfulness The sting of the Serpent is a hurtfull thing it poysoneth the vitall parts it takes away life it self All the evill that cometh to us by death cometh by sin Man need not complain of the ilness of the prison so much as of his own folly that he ingaged himself in debt whereby he is cast into prison Why complainest thou of the misery in Hell rather labour to break off thy sins that are the cause of all that misery all the hurtful quality and miserable condition that befalleth a person in Death and Hell is for Sin the eternal separation of the soul from God and all punishment that follows after in Hell are the fruit of mans sin Hell had not been Hell without Sin it is Sin that causeth it to become hurtfull Thus I have explained these inquiries Now I come to make Use and application and so conclude the Point The first Use of this point shall be this If Sin be the sting of death let it be our wisdom to get this sting pulled out in the time of our life Oh that this people were wise faith God then would they consider their latter end If you were wise that hear me this day you would consider that Death will come and if it be not taken away before-hand with a sting upon the soul My brethren we have many enemies to deal with even now at this very instant but there is yet an enemy as the Apostle faith The last enemy to be subdued is Death he his behind and here is the difference betwixt Death our last enemy and some other of our enemies some other of our enemies cannot be subdued but by their presence but let me tell you this Death is such an enemy as is never subdued but by his absence thou canst never overcome Death in death thou must not reserve this combat till thou come to the field but thou must overcome this enemy before he cometh thou must overcome him in thy life How is that Pull out the sting of him now then Death is conquered How will you disarm the tongues of malicious slanderous persons and deprive them of their viperous speech by an innocent life So how will you take away the sting of death watch against Sin take away sin and you take away the power from Death set upon Sin and Death is overcome so much sin as is now dead so much is Death conquered I beseech you seriously consider these particulars First that it will not be long ere Death knock at these doors of ours these houses of clay must shortly be ruinated we must certainly be resolved into dust What is this life of ours but as a ship that is driven by a gale of breath When the breath of man ceaseth the ship lieth in a dead calm Man goeth to his long home saith Solomon and the mourners follow in the streets Death is our long home we all are the mourners we follow in the streets This dead carcass is an example that leads us to our home and a sermon to tell us that we must follow we follow now in a charitable expression but we shall follow one day in paying of the same debt Look over all the times of the world and the dispositions of persons look over learning and folly greatness or poorness find me a man that escaped Death Die we must and we have need to have this much pressed upon us for it is a hard matter to beleeve that we must die that I must be the man that must die common notice of Death are granted but that I must die and lie in the dust and stand before God it is a hard matter to beleeve this And consider this secondly that Death will be terrible to thee if he knock and find a sting in thee Thou that now wilt not be reclaimed from swearing Alas what will become of that blaspheming soul of thine when death shall come and find a sting of blasphemy in thee How darest thou think of giving up that swearing soul of thine to the Judge of heaven and earth Thou unrighteous person that wilt not sanctifie the Lords day how darest thou give up that unholy soul of thine to the holy God Dost thou think to have an eternal rest in heaven and wilt not give God a rest here So I might say for all kind of sinners Think of this take heed lest Death find a sting in thee for all the sting that Death hath it findeth in thy self look to it thy condition will be fearful if Death come and find Sin unmortified unrepented of in thee God will certainly bring thee to judgment for every thought and word and action Thirdly consider this that naturally we are so tempered that if Death come he shall find his weapons and strength in us in every man of us I mean considered naturally But how shall I know whether Death when he cometh shall find a sting in me or no I will only give you two tryals you shall know it thus First if thy conscience now sting thee for some approved sin if thou repent not Death will assuredly meet thee with a sting that approved sin of thine will be the â—…ting of death Conscience will sting a man either for the act done or for the approbation of the act if conscience sting a man for his approbation of a sinful quality or for a sinfull course if a man continue in that course surely that will be the sting of death to his soul therefore look to thy self perhaps thou art convicted of such a sin perhaps thy
conscience hath so wrought on thee that it hath stung thee for such a sin thou yet approvest thy self in it and thou wilt go on in thy pride still in such and such sins stil thou wilt do so do but know this that stand thou never so much upon thy resolution Death will certainly come and if he find thee in such a sin against thy conscience thou hast reserved in thy self a sting for Death Secondly a man shall know if Death come with a sting by this trial that Solomon giveth us in Ec. 11.9 Rejoyce oh young man in thy youth and let thy heart chear thee in the dayes of thy youth and walk in the wayes of thy heart and sight of thine eyes but know that for all these things God will bring thee to judgment If thou live a voluptuous life Death will certainly come with a sting Dives he lived a voluptuous life had he not a sting for it So others in Scripture did not their plentiful tables and voluptuous courses bring a sting on them A voluptuous life makes a sting for Death When a poor wretch is a dying and shall begin to reflect back on his life what have I done how have I lived so much time I have spent or mispent in apparel in vanity in eating in drinking in swaggering What comfort is this to his soul how can he answer this before God this is the very thing that will sting him at such a day when he can read nothing in his life but barrenness and unfruitfulness nothing that hath honoured God in all his life Certainly my brethren if there be an Epicurious voluptuous life this life will provide a sting for Death Alas you will say Is it so then we may fear that Death will seize on us thus for we confess we have gone on in a voluptuous life gone on in sin that our conscience hath condemned us for how shall we do to pull out this sting I would to God you were thus affected that you were convicted what a fearful thing it will will be if sin remain But wouldest thou have the sting of death pulled out before death come I. How shall I disarme it that I may look death in the face with comfort I. shall give you some wayes and means remember them and practise them First get but a part in Christ and the sting of death is gone thanks be to God saith the Apostle here that hath given us victory through our Lord Jesus Christ It is he that in the Revelation is said to have the keyes of Hell and of death they are under his command and subjection he is victorious over them he hath vanquished them so that if a man have Christ he hath victory and power over Hell and Death I told you in the beginning that that which giveth a sting to Death is the guilt of sin It is so and it is a fearful sting Now that which takes away the guilt of sin is Christ If Christ be mine I have enough to answer the guilt of sin Therefore the Apostle saith Death cannot separate from the love of God in Christ What shall then Indeed nothing it is not the guilt of his sins Christ hath satisfied from them So that if thou wilt have the sting of death out get faith in Christ if thou be not hidden in the clefts of that Rock in the blood of Christ if Christ be not thy Justification and thy righteousness what hast thou to answer the Justice of God you must die and stand before God and how can you stand before God in your sins you cannot without Christ why do you not then study more for Christ Why do you not labour for faith in him It will be your wisdom to labour earnestly to make sure of him if you have him the sting of death is gone Death cannot hurt a person that hath Chriâ—… Get faith in Christ therefore that is the first Secondly 〈…〉 would not have Death terrible and fearful to you labour for sincerity 〈◊〉 â—â—ethren it is a marvellous thing and yet the truth uprightness and sincerity 〈…〉 is an enabling grace All the particular things that we account particulaâ—â—â—â—â—â—wise they have not an inabling vertue in them Some persons have a great dâ—â—â— of learning and wit and many friends much riches and the like yet there cometh an occasion sometimes that puzzleth all these there cometh an occasion sometimes that a mans learning is of no use and natural parts and wit cannot help and riches cannot inable him What time is that The time of death the heart of a man is put to it at such a time and now these shrink nothing can inable a man agaiâ—â— fear so much as sincerity and uprightness When the Prophet Isaiah told 〈◊〉 from God that he must die he flieth to this Lord remember how I have 〈◊〉 fore thee with an upright heart and done that which was good in thy sight When Death cometh to a wicked voluptuous person and telleth him I am here come for thee thou must appear before God what can this man say Lord I have lived before thee a voluptuous proud wretched life I was a scorner of thy Word a contenâ—…er and persecutor of thy people a swearer c. What though perhaps he can say Lord I have heard so many Sermons I have been so much in conference and the like will this inable a man against the fear of Death No nothing but this that he hath a sincere heart that his heart is unmixed that sin is not affected in his soul that there is no sin that he would live in no duty that he wonld not do Lord remember I have walked before thee uprightly I say nothing will inable a man more against fear then sincerity and nothing disgraceth perplexeth the soul in an exigent more then 〈◊〉 It is sincerity that takes away the sting of Death The Apostle in Râ—…m 14. saith he No man liveth to himself but if he live he liveth to the Lord and if he die he dieth to the Lord whether we live or die we are the Lords Here is the comfort we are the Lords saith he How proveth he that We live unto him That is the work of a sincere heart A true Christian liveth not to himself but to Christ Now if thy conscience give thee this testimony I have lived unto Christ then whether I live or die I am the Lords the Apostle concludeth it So right is that of Solomon Riches availeth not in the day of wrath but righteousness delivereth from death Thy righteousness and sincerity delivereth thee not from dying but from death It takes away the sting and power of Death Death shall not be death to thee it is only a passage to thee Therefore remember as to get a part in Christ so to get a perfect and sincere heart and then the sting of death is gone But a hypocritical divided heart a heart and a heart that will
shall never again be known in the world or felt by his servants and he preventeth all those evill effects that it would work in the soul for eternity and removeth all the ill effects of it that it hath wrought on their bodies for the present time Death takes away a mans goods for the present Christ abolisheth that he giveth everlasting substance in heaven Death takes away friends Christ abolisheth that he sends us to heaven where we have more friends and better Death brings the body to rottenness and corruption it laieth it in the dust turns it to putrifaction Christ abolisheth that at the Resurrection it shall rise again in glory How that is done the Apostle tells us in the end of this chapter The body shall be laid in the dust a weak and feeble a mortal and natural body but it shall be clothed with immortality This mortal shall put on immortality this corruptible shall put on incorruption then shall be fulfilled that saying Death is swallowed up in victory But this is also limited it shall be destroyed to whom To those that use the remedy those that partake of Christ those that have put on him that is the Resurrection and the life Thus I have laid before your eyes briefly these four things that the Apostle leadeth us to treat of concerning death That it is That it is an enemy That it is the last enemy And that it shall be destroyed Now I desire to apply this and to make use of it First I shall be bold to play the Examiner to search each conscience a little Brethren let the word of God enter into your souls Ye hear that there is a death and that this death is a sore and bitter enemy and ye hear that to some sort of men it is the last enemy that ever they shall encounter with and be freed from all the hurt of it it shall be utterly destroyed Now do so much as discend every one into himself and inquire what care there hath been to prepare for death to make use of the remedy against death what time and paines hath been bestowed to seek to get that that is the only means to escape the Dart of this enemy and that that is the only cause to procure this enfranchisement to the soul from that that else will destroy all A man hath not fitted himself to encounter with his enemy when he looks after wealth and followeth the pleasures and contentments of this life these things will do no good they will be rather a burthen to the heart and vexe the soul and increase the mischief laying more sin upon the soul and giving death darts to pierce the soul with But when is a man fit for death and who may encounter with this enemy with safety I will tell ye That man that takes the greatest care to disarm death of his weapons to arm himself with defensive weapons against death If an enemy come upon a man with good weapons in his hand and find him altogether unweaponed it is hard for a naked unarmed man to deal with him it is hard for a man that never thought of it before to fight with one that is skilful at his weapons Death I told ye is an enemy and an enemy that is skilful in his weapons and the weapon of death it is our own sin Death bringeth nothing with it to hurt a man It findeth with us and in us that whereby to hurt us so many corruptions as are in thy heart so many weapons so many idle words so many bad deeds so many swords to pierce thy heart Death maketh use of those weapons it findeth in our selves and with them he destroyeth and killeth and brings us to perdition Now what have ye done beloved to disarme death what care have ye taken to break sin apieces that it may not be as a sword ready drawn for the hand of death when it cometh as Arrows in a Bow to shoot at you when Death layeth hold on you That man that hath took no care to overcome sin in the power of it and to get himself free from the guilt and punishment of it is unfit for death If death come upon him and find his offences unrepented of unpardoned unsubdued he will so order those offences that he will thrust them into his foul as so many poisoned Darts that will bring sorrow and anguish and vexation and destruction to all eternity Ye may see then whether ye have any fitness to meet with this Enemy whether ye be in case to fight that battel that of necessity ye must for Death as I told ye before is enevitable If ye have not Get alone between God and thy self and there call to mind the corruption of thy nature the sins of thy childhood of thy body of thy mind bring thy soul into his presence confess thy sins with an endeavour to break thy heart for them and to be sorry for them mightily crying to him in the mediation of that blessed Advocate Jesus Christ that died on the Cross to pardon and to wash thy soul in his bloud and to deliver thee from the pollution of thy sins Beg the Spirit of sanctification to bear down those sins and subdue thy corruptions Bestow time to perform these exercises daily carefully present thy self before God thus to renew thy repentance and faith in Christ to make thy peace with God Labour to purge away the filthiness of thy sin and then whensoever Death cometh thou shalt find in thy self sufficient against it thou hast disarmed it But if ye spend your time in pursuing profits and pleasures and follow the vanities of this life and either ye do not think of death or ye think of it no otherwise then a heathen man would have done to no purpose ye think of it to enjoy the world while ye live because ye know not how soon death will end the world and you if you play the Epicures in the thought of Death to annimate you to enjoy the outward benefits of this life to think of it to no purpose but only to talk and discourse now and then as occasion serveth then Death will find your souls laden with innumerable sins that repentance hath not discharged and undoubtedly it will bring eternal perdition Have ye thus disarmed Death But again a mans self must be armed or else he cannot incounter with his enemy What is our Armour against Death to keep off that blow The Apostle in one word sheweth us these Armours when he saith a Breast-plate of faith and love and the hope of salvation a Helmet If a man have got faith to rest on Christ alone for eternal happiness and his soul filled with the hope of glory and salvation through him and then with love to him and his servants for his sake These three vertues will secure a man against all the hurt that death can doe Faith Hope and Charity the Cardinal vertues that Christian religion requires
and commands us to seek these are Armour of proof against all the blows of death he that hath them shall never be hurt of Death because he shall never taste of the second death he hath only to wrestle with the first Death and there is no terrour nor terribleness it that if a mans heart be secure by these Graces Faith whereby we depend on Christ and on him alone for grace and salvation bringing hope whereby we expect and look for salvation of our souls by his blood according to his promise and working charity whereby we love him for his goodness and his servants for his sake If it be charity not only of the lip to speak well but that that produceth wel-doing I say this is that makes us that death cannot separate us from Christ but the further we are from life the neerer we are to him for when this outward tabernacle of our house is dissolved we have a building with God eternal in the heavens and death to such a man is nothing but the opening of the door to let him out of the dungeon of the world and to place him happily in the Pallace of eternal blisse I pray enter into consideration how ye have behaved your selves in the course of your lives whether as Heathens or as Christians A man that takes no care to prepare for death though he come to the Church from Sunday to Sunday and partake of all Gods ordinances yet if the consideration of death be not so imprinted in him that it become a motive to him to labour for Faith and hope and charity and to endeavour to edifie himself in these graces he liveth as a Heathen or an Infidel and when death cometh to him it will do him more hurt then it will an Infidel because by how much God hath given him more means to escape and by neglecting those means as his sin is greater so shall his punishment be Secondly if ye have been careless for to prepare for this enemy Now be ashamed of it and sorrow for it let your hearts now smite ye and ake within you Oh foolish man or woman say I have lived twenty thirty forty fifty years and some more I have laboured against other enemies if men had any thing against me I would be sure to take order I have laboured for the things of this life for riches and friends and give my self leave for to enjoy pleasures and taken pains to doe good to my body but all this while it never came into my heart seriously to think I must die and after that comes Judgement that I must stand before Gods Tribunal and give account of my wayes I have not laboured to beware of Death and of sin nor to kill my corruptions I have not laboured to increase in Faith and hope and charity I have left my self unarmed against the last and worst enemy Oh what folly is this to live in the world many a long day and never to consider that there will be an end of all these dayes and the end of those the beginning of another life and a life that will be infinitely more miserable then this If this beloved have been any of your faults to be carelesly forgetful of your latter end not to consider of your departure hence if the world have so tempted you and pleasures have so enamoured you that you have forgotten your latter end blame your selves it is the greatest of all follies And that I may disgrace this folly and make you ashamed of it Consider a little That this is to be like children The Apostle biddeth us not to be like children in understanding but he that forgetteth Death and is careless to prepare for it is a very child A little one never thinketh he shall ever be a man himself and maintain himself and live in the world by his own labour or by that he shall have from his friends he careth for nothing butmeat and drink and sport and pastime we blame their folly andlaugh at it as rediculous and therefore by our diligence we prevent that ill that might else come upon them Is it not thus with many of you ye live and build houses and raise your names to be glorious and to make a fair shew in the world but to get grace and to get faith and hope and love and repentance none of your thoughts almost run that way scarce any of your thoughts are so bestowed Is not this to be children in understanding Again he is a foolish man that knoweth he shall meet an enemy and will not prepare If a man should hear of twenty or thirty thousand souldiers were gathered against the City and besieged it to destroy it He would not be so foolish and so simple then as to bestow himself in his trade and to follow his business and to give himself to merrimeut but he would get his weapons and he would look about him help to arm the City and to make it strong Why do ye not consider that your soul is as a City Death will come against it and batter you with sickness with pains and at last will certainly take it and if the soul be not prepared will carry it to Hell fire Why will you be so retchless and sensless to eat and drink and labour to grow rich to bury your selves in eatrthly labours and never think how to escape how Death may be kept out that will destroy soul and body I presume you are ashamed of this folly by this time I hope ye will go away with remorse and sorrow for so carelesly neglecting a thing of so great importance to be provided for In the third place therefore I entreat you begin this great work this day Consider if you have not begun the enemy lieth in wait for thee oh man or woman if thou be never so young thou maist meet with him before night if thou be old thou must meet with him ere long Prepare for him betime think what an enemy may encounter thee in the way If a man be to travel though he be not assured to meet with an enemy yet he will strive to get good company and weapon himself he will carry his sword something he will do that if a theef come to rob him he may be able to prevent the danger Beloved think that there is an enemy that way-laies us as we go along in the world one time or other he will be sure to come upon us therefore stir up your selves begin this day to prepare for this enemy How shall I prepare for Death I told you before it is not amiss in a word to repeat it Get Faith in Christ and Hope and Charity and repentance These will be means to prepare and help thee against Death Therefore if hitherto thou have not lament and bewail the sinfulness of thy nature and life Assoon as thou art out of this place get thee into a solitary room fall upon thy knees lament thy
the gap that he may unwind his hands of this burthen of the prayers of his servants he removeth them by death he saith to them as he did to Moses let me alone that I may destroy them And then as it is with the Husbandman when the corn is gotten into his Barn he burneth up the stuble till the Wheat be gathered the Tares are not turned up God will not pour his plagues untill he have removed the impediments those that are merciful men when they are taken away he poureth down his judgements Therefore he takes them away that they may not see it nor suffer it that is the second Thirdly he takes them from the Evil of sinning that is a greater blessing and in two senses from that He takes them from it that they shall not see sin for that is a great Corrosive to a godly man It was one point of Davids grievance that he saw wicked men suffer I humbled my soul with fasting and I behaved my self as one that mourned for his Mother David humbled himself even for his enemies when they were afflictied that was one part of his sorrow But the chief part of his sorrow was to see them commit sin Mine eyes gush out with rivers of tears because men keep not thy law That was a great affliction Therefore that they may be eased of that evil God takes away merciful men that they shall not see sins committed they are offensive to chaste eyes He takes them to heaven that their ears may not be filled with hellish blasphemies and damnable oathes that overburthen the ground that ring their peals in every street as a man passeth by there is no hearing such things in heaven That is one thing he takes them away that their eyes may not be glutted with beholding extortions oppressions murthers contentions revilings and other sins in the world It is a great ease to a godly man to be took out of evil times when God leaveth him in times and places that are evil he shines as a light when God takes him away he hath the reward of his sorrow it cost him grief to see it therefore to reward him God takes him away that he may not see sin committed Fourthly God takes them away that they may mot sin themselves for heaven is a place as of no sorrow so of no sin though we be unsatiable of sin now then there is an end put to it It pleaseth God so to deal in his providence to order it that sin brought in Death and Death carrieth out sin that as a skilful Chimmick distilleth an Antidote out of poyson so doth God Death that was the reward of sin God setcheth the translation out of it to eternal happiness the Mother sin brought forth Death and Death the daughter carrieth out sin That is it that is the great comfort of a man in death as now I shall cease suffering so here is my comfort too I shll cease sinning though my purposes and endeavours be bent upon piety yet I am overtaken I could not tread so strait but I did often tread awry now there shall be a new plain path provided for my feet there is no sin in heaven That is a great point of wisdome that God destroyeth sin with the body and raiseth the body again without sin if the body should live alwayes how should sin end sin will not be rooted out as long as we are in the body while we carry about us this vaile of flesh we shall carry about us also another vaile of sin therefore faith Epiphanius God dealeth with us as a skilful houshoulder with his house Look as it is in building an old house if there grow a Fig-tree or Ivy out of the house that it spred the root through the chincks and partitions of the wall a man that cuts down the Fig-tree shall not profit for it is so fast rooted in the wall and in the chincks that either he must pull down the wall or else it will not die Therefore a wise man will pull down his house and root out the Fig-tree and then set up stones and there erect the house beautiful and so both are preserved he hath his end in both both the house is rebuilt and the Ivy consumed and rooted out So it is in case of sin there is the house we carry about us the building the temple of our body the house is man himself sin is the fig-tree it is such a fig-tree as insinuateth it self between every chink and partition in our nature there is somewhat corrupt in every faculty of the soul and it sheweth the fruit in every part of the body that is an instrument of sin it hath so wound it self in that the fig-tree cannot be destroyed cannot be pulled out except the house be dissolved there must be a pulling down of the Temple therefore God in wisdome by Death he takes the Temple the house in peeces and then the fig-tree may be pulled out and then he erects the wall of that house more glorious then before it was thrown down while the fig tree was in it while sin was in it it is raised up without it that is that the Apostle faith Corruption shall put on incorruption and mortality shall put on immortality the body that is sown a naturall body it shall be raised a spiritual it is sown in dishonour it shall be raised in glory God therefore takes them away from the evil of sin he dissolved the body that he may purifie it and cloath it with immortality that it may be a purer body then when it was first presented in nature at the first Creation We see hereby what those good things are that Death bringeth It bringeth immunity from the evil of suffering God takes away merciful men that they see not that they suffer not And it bringeth immunity from sin that they do not see it that they do not commit it The use is a Pillar of considence not to be afraid of Death who would fear that which makes for his perfection that is the means of his translation of happiness And in respect of others not to mourn for them that are took away out of this world as those that are without hope they are not took away but translated they are removed for their advantage for the better Elijah was removed from earth to heaven in a firie chariot shall Elisha weep because he enjoyeth him not No he is took from earth to heaven Joseph was sold into AEgypt but it was to be a Ruler God intended that it is the same reason God translates us out of the world to give us the end of our hope even the salvation of our souls Shall we mourn as men without hope God takes them out of a valley of tears shall we mourn unsatiably for those that are took out of the valley of tears Let us not bring their memory to the valley of tears they are past it God takes them from
evil to good to the best good the good of immortaity and eternity the good of the enjoying of God of that that eye hath not seen nor ear hath heard It is true that when we see any impenitent man die any man die in his sins there is just cause of mourning That was the course that David observed he lost two sons Absolom a wicked sonne he mourned for him he lost the child that was begotten in adultery for the life of which he prayed he mourned not for the childs departure and Saint Ambrose giveth the reason well he had a good hope and assurance that the child was translated to a better estate he doubted of Absolom he died in his sins therefore he mourned for him for his death not for the childs So when we see any die in his fins there is cause then of tears and of excessive tears then David crieth Absolom oh my son my son But if there be good evidences of a Saint translated to glory shall we mourn as men without hope As Saint Jerome speaks to Paula mourning for her daughter Art thou angry Paula because I have made thy child mine He bringeth in God speaking thus dost thou envy me my own possession my own Creature It is true for the state of an impenitent man he hath his good things here and his evill to come after there is cause of mourning for that he is translated from good to ill his heaven is in this world his heaven is in his treasure in his riches in his chests and upon his table and as he enjoyed a heaven here so he must not look for it after there is a place of another condition his heaven is here his hell after But the penitent and contrite his ill is here and his good after his hell is in this world in suffering and in mortifying the flesh in wrastling with sin in incountring with tentations here is his hell and his torments but after cometh his heaven and his bliss so he is translated from bad to good he is took away from the evil to come So here is the meaning of all I have shewed first the meaning of the three phrases The second thing I propound is this What the Prophet bemoaneth and makes lamentation for and these merciful men for if they be took away from evil present and evil to come evil corporal and spiritual sufferings extraordinary plague and famine sufferings ordinary sickness and tentation â—… if it be so that no sin shall fall upon them to destruction no tentation fall on them to destroy them here much less afterward if they be took from all these evils how cometh the Prophet to make lamentation that merciful men are taken away from the evil to come for he speaks it mourningly It is one sufficient reason he mourneth over them because others did not But there are two reasons that are more special There is the loss of the godly man for the present when he is taken away that is a thing to be lamented And the danger of the world in respect of the loss of a godly man First the loss of a godly man that is a great punishment that God sendeth on a place there is a great loss to those that survive The loss of their example they shine as lights there is a Taper a Candle taken away Ye rejoyced to walk in his light faith Christ to the Iewes concerning John there was a light not only of Johns Doctrine but of his example whereby those that heard him walked There is the light of grace set up in the life of the Saints of God they are as a Taper to guide us in the paths of mercy and piety that they tread in Job was set up a light of patience Abraham of faith Cornetius of Charity and so every grace that the Saints are eminent in they are set up as so many lights When the light is gone is there not a great loss to have a candle put out Though they enjoy their light we lose it the benefit of their example and society their advice and counsel Oh the experience of the Saints bring a great deal of good to their acquaintance I am in this affliction I remember that you were in the same case how did you carry your self It is a great matter to build upon the experiences of the Saints of God We lose many benefits by losing of a Saint He is not only beneficial in his example but in his prayers He is one of the Advocates of the world that pleads with God that stands in the gap Abraham was a strong Advocate for Sodome and so was Moses for Israel and so was Aaron and so other Saints in their time The Saints while they live in the world there is a great deal of power in their prayers to with-hold judgements and is there then no loss when they are taken away When a Saint is removed a Pillar is removed a Pillar of the house and of the Earth and must there not be danger when the Pillar is gone They are the Corner stones when a corner stone falleth there is a great deal of trash and rubbish falleth with it There is a great deale of discomfort upon the fall of a Saint When God removeth godly and merciful men there is a loss every way to the Church to the State The Church loseth a member the State a Pillar godly men lose an example wicked men lose an advocate poor men lose a Patron all men lose a comfort That is the fitst thing the Prophet bemoaneth in the loss of righteous men First it went to his heart that the world should be left empty of piety and all those vertuous examples that God should cut off those precious plants those that are looking-glasses for us to see our selves in and that pitch of perfection we should breath after and aime at That is the first thing But that is not all for their was impendant danger when they were gone It is a prognosticating of some evil to befal a place when God takes them away If Noah enter into the Ark the world may expect a deluge If Lot be out of Sodome let it look for a showr of fire and brimstone God himself expresseth himself by the Angel that he could do nothing as long as Los was in Sodome he had a commission not to rain fire and brimstone while Lot was there while Lots person and prayers were there assoon as Lot was gone there cometh a cloud of Judgment and in that a showre So the Saints when they are translated into the Ark when they are took from the earth as Noah was Noah was to ascend from the earth to the Ark when Lot is gone to the City God provided for him the City of refuge then we may expect one Judgment or other for they are means to hinder and keep them from being poured out That is the second thing in the loss of righteous men They are took
Nation or Kingdom it is an infallible sign of judgement falling upon it And is must be so and there is great reason for it If we either consider the causes of security whence it cometh or the concommitants that accompany it or the fruits and events of it it must be that great judgements must befall men and places when they are under this carnal security First look to the causes Whence is it that men that are not at peace with God yet flatter themselves that they shall do well It proceedeth from that unbelief and infidelity that is in the hearts of men therefore they flatter themselves and pride themselves in things that will not hold them up in the end I say infidelity is the cause that men are so secure Did men beleeve the word of God that every threatning that goeth out of the mouth of God against any particular sin should certainly fall upon the head of the sinner durst they go on in a course of sinning against God Durst they add drunkenness to thirst one wickedness to another No certainly In that measure a man hath faith in that measure he feareth God and his judgements that he hath threatned See it in Noah Heb. 11. By faith Noah being warned of God moved with fear prepared an Ark. He beleeved the word of God was faithful that had threatned a judgement upon the world he beleeved the word of God that commanded him to provide an Ark for the safety of him and his house and therefore he feared the Deluge to come and prepared an Ark. So likewise Josiah when he read the book of the Law and saw what was threatned against the sins of the people his heart melted within him and why because he beleeved that this was the word of God he beleeved that God would be as true as his Word therefore his heart melted within him at the sight of those sins wherein the people had continued so long a time Nay it is made a discription of a beleever in Isa 61. That he is one that trembleth at Gods word On the other side what is the reason why infidelity doth presently bring judgements upon men The cause is apparant infidelity it draweth men from God An unbeleeving heart departs from the living God And when a man departs from Gods presence God pursueth him with his judgments All the judgements of God are upon that place where Gods presence in his graces is not If I go faith David to the uttermost parts of the earth thou art there if I go into the deep thou art there And how there Not only as an observer but as a punisher that is when men come to this point to flie from God Now unbeleef is a drawing of the soul from God to the creature therefore it provokes God for it sets up an Idol in the heart of man and Idolatry exceedingly provokes God and therefore he bringeth judgements upon it Beside that marke the threatning of the word against this Deut. 29. When a man heareth the words of this curse and blesseth himself and saith I shall have peace though I walk in the stubbornness of my own heart the Lord will not spare that man but the anger of the Lord and his jealousie shall smoak against him and all the plagues that are written in this book shall be heaped on him When is that when is the time that the wrath of God shall smoak At that very time and instant when he flattereth himself with his vain conceits that he shall have peace though God threaten judgement then at that very instant the wrath of God shall fall upon such a man In this manner did God deal with the Israelites in Isa 6.9 10. Make the heart of this people fat make their ears heavy and why so that they may see and not perceive that they may hear and not understand lest they should be converted and I should heal them How long shall this be saith the Prophet till the Cities be wasted without inhabitant and the houses without man and the land be utterly desolate When God giveth over a people to be regardless in hearing the Word that they hear and do not hear ken they hear and do not regard they do not comforme and reform according to the doctrine delivered then God intendeth to sweep them away by judgement that they may be utterly left desolate as the Text saith You see then it must needs be a grievous fore-runner of a judgement upon a place or City or people or nation when they remain impenitent in their sins and yet cry peace Again secondly If you marke the concommitants what accompanies that carnal security in the heart of men and it will appear then that it must of necessity bring a judgement upon a Land and place What is that that accompanies it A disposition slighting of God himself When a man I say heareth the Word the judgements threatned heareth the Law warning him to take heed of wrath the Gospel alluring him to repent and yet all moveth him not but still he flattereth himself I say here is a disposition slighting God himself God in all his Attributes is slighted His power his wisdom his justice his truth is slighted yea his mercy and patience and long-suffering all are slighted when a man in the course of sin goeth on in carnal security Especially amongst the rest this is a slighting of Gods patience and long-suffering and forbearance of men Wherefore do men harden themselves against exhortation to repentance but because they presume upon the continuance of Gods long-suffering toward them Mark how the Lord takes notice of this The forbearance and long-suffering the goodness and mercy of God should lead thee to repentance and therefore God hath forbore thee all this while that he might bring thee to repentance But what if he do not Thou after thy hardness and impenitent heart heapest up as a treasure to thy self wrath against the day if wrath What day is that The day of the revelation of the righteous judgement of God As if he should say Now you obscure Gods justice and righteousness from others and from your selves Well God therefore will take a time to declare his righteous judgement for that purpose God hath a day of wrath and thy daily going on in sin against the long-suffering and patience of God it doth but add wrath to that day Thus it is when God hath borne with a man his own self So it is likewise when God warneth a man by his patience toward others What hardneth men in security Do we not see God hath been merciful to many sinners why may he not be so to me too He gave them repentance after many sins committed why may he not do so to me Mark what Solomon faith Eccles 8.11 Because sentence against an evil doer or an evil work is not executed speedily therefore the heart of the sons of men is set in
as it is in the Revelation that the time is now come too neer He that is filthy let him be filthy still that is let him go on to the end It is evident and apparent that sin is increased since the sickness it is apparent that our sins are aggravated though they are dayly cryed down And now at this time as if we would defie God to his face and call upon him to hasten his judgments upon our Land upon our Families and persons every one strives as it were who shall outdare him most in our excesses in impenitency in hardning our selves in a course of sin These things convince us of our security There are many more that might be named if the time would permit But put these together and they may shew us our wretchedness When we consider how little we have profited by judgments how little we have profited by the ordinances how full of vain confidence and idle dreames how notwithstanding all these we abound still in wickedness and there is no reformation of our hearts and lives what may we not conclude against ourselves If ever people were drowned in a drunken security we of all people under heaven are at this time For of all people under heaven we are in a manner the last God hath spared us to the last We have had warning by judgments inflicted upon others for many years together It hath come neerer to us hy degrees it began a far off in Bohemia and then in the Phalatinate and in Germany The Lord would have us see how he cometh to us by degrees by steps that at the last we may meet him by repentance But where is the man that yet gets out of the bed of security that cometh out of his sleep to meet the Lord that comes with a broken heart to beg for forgiveness of his sins past and to beg for mercy for the time to come Well now since it is so that we are convinced by these signs that we are in a carnal and sinful security we see then so many of us at least that are children of the light and of the day what cause we have to be awakened and to do that for others which they will not do for themselves to be more earnest in prayer more frequent in humbling our souls for our own sins and theirs that God may lay aside and cast away his judgments and displeasure that either are feared or lie upon us Is it not a fearful thing that when the Lyon roareth the beasts of the Forrests tremble Yet the God of heaven roareth against the world at this day and the proud hearts of men do not tremble before him Shall the beasts of the forrests be afraid of the Lyon more then the poor worms of the earth of the mighty God of heaven and earth But this is the horrible Atheisme and Infidelity that is in the hearts of men that they beleeve not Gods power and justice nor his threatnings I beseech you let every man be exhorted to stirre up his soule to this business to awaken himselfe in his own particular person Consider that there are others that are awake that may bring you sorrow enough be you awakened to prevent those miseries Sathan is awake to tempt you Be sober and watchful saith Saint Peter for your adversary the devil goeth about seeking whom he may devoure Sathan is busie and watching to make you his prey watch you therefore that you enter not into tentation Your own Corruptions are alwayes awake The concupisence and depraved disposition of the soul it is awake still to further every evill motion to draw you aside by its tentations Therefore saith the Apostle I beseech you abstain as pilgrims and strangers from fleshly lusts that war against the soule Do as men in warre when they know that they have a waking enemy against them they will be sure to keep their Watch. Beloved you cannot but know that your corruptions are awake you may perceive it in your sleepes and dreames take heed that you be not found in a spiritual sleep that corruption prevail not over you Besides these the enemies of the Church are awake Heretiques are awake every where to bring men from the faith to pervert the faith of many oh be awake to prevent those Besides others are awaken to ransack houses to destroy Cities oh be awake that you may be at peace with the Lord of Hosts the God of Armies that hath all power in his hand to keepe you safe Againe secondly consider the evil of this security you are in of this disposition of heart when you cry peace peace to your selves in the middest of Gods displeasure It is an evil disease a spiritual lethargy That disease we know in the body it takes a man with sleep and so he dieth Oh how many are in this spiritual lethargy in this deep sleep of sin at this day the Lord awaken them It is the more dangerous because it is a sensless disease a disease that takes the senses from the soul and diseases we know that take away the senses are dangerous for it is not only a sign that nature is overcome by the disease but besides it draweth men from seeking for cure Thus it is with the spiritual lethargy it shews not only that sin hath prevailed in the heart that it hath overcome grace and thereupon you have yeelded unto it to your pride and covetousness and vanity as those that are subdued under a disease but it hindreth you from seeking the means to escape out of it Thou saist saith Christ to the Church of Laodicea that thou art rich and needest nothing and that was the reason she sought not to Christ It is our condition we have knowledg enough therefore we care not for the Ordinances of God We have faith enough and therefore we care not for increasing it though none of us say thus with our tongues yet most of us beleeve thus with our hearts As David saith of the ungodly man the wickedness of the wicked saith in my heart So may I say the neglecting of the ordinances the carelesness of men in the use of the means of salvation saith in my heart that there is abundance of security that they are in a spiritual lethargy that leadeth to death As it is an evil disease so it causeth much evil It is that which driveth away the Spirit of God It is the counsel of the Apostle Grieve not the Spirit quench not the Spirit When we neglect the motions of the Spirit the Spirit withdraweth it self Doth not your own experience tell you this Consider a little what motions you have had how God by the checks of your consciences somtime by secret incitements as it were a spur upon your hearts hath moved you to duty and to leave your sins How have these moved you you have had purposes it may be to perform these duties to walk in the wayes
of God to please him in all things the neglect of those purposes hath driven away the Spirit it may be God now leaveth you to finall hardness Again it lettethin Sathan When the unclean spirit is driven out he goeth about seeking rest and finding none at last be returneth from whence he went and findeth the house swept and garnished and he entreth in and bringeth seven spirits more worse then himself Alas how many men are there that for a sit in some particulars have altered their course and have thought to become new men yet rushing upon former occasions and temptations to sin they have grown secure and careless and now Sathan hath gotten stronger hold of them with seven spirits worse Nay this is that that drives away Christ and the comfortable influence of his Spirit in the heart The Church in Cant. 5. was asleep was in a spiritual slumber and Christ goeth away She seeks him whome her soul loved but she could not find him I speake now to those that were awake and are now asleep their hearts it may be are awake but they walk not with that watchfulness and humility of spirit before the Lord as they ought therefore now they are heavy and destitute of the comforts of the Spirit Well they may thank themselves Christ hath hid himself to teach them to be more watchful And to conclude This is the cause of positive Judgments You know what came upon the old world and upon Sodome and Gomorrah for their security And likewise of future Judgements it is that which casteth men from heaven to hell That servant that saith in his heart my Master deferreth his coming and therefore he eats and drinks with the drunken what is the issue of it He shall have his portion given him with hypocrites where there is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth Mat. 24. Here is enough I suppose to awaken you Whensoever the heart of man is held down with secure thoughts of Gods displeasure and thinks it is at peace with God it is an evident sign that wrath is a coming Nay beloved in that measure you are in carnal security in that measure you are under wrath let that therefore be enough to awaken you and say thus with your selves It were better for me a great deal to be among the number of those that complain and are mourning Christians then to be in the number of those that are full of jollity and joviality that rejoyce and sport themselves that put far from them the evil day I might then escape the wrath of God as they do Who are they that escape wrath See in Ezekiel 9. Those that were awake when others slept those that mourned when others laughed those that humbled themselves before God when others hardned themselves those were the men that were marked in the forehead by the Angel and they escaped And in the third of Malachie Those that feared the Lord and thought upon his name in those evil times that spake oft one to another there was a book of remembrance of them and they are Gods jewels he will be sure to keep them safe But how shall we come to be awakened I should have told you some helps for this I will but touch upon a few in a word First I will propound sobriety as a main help Would you be watchful and kept from spiritual slumber take heed that you keep your selves sober I speak not of sobriety as it is opposed to drunkenness though that be one thing Be not filled with wine wherein is excess but be filled with the holy Ghost Ephes 5 As if he should say you cannot be filled with the holy Ghost and with excess of Wine persons that take liberty in excessive drinking certainly they are destitute of the holy Ghost and so of life and salvation But I mean a further sobriety that is as it is opposed to worldly-mindedness Take heed that you plunge not your selves too much in the world and worldly pleasures and cares for these are against the rule of sobriety Be sober in your diet in your apparel in your gaining in your spending in your mirth in your company in every thing that is moderate your selves and your affections in these things A man may soon grow to such a drunkenness by excesse in worldly affections that he may be in a dead sleep neglecting Gods judgements and his own estate as we see men that plunge themselves in worldly business are It takes away the thoughts of those things that concern our spiritual good I say not that you should leave off the business of the world for every man must continue in the calling that God hath set him But I say moderate your affections to the things of the world Do worldly business with heavenly minds in obedience to God Do them with waking hearts to repent for the sins of your callings to avoide the sins of your callings And that that I say of labouring in your callings I say of pleasures and of every thing else we should be watchful and sober as S. Peter saith Be sober and watch Secondly if you would be free from security which is a forerunner of judgement be sure to keep your selves in exercise A man that would keep himself awake will busie himself in some exercise and imployment or other What exercise should a Christian use The exercise of grace and of the duties of obedience Be sure to keep your selves in the exercise of all the advantages that God giveth you in your lives to imploy your graces in In difficulties and straits exercise your faith In provocations to anger and discontent exercise meekness In crosses and troubles and afflictions exercise patience In the miseries and wants of others whether spiritual or corporal exercise mercy And what I say concerning grace I say concerning duty Keep your selves in the exercise of prayer and reading and meditation and conference some one thing or other some holy employment or other that may keep the soul waking For I tell you you shall find that whensoever you let fall spiritual exercise you will at that very instant fall into carnal security in some kind or other Thirdly would you keep your selves from this dead sleep of carnal security then keep your spirits in fear Sorrow and grief makes a man heavy but sear keeps a man waking when Jacob feared Esau he kept a watch that night Sampson feared the Philistims and it wakened him out of his sleep Fear makes a man watchful You may perceive it in your own experience In that measure that the fear of God prevaileth security is expelled Keep fear therefore Blessed is the man that feareth alwayes but he that hardneth his heart falleth into evil Mark how he opposeth the hardning of a mans self in carnal security to the fear of God Keep your heart in a constant feare Reason thus Alas shall I do this thing and sin against God
if we hearken to this we shall never fear that Surgite venite then Arise you dead and come to judgement That is the first The Summons Secondly the Appearance after the Summons all shall make their appearance We must all appear before the Judgment seat of Christ 2 Cor. 5.10 This Appearance it is general and personal the general all must come the particular and personal every one shall come in his own person We shall appear for our selves every man for himself shall give an account to God Rom. 14.12 In other Courts if men appear for themselves by another it is enough but here Per se by himself That is the reason that this day it is called in Scripture the day of manifestation First because Christ himself shall be revealed and manifested in that day We look for the day of the Revelation of Jesus Christ 1 Cor. 1.7 Secondly because the Attributes of God shall be revealed then his patience and long animity his righteousness and justice a day of Revelation of the just judgment of God Rom. 2. Finally because we our selves shall be revealed and manifested all our wayes and works the godly and the works that they have done though never so secret the wicked and their works the secret sins that they have committed That is the second thing in the manner of the Judgment First that all shall be summoned secondly upon the Summons all shall be made to appear Thirdly the Separation that shall be made at that time for when all are congregated by and by all shall be severed and separated a separation and division shall be made amongst them some shall be set at the right hand of the Judg some at the left hand As a shepheard searcheth his flock in the day when he is amongst his sheep that are scatered so I will search out my sheep at that day and I will divide between cattel and cattel between the sheep and the goats The Sheep and the Goats here they flock feed and fold together they will do so they must do so The Tares here must be let alone and grow with the corn till the day of harvest but yet afterward there shall be a division and a separation the wicked and the godly live together here but at the last the wicked shall be separated from the godly like the chaff from the wheat as when two travel one way they pass together and lodg together but the next morning they part and take several wayes so the wicked and the godly after they have been here a time eating and dirinking conversing and living and perhaps dying and rotting in the graves together notwithstanding when this day that I here speak of shall come then there shall be a separation and division made then the sheep shall be set on the right hand then you shall know which is Jacobs flock and which is Labans which belong to Christ and which belong to Sathan then the chaff shall be winnowed from the wheat and we shall see which is for the Barn and which is for the fire Go on you wicked still seem the same you are not delude the eyes of the world that you have the same heart that you appear you have Masks and Vizards now the time will come your paint shall be washed off your fig-leaves shall be stripped and your nakedness shall be seen and all manifest at that day of God there shall be a separation of the good from the bad as the shepheard separateth his sheep from the Goats Fourthly with this separation there shall be a tryal the Scripture speaks of after the conventing and separation there shall be a tryal I saw faith Saint John Revel 20.12 the dead small and great stand before God and the books were opened and another book was opened which is the book of life and the dead were Judged out of those things which were written in those books according to their works Mark there are several books and so as there are several books there are several judgments some are tryed by one book some by another First there are some books by which the works of men are tryed the book of Nature the book of Scripture the book of Conscience They that never heard of Christ shall be judged by the book of Nature there is enough in the book of Nature to leave all unexcusable They that live in the Church shall be tryed and judged by the book of the Scripture Of the Law They that have sinned under the the Law shall be judged by the Law Of the Gospel God shall judg the secrets of all hearts according to my Gospel Both of them shall be judged according to the book of Conscience for God will lay that book so clear and open that they shall see what they have done against that Book Lord what a many of sins have we committed here that we never remember and think of when they are done Our memory and conscience row is a Book clasped up we see not a thousand things that are registred there but when God shall lay open that Book and inlarge our memories and inl ghten our consciences then men shall clearly see what they had forgot before they shall promptly dictate the whole course of our lives and aquaint us with every action that hath past us and every circumstance to accuse and excuse This is the kind of the tryal by which the works of men shall be tryed Lastly with the Summons there shall be an appearance and with that a separation and a tryal after all these are done then cometh the sentence then the Sentence shall be pronounced upon the one and upon the other the one Sentence full of sweetness and comfort every word droppeth as a honey combe Come you blessed of my Father inherit the kingdome prepared for you from the beginning of the world The same voyce that Christ spake to them here Come to me the same shall be there Come ye blessed and as they were careful to come to Christ here so they shall make a happy coming to Christ there The other is a sentence of Hell and wrath and horrour Depart ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the divel and his Angels as they desired here to depart from God and said to him depart from us so they shall hear that word of horrour and woe pronounced at that day they shall be sent away into fire to have their portion with the Divel and his Angels Thus brefly I have shewed concerning the person Judging First for the Judg himself God And then for the Judgment first that it must be and then the manner how I should go on to the next general point that is to consider the things and persons Judged every work of every man whether it be good or whether it be evil And so I should have given the Application and Use of all together But so much for this time A TRYAL OF SINCERITY
very nimbly too yet you do not say presently that that is a living creature No it moveth only by an external cause by an artificial contrivance it is so framed that when the wind setteth in such and such a corner it will move and so having but an external Moter and cause to move and no inward principle no soul within it to move it it is an argument that it is no living creature So it is here if a man see another move and move very fast in those things which of themselves are the wayes of God see him move as fast to hear a Sermon as his neighbour doth is as forward and hasty to thrust himself and bid himself a guest to the Lords Table when God hath not bid him as any the Question is what principle sets him awork if it be an inward principle of life out of a sincere affection and love to God and his ordinances that carrieth him to this it argueth that man hath some life of grace But if it be some wind that bloweth him on the wind of State the wind of Law the wind of danger of penalty the wind of fashion or custome to do as his neighbours do if these or such like be the things that draw him thither this is no argument of life at all it is a cheap thing it is counterfeit and poor ware Thirdly that which I have often said to be the principal and the most considerable thing that I know in all practical Divinity and which is the most Charactaristical of the truth of Grace and of the life of Piety in any one our spirits and souls and affections towards God must be advanced to this hieght to be carried toward God above all other things I beseech you seriously think of it I have often spoken of it but it may be there may be some room left for the mention of it now and some necessity of pondering it well It will be the Charactaristical thing by which a man may most certainly discern himself And I would desire to know wherein my defect of understanding is if I be mistaken but it seems to me as a clear thing that every one here that hath not a mind to affront the mind of God he dares not contest this argument that it is a rational thing that if God be the best of Beings he should have the best portion in our love All reason commands us to love that best which is best and to dispense our love according to the degree of the excellency of the thing There is no man but apprehendeth this clearly A man may say that he loves his Wife and he will prove it and this shall be his argument I love her aswell as I do another woman Is this the proof of conjugall love was this the covenant made between them hath he fulfilled it in this case to her or 〈◊〉 to him There is no man but seeth that there is more required there is a peculiarity and propriety of love required in this case It must certainly be so here for we contract and espouse our souls to Christ and upon those very terms for better and for worse to forsake all the world and to cleave to him alone and if our spirits be not raised and advanced to that degree of affection that Christ and God be so lovely and beautiful in our eyes and so good for I name one sometime and sometime another it is all one upon the point if I say they be not advanced thus high the conjugal knot was never tyed between Christ and the soul it is impossible therefore that such a one should have to plead the benefits that flow from a Conjugal union neither can he have title or right to any thing that issueth from a marriage with Christ whose soul did but equivocate and would never speak out the words and who never answered the interrogations of a good conscience as Saint Peter speaks in another case that when the soul in the contract should say that she takes him for to love and honour and obey him and to make him her Lord and Saviour if the soul do not yeeld to this which it cannot do if it do not esteem him the best of all others and that all others are to be thrown away and to be forsaken in comparison of him This is the third circumstance I have noted hence which I suppose is intimated in these words Though I have not said it is exprest here yet it is so carryed with such a fulness the desire of our soul is to thee and to the remembrance of thy name as if it were to God only or at least to him principally But I must hasten In the fourth place It must be universal love and so a universal obedience which is the fruit of it which must justifie the truth of our affections towards God and set the heart in a right frame and temper Except a man love God and love all the wayes of God and all the ordinances of God and yeeld himself in subjection and resign himself in obedience to them all if he do but reserve and make choyce of any one sin to lye and wallow and tumble in he doth evacuate all the other good he throweth down all the other good with that one evil Will you come and plead with God that there is but one sin that you have defiled and polluted your soul with and wallowed and tumbled in all your life and I hope God will never refuse me or bar me out of his presence and fellowship and communion with him for that Yes you are as filthy all over as filthy and defiled and abominable and odious to his eye and to every other sense aswel with one as if you had been in ten thousand slowghes one after another And as the Philosopher speaks a Cup or some such thing that hath a hole in it is no Cup it will hold nothing and therefore cannot performe the use of a cup though it have but one hole in it so if the heart have but one hole in it if it retain the divel but in one thing as we use to say in law one man in possession keeps possession and a man can never have true possession till he have voyded all so except all be rooted out and extirpated and a man cometh to yeeld a full and absolute subjection to Christ universally Christ hath no part or portion in us nor we in him Lastly there were divers other particulars that I thought to have added in this but I see I must pass them over It is not every affection that may seem to have some height and universality though I do acknowledg that they will in some measure characterise out the truth but yet there must be this addition as it was with the seed that was cast into the good ground it had depth of earth so this must have depth in the heart it must be well rooted and fastned for
avenge our blood on those that dwell upon the earth All the Saints departed their souls cry to God to finish these dayes of sin and hasten the coming of Christ And besides this this further benesit we have that we are all members of the same body there is a gathering under one Head as the Apostle calleth it under Christ they are the superiour members we the inferiour all joyned under one common Head Lastly the Saints on earth have interest one in another by vertue of this communion they have interest in the prayers in the gifts in the wealth one of another sofar as necessity and love requireth Fifthly and lastly as in earthly Cities and Corporations there is trading and traff quing buying and selling c. So here this heavenly conversation consisteth in a kind of heavenly traffique as the word importeth We either are all or should be all heavenly merchants even here upon earth The kingdome of heaven is compared to a treasure hid in a field which when a man findeth he hideth it and for joy departeth and selleth all that he hath and buyeth that field It is compared to a Pearl which when a man descrieth the excellency of it he giveth all that he hath to possess that Pearl There is a heavenly thing that is worth all that we can give and it must be bought too It is our Saviours counsel come buy of me yea come buy wine and milk without money without price It must be bought but bought without money there is nothing that is subject to corruption that can buy heavenly things Buy of me eye-salve that you may see and gold that you may be made rich and garments that your nakedness may not appear This must be bought but what must we give for it Christ tels us he saith that he himself is the Pearl the treasure and that which we must give for him is no more but this Let a man deny himself and take up his cross and then follow him He must deny his worldly pleasures his carnal affections the love of his lusts he must renounce his sins If thy right hand offend thee cut it off and cast it from thee if thy right eye offend thee pluck it out and cast it from thee What is that that a man should dismember himself No such matter What then To do that which a man accounteth as harsh a peece of work as to pluck out his eye or cut off his hand that is to mortifie his carnal affections to part with his sweetest lusts which a man holdeth as dear and sets as high a rate upon as on his right hand or his right eye there should he no sin so precious no gain so sweet no pleasure so delightful but a man should be willing to let it for Christ there should be no worldly thing whasoever that a man should so set his heart upon but if persecution for the Gospel should come he should be contented to leave it for Christ and in the mean space to let his affections hang loose to it that whensoever Christ shall call him to part with his estate with his contentments with himself he may let all fall for his sake and the Gospels This is the heavenly traffique of a Christian I might here lay down some tryals by which men may be able to judg of themselves in this particular whether their conversation be in heaven I will instance but in some generals because I hasten to that I principally intend See how thy affections stand such as is a mans mind such is the man such as is a mans affection such is his conversation a heavenly affection argueth a heavenly conver sation a heavenly conversation presupposeth a heavenly affection for it is impossible for any man to walk in a heavenly course but he that is of a heavenly mind It sheweth the errour of those men that think that that pitch of holiness and careful walking with God in newness of life is too strict a point to be pressed what say they will you have us to be Saints are we not men shall we not have infirmities still Yes that thou wilt when thou hast done what thou canst But here is the thing What is the bent of thy heart what is the strength of thy mind what is the endeavour of thy whole man which way are thy affections carried What dost thou mourn for most what dost thou rejoyce in most what dost thou hope for most According to thy affections so will thy labour and endeavour be A heavenly heart sorroweth most for sin a heavenly affection rejoyceth most in Christ Many say who will shew us any good but Lord lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon us thou hast given me more joy of heart then they had when their corn and wine and oyle abounded A heavenly affection hopeth most for heaven and that not so much that thereby he way be released from worldly troubles as that he may be possessed of those heavenly joyes that are to be had in the presence of God and in a perfect communion with him that he may be freed from sin and fully brought into the glorious liberty of the sons of God And this is that which stirreth him up with all industry and endeavour and carrieth him along mainly and chiefly to seek after not the wealth and honour and pleasure of the world but how he may get into the Covenant of grace and an interest in Christ how he may attain evidences of heaven and testimonies of the love of God He speakes of heaven as the worldly man speaks of the world A worldly man speaks of the world and the world heareth him faith Christ every table ringeth of his worldly talke every company soundeth of his worldly affections in every meeting he sheweth his worldly disposition So a heavenly-minded man is alwayes talking of heavenly things alwayes labouring to draw heavenly uses out of earthly things let crosses come he can draw comforts from thence he makes them means to take off his heart from the world to set it more toward heaven as Noahs Arke the more the waters increased the neerer it was raised to heaven so a heavenly man the more worldly crosses come the higher his soul riseth toward heaven the worldly man sinketh under afflictions but he is lifted up neerer to Christ This is a heavenly conversation But I will not stand on this The second thing which I told you was observable from the first part of the Text was this That in this very life the children of God are stated in a heavenly condition Our conversation is now in heaven faith the Apostle When a man is brought by repentance and faith unto Christ he is brought into a heavenly state actually possessed of heaven And that in two respects In respect of right and title In respect of possession First in respect of right and title and that also first in respect of
Election God hath elected them to it Secondly in respect of vocation they are begotten again to a lively hope They have now the Word which giveth them a promise of heaven They have now the spirit which is the seal of their inheritance you are sealed by the spirit of Promise to the day of redemption Eph. 1.13 Secondly in regard of possession they are now already in present possession not in full possession but in present possession A possession not in themselves but in Christ by vertue of the union and communion they have in him By the union and contract that is between Christ and the soul Christ is become the Husband the Christian the Spouse So that as a Wife if her Husband should travel into a far Countrey and in her name should take possession of those lands that were left her by her Father the Wife now is possest of those lands in her Husband who in her name hath taken possession of them so Christ entring into heaven hath took possession of heaven which is given to us by the will of God It is your Father pleasures to give you a kingdom Christ hath possessed it in our name I go faith he to prepare a place for you and it is my will that they be where I am I go to my Father and your Father to my God and your God All that Christ hath in heaven He hath it for us He is gone before that we may follow after we cannot possibly lay claime to heaven we cannot hope hereafter fully and personally to possesse it if Christ had not first taken possession of heaven for us The Use of this in a word shall be to stir up every one to look to his hope of heaven It is usual for men to profess their hope to be saved and scarse any but they will say they hope if they die they shall go to heaven Yea but thou must now possesse it if ever hereafter thou mean to enjoy it and thou must possesse it first in Christ thou must be united to him by faith and love those are the bonds whereby the Spirit of God tyeth us unto Christ therefore Christ is said to dwell in our hearts by faith Which shewes the horrible presumption of many and how they add to their other sins this that they presume that they have right and title to heaven and yet are not united to Christ by faith as if a man should give out that he were the heir apparant to a Crown or the son of a King and yet nevertheless should indeed be the son of a Beggar and have nothing to shew for his pretended title to the Crown and Kingdom what would this be accounted but high treason against the King What a height of sin is this that is in many men which to their other sins add a presumptuous claim to heaven when they have no right to it I Remember that in the time of Ezra we shall read of many that laid title and claim to the Priest-hood but Ezra searched the book of the Genealogies and finding none of their names Registred there he presently concluded that they were none of the Priest-hood therefore they were accounted polluted and put from the Priest-hood If any man lay claim to heaven God will search his book of Genealogies as it were he will search the Register of heaven and if he find that his name be not inrolled there if he be not found to have interest in Jesus Christ all will be nothing he shall be cast out to his greater confusion This should therefore stir up every one to make good his claim to heaven now either now to be possest of heaven now to sit in heavenly places with Christ ore lse look not to come to heaven afterward But to leave this and to come to that I mainly intend namely the Argument or reason or ground of the Apostles heavenly conversation Our conversation is in heaven from whence we look for the Saviour the Lord Jesus Christ The Apostle observeth here a kind of speech and that which seems not so Gramaticall that he may thereupon build a sound and substantial truth in Divinity He had said before Our conversation is in the heavens in the Plural number but now when he speaks of Christs coming thence he speaks of it in the Singular number Our conversation is in the heaven from whence from which particular place We look for the Saviour the Lord Jesus Christ Of purpose to shew us thus much that though Christ in respect of his Deity and divine nature he be in all places filling heaven and earth yet in respect of his bodily presence he remaineth now and so will till his second coming which the Saints look for in heaven Against those Ubiquitaries that will have the body of Christ to be every where In Heaven say they visible in this place invisible The Papists hence build the Doctrine of Transubstantiation they will have the body of Christ even that very body that was born of the Virgin to be now Bread and the bread turned into it The Lutherans will have the same Body about the bread No faith the Apostle there is no such matter from thence from that very place that very individual particular single place from the third heavens where the body of Christ is We look for the Saviour he remaineth there and so will continue till his coming to Judgement So again in another place Collos 3.1 Set your affections on things above where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God Above that is in heaven where Christ sitteth and continueth and will remain till his second coming Our Saviour told his Disciples in the dayes of his flesh that the poor they should have alwayes with them but me faith he you shall not have alwayes If this be true that they say then Christ hath not said true for he is still in respect of his bodily presence and hath been alwayes with us But I let pass that The thing I note hence is this That that which most soundly and effectually settleth the heart of a man in a heavenly conversation upon earth is the looking for the Saviour of the world even the Lord Jesus Christ to come from thence I say there is nothing that so settleth the heart of a man in a heavenly conversation upon earth nothing that makes him so heavenly minded nothing that ordereth him in so heavenly a course as this if he rightly look for Christ to come from thence That you may conceive this the better you may please to take notice that there are two things included in this point First that all the Saints of God while they are on earth their continual expectation is for Christ to come from heaven Secondly that nothing is so effectual to settle a man in a holy course while he liveth on earth as this expectation These two things I will open to you at this time The
of this expectation of Christs coming when it is right and as it should be in the soul of a Beleever The first companion of it is Patience If we hope for that we see not then do we with patience wait for it faith the Apostle Rom. 8.25 If we have hope and expectation of Christ coming if it be right it will stay the heart and calm and quiet the spirit in the middest of all injuries and crosses and afflictions in the world it will make us to wait with patience He that beleeveth will not make hast When a man beleeveth that there is a time when Christ will put an end to all these things it is that which mortisieth and subdueth the rising of his spirit and discontentedness in afflictions it makes him possesse his soul in Patience There is a kind of impatient waiting of men in the middest of discontent and revilings and evil speakings and threatings of others and then Oh that Christ would come But when Faith works kindly in the soul of a man there is a calm composedness of heart a submission to God in the present tryal and yet nevertheless a rejoycing in hope of the coming of Christ and of that glory that shall be revealed That is the first thing there is Patience accompanying it The second thing that accompanieth it is Love No man can in truth and aright hope for and wait for the coming of Christ but he that loveth Christ and his coming Now this Love must be grounded on our taste of Gods love Not that we loved him but that be loved us first faith the Apostle no man loveth Christ but first he is loved of Christ no man loveth God but first he is loved of God and the taste and relish of Gods love in my soule works love to God again as from the heat that cometh from the Sun there is a reflection that boundeth back again to the Sun so Gods love in us reflects love to God again This Love will appear in the secret sighings of the heart All the creatures groan yea we also sigh in our selves faith the Apostle waiting for the adoption even the redemption of our bodies There is I say a secret sighing of heart and that not only in the time of trouble and affliction but in the time of comfort and prosperity when a man hath abundance of outward things about him yet then because his love is set upon Christ and the perfection and end of love is the fruition of the object loved therefore there is a sighing a holy discontent as it were a kind of yearning of the heart toward Christ When shall I come and appear before God faith David how long Lord how long faith the Church in the Revelation If a man love Christ and his coming only because it shall end those miseries and those troubles that are upon him in this life this is not so much love of Christ as love of a mans self of his own ease and peace and rest But the love of Christ is this when for the injoying of himself I long for the fruition of him whom my soul loveth and I account nothing amiable in comparison of Christ nothing delectable nothing comfortable nothing sweet to Christ this is it that putteth the soul out of taste and relish with any thing makes it sigh as it were under the enjoyments of all the comforts of this life and long for the appearance of Christ because then he shall he perfected in the perfect enjoyment of Christ himself This is that love of Christ that is accompanied with Faith in a Christian and hope and expectation of his coming Now then if thou wait for Christ in truth how cometh it that thou dost not love him thou caust not wait for him aright except thou love Christ himself and for himself And if thou love Christ it wil appear by thy care to walk in Christ to derive virtue from him in all holy actions to derive all heavenly wisdom all heavenly disposition of heart from him to please Christ in all thy waies to do that whereby thou maist approve thy self to God in Christ This is the disposition of a heart loving Christ and this is that loving of Christ for himself and in himself that giveth me assurance that I love the appearance of Christ That is the second companion of this waiting for Christ if it be right there is a love to Christ The third and last companion of a mans waiting for Christ is the continual affection of the heart those same ejaculations that intercourse that holy and heavenly communion which the soul hath with Christ here First in his ordinances having a holy communion with him in them waiting at the Posts of the door of wisdomes house to here what Christ who is wisdome it self will speak to us waiting if that he will come now in the ministry of his Word in his Spirit whom we hope to enjoy fully in glory Waiting for him likewise in the Sacraments to receive a further confirmation of our faith in him waiting for him also in prayer to receive further consolation and strength from him Thus Annah it is said that She was one that waited for the consolation of Israel and served God in the Temple in prayer day and night So where there is a waiting for Christ there will be a continual intercourse of the soul with Christ a heavenly and holy communion with him in duties Dost thou wait for Christs coming and yet run from Christs ordinances How can these stand together There is no man that can ever wait with comfor for Christs coming in glory but he that now waiteth upon Christ in his ordinances If thy delight be in holy duties in the worship of God and that in such religious performances thou waitest for a further conveyance of the Spirit of Christ into thee thou hast warrant to wait for and to expect with comfort the second coming of Christ Try your selves therefore by these things It is not every one that faith I would that the Lord Jesus would come or I would that these dayes were full and finished It is not every one that saith thus that rightly looks for or desires the coming of Christ But he that thereby becometh patient and stayes and composeth his heart in a calme and quiet temper in the middest of all crosses and troubles and afflictions that befal him and that upon this ground because Christ will come and put an end to my sin as well as to my sorrow therefore I will wait with patience till he come And again he that loveth Christ that sigheth for his coming and he that now delighteth in his ordinances this man only waiteth for the coming of Christ There is yet a third Tryal and that is the effects and fruits of our waiting for the coming of Christ And that is threefold to go no further then the Text. The first is a heavenly conversation The second is
a mans resting on Christ as his Saviour and Lord. The third is the change of the body which shall be in the great day when the soul and body shall be united together Who shall change our vile body and make it like his own glorious body c. But the main fruit whereof we are now presently possest is a heavenly Conversation And so I come to the second particular included in the observation before propounded viz. That nothing is so effectual to settle a man and to dispose him to a holy and heavenly Conversation here on earth as the right looking for the second coming of Christ That this is true you shall see it brefly how the Saints of God upon this very ground have been wrought and incouraged to a heavenly conversation in all the parts and degrees of it First of all yee shall see that this is that which mortifieth the secret lusts and corruptions of the heart A man will never set soundly and in truth to the mortification of his inward corruptions that doth not in truth out of love to Christ look for his second coming And the very reason why many are so dull and dead and backward to this work for want whereof they cannot lead so heavenly a conversation upon earth is this because they do not with love to Christ look for his second coming And that this is so it will appear by divers places of Scripture Set your affections saith the Apostle on things that are above where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God And he doth not only say so but Mortisie therefore saith he your earthly members Wherefore should they mortifie their earthly members because Christ sitteth at the right hand of God upon whom ye look upon whom the eye of your faith is fixed mortifie your members For what is that that makes a man in truth to dispose and frame his heart to be fit to stand in the number of those that are clothed in white Robes at the second coming of Christ but even this consideration that none shall appear then with comfort but such as now walk in holiness of conversation Certainly that man that doth with delight expect his second coming he will be most careful to fit himself for the receiving of Christ and most diligent in setting himself to the mortifying and subduing of his corruptions that so he may walk before him in all holiness of life A man that expects the coming of a King to his house will he therefore be secure and do nothing because he knows certainly that the King will come No surely he will therefore because he is sure that he will come make ready and furnish his house that it may be fit to receive him when he doth come Even so because I expect the coming of the great King the King of glory as he is called in Psal 24. I will now open my everlasting gates I will now labour that he may possess my soul I will now cleanse my self from all filthiness and pollution of flesh and spirit Therefore the Apostle Saint John having said We are now the Sons of God and it doth not yet appear what we shall be but we know that when he shall appear we shall be like unto him for we shall see him as he is He presently inferreth Every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself even as he is pure He that hath this hope that he shall be with Christ that he shall see him as he is he will be careful to purifie himself as Christ is pure This is the dispositton of a man that truly longs and rightly looks for the coming of Christ he will be careful to purifie himself A man that expects to be raised to some great and eminent place in the Court he will be careful to fit himself with those necessary requisits that may make him capable of it and enable him to go through it with credit and comfort So he that expects to have this great honour of the Saints to be of the number of those that receive glory and happiness and comfort by the second coming of Christ he will be careful to purge his heart from all corruption that it may be capable to receive that comfort What daunts a man at the apprehension of death and makes him have no delight in thinking of Judgment to come but the guilt of secret sins with which he hath been and is so unwilling to part It is impossible for any man to look with comfort upon the approach of Death and to take delight in and desire the second coming of Christ but he who upon this ground is careful to purge his heart of all secret corruptions and lusts whatsoever This is then the first thing wherein it doth appear that the looking for the coming of Christ is a special means to work us to a holy and heavenly conversation Secondly as this is that which mortifieth the secret lusts and corruptions of the heart so it is that also which mortifies our worldly affections For what is it that will subdue in the heart and purge out of it the love of the world and worldly things but this the looking for and expectation of a better estate to be had in Jesus Christ at his second coming What is it that makes men hold the world so fast What makes them so gripple of the earth and to cleave so close to the things of this life But because they have no comfortable perswasion and expectation of a better estate afterwards Certainly he that on a right ground and upon good warrant can expect with comfort the second coming of Christ he careth nothing for the things of this life Therefore faith the Apostle If you be risen with Christ seek those things which are above where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God because Christ sitteth at the right hand of God therefore set your affections there But how shall we come to set our affections there Set them not saith he upon the things of the earth It is necessary that the soul of a man should have something or other to fasten upon some object to take up its delight and joy and he that cannot have joy and delight in better things in things above he looks for it in things below and the reason why he so cleaves to and clasps and huggs with delight the things below is because he hath no better things to think of to hope after He that hath a better inheritance to hope for will easily let fall these things and his affection to them because his hope is in Christ who shall make him glorious at his second coming You see then the necessity of it in this second respect But to go further it is necessary also for the avoyding of any evil of any sin in the act What is it 〈◊〉 makes a man regulate and square his course of life according to the rule of 〈◊〉 so that he
avoids the corruptions that are in the world through lusts But this looking for the second coming of Christ This Argument John the Baptist used to press upon his hearers the Doctrin of repentance because the king dome of God was at hand This is that upon which Saint Peter groundeth his exhortatoin unto the people Acts 3.18 Repent saith he and be converted that your sins may be blotted out when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord Therefore repent and return unto God do away your sins because there will a time of refreshing come and you had need then to be found in another hue in another state then in your old rotten withered condition and sinful lusts This is the Argument that the Aposte used to the Athenians to bring them from Idolatry to serve the living God because God hath appointed a time to judg the world in righteousness by that man whom ho hath ordained Even for that reason because God hath appointed a time to judg the world in righteousness therefore they should turne from their Idols to serve the living God There is nothing that doth so unbottome the heart nothing so shakes and looseneth a mans hold of sin and unrighteousness as the consideration of Christs coming to Judgment What will it boot me will the soul reason to keep my sins when Christ will come to judg me for my sins What shall I get by going on in a course of sin when I can look for nothing then but a sentence of wrath to be denounced against me This then is that that doth settle a man in a holy conversation in that respect Nay fourthly this is that also which quickneth a man to the practise of all holy duties in his place both in his general and particular Calling It is the very argument which the Apostle Saint Peter useth to stir us up to holiness of conversation Seeing saith he that all these things shall be dissolved what manner of persons ought we to be in all holy conversation and godliness looking for the coming of the day of God wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved and the elements shall melt with fervent heat As if he should have said Look now about the whole world and see what it is that now can comfort you if you be such as go on in a course of sin It may be you will say I fear not much for I have many friends Yea but all these shall die It may be thou hast store of lands but all that shall be burnt with fire It may be thou hast many pleasures but then there shall be nothing but Judgment The coming of the Lord that shall then put an end to all these and turn the course of things the expectation thereof is a special means to take us off from a course of sin and put us on to a course of obedience to make us walk in another kind of fashion while we are in the world Therefore the Apostle Saint Paul when he would â—…ir up Timothy to the work of the Ministry what is the Argument that he useth I charge thee before Christ who shall judg the quick and the dead As if he should say there shall be an appearing before the Lord and therefore if thou wilt give thy account up with joy at that day I charge thee to look to thy Ministry So may I say to every man in his place I charge thee that art a Master of a Family look to the business of thy family to the salvation of the souls of thy people I charge thee that art a father or a mother to look to the salvation of the souls of thy children I charge thee that art a Christian to look to the salvation of thy own soul And how is the charge I charge thee before the Lord Jesus Christ who shall judg the quick and the dead Because there shall come a time when both thou and they shall be present before Christ at his appearing therefore if thou wilt have comfort in them and in thy self and in Christ be careful to do the duty that concerns thy place Looking for the coming of the Lord Jesus So then you see in this respect also there is nothing so forcible an Argument to settle a man in a holy conversation in a heavenly course as this for a man alwayes to look for the second coming of Christ Lastly there is nothing fixeth a man so constantly in a holy course as this Our conversation faith the Apostle is alwayes in heaven We alwayes walk on earth as those that aspire to heaven because we alwayes look for the coming of Christ Wert thou carefnl to serve God yesterday do it to day also it may be Christ may come now and take thee away by death to day and there is no preparation for judgment afterward Little children saith Saint John now abide in him that when he shall appear we may have confidence and not be ashamed before him at his coming What is it that giveth a man boldness and takes away shame from him at the coming of Christ What is the reason that a man hath not that spirit of fear and trembling upon him that shall be upon the hearts of all those that go on in sin when they shall cry to the mountains to fall upon them but this that he hath continued in a holy conversation and constantly walked before the Lord with an upright heart I have finished my course saith the Apostle I have fought a good fight I have kept the faith hence-forth is layd up for me a crown of righteousness which Christ the righteous Judg shall give to me and to all them that love his appearing Still the servants of God have incouraged themselves to persevere in a holy course from the expectation of the coming of Christ that will give them a reward for their constancy in his service It is the Argument that the holy Ghost useth to the Church of Philadelphia Rev. 3.11 Hold fast that thou hast and let no man take thy crown As if he should say There is a time coming when Crowns shall be given but to whome to those that hold out that persevere in a godly course Be thou faithful to the death and thou shalt receive a crown of glory This is that I say that will make a man go on will make him that is good in youth be good in age also because whensoever he dieth he shall receive his Crown This will make a man that he shall not begin in the spirit and end in the flesh this will make him that having put his hand to the plough he will not look back because he no further looks for comfort in the appearance of Christ then he hath had care to walk on constantly in a good course Thus you see the point proved to you that a Christian soul hath a main benefit by his looking for the second coming of Christ
the outward man which is the separation of the Body from the Soul it is no Death if it separate not both from God which it can never do if a man keep the sayings of Christ therefore though his body that keepeth the sayings of Christ be took from his soul yet he seeth not death so as to have any hurt by it he feeleth no ill by it nay it is good to him for it is a passage from misery to rest and felicity Thus ye have these words as faithfully interpreted to you as I know how And now I will make proof of this Doctrine thus explicated namely that thus to keep Christs sayings to know and follow the Doctrine of the Gospel is the only sure way to escape the danger and hurt of Death Saint Peter acknowledgeth as much when he said to the Lord Jesus Christ that he had the words of Eternal life then he that keepeth them is certainly safe against the hurt of Death So the Angel speaks to the Apostles whom the Pharisees had imprisoned when he brought them forth of Prison he biddeth them speak to the people the words of this life since Christs Doctrine is the word of life it must needs follow that the keeping thereof is a perfect Antidote against the poyson of Death And Saint Peter when he gave an account to the rest of the Apostles and the brethren of Judea of his going to the Gentiles he saith that an Angel appointed Cornelius to send for him that he might speak words to him whereby himself and his family should be saved and those words which cause a man to be saved you know will give him freedome enough from Death Thus I have proved the point by expresse Texts and there are two reasons of it The first is delivered by the Apostle Saint John in the first Epistle and second Chapter where he faith let that abide in you which you have heard from the beginning that is the Doctrine of the Gospel which Christ taught his sayings if that remain in you you also shall continue in the Son and in the Father He that hath fellowship with the Son and with the Father can never see Death for God is the fountain of life therefore those that are one with him and continue in him cannot see Death no more then he can be overwhelmed with darkness that is where the Sun shineth fully no more then the body can be dead as long as it hath communion with the soul so those in whom the word of Christ remaineth and stayeth they are assured that they shall remain with the Father and the Son and therefore being united to that that is life God the Father and the Son it is impossible that ever they should be hurt by the first or ever at all taste of the last Death Again the Word of Christ freeth him in whom it remaineth from the power and hurt of sin bringing to him remission of sins and sanctification And being free from sin the cause of Death it is easie to conjecture that he shall be freed from Death it self Let a mans Debt be satisfied and let the favour of the Prince be obtained and a Pardon granted the Prison shall never hold him long he shall not be brought to the place of Execution but when his guives are knocked off he is set at liberty so when we have obtained power against sin by the powerful work of the Spirit of God which alwayes at the same time doth bend the heart of man to rest on Christ for salvation and heartily to indevour to walk before him in holiness and righteousness when I say we are thus freed from the power and guilt of sin it is impossible that Death should lay hold upon us as his prisoner to carry us to the dungeon of Hell and to hold us under the wrath of God and that fiery indignation of his that causeth Hell to be Hell Therefore certainly the words of Christ are an undoubted truth and we must rest upon them without all distrust and wavering that he that keepeth his sayings shall never see death and that the knowledge and beleeving and obeying the Doctrine of the Gospel is the only sure way to escape the hurt and ill of Death it self Let us make some Application of this Doctrine to our souls First to stir us up to a right hearty thankfulness unto Almighty God that is pleased to cast our times and dayes into that age and those places where the Doctrine of the Gospel this Saying of our blessed Saviour is so clearly and plainly and evidently laid open to you and frequently and earnestly prest upon your souls where the Lord cometh to declare unto you the way to life where he scoreth you out a path that will bring you quite out of the clutches and danger of Death this is the happiness of our present Age and place where we live and this whole kingdom too The grace and mercy and favour of our loving God hath so disposed of us that we do not live in times of Paganisme and darkness where there was no news of Christ that we live not in places of Popish darkness where the Doctrine of the Gospel is so mixed and darkned with tricks and devices of their own that they cannot see Christ clearly It is our happiness I say that we do not live in those places and times where either Paganisme or Popery with their darkness covered Christ from us and caused us that we could not clearly see or hear him and so not keep his sayings But now grace is offered light is tendered to us we may be saved we may escape the danger of damnation if the fault be not solely and wholly in our carelesness and wilfulness and neglect and abuse of the means that God hath afforded us The heathen men that have not heard of Christ cannot possibly attain to life as far as we can judge by the Scripture And it is very difficult for the Papists that hear so darkly and are told of the Doctrine of the Gospel with so many sophistications to come to be saved But for us that have the Doctrine of the Gospel so plainly and carefully taught us and revealed unto us we may be saved and may easily see the way to obtain salvation So we go beyond them in happiness Oh blessed be the name of the Ever-living God that beside the peace and plenty and other temporal benefits wherewith he hath crowned this unworthy Nation of ours he hath added this blessing of blessings this King of favours to give us so clear a revelation of the Doctrine of salvation by faith in Christ alone Blessed be his name and let your hearts say Amen to this thanksgiving and let it be one part of your endeavour this day to give solemne praise every man apart and his Family apart for this unspeakable mercy of his in making you live in the dayes of Light and in the bright Sun-shâ—…ne of
the Gospel and you shall prove your selves to have begun to have kept Christ saying if you be thankful for his making of it known unto and for writing of it in your hearts This is the first Vse Next I beseech you let me take boldness to reprove I fear a great number of you of a sin whereof I will make it appear you are guilty Men there are that make large promises to themselves that they shall never be damned they shall not go to Hell they hope Death shall not have power to dragg them from this world to the place of darkness Thou hopest so Come render a reason of thy hope To hope without a ground is to deceive ones self with extream folly As for example there are a number of prisoners in New-gate or in some other Prison should they hope for some man of great wealth to pay their debts and save them from hanging should they not be arrant fools to hope except they could shew some ground for their hope and some evidence for their expecting of such a kindness Thou that hopest thou shall never see Death come answer God in thy conscience dost thou keep the saying of Christ or no Where is the knowledge of the Doctrine of the Gospel Dost thou beleeve that which concerns thee touching thy misery and so apply that to thy self to make thee a penitent sinner Dost thou beleeve the Doctrin concerning the Remedy and so apply that to thy self to make thee perfect thy repentance by being not only grieved for sin but taking boldness to confesse it and ask pardon and by framing thy self in thankfulness to amendment of life and new obedience Dost thou I say know this Doctrine and so know it as to practise it Hope and spare not the more thou hopest the better thy hope is the stronger and surer it is the more thou glorifiest God and the more it shall comfort thee But oh unhappy man if thou findest not in thy self the care and power in some measure to do these things cursed be thy hopes because they be disgracefull to Almighty God tending to make him a lyar and an unjust person and because they are dangerours to thy own soul tending to rock thee asleep in the cradle of security Cursed be those unsound and sandy-built hopes of most men that never yet applied themselves to confesse and lament their sins that never applied themselves to crave pardon and to resolve upon amendment that never studied to throw themselves into the Armes of Gods mercy in Christ for pardon that never intended to mortifie the deads of the body and to subdue the flesh with the lusts thereof and yet they hope they shall not be damned thou maist as well hope that the Divel shall come out of Hell into Heaven as thou to go out of earth into Heaven If thy hope be not grounded upon the workings of these graces because thou findest thy self penitent because thou findest thy self careful to strive to rest wholly upon Christ for salvation because thou findest thy self industrious in the study of newness of life except I say thy hope be thus grounded it is the vainest thing in the world and it will never do the good at the last hour Brethren give me leave to tell you that there are two Gospels in the world the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Gospel of Belzebub as I may call it the Gospel of the Divel that comes from Hell and tendeth to bring men thither Christs Gospel is Repent and beleeve and obey and be saved The Divels gospelis say you beleeve make your selves imagine that you have faith and then never care for repentance and obedience and you shall be saved Christs Gospel is summed up thus by the Prophets Return to him and live But the Divils goeth thus Assure thy self thou shalt live though thou care not for repentance Oh let not the Divel beguile you with that false and counterfeit Gospel of his whosoever leaneth to it shall find it like the Authour of it a Lyar and when he hath trusted to it that confidence and hope of his shall be as the Spiders web the Beesome of destruction shall sweep it and him down to the depth of Hell Death shall have dominion over him and carry him from this present world to the region of darkness into eternal torment he shall see Death in the grimness and terribleness of it he shall feel it in all the extremity that the wrath of God can inflict upon the children of disobedience Thirdly I have to command and require you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ that you apply your selves to a thing tending so much to the honour of him and to the commodity and comfort of your own souls I have shewed you that Jesus Christ hath revealed a way how you should escape the danger of Death eternal and the hurt of Death natural I beseech you now fall a doing one while as you have been busied in hearing To what purpose is it that you flock to hear Sermons and throng to receive the Word except you lay it up in your hearts and apply your selves to practise If thou hast not begun before now begin if thou hast begun before now resolve to proceed with more life and courage Either begin or persist in the practise of the Doctrine of the Gospel If thou hast not repented I require thee in the name of the living God to make this hour the first beginning of thy repentance and apply thy self to lay the foundation of that work before thou lay thy head to sleep Go and call to mind thy sins and make thy cheeks wet at least thy heart heavy for the multitude of thy great offences down on thy knees in thy Closet make thy confession of them to God sigh for them mourn for them labour to weep for them afflict thy soul with great sorrow and remorse then cry for pardon and remission as the thiese begs at the bar for mercy so do thou for the forgiveness of thy sins through Christ Jesus and put upon thy self a firm resolution and stedfast purpose to go on no more in the wayes of wickedness to practise grosse sins no more nor no more to allow any sin that thou knowest to be a sin though it be never so small Doe thus my brethren and then you may and will it will follow almost of it self rest on Christ for salvation He that so seeth his own sins as unfeignedly to lament for them and to judge himself before God if he apprehend the truth of the Doctrine of the Gospel he cannot for his life but come on amain and throw himself down before Christ to imbrace and receive and entertain him and lie in his Bosome And that man cannot for his life when he seeth the sweetness of the grace of God in Christ but resolve to obey him and determin to walk in the wayes of holiness and take pains and use industry for the
know this there is the cooling-card that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment In the words we will consider two parts First what young men do Secondly the Medicine of God to heal young men of their default That that young men do is this They give over themselves to an inordinate carnal Joy This Joy is set out from the time of it the dayes of their youth From the cause of it their hearts chear them From the kinds of it they walk in the wayes of their hearts and after the sight of their eyes Secondly the Medicine with which Solomon would heal young men of this inordinate carrâ—…al Joy is this Know saith he that for all these things God will bring thee into Judgment that is it is a most divine and infallible truth that every one should know and acknowledg that whatsoever sins they commit in their youth without repentance they must undergo the dreadful Judgment of God because of them Thus as briefly as I can I have opened the words unto you Though I might insist on many doctrines yet not witstanding I will only handle these two The first shall be that which ariseth from the first part of the Text what young men do what their fault is For as I said it is an Ironnical concession not declaring what young men should do but what they do The doctrine is thus much That it is the sin of young men to rejoyce inordinately and carnally in the dayes of their youth to walk after their hearts and the sight of their eyes We read concerning the old world that they were eating and drinking and marrying and giving in marriage altogether sottish and sensual till the wrath of God came in the flood and swept them away Now lest any should suppose that this were the fault of old age only the Scripture sheweth that all flesh had corrupted their way before God Gen. 6.11 Isa 22.14 Let us eat and drink for to morrow we shall die It is thought by learned Divines that this speech was not so much the language of Age as of the youth in Israel Hence Solomon giveth a caveat to the young man Eccles 12.1 to bridle and restrain him from his jollity and carnal mirth Remember now thy Creatour in the dayes of thy youth while the evil day come not nor the years draw nigh when thou shalt say I have no pleasure in them And the Apostle Saint Paul 1 Tim. 2.22 instructeth Timothy to flie the lusts of youth that is in carnal pleasures and pastimes in voluptuousness and sensuallity and the like And Tit. 2.6 Exhort young men that they be sober minded that is that they leave this drunkenness of understanding in being overcome with sensual carnal objects and pleasures Job in the first Chapter of that book when the young people his Suns and Daughters met together to feast he was afraid lest they should be misguided in this kind therefore the holy man in a godly care and thoughtfulness for their welfare sacrificed to God to make attonement for their sin Let us a little consider the reasons of this Doctrine whence it is that young men should be so much misguided in their youth The first cause is natural corruption that they have drawn by propagation from their Parents A spiritual leprosie and maladie and disease which as it prevaileth for the most part against age by covetousness so it getteth ground of youth by sensuallity and voluptuousness This dams up the eare against reproose this hardens the heart against instruction and makes many young men the souldiers of Sathan in sin Again in the second place Men in their youth forget the day of their reckoning and Judgment they are not mindful of their latter end Deut. 32.22 Oh that they were wise that they understood this that they would consider their latter end This Precept is neglected both by youth and age but especially by those of younger yeares For they feele their bloud run warm in their veins and they are full of spirits and vigour therefore they suppose that the Grave and the house of darkness is far off from them Again in the third place Young men are not broken by afflictions the fallow ground is not poughed up by the pressures of afflictons which through the grace of God are great means to tame nature and to subdue the pride of it and to bring it to a right frame and temper Before I was afflicted faith David I went a stray And Ephraim faith of himself Jer. 31. I was as a Bullock unaccustomed to the yoak thou chastisest me and I was chastised I was ashamed because I bore the reproach of my youth But young men are free from aches and pains and sickness and sorrow much more then old age and this is the reason why they are more licentious Lastly young men want true joy in God therefore they betake themselves to carnal joy For sure it is that a man cannot live without joy and contentment if he have it not from the Wells of salvation he will drink it out of watery and slimy places Now because men in their youth cannot take in the spiritual joy of that clear fountain therefore they drink in the muddy waters of carnall joy The use of this point is in the first place an Admonition to all young men to take notice of these maladies and spiritual diseases in themselves The first degree of our healing is to see that we are sick and till then Christ Jesus the Physitian of our souls hath no commission to do us good Let young men observe in themselves first their carnal joy Solomon here sheweth that they rejoyce inordinately This may appear to them first because they rejoyce not where they ought they solace not themselves in God in whom is the fountain of joy nor in Christ Jesus in whom is the spring of joy nor in the sacred Word where there is the Cistern of Joy Even as a bone when it is out of joynt out of its place it must needs be a disordered bone so the affections when they are misplaced are disordered and then our Joy and any other affection are misplaced when they are not set upon God and Christ Now if young men would deal uprightly with themselves they should perceive that for the most part in their jollity and merriment they never think of God or dream of the world to come Nay the serious apprehension of God Almighty would quench their joy and make it altogether put out Secondly the carnalness of the joy of young men appeareth because they rejoyce where they ought not in riot in drunkenness in surfeiting in voluptuousness many times in obscenity of words and phrases in making jeasts of the word of God in deriding their superiours behind their backs As Solomon faith of laughter thou art mad so we may say of this merriment it is
growth in grace 3. In the promise of bringing the weakest grace to perfection Here you have the well-head of Joy Oh that young men would know God and Christ Jesus and the word of God and the promises that they might leave this sinful and sottish joy whereto they are so adicted This is the means to be rid of it by getting into their souls the sence and feeling of the true Joy of the children of God Again in the second place Young men should be exhorted not to walk after their own heart which is the next thing that Solomon noteth as a fault in them The heart saith Jeremy is deceitful above measure and desperately wicked It is so deceitful such a Cheator that we are not able to comprehend it it is desperately wicked Who will follow a false guide and a disperate wicked guide so is the heart of man Lastly they should not walk after the sight of their eyes David prayed Turn away mine eyes that I regard not vanity and quicken me in thy Law And again Open mine eyes that I may see the wondrous things of thy Law There is much danger in following our eyes Eve was misled by her eye she looked upon the forbidden fruit and saw it beautiful and so lusted after it And when I saw saith Achan among the spoiles a goodly Babylonish garment and a wedge of gold then I coveted them and took them David was defiled by the eye He saw Bathsheba from the roofe of his house washing her self and then he lusted Holy men have prayed to God that he would keep their eyes in a right frame and temper These are the particulars that Solomon giveth to young men in direction to take heed of carnal joy to take heed of walking after their hearts or after their sense And these things brethren I have now committed in direction to you The last use of this Doctrine is for old men For if young men may not rejoyce carnally much less may old men Youth may plead for it self in want of wisdome and gravity sobriety and experience better then those of age If young men may not have evil hearts and evil eyes much less old men Look to it you that hear me this day that are stricken in age as the Scripture speaks that are smitten in your limbs with age that you cannot walk with activity and nimbleness and are smitten in your senses with age that you cannot well see and hear and taste Oh that your hearts would smite you for your sins May not young men rejoyce in pleasures in friends in honours in wealth Much less may those of old age Must young men be careful to chase away all carnal joy and to get spiritual joy that beginneth in godly sorrow much more must old men It is no time for those that are old to rejoyce in carnal things a few daies will make an end of them and lay them in the Grace Oh then you that are of years break off your sins by repentance and your iniquities by mercy Rejoyce in being good and in doing good This Joy will continue with you as for the Joy of corn and wine and oyle and silver and gold this joy will die when you die Yea notwithstanding all the supports of this joy in this life yet in another life you may be transported to hellish torments Thus much for this first In the second place Solomon sheweth the remedy against this carnal Joy in young men which also may be a preservative against sin both for young and old But know thou saith he that for all these things God will bring thee to judgement The Doctrine is thus much That the Lord God will certainly bring men to judgement for all the sins they have committed This is an infallible truth Know thou this that for all these things God will bring thee to judgement Malach. 3.18 A book of remembrance is written before God for those that fear the Lord and thought upon his name So the Lord hath a book of remembrance wherein he writeth down the sins of the sons of men and this shall be opened and unciasped in the evil day Eccles 12.14 God will bring every work into judgement with every secret thing whether it be good or whether it be evil 2 Cor. 5.10 We must appear before the Judgement seat of Christ that every one may receive the things done in his body according to that be hath done whether it be good or bad 1 Thes 4.16 The Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout with the voyce of the Arch-angel and with the trump of God Epistle of Jude vers 14 And Enoch the seventh from Adam prophesied of this saying the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his Saints to execute Judgement upon all and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him For opening of this point I will briefly shew you these two things First what is the reason that God will bring all these things to Judgement Secondly what manner of Judgement it shall be For the first What is the reason that God will bring all these things to Judgement The first reason is His Decree Heb. 9.27 It is appointed to all men once to die and after this the Judgment Even as it must needs be that man must die because God hath so appointed it so also it must needs be that men must come to Judgement in regard of the purpose and decree of God Secondly God will do this in regard of his righteousness He is a holy God a hater of iniquity But many times in this world it is well with the wicked and ill with the godly Lazarus he is in woful misery and Dives he is in abundance of prosperity Now God will shew his love to the righteous and his hatred to the wicked in this Judgement If judgement here begin at the house of God It is impossible the family of Sathan should escape hereafter Thirdly God will by this means clear his wayes as the Apostle speaks Rom. 2.5 There are many wayes of God that are dark and cloudy to us but then God will manifest himself before men and Angels Then those wayes and works of God against which the hearts of unsanctified men have boyled shall appear to be as they are holy and good and righteous to their condemnation and terrour Yet further The particular Judgement that God inflicts upon men in this life may prove the universall The burning of Sodom and Gommorah the drowning of the old World the plaguing of Egypt and the desolation of Jerusalem These shew the insinite hatred of God against sin therefore no doubt he will take a time to revenge himself of the impenitent amongst the sons of men because of their sins Lastly the consciences of men may prove that
Your Fathers where are they and the Prophets do they live for ever Zach. 1.5 God cuts off both the righteous and the wicked Ezek. 21.4 The righteous perisheth and the hhasidim the merciful men or the men of godliness are taken away Isa 57.1 Yea and often-times as Menander was able to observe it Whom God loves best he takes soonest An observation much like that in 1 King 14.12 13. That son of Jeroboam who only of that family had some good thing in him was taken away young But whether sooner or later their holiness frees not from death rich gilding upon an earthen pot keeps it not from breaking They are made of the same mettal of the same clay with other men The Apostles that brought the treasures of grace to the world were themselves Testacea vasa so Saint Hierome Vasa fictilia so Saint Gregorie but only earthen vessels 2 Cor. 4.7 clay in the hand of the potter Isa 64.8 And therefore all things in this respect come alike to all Eccl. 9.2 Vse 1. If such die then Death is not alwayes evil for sure it is not evil to them to whom all things work for good Rom. 8.28 The sting of it is gone And though it have not a pleasant look to entertain us with it is but as a rude Groom that opens the gate by which we must pass to a better place and to better company The godly have many advantages by death 1. Rest from their labours 2. A Crown when they have finisht the race 2 Tim. 4.7 8.3 Freedom from danger of sinning any more Rom. 6.7.4 Death frees from a possibility of further dying 2 Cor. 5.1 Let me die saith Seneca and what hurt comes by that I can be bound no more I can be sick no more I can die no more 5. They go presently to God While we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord We are willing rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord 2 Cor. 5.6 8. I desire to be dissolved to be with Christ Phil. 1.23.2 Tim. 4.6 We wrong death when we call it horrid it is sin which makes it to be so else it is but conceit There is often more pain in a tooth-ake then in dying Tears and black cloth and the tremblings of the guilty do disguise Death and make it look terrible He that said it was of all terrible things the most terrible was himself an Heathen and knew not what Christ had done to alter the property Once indeed it was uncouth and hideous but since Christ dyed it hath a more fair and pleasant face There can be no danger in that way which all the Saints have gone As Phocion said to one that by the same sentence of the Judges was to die with him Art thou not glad to fare as Phocion doth So are we not glad to fare as the holy Patriarks Prophets and Apostles have done and to go after them He that went this way the first of any man-kind was holy a Saint it was Abel whom God accepted We use to call those passages and Streights which have been first found and discovered by any by the names of the first Discoverers as the Streights of Magellanus and that a little lower Schouten Streight or Fretum le maire So if it may afford us any comfort for the passage let us call Death no longer Death but Abels streights Let us learn if not to love yet to contemne Death that so we may have the more easie conquest over all other hard things It was a bravery in Damindas an heathen which Christians should be ashamed to come short of When Philip had broke into Peloponesus and some Lacedemonians said They were likely to sustain much evil unless they could reconcile themselves to Philip Damindas said O Semi-viri quid nob is poterit acerbè accidere qui mortem contemnimus Ah poor spirited men what can be sharp or hard unto us who have learned to despise death it self Vse 2. Because Saints or holy men do also die let us make the best use of them while they are with us To benefit and profit our selves by our religious friends acquaintance neighbours and kindred When God raises up some man eminent for wisdome and a godly life he is set up as a light for the town or neighbour-hood to walk by Yet oft-times such as dwell neer are careless and neglect their benefit when strangers farther off draw neer unto the light and gain by it as we use to let our own books lie by and rather make use of such as we borrow to take notes out of them because we know not how soon they may be called for by the owners and presume that the other will still be in our keeping We should improve our good acquaintance and walk by the light while we enjoy it because many times the Sun sets and it is night in a neighbour-hood or a family when a good friend a good Parent or a good Master dyeth Remember Joash and Jehojada 3. The Death of Gods Saints is precious in Gods sight When David was opprest with griefe it seems he had such thoughts as these Surely man is res nihili a vain and worthless thing too low and too unworthy that God should take any notice of him or be careful of him But at last he overcame such thoughts when he had found the experience of Gods tenderness towards himself in particular and towards all his people and now resolves That God neglects not his as if he were not affected with their miseries but their souls lives and safeties are dear and tender unto him as a treasure which he will not carelesly lose or suffer men or divels to take away by force or treachery Their Death is pretious Jakar the word of the Text is in pretio fuit magni estimatum est God sets them at an high and dear rate The Septuagint renders it by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Noun by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 pretiosus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 probatus and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 multi pretii God honours and accounts well and hath high thoughts of the sufferings of his See how the word is translated in other Texts 1. Honourable Isa 43.4 Jakarta Thou wert pretious in my sight thou hast been honourable 2. Much set by 2 Sam. 18.30 His name was much set by 3. Dear Jer. 31.20 An filius Jakkir presiosus mihi Ephraim Is Ephraim my Dear son 4. Splendid clear or glorious Job 31.26 Si vidi lunam Jaker pretiosam abeuntem The Moon walking in brightness Put all these expressions together and then we have the strength of Davids word The death of the Saints is pretious that is 1. Honourable 2. Much set by 3. Dear 4. Splendid and glorious in the sight of the Lord. God is so tender of his people that 1 He will not have them take wrong he orders their death
the beavens from this full perswasion did arise this heavenly affection in this we green earnestly But alas how different is our disposition from this heavenly temper how pale how wan is our countenance at the mention of Death at the least summons of our last accounts as vinegar to our teeth as smoak to our eyes as a sudden damp to our lights as an horrid crack of thunder in the middest of our jollities so is the mention of Death If any ask the reason of this it is too manifest Want of judgement what is the true good of the sons of men Want of apprehension of the happiness of the Saints Want of faith in God of Union with Christ our souls never make any holy peregrination from the body and seat themselves with Angels and Archangels and trace the streets of New Jerusalem we anticipate not the joyes of the life to come by devout meditations and contemplations we have not our conversation in heaven from whence we look for our Redeemer Our soul thirsteth not our flesh longeth not after the living God The reason of this is we hang upon the teats of the world like babes and children we suck venome out of it to our souls we walk upon our bellies as unclean beasts 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we jutt against God and offend him our accounts are not streight and even therefore we are afraid at the appearance of our Saviour and of our citation to appear before his Tribunal we groan when we hear of death we groan not that we may die this is our condition and are not these different one unto another Doth not this stain the verdure of our countenances and cover us with shame and confusion to observe so manifest a declination of the fervor of the Spirit That you desire this heavenly temper I doubt not I should offer violence to Charity the Queen of Graces if I should think otherwise For this cause many of you are strict in the perforamnce of holy duties agreeable and convenient to this sacred time That your devotions may attain a happy end let me lend you a helping hand whilst I discourse these words which even now founded in your eares In this we groan earnestly c. Which I will resolve into three Propositions 1. That we are strangers in this life without our house 2. That the Saints desire their true and proper house 3. The intention of their desire In this we grown c. That we are strangers do not the sacred Oracles declare our conversation our polity is in beaven faith the Doctor of the Gentiles Our life it is hid up with Christ Col. 2. We are fellow Citizens with the Saints of the houshold of God Ephes 2. Doth not the chief of the Apostles intreat us as Pilgrims and strangers to abstaine from fleshly lusts which fight against the soul and do not these and the like demonstrate unto us that a Christian lives with men yet above men in earth yet in heaven bound yet free detained with us yet far above us living a doubble life one manifest the other Hid with Christ one contemptible the other glorious one natural the other spiritual that his Parentage is from heaven that his Treasure is in heaven that his heart is in heaven that his root is fastened in the everlasting mountains though his branches are here below that his dwelling is in heaven though his peregrination be here on earth and did not these Oracles tell us thus much yet are there not enforcing arguments to convince us of this Truth Are not they strangers that are out of their proper place and are not Christians while they are here out of their place Is this world made for Man an Ark of travel a School of vanity a Laborinth of errour a Grove full of thorns a Meadow full of Scorpions a flourishing garden without fruit a fountain of misery a river of tears a feigned fable a detestable frenzy and is this the place of man What means the fabrick of our body lifted up to heaven our hands eyes head upward but to shew us as Chalcidius the heathen man observed that our Progenitors are from heaven that our place is in heaven Every place is adequate to the thing placed in it is this world adequate to man are not his desires infinitely extended beyond the same Every place hath a conserving vertue in it Doth this world Preserve man well may it minister a little food to this beast of ours which we carry about us but can it afford the least savory morsell to the soul it were to be wished that it did not poyson contaminate and desile the soul so that the safest way for the soul is to flie from the world as from the face of a Serpent Is this world the place of man why doth our tender Mother the Church assoon as we come into the world snatch us out of the world and as assoon as we breath in the ayre bury us by Baptism in the grave of Christ and assoon as we move in this world consigne us with the sign of the Cross to fight against the the world and all the pomps of the same and are not we strangers Are not they strangers that have different lawes and divers customs and another Prince to rule and command them You have heard of the Prince of the ayre and the Lawes of the flesh of the fashions of the world of the wisdome that is from below and earth-creeping Are Christians guided by these rules have they not the God of heaven and earth the Lawes of the Spirit and the wisdome that is from above and customes that are from heaven whereby to regulate them Who are the men of this world are they not those who have the God of this world to reign in their hearts who are led captive by him whose understandings are darkned their wills obfirmated their hearts hardned their consciences seared their conversation defiled with all uncleannesses their senses open breaches for sin to enter their tongues blaspheming the name of God and are these conversations fit for the Saints and are they not strangers Are not they strangers that are not capable of honours of possessions in the place wherein they live as being not free Denizens of the place and is not this proper to Christians whose duty it is to vilisie riches and honours and pleasures in themselves as much as they that have these do others that have them not to account riches the greatest poverty and pleasures the greatest torments and honours the greatest ignominy and power the greatest weakness not to possesse the world not to enjoy it not to account any thing good that maketh not the owner better not to admit any thing from the world but so far as it may advance the true Nobility of man the purity of the Image of God his restitution to his ancient descent his re-estating him in the possession of heaven and the society of Angels and Archangels to rise
in this out of these cases to have such a taste of God such a relish of the joyes of heaven such a longing after the presence of Christ as not to be ready but to be willing not to be prepared for the stroak of death but to be desirous of it to esteem of death as the funeral of sin the interring of vice the period of miseries the Charter of freedome the Pattent of exemption from evil of sin from evil of punishment the day of our birth the season of harvest the seal of our victory the heaven of our happiness our introduction into heaven our inauguration into a kingdome the Chariot of our triumph the day of our return to our proper house to our Parents to our best friends This is the affection which is required in us at which we ought to aim Let this house of clay be resolved into the principles of the same what wonder if that which is built be thrown down and that which is compounded be resolved and that which was borrowed of the Elements be repayed again and that which was taken from the earth be committed to the custody of the earth Nay let me triumph in the resolution of this peece of clay into the exilest atome and admire the counsel of God that this Carkass is crumbled into the smallest dust and sifted into the coursest bran even to dust and ashes were not this body resolved into dust who would beleeve his original to be from the earth what pride what elevation would follow what carking and caring for this earthly Tabernacle if now when we see it to be but a spawn of worms and the food of Emmits there is such immoderate excess what would there be if the body were exempted from putrifaction what desolations would follow in Cities in Towns how many would dwell in monuments with those whom they have honoured or affected in their lives if many now be so impotent that though the body be putrified they cannot forbear imbracing of it and to solace themselves make Pictures of their dead friends and dote upon these what would they not do if their bodies were immortal What neglect would there be of the soul the better part of a man who would know the vertue of it that it is not only salt to the body to keep it sweet but the life the beauty the comliness of the body Who would beleeve the consummation the period of the world if our bodies were immortal who would mind heavenly things who seek those things that are above what deifying of the body would follow what Idolatries what superstitions what Temples built what Alters erected what variety of Ceremonies instituted to the body All which God hath pluckt up by the roots by this putrifaction and incinneration of our bodies by this teaching us to contemn earthly things to have our cogitations on heaven to think upon this scale to ascend up to this Mount to aspire to this intention which that we may let me add fuel to the fire and oyle unto the flame the expression of this aflection to the intention of it earnest groaning to eager desiring In this we groan earnestly That is for this we sigh out not our breath but our spirits we groan out not fuliginous vapours but our very hearts we weep not tears but bloud for this we immolate the sufferings of our bodies and macerate them with watchings and fastings we roul them in dust and ashes we exercise them in all humiliation and repentance And this is to groan earnestly in my Text. This is the negotiation of the outward man whereby it treads for heaven this is the conversation of a piece of clay into a pile of frankincence this adds wings unto our Prayers this openeth the ears of God this dissipateth the clouds of his countenance this inclineth him to clemency towards us this maketh the Widdow continent and the Virgin unspotted this lifts up the voluntary Eunuch to the kingdome of heaven this perfects the grace that is in the soul this washeth away the stains and contaminations that are in the soul this is the beauty and comeliness of a Christian How lovely were the Ninivites how glorious was the King in sackcloth sitting in his throne of dust and ashes what were his Robes of Majesty and Royalty to these ornaments they might dazle the eyes of the body for a time these dazle the eyes of the mind even at this day after so many hundred years they might procure him honour with men these made him honoured by God himself Let corporal eyes look upon an abject and mean appearance of a King in these weeds yet do not spiritual eyes see through these garments Humility Patience submission fear of God and the like and are there any Jewels like unto these what are those garments which are the labour of a worm to these robes that are the works of Gods Spirit What is a chain of Pearl to a chain of warm and successive tears beaten out of the rocks of a broken and contrite heart they may adorn the body this adorns the soul and which is more binds the hands of God himself Let whose will admire the victories and triumphs of David over the enemies of Israel which are indeed worthy of admiration I admire him in his watchings and fastings and sackcloth by them he overcame flesh and bloud by these he overcame God by them he overcame men by these he made conquest of himself by them he enlarged the territories of Israel by these he enlarged the bounds of heaven by them he made Hadadezer fly by these he made the Angel put up his sword and God to reverse his sentence by them he did remove temporal evils by these he did procure everlasting good unto himself and others This is that humiliation which this sacred time requires not abstinence only from meats which pamper this carkess this is not the body of this fast but a vehement intention of religious duties above other times he that prayed twice a-day before let him now do it seven times he that fasted but once in the week let him now do it three times or ostner as his body will permit him though it be to the sickness of the body it is an happy sickness of the body which is the sanctity of the soul he that gave Almes a little let him now double or treble his liberality he that did delight before in recreations let him devote that time to prayer to humiliation do not our sins require this our own sins the sins of others if not our own miseries for which we bless God yet do not the miseries of other Nations the Churches of God require this Do we not now beat our breasts and hang down our heads and rend our hearts and punish our selves for our sins that God may not punish them Did not our sins call upon us for this duty yet is not the sight of God the presence of our Saviour the joyes of Heaven the
mouths of all them that shall either be forgers or spreaders of such notorious lies though it pleased God it were by a sudden stroak of his hand and how often hath he done it when men have been worse busied he was but seeking to work peace Though it pleased God suddenly to take his speech from him yet I beseech you know this withall he was pleased not to take his life presently away nor his understanding from him from Thursday about four of the clock that he was first stricken he lived till Saturday night or Sunday morning I know not whether but in this time on Friday night I was with him and I perceived by the lifting up of his hand that he knew me I put him in mind of some gracious promises that God hath made to us in Christ I asked him whether he beleeved those promises of God and whether he found any comfort in those promises and then he lift up his hand I asked him and desired him if he found any assurance of Gods favour in Christ to make the same signe he lift up his hand again I asked him if I should pray with him he desired it and at the period of every Petition his hand went up to God And one thing I observed more that in one petition of mine in that prayer for him that it would please God to deliver him from the malice of Satan that would be most busie when we are weakest he held up his hand higher then before and continued holding it longer And blessed be our good God that we can hold and keep an intelligence with him not only by speech but with our very hands that lifting up of the hand and those groans of his spirit I make no doubt but they prevailed at the hands of God And so as he lived I make no question but he died a holy servant of God and I hope his soul is now in heaven and we are come to lay up his body in the earth in the hope of a blessed and joyful Resurrection LIFES APPARITION AND MANS DISSOLUTION SERMON XXV JAMES 4.14 For what is your Life it is even a vapour that appeareth for a little while and then vanisheth away THere are two main things to which the corrupt nature of man is subject and obnoxious rash judgement and vain confidence both spring out of one root and that is Pride where Pride possesseth the heart it will make a man rash in the judging of others and presume vainly and confidently upon himself At all these evils the Apostle strikes here in this Chapter both Mother and Daughter both root and branch To take heed of Pride that is the Mother sin he exhorteth us to thankfulness where instead of waxing proud of our selves he would have us humble our selves and he brings this argument to perswade us because they that humble themselves God will exalt The only way to be exalted is to be humble he compares the state of man in respect of his future condition to a pair of Balances that are hung on a beam the lower the one balance is down the higher the other is up the lower we humble our selves in this life the higher God will exalt us in the next The two main evils which are the branches of this root the Apostle reproves in the eleventh Verse First rash judging of others the fault of those that are apt to speak evil of others Speak not evil one of another saith the Apostle That that commonly we call the sin of Detraction Aquinas saith we are guilty of two wayes either reporting of another that evill we should not or in not reporting of him that good we should in the one we offend when we do either accuse him of that ill that he is not guilty of at all or aggravate against him that ill that he is guilty of making it appear greater than it is in the other we are guilty when we do cut off all the good parts in a man as if they were nothing at all at least when we extenuate that worth and goodness that is in him making it appear less than it is From this the Apostle disswades us by three Arguments First because they that do this they do wrong the Law He that speaks evill of another speaks evill of the Law for the Law would have us love Secondly they that do this they do wrong God they take Gods office out of his hands when they take upon them to judge others for he is the only Judge and none else for he is the only Law-giver that is able to save us and to destroy us Thirdly and lastly they wrong their Brethren when they censure and judge their Brethren beyond their Commission they take upon them more than they have Authority as if he should say you exceed your Commission in this you take that upon you that you have no warrant for Thus against the rash judging of others Then against vain-confidence in our selves this the Apostle strikes at too at a confidence out of which a man prefixeth unto himself what he will do this day and to morrow what he will do this year and the next year what he will buy and sell and gain Go to now saith the Apostle you that say thus among your selves to morrow you will go to such a City and tarry there a year and buy and sell and get gain This is a foolish confidence and the Apostle endeavours to reprove and suppress it By way of Correction By way of Direction His Correction is drawn first from the ignorance of the persons that make such accounts as these you say you will do thus and thus to morrow you shew your ignorance you know not what shall be to morrow Secondly by the uncertainty of the thing they reckon upon then which nothing is more uncertain nothing so uncertain as that is therefore it is not to be reckoned upon Consider saith the Apostle what is your life you talk of doing this and that to morrow What is your life it is even a vapour that appeareth for a little while and then vanisheth away His directing Argument is in the next verse where he teacheth us how we should speak of things future and things present Of things future not to speak too peremptorily of them but with condition If we live and if God will And then for things present not to rejoyce boastingly in them for there is nothing here to be boasted of or rejoyced in The thing that I have selected for this present time and occasion to discourse upon is only that argument of the Apostle wherein the shortness and uncertainty of our life is represented the Apostle sets it forth to us by way of Question and Answer First he puts the Question What is your life as if he should say it is a thing not worthy the reckoning of Build upon nothing to be done to morrow upon so vain a foundation as that is and to shew the uncertainty of our life he
the Lord hath taken into his own teaching that they cannot abide the place of the Sun-shine the place where the Sun of the light of grace shines they remove themselves from it they absent themselves upon any occasion as if a man should set himself to run from the light of the Sun So likewise do we not see that men cannot abide the society of godly men of religious men fearing God that deal truly with them in exhortations and admonitions and loving rebukes c. They will none of this So do we not see how ready and willing natural men are to chase away if it were possible all the Lords Cocks and all his servants that they might not cry against their sins that they might not awaken them nor come neer them They are set so fast asleep that they cannot abide any servant of God And for the ministery of the Law which Jeremie calls as a Hammer to break the hard heart and to knock and rap the sleepy soul it is an intollerable thing they cannot endure this hammer they cannot abide these doggs that bark against their sins whereas dumb doggs that can neither bark nor bite those they can like well enough Somewhat they would have they are content with a formal fashion but these men that speak against their sins that discover their estate in sin these they cannot endure Now tell me if these men live not in a carnal sleep and are found in the Cell and Cave of darkness wherein they desire to sleep for ever To come from these in the second place let us consider that not only these natural men and worldlings are cast into a dead sleep but would not a man marvel that even Christians should sometimes be cast a sleep Would not a man wonder that the Disciples of Christ that were so neer to the side of their Master that were following their Masters exhortation in the former Precept that he taught them that were so neer temptation that the yoak was even upon their neks would not one think it a wonder that they should not watch one hour with Christ Therefore Brethren let us take notice of our security much more that are infinitly behind the Disciples in grace let us rate our selves for the heaviness and dulness of our hearts But because we are Baptized and hear Sermons c. we can make no man beleeve that he is asleep Therefore let us try and consider whether those that hear the Word and are Professors of the life of grace those that are already awakened be not in such a fearful slumber as may well be called asleep First of all therefore this is one mark of a man that is asleep he hears not he understands not the things that are spoken to him so it is a mark of a sleepy heart and conscience when a man hears not nor understands the word that he doth hear when he hears not that which is spoken It is one Judgement upon wicked men the Book of God is clasped to them such a man reads and hears and discerns not If the Book be open his heart is clasped fast he takes no good by it And this is not the least part of the misery upon the Saints that this book is not so open to them nor they do not so understand it nor discern that which is in it as they might We hear the word many of us many times and we seem to receive it but yet who is he that may not find in himself that the sleep and security of his mind and soul makes him not much to attend and regard it that he is not careful and industrious in the keeping and maintaining of that he hears and the framing himself according to it And so it comes to pass that it is with Gods word that we hear as it is with Physick when it is given to a man that is dead it works not or when he sleeps immediately upon it so when we hear the word of God and fall into a sleep upon it into the sleep and sluggishness of earthly cares the Word is unprofitable if works not that effect that else it would Again a man that sleeps you shall know it by this he doth not mind his ordinary business he neither troubles his head nor his hands with it his business sleeps with himself he doth nothing but sleep while he is asleep he can do nothing else So hereby we may know our selves to be in a marvellons sleep of sin when we give not our serious thoughts to God and to the practice of piety and godliness it is an argument of sleep and slumber in us The mind of man should intend the principal thing for which God hath put us in the world when we give not our thoughts to God and mind not the things of Gods Kingdom it is a sign we are asleep When we move not nor stir not our hands and our feet in the wayes of Gods Commandements as we should it proceeds from this sleepiness and drowsiness Whereas would we be wise for our selves and awake as we should We should neither be idle nor unfruitful in the work of the Lord. We should ever be doing somewhat that might glorifie God and further our own reckoning But this is a signe of a sleepy person in the main and principal things his heart is not upon them his hands and feet move not in the wayes of God he works not to the principal end for which he came into the world Thirdly you shall know a sleepy man by this he knows not of the passing of the time but so much time as he sleeps he wastes it is as the time of death to him for what is sleep but the shadow of death Even so it is with many of us that profess the teaching of Grace Alas how do we waste time insensibly and pass away the time some deck away the time some play away the time dayes and weeks and months together as if time were not made for some other business as if we had received time for such imployments as these for our recreations and sports and pleasures and not rather that we might further our Repentance and our Reckoning and help the servants of God and get Oyl in our Lamps and Faith in our Souls and patience against the time of trouble and get assurance of a blessed inheritance when we shall be turned out hence Time is given us for these ends and yet we silly men as we are devise pastimes to our selves as if our life did not pass away whereas Job saith it is as a Weavers shuttle Let us consider Brethren time will pass that we may improve it and not waste our time Fourthly and lastly to conclude this Point a man that is addicted immoderately to sleep you shall know it by this it destroyes natural heat and that being destroyed by immoderate sleep as by a sudden mighty shower this man grows pursie and fat and lazy he
grows idle and unfit for the exercises of man-hood or of his Calling and the like So it is when a man is immoderately and excessively fast asleep with the cares of this Life the lusts of his heart the pleasures of this present world or whatsoever it is that luls him and rocks this Cradle when he is thus asleep he grows fat and pursie his natural heat is gone he falls from his first zeal and affection and desire and practice Alas Brethren we may speak to the shame and sorrow of many I doubt that hear me that have exchanged their care of godliness that have exchanged their seeking of God in the means with company with good-fellowship with Drunkenness And let the Lords Marriners come to them and say Up sleeper call upon thy God why dost thou not do thy first works Why art thou lazy he grows angry as Jonas was that thought he did well to be angry to the death This is the misery of many that live under the teaching of the Gospel in the light of the Gospel This is another mark and a signe of sleep when we cannot abide of any thing to be wakened To draw to a Conclusion the last Use of this Point it serves to rouze and to raise us from this sleep and security this slumber that is in the best of us And know my Brethren I speak not now to those that are out of the Church and those that are notoriously wicked those that are scandalous and rebellious to good Counsel but I speak to those that live in the bosom of the Church those that profess goodness and godliness yea those that are Disciples and are near the side of Christ let this exhortation be to them to raise and rouze themselves out of this sleep It is time saith the Apostle that we rise out of sleep The sum of this Exhortation I will propound and then draw to a conclusion First consider how unprofitable a man a Christian man is when he is asleep What is a man when he is asleep but that there is hope of awaking and to come to the actions of life again a man that is asleep he lives but the life of a Plant there is nothing but being and nourishment a waking Beast is more profitable but that I say there is hope that afterwards he will awake So when we sleep and slumber and tumble and toss our selves in dead security how unprofitable are we to Gods glory and to our own selves Saint Paul saith that Onesimus was unprofitable before his conversion but now saith he he is profitable both to thee and me A man that is asleep is unprofitable and certainly he that is asleep in security and sin this man is most unprofitable to Gods glory and to his own soul Secondly consider when a man sleeps and slumbers in sin how unfit he is for any Christian duty and exercise for the main parts of Godliness and Christianity How unfit is a sleepy man for the actions of life and of his calling and how unfit and unable and indisposed is a man that sleeps in sin to the actions of spiritual life There be some main parts and branches of our general Calling to which this sleep makes us unable The first of them is the exercise of godliness the main thing in the profession of a Christian to exercise himself in godliness how unfit is a sleepy Christian for this who sees a man that is asleep that works in his Calling that can do any good in it So how can a Christian exercise himself in the actions of his general Calling when he sleeps in his praying in his hearing in his reading if these duties be done coldly what are they worth Actions that are done in a mans sleep they come to nothing so a man that sleeps in sin let him do never so many good actions they are of no value A second main branch of our Christian Calling is the spiritual combate to fight against our corruptions Now alas how unfit is a sleepy man either to expect or to repel an enemy when he is asleep he lies open to all disadvantage Sisera himself a strong and noble Captain was so weak that a silly woman Jael shew him when he was asleep therefore we know this part of our Christian calling cannot hold as long as we sleep in sin Thirdly another part and main branch of Christianity is to expect our Masters return to wait for the coming of our Lord that we may enjoy that sweet blessedness that he hath promised and made us expect and wait for now how unfit is a sleepy man to wait for his Masters coming to set things in order Thus we see in these particular main duties of Christianity they cannot be performed by men that are asleep therefore we had need to wake our selves if we will either honour God or profit our selves if we will be fit to do service to God or to his Church we must keep our selves awake especially in the main duties of Christianity Thirdly consider while we sleep and are secure the enemy never sleeps he is then most watchful against us We may sleep and think we do well enough to take our ease but Satan sleeps not we have a watchful enemy to deal with And then he hath some advantage by our sleeping in Mat. 13. in that Parable The enemy sows tares while men slept he comes into the field of the heart where the word of God the good seed is sown and what doth he do there he sows a crop of thorns and they make the heart of a Christian like the field of Solomons sluggard Prov. 24. I passed by the field of the sluggard and it was all thorns c. Thus is the heart that is neglected of a man that is sleepy and secure in sin When do robbers and theeves assault the house In the dead time of the night when they may take men at advantage in their first sleep then they come and break into the house Shall theeves and burglaries watch at mid-night to break the house and cut mens throats and wilt not thou watch to save thy self Further consider as the enemy never sleeps so Gods mercy never sleeps Gods mercy is ever watching over us to do us good and it watcheth to keep us watchful for what should all the mercies of God do to us but keep us watchful Our God that we serve is not as Baal the God of Idolaters perhaps he is asleep and must be awaked or he is chasing his adversaries No no the strength that keeps Israel slumbers not nor sleeps Therefore let not Israel slumber nor sleep because God watcheth over his children let them watch with him and keep themselves neer to him Fiftly if this will not move thee then consider as Gods mercy sleeps not so Gods judgments sleep not Thaâ—… man that sleeps in sin let him know that Gods judgments sleep not As Balaam when
therefore he cannot but with amazement and fear continually tremble before God and he desires if it were possible that there were no God at all that he might never be called to account for his doings But now the child of God a faithful Abraham that is in covenant with God he may in the middest of all evils lift up his head with joy and comfort even when wicked men are at their wits end and know not whether to turn themselves It is I say a point needful to urge in these times wherein we hear abroad of wars and rumors of wars and so many distractions and what they feel we have cause to fear but now it is seasonable at this time when we see the King of fears act his part before our eyes he that the Philosophers call the most terrible of all terribles that is Death that tends to the extirpation and abolition of nature in regard of our being here I say there cannor be a better argument treated of then somewhat that may fence us against the fear of this evil Now for the opening of this point First consider what fear is And then what fear a Christian should be freed from And then how it comes to pass that a Christian is exempted from all slavish and inordinate fear And then come to make some Use of it to the present occasion First that we may know the point the better let us consider what fear is in general And fear beloved is such An affection or passion of the soul that is stirred up with a through apprehension of some future evil that is very difficult to be resisted by the party or patient It is an affection or passion of the soul for it makes a real transmutation in the man It is such an affection as is stirred up with the apprehension of evil for evil is properly the object of fear we do not primarily fear any thing that is good axcept the loss of it and it is ill to lose any good thing Again it is evil future for if the evil be present we grieve and not fear And it is such an evil as is difficult and hard to resist an overcome with patience for if it be a small evil that is easily conquered you contemn it you fear it not You see then what fear is in general Is all fear prohibited Not the fear of God c. Fear is oft commanded in Scripture know then there are divers kinds of fear First natural fear and that is called natural either in regard of the material or efficient cause When the party that doth fear is phlegmatick or melancholly and so is naturally inclined to fear this may be called a natural sear Or in regard of the object when there is somewhat in that which is destructive to nature and therefore the fear of death it is natural to man and so whatsoever may prejudice nature Now this natural fear is an affection that Almighty God concreated with the soul it is naturally good it is morally neither good nor evil but according as it is determined by circumstances Again there is a carnal evil fear namely when a man fears the evil of punishment more then the evil of sin a corporal evil more then a spiritual a temporal more then an eternal He is afraid of losing something he enjoyes or of not getting something he desires c. In either regards there may be a carnal fear as I shall explain it to you more anon and this so far as it is carnal is ever to be condemned Thirdly there is a servile fear and this is such a fear as looks at the punishment only and not at the sin when a man is afraid of the judgements of GOD and never fears sin that is the cause of it And so withal when this fear is only servile and is retained in the heart that man desires still to sin there is a love of sin a wishing that God would give him leave to sin and let loose the reins to him that if it were possible there were no God no Devil no Heaven nor Hell that he might sin were possible there were no God no Devil no Heaven nor hell that he might sin freely And if he abstain from sin at any time the cause is that there is this punishment that is the consequent of sin and not out of love to God or obedience to his commandements Now this servile fear though in it self it be not savingly pleasing to God yet it is a thing that is good as S. Austin observes for that man that fears servily he doth that which is good though he doth it not well because that is a thing that depends upon the disposition and will of him that doth the thing though the thing be good as far as it goes It is good for the restraining of evil men from outrages in the world and it is a preparative in the way to conversion as it is Act. 2. Lastly there is a filial son-like fear that ariseth out of the consideration of the greatness and especially of the goodness of God whereby a man so hates punishment as he hates sin also the cause of it Now there are divers degrees of filial fear One degree we call innitial fear in this World And a degree of perfection in the world to come In this world the fear we have hath one eye upon the punishment and another eye upon the commandement or love of God And here many make a doubt whether they are to do that which is good having an eye to the recompence of reward or to abstain from evil out of the fear of punishment For answer briefly And thing almighty God hath made a motive to us to incourage us to do well or to deter us from evil we may make a motive to our selves and as long as we do so we do well It was so with Adam in Paradice this was propounded as a motive In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt die Then to abstain from the forbidden fruit partly out of fear of punishment If Adam did so he did well So every one of us in regard of any evil we may have an eye to the punishment that will be the consequent of the thing for Christ urgeth this to his own Disciples Fear not him that can kill the body c. And to do things meerly without any respect to punishment at all I know no reason why any man should aspire to that perfection For God while we are here hath given us these motives to stir us up to avoid evil and it is well if we can heartily and truly out of love to God do it by all the motives that God hath propounded To have a fear meerly for punishment and still to retain the love of sin and no respect or love to the commandement of God this is not acceptable to God in a saving manner but to have an eye to God and to abstain from sin
rashly and inconsiderately and divers things out of incogitancy that he knows not what he doth he is unfit for holy duties unstable in all his wayes As he is thus in regard of his place and calling so in regard of the duties of Gods service he cannot do these with a quiet heart with a peaceable spirit while he is possest with these fears You shall see almost all the sins in the world come from this fear What was the reason that Abraham and Sarah did equivocate was it not fear in that particular of men more then God and so they put God upon a miracle to preserve Sarahs chastity in the case of Abimeleck What was the reason that Aaron yeelded to make an Idol for the people of Israel and so joyned in Idolatry with them he was afraid of the people that they might do him some hurt he durst not trust God with his preservation So Peter denied his Master out of fear What is the reason that a Minister doth not sometimes reprove sin that a Magistrate doth not sometimes reform that that is amisse It is slavish fear they will not trust God to maintain them in his own cause What is the reason that many servants lie c. it is out of a slavish fear of their masters And so in regard of the things of the world men are inordinately afraid that they shall lose somewhat they possess and therefore they take indirect courses Still this slavish fear and horrour and distrust of God it is almost the cause of all sin as we may observe in the world This being so prejudicial in the last place let us fence our hearts against this fear By this means we shall honour Religion and make our lives comfortable incourage other Saints of God and draw people to like Religion when it yeelds such sweet contentment to the souls of men For do but once again muster together all our enemies and see if we have cause of fear For our spiritual enemies Will any man fear a wounded foe for the Lord God hath wounded Satan and trampled him under our feet and brought us as Joshua did his Captains to set our feet upon the neck of principalities and powers that through the mighty power of God we are more then conquerours and shall we fear such an enemy as this Shall we fear those sins that we are humbled for and which God hath made as if they had never been For the evils of the world Why should we fear them those corrections that are immediatly from God there is no cause of fear in them As thus If God take away thy Wife or thy Child or thy friend or a part of thy substance what cause of fear is there Fear not faith God I will chastise thee in measure and will not make a full end of thee Jer. 46.28 yet thou shalt not be altogether uncorrected And then remember God proportions the correction to our strength as a Father not as a Judg he aims at our amendment not at our ruin If he take away a friend that we doted too much on if we set our minds too much on the world and worldly things God will deprive us of them and so by this be all in all to us and draw us neerer to himself have we cause of fear to fear that that comes from God No will some say if we fall into the hands of God there is mercy but the mercies of men are cruel What if unreasonable men deal with us have we not reason to fear ill from them they are outragious and cruel they bend their malice against us and if the enemy should come and make an in-road into our country and bring devastation what should we do then I answer first in all things that fall from men there is a provident hand of God therefore faith our Saviour to his Apostles when he would incourage them faith he there is a providence even concerning sparrows there is none of them light on the ground without the providence of God So when he would encourage his Disciples against their adversaries your very hairs are numbred As if he had said Almighty God knows how many hairs every man hath upon his head he numbers all our joynts he tells our steps there is nothing befalls us but what the provident hand of God is in And wicked men the Divel and all his instruments God hath them in a chain they cannot go one step further then he gives them leave Again consider what God laid to Abraham here I am thy shield In regard of all the evils that men attempt against us whether in regard of scoffing or persecution and open hostility or whatsoever God is our sheild And the Psalmist calls him else-where our strong tower You know how it is if men incounter a strong Tower the enemy must first batter the Tower about their ears before they can hurt the men If a man fight with an enemy he must pierce his shield before he can hurt the man We may speak it with sacred reverence to the Majesty of God they must overcome God himself before they can hurt his people in doing any thing that shall prove in the event hurtful as long as they keep close to God The Lord intimated this to the people of Israel The Egyptians marched and followed hard after them to devour them with open mouth God when he saw that he removes the pilsar of the Cloud and set it between them as if God should have said to them you deceive your selves to think to conquer my people you must conquer me before you conquer them So God is our strong Tower our shield and our deliverer and he will find deliverance for his people some way or other from the evil or in the evil or out of it as shall turn to our exceeding advantage For suppose the worst that can be supposed that wicked men are let loose on us to do all that their malice can invent they can but touch the body the shell of the soul and let the prisoner out of doors Upon this argument Christ incourageth us Fear not them that can kill the body but fear him that can kill both body and soul As if he should say Do the enemies threaten death they promise you life the greatest advantage and the happiest day that ever can befall a man that is in covenant with God is the day of death Then all they can do is to kill the body for a while which God will raise maugre the malice of the Divel and all his instruments and possess the soul of that bliss that is prepared for it And in regard of Death why should we fear that if we be in covenant with God the nature of it is changed the sting is out and it is become beneficial But you know the Saints die still The red Sea swallowed up the Egyptians but contrariwise to the Israelites it was a wall
is with the eye in tears that cannot see a thing clearly so the mind cannot judge of things distinctly when the soul is disturbed Let not your hearts be troubled But that which our Saviour aims at here hath a particular respect to the affections of fear and grief when these are in the excess the mind is troubled when a man over-fears any thing or over-grieves any thing he is troubled and disquieted Let not your hearts be troubled that is grieve not for things more then they are to be grieved for and fear not things more then they are to be feared For all these will dis-joynt the soul as it were it will put the spirit to much pain and disquiet as a bone out of joynt Therefore by all means keep your hearts in a right state in that order that God hath set them Let not your hearts be troubled That that I will briefly note here shall be but thus much that Men are wondrous prone even the very best men to be disturbed in their passions and affeictions Our Saviour Christ speaks it here to his Disciples to those that he had taught before whom he had gone as an excellent example all his dayes yet these holy men these followers of Christ that had followed him through so many dangers and after so many teachings and instructings of them he had need to call upon them to stir them up to consider of their own estate that their hearts might not be troubled You may see the Malady in the Medicine Every prohibition in the word supposeth a corruption and an aptness in the natural heart and spirit of man to sin and transgress in that particular Therefore when Christ speaks to his Disciples and tells them they should not be troubled It shews that even the best men are subject to excess of passion and affection to be disturbed and troubled through immoderate fear or grief for that was the case of the Disciples Now briefly I will shew the grounds of it and come to the Application because I will hasten This trouble that is upon the spirits sometimes of the best men it ariseth Partly from Gods providence and hand upon them And partly from Satan And partly from themselves I will shew you the causes in these particalars and then apply it First it ariseth many times from the hand of God The Lord is said to be a Sun and a shield The Lord will be known to be a Sun and a shield to his people Now look as it is with the earth when the Sun withdraweth his light it is all dark and cold and dead So it is with the hearts of the best men when God withdraws the light of his countenance from the soul it is as the earth at midnight And as it is with Souldiers in the battel if their shields be taken from them they are exposed to every dart and danger every thing may annoy them and wound them So it is in the state of the soul if God withdraw himself from it and do not now support it as before and do not fence and strengthen it as at other times the fiery darts of Satan will pierce deep into the soul and the spirit will not be able to uphold it self against these assaults Now God withdraws himself sometimes from his servants and that in special wisdome In respect either of the time past present to come Sometimes God doth it in respect of the time past and so he doth it by way of correction First to correct his children for their former wantonness they have abused the expressions of love and now as a Father takes away the light from his child when he sees he makes no better use of it then to play with it So God sometime takes away the light of his countenance that is he casts clouds before himself he doth not manifest himself in that loving favour when his servants neglect that reverence and fear that he expects from them in the midst of his mercies Secondly this he doth sometimes as a correction of their negligence when God hath called on them from time to time and they have neglected calling on God he hath called upon them for duty and for the leaving of such particular evils and they have neglected it Now God withdraws himself to make them know what it is to do so And because they will not know what it is to hear his voyce when he calls he will make them feel it by his not hearing their voyce when they pray Sometimes he calls to them as he did to the Church in the Canticles Open to me my sister my Spouse my love c. The Church is negligent and careless I have put off my cloaths how shall I put them on I have washed my feet how shall I defile them Now he withdraws himself from the soul and what is the the end of it The keepers strike her and the watch-men take away her vail and now she is left to trouble and perplexity because Christ had absented himself whom she would not entertain when he offered himself Thus God doth to correct that that is past And farther God doth it sometimes to correct that carnal considence and security whereunto men are wondrous prone when they go on in a clear way with much comfort with wind and tide I said in my prosperity saith David I shall never be moved thou Lord hast made my mountain so strong but what followeth upon it saith he Lord thou hidest thy face and I was troubled now trouble came upon him trouble of Spirit because he rested too much in that outward mountain in that outward condition whereunto God had exalted him and he placed his hope too much on this and thought it should be alwaies thus now God turns his hand and then David is troubled and that is the first particular in the first cause But secondly God hath a further aim and that is for the time present and that is First to inform all his servants where there strength lies where all their good lies it lies not in themselves it lies not in any creature And therefore God will have them seek it in him and that they may do it he draws them to it by sence they shall be deprived of comfort in respect sometime of outward conveniences and in respect sometime of the light of his countenance shining upon their souls How do we know that the Moon shines on the earth by a borrowed light but because we see it is not alwayes alike in its light we see sometimes it hath a full light and sometimes it is enlightned but by the half and sometimes by some little part where we see this disproportion that it is not alwaies alike we know by this that the light of the Moon is borrowed from somewhat else from the Sun Now how do we know that the heart of man is fed and relieved and supported with comfort from without it self
with borrowed and received comfort but by this Because the state of Gods servants in respect of the spiritual quiet and satisfaction and contentment of heart is not alwaies alike but sometime they have abundance of joy that they seem to be as it were in heaven Sometimes they are perplexed with many disquiets and griefs that they seem to be cast down to the deep as it is said of the Marriners in Psal 107. what is the reason of this but that no flesh should glory in it self that every man might know that whatsoever he hath to make his life comfortable and pleasing to him it is from God that dispenseth it to men in that proportion as seemeth good to his own wisdome God will have us know that all the happiness of our spirits is in their union with the chief of spirits with himself and that when they are but a little separated from him when he doth but a little withdraw himself from them they are as a thing that is dead how shall we know that the branches have sap from the root that it is that that makes them flourish and grow but by this If you do but cut them off from the root they whither presently So it is with the spirit with the heart of man if God do but a little withdraw himself let sin but make a separation between God and man now a man is like a withered branch he hath nothing now to revive him because he is divided from the root At the least it is with him as it is with a tree in Winter though the sap remains in the root so though he remain in union with the root yet the moisture is gotten into the root it self and doth not now infuse it self into the branches I confess the servant of God that is once united to Christ shall never be separated the union it is now and alwaies shall be but nevertheless the sap and comfort of the Spirit it may remain in the head our life may be hid in Christ and may not appear in us at all And we are then in that estate as if we were branches cut off whereby it may appear that whatsoever life and comfort and strength of heart we had it was from Christ and by the influence and work of his Spirit And then for the time to come God doth it to prevent some distempers that might grow on the hearts of his servants if they should alwaies be in a like state of spiritual joy God doth it to prevent pride Paul was apt to be lift up with those revelations therefore a messenger of Satan was sent to buffet him And so it may be to prevent carnal confidence in the creature a man would begin to ascribe somewhat to himself to his present condition if it were alwaies thus with him you know what the Apostle Paul saith 2 Cor. 1.10 We received in our selves the sentence of death that we might not trust in our selves but in God that raised the dead look to what end Paul received the sentence of death to that end Gods faithful servants sometimes receive the very sence of death as it were and the sence of the destitution and want of all spiritual comforts for the present Why That they might not trust in themselves or in those habits of grace and comforts they have or in any creature whatsoever The work of Gods spirit in the regenerate soul it is but a creature a work of God and God will not have men trust in any such thing in what then In him that raiseth from the dead God will bring them to such a state that they shall seem as dead men as destitute of all spiritual comforts they have that they might trust in him that is able to raise them out of such a state as that that look as he is able to give life to the dead body so he is able to give comfort to the distressed soul that is at that time in the shaddow of death Secondly it comes sometimes from Satan and that is thus Satan wonderfully sets himself against the seed of the woman especially against the promised seed Christ he will alway be at his heel Gen. 3.16 and in his opposition against Christ he sets against the very glory of Christ among men and that is his kingdom he would not have Christ exalt his kingdom over men Now the kingdom of Christ consists as the Apostle speaks not in meat and drink but in righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost If he cannot keep a Christian a true beleever from unrighteousness he will labour to interrupt his peace if he cannot keep him from the habit of peace peace in the grounds of it yet he will keep him from the exercise and effects of that peace from joy he will hinder that as much as he can that he may not have the sence of his blessedness he knows that spiritual joy strengthens a man to all spiritual duties and his endeavour is to weaken all the servants of Christ in all their services and therefore he doth at least labour against that with all his might that if they will needs go on yet nevertheless to propound and occasion as many things that may be troublesome to them and disquiet their hearts as he can And there are two principal wayes that I may but touch them whereby Satan wondrously prevails in this particular The one is by stealing out of their hearts those precious promises those comforts whereby the Word of God revives the soul You have forgotten saith the Apostle the consolations of God And the devil meets in man with two advantages to help him in the effecting of this First he turns the thoughts upon new objects and herein he doth diametrically and directly set himself against God in the way of his special providence that very thing that God in wonderfull wisdom hath wrought in the heart for the ease and comfort of man Satan makes it an occasion of trouble and that is this the variety of mans thoughts what is the reason that God hath framed the mind of man to change his thoughts continually and to have innumerable thoughts Certainly for the very ease of the Spirit of man for the very ease of the soul of man For if the mind should keep intent upon any one thought long it would so work upon that that it would weary it self out in working as we see men by excess of grief in particular cases grow to be phrensie and destracted and the like Now this aptness of the mind to run to variety of thoughts that God hath made for the ease of man Satan turns it as a help to hurt him A man shall run on into a world of business of temptations and distractions that shall draw him from the thought of those things that he hath heard for the relieving of his Spirit wherein God spake comfort to his heart that he may the better fasten those
and hindred by it from doing the good which thou shouldest certainly death will be to thee the biginning of thy thraldome and after it thou shalt be a perpetual bondslave unto Satan in the kingdome of etetnal darkness Mark this all ye that take delight in evil to whom it is a pastime to do wickedly and who seek rather how to satisfie then how to suppress your own corruptions who repute it a kind of happiness to follow the swing of your own lusts and to have liberty to do as your own hearts do lead you when you die this shall be your reward even a most miserable and endless captivity under Satan him have you served in the lusts of sin while ye lived his slaves shall you be without hope of releasement world without end This is the right Application of this Doctrine death is a day of enlargement to the godly it is a dismission The next particular is that it is a dismission accompanied with peace the lesson we are taught hence is that The servants of God have at their going out of the word a comfortable quiet and peaceable departure Thus Simeon here he prayed for no other thing but that his end might be as the end of the Righteous is ever wont to be even a departure hence in peace Hence is that general rule of the Psalmist Mark the perfect man and behold the upright man for the end of that man is peace Agreeable whereunto is that of Solomon that the righteous hath hope in his death And memorable to this purpose is that which is storied of old father Jacob shewing unto us the quiet end of the Righteous He gathered up his feet into the bed and so gave up the Ghost It was the blessing promised to Abraham that he should go to his fathers in peace And the same was made to good Josias There is a twofold reason hereof First the assurance which they have of the favour of God in Christ This must needs breed quietness when I am perswaded in my soul and conscience that all cause of danger after death is removed and that God is and will be gracious unto me in his Son What cause of fear is here lest what occasion of perplexity If any man shall doubt whether the servants of God have this assurance I prove it thus that all of them first or last have it in some good measure If any man faith the Apostle have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his Hence it necessarily followes that all that are Christs have the Spirit of Christ but now the office of the Spirit is to bear witness with our spirit So that all that are the Lords as they are endued with Gods Spirit so they feel this Spirit bearing witness to their souls of this Adoption Secondly the comfortable Testimony of their own consciences touching their former care to glorisie God by a Religious and godly conversation Hence came Saint Pauls peace I have saith he fought the good fight I have kept the faith Therefore I am sure there is laid up for me a Crown of life Hence Hezekiahs I have walked before thee oh Lord in truth and with a perfect heart Not that they do ground their hope upon the desert of their fore-ran courses but because they know good works to be the way and do understand by the Scripture that a holy life here is the first fruits of a glorified life hereafter Thus we see the truth of this point and the reasons upon which it is grounded Now here some may object first We see many worthy men that have made a great and an extrordinary profession of Religion in their lives and which have also carried themselves unblamable yet to give appearance of much anguish and perplexity and even of a kind of despair in their death How can we say then that all good and holy persons have a peaceable departure I answer first We ought to remember the Rule our Saviour gives not to judge according to the outward appearance It is a very weak argument to say that this or that man dyeth without peace because to the standers by he makes not shew of peace Certaine it is that as a man may have peace with God and yet himself for a time by reason of some tentation not feel it so a man being sick or going out of the world may feel it and yet others that behold him cannot perceive it Secondly we must know that these outward unquietnesses which do many times accompany sickness do happen as well and as ordinarily to good men as to the most wicked such as are ravings and idle-talkings and strange accidents in the body in this sence all things come alike to all God hath made no promise in Scripture that those that serve him shall be freed in their deaths from violent sicknesses Therefore these things must not be thought to be any abridgment of their peace Thirdly we must consider that with the best servants of God Satan is most busie when his end is neerest and when he is as it were out of all hope of prevailing The red Dragon in the Revelation had greatest wrath when he knew his time to be short When the evil Spirit was commanded once to come out of the child then it rent him sore Now these temptations though for the time they be very violent and extream so that the party may happily utter out some words and speeches of dispair yet be they no final prejudice to the inward peace Interrupt they may but utterly quench it they cannot because the power of God is made perfect through weakness And so even in death Satan receives the greatest foil when he thinks to get the greatest victory Thus then I answer in one word The peace of Gods servants at death is not ever in the like measure felt by them but yet it never dieth in them they which behold their death do not alwayes see it yet they themselves sooner or later are sure sweetly and secretly to feel the same My reason for my assertion is grounded first upon that of the Apostle God commands light to shine out of darkness He brings his servants to Heaven by the gates of hell out of sorrow and anguish and tentation he raiseth out their greatest quiet Secondly because the love of God is eternal and unchangeable Whom he loves he loves to the end It is impossible that the Lord albeit he try and that sharply yer should finally for sake those that are his in their greatest extremity But again secondly if you make a peaceable death to be the reward of the Righteous what say you to this There be many that in all their life gave little evidence of any Religion or grace but of the contrary rather yet in their death were very quiet and still and seemed to all that were by to have in them no manner of vexation no
first degree of his exaltation so this spiritual Resurrection that we have spoken of it is the first degree of a Christians exaltation therefore get this in the first place yea get this and all will follow If thou attain this thou maist be assured of the second Resurrection also to the life of glory Remember that Christ by raising himself from the dead by his own power declared himself to be the eternal Son of God He was declared mightily to be the Son of God by his Resurrection So if thou canst by a power and vertue drawn from Christ rise out of the grave of thy sin then thou shalt declare thy self to be the member of Christ the Son of God the daughter of God therefore labour to attain this first Resurrection But here this question may be demanded but by what means now doth Christ convey this spiritual life to his children and how shall I get to be partaker of this Resurrection by what means shall I attain this first Resurrection to this spirituall life To this I answer briefly that by the same means by which Christ works faith in the soul by the same means he raiseth a sinner to life for he that beleeveth liveth and he that liveth beleeveth he that beleeveth is raised to life therefore by the same means that Christ works faith by the same means he raiseth a sinner to life Therefore the outward means is the Preaching of the Word the inward the Spirit of grace By such means as Christ will raise the bodies of the dead at the last day by the like means he now raiseth the souls of those that are dead in sin Now Christ will raise the bodies that are now dead in the Grave at the last day First by his voyce John 5.28.29 and by the sound of the Trumpet 1 Cor. 15.52 The Trump shall sound and the dead shall be raised incorruptible And he shall raise them by his quickning Spirit So by the like means Christ now raiseth our souls that are dead in sins therefore if thou desire to be raised out of the grave of sin let me counsel thee First to attend diligently to the word of God upon the preaching of the Gospel The word of Christ is a quickning word as Christ saith Joh. 3.63 My Word is spirit and life The voyce of Christ is a quickning voyce as Christ by his voyce raised Lazarus out of his Grave when Christ said to Lazarus Come forth presently Lazarus quickned and came forth so the voyce of Christ in the ministery of the Word hath a quickning power to raise sinners from the death of sin therefore when the Ministers cry aloud and the Prophets lift up their voyce as a Trumpet then hearken Secondly be frequent and fervent in Prayer for the Spirit of grace and of Christ before thou hear pray and after thou hast heard pray that the Spirit of Christ may accompany his Word that so this may be a means to awaken and to quicken thee out of thy natural estate and to raise thee out of the death of sin Thou must pray to God to give thee a hearing ear and a believing heart that so the sound of the Word may not be as the sound of a Trumpet in the ears of a dead man but that thou maiest be quickned by the voyce of Christ And though thou have continued a long time in thy sins yet be not altogether discouraged remember that Christ is able to raise thee though thou have continued never so long in thy sins for he that was able to raise Lazarus that was dead and buryed and now stinking in the Grave he is able to raise up thee also In the last place in one word if upon examination thou find thou have attained to this spiritual Resurrection then here is a ground of exhortation To humility To thankfulness Here is a ground of Exhortation to Humility and Thankfulness to joyn them both together because they usually go together the proud person is alway unthankful and the humble man is alway a thankful man Now if thou have attained to the Resurrection thou hast great cause to be humble and to be thankful First thou hast great cause to be humbled because thou hast nothing but that thou hast received thou hast great cause to be humbled because thou puttest not any hand to this work no more than the dead body of Lazarus could help to the raising of him No more then a creature being nothing can help to its own creation no more can a sinner help forward this mork of his Resurrection therefore thou hast cause to be humbled for not puting the least helping hand to this work it is wholly supernatural Therefore let not any one arrogate any thing to the power of his free will but remember the work is wholly supernatural Secondly as we have cause to be humbled so to be thankful too do but consider the desperate and dangerous estate of sin whence thou art raised and then make thy humble confession with the Israelites when they brought their first fruits before God Deut. 26.5 A Syrian ready to perish was my father he went into Egypt with a few and become a Nation mighty and populous and the Lord brought him out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an out-stretched arm with terrour and signs and wonders and hath brought us to this place and hath given us this Land even a Land flowing with milk and honey The like deliverance the Lord hath wrought for thee therefore be thankful and make thy thankful acknowledgment with the Psalmist Psal 115. Not unto us but to thy name give the glory And then desire God as he hath by his mercy brought thee to the Kingdome of grace so by his power to preserve thee to the Kingdome of glory And desire Christ as he by his quickning Spirit hath made thee partakers of the first Resurrection to the life of grace so to make thee partaker of the second to the life of glory DEATH IN BIRTH OR THE FRUIT OF EVES Transgression SERMON XXXVI GEN. 35.19 And Rachel died IT is a Statute law of God that all both Men and Women must die The causes for which it pleased Almighty God to leave the bodies even of his dearest Children under the power of Death to be returned to dust are many First for the manifesting his truth according to that ancient threatning mentioned Gen. 3.19 Dust thou art and to dust thou shalt return Secondly for the manifestation of his power that by death he may translate his chosen servants to life Sin it was that brought death into the world and God will shew his strength in this that death shall be the utter abolishment even of that very thing which brought it first upon us and made us all lyable to it If there had not been sin there should not have been death and now God will that in those that are his the kingdom and being of sin shall utter
it from him O death void of mercy and respect of persons that she should die it was some grief to him but that she dyed in travel that did most trouble him and increase his grief And well might he stile their son Benony the son of sorrow for it was indeed a sorrow to them all to her to him to their issue to their friends and acquaintance to their servants to all that knew them or had any relation to them But Jacob will not exceed the bounds of Christianity he was at the last comforted he refers himself his children his infinite and almost insupportable loss to God Almighties pleasure from him she was received and to him he is content again to return all The mourning and lamenting that he made on her behalf it could not recal her again all the tears he could shed for her were of no force or power at all to make her alive too much sorrow might happily indanger his own life and then he should highly offend against Almighty God Patience and Christian fortitude were the only remedies left him and these he resolves on Let us learn hence as long as the world lasts to know that worldly comforts whatsoever they be and howsoever we may esteem of them they are subject to change Love with unfeignedness what may be so loved but take heed you love not too much for fear the taking of that away from you that was so dearly loved of you make you fall into impatience and sin against God Let us so love that we may think of loss if it stand with Gods pleasure but yet let us so love that we esteem it no loss if he please Let his good will and pleasure ever-more moderate our affections so happily we shall enjoy the thing beloved a great deal longer But if we exceed in lamenting were we as just and righteous as Jacob God will be angry with us for it Not only thy dearest Wife but thy dearest Child thy dearest friend whatsoever is most dear to thee shall then feel the stroak of mortality that the heart may be taught to wish for eternity crying heavily and sighing with a mournful voyce with those words of the Preacher Vanity of vanities all is but vanity There is a threefold punishment inflicted upon all women kind in answer to the three sins committed by our Granmother Eve First because she gave too much credit to the words of the Serpent telling her that both Adam and she should be as Gods knowing good and evil therefore it was pronounced presently upon her that her sorrows and conceptions should be multiplied Secondly because against the express command of Almighty God she did eat the forbidden fruit therefore it was pronounced against her that in sorrow she should bring forth Children every time her hour was at hand she should hardly escape death I need not enlarge my self you all know it to be too true nay sometimes and that oft-times too it costs your lives an example we have here in the Text in Rachel and in our deceased Sister here before us and many others Thirdly and lastly because she was a seducer of her Husband therefore for a punishment all your desires ought to be subject to your Husbands and by the warrant of the Scripture they must rule over you Death is a debt to nature and must be payed there is no avoyding of it no putting it off when GOD thinks it fit it is infallible to all in respect of the matter and end though in respect of the time and manner many times it be divers Some die when they are young some in the middle of their age and some live till they be very old That for the time Some die of Convulsions some of Dropsies some of Feavers and to be short some in Child-bed as Rachel here did and our departed sister But of what desease soever they die that is nothing die they must sooner or later of this infirmity or that it is no matter which when it pleaseth God Let a man make what shew he can with all his glorious adornations Let him have rich apparel and disguised linnen and searcloth and balm and spices let him be inwrapped in lead and let stone immure him when he is dead yet the earth his original Mother will again own him for her natural Child and triumph over him with these or the like insultings he is in my bowels returned to his earth This body returns not immediatly to heaven but to the earth nor to the earth neither as a stranger and altogether unknown to him but to his earth appropriate to him as his own his familiar friend and old acquaintance To conclude we are sinful and therefore we must die we are full of evil and therefore we must go to the grave we have sins enough to bring us all thither God grant they be not so violent and full of ominous precipitations that they portend our sudden ruin portend it they do but O nullam sit in omnia c. I am loath to be redious He should not be redious that reads a lecture of mortality How many in the world since this Sermon first began have made an experimeut and proof of this truth of this sentence that man is mortal and those spectacles are but examples of this truth they come to their period before my speech My speech my self and all that hear me all that breath in this ayr must follow It hath been said we live to die give me leave a little to invert it let us live to live live the life of grace that we may live the life of glory and then though we do die let us never fear it we shall rise from the dead again and live with our God out of the reach of the dead for ever and ever So much for the Text at this time To declare unto you the cause of this present assembly would be altogether superfluous the dumb oratory of that silent object doth give you to understand in a language sufficiently intelligible that we are now met to perform the last rites and duty that we owe to the memory of our dear sister here before us And Christian charity hath been so powerful in all ages that it hath been retained as a pious and laudable custome at Funeral solemnities to adorn the dead with the deserved praises of their life not for any pomp or vain-glorious ostentation but that Gods glory here may be for ever magnified by whose grace they have been enabled to fight a good fight and that the surviving may be encouraged to run the same course when they behold them discharged of this tedious combat and crowned with a crown of glory and immortality This Sister of ours was born in this parish and hath lived in it some thirty four years or there-about eighteen years a single woman and sixteen years a married Wife of whom though upon my own knowledge I can speak but little yet having credible information from
in the subject too not only a certainty that those that are in Christ shall live but it is certain to you make account of this make this conclusion for your selves build on it know it for your selves as he said to Job it is certain if you be in Christ you are dead with Christ and you shall live with Christ make account of this Lastly the efficient cause of this great change exprest in these terms it is Jesus Christ our Lord make account of this if you be in Christ there comes a vertue from Christ an effectual working of Christ by his spirit in your hearts such a powerful work as will conforme you to Christ dead and to Christ risen that you shall be dead to sin and alive to God not by any sttength in your selves or any excellent endowment in your own natures not by any natural inclination and ability but through the vertue and power of Jesus Christ our Lord working in you Thus you have the Text opened We will speak first of the Analogy and proportion the agreement between the metaphors here used and the things exprest by them That which the Apostle would express is that there is a marvellous spiritual real change in all those that are in Christ from what they were before Now let us see how sitly it is exprest in these words that he saith you are dead to sin and alive to Ged that he chuseth to express it by life and death Had it not been fit to have said thus much you are changed in your dispositions in your inclinations in your intentions in your actions you are changed in your conversations you are other kind of men in the inclination of your hearts you bring forth other fruit you lead other lives then you were wont to do But he expresseth it here yet more fully that is by that that includes all these and if there be any thing more may be added it includes that too ye are dead and alive Then we will consider First generally how death and life express the state of them that are in Christ Secondly consider them in their particular application how death expresseth the first part of a mans change in sanctification and life the second part First we take them in general and let this be the point that A man that is indeed effectually changed by vertue of his union with Christ he hath such a change wrought in him as in a dead and living man as in life or in death Now first take it in general you know life and death they imply first a general change when a man is alive or when a man is dead there is not a change in some part only but in the whole So it is here when a man is effectually changed from what he was by vertue of his union with Christ A member may be dead and yet nevertheless the man alive but if the man be dead there is a general change that goes throughout it possesseth every part every member so that now there is no member of him but death rules in it then he is a dead man So it is in this when a man is dead spiritually there is not a change in some particular actions only in some particular opinions only there is not an alteration of some of his old customs only but it is a general change so it goes through the whole man It is a change in the understanding he judgeth things otherwise then he was wont to do And there is a change in the will the inclination of it is to other objects then he was wont to be inclined to And thence there is a change in his intentions he propounds other ends to himself then he was wont So there is a change in respect of the whole the Word is the rule of all a mans actions There is a change from particular evils from one as well as another that when any thing is discovered to him to be a sin to be a transgression of the rule he is turned from it So likewise when any thing is discovered to him to be a duty agreeable to the rule according to the will of God revealed in his Word he is a vessel of honour prepared for it and that is it the Apostle especially means when he compares them to vessels and he describes them thus they are vessels of honour fit for the service of their Master prepared for every good work So that now as the Apostle saith there remaineth no more conscience of sin That is there remains not now any sin to cleave to the conscience to defile it to cleave to the conscience so as a ruling enemy would do that would take away all true and perfect peace all boldness and access to the throne of Grace there is no such conscience of sin This making conscience of every sin is that that frees conscience from being defiled in that sence with any sin so much for the first Well secondly it is expressed by death and life to shew the orderliness in the proceeding of this change When a man is changed by the efficacy and working of Christ to whom he is united it proceeds in such a manner as the change in death or life You know death or life begin within first it begins in the inward man in the heart first And as in natural death or natural life there is a dying first of the root and a quickning first at the root So likewise in spiritual death or life it is an orderly proceeding it begins first within Our Saviour Christ gives this direction First make the inside clean and then all will be clean against the hppocrisie of the Scribes and Pharisees that looked more to outward actions So this change it is not only a meer civilizing of a man a conforming of him to that society he converseth with in outward actions but renewing of a man in the spirit of his mind Rom. 12.2 So the change begins from within Hence it is that first he is good and then he doth good according to the speech of Christ make the tree good and then the fruit will be good we will not stand upon it you see the Analogie and agreement holds between these two in general Now we come to take them apart more specially First how this being dead to sin agrees with that change that is in a man that is in Christ from sin Reckon this saith the Apostle make account of this that you are dead to sin that is now there is such a change and turning from your evil courses from whatsoever it is that is truly and properly called sin in Scripture you are changed from it Now in whatsoever sence a man may be said to be dead in that sence a man in Christ is changed from sin there is somewhat in his change expressing that death Now there is a threefold death A Civil Death A Judicial Death A Natural Death We begin with the judicial first
as Gods great Work begins in the judgment There is a judicial death so one that is alive now in respect of natural life may yet be said to be judicially dead when he is dead in sentence when by the Judge he is condemned to death when he is adjudged to die So reckon ye your selves dead to sin make account of this that now in your judgment there is a sentence passed out against sin that it shall be slain that it shall be mortified thus your judgment stands and thus you look upon it as a thing dead in sentence and that is the first It is that in Ezek. 36.31 saith the Lord When I shall be pacified to thee this shall follow upon it thou shalt judge thy self worthy to be destroyed for all thine iniquities and abominations When God is reconciled to a man which is as much as to say when a man is in Christ for by Christ we are reconciled to God this follows upon it that man comes now to judge sin to be a deadly thing to judge sin to be dead and to judg himself worthy to be destroyed for it He looks on sin as it should be looked upon his opinion is right concerning it he accounts it an iniquity a thing against that rectitude against that equity and righteousness wherewith man was once endowed in the Creation and from which so far as he swarves so far he is plunged into death As you know that curse was denounced against man when he sinned he should die so he cannot look upon iniquity upon that that is contrary to that righteousness wherein he was made but he looks upon it as on death it self and a deadly thing he looks upon it as upon an abomination That look as persons that sinned capitally were an abomination to the Land and people among whom they sinned as the Scripture speaks of murtherers and the like the land was defiled if the sentence of death were not executed so it is here in the opinion and judgment of a man that is in Christ he accounts this the greatest defilement that his soul remains so far polluted and defiled as there is any life left in sin That is the first thing reckon this then that sin is dead immediatly that is that you now come to pass as Judges do a sentence of death against sin and that howsoever a Malefactour be not naturally dead when he is judicially dead yet he is in an order to it the next thing that follows will be to be cut off So it is with sin when a man comes to judge himself for his iniquity worthy to be destroyed for his abominations this is the next thing that follows he will not rest till that be slain and subdued till that Malefactour be condemned to death and cut off and took out of the way Here is the first thing herein this change is like death Secondly there is a civil death too so one that lives naturally may be dead civilly so one that is under the subjection and power of another such a one is dead civilly The civil Law accounts any one that is under subjection to be Civiliter mortuus as they speak that is he is in that sence not accounted among living men he is one dead because he is not annimated and acted by his own will but by the will of him that rules him so reckon ye your selves dead saith the Apostle Make account that when you are in Christ sin is no more to be ruler and commander to act and animate and quicken you to obey its lusts that you should be acted and animated by it that as soon as sin tempts you should obey presently make account in this sence you are dead to sin that is sin is dead in you civilly it hath not a ruling power it comes not now as one that hath power to sway all before it that is it the Apostle saith in this Chapter sin shall not have dominion You have a new Master a new Lord you are no more under the rule and dominion of sin that is the second Thirdly there is a natural death as well as a judicial and civil death so things are said to be dead naturally two wayes Imperfectly Inchoate Perfectly Consummate Natural death imperfect and but begun is this as when there is a great blow given with an axe to the root of a tree whereupon certainly it will wither and die and be made altogether unfruitful for the time to come though for the present it have leaves upon it and though for the present all the fruit that is on it be not quite shook off yet now the tree is said to be dead because there is a blow given at the root whereupon it will wither and certainly die So a man is said to be dead when he hath a deadly wound given him though he be not now dead though he may stir and live after and perhaps do some hurt to him that wounded him yet he is dead because he is irrecoverably wounded every one that looks on him will say he is dead So as soon as a man is in Christ by vertue of his union with Christ there is such a blow given to the root of sin not in the judgment only but in the affections also so as it never recovers its strength again to bring forth fruit in that abundance as before and it alway withers and decayes more and more till it be quite removed Now as it is in this case with a tree will you know when it is dead take it in the Spring All the trees in Winter seem to be dead but come in the Spring and in Summer and then if a man see there are no leaves if he see no fruit upon the tree now he concludes it is dead indeed because it brings not forth fruit in the season of fruit So take a man when there is an occasion an opportunity to turn to folly when upon deliberation and judgment he may consider of that opportunity to mannage it for the service of sin it will appear now if he be dead he will not in such an occasion yeeld but at such a time especially resist sin at such a time he will not bring forth the fruit of sin Look what the Spring is to the tree that is occasion to the sinfulness of mans heart Indeed when sin takes a man upon disadvantage upon unequal terms that he deliberates not and considers not what he is doing as David saith I said in my hast then many times sin prevails and binds him as a theef doth the master of the house hand and foot yet nevertheless when he well weighs and considers things at such a time it will appear that sin is dead Thus you see how sitly the terms hold to express the change of a Christian his judgment is right he condemns sin as death in the purpose and covenant of his heart whereby he is bound to God he disposeth it from its
know all the house sets against him and never rest till they cast him out and if they want strength they cry for help but the Master of the house comes in and then all the servants are in their places to do him service all take care to please him and give him content How entertain you the motions of sin look upon your former wayes upon your former customes and vanities look upon your wonted course of ill and consider now whether there be an endeavour to satisfie the sinful inclination of your hearts or is there a striving and using all means to be rid of it Do you make this your question to the Ministers you converse with to the Christian friends with whom you consult in this case how to be rid of such a corruption how to get such a sin purged out Is this the matter of your prayer to God do you cry to Heaven for help to get out this theif that is stollen into your hearts this traytor that conspires against the glory of God this rebel that maintains a fight against the kingdom of Christ do you so look on it It is a sign you are dead to sin or else sin is alive in you and you are dead in sin Thirdly and lastly consider your actions consider your conversation doth sin get strength or is it weakened For know that this is not the mortification of sin that a man be never troubled with it more that he never hear more of it that he be never more troubled with the motions of sin no As a man that hath a deadly wound given him it may be he more fiercely sets on him that gave him the deadly blow then ever before yet he falls dead at his feet after so it is with the motions of sin think not when sin is dead by vertue of our union with Christ that we shall not be tempted any more to sin that you shall not have sin any more in you no it will be in you and molest you But what fruit do you bring forth What actions do you what strength hath sin all the strife it hath is but to disquiet and disturb you not to rule and command you as it was wont to do It is a sign that sin is dead naturally by way of incoation it will die in the end you shall hear no more of it at the last and though it a great while disturb you and disquiet you yet this is your comfort you are disturbed and you maintaine Gods quarrel against your corruptions and fight against it it is a sign it hath a deadly blow Therefore let every one consider his estare let no man deny himself his own portion let him that is dead in sin know that he is dead and the wretchedness of that condition eternal death begins in that death And let him that is dead to sin know that he is alive to God and is among those that live in Christ and shall be saved A word of exhortation and so I conclude Doth this testifie our life in Christ that we are dead to sin Then as you hope for any comfort or priviledge or advantage by Christ labour to make this good to your souls and labour to secure this evidence more and more that you are dead to sin There are none that hears me this day but they profess they hope to be saved by Christ and they look for no other name under Heaven to be saved by but the name of Jesus It is certain but who will Christ save they are such as whom he sanctisies and will he sanctisie such as by union with him are dead to sin and alive to God Then I beseech you make this good to your selves strive more and more to kill sin take this as a quickning argument that you are in Christ and therefore you must be conformable to Christ Saith the Apostle He bore our sins in his body on the Tree 1 Pet. 2.24 that we might be dead to sin and live to righteousness Why did Christ bear your sins in his body upon the Tree but for this very end that as he died for sin you might die to sin Now that we may perswade you know that it is upon special ground you lose nothing but get much by it the more you die to sin the less you lose by it First you shall not lose any thing that is comfortable and good you shall not lose life by it nay indeed the more you sin the more you die every sin is deadly and mortal every sin tends to your destruction to the taking away of life this is certain Therefore look as a man when he is in a mortal dangerous disease that every man concludes if the disease prevail he will die nay it hath so far prevailed that it will be the death of him you need no more to perswade him to spend all his estate upon Physitians to cure that disease Now the sins that you cannot endure should be reproved that you cannot abide to reform they will be death in the end your eternal death therefore labour especially against them When we diswade you from sin and perswade you to purge outsin we perswade you to your cure to be free from your disease to be free from that that will end in death You shall not lose any rest and peace by it the more you mortisie sin the more rest and peace you shall have nay the more sin rules the less rest and peace There is no peace to the wicked but they are as the troubled waves of the Sea that alway foam and cast up mire and dirt as the Prophet speaks such is the restless agitation of a man that goes on in sin he is ever restless and unquiet Would you have peace and quiet get out sin that hinders all peace and quiet Again you shall not lose outward good things not credit and name and esteem Nay what dishonours you and exposeth you to reproach and shame and obliquie is it not sin For what is it that men are evil spoken of is it not for this and that particular evil Do you love your name avoid sin sin will end in shame it is the issue the fruit of it God will give you honour with his servants nay even in the hearts of the wicked You know the more men strive to mortifie their sins the more the world reproacheth them ordinarily but we must not judge what men do in their jollity and in their passion but what themselves do when they are upon the wrack of a trouhled conscience upon their death-bed oh then if they might die the death of the righteous oh then they would they had lived the life of the righteous or any thing then if they had been like such a one whom they scorned This gained esteem of John in Herods heart Again you shall not lose your wealth your estate all losses of estate that are judgments and punishments they are but the
many things there are which we shall never see Every man cannot see that which one man doth but there is one thing which every man shall see he must see death There are many enemies from whom we can deliver our selves and many more from whom we may be delivered but yet there is one enemy from which we cannot desend our selves nor be defended by others he will be too strong for every man let him strive repine order his dyet intreat do what he will or can No faith the Psalmist none shall deliver his soul from the hand of the grave And he puts a Selah a note of observation at the end of the verse That all the sons of men are subject to this change by death will appear to you by these familiar Arguments The First may be taken from the quality of our lives which is sweetly set out in the Scripture under the terms of changeable things all which point out unto us the certainty of death Sometime our life is compared to a shew Psal 39.6 Surely every man walketh in a vain shew In a shew you know there is some devise or other opened carryed a-while about but at length it is shut up so it is with our lives Sometime again it is compared to a shade or a shadow Job 8.9 Our dayes upon earth are a shadow a shadow is but an imitation of a substance a kind of nimble picture which is still going and coming and will set at last perhaps it is suddenly ecclipsed so is our life Sometimes again it is compared to a vapour James 4.14 What is your life it is even a vapour that vanisheth away like a poor cloud sometimes looking white sometimes black sometimes quiet and settled sometimes again tossed up and down with every wind and at last consumed and brought to nothing so it is with our lives Sometimes also compared to a Tale Psal 90.9 We spend our years as a tale hat is told a meer discourse of this thing and that thing and indeed but a very parenthesis of a more tedious discourse and many times it is broken off in the very telling so it is with our lives Sometime again it is as grass as in Isa 46. The voyce said cry aloud what shall I cry all flesh is grass and the goodliness thereof as the flower of the grass And verse 7. The grass withereth and the flower fadeth because the Spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it And Job in this chapter calleth it a Flower He cometh forth faith he like a flower and is cut down A flower is a sweet thing but of an earthly breed sed with showers at its best when it is in all its glory it is but to day and to morrow it withereth and is fit for nothing but the Oven so it is with our lives Many expressions of the like nature might be added the Scripture is plentiful in these comparisons comparing our life to the Spiders web to a Weavers shuttle to the breath of a candle to a pilgrimage to a journey to the dayes of an hireling c. all of them things of a changeable and variable nature The second argument may be taken from the quality of our Natures and there in there are two things considerable both which imply a certainty of death First our composition and matter whereof we are made we are reared out of a mouldering and wasting principle our bodies are therefore stiled an earthly house 2 Cor. 5.1 A house though of Iron will in time be cankered but a house of earth as it is most impotent against assaults so it is of its own nature most apt and subject to dissolution And in this respect also they are termed Tabernacles Now a Tabernacle you know is a thing of no perpetuity made only to be soon set up and that in a mans passage and then as soon taken down again Secondly beside this there is in our nature sin and corruption and this is it that doth put us to the sword and cause this deadly change this tears our lives with a continual consumption The tree breeds the worm which will destroy the life of the tree we in Adam gave leave to sin and now it is that sin gives leave to death In the day that thou shalt eat there of thou shalt surely die Gen. 2.17 and Rom. 5.12 By one man sin entred into the world and death by sin and so death passed over all men in that all have sinned The shadow doth not so neerly attend the body of man as Death doth the body of sin And Rom. 6.23 the very wages of sin is death God should do that man wrong that hath hired out his soul all his dayes to sin if he did not at night pay him with the wages of death The third Argument may be drawn from the certainty of the Resurrection we all believe the resurrection of our bodies and therefore we must needs conclude a change of our bodyes for what is the Resurrection but life from death for the dead to hear the voyce of Christ and live What is it but a breathing in of the soul again the lighting of the candle again the body could never be raised if it were not first changed Thou fool faith Saint Paul 1 Cor. 15. that which thou sowest is not quickned except it die The fourth Argument is from the infalibility of Gods decree it is appointed unto men once to die and after death to come to Judgment Heb. 9.27 Thou maiest sooner expect that the course of the heavens shall be altered and the Center of the earth be dislocated then that the purpose of God concerning mans mortality should be reversed any that may be for heaven and earth shall pass away but this shall never be not one jot of the word of God shall fall to the ground God hath purposed it and none shall dissanul it nay he hath established his purpose with a word of confirmation Gen. 2. in the day thou eatest therefore thou shalt surely die As if he should have said Do not deceive thy self but build upon it I have spoken it and will not alter the thing that is gone out of my mouth as sure as thou livest if thou eatest thou shalt die Thus you see the first assertion cleared unto you I will address my self now to the second of which brieffy too and then make Application of them both together As there is a certainty of our change so we should alway wait till it doth come There are two things which I will here inquire of for the fuller illustration of this point First what this continual waiting may import Secondly why there should be such a constant waiting for the day of our mortal change First this continual waiting mainly imports two things one a certain axpectation of death for waiting is an act of Hope expecting something If we do hope for that we see not then do we with patience wait for it saith the
up all the sons of Adam shall be swallowed up it self into victory Till then we shall all go 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in our several rank and order take our last walk the way of all flesh and it is happy if we go it as Abraham did here in peace and a special blessing if we be gathered as he was to his Fathers in the Autumne of a good old age In which words we have two Acts of a Tragedy the former acted upon his Stage thou shalt go to thy Fathers the latter under the scaffold and be buried in a good old age None die better then they who have life in their hope and none live better than they who have death in their mind and thought especially if it be in the time of their health and bloom of their beauty and pride of their youth and top of their earthly happiness For this cause Joseph of Arimathes is supposed by many to have set his Sepulchre in his Garden as it were to sawce his sweetest pleasures with the sad thoughts of his Funeral and John surnamed the Almoner began his Sepulchre on the day he was Consecrated Patriark of Alexandria and it was the manner of the ancient Emperours at their Coronation feast to have several sorts of Marble shewed them to the end that they might choose one of them for their Tomb-stone and agreeable hereunto the interlineary gloss yeeldeth a reason why God commanded that the oyle wherewith the Kings were annoynted should be compounded with Cinnamon and other spices quod sit cinericii coloris because it is of the colour of Ashes or rather such mould as is digged out of Graves to put them in mind that very day in which they were made Gods upon earth that they should die like men In which regard we have great cause to Bless the providence of our heavenly Father who in the midst of our Marriage feasts and many occasions of mirth and joy presents us with such sad spectacles as here we see to the end we should not exceed in our mirth or too far set our heart upon the pleasures and comforts of this life which like sticks under a pot after a blaze fall suddenly into ashes Let us learn from all the changes and chances of this mortal life not to sing a requiem to our souls here with the fool in the Gospel because we have wealth laid up for us for many years for if our riches take not their wings and fly away from us we shall be taken away from them we shall be arrested by Gods Bayliff Death and then we must go But thou shalt go Our observations from this Scripture ariseth from two springs 1. The manner 2. The matter The former divides it self into two Rivelets the latter into three In the former to wit the manner I observe 1. That these words were spoken to Abraham in a Dream when the Sun was going down a heavy sleep fell upon him 2. That they were spoken by way of Gracious promise In the latter to wit the matter I observe three blessings bestowed upon Abraham 1. A comfortable death Thou shalt go in peace 2. An honourable burial and be buried with thy Fathers 3. A seasonable time for both in a good old age First of the manner When the Sun was setting a deep sleep and dreadful darkness fell upon Abraham and God shewed him in a dream the misery and thraldome of his postetity in Egypt Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs and shall serve them and they shall afflict them 400. years vers 13. and lest at the sight hereof his heart should utterly have failed him and his bowels dryed up within him like a pot-sheard God cleareth the skie which was clouded with a smoak of a fiery furnass vers 17. and cheareth his heart reviving him with a promise of safety and peace for himself and of deliverance of his posterity also out of their grievous servitude after a certain period of years allotted for the promise of the growth and ripeness of the Amorites sins For dreams in general the great Secretary of Nature discovereth unto us that the Dreams of good men are better than the Dreams of bad and he will have his foelix or happy man to have a singular priviledge above other men even in his sleep And doubtless as a good conscience is a full feast in the day so it is a light banquet in the night for better thoughts and phantesies in the day beget better dreams in the night as the brighter colours in the Window when the Sun shineth cast clearer species intentionales or reflections from them on the Wall God is with his children as well in the night as in the day and he imparts his counsels and discloseth his secrets as well by dreams in the one as by visions in the other That prophesie of Joel I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh and your young men shall see visions and your old men shall dream dreams though it were fulfilled in the day of Penticost as Saint Peter instructeth us yet ought it not to be restrained to that day or the Apostles time only For it hath been verified in all after-ages and holdeth still for profitable and comfortable irradiations of Gods Spirit upon the soul by day and night though not for supernatural and prophetical revelations or not so frequent Dreams therefore as they are not with the Eastern people supertitiously to be observed so neither are they utterly to be neglected as idle and vain nocturnal phantasies The Poet could say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Jupiter sends Dreams and Ariflotle dreamed not when he wrote his exact discourse of Divination by dreams nor Artemidorus when he published his curious tract intituled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 judgment of Dreams for the experience of all times proveth that the Dreams of many men especially a little before their death have been very considerable When the window of the senses are shut the soul hath best leisure to look into her self and after sickness hath battered down the walls of the dark prison of the body in which she was close kept more light breaks in upon her and she seeth farther off then she could before and this is the meaning of the Platonicks in that their Apophthegme anima promonet in morte the soul looks out as it were neer death For this particular in my Text God is gracious to many of his children now adayes by Dreams or otherwayes to give them notice of their departure hence To some he maketh known the year to some the moneth to some the very day and hour when they shall go the way of all flesh And as here he fore-shewed Abraham his departure from hence per viam lecteum by the milky way as it were that is by a sweet and pleasant passage of a natural death in the autumn of his life so also in a Dream he
the Haven of death The Draw-net of the Gospel catcheth sweet and stinking fish in Gods field Tares grow with Wheat in his floar there is much Chaff with good grain But after death God taketh his Fan in his hand and purgeth his Floar After we depart hence God placeth and sorteth his Children by themselves and the Children of the World and the wicked are by themselves and so every man is exactly gathered to his own people every star is set in his own constellation every grain is put in his own heap every person and family is joyned to his own tribe we all pass by the same gate of death but presently after we are out of it some take the right hand and are ranked with sheep others the left hand and are ranked among his goats We are all like Plate worn out of fashion and we must all be altred and therefore of necessity must be melted that is dissolved by death but after we have run in the fire of the judgment of God of that which was pure mettal God will make Vessels of honour but of the drossy and alcumy stuff that is the prophane or impure person or hypocrite vessels of dishonour and these shall shine like the sun in the Firmament those shall glo like coals in the fire of hell for evermore By this it should seem may some object that the righteous have no prerogative in death above the wicked but only after death and consequently that God promised Abraham no blessing in these words thou shalt go to the fathers it had been rather a singular favour to have kept him out of the common track with Enoch and have translated him that he might not see death this objection is answered in the next words In peace it is no special blessing or favour to bring us to our fathers by death for statutum est omnibus haminibus semel mori the Statute provideth sufficiently to send us to the place where we were born but to send us thither in peace is a singular favor which God vouchsafeth his dear Children especially in such a peace as Abraham went in wherein a three-fold peace concurred 1 Peace of estate 2 Peace of body 3 Peace of conscience First thou shall go to thy fathers in peace that is in a peaceable time or the dayes of peace the storms I foreshewed the hanging over thy Posterity shall not fall in thy time but thou shalt die in a blessed calm thy house being set in order and thy friends about thee thy children shall close thine eyes and they whom thou broughtest into the World shall carry thee with honour out of the World Secondly thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace that is thou shalt have an easie and a quiet pass 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there shall be no great strugling at thy departure but a kind parting of soul and body thy soul shall earnestly desire to return to the Father of spirits and though thy body shall contend in courtesie to stay it a while yet it shall without much adoe yeeld thou shalt like a ripe Apple fall from the Tree without plucking or a violent blast of Wind thou shalt go out of thy self as a golden Taper when the waxe is spent and thou shalt leave a sweet smell a good name like a precious perfume after thee Thirdly thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace that is in peace of conscience and peace with God which passeth all understanding thou shalt have no trouble in thy mind at the hour of death no terrours of conscience no fearful conflict with despare no dangerous assault of Sathan or flashes of hell fire all thy sins shall be blown away like a cloud and the beams of Gods countenance shall shine brightly upon thee and dry up all thy tears non sic impij non sic it shall not be so with the wicked it shall not be so with them for there is no peace to the wicked faith my God neither in life nor death but as a ruff sea is ruffest of all and most foaming and raging of all at the shore so the life of a wicked man is alwayes unquiet but most troublesome at all near the end If he die not in some garboil as Sylla or in the act of uncleanness with John the Twelf or voyding his entrals with Arrius or rending his bowels with Julian or falling upon his own sword with Nero or rayling and raging with Latomus if he be not punished in body with some violent fit of sickness or unsufferable pang of torment yet he goeth not to his fathers in peace for there is sent a hue and cry after him to apprehend him and lay him in chains of darkness till the general Assises at the dreadful day of Doom when he shal not be found of God in peace but in wrath and reading in the look of the Judge of quick and dead his dreadful sentence he shall cry to the hils to fall apon him and to the mountains to cover him from the presence of God and wrath of the Lamb. And thou shalt be buried in a good old age Although the heathen Philosophers made little account of Burial as appeared by that speech of Theodorus to the Tyrant who threatned to hang him I little pass by it whether my carkass putrifie above the earth or on it and the Poet seems to be of his mind whose strong line it was Caelo tegitur qui non habet urnam which was Pompeys case and had like to have been Alexanders and William the Conquerours Yet all Christians who conceive more divinely on the soul deal moreh umanly with the body which they acknowledg to be membrum Christi and Templum Dei a member of Christ and Temple of God If charity commands thee to cover the naked saith Saint Ambrose how much more to bury the dead when a friend is taking a long journey it is civility for his friends to bring him on part of the way when our friends are departed and now going to their grave they are taking their last journey from which they shall never return till time shall be no more and can we do less then by accompaning the Corps to the grave bring them as it were part on their way and shed some few tears for them whom we shall see no more with mortal eyes The Prophet calleth the grave Miscabin a sleeping chamber or resting place and when we read Scriptures to them that are departing and give them godly instructions to die we light them as it were to their bed and when we send a deserved testimony after them we persume the room Indeed if our bodies which like garments we cast off at our death were never to be worn again we need little care where they were thrown or what became of them but seeing they must serve us again their fashion being only altered it is fit we carefully lay them up in deaths Wardrope the grave though a man after he
believe faith he that every noble soul which is in grace and favour with God presently as soon as she hath shaken off the body which kept down her wings flyeth joyfully streight up to her Lord and Saint Cyprian Death to the godly is not a departure but a pass from a temporal to an eternal life and no stay by the way as soon as we have finished our course here we may arrive at the goal there And S. Bernard The infidels call the parting of the soul from the body Death but the believers call it the Passeover because it is a pass from death to life For they die to the world that they may perfectly live to God To strike sayl and make towards the shoar if all that die in the Lord are blesfed from the very moment of their death and this blessedness is confirmed by a voyce from heaven let us give more heed to such a voyce then to any whisper of the flesh or devil Whatsoever Philosophy argueth or Reason objecteth or sense excepteth against it let us give more heed to God then man to the spirit then the flesh to faith then to reason to heaven then to earth although they who suffer for the testimony of the Gospel seem to be most miserable their skins being fleyed off their joynts racked their whole body torn in pieces or burned to ashes their goods confiscate their arms defaced and all manner of disgraces put upon them yet they are most happy in heaven by the testimony of heaven it self the malice of their enemies cannot reach so high as heaven it cannot touch them there much less awake them out of their sweet sleep in Jesus Secondly if the dead are blessed in comparison of the living let us not so glue our thoughts and affections to the world and the comforts thereof but that they may be easily severed for there is no comparison between the estate of the godly in this life and in the life to come for here they labour for rest there they rest from their labour here they expect what they are to receive there they receive what they expected here they hunger and thirst for righteousness there they are satisfied here they are continually afflicted either for their sins or with their sins and they have continual cause to shed tears either for the calamities of Gods people or the stroaks they themselves receive from God or the wounds they give themselves there all tears are wiped from their eyes Here they are alwayes troubled either with the evils they fear or the fear of evil but when they go hence Death sets a period to all fear cares sorrows and dangers And therefore Solon spake divinely when he taught Crasus that he ought to suspend his verdict of any mans happiness till he saw his end Thirdly if those dead are blessed that die in the Lord let us strive to be of that number camus nos moriamur cumeo Let us go and die with him and in him And that we may do so we must first endeavour to live in him For Cornelius a Lapida his collection is most true As a man cannot die at Rome who never lived at Rome so none can die in Christ who never lived in him and none can live in him who is not in him first then we must labour to be in him and how may we compass this Christ himself teacheth us I am the Vine and my Father is the Husbandman every branch that beareth not fruit in me he taketh away and every branch that breareth fruit he purgeth that it may bring forth more fruit as the branch cannot bear fruit of it self except it abide in the Vine no more can ye except ye abide in me Hence we learn that we cannot bear fruit in Christ unless as branches we be ingrasted into him now that a graft maybe inoculated 1. There must be made an incision in the tre 2. The graffe or syence most be imped in 3. After it is put in it must be joyned fast to the tree The incision is already made by the wounds given Christ at his death many incisions were made in the true Vine that which putteth us in or inoculateth us is a special faith and that which binds us fast to the tree is love and the grace of perseverance If then we be engrafted by faith into Christ and bound fast unto him by love we shall partake of the Juice of the stock and grow in grace and bear fruit also more and more and so living in the true Vine we shall die in him and so dying in him we shall reflourish with him in everlasting glory Fourthly if we are assured by a voyce from heaven that none but they are blessed who die in the Lord all Infidels Jewes and Turks yea and such hereticks too as deny all special faith in Christ are in a wretched and lamentable case for it is clear that unbeleevers cannot live in Christ for the just liveth by faith and though hereticks and among them our Adversaries of Rome have a general faith yet because they want a special faith in Christ whereby they are to be ingrafted into him and made members of his mystical body they can make no proof to themselves or others at least unless they renounce some of the Trent Articles that they live or die in the Lord. Lastly if all that die in Christ are blessed as a voyce from heaven assureth us we do wrong to heaven if we account them miserable we do wrong to Christ if we count them as lost whom he hath found if we shed immoderate tears for them from whose eyes He hath wiped away all tears to wear perpetual blacks for them upon whom he hath put long white robes Whatsoever our losses may be by them it cometh far short of their gain our cross is light in comparison of their super-excellent weight of glory therefore let us not sorrow for them as those that have no hope Let us not shew our selves Infidels by too much lamenting the death of beleevers Weep we may for them or rather for our loss by them but moderately as knowing that our loss is their gain and if we truly love them we cannot but exceedingly congratulate their feasts of joy their rivers of pleasures their Palmes of victory their robes of majesty their crowns of glory Water therefore your plants at the departure of your dearest friends but drown them not For whatsoever we complain of here they are freed from there and whatsoever we desire here they enjoy there they hunger not but feast with the Lamb they sigh not but sing with Moses having safely passed over the glassy sea they lie not in darkness but possesse inheritance of Saints in light They have immunity from sin freedome from all temptations and security from danger they have rest for their labours here comfort for their troubles glory for their disgrace joyes for their sorrowes life for their death in Christ and
shall be the Revelation of the sons of God who are here obscure and shall be till that day come They know well that all the graces and perfections that the child of God can attain to in this imperfection all is but the first fruits all is but a taste and therefore they cannot possibly but lift up their heads and raise up their hearts to the expectation of that day wherein these first fruits shall be perfected with full measure shaken together and running over whereas there shall be an absolute freedome from all sin and from all the appurtenances of it an absolute perfection not of grace only but of glory which is the highest grace They shall be one with the head this is that which makes them look for it Heb. 9.28 the place I named before it is said Christ shall appear to save them that wait for him He shall bring a full horn of salvation he shall perfect the salvation of the Saints till that day there is no perfection in the salvation of the Saints No though they go to heaven yet before that day there is no perfect salvation because their bodies are not joyned to their souls This is a third Reason even the expectation of the full accomplishment of all the promises The Lord hath dealt with us as he dealt with his own Israel in their wilderness he gave them a taste of the fruit of the good land he caused the searchers to carry some clusters and bunches of the fruit to the Israelites in the Wilderness that they tasting of it might hie themselves to that rich and goodly and fat countrey so the Lord giveth us some drops of grace and only giveth us a taste of that happiness that we wait for that we may hie our selves so much the faster through this wilderness to enjoy it This therefore is a strong reason wherefore the people of God must needs say Come Even so Amen let it be so because I say they know till Christ come the second time they must not expect the accomplishment of their hope and the perfection of their happiness The fourth and last Reason of this Point may be this because we are taught by our Lord and Saviour Christ to pray Thy kingdome come That is not only that the kingdome of grace may come into our hearts while we are here but that the kingdome of glory may hasten upon us and we are sure that this Petition shall never be granted to us till Christ his return again to judgment till he come to accomplish this main promise of all for then only Christ cometh as our Lord and Jesus Then he cometh as a Lord and makes an end of all the warrs of the Church then he shall throw down all enemies before him treading Sathan and all his instruments under his feet then he shall manifest to the world that he hath the Keyes of hell and of death then he shall destroy the kingdome of Antichrist that must be abolished by the brightness of his coming And then and not till then he shall come as a Saviour to perform perfect salvation for his Church to deliver his Church not only from condemnation but from the molestation of sin not only from tyranny and oppression of enemies but even from all the presence of enemies that at that day a separation being made it may be said to the Saints of god as Moses said to the Israelities when they were afraid of the Egyptians stand still fear nothing the enemies that your eyes have seen to day ye shall never see them more they shall be so far from oppressing the Church that they shall never molest the Church not so much as by their presence then he shall dispose the kingdome to his members as the Father hath disposed the kingdome to him These are strong and effectual reasons to prove this point to us that the members of the Church true beleevers cannot possibly but wait and expect and vehemently desire the coming of Christ the second time for the salvation of his Body the final salvation of his people Here one objection may be made by the way and so we will descend to the Use and Application of it Here it may be said But why do the people of God thus expect and wait for the coming of Christ in all the Ages of the New Testament for the space of 1600 years and yet he cometh not What reason have they to be commanded to expect and wish and wait for the coming of Christ when he cometh not in so long a time Have not all been frustrate of their expectation And may not we as well as they that lived in the Ages before us for we see no appearance of his coming no more then was many hundred years since To this we answer That the patient abiding and waiting of the just never miscarrieth the Saints of God never lost nor shall lose for their expecting and waiting for Christs second coming to Judgment The Saints of God in former ages 1600. years ago waited for Christs coming but were they losers by it though he came not This expectation of his coming it kept them in the exercise of their faith of their hope of their patience of their watchfulness it kept all their graces a working therefore they were no losers by it though they had not the accomplishment of the main promise in expecting the promise they were savers and no losers because all their graces were kept in exercise Besides this in the second place the very expectation of Christ in the Ages of the New-Testament though he came not it is fruitful and useful to draw up the hearts and minds of the godly to heavenly thoughts and to a heavenly conversation and so in the very first Ages of the New-Testament the Apostle tells us that this is the use of their expectation Phil. 3.19 Our conversation is in heaven from whence we look for a Saviour they looked for a Saviour then when he was but newly ascended was it fruitless because he came not of 1600. years after No but Our conversation is therefore in heaven because we wait for his coming In all ages since this expectation hath been a means to raise the heavy mold of earth the heart of man to heaven and heavenly-mindedness therefore this expectation doth not fail because it is of use to help them to the full fruition of it in the time of it Besides the Saints of God never murmure because Christ cometh not they never murmure as those that shall lose their hopes and expectation because they are taught to frame their minds and wills to the will of God and of Jesus Christ their head Now the will of God is that we should still wait though Christ come not because hereby the Lord doth glorifie himself in the gathering in together the number of the faithful The number of the Saints must be gathered in and none must be neglected Now is there any Saint of God and beleever in
dispose themselves for their dusty dissolution David saith Psal 19.7 I will bless the Lord who hath given me warning my reins also instruct me in the night season He speaketh this in relation to his mortality it following soon after my flesh also shall rest in hope God gave David warning that death should not surprize him of his mortal condition his reins that is some inward wastings and secret weakness of nature minded him that he must return to his first original God in like manner gives us warning and may we have wisdome to take it some years before our eye-strings break our eyes are blind as to small prints our ears deaf as to love sounds evident monitors that our bodies are ungiving to return to dust God of his goodness sanctifie unto us all decayes in nature that they may effectually mind us of our mortality it is said of Sampson when his hair was cut off Jud. 1.6.20 He awoke out of his sleep said I will go out as at other times before and shake my self but he quickly found the case was altered with him Thus we in our declining age think to rise as early go as late run as fast travel as far do all things as actively as twenty years ago when we were young but it will not be age hath clipt our strength God make us sensible thereof that we may remember our end and apply our hearts unto wisdome AMEN THE PATRIARCHAL FUNERAL GEN. L. 10. And he made a mourning for his Father seven dayes THere are two great names concealed in this Text but express'd by the Prophet David in a peculiar and eminent manner Thou hast with thine arm redeemed thy people the Sons of Jacob and Joseph Great was the name of Abraham but all his Sons were not accepted only Isaac was in the Cevenant Great was the name of Isaac but his Son Esau was rejected Great then must the name of Jacob be who had twelve Sons and all accepted The whole people of God descended from him and were called Israelites and the Sons of Jacob as his by generation from his loins One of these twelve was Joseph and the rest did equally descend from him and might be called his Sons by preservation from his care and power Howsoever he is exempted from the number of his Brethren and that he might be styl'd a Father two Sons of his are numbred with his Fathers Sons and ranked with the Patriarchs Thus were all the people of God the Sons of Jacob and Joseph and Joseph while the Son of Jacob the Father of the Sons of Jacob. These are the two concealed in the Text Jacob the Father and that Father dead Joseph the Son and that a mourning Son for he made a mourning for his Father seven dayes These words contain a brief relation of a Patriarchal Funeral in which two general parts are presented to our view The Solemnization of the Obsequies and The Continuation of the Solemnities In the description of the Solemnization there are four particulars observable The Connexion The Person The Action The Occasion The Connexion in the conjunctive particle And the Person understood in the following pronoun He the Action represented what He that is Joseph did he made a mourning The Occasion expressed for whom he mourned for his Father The Connexion of the Text is double in reference to the Person and in relation to the Action The Connexion of the Person And he the Connexion of the Action with the precedent actions of that person And he made a mourning I shall begin with the Connexion of the Person and in my whole discourse exactly prosecute the method of the Text. When aged Jacob yeelded up the Ghost and was gathered unto his people the Physitians embalmed Israel and the Egyptians mourned for him threescore and ten dayes They were not as yet the apparent enemies of God they had their tears for Jacob who afterward would have drowned all his Sons they preserved and prolonged the dayes of his life and when those were cut off they continued the dayes of his weeping But there is a difference between a formal and a real sorrow between a solemn and a serious grief between a popular and a filial sadness Wherefore Joseph is not contented with the Egyptian mourning he hath a nearer relation then those strangers had and therefore more of affection is expected from him his filial sympathy must go beyond their accustomed civility the Egyptians mournned and he made a mourning for his Father This is the Connexion in respect of the Person that of the action followeth When Jacob was near the time of his dissolution Joseph put his hand under his thigh and sware unto him that he would deal kindly and truly with him that he would bury him in the burying place of his Fathers When he gathered up his feet into the bed and dyed Joseph fell on his Fathers face and wept upon him and kissed him and so paid the first fruits of a Funeral with his eyes and with his lips After this be commanded the Physitians to follow with Spices and embalm him desirous to preserve that body to the utmost possibility from corruption from which he had received his generation Then he entreated and obtained leave of Pharaoh to perform his Oath which he sware unto Jacob he went up to the Land of Canaan to take possession with his Fathers body and laid him in the field which Abraham bought There they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife there they buried I saac and Rebekah his wife there Jacob buried Leah and there Joseph buried Jacob. And having thus fulfilled all the duties belonging to a Son there remaining but this one fitter to be performed then required he made a mourning for his Father This is the Connexion of the Action The Person or chief mourner then is Joseph he which once was dead in the thoughts of Jacob and desires of his brethren survives his Father to attend his Funeral and to preserve his Brethren alive His coming into Egypt cost aged Jacob many a tear and he must pass into Canaan to demonstrate his gratitude and pay that debt unto his Father there This eminent Person is proposed for an example unto all ages of the world what he here performed was no legal Ceremony he was a Patriarch and long before the Law he was a singular and signal type of Christ and hath done nothing which may misbecome the most retired and sublimed Christian And this will readily appear if we joyn the Action to the Person He made a mourning I call 't an Action which may as well be term'd a Passion as a mourning so a Passion as he made it so an Action a passionate Action or an active passion The internal grief of his mind and sorrow of his heart as an inward passion of his Soul was voluntarily rais'd within him by resolved and continued thoughts of his Fathers death and at the same time the expression of
that grief was willingly poured Forth as what he understood did well become him We are not only to bewail our sins but all those miseries which proceed from them and therefore tears were not only lent us to declare Compunction but also to express Commiseration We read our blessed Saviour twice did weep once for the sins of Jerusalem once for the death of Lazarus whom he loved Two eyes Nature bestow'd upon us though perfectly distinctly we can see but with one at once and both are equally made the fountains of tears as we are sinners for Contrition as we are Brethren for Compassion When the first Martyrs bloud was shed for the Christian faith devout men carryed Steven to his burial and made great lamentation over him such were the tears of the Infant Church When Peter found Dorcas a woman full of good works and Almsdeeds dead all the Widdows stood by him weeping Thus the first which dyed in Christianity were followed with solemn tears and it was a wise observation made by the Apostate Julian that one of the means to convert so many Heathens to our Religion was the care of the bodies and the solemnities alwayes used at the Funerals of the dead Thus far of the Action He made a mourning The occasion of this sadness is expressed in a word but must be considered in many more as being the principal concernment both of the Text and Time The mover of his passion the object of his grief the cause of his tears was his Father And he made a mourning for his Father This was so truly the occasion that it was the only cause that there can be no reason imaginable assigned why Joseph should mourn but only because he had lost a Father Though he was aged to extremity though he was holy unto eminency though he was happy to eternity though no way disadvantageous by his death to any yet because dead and that a Father dead he made a mourning for him We usually say of ancient Persons that they have already one foot in the grave and the rest of their life is nothing else but the bringing of these feet together Why then should we weep for the death of aged persons when it can be but the second part of their Funeral That sorrow seems to be but useless which is spent upon necessities and that grief irrational which would create impossibilities The dayes of our years are threescore years and ten and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years yet is their strength labour and sorrow What reason then can we produce that the life of a man whom we esteem should be sorrow to himself and his death be grief to us Now Jacob gave this account of his age to Pharaoh when he came down to Egypt The dayes of the years of my pilgrimage are an hundred and thirty years and he lived in the land seventeen years so the whole age of Jacob was an hundred forty and seven years This extremity of his age had fastned him to his bed the perfect embleme and short forerunnner of his grave The eyes of Israel were dim so that he could not see he was already in the shades of darkness Nay the time drem nigh faith Moses that Israel must die there was a natural necessity of his death an apparent impossibility of longer life and yet this consideration is no excuse to Joseph but he made a mourning for his aged Father Secondly the death of the righteous is to be desired rather then lamented and it were a dishonour put upon Religion to think a pious man less happy dead then when he liv'd Weep not for me was the language of the immaculate Lamb when he went to a shameful and a painful death and why should he which yeelds up his soul with comfort leave his body to be covered with so must forrow Those which live in impiety and depart in their iniquity they which have here provoked the wrath of God and goe hence with that wrath abiding on them as they could create nothing to their relations but sorrow in their life so must they necessarily increase it at their death But Jacob was a Patriarch of eminent and constant piety particularly and remarkably belov'd of God highly blessed by him and powerfully blessing in his name and yet when Jacob dyeth Joseph weepeth And be made a mourning for his pious Father Thirdly Death is nothing else but a change of a short and temporary for an unalterable and eternal condition From whence it followeth that those which die in their sins from thence begin to feel those torments which shall never cease and therefore they leave behind them a sad occasion of grief and sorrow to such as are apprehensive of the pains they feel If the Rich man in the Gospel were so careful of his surviving brethren and so concerned in their welfare if they had as well understood his sad and irreversible condition what floods of tears would they have shed for him who call'd so earnestly for a drop of water to cool his tongue But as for such as pass from hence into a place of rest and joy who change the miseries of this sinful world for the blessed presence of a good and gracious God weeping at their departure may seem improper and unkind officiousness as 't were a sorrow for their happiness and envy at their felicity Now the soul of Jacob was certainly at rest and Joseph sufficiently assured of his happiness He knew that his Father was heir of the same promise with Abraham for he looked for a City which hath foundations whose builder and maker is God he dyed in faith imbraced the promises he confessed that he was a stranger on the earth and that he sought a better country that is an heavenly and therefore God had prepared for him a City he was in the bosome of Abraham the place of felicity But the happiness of his soul is no excuse to Joseph for the Funeral tears due at the interment of his body And he made a mourning for his happy Father Fourthly many persons expiring give too sad occasions of sorrow to their relations left behind they which depend upon them whose subsistance liveth and dyeth and whose hopes are buried with them may go to their graves with unfeigned tears lamenting not so much the departure of their friend as their own loss something they may weep for them and more for themselves But the death of Jacob was not of any such condition there could no disadvantage arise from that to Joseph no interest of his could suffer by it He had already blessed all his Sons and Joseph principally there could be no more of heavenly favours expected from his prayers or prophesies Had he dyed before he laid his hands upon Ephraim and Manasseth had Joseph and his Sons been absent when he blessed the rest he might have sadly mourned for the loss of his Father and
angry with the World they feel not the wrath of God therefore they conclude he is no God and as long as God holds off from punishing they hold off from praying His Judgments prove him a God when his Mercies cannot perswade the world so much Every man hastens to seek the Lord when he is angry his Justice terrifies us his Mercy hardens us his Goodness makes us to rebel his Anger teacheth us to pray we forget God when he is gracious and fly amain to him when he threatens Let us often think of the wrath of God and let the thought of it so far work upon us as to keep us in a constant awe and fear of God and let this fear drive us to God by prayer that fearing as we ought we may pray as we are commanded and praying we may prevent the wrath of God If our present sorrows do not move us God will send greater and when our sorrows are grown too great for us we shall have little heart or comfort to pray Let our fears then quicken our prayers and let our prayers be such as are able to avercome our fears so both wayes shall we be happy in that our fears have taught us to pray and our prayers have made us to fear no more Now is the time for us to pray before grief wax too strong for us for the time may come when we shall not be able to pray by reason of the sense and feeling of the wrath of God upon us Now our prayers in the time of health may be as Incense before the Lord as a sweet odour in the nostrils of God but if we neglect to offer up this Incense we must look for the Incense of Vengeance to fall down upon us Apoc. 8.5 If God take the Cenfer in his hand and fill it with the fire of his wrath then follows nothing but thundrings lightnings and terrible commotions in the Soul Vespasian Gonzaga gave for his Symbol three Flashes of Lightning the first did touch the second did burn the third did rend and tear in pieces The first affliction haply may lightly touch and affect us the second may scare us and stir up the fire of devotion in us but the third will prove so terrible as that it will tear asunder all our prayers so terrifie our spirits as that we shall not be able to pour out our complaints before the Lord or acquaint him w th our troubles The anger of God at the first may be but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as a little Cloud as big as a Mans hand but if we neglect it it may break out upon us with that fierceness violence as that it may interrupt our prayers and hinder the ascent of them to the Throne of Grace Therefore before the wrath of God break forth upon us let us seriously think of it and prevent it by our prayers Let a timely fear incite our prayers and quicken our devotion This holy fear will kindle an holy devotion in our hearts and as a watchful keeper of the heart shall suffer no thoughts to break forth but such as shall amount alost to Heaven As cold water makes the fire more fierce and vehement so does this fear make our prayers more earnest and servent And this is our first Observation The fear of Gods wrath drives us to our prayers and makes us the more importunate with God for mercy The second Conclusion now follows which ariseth from the Context after the prophet had given us a description of the wrath of God he pitcheth his next thoughts upon Death And this brings in our next Observation The wrath of God thought upon makes us to think of Death He that ruminates upon the wrath of God which he hath incurr'd by sin must needs think of Death the sad effect of sin When I remember how far I have provoked the anger of a just God by Sin I cannot choose but think of Death This was Jobs case who while he was under the wrath of God and felt not the comfort of the pardon of his Sins he did imagine there was no other way but death with him Job 7.21 Why dost thou not pardon my transgression and take away mine iniquities for now shall I sleep in the dust and thou shalt seek me in the morning but I shall not be As if he had said Deliver me O Lord from thy wrath and grant me the pardon of my sins otherwise I am but as a dead man before thee Solomon speaks of the wrath of a King Pro. 16.14 that it is as messengers of death Surely then the wrath of God may very well be a Messenger sent from God to put us in mind of Death If the Wrath of man be so fierce what is the wrath of God if the frown of a King strike a man dead what power is there in the looks of an angry God to bring us to nothing If the smoke of mans anger can do this what cannot the flame of Gods wrath do even consume us to very ashes Does the fear of Gods Wrath put us in mind of Death 1. This discovers our own guilt what a weight of sin lies upon our Souls otherwise what reason had we to tremble at the denunciation of Gods wrath against us if we were not conscious to our selves of a world of wickedness which harbours in our breasts Were we not privy to a masse of Corruption lurking within us the fear of death would never affright us A strong wind is able to shake and bend the strongest tree and the wrath of God will make the most godly man alive to quake and tremble Imagine the easiest death that is it cannot be but that Nature will have some struglings with it It is impossible to die such a death as shall have no pangs to attend upon it Thus it is even in the death of the greatest Saints there must needs be some strivings and wrestlings in the Conscience with the wrath of God The heart of no Christian is so far quieted and appeased at the hour of death as that all fear is banished out of it and a man hath not the least remembrance of sin and of the wrath of God due to sin lodging in his breast This holy fear is in the best of Gods children and proves as an excellent preparative for death He is best fitted for Death that meditates of tenof the wrath of God due to sin We see we have many occasions presented to us to put us in mind of Death we are never without some Watchword or other to beat the remembrance of Death into our thoughts David had Death ever in his eye Psal 119.109 My soul is continually in my hand like a Souldier he carried his life in his hand and was prepared for the next encounter and made ready for it In all the Judgments of God Death like the ashes which Moses sprinkled is scattered and cast over all our heads Death like
how to live and how to die while we live let us desire of God so to steer our course as that we may lead the lives of holy and devout Christians We desire to live and have we no desire to live well what 's this life without godliness what is it to live and to have our hearts all the dayes of our lives void of grace and piety Life without grace is like beauty in a woman without discretion Pro. 11.22 Non est vivere sed valere vita It is no life but a living death alwayes to live and to want health and strength which sweetens life and makes it comfortable So it is no life a Christian leads where there is a want of piety in the heart What is this to live unless we know how to live well and to make a right use of our time We must consider wherefore we live even to improve our time to the best advantage for the saving of our Souls otherwise we live like Beasts not like Men not like Christians These silly brutes live in time but know not the time in which they live so careless Christians run out their time but know not how to make use of their time they consume their time but they do not increase it Like Bankrupts that waste their stock but never seek to improve it We make a decoction of our time as water is boil'd away from a fourth part to a third and from a third to half so we waste and consume our time till we have no time left even till we come to the last minute of life why then while we have time let us pray to God to teach us to use it aright to give us grace to consider the time we spend that we may make the best improvment of it and as Esan did Jacob hold time by the heel and not suffer it to slip from us without giving a good account to God that we have imployed that time and space of life which is allotted us here for the advancement of Gods glory and the purchasing of our own Salvation We proceed to the third particular that we go to God by prayer to teach us the right use of our time in a right manner So teach us that is Teach us so efficaciously so powerfully so constantly as that we may attain to the true wisdome and knowledg of saving of our Souls We must pray to God to teach us effectually Psal 119.33 Teach me O Lord the way of thy statutes and I shall keep it unto the end We can know nothing of heaven unless the Spirit of God instruct us There is a great Light in us the Light of Nature and this light is enough to condemn us if we walk not according to this Light this Light of Knowledg imprinted by God in our hearts and by this Light all Heathens are condemn'd but this Light is not able to carry us half way to heaven The Light of Nature cannot save us but the light of Grace must bring us to the light of Glory Esther was fain to stand a loof off in the Court till the King reach'd forth his Golden Scepter to invite her nearer to him Nature only leads us to the outward Court of Heaven but Grace holds forth the Scepter to bring us into Heaven Nature like the faint heat of the Sun draws up the vapours but a little way it hath not strength enough to master our Corruptions but the heat and power of Gods grace is only able to dispel and vanquish them It is only the work of Gods Spirit to shew us the right way to Heaven and to guide us in that way All lies in the Grace of God and unless we are continually assisted and carryed on by his gracious Spirit we are never likely to come near the sight of Heaven We have indeed many helps and furtherances to carry us to heaven but none of these will avail us without God The word of God is constantly preach'd in our ears the Ministers of God are daily pressing us forward to heaven but what can the frail voice of man work upon the heart without the powerful influence of Gods holy Spirit We Ministers without God are but as Gehazi's staff laid upon the dead Child we are no wayes able to raise the Soul from the death of sin to the life of righteousness unless God first breath upon it and infuse the life of Grace into the dead heart of the sinner Let this teach us not to rest in our selves or any outward means for the purchasing of the joyes of heaven but place our whole trust and confidence in the living God What 's all the Light of Reason but darkness it self to bring us to the Light Everlasting All humane wisdome is but a false Light which will lead us in the end to the pit of destruction It is a good caution the Apostle gives us Col. 2.8 Beware lest any man spoil you through Philosophy and vain deceit If we follow the false Light of Reason it will deceive us and misguide us in our way to Heaven Natural Reason haply may see the heavenly Canaan afar off and have some stragling thoughts of the happiness of another world but it shal never be able to get possession of heaven The horns of this Altar shall never save any man that flies unto them As the light is hid under a bushel so nature is clouded and darkned with many mists of errour and cannot reach the sight of heaven In the second place let us fly to God by prayer that he would teach us effectually and shew us the right way to heaven Before we hear the Word of God let us fall upon our knees and beg of God to make it profitable and useful to our Souls What makes the word of God so ineffectual how come we to gain so little comfort by the preaching of the Word Is it not because we do not pray to God to open our hearts and make it useful to us that we may attend to the word of Truth and obtain Salvation by it The people before the Law was published to them were cleansed and sanctified by Moses to receive it Exod. 19.14 So ought we to Sanctifie our hearts by prayer and desire of God to purge our Souls of the many pollutions of our sins that we may gain a blessing by the Word of God and return with joy and comfort from the house of God It is prayer that makes the word of God profitable to our Souls it is like the Salt which Elisha threw into the waters to heal them So does prayer make the word of God beneficial to us and causeth us to relish the sweetness and comfort of it The heart is like that Book sealed with seven Seals which no man can open but God himself Therefore let us pray to God to open our hearts that we may receive instruction from the Word of God There is no man can teach us
this world Heathens themselves were wont to say that the chiefest wisdome and the main study of Philosophy was only this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 even a careful and serious thought of death The memory of a Christian is never better employed then when the thought of death is presented before it This is our wisdome to consider and study how to die well He is a wise man whose memory serves him to think of death The soundness of the stomack is the strengthening of all the rest of the parts of the body so the vigour and strength of the memory in thought of death is the chief support of the soul and if the remembrance of death decay not in us there is no want of wisdome in the soul Is it the meditation of death that makes us wise Judge ye then how many fools there are in the world that never entertain the least thought of death into their hearts that live and run on in sin and never think of the hour of death It is the folly which the Prophet chargeth Ierusalem with that she did not consider her latter end Lam. 1.8 She remembreth not her last end therefore she came down wonderfully In the height of her pride she never thought of death It is strange to see that we should neither think of our own departure nor heed the death of others who are constant Monitors and Remembrancers to us of our own frailty If the Sun chance to be eclips'd we stand amazed at the sight of that darkness which over-spreads the face of that glorious body but we never regard the declining and eclipse of man who is the more noble and glorious creature If the Sun be darkned we wonder at it if man die we never heed it Why then let me stir up your thoughts to the meditation of death that ye may be so wise as to have ever in mind the approach of death 1. Let us think of others that are daily going to their long homes Do we not see some continually coming into the world and others making as much speed out of the world some entring upon the stage others going off As it is in the constant revolution of the heavens some Stars rise and others set and fall so it is with the Sons of men some live others die some daily come forth out of their Mothers wombs others daily return to the womb of their common mother even the earth from whence they were taken 2. Let us look upon our selves and consider how neer death is approaching to us and what hast it makes towards us We know not how soon death may surprise us therefore let us be so wise as to provide for his coming Death for all that we know is now digging of our graves even now he thinks of us when we little think of him let us then be as watchful for death as he is for us let us think of sickness in the time of health and in the day of prosperity remember the hour of death Even in the midst and height of all the glory and happiness of this world let us bring into our remembrance the time of our change and dissolution It is observeable that at the very time of Christs glorions transfiguration the conference which past between Christ and Moses and Elias was concerning the death of Christ Luk. 9.31 They speak of his decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem to shew unto us that when we are in the height of our glory and honour our thoughts should be busied with the remembrance of our death and departure out of this world I do not like the proverb which is too frequent in your mouths I thought of such a thing no more then of my dying day Let us remember the old Canon in another sense Finis primus sit in intentione Let our end be first in our thoughts and intention let the time of our death be the first thing we think of either morning or evening that so the constant thought of death may take away the terrour of death and being so well acquainted with death before hand we may never he terrified with the approach of it but being guarded with faith and a good Conscience we may boldly look death in the face and triumph in the conquest of the Conquerour through Christ our Saviour by whom we obtain victory over death and the fruit and benefit of our conquest even the Salvation of our souls in Jesus Christ I have done with the text now I fall upon the more careful part of this duty We Ministers at such solemn times as these have an hard Province put upon us in these occasions commonly the wind stands in our faces and we have a crabbed Dilemma cast in our way even that of Agathon in Athenaeus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If we seek the truth we shall not please if we please we shall hardly speak the truth We walk between two fires the displeasure of God and the frown of man We value not the latter so we may not run the hazard of the former Our chief care is in respect of God that while we seek to give to breathlesse man a little breath of praise we do not dare to dishonour the living God And if this we aim at we need not be afraid to give some satisfaction to the world and right the honour of the dead provide that while we seek to keep up the Fame of another we do not lay to pawn our own reputations or which is far worse make shipwrack of a good conscience On the one hand charity binds me to speak all the good I can of my Neighbour on the other hand conscience in joyns me to utter nothing but the truth Therefore while charity guides me and conscience awes me I hope I may promise to my self a favourable construction from you of all that I now speak I shall not flie out into any empty schemes of Rhetorick concerning the birth of this Worthy Knight Sir William Armyne well known and belov'd in these parts ye all know his descent and extraction he was cut out of no mean quarry Here his bones now rest where he once liv'd with honour and many of his Ancestors before him Do you think I lay any great weight upon all this It is not Birth but Breeding not Breeding but Geace that ennobles a Family Blood without Manners is base Blood Manners without Grace like a glorious Shadow without the Substance I remember what a good man mean of birth answered one that was Noble in Blood and base in Manners 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 As my Birth and Parentage is a shame to me so art thou a shame to thy Birth Grace in the heart not Gold in the Purse is the best Inheritance of a Christian There are some stains in the best in the Purse is the best Inheritance of a Christian There are some stains in the best Coats there are spots in
the Clergy that dejected sinners may with safety lodge their grievances in their breasts let me desire them That as the Lawyer and the Physician are true to their Profession so they would be faithful in their Ministery that poor souls may fly to them with confidence for comfort in their sad conflicts for sin and with sin This makes so many Christians to carry their sin with them to their graves rather than they will disclose it because they dare not repose any trust in those that ought to be as true to them as there own hearts If we find a man truly penitent for his sins let us cover them with the vail of Charity and onely declare his repentance to the world that God may be glorified and good Christians on Earth as the Angels in Heaven rejoyce in the conversion of a sinner I have much to speak but am willing to contract my self as knowing you are fully satisfied in that faithful Testimony I have already given you Be not so uncharitable as to think I might be mistaken in this good Gentleman I was often with him and had frequent converse with him and the freedom to speak and I found him alwayes in the same humble frame and temper of spirit and I must profess this I have not often received more satisfaction from any man in respect of the fruit and comfort of my endeavours than from him I met with an humble and tractable spirit willing to hear of the wrath of God due to sinners and careful and solicitous how he might avoid it truly sensible of the weight of his sins much dejected with the thought of them and so far the sense of his sins had humbled him as that I may say Malice it self could not judge worse of him than he did of himself And that which made me believe the truth of his humiliation for sin was this That I found no presumptious thoughts arising in his heart of Gods mercy but when I sought to cheer him with the hope of Gods mercy to penitent sinners he told me He was not yet humbled enough to partake of it I was much satisfied in this answer as knowing the deeper the foundation is laid the surer is the building the more humble we are the firmer will our confidence be in Christ And from that time I strove to comfort him with the precious Promises of the Gospel and told him he might upon the word of Christ challenge an interest in them Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest Such as are truly penitent and onely such might claim a special Title to the Promises of Christ This did revive his fainting spirit and the thought of Gods mercy in Christ did as much cheer him as ever the sense of sin had dejected him Then he began to feel the comfort of Gods love glowing in his breast soon after he felt the heat of it and his affections were so enflamed with the love of God as that his thoughts were restless till he enjoyed him whom his Soul loved and this made him to count every minute too long to be parted from Christ his Saviour Therefore being now fit for heaven and weary of the world and desirous to enjoy God in a better place the last words I heard him utter were these Even so come Lord Jesus come quickly Christ cannot come too soon for that heart that is ready to receive him The Lord makes us fit for his coming and we shall be happy whensoever he comes And now after all this that I have spoken you will say I have said nothing for the honour of this good Knight I have not buried him like himself I have strew'd no flowers of Commendation upon his Herse befitting his quality and Degree and the House he came from I confess all this As he desired all vain pomp and oftentation should be laid aside at his funerals For what have I done said he that I should deserve it so have I declined all pomp and vanity of words in the Pulpit which is no place to shew our quaint and lofty strains of Oratory but our zeal to Gods glory and the edification of his people I came not so far to sawn and flatter but to testifie my pious respects to the memory of the Dead and my unfeigned affection to the Souls of the Living But what Is not this that he dyed a good Christian that he loathed his former Vanities that he was truly humbled for his sins and rested upon the Mercy of God in Christ for the free pardon of them If you value not these things pardon me if I think there is nothing to be valued in you but vanity and what the value of that will be you will know at the hour of Death God grant you may know it sooner and then you are happy when you will find that piety in the heart is more to be accounted of then all the wealth and honour in the world I think I have said enough to honour this Noble Knight at his Funerals that he dyed a true Child of God and left a goodly Inheritnance on Earth to be possessed of a better in Heaven There have I a good ground to believe he rests in peace and joy and there I hope we shall all meet at the last And thus in an holy intention to Gods glory a zealous desire of your good and an honourable respect to my Friend I have now run through the duty of this day not aiming God knows my heart at the least applause from you nor yet valuing the censure of malevolent spirits who shake off all Charity to the Dead and to the Living I have endeavoured to approve my self faithful to God in speaking nothing but the Truth faithful to my self in the discharge of a good Conscience and faithful to my Friend in publishing the truth of his Conversion to the world Thus have I sought to honour God to right your worthy Neighbour and in so doing I hope I have not wronged my self And now it is my earnest prayer to God for you not that I may injure the Dead but in love to your Souls that all of you may have the grace to live better than he did And this I wish again from my heart hoping the best of him and fearing the worst of some of you that ye may obtain the like Faith and Repentance to die no worse than he did His Soul now rests in Bliss and joy do ye that survive labour to enter into that rest which remains for the people of God in the glorious Mansions of God the Father Now bestir your selves and do your best for heaven while ye have time and opportunity work out your own Salvation with fear and trembling shew all diligence by Faith Repentance and Obedience the old and sure tract and road to Heaven to make your calling and election sure live holily that ye may die comfortably Learn to number
up and down disconsolate with soft paces sad looks and sorrowful hearts all their children they are ready to call and christen Ichobods the glory is departed from Israel being affected like the Citizens of Jerusalem besieged by Sennacherib their hearts are like the trees of the wood moved with the wind But let such droopers know that herein they offend God and wrong themselves and let them gird up their loyns and tie up their spirits at the serious consideration that God in due time will raise them out of the dust maintain his own cause and confound his enemies The third sort of people are the Arguers or Disputers who being of a middle temper neither haughty nor stomackful neither low nor dejected and withal being good men embrace a middle course neither to fret nor dispute but calmly to reason out the matter with God himself Of this later sort was the Prophet Jeremiah who thus addresseth himself unto the Lord Righteous art thou O Lord when I plead with thee yet let me talk with thee of thy judgments Wherefore doth the way of the wicked prosper wherefore are they happy that deal very treacherously The good man could not conceive Gods proceedings and although he kept to the conclusion Righteous are thou O Lord yet his heart was hot within him and he would fain be exchanging an argument with God that all was not right according to his humane capacity Job also was one of these Arguers in the agony of his passion Oh that one might plead for a man with God as a man pleadeth for his neighbour But let flesh and blood take heed of entring the lists by way of challenge with God himself If the synagogue of the Libertines and Cyrenians and Alexandrians and of them of Silicia and of Asia disputing with Stephen were not able to resist the wisdome and the spirit by which he spake much less can frail flesh hope to make good a bad cause by way of opposition against God the best and wisest answerer Remember the Apostles question Where is the disputer But if we should be so bold in humility to examine Gods proceedings let us take heed lest whilest we dispute with God Satan insensibly prompts us such reasons as are seemingly unanswerable in our apprehensions so that instead of being too hard for God which is impossible men become too hard for themselves raising such spirits which they cannot quell and starting such doubts which they cannot satisfie Wherefore let not our ignorance be counted Gods injustice let not the dimness of our eyes be esteemed the durtiness of his actions being all purity and cleanness in themselves Let us if beaten from our out-works make a safe retreat to this impregnable castle Jeremiah his conclusion Righteous art thou O Lord c. Come we now to the good Uses that the godly ought to make of a righteous mans perishing in his righteousness And first when he finds such a one in a swoun he ought with all speed to bring him a cordial and with the good Samaritane to pour Oil and Wine into his wounds endeavouring his recovery to his utmost power whilest there is any hope thereof I must confess it is only Gods prerogative according to the greatness of his power to preserve those that are appointed to die However it is also the boundant duty of all pious people in their several distances and degrees to improve their utmost for the preservation of dying innocency from the cruelty of such as would murder it But if it be impossible to save it from death so that it doth expire notwithstanding all their care to the contrary they must then turn lamenters at the funerals thereof And if the iniquity of the times will not safely afford them to be open they must be close Mourners at so sorrowful an accident O let the most cunning Chyrurgeons not begrutch their skill to unbowel the richest Merchants not think much of their choisest spices to embalm the most exquisite Joyner make the coffin most reverend Divine the Funeral Sermon the most accurate Marbler erect the Monument and most renowned Poet invent the Epitaph to be inscribed on the tomb of Perishing Righteousness Whilest all others well-wishers to goodness in their several places contribute to their sorrow at the solemn Obsequies thereof yea as in the case of Josiah his death let their be an Anniversary of Mourning kept in remembrance thereof However let them not mourn like men without hope but let them behave themselves at the interment of his righteousness as confident of the resurrection thereof which God in his due time shall raise out of the ashes It is sown in weakness it shall be raised in power it is sown in disgrace it shall be raised in glory Lastly the temporal perishing of the righteous man in this world minds us of the necessity of the day of Judgment and ought to edge and quicken our prayers that God would shortly accomplish the number of his elect consummate this miserable world put a period to the dark night of his proceedings that so that day that welcome day may begin to dawn which is tearmed by the Apostle The day of the revelation of the righteous judgment of God Five things there are besides many others in the primitive part of Gods justice which are very hard for men to conceive First How the sin of Adam to which we did never personally consent can justly be imputed to us his posterity Secondly How infants who never committed actual sin are subject to death and which is more to damnation it self Thirdly How God can actually harden the hearts of some as he did Pharaohs and yet not be in the least degree accessary to sin and the author thereof Fourthly How the Americans can justly be condemned to whom the sound of the Gospel was never trumpetted forth and they by their invincible ignorance uncapable of Gods will in his word Lastly How God as it in the Text can suffer righteous men to perish in their righteousness and wicked men to flowrish in their iniquity In all these a thin vail may seem to hang before them so that we have not a full and free view of the reasons of Gods proceedings herein yet so as that under and thorow this vail we discover enough in modesty and sobriety to satisfie our selves though perchange unable to utter what in part we apprehend we cannot effectually remove all the scruples which the pious nor all the cavils which the profane man brings against us But at the day of judgment at the revelation of the righteous judgment of God this vail shall be turned back or rather totally taken away so that all shall plainly and perspicuously perceive the justice of Gods dealing in the cases aforesaid Not that then or there any new essential addition or accession shall accrue to Gods justice to mend or make up any former desault or defect therein
fear is Kinds off fear 1 Natural 2 Carnal fear 3 Servile fear Act 2. 4 Filial fear Isa 8 12. Reas We are delivered from our enemies either Luke 1.47 1 By reconciliation 2 By conquest Vse 1. The power of grace must reflect on a mans self Vse 2. Possible to live without fear Psalm 23 Vse 3. Reproof for inordinate fear 1 We fear too soon 2 Too much 1 It brings a great deal of ill Isa 66.4 2 It unfits the heart to bear evils It hurts the body It doth hurt to the soul 1 Natural 2 Spiritually Fear the ground of most sins Vse 4. To sence our hearts against it No cause of fear 1 Of spiritual enemies 2 Of worldly evils Ier. 46.28 Object Answ Object Answ Quest Answ How to get the conquest of fear 1 Labour for the spirit 2 Keep covenant with God 3 Strengthen faith 4 To place our love aright August Simile Doctr. Both words and actions shall be called to account Matth. 5.22 Iude 13.14 Reas 1. The Law binds men in speeches Reas 2. Words injure God and man Levit. 24.11 Act. 8. Vse To condemn those that make light account of words Pal. 39. Psal 131. Doctr. God will proceed in judgement according to his Law Ioh. 12.48 Object Answ All men judged by the Law The Law not alike expressed to all Rom. 2 14. Reas 1. The Law is Gods scepter that he ruls by Reas 2. Because the law is a rule Vse 1. Reproof of those that neglect the law Quest Answ To despise Gods commandement what Matth. 25.41 Vse 2. Admonition to observe the Law 1. For direction 2. For tryal Doctr. The consideration of the day of Judgment should move to holiness 1 It hath drawn some to obedience Eccles 11.9 1 To forsake the world Phil. 3.7 2 Disposing the heart to obedience Eccles 12.10 Heb. 12. Rev. 14â—… 2 It quickens to actions of obedience 1 Of particular calling 2 General calling 3 It confirms in obedience Vse Shewing the cause of the worlds prophaness and the Saints dejectedness 2 Pet. 3. Vse 2. To strengthen faith of the judgment Jerome Parts of the Text. Meaning of the words Doctr. Death due to sin as wages Quest Answ What death due to sin 1. Temporal Object Answ How Adam died a natural death as soon as he sinned Object Answ How Christians freed from temporal death Christians undergo temporal death why Simile 2 Eternal death Answ Sin infinite three wayes 1 In respect of the object 2 The subject 3 The sinners desire Vse 1. Original lust a sin Basile Vse 2. Confuration no sin in it self venial 1 Joh 3.5 Sins mortal and venial how Vse 3. In spectacles of death to see the heinousness of sin Vse 4. To deterre us from sin Similles Joh. 2. 1 Sam. 14. Vse 5. To be humble and thankful Life twofold 1 Natural 2 Spiritual 1 In this life Job 17.5.2 In deathy 3 Afterth e Resurrection A thing eternal three wayes Doct. Salvation the feee gift of God Quest Answ Austin Quest Answ Joh. 3. Vse 1. Confutation of merit Rom. 8. Vse 2. To humble us Vse 3. Comfort Vse 4. Thankfulness Isa 45 24. The Analysis of the Chaper Propos 1. God is pleased to set himself to procure the profit of his people Proved by instances 1 In his instituting Ordinances in the Church 1 The preaching of the Word Act. 26.18 2 Tim. 3.16 2 The Sacrament of the Supper 3 Prayer Unprofitable living under the ordinances a taking the name of God in vain 4 Sending of Christ into the world in our nature 2 In his command and injunction Deut 10 13. Matth. 5.29 3. In his several administrations 1 Permitting sin to remain 2. To prevail 3. Withdrawing his presence 4. Suspending his answer to their prayers 5. Denying their particular suites 6. Deprives them of their dearest blessings James 5.11 Use of exhortation Vse 2. Of instruction Propos 2. Gods aim in afflicting his children is their profit Gen 41.52 Afflictions they are profitable The blessed fruit of afflictions 2 Chron. 33.12 Deut. 8.15 Isa 27.9 Hab. 1.12 The Saints of God have walted for the profit of afflictions 2 Sam. 16.12 2 Sam. 16.12 Isa 37.4 Vse 1. For reproof Gods children prone to misconster the intent of God in their afflictions 1 Sam. 27.1 Esa 6.5 Lam. 3.16.18 Isa 49.14 Vse 2. For comfort Isa 10.57 Simile Isay 12.12 Vse 3. Exhortation to a patient expectation of the fruit of affliction Object Answ Iob 17.4 The sum of the words Division Explication Simile Doct. 1. Ground 1 From God Psal 84. Why God withdraws the light of his counâ—eâ—ance from his people 1 For correction of their former abuse of his mercies 2 Of the neglect of their duty Cant. 5. 3 Of their carnal security 3 To teach them wherein their present comsort and happiness consifts Simile 3 For prevention 1 Of pride 2 Of considence in the creature or in habits of grace Ground 2 From Satan How Satan causeth trouble in the hearts of Gods servants 1 By stealing out of thest hearts the promises of the Gospel Heb. 12. Matth. 13. 2 By presenting to the soul the truths of God in false glosses Ground 3. From our selves From some distemper of the body 2. Prevailing of some strong lust Heb. 12.1 3 Inordinate passions Heb. 1. Vse 1. To teach us compassion toward those that are in trouble Isa 53.4 God suffers his servants to be in inward distress and why Doctr. 2. Faith is a special means to quiet the soul 2 Cron. 20.20 2 Tim. 1 12. Vse Doctr. 3. Faith that quiets the soul must be pitched upon God in Christ Doct. 4. Vse Quest Answ What it is to believe in Christ What it is to receive Christ as a Prophet As a King As a Priest Quest Answ Object Answ Quest Answ Quest Answ Quest Answ Devision of the words Doct 1. Strong trials befall strong Christians 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. Job 1.8 Wherein the strength of a trial consists Why God laieth strong tryals on strong Christians Reas 1. Reas 2. Doct. Faith acquits a man in great tryals Reas 1. Reas 2. Reas 3. Reas 4. Reas 5. Vse 1. 1. 2. Vse 2. The sum of the words Parts of the Text Coherence The first branch of the Text Explication 1 What life it is that is here meant Eternal life proper to the Saints Begun in this world Gal 2.20 Heb 2 3. Consummated in the world to come Phil 1.21 1 Thes 4.17 Joh. 5.26 Joh. 6 33. Vse 1. For instructiou Vse 2. For demonstration 1 Tim 5.6 Ephes 2.1 Vse 3. For consolation 2 Tim 3.12 Act 14.22 Mark 5.26 Eccles 9 4. Job 2.4 Phil. 1.7 Rom. 14.17 2 Cor. 12.2 1 Cor. 2.9 Rom. 8.18 2 Cor 4.17 The second branch of the Text. Eternal life cometh from divine grace Tit. 3.7 Eph. 2.8 Reas 1. Reas 2.2 Cor. 3.5 Vse 1. For confutation Vse 2. For Consolation Vse 3. For Instruction Vse 4. For exhortation The third branch of the Text. The
sting a man That is the second Thirdly wouldest thou have the sting of death pulled out now Then mortisie thy sins now do it presently Remember what Saint Paul saith but I think he speaks it in respect of afflictions I profess by our rejoycing in Christ Jesus I die dayly If it be meant of afflictions yet it should be verified of us in respect of sin die dayly to sin and then the sting of death is gone Oh beloved our condition will be sad and discomfortable when at once we must enter into the field with Death and Sin he that dieth daily to Sin he hath nothing to do with Death when it cometh Death may come to such a party but cannot hurt him he may rest quietly when it cometh And observe it so much sin as thou now sparest so much sting thou reservest for Death and is it not folly in a man to spare sin that giveth a sting to Death But now as a man is to crucifie evey sin let me put in this caution and remember this advise As the sting of every sin is to be pulled out so pull out especially the sting of that Sin that now stingeth thy conscience that now lieth upon thy conscience for if it work now it will work fearefully at death Death doth not lessen the work of sin but inrageth it God will then present and set thy sins in order before thee perhaps God hath brought thee here to day to hear this Word get thee home and set thy soul in order The love of Sin and the fear of Death seldome part and where Sin is much loved Death will there be much feared Death is never more terrible then where sin is most delighted in Therefore crucifie sin if thou wilt have the sting of death taken away It may be thou thinkest it is a troublesome work but remember that those sins which thou now so much delightest in and lovest and livest in will then prove the sting of death to thee If a man would spend his time in the mortisication of sin when death cometh he should have nothing to do but to let his soul loose to God and to give it up to him as into the hands of his most faithfull Creator and Redeemer And is it not an excellent thing for a man to have nothing to do with Death when it cometh Lastly here is a use of comfort If it hath pleased God to give any of us the grace to pull out the sting of death it is a great comfort But Death is approaching you will say Oh but Death is disarmed the sting of it is taken away what a singular comfort is it then to you that Death is coming Indeed all the comfort that the soul is capable of is this that the sting of death is took away Now when Death cometh upon such a man it doth but free him from all that state of misery he is in here from all that extremity of condition that he is put into from all those diversities of occasions pressing occasions of tumbling about in the world Death doth but put an end to all And which is an excellent comfort to a Christian Sin is ended with Death what afflicteth the soule of a Christian but that he carrieth about him a body of sin and of death This was a trouble to Saint Paul and is to every true Christian Now when Death cometh there is an end of this Body of sin thou shalt never sin more thou shalt never grieve the Spirit of God more thou shalt never be clogged with such imperfections and infirmities in duty that death that cometh to thee shall pass thee to the fruition of eternal glory and what canst thou desire more then to be happy in eternal glory with God THE DESTRUCTION OF THE DESTROYER OR THE OVER THROW OF THE LAST ENEMY SERMON VII 1 COR. 15.26 The last Enemy that shall be destroyed is Death DEATH is a Subject that a Christian should have in his thoughts often and neither the hearing nor thinking nor speaking of it can be unseasonable for any place or person We have heard that the life of Philosophers is nothing but a meditation of Death and certainly the life of a Christian much more should abound in such meditations No man can live well till be can die well He that is prepared for Derth is certainly freed from the danger of death neither is there any so fit a way to be ready for it as to be osten minded of it Therefore I have made choice at this time to speak of this verse wherein ye see the Apostle declareth and leadeth us to treat of four things First that there is a Death Secondly that this Death is an Enemy Thirdly that this Enemy is the last Enemy Lastly that this last Enemy shall be destroyed A word or two of each of these parts First Death is Ye know that well enough your eyes shew it you daily our senses declare it so plainly that no man is so senseless that knoweth it not It is agreed upon by all Only for your better furtherance to make use of this point let us acquaint you with that which nature will teach ye concerning Death Secondly with that which Scripture will teach you above and better then Nature Nature sheweth ye concerning Death first what it is And then Secondly what Properties it hath It telleth us this That Death is in absence from life a ceasing from beeing when one was beeing to be thrust as it were out of the present world and be cast some where This is all that Nature informeth us concerning the Essence and Being of Death Death is a deviding of us from this life and from the things of this life and sends us abroad we know not where Secondly Nature teacheth us three Properties concerning Death One that it is universal It hath tied all to it high and low rich and poor Death knocks at the Princes pallace as well as at the poor habitation of the meanest man It is a thing that respects no mans greatness it regardeth no wealth nor wit nothing Death takes all before it That Nature teacheth too Secondly Nature teacheth that Death is inevitable If a man would give all the world he cannot thrust it out of doors It takes whole Armies as well as one man It scorneth to be resisted by the Phisitians there is no words no means to escape it It is such an enemy as we must grapple with and it will conquer This Nature teacheth Again Nature teacheth that death is uncertain A man knoweth not when Death will come to him or when it will lay hold on him or by what means it will setch him out of the world It may fetch him out of the world at any time or in any place and by such occasion as it is impossible for any wit to think of before This is in substance all that Nature teacheth And the knowledg of this
we carry in our bosomes The Divell is a Serpent in Hell the world is a Serpent in our hand the flesh is a Serpent in our bosome We carry it with us where ever we go It is a con-natural concorporate Enemy All our other enemies could do us no hurt if it were not for that if this enemy that cohabiteth with us did not combine against us Know who ever thou art there is no Enemy like thy self thy self is the worst enemy of all All the sparks that slie out of Sathans engines could never sindg a hair of our heads if our flesh were not as tinder All the winds that blow in the four corners of the world could not make shipwrack of us if our flesh were not a treacherous Pilot. Death that gnaweth the thread of our soul and body asunder could not separate them or them from God if the flesh did not what the teeth of it and sharpen it with a sting So then we see we have a great many Enemies more to encounter us besides Death some without some within Therefore how should this teach us circumspect walking to behave our selves wisely in every thing as David when he knew Saul was his Enemy and had an eye upon him to do him mischief How should it teach us to pray with David Lord teach me thy way and lead me in the right path because of mine enemy That is one thing I have to note Again another thing I have to note If Death be the last enemy then in all probability it is like to be the worst Of the Divels regiment it is I told ye before He is the General of the Army And beloved beleeve it the Divel is very politick and subtile in marshalling his forces he will not place his best Souldiers in the forefront of the battel but keeps them in the Reare he puts them behind that when all the rest have wearied and tired us they should set on us afresh He is so cunning a disputant that he reserveth the best arguments for the last A cunning Gamester that plaies his best play at the last A cunning Archer that shoots his best shaft at the last So since Death is the last Enemy it is like to be the sorest Now the sorer we are like to find him the carefuller we should be to arme against him alwayes to put our selves in a readiness that whensoever he cometh he may find us weaponed that if it were possible we might be alwayes doing as if we were dying it being the height of the perfection that any soul can attain to as the heathens themselves well obierved for a man to spend every day as if it were his last day That is one reason why the Apostle here calleth Death the last Enemy because the last is like to be the worst Again another reason As it is the last by which we are assaulted so it is the last that shall be destroyed That the Apostle principally meant here as Interpreters commonly understand it when he saith the last enemy that shall be Destroyed is Death he meant that Death is the Enemy that shall be destroyed last And this leadeth me to the last point I propounded to speak of That Death is an enemy and the last enemy and at last shall be destroyed It shall be destroyed that is one thing Who undertakes the doing of it Our selves In likelihood Death is more likely to destroy us then we it But as it is said of the seven-sealed book in the Revelation when there was none in heaven or in earth or under the earth that was able to open it the Lion of the tribe of Judah prevailed to open the book So the Lion of the tribe of Judah prevaileth to destroy this enemy that none in heaven or in earth or under the earth but only he is able to destroy He saith of him as David of Goliah when he defied the host of Israel and all men ran away Let no mans heart fail him So saith the son of David The Lord of David let no mans heart fail him I will go to fight with yonder Philistim Oh Death I will be thy death It is spoken in the person of Christ whom Saint Peter calleth the Lord of life He subdueth all Enemies and it is he that will destroy Death he will not leave him till he have trod him under foot But when will Christ do this We see Death playes the Tyrant still it killeth and spoyleth as fast as it did his sickle is in every ones harvest as fast as the corn grows up he cuts it down he leaveth not an ear standing How long Lord how long before this that the Apostle tells us of will be At last His meaning is at the general day of the Resurrection when the end of the world shall come then Christ shall destroy him And he bringeth it in the rather to assure the Corinths of that that some of them doubted of namely that there should be a Resurrection For unless the dead should arise how can Death be destroyed But Death shall be destroyed therefore it is out of question that the dead shall rise again But what comfort have we in the mean time if Death be not destroyed till then if till then it play the domineering Enemy No not so neither We have comfort enough in that that Christ hath already done Though it be not already destroyed yet it is already subdued It is not only subdued but disarmed and not only so but captivated and triumphed over He subdued it when he died in suffering death he overcame Death he beat him in his own ground at his own weapons in his own hold he disarmed him When he rose again then he spoyled him of his power and took his weapons away and triumphed over him in the open field When he ascended into heaven then he carried those spoils with him in token of conquest as Sampson took the Gates of Gaza on his shoulders and carried them to the top of the hill Christ by Death took the sting of Death away by his Resurrection he took the strength of Death away by his Ascension he took away the hope of Death for ever conquering or prevailing more finally at the last Judgement he will take away the name and Being of Death so that it shall never be more remembred but mortality shall be swallowed up of life I Christ hath done this for himself perhaps but what is this to us Nay Christ hath done it not only for his own victory but he hath given us victory he is not only a conqueror but he hath made us conquerors thanks be unto God that hath given us victory In a word Christ hath and will do by Death as he doth by our sins he hath subdued them already at the last he will utterly destroy them sin and Death both of them are already subdued at last they shall be abolished and destroyed that they
equality with the Angels the glory of a Kingdome worthy a tear a groan a sigh a fast are they now so contemptible or mean that no violence is requisite with what face shall we appear before our Saviour at his Tribunal when he shall demand of us his tears his watchings and fastings when he shall say unto us were are my tears are they water spilt upon the ground not to be gathered up Where are my sighs and groans have they vanished in the ayr where are my watchings what not a tear for so many tears not a fast for so many fasts not a groan for so many miseries which I indured Had I shed but one tear should it not have broken up a fountain of tears in thee Had I setched but one sigh should it not have made thy life a perpetual sigh But when I have done so much for thy sake shall it be lost wilt thou do nothing for thy own self shall I cast so much seed into the ground and reap nothing again Oh my beloved what are all our afflictions what are all the afflictions of our selves to the least drop of gall that he tasted to the least scourge which he suffered how can we say that either we loved God or our selves if we do not these things in testimony of this If ye shall not perform these duties it is a small comfort for us that we have freed our souls it is your salvation we thirst after and say in a better sense then the King of Sodome Da nohis animas Give us your souls and without this we have no comfort we may be acquitted at the bar of God but we shall not be crowned in his Throne for what is our crown but you that hear us but if you shall thus groan as I doubt not but you do in secret it is not I but God himself hath promised that they that sow in tears shall reap in joy that they which mourn here shall be comforted hereafter that they which groan here shall be refreshed in their proper house In this we groan earnestly desiring to be cloathed upon with our house which is from heaven Which God of his infinite mercy grant c. THE CARELESSE MERCHANT OR THE WOFUL LOSSE OF THE PRECIOUS SOUL SERMON XXII MATT. 16.26 What is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose his soul THe Patriarch Jacob in his vision at Bethel saw the Angels of God ascending and descending Gen. 28. So from the thirteenth verse of this Chapter we have the Disciples of Christ ascending and descending For first their general speaker Simon Peter had made a notable confession of our Saviours Divinity and had received for the further incouragement of himself and his brethren such an excellent testimony from our Saviour that the Angels of heaven might behold observe and imbrace Blessed art thou Simon Bar-Jona for flesh and blood hath not revealed this to thee but my father which is in heaven and I say thou art Peter and on this rock will I build my Church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it Which words were not only appropriate to him they were spoken to him but they were common to all the Apostles For as Origen argues shall we think that the gates of hell prevailed not against Peter but did a gainst the rest Therefore that which was said to him was said to all and being such a glorious commendation behold the Angels ascend But secondly what if the earthly mind of man dream of a Messias temporal and that they must be promoted to places of eminency and stiled gracious Lords the case is too palpable for if Christ warn his Disciples and tell them of his approaching death at Jerusalem he shall be sure to meet with a check no such matter it shall not be so to thee Oh! here is a strange metamorphise a sudden alteration before a Confessor and now a controller there is no wisdome of the spirit in this and therefore no commendation for this but because he was somewhat too forward get the behind me for thou art an offence to me behold the Angels descend And surely this carnal wisdome had been able to weigh them down to the nethermost hell had not the wisdomâ—… of the wisest curbed and subdued and restrained it What not suffer Yes Peter also must suffer and all that will follow Christ must renounce all the inticements of the world and mortifie all the corrupt exorbitancies of the flesh and resist all the temptations of the Divel For what is a man profited if he gain the whole world and lose his soul Which words are an exaggeration of the woful estate of a temporizing Professor of a carnal Gospeller and they reach to our consideration these four generals First the excellency and worth of mans soul which is of greater value then the whole world Secondly the possiblity of the loss a man may lose his own soul Thirdly the compossibility of outward prosperity he may lose his soul in gaining the whole world And then lastly the woful bargain in such an exchange What is a man profited Of these in order First of the surpassing excellency and dignity of mans soul it is valued and prized here above the whole world It was the plausible conceit of certain Ehilosophers that the world was a great man and that man was a little world a little world indeed but as Saint 〈◊〉 rearms him a great wonder for within this little world there is a reasonable soul worth all the world To render an exact definition of the soul it requires the tongue of an Angel rather then of a man it passes the comprehension of travellers to apprehend the nature of the soul for these three God Angels and mans Soul they are unknown to us we may sooner admire their excellency then conceive their nature and argue of their opperations then attain their knowledge of such sublimity is the soul of man so Angelical and Divine the excellency whereof is commended to us by three distinct voyces of Nature Grace Glory For first in the order of nature it is the greatest thing saith Plato that we may conceive in a narrow room the most noble thing that all the frame of nature affords and that In respect of the Orignal In respect of the Image In respect of the Original the soul of man hath no beginning here 〈◊〉 there was no voyce directed to the earth or to the water for the production of 〈◊〉 soul but a serious confultation of the sacred Trinity and a breathing into his 〈…〉 the breath of life Saith Saint Austin he created it by infusion and 〈…〉 creation And the Philosopher well concludes that the soul as it is not from without it is only divine Therefore the Manichees extolled it too high when they deemed it a portion of Gods substance let not others abase and depresse it too low to think it is derived