immortality to light and with that Saviour who is the great Prophet and Teacher of the Church who came from Heaven and is now gone thither and we may fully rest and Acquiesce in the discoveries that he has given us of that Countrey for he knew it very well was very faithful in the discharging of his office and does not impose upon us any thing that is either false or incredible by our Holy Prayers we are to maintain a Commerce with him and with that World and by our frequent going thither in our Meditations we may gain a clearer knowledge of it Though there are no bounds on which our thoughts can terminate but onely the Revelations which God has been pleas'd to make in his own Word What is above those Heavens and that Firmament that we see there 's none can tell us but God and our Saviour who are there For when Men have abstracted their Thoughts with as much industry as they can from All that is material and sensible when they have refin'd their Understandings to the greatest spirituality and pored never so long upon the state of separation they will still remain in the dark about it And he is the most happy Man who in the sincere performance of the Duties of Religion can resign his Soul to Christ in Death and trust him though he is to be removed to a strange and a new World For immediately after he is loos'd from the Body he will understand more in an instant then all the most Learned in this World have ever understood by the labour and diligence of many years Secondly That which renders the continuance of Time to us wherein to prepare for Death a great Mercy is because we are to dye but Once and upon the well or ill doing of it depends our future Happiness or Misery It is a great Mercy that we have time wherein to make ready for our last Combat for if we lose the Battle once we are overthrown for ever it must not be fought over again It is a Mercy that we have leisure to compleat our journey well for we must never travel over the same Road again There will be no second Edition wherein to Correct our former Errors when a period is once put to the last Line of Life Oh what Faith what Courage what Strength is necessary to Conquer the Fears of Death and Death it self If men fail in their Trades they may by the kindness of their Friends be set up again if they have suffer'd Losses by Shipwrack by Fire or by Plunder they may be repaired but a Soul once lost will remain so for ever 'T is a long long Eternity that succeeds our Time if we should live on Earth as many Hundred years as the most Aged live Months it would bear no proportion with that vast and endless duration Whoever compares the shortness of our present state with the continuance of that into which we enter when we are to dye cannot but esteem the being brought back from the Grave to be a great Mercy If you have been careless of hearing at one season you may hear the Word again at another if you have heretofore been cold in your Prayers you may now excite your Hearts and pray with more fervour but if you once dye ill you must never mend so concluding a Miscarriage All the Tears we shed cannot give Life to the Body from which the Soul is fled All the Anguish of Miserable Souls cannot procure for them another Tryal They that are once cut down must never be planted by the Rivers side any more There is hope of a tree if it be cut down that it will sprout again and that the tender branch thereof will not cease though the root thereof wax old in the earth and the stock thereof die in the ground yet through the scent of Water it will bud and bring forth boughs like a plant But man dieth and wasteth away yea man giveth up the ghost and where is he Job 14. 7 8 9 10. Reason 5. Those who are brought up from the grave have cause to be thankful because by that means they have more opportunity to be serviceable to the Glory of God and to be useful in the World Meerly to live is not a thing very desireable considering how many Miserie 's there are in Life to what Evils and Inconveniences our Bodies are obnoxious and that the pains which they may suffer may be both very long and so secret that none can understand either what they are or how to remove them But it is a most desirable thing to Live when we can thereby obtain the Ends that are truly Great and Noble For First Hereby a man may do good to others He may teach the Ignorant reduce the wandring and by the sincerity of his Counsel by the zeal of his Prayers and the Lustre and Holiness of a good Example advance the power of Religion Our Lives are not our own they are Gods by a double title both of Creation and Redemption they are to be us'd for him who preserves or takes them away as he will Not onely Ministers but every private Christian is obliged by the Name he bears and by the Relation that he has to the holy Society of Believers and to the Kingdom of Christ whereof he is a Subject to enlarge it by all good ways that he can and every man is the more obliged to this when God has bestow'd a new Life upon him When we are near to the Gates of the Grave and look back and see with how little Zeal and Diligence we had spent our time and how little we had done for him who blest us all our dayes then we are enclined most earnestly to beseech him that he would grant us another Tryal and that then we would improve it much better than we did our former time and when he does grant us what we have askt then it should be our great indeavour not to frustrate and disappoint the designs of his Goodness and Mercy Then must we teach transgressors his way telling them how dreadful thing it is to fall into the hands of the living God Then we may tell the Healthful what Sickness is what we have found it to be by our own Experience then we may tell them how it makes very uneasie and troublesome Companions of our now beloved Bodies How it deprive us of all our Pleasures and Recreations in the day and of our rest at night That all their Friendships Conversations and Merryments without true Religion are altogether vain and not onely so but they leave a sting of guilt behind when the sweetness that once allur'd is gone away We may warn them to provide for the dayes of darkness and for the many Miseries of Life that will sooner or latter overtake them When we are Recover'd we can tell the Diseased of the Goodness and the Power of God that they can never be so distressed but that it is still
PRACTICAL DISCOURSES ON Sickness Recovery IN Several SERMONS As they were lately preached in a Congregation in London BY TIMOTHY ROGERS M. A. After his Recovery from a Sickness of near two years continuance LONDON Printed for Thomas Parkhurst at the Bible and Three Crowns at the lower End of Cheapside Jonathan Robinson at the Golden Lion in St. Paul's Church-yard and John Dunton at the Raven in the Poultrey MDCXCI To the Right Worshipful Sr. WILLIAM ASHURST AND Sr. THOMAS LANE Knights And Aldermen of the City of London Most Honoured AFter I had once resolved to let the following Discourses see the Light in hope that they might be some way serviceable to the Glory of God and the Good of Men especially of the Sick or such as are recovered I had no doubtful Thoughts to whom they should be address'd You were the Persons that I first thought upon and it is to You that I am obliged in a more than ordinary manner Therefore I take this occasion to make my Acknowledgments and to testify my Gratitude It was from your Kindness that in troubled and uneasy Times I did obtain many a pleasant and quiet Retreat In both your Houses in the Country I always met with a chearful Entertainment and had there an opportunity of Study which together with the benefit of your Conversation and a leisure to think without being diverted by the noise and burry of the disagreeing World made me to relish a very sensible Delight in being there It is to me and others a thing very observable that the Honours which you have received both from the King and your Fellow-Citizens have made no Alteration in your former ingaging Tempers and Carriage You are still as free as pleasant and as affable to your meaner Friends as you were before Whereas we daily see many Persons whom a little Honour or Advancement changes from all the good Qualities they once possess'd to Loftiness and Pride whom an high Station fills with as high Thoughts and who cannot from their more exalted Condition look upon such as are below them without Contempt and Scorn And tho this may not cause them to lose some outward Civilities from those that are dazled with their shining Grandure yet they do thereby lose all that Reverence and Esteem in the Minds of Men which other wise they might expect You are for the great Zeal you have manifested to the Good of your Country and more especially to the Liberties and Priviledges of this City justly beloved and the more so because you were always steadily resolved to promote the true Interest of both even in such a Season when some that had either no English Blood in their Veins or no true Love to their Country in their Hearts were willing easily to part with those excellent Rights which cost their Forefathers very dear who were in some sense worse than Esau for he sold his Birthright but they were willing to surrender and to give theirs away for nothing It comforts us when from our low Ground we look up to your higher Sphere and see you so well to fill your Orbs with Light And we daily pray that you may long shine there for the Common Good and that we may long be refresh'd with those Influences which have already been so comfortable to us You have now through the Providence of God an honourable Station but before that you were most honorably descended You derived your Birth not only from Families that had done worthily in Ephratah and were famous in Bethlehem but from such as were the Friends of God of a strict Piety and of an unblamable Religion some of which are now Citizens of a better Corporation even of that which is in Heaven What a Comfort is it to the Children of good Parents that they can pray to their Fathers and their Mothers God In Yours you have beheld the Amiableness of Religion represented to the Life in their good Example and the Holiness of their Conversation You may fire your Souls if at any time they begin to cool by the pleasant remembrance of that which they did for God You can remember with what Constancy and Fervour they prayed with what Reverence they read the Word and heard it preach'd with what Seriousness and Frequency they spoke to you of heavenly Things and of the Life to come with what watchfulness they managed their Prosperity with what Patience they bore Afflictions with what Meekness they forgave their Enemies with what Readiness they entertained all those whom they judged sincerely to name the Name of Christ. You see those who are yet alive worshipping and serving God and you can though not without sorrow for your own loss remember those who are dead and gone with what Faith they lived and with what Hope they died Give me leave humbly to desire you to continue to set often before your Eyes their heavenly Example and to keep the same good Order in your Families that they kept and to read the Scriptures with as much Frequency and Seriousness as they read them to be as conscientious in all the Duties of Religion as they were that so They and You may meet with Joy in the Great Day The Thoughts of Death as it is an Entrance into an Unalterable and Eternal State will very much promote all this It will help us to have our most delightful Conversation with those Persons with whom we desire and hope to be found when our Lord comes It will regulate our use of lawful Things and guide us in the management of our Pleasures and our Recreations it will keep both our Bodies and our Souls in a readiness for private Prayer the serious and reverent and lively performance of which will greatly promote our Growth in Gracê We give to our Friends large Portions of our Time every day and we should devote some part of it to converse with God and that not in a cold manner but endeavour to warm our Souls with a deep sense of our Wants and with some suitable foregoing Meditations This is that Duty to which you are no Strangers and You and all others that are in earnest for your Souls will preserve this as a strong Defence against all your spiritual Enemies and the manifold Snares and Temptations of the World for it brings to our Assistance the Help of God and of our blessed Redeemer There is no Pleasure that we have in our Friends or in our Diversions that is comparable to that Joy which an holy Soul finds in its humble and reverent Approaches to the Throne of Grace where God and the Soul meet together where God by his Spirit kindles heavenly Desires and where the Soul upon the Wings of those Desires takes its flight from this lower World when the Soul complains of the burden of Sin and God by his free and gracious Pardon takes the Burden off when the Soul pants and breaths for the living God and he is pleas'd to meet and to satisfy the
some remaining indispositions I had not so long delayed to appear in this place I have thought indeed sometimes that I would with Sampson arise and do as I did at other times but that tedious and uncommon pain that afflicted me and the Consciousness that I have of mine inability to manage so Honourable and so difficult a work as this has long kept me back Moreover I thought there was no need of my weaker Light nor of my meaner Capacity whilest in my absence you had others whose understandings being better furnished could communicate to you in larger measures from their more abounding store But the deliverance which God by his own Power and Goodness has already given me is so wonderful so unexpected and especially so undeserved that I cannot but thrust my Sickle into the Harvest though it be with a very trembling hand And I promise my self that you will joyn your prayers with mine that it may be for the good of some Soul or other nay if God so please that it may be for the good of many Souls that I come here this Evening that it may be for the preservation of others from so thick a darkness and so woful a Condition as that wherein I have been I come to you as one from the dead to say no more and though if you hear not Moses and the Prophets and the well attested Revelations and Discoveries which God has made by them neither will any other methods be successful to your good yet one would think that the Words of one that has dwelt so long as in the very Grave and in the nearest Confines of Eternity ought to carry more than ordinary weight with them A peculiar attention is usually afforded to dying Persons and I think the same should not be denyed to such as in the Judgment of others and in their own opinion have been no longer for this World as I was for above a year and upon that account have Cause to say as in the Text. O Lord thou hast brought up my Soul from the Grave c. From the Words we may raise these two Observations First That God alone is the Soveraign disposer of Life and Death Secondly To be brought up from the Grave is a Mercy greatly to be acknowledged and for which all such as are recovered ought to be very thankful First God alone is the Soveraign disposer of Life and Death This great God concerns himself not only with the Nobler parts of his Dominions but with such as are more inconsiderable He not only preserves the vaster and the purer Orbes above but also this little drossy Globe His Care extends its self not only to the Highest Angel but to the least and the meanest Man And though Men are among us distinguisht by several Excellencies and Titles of Honour yet before him all flesh is as grass He gives a Being to the meanest Pile in its ordinary Garb as well as fine Apparel to the beautiful Lillies of the Field 'T is in him that we all live and move and have our being and if his Concourse be removed all our operations will immediately cease We cannot act without him for then we should be self-sufficient and Independant on him He is the Author and the Preserver of our Nature He first tyed our Bodies and our Souls together and 't is his care that maintains this Incomprehensible Union that is between parts in themselves so vastly different and when he pleases to suspend his Influence 't is dissolved and broken asunder He is the strength of our Life Psal. 27. 1. From him we have all our Healthfulness and Vigor He is the Great Agent the principal Efficient Cause of All that Exists and all second Causes in their several Actions depend upon him Though the manner of his Influx is very Mysterious and it becomes not the weakness of our Minds daringly to determine which way it is we that are extremely in the dark about many of the motions of our own Faculties ought not any way to Limit Him whose Wayes are Unsearchable and who is so far above us But this we most certainly know that our whole being and the continuance of it depends on him alone 'T is his Sun that does refresh our Spirits with his Temperate and Comfortable beams and that by his Amiable shine renders this World a place of delight For were it always covered with darkness it would be a place very undesirable and full of horror They are his Vapours that are drawn up to fill the bottles of Heaven and 't is his hand that opens them again and makes the Clouds dissolve to give being to Grass and Corn to feed the Beasts for us and to be the staff of our Life 'T is his Day in which we work and his Night in which we sleep 't is his Earth that bears us his Air in which we breathe and they are his Winds that purisie and fan that Air to make it healthful and serviceable to us It was this great and Gracious God that first breathed into us the breath of Life he formed our several parts with curious and inimitable Art and his own skilful hand brought us from the darkness in which we were inclos'd safely to the Light of Day 'T was by his Goodness alone that we were not strangled in our Birth or smother'd in the Cradle and that we did not there by the Carelessness of our Keepers and by the many distempers that attend our Early Age find a Grave His Goodness sav'd us from the dangers which we our selves were unable to apprehend and which without his extraordinary Favour would have clos'd our eyes as soon as we saw the Light and have sent us into the other World when we were but newly entred into this His Mercy deliver'd us from the unknown dangers of our heedless Infancy and from the unfear'd evils of our daring Youth 'T is God alone that holds ouâ— souls in life and suffers not our feet to b moved Psal. 66. 9. 'T is he that furnishes us out of his Stores wherewith to repair the daily decayes of Nature He gives us the things that are absolutely necessary to maintain our Life and those also that are necessary for refreshment and delight His corn his wine and his oil Hos. 2. 8. He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle and herb for the service of man that hâ— may bring forth food out of the earth and wine that maketh glad the heart of man and oyl to make his face to shine and bread which strengtheneth mans heart Psal. 104. 14 15. 'T is he that spreads our Table and who fills our Cup and makes the things which we take for the support of Life to give us strength for we live not by bread alone Mat. 4. 4. 'T is he that gave and that maintains that heat in our Stomaches and those Acid juyces there that alter and attenuate and distribute the several parts of our Meat 'T is he that gave
Prolongation of Life is not in this respect so great a Mercy For they think that it is a most easie thing to be ready for Death and Judgement they think that a few Prayers at last a few Tears and Cryes to God with a Confession of their Miscarriages and a few Resolutions against what they once did amiss will put them into a good frame and serve their turn and so the time that was given them wherein to prepare for another World is lost and unimproved because they understand not the greatness of their Work nor the preciousness and value of that Time which is given them to do it in They ought to Remember if they have been near to death how that nearness changed their Thoughts and that they then found by the hurry and confusion of their Apprehensions that Sickness was no proper season wherein to begin an holy Course or to repair the disorders of an ill one Of all men in the World those who are recover'd from a Sickness that found them in their Impenitence have most Reason to be thankful because had they died in that Condition they had died for ever what thanks owe they to God that they are under Hope in the use of Means yet upon his Earth and not in Hell And there are two things with respect to our dying which render the Continuance of our Life a great Mercy First The small Acquaintance which we have with the Future state and the necessity we are under to get as lively apprehensions of it as we can There are many strange Vicissitudes in this World many changes that we see in Countreys when Kingdoms pass from one to another in Families when the number is either increased or diminished and we suffer many changes in our Bodies from Sickness to Health and from Health to Sickness again but there is no change that is so great as this by Death It is a thing of which we know but little and none of the Millions of Souls that have past into the invisible World have come again to tell us how it is All that go hence remain fixed in their own state some expecting and others fearing the Resurrection and the Great Day We have but very obscure apprehensions of that separated state we know but little of the Great All-comprehending Spirit and little with clearness and full satisfaction of our own Souls When we know something of Spirits by their effects and the discoveries they make of themselves and would more fully know their nature and have adequate Conceptions of them we are like little Children that see the Image and Representation of some delightful object in a Glass and then turn the glass hoping to see it in its full dimensions but by that means lose the sight of it altogether so it is with us in our most Critical Inquiries into Spiritual and Immaterial Substances Nevertheless it is very desireable to know in what condition our Souls will be when they leave the Body and what is the nature of that abode into which we must go but which we never saw Into what Regions we must then take our flight and after what manner this will be done When that Soul which touch't and wrought by our hands spoke by our tongue and heard by our Ears shall have her present Organs taken from her and pass from sensible objects on Earth to a spacious unseen World When as in the twinkling of an Eye our spirits will go from this lower state through the Aiery Region and the visible Heavens soaring till they come to the Throne of God All the Animal Actions of Nourishment and Growth all the Sensations that arise from outward and Material objects will cease and these spirits will be more vigorous and Active than now they are When Death comes it leaves the body though far different from what it was yet still in our view We see where it is and what Qualities it is invested with how it is disposed of we know and are able to give some exact Account of its Condition of this we have a more distinct Apprehension but none of a separated Soul but what is very imperfect 'T is certain the Soul will then preserve the Faculties that are natural to it viz. to Understand to Will to Remember as 't is represented to us under the Parable of Dives and Lazarus So long as 't is lodged here it sees and perceives Corporal things by the Organs of the Senses and reasons upon the Images that are labour'd in the Phantasie but there are in our Souls Idea's purely intellectual and which have in them nothing Material as the Contemplations of the Nature of God and of his Attributes We little know how the People of the disembodied Societies Act and Will and Understand and communicate their Thoughts to one another What Conception can we have of a separated Soul but that 't is all thought and that either in the Calmness of an elevated Joy or the bitterness of overwhelming Anguish according to the state in which it is and the sentence that is past upon it When a Mans Body is taken from him by Death he is turn'd into all Thought and Spirit either infinitely more pleas'd or more amaz'd than he could be in this World How great will be its thoughts when it is without any hinderance from these material Organs that now obstruct its operations In that Eternity as one expresses it the whole power of the Soul runs together one and the same way In this World the soul sends out Parties of it self divers wayes or to several ends the Judgment may be pleased in the main and yet the Affections disturbed or these more still and yet the Judgment dissatisfied and disturbed One thought goes out in high discontent another flyes after it recalls and reconciles it On the other side one thought leaps out of the Soul with pleasure another reproves daunts and dejects it with a correction of its haste But in Eternity the soul is united in its motions which way one Faculty goes all go and the Thoughts are all Concentred as in one whole Thought of Joy or Torment Beverley Great Soul of Man pag. 292. These things cannot but occasion great variety of thoughts in every Considering Man and the soul especially when it looks toward that World and thinks it self near it can no more cease to be Inquisitive about it than it can cease to be a soul. We may indeed be too curious in this matter though it seems to be a Curiosity that is most excuseable because it concerns a mans self his own soul and his own Eternity and when we have searched as deep as we can we must confess our Ignorance and say with the Prophet upon another occasion Lord thou knowest In these Contemplations we must make the Word of God our onely Guide and it is a Mercy greatly to be acknowledged that God allows us time wherein to Converse with that Gospel that has brought life and
us at our Coasts and at our own Doors this gracious God has kept it off And if we repent we shall not perish You in London have seen your Civil Liberties rescued from the Grave in which they might have laid very long had not he raised up our present Protestant King to be that glorious Instrument that should give them a Resurrection Our Country after a long Sickness and Indisposition under which a few years ago we were afraid it would have languisht quite away has begun to recover and it is our Wish and Prayer that by the same Goodness and Power of God that has turned our Captivity it may at length flourish with a perfect and compleat Recovery For indeed it is not so as long as there are still so many Blasphemies and execrable Oaths to be heard in our Streets as long as there is so much heedlesness and irreverence in our Assemblies so much Injustice and Deceit in our Shops so much Omission of Prayer in our Families so much Luxury and Riot at our Tables so much Profanation of this Holy day But to this we hope the Zeal and the Care of our Magistrates will at length put a stop But whilst these things continue tho blessed be God we are much better than we once were yet still these will be ill Symptoms upon us What cause of Joy should we have if the Mercies we have already received were sanctified and improved Oh what a Joy would it be if God would save England with a Spiritual Deliverance if he would save us from those Sins that expose us to his Wrath And if we would in our particular stations do all we can to promote such a Salvation which would be much more glorious than what we have yet seen Then indeed we should have cause to turn our days of Humiliation into days of Praise If we would forsake our strange Sins we need not fear in the least to be punisht by People of a strange Language and which we understand not We need not fear all the powers of the World nor all our Enemies if we did not cherish the worst Enemy of all in our own bosoms I mean our Sins and if which God avert we should still continue to cherish these they will rout us without another Enemy Let us obey and love that God that has so wonderfully preserved and continued our Peace that so there is no crying out nor complaining in our Streets That has made all things to be still with us while the Nations round abound have heard the Voice of Spoilers and the Noise of bloody Wars Let us take heed lest we forget our Deliverer lest we abuse his Goodness lest we forsake our own Mercies There are no Judgments so severe which we have not all deserved and which we may not fear but yet there are no Mercies so great for which we may not hope if the large Experience that we have of the Goodness of God in our frequent Deliverances have their due influence upon us and if he be for us as he will then be who can be against us Jer. 3. 22 23. Return ye backsliding Children and I will heal your backslidings Behold we come unto thee for thou art the Lord our God Truly in vain is salvation hoped from the Hills and from the multitude of Mountains truly in the Lord our God is the Salvation of Israel The Fifth SERMON Psal. 30. ver 3 4. O Lord thou hast brought up my Soul from the Grave thou hast kept me alive that I should not go down into the Pit Sing unto the Lord O ye Saints of his and give thanks at the Remembrance of his Holiness ANOTHER Way whereby you are to improve your Recovery from Sickness is to take heed that you do not overmuch value your Bodies Look upon them as still obnoxious to great Pains and let that abate your too great Indulgence to them This I know is not a very pleasant direction because as there is nothing for which our sensible Nature has a greater abhorrence than Pain so there is nothing of which we are more unwilling to think and when by any ways 't is brought to our remembrance we endeavour to turn it off by turning to some other Discourse or avoiding those places where by the Groans or Tears of the Sick we shall be forced to remember it whether we will or not Few People care to talk of Sickness till they are sick or of dying till they come to dye They make much shorter Visits to the diseased than to those in health not only because they are afraid of troubling their Friends by their Discourse which is likely enough but principally because this is more unpleasant than their other Visits It is very advisable therefore that we render those Evils which we cannot avoid familiar to us by frequent Meditations and this will diminish their formidableness and violence tho indeed when a Man has thought never so long pain will be pain still a thing that whenever it comes will cause indelightful sensations in our Spirits The Body by its near alliance will communicate to the Soul a perception of all the Meseries it suffers and when the one half of a Man is ill the other half cannot fare very well It was the peculiar Vanity of the Stoicks as some observe That they would be philosophizing after the rate of Angels and discourse without considering that their Bodies are one half of their Natures and that their Souls are not disengaged from Matter and by consequence have sensual Appetites too gross to be satisfied by bare Thoughts and Reflections and sensitive Pains too sharp to be allayed with Words and Subtilties When we consider what Evils our Sickness brought upon these poor frail Bodies of ours surely we should never too much doat upon them when all the Care we can use will not preserve them from the Grave He that is proud of his Body is as foolish as if he should doat upon a Flower which an unseen Storm may deprive of all its Glory or which if it be let alone and meet with no accident will of its self wither and deay Or as if he should admire a Stream of Water and the Bubbles that are upon it which in the very moment of our Admiration slide away and stay not for our Praise or our Love Or as if he should fall in Love with some of those brighter Clouds which roul above our Heads and which for all their taking Brightness will quickly disappear It would abate that tenderness and delicacy wherewith we treat our Bodies if we did but leisurely consider what strange Miseries may afflict them before the period of this mortal Life It is a sad Reflection as one says to consider that when Life is so short and so fading so much of so little should be worn away in Misery and Torment Some indeed by a particular Dispensation and a most favourable Providence are allowed to pass into the other World without
with the first by calling for the Elders by confessing their Sins by promising Repentance and by Prayers for good things requisite as well for the body as for the Soul Discourse of Extream Unction pag. 48. It is also the duty of those that are acquainted with the sick instead of vain and frivolous discourses of Common Affairs which have no relish with those that are in great pain to Minister as far as they are able to their Spiritual Wants to direct instruct and any other way to help them to set their Souls in order and to trim their Lamp See what Care the Holy Prophet used to his Enemies Psal. 35. 13 14. When they were sick my clothing was sackcloth I humbled my soul with fasting and my prayer returned into my own bosom I behaved my self as though he had been my friend or brother I bowed down heavily as one that mourneth for his Mother Those means which he used for their Recovery were an argument of the sincerity of his own Religion as well as of his most affectionate Sympathy and tenderness to them When you visit the sick you see in them the prospect of your own Mortal Estate You see how soon their Complexion their Temper their Sociableness and all that agreeableness of Humour which was pleasing to you is gone and changed In their broken feeble expressions in their wan and pale looks and in their fallen Countenances you behold that man in his best Estate is altogether vanity Psal. 39. 5. and how when God with rebukes does correct man for Iniquity he makes his beauty to consume away like a moth ver II. then you see that all flesh is grass and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field Isa. 40. 6. How many times do you see those whom you love strugling with pains strong and bitter even as death it self and you cannot though you never so earnestly desire it afford to them the least Relief not a moments ease nor the smallest interval of rest but when your hearts have sunk within you with the doleful and unintermitted accents of their Groans and Sighs how often have you prayed to God and he has appear'd to your help and theirs There may be many Cases wherein much speaking may do your afflicted Friends no good at all but there is no Case wherein your prayers may not be of great advantage either to preserve them with you or to obtain for them some Gracious discoveries of the Love of God or a more easie passage both which are very great Mercies What wonders have been wrought in all Ages by the power of the United Intercession of Believers when they have carried their sick to Christ. What numbers are there of perfect Souls in Heaven that can Witness to the Truth of this and how many deliver'd Captives are on Earth that can now with joy set their Seal to it and say with Transport truly God is a God hearing prayers The continued prayers of the Church for Peter did procure his Enlargement and an Angel was dispatcht to break his Chains and to send him to carry the welcom news to the then praying Church that their prayers were heard and he was deliver'd Many there are now alive that owe their Lives to this whereof I am one The Mercy of God which alone could help me and that was implored and sought by your prayers has brought me from the very Grave In all future occasions try this method for you know it is available and successful Is any afflicted let him pray himself is any so overwhelm'd that he cannot well perform it Let him call for the Elders of the Church and let them pray over him and the prayer of Faith shall save the sick Jam. 5. 14 15. He is to use this course as a means for the recovery of his Health for though we cannot with any Modesty pretend to the prayer of Faith here mentioned that is of a certain perswasion that the person for whom we pray shall be raised up yet we ought to pray in this Faith that it is pleasing to God when we express our dependance upon him by asking those things which we need that every good thing comes from him and therefore health and deliverance from death that though he does not alwayes give that particular thing which we ask yet 't is sometimes denied because we do not ask and that as he never gives the greatest Blessings of all which are those of a good mind but in answer to prayers So sometimes he does not send bodily good things because he is not prayed to for them And there is no less Reason for Prayer when God raiseth up the sick by Blessing ordinary means than when it was done by a supernatural Gift Discourse of Extream Unction pag 46. Inf. 2. There is great Reason to Fear and Reverence God For as he presides over all the Revolutions of Empires and Nations their Original their Growth their Prosperities and Decayes so he does likewise over particular persons in their Life and Death His knowledge and his Government reaches to all things for their Existence depends upon his Will It is in his power to destroy or to save He is the God in whose hand our Life is We lye at his Mercy and according as he Wills we must either be Healthful or Sick Live or Dye His are our times on his pleasure our present happiness and our future welfare depends He sits upon the flouds and orders with a steady and uniform design All that appears most uncertain and changeable to us He can either make the Waters of Affliction to drown us or say unto them as unto the waves of the Sea hitherto shall you go and no further even then when their swelling Pride threatens us with total desolation He has appointed his Sun to measure out our time and knows when shall be the last concluding day When those that are now living shall dye and by what sort of death and where after that they shall be placed whether in Happiness or Wo. He knows when the last Trumpet shall sound and when the dead shall be rais'd Of him therefore should we stand in Awe as having that voice continually in our ears Deut. 32. 39 40. See now that I even I am he and there is no God with me I kill and I make alive I wound and I heal neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand for I lift up my hand to heaven and say I live for ever What an abundance of diseases are at his beck what abundance of Arrows are in his Quiver what abundance of sins do we commit which cause him to bend his bow and provoke him to set us up as marks of his displeasure He can strike the most consident and secure sinners dead in a moment or with long abiding pains fill them with so great anguish and vexation that they shall chuse strangling and death rather than Life Alass what are we to this Great
betray you to death or to long pain Seek chiefly to the Soveraign disposer of all things who can either cure you without means or make those that you try to be available knowing that without him not all the Cordials in the World can for one moment stay the departing Life Of which many Physitians are so sensible that they frequently tell you that by the blessing of God they hope to do you good Indeed they had need be men of Prayer that by their means Religio Medici might be as famous in reallity as it has been in scorn And though I pretend to no great skill in these affairs yet I have some Experience as to what I say I have often found the Insufficiency of all things that have been prescrib'd and that they have not given me the least Ease in my violent and sharp pain and how what I have taken with a design to help me has increased my Disease and made it more painful Therefore having severely smarted my self for my folly in expecting too much from humane help I may be allowed to warn others that they may not fall into the same snare and to desire them to trust more in God and less in Men. We may be as guilty of Idolatry in giving Men too much of our Trust as if we bowed before a Graven Image and it is an evil to which Men are as prone as to any other sin An Instance whereof is that which Suidas saith that the Book which Solomon wrote of Physick was affixed upon the Gate into the Entry of the Temple and because the People boasted too much in it neglecting the Lord Hezekiah caused them to pull away this Book and bury it and the Talmud saith that Hezekiah did two memorable things first he hid the Book of Physick which Solomon had written and secondly he brake the brasen Serpent which Moses made Weemes Exerc. div pag. 120. Indeed men do as that King said unto Hazael 2 King 8. 8. Take a present in thine hand and go meet the man of God and enquire of the Lord by him saying shall I recover of this disease They seek for Recovery first of all as that which would bring them the most acceptable News which made the Prophet use such Ambiguity in his Speech Verse 10. For 't is likely that 't was no dissimulation because his Sickness was not in it self Mortal yet he should surely dye that is by the Treachery of Hazael The hope of Recovery is so grateful to the Patient that Physitians are not a little tempted to conceal the danger when it is visible to all but to the Sick Man and of how ill Consequence is this I cannot better express it than in the Words of an Honourable person for whom men of all the Learned professions have a just value For my part sayes he who take the prognosticks of Phytians to be but Guesses not Prophesies and know how backward they are to bid us Fear till our condition leave them little hopes of us I cannot but think that Patient very ill advis'd who thinks it not time to entertain thoughts of death as long as his Doctor allows him any hopes of Life for in case they should both be deceiv'd 't would be much easier for the mistaken Physitian to save his Credit than for the unprepared Sinner to save his Soul Boyle Occasional Reflections Sect. 2. pag. 222. Our safest Course in all our Troubles and Sicknesses is to Go to Jesus Christ who has an Omnipotent Vertue and Ability to help as when he was on Earth he healed all manner of Diseases and among the rest a person that had suffered many things of many Physitians and was nothing bettered but rather grew worse Mark 5. 26. So he has still the same power and Compassion and though Thousands have shared in the Gracious effects of his Bevenolence yet he has still the same Charity and the same All-sufficient Fulness from whence to relieve us as the Sun after it has by its Light and Quickning influences given Being and Refreshment to so many several Creatures in the World suffers no diminution of its own Light and Heat and is no less Communicative and Beneficial to this very day then it was many hundred years ago The whole of what I have spoken upon this Head is onely to keep our spirits from placing an undue reliance on the Creatures when our Trust is chiefly to be fix'd on our Glorious and powerful Creator One would think it strange and yet so it is that when God has by some sharp and severe stroak beaten off our hold from those props whereon we us'd to lean in the time of our Careless Health when he has confin'd us to a solitary state and we can no longer have our Antient Friendships nor our former hope yet even in distress it self so great is our adherence to Creatures we substitute to Our selves new Reeds whereon to lay some strength and our vain trust does not expire but with our latest breath I would not have any part of what I have said to reflect in the least upon those worthy Physitians who in the time of my woful Calamity gave me their Charitable Visits though God was not pleas'd to succeed the Endeavours they used yet I hope and pray that he may reward them for their labour and their diligence As also Those that gave me their kind help when I was not able to help my self I owe to them all great Respect and Thanks and none can take it ill if I say what to his Glory I ought to say that God onely was my Physitian and my Deliverer and to him is all the praise due He hath torn and he hath healed he hath smitten and he hath bound me up he hath revived me and I live in his sight Hos. 6. 1. So that I may say with David Psal. 103. 1 2 3 4. Bless the Lord O my soul and all that is within me bless his holy name Bless the Lord O my soul and forget not all his benefits Who forgiveth all thine Iniquities and healeth all thy diseases who redeemeth thy Life from destruction who crowneth thee with Loving-kindness and tender mercies Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things so that thy Youth is renewed like the Eagles Observ. 2. To be brought up from the Grave and to be kept alive from going down to the Pit is a Mercy greatly to be acknowledged and for which we ought to be very thankful And thaâ— upon these following Accounts Reason 1. Because Life is the dearest of all our present Blessings All Happiness is usually represented by the name of Life and all Misery by the name of Death Other Evils take from us each of them some part of our Comforts Death bereaves us of them all Bondage deprives us of Liberty Banishment of our Countrey Sickness afflicts our Bodies shame or Infamy our Souls pain troubleth our Senses poverty incommodateth our Life but there is no Calamity so great
as not to leave us the use or enjoyment of some good or at least of our selves Death extinguisheth our Life and by this means overthrowing the very Foundations of our Enjoyments doth at the same time despoil as of all other good things altogether Daille sur Coloss. 2. 13. Life is the most excellent Gift of God but Death is an Enemy to Nature and cannot be lov'd for it self 't is the fruit of Sin Rom. 5. 12. 'T is the wages thereof Rom. 6. 23. For if Adam had persever'd in his Innocent Condition he had enjoyed a Glorious Immortality without those pains and that Death which is now our Lot The Philosophers indeed thought that death was natural to Man and all the discourses they grounded upon this false principle are so vain and empty that they onely serve to shew in the General how weak Man is seeing the greatest productions of the wisest Men are so mean and Childish Pascal pensees S. 30. Death is the matter of the Threat and therefore a punishment though Believers whose Faith is in exercise may quietly submit to it as a passage to Eternal Glory We give it indeed many soft names and seem to make nothing of it in our ordinary discourse we speak of nothing with more unconcernedness and with less Fear but it ceases not to be an Enemy though we give it never so many fair Characters Men at a distance from it can make a sleight matter of it but its nearer approaches if attended with the due sense of Futurity will make the boldest and the stoutest Man to tremble it will strike a damp into his Spirits mingle Gall and Wormwood with his Wine and Bitterness with his sweetest Joys Death is not the less formidable for being unavoidable but rather more so as a certain Evil is more an Evil than that which is only probable and which may never happen but do we consider what it is for the Union that is between the body and the Soul to be dissolv'd what it is to see Corruption what it is to have this Body turn'd into a Carkass without Life and Motion what it is to have this Body which we have tended with so long a Care which we have maintain'd at so vast a Charge of Meat and Drink and Time to have this Body in which we have slept and liv'd at Ease laid into the cold Grave and there in a loathsome manner to putrifie and consume away it cannot but occasion very great Commotions when the day is come that the two Friends who have been so long acquainted and so dear to one another must part Death is an evil to be prayed against for as such it cannot be the Object of desire And the old saying of Augustin is not unworthy of our Observation That if there were no bitterness in Death the Constancy of Martyrs would not be so remarkable Therefore says the Apostle 2 Cor. 5. 4. We would not be uncloathed but clothed upon It is promised as a favour to Ebedmelech that though he sustained many other losses yet he should have his life for a prey Jer. 39. 18. and Paul then whom none had a greater desire and esteem of Glory yet reckons it a Blessing for a good Man to be kept alive For he sayes of Epaphroditus Phil. 2. 27. He was sick nigh unto death but God had mercy on him And we find the Holy Men of Old very earnest for their Lives Return O Lord deliver my soul O save me for thy mercies sake For in death there is no remembrance of thee in the Grave who shall give thee thanks Psal. 6. 4. 5. Psal. 39. 13. Oh spare me that I may recover strength before I go hence and be no more Psal. 102. 24. I said O my God take me not away in the midst of my dayes And what doleful Expressions did Hezekiah use upon the news of his approaching death Isa. 38. 10. I said in the cutting off of my dayes I shall go to the gates of the Grave I am deprived of the residue of my years I said I shall not see the Lord even the Lord in the land of the living I shall behold man no more with the inhabitants of the Earth Reason 2. When a Man dyes 't is to him as an end of all the World He is no more considered as a Member of that Community to which he did once belong When his Eyes are once clos'd by Death he is no more to behold the Sun Moon and Stars which he now sees nor his Fields and Gardens his Shops and Houses his Estate and Lands As the waters fail from the Sea and the flood decayeth and drieth up So man lieth down and riseth not till the heavens be no more Job 14. 11 12. He quits for ever all those Earthly things on which he once set his Heart and when he is asleep in his Bed of dust he will not awake to pursue secular Affairs and Business which took up so much of his time and labour He must no more frequent his Exchange not read Books nor discourse with his Relations and Friends as he us'd to do among the Living here The first sound that he will he will hear will be the Voice of the Last Trumpet Arise ye dead and come to judgment The first sight that he will see will be the Mighty Judge in the Clouds and the Heavens and the Earth all in one flame All that little share of the World which he called his own will be undiscern'd and buryed in the vast ruins and desolations of the Great Day When a Man dyes 't is with him as an End of the World all the Affairs of Peace and War of Trade and Commerce and Gain and Riches all his projects and designs his large reaches his forecast his â—â—â—ughtfulness about News or about providing for his own Name or for posterity all these things are at an end with him for ever It would put a mighty Change upon the Face of things and the Circumstances of particular persons if they knew certainly the World would be at an end in four or five years or in so many Moneths and no man knows but it may be so as to him because before or at that time Death may cut him off and then he has no more to do with this Earth or with the Sons of Men. As the cloud is consumed and vanisheth away so he that goeth down to the grave shall come up no more He shall return no more to his house neither shall his place know him any more Job 7. 9 10. Reason 3. Because when we dye our Everlasting state is to be determin'd l After Death the Judgment The moment of our departure hence will pass us over to the Righteous Tribunal of God It will make us either to shine with the Angels above or to set with the Devils It will either fix us in a joyful Paradise or in an intolerable state of Wo. So that we may say with Nieremberg how
the midst of hard service Tentations and Tryals and to endure the heat of the day when they might have their Reward especially if they be afflicted with tedious bodily pains for to serve God with chearfulness in the midst of pain is a noble effect of Faith It is a very Generous thing to desire to Live when they have no pleasure in Life but as it gives them an occasion to be serviceable to the Church It is not altogether so with those who are in full health and Ease For as their strength is greater so their work on that account is more delightful and may be done with more vigour There is not amore Remarkable Instance in History than that of our Apostle Phil. 1. 21 22 23. For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain But if I live in the flesh this is the fruit of my labour yet what I shall chuse I wot not For I am in a strait betwixt two having a desire to depart and to be with Christ which is far better Nevertheless to abide in the flesh is more needful for you Was there ever seen any thing in the World greater then the frame and behaviour of this Apostle this Holy Man of God this Angel in Flesh we might have called him but that he speaks of dying 'T is no great matter for a Man to desire to Live and to be serviceable who is under Doubts and Fears about his Salvation 't is what he ought chiefly to desire that he may renew his Evidences and work out his Salvation with more diligence But this was not the case of Paul he knew that to dye would be his gain It was as it were put to his choice whether he would go to Christ to that dear Master who had loved him and whom he had lov'd or stay below in this World a World that had given him very coarse and rude Entertainment that had afflicted and scorn'd and vilified and persecuted him wherever he came And yet this poor weary Traveller is willing still to travel for the good of others when he might have been at home He is willing to stay amidst the reproaches and pains and sorrows of this Earth when he might have gone to Heaven where he would have had a Crown of Glory and have been in the midst of Joyes and Hallelujahs He might have gone to Triumph and Victory but for the sake of his Neighbours and his Friends he is willing to renew the Combat He had been long tost on a very stormy Sea and might now if he had so pleased have gone into the Port but for their sakes he is willing from the very Harbours Mouth to put to Sea and to abide new dangers and storms again No Soul excepting that of Christ was ever sired with a greater Zeal for God and the Salvation of others than this of Paul There is a different behaviour visible in Hezekiah who when it was told him by the Prophet Isa. 38. 1 2. Thus saith the Lord Set thine house in order for thou shalt die and not live He turned his face to the wall and prayed and wept sore ver 3. One would have thought it should not have been an unwelcom Message to a good man especially to one who could reflect upon his Sincerity and appeal to God about it to one that as we may Imagine might have been after so pure and so sincere a Life accustom'd to the Thoughts of so great a Change that knew that the setting of his Sun was that it might rise again in a glorious Immortality It is a wonder to see those Cheeks bedewed with Tears which one would have thought should have been adorn'd with smiles as a Soldier is glad to be discharged from long duty or after having long maintained a Place with great Hardships to have the Siege raised and to be set at Liberty But there are Three Reasons usually assign'd for it First Though he was a very good Man yet he was still but a Man had those Humors and Passions which are usually put into a great agitation upon the thoughts of sudden Death The Body and the Soul have been so long Acquainted that they are loth to part Secondly Because he had no Issue he was descended from David and in a probability as he might think of having the Messiah come of him according to the Flesh. And Thirdly He desired to Live longer for the Reformation of the Church For his Age is reckoned to be then but 39 and that he dyed at 54. We ought to be very thankful when God brings us from the Grave and will use us in his service He needs us not if a thousand such as we are should dye how quickly can he supply our places with such as may be more faithful and on whom he will bestow more Grace and better Gifts When he took away such great Men as Moses Aaron and Elias he found others to put in their steeds and the Church and the Interest of Christ will not dye with us Those that are most devoted to the service of God would not have the opportunities even of difficult obedience taken from them too soon Having often dishonoured God in the time of their Health they would still serve him though it be in pain Indeed though Believers may sometimes earnestly desire to go to Heaven when this World through their languishing Afflictions and sore Tryals is become uneasie to them yet God will have them to serve him here on Earth tho' it be with much trouble Christ prays not that he would take his disciples out of the World Tho' they were presecuted and hated in it Joh. 17. 15. And this may give us some Light into one of the most mysterious parts of the Providence of God why he suffers his servants to conflict with violent pains when he could ease them with a word why he suffers them to make their Couches to swim with Tears when he could quickly wipe all their Tears away why he suffers them to groan long in Misery when if he pleas'd he could translate them to Heaven without a sigh 'T is that they may live to serve him even in these Afflictions and by the Experiences which they have of his Faithfulness be encouraged more and more to trust in him He could at their first Conversion give them the Reward and as soon as they are adopted to be his Sons make them actual Possessors of that Inheritance to which they are Heirs Or he could strengthen their Sanctification and compleat their Grace that they should not complain and mourn as they now do for the hardness of their hearts their deadness and unbelief It is not that he takes delight in their Grief or that he finds an Harmony in their Groans 'T is because even they shall feel the bitterness of sin they shall know the way to Life to be strait and narrow that so they may at length wonder more at the riches and freeness of his Grace that
brings them to Glory even by such unlikely wayes He will have them to be train'd up with difficulties to strive and to wrestle with them that so their Fervour may shame the coldness and indifference of others who take no pains for their Salvation He will have them to go laden under the sense of their Corruptions that so finding their daily need of Christ they may still remember him who is their help and finding so much guilt in themselves they may apply themselves to his unspotted Righteousness for Justification and to his Word and Spirit for new degrees of Holiness that they may have experience of his Goodness and he of their Obedience and Love that they may know the Loving-kindness the Care and the Wisdom of that God that Pilots their Ship when it is covered with waves and stormes for stormes are the Triumph of his Art and he steers even the sinking Vessel to the Port. Secondly By being brought from the Grave a Man may be enabled to do much good to himself as well as to others that so he may at last with joy give an account of his Stewardship that he may increase his own reward and by Gods Grace make his Crown of Happiness more sparkling and more full of weighty Glory As no man ought to be satisfied with the lowest degrees of grace so every one may and ought by an Innocent Ambition and a multitude of good Works to indeavour to sit near to the Throne and not only to save himself but to carry others with him to heaven that may be his Joy and his Crown in that Day Reason 6. and Lastly There are several circumstances that may enlarge the kindness of being brought from the Grave and which ought to render us more thankfull for it Those that are good may have their iniquities visited with stripes and it cannot but be a terrible thing to fear that they shall be snatcht away whilest they are punisht with the rods which their own Sins have made As the Prophet was devoured by a Lion for his Disobedience to the command of God 1 King 13. 21. It is a great Mercy to live to see the good of his Chosen and it is a punishment to be taken away just when some great deliverance is coming to the Church It was a thing which Moses greatly desired to see the Promised Land and to go thither to see it indeed was granted him but to enjoy it was denied him because of the provocation at the Rock It is a Misery to see Plenty for others and not to taste thereof our selves like that Lord of Samaria who perished for his unbelief 2 King 7. 2. 17. 18. It is a great Mercy to be delivered after we have been afflicted and ready to dye when the terrors of God have amazed us and his fierce wrath has gone over us Psal. 88. 15. How sad a thing is it to dye under a sense of the weight of sin and to have no prospect of a Pardon to feel as it were the very scorching flames of Hell and to have no hope that these will ever be cool'd or remov'd but rather grow more hot and scorching to have no Comfort from Heaven or Earth no rest for the Body no composure for the Soul to be sinking and to have nothing to lay hold upon to stand shivering on the brink of destruction and to see no way of escape to be compassed in with sin behind and with Miseries before to be in darkness and to see no light not to know where our Lot will be fixt not to know but that it may be among the damned To be near to the Judgment Seat of Christ and to be afraid of appearing there This is a state in which no man would chuse to dye for it is inexpressably terrible and it is a most wonderful mercy to be delivered from a Case so sad as this For how uncomfortable is it to a mans self to be roaring in the disquietness of his soul not to be able to live because of the insupportableness of his Pain nor to dare to dye because of the greatness of his sins that are always before him and that are like to lye down with him in the dust How uncomfortable is it to the Relations and Friends of the sick and dying that see him strugling and crying under pains which tear him to pieces How uncomfortable is it to them to hear his doleful Expressions about his Eternal state to see the anguish of his soul and the arrows of the Almighty sticking in it which makes him a terror to himself and to those that are round about him How woful a thing is this and if a man get to Heaven at last by the mighty Grace of God yet it is a thing very undesireable to go thither as by the very gates of Hell for a man to have his days shortned and his strength weakned in the way Psal 102. 23. and to have his Sun go down at noon looks like the displeasure of God and no man would dye by the frown of God A man cannot be blamed who is loth to dye till he save some Hope that it shall go well with him for ever 'T is a sore Evil to be thrown aside as a broken vessel in which there is no pleasure Jer. 22. 28. It is a great mercy to be kept from raging violent distempers and to be deliver'd from such after we have long groaned under them It is a great Mercy to have such a sickness as will allow us time to exhort and direct and counsel others and 't is very desireable that we may by a Christian Carriage set our Seal to Religion and shew its Power and Reality 'T is a most glorious thing to dye in the Lord i. e. as one Paraphrases it in the Spirit of our Lord Jesus Christ in the Spirit of Faith and Love in a Spirit of Elevation towards God which makes the dying believer to go towards Heaven with all his force and like his Saviour commit his soul with joy into the hands of his heavenly Father Du Bosc Sermons p. 354. We ought to pray that we may not be like the wicked in our death and that we may be found of our Lord in peace and that we may say with old Simeon when after long expectation he saw the Messiah and embraced him in his arms Lord now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace according to thy word for mine eyes have seen thy salvation Luk. 2. 29 30. This we may beg of God for it is not only for our happiness but for his Glory when we can trust him tho' we go into a state which he has promis'd indeed but which we never saw What a glorious thing is it when we are drawing near to the end of Life to be able to wait and not only to wait but to long not only to believe and hope but to rejoyce and triumph in the thought of seeing God To give to those that
live an Example of dying well which is the most difficult thing in the World What a mercy is it when a man after many long and weary steps on Earth is going stored with Experiences and a well-grown Faith to his Journeys end When a man arrives at Heaven like a vessel well fraighted and richly Laden that after a long and dangerous Voyage is coming home To shine all his Life with the beauties of Holiness and when he dies to set like the Sun in beams to rise again Oh what a pleasant thing is it to a Believer to have the sweet foretastes of heaven here and hereafter to enter into the joy of his Lord To be blown along with a full gale of assured and undaunted Hope To be able to say I know whom I have believed I have fought the good fight of faith I am going to that God whose I am and whom I serve to that God who has loved me and whom I have loved who will be my own God for ever and ever What a glorious thing is it when a Christian by the assistance of the blessed Spirit has mortified all inordinate desires after any thing in this life when he can say Let me arise and go hence to a better place when the Affections and all the powers of the Soul are on the wing to meet its Saviour on the way when it is in an actual readiness and as soon as ever it hears the voice saying Come up hither will freely go and with such holy haste as if it would prevent Christ in his coming to fetch it It is a thing greatly to be desired and prayed for that when our last hour comes we may not onely in the General be prepared to dye but that we may be in a dying Frame and a man is so when he is very submissive to God and his blessed Will when he is pleas'd with that order of his Providence that calls him hence When by Faith he is intirely loosen'd from the World and Worldly things and in assurance of Salvation can yield up his Life with this Lord Jesus receive my Spirit Inf. 1. If being brought from the Grave be so great a mercy and for which we ought to be thankful then what cause have those to be thankful who are delivered so as never to be in danger of dying any more Happy are they who are deliver'd so as ever to be deliver'd never to feel the same bitterness which they once felt nor to groan under the same Miseries and Calamities We praise God here on Earth but alass how low and how weak are our Praises to what he deserves for his own Excellencies and for his Mercy to us How cold are our warmest praises to theirs above who are all in admiration Extasie and Love And well may they praise him in the most elevated manner that certainly know that all their diseases are heal'd and their Iniquities forgiven That by their nearness to God see his Face and how well-pleas'd he is with all they do they praise the riches of his Grace in pardoning so many sins and so great they praise his power and his Wisdom that guided their poor trembling Souls to his own Glory their hearts are full of Love and 't is that which produces Praise and Joy Oh what a chearful Society is above in Heaven where so many Milions of Angels and so many Saints joyn together in the same blessed work and all their several Anthems meet in one loud and pleasant Hallelujah how vastly different is their Assembly from such an one as this Here we are with our unbelief with our fears with our strong Corruptions and with our many sins whereas they are all perfect and compleat in Holiness Here are we liable to manifold Calamities the very thoughts of which may be justly afflicting to us but in their World they have no change nor variation They have one continued and unalterable Felicity after a long and doleful sickness it is a pleasant thing to behold this World again it looks as a new World to me who have dwelt for so many Months on the very borders of the Grave But alass what is this World that at the best is a Region and a state of death to that above which is a Region and a state of pure and undisturbed Life The deliverance which God has been pleased to give to Me is in many respects as a Resurrection but it is such an one as that of Lazarus after which I must be sick again and dye for Recovery is but a delay of certain death And indeed our praises for our escape from death are very much damp'd and allayed by this thought that we must for all the deliverances we have at present yet in a little while go into the Grave The remembrance of those fore and dreadful Calamities that surrounded me and this Consideration that I am whilest in this body obnoxious to many thousand more distresses makes me to rejoyce with trembling It is a very sad Consideration when a man looks upon such a number of people as is here this Evening to think how many several sorts of miseries may be our Lot before we dye All of us are born to trouble as the sparks fly upward We can no more avoid affliction then we can run away from our selves What vexations may you Parents meet withal in disobedient Children that may send you mourning to the dust What Curses may come to you who have careless Parents that suffer you to wander in the way of death What disappointments and losses and decayes may you that are Tradesmen meet withal or if you avoid all these yet that which is worse may come upon you I mean sharp and violent diseases and these I call worse because a man will better bear any inconvenience without him then that which fills his body with uneasieness and pain and his Soul by its sympathy with its dear Companion with Anguish and Vexation In how little a while will all who are now alive be dead In how little a time may the most strong and healthful person here be taken off by sickness from all Employment and business How does it trouble us many times to see the Tears and Sorrows of our nearest Friends and we cannot mitigate them with what earnest looks do they move our pity when they are in great pain but we cannot help them their shrill Cryes and their doleful groans may pierce our hearts but we know not how to remove them We stand by their Bed-sides and see their Agonies but by being sorrowful we do but for the most part add new grief to theirs We see their Countenances change and how at length they pass away and that shortly in such a case shall we our selves be But oh what a welcom and glorious day will that be when we shall see those very friends alive again whom we once saw in the most dreadful Agonies of death When though we parted with Tears yet we shall
meet with Joy It will be a welcom day indeed when their Looks their Expressions their Carriage will all be changed for the better There will be no appearance of any thing that is dismal and grievous and it will be more welcom to us because we and our friends so suitable so loving and so perfect shall never part again Oh what a comfortable thought is this Oh what will our praises be when we are there where there will be no more sickness no more death for ever We shall behold what we were in our Mortal State how vain and how short-lived and what we are when we are made Immortal There will be no more restless and weary dayes nor nights as restless as the day not a sigh nor a groan will be heard in all the blessed place above What would one that is in great pain give for ease most readily would he give all he has in the World but upon our first entrance into that Land of pleasure and of health all our Diseases will be cured and so fully cured that we shall never Relapse nor be diseased again There will be no pain This to those that are at ease may seem a little part of Heaven but to those of us that have been in long and terrible sickness 't is a very sweet and reviving Consideration In this World one affliction is scarce past till another comes usually there is breach upon breach and a new sorrow treads upon the heels of the old one as one wave upon another We have scarcely dryed our eyes for one loss but another comes that will make us weep again but in the Heaven which we hope for there is no Language but that of Praise Here we are alwayes either bewailing our own Miseries or those of our Friends and Neighbours but there it will not be so God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes and there shall be no more death neither sorrow nor crying neither shall there be any more pain for the former things are passed away Rev. 21. 4. Oh what a joy will it be to us to be past death that is so terrible and to be for ever past it The ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with sons and everlasting joy upon their heads tĥey shall obtain joy and gladness and sorrow and sighing shall flee away Isa. 35. 10. We praise God indeed here and we have Cause to praise him but our Victories are not so compleat as to make a perfect Triumph we have one great Battel yet to fight and one great Gulph to shoot and a dark and a solitary way to go This is that which is grievous to our thoughts but oh what a joy will it be to us when we are past death and have dyed well who can express the mighty pleasure of it When the deliver'd Soul can say I that have been so furiously tempted so violently assaulted so siercely shaken by the blast of the terrible one shall be so no more all the Rage of Satan shall not come near me nor give me an unquiet thought for ever And I that griev'd and was disconsolate with tedious and uncommon pain shall never droop nor languish any more What a reviving prospect will it be when we stand on the other side of the Grave when the terrible forerunners of Death and Death it self shall be no more Then we may say indeed Oh death where is thy sting oh grave where is thy victory What consternation fear and perplexity fill'd the hearts of the poor Israelites when they were going out of Egypt when they were environed with rocks with their Enemies behind and with the Sea before They were in great trouble and knew not what to do But how different were their looks and Apprehensions when they beheld the Sea to give way and by an unheard of Miracle stand as a Wall on either hand till they past thorough How delightful was it to them when they were on the firm Land to see those very Enemies that Pharaoh and those Cruel Masters that had for so many years kept them in cruel bondage to find a grave in that Element which yielded and made a way for them Exod. 15. 1 2. So will it be with us when we shall see all our diseases all our Fears all our Temptations all our sinking thoughts to be destroy'd for ever The day of our death that will convey us to the blessed State will be better to us then the day of our birth that brought us into such an evil World as this Our Eyes will then no more behold grievous objects our Ears will no more hear any sad or doleful news Here we have many National and Personal Deliverances but alass we sin again and so bring upon our selves new Judgements But there which every sincere Soul reckons to be a great part of Heaven we shall sin no more for ever I that am now speaking come to you as from the Grave and can give you an account of Pain and Sickness but am not able to give you so distinct an Account of the Holy Cheerful Employment that is above But if one were to come to you from Heaven if he were but enabled to tell what he felt and your Capacities enlarged to understand the pleasing Narrative how would your glad hearts melt with an Admiring Joy and your Souls be raised to Praise and Wonder they will be much more raised and more joyful when you have your compleat and final Deliverance Then you shall say with those in Rev. 5. 12 13. Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honour and glory and blessing And again Blessing honour glory and power be unto him that sitteth upon the Throne and unto the Lamb for ever and ever The End of the Second Sermon The Third SERMON PSAL. 30. ver 3 4. O Lord thou hast brought up my Soul from the Grave thou hast kept me alive that I should not go down to the Pit Sing unto the Lord O ye Saints of his and give Thanks at the remembrance of his Holiness IF Deliverance from the Grave be so great a Mercy and for which we ought to be very thankful what cause have they to be thankful that are delivered from a Death in Sin As the Soul is much better than the Body so the Mercies that are bestowed upon it are much more valuable and without this spiritual Resurrection temporal Deliverance and Salvation would not be so great a Mercy A Soul under the Dominion and reigning Power of Sin is in a far more deplorable Condition than a Body that is consuming in the Grave the one suffers under a sort of innocent Misery which it cannot help the other suffers under a wilful Obstinacy and Impotence contracted by its own fault How sad a prospect is it to see Men far from God in whom alone there is Life a Separation from whom is far more terrible than the
separation of the Body and the Soul which yet is painful and sad enough They that are under the Power of this Spiritual Death taste not the Goodness of God they hear not his loudest Calls they tremble not at his most dreadful Threats they are not drawn with his Love nor start at his approaching Wrath. They are very sick indeed but they feel not their Sickness their Ignorance has deprived their Souls of all knowledg of their own Miseries they are in a state of Death and Insensibility and their Case is the more sad because they are like to fall under the Power of eternal Death and tho their temporal Life is prolonged for a Season yet we may say of them as of Malefactors under the Sentence of the Law for their Crimes they are dead Men though there be a Reprieve or a delay of Execution for a little space And if any of you as I hope there are many here are delivered from a state so dangerous and so miserable what Thanks and Praise should you give to God who hath quickned you when you were dead in Trespasses and Sins Eph. 2. 1. especially considering that you had no Inclinations no foregoing Dispositions to this spiritua Life You contributed nothing to your own Regeneration no more than a Carcass in the Grave can raise it self and live again no more than dry Bones can move of their own accord or clothe themselves with Skin and Flesh. When he passed by and saw you in your Blood Ezek. 16. 6. then he said vnto you Live The Hour is come in which they that are in the Grave shall hear the Voice of the Son of God and they that hear shall live Joh. 5. 25. How many of your Friends your Neighbours and your Fellow-Citizens are there in whom there are no Signs of Life at all that notwithstanding all their Civility and fair Carriage their Attendance upon the Word and the performance of several outward Duties have only a likeness to the Living but no real Life And why should God be so good to you and not to the rest of Men You were once the Children of Wrath and Enemies as well as they Were there any peculiar Excellencies in you more than in others to recommend you to his Favour No he has been merciful to you because he will be merciful and you may say as 't is in Eph. 2. 4 5. God who is rich in Mercy for his great Love wherewith he loved us even when we were dead in Sins hath quickned us together with Christ. 'T is a very great Mercy for those that have been sick to be restored to Health but you are delivered from a worse Death and have obtained a better Resurrection in as much as the second Death to which they were obnoxious is infinitely more painful and dreadful than the first What a Mercy do you enjoy to be brought from a state of Wrath and Condemnation into a state of Peace and Favour from the Guilt of your Sins which made you dead in Law you are freed in your Justification and from the Power of Sin which would have kept you in continual Slavery you are delivered by the sanctifying Influences and Operations of the blessed Spirit you have cause to be thankful for your selves and for your Relations too if God has given the same Mercies unto them you may invite your Neighbours and your Friends to a Participation of your Comforts and say as the Father of the Prodigal Come and rejoice with me for this my Son was lost and is now found was dead and is now alive To raise your Thankfulness consider what a condition you would have been in had not God blessed you with a part in the first Resurrection You whose Eyes are now fix'd on Heaven and Glory had been still slumbering as unconverted Sinners are on the very brink of Hell you had then been without all relish of that word which first produced and which does every day maintain your Life and which is sweeter to you than Honey or the Honey-Comb Psal. 19. 10. You had now been without all Esteem and Value of that dearest Redeemer who purchased for you this Happiness at a very dear price and that you might live was himself content to die you had then been without that reviving hope of seeing him for ever that smooths your way and guides your Steps and upholds your Spirits thô you meet with many a sharp and bitter Cross. You would now perhaps have been prophaning his Sabbaths vilifying his Ordinances tearing his Name to pieces with execrable Oaths you might not have known what is the Sweetness of a sincere and hearty Prayer what is the Blessedness of a Soul whose Sins are pardoned and how honourable is the Priviledg of having the great God for a Father and Christ for a Mediator You are delivered from spiritual Diseases which are worse than all bodily Distempers for Pride and Envy Impatience and Discontent and Ambition and Revenge are worse than even the worst of Pains than the Stone the Cholick the Strangury or the like These cause a momentany Trouble but the evil Habits the corrupt Inclinations and the disorderly Motions that bear sway in that poor Soul that is dead in Sin tend to an everlasting Misery Continually adore and magnify the Power of your Saviour that made your Hearts at length to yield to his own terms though they gave him a very great Opposition Bless the Skill and Wisdom of your gracious Physician that cures all the Diseases of your old Nature that is not in any part of it sound and healthful It is easy to kill and ruin and destroy that we can all do too well but who can recover and save but he alone And if he was to be admired when on Earth He heal'd the Sick and made the Blind to see the Lame to walk and the Dead to live He is much more now to be adored and his Power is not less miraculous when it displays its vertue in Regeneration and when he makes all the boisterous unruly passions of Nature to be still and quiet than in commanding the Seas and the Winds These things should be the matter of your Praise and Wonder as they will be the cause of Praise and Wonder to his Saints for ever and if David is thankful here when he says O Lord thou hast brought my Soul from the Grave what matter of greater Thankfulness is it when a Christian can say O Lord thou hast brought up my Soul from Hell from the Power of Satan from the House of Bondage and from the Neighbourhood of the second Death Long Life is in it self a Blessing and for which we may very lawfully pray I say 't is in it self a Blessing for it may be clog'd with those Miseries that may make it to be as a Curse As if a Man were to live long only to row in Galleys or to dig in Mines or to pine in a Dungeon or to live in Pain and Torment or
in all our other Actions to be regulated by the Will of God and not by our own But indeed when a Man that has been very faithful and laborious in his Generation is by Pain rendred altogether unfit for Service when the Strength and Vigour which he laid out for God is wasted and decayed by old Age or a tedious Distemper when his Candle that has long burnt to enlighten others burns with a feeble and almost undiscerned Light he may then desire to die as a poor weary Man to go to Bed But the Saints of God do even then desire it with Calmness and Deliberation if they be not in a raging Disease for then it is impossible they have much ado to bring their Hearts to be sincerely and freely willing to depart Their Fears and Temptations and remaining Inclinations to the Body and their Friends on Earth render it a Work of Difficulty There are great Strugglings in that Moment between Nature and Grace between Faith and Sense though at last their Grace gets the Victory and so they long to be with Christ. If Deliverance from the Grave be so great a Mercy then Self-murther is a very great Sin The Law that forbids us to kill does extend to this as well as to the Murder of another Man this is a violating of that Soveraign Power that is in God and a taking upon us to dispose of our Life which is not our own but his 'T is an usurping upon his Providence which has determined when and after what manner we are to die and though 't is very likely there are several Accidents of Life that are worse than Death it self yet it is that Eternity that comes after Death that is most formidable and into which no Man ought to throw himself and when we are reduced to such a condition that to live seems to be far worse than to die yet even then the Unalterableness of our State afterwards should be a most powerful Restraint especially if we are uncertain where we are then to go It is against that Patience and Trust which we ought to repose in God It is a woful sort of dying to die in the doing of such a thing as this which he has most severely prohibited to tear our Souls from our Bodies with our own hands in such an ignominious and shameful manner and because of our Distress to pass Sentence upon our selves as not fit to live and then to be our own Executioners A Soul at Death should be in the Exercise of Grace and in a quiet and humble Resignation but in this case 't is in Fear and Horror and Discontent and what the Romans magnifi'd so much for Gallantry and an Heroick Spirit was the real Effect of Weakness and Cowardise as it is much more Heroical to sustain and meet a coming Danger than to retreat and fly from it It was from a Meanness of Spirit that Cato chose to kill himself because he could not see the Empire flourish under Cesar whom he did not love and however such Acts may be extoll'd by Heathen Historians they are not so by that Scripture which is the Rule of our Faith and the Guide of our Actions and which furnishes us with no Examples of those that did this Samson only excepted whose case had several things in it very singular but such as were very bad Men as Saul and Achitophel and Judas and as we would not have our portion with them in the other World so it is to be wish'd and endeavoured that our end may not be like to them in this But so great is the Love of Life and so strong the fear of Death in the most so dark the Knowledg of Futurity and so great our Unwillingness to go from a World with which we are well acquainted to that which we never saw that few Men are in danger of Self-murther till some great Affliction and overwhelming Pain and by the means of that some great Perplexity seize their Spirits I think few are in danger of it till their Griefs are unspoakably great or their Minds in that Anguish that is as the sad Foretaste of Hell till all their Thoughts are in hurry and Confusion and as then they are no way capable of being bettered by those Advices that seem proper to restrain them so it concerns you that are at ease and are able to pursue the Business and Affairs of Life and of Religion to pray earnestly to God that he withdraw not his Protection and the Guard of his Providence from you that he do not leave you to thick and gross Darkness nor to the Power of Satan who will push you forward to things that are most sinful and unwarrantable Pray hard that violent Tentations and overwhelming raging Pains may never overtake your for how evil soever Self-murther seem to you now you know not what you may be then prest to do pray earnestly that you may never be without the sense or hope of the Divine Favour for if which God forbid you once lose that woe unto you then you will be like a Ship without Sails or Rudder in a Storm you may be swallowed up or driven on the Rocks and broken to pieces It is Distress and violent Sorrow that exposes Men to the Commission of this Sin Saul fell not upon his Sword and killed himself till God had forsaken him and till he knew not what to do though it was his own Sin that brought him so low Cicero tells us indeed of one Cleombrotus who reading the Discourse of Plato concerning another more happy Life after this which could not be attained but by Death did thereupon kill himself to attain that Happiness but if that be true it is a thing that most rarely happens that any that have either hope of Heaven or Assurance of going thither are so impatient of being absent from it as to kill themselves to go thither And it may be you will be ready to ask me If they have no hope of being better when they die why do they long for Death or attempt to kill themselves They should rather strive to live that they may be better prepared for another World It is a Question that has been ask'd me by some People and seeing it is perhaps what you seldom have met withal I will give you an Answer to it and if it do not appear very rational yet I am sure it will contain that which has been the real Apprehensions of People under those Temptations I say then Men may desire to destroy themselves though they have no well grounded Expectation of Happiness after Death 1. Because of that Pain of Body and that Anguish of Soul which is intolerable to them they have no natural nor spiritual Rest nor Prospect of either and this fills them with Amazement and Horror and in that Amazement there is nothing which they will not dare to do 2. Because they may reckon that they are already as in Hell and that if they
be dead they can but be in Hell and so dare even to try the worst They think the longer they live they aggravate their Guilt and heighten their Punishment and add new Fewel to the Flame which is already too too hot and scorching the Burden under which they groan is so heavy that they do not desire to have more Weight added to it Or 3. It may be they may have some little very little hope that were they out of the Body they would be better than now they are and therefore they 'l venture As to living to be better prepared they have usually such dismal perplex'd Thoughts that they cannot think to any purpose at all nor find themselves by Living to be any better You 'l say these are desperate Conclusions and so they are but that makes me think that none but in Despair or in very sad Diseases for which the World has no Remedy are under a Temptation to take away their own Life And if it be a Disease there is room for the more Charity as to those that die after this manner for God will not impute the Effects of Phrensy and a decayed and disordered Reason to the Malice of the Will nor judg the Disease to be a Sin though he may have sent upon them such woful Distress for their former Sins There is another way of a Man's killing himself which because 't is very frequent is less taken notice off and that is by Gluttony and Excess in Drinking When a Man continually loads himself with vast Quantities of Meats and Drinks and so suffocates and strangles Life and brings upon his own Body Diseases and Death and tho this is not an Evil punish'd by the Judges yet it ceases not to be an Evil and a Man may by continued Intemperance and Riot be as guilty of Self-murther in the Sight of God as if he took a Knife and cut his own Throat Some will say indeed that such live apace and if their brutal Actions deserve the Name of Life 't is very true for they go with a swifter course into the Grave than they need to do Seeing the being brought up from the Grave is a great Mercy how great a Mercy is Health when the Restoration of it is so great a Mercy and so greatly to be acknowledged Some think it a very needless Labour to speak of this seeing it is that which all People know as it would be needless to praise the Sun which gives us Light or the Air in which we breath But though these are very common yet they are nevertheless very great Mercies like Gold which though it were never so common yet would continue still to be a very excellent and valuable Metal There is as much Difference between a Man in Health and a Man in Sickness as between a Man at Liberty and a Man in Chains Sickness whenever it comes will give you great Subjects of Sadness and Disquietness and long before you die you may see the Days wherein you will have no Pleasure you cannot then especially if it be violent with any Freedom or Clearness of Thought express your selves either to God or Man you will be very ill able to manage the civil Affairs of Life or with any vigor to perform the Duties of Religion and the Truth of this you would see if you went often to the Chambers of those that in long and grievous Pains languish away if you heard their doleful Groans saw their pale and decaying Looks it would give you a new taste of Health but there is such a nice Delicacy and Tenderness for the most part in those that are well that they care not for the Visitation of the Sick nor to be near to Persons when they are dying It would affect them if they saw more frequently their Faintings their Convulsions and their Agonies but they care not for it and yet so to be sick and so to die may in a very little while be their own Lot Health is not less a Mercy for being common What is more common than Sleep which is but a part of it and yet in all the World there is not a thing the having of which is more sweet or the want of which is more terrible for as I have observed in a former Discourse all Business and the Comforts of Life depend upon it and the Refreshment that it gives to our natural Spirits for let but a Man be for one Week or two without Sleep and he 'l be fit for no Business and if Health were not so usual a thing it would be a Miracle considering to what Variety of Evil we are every day exposed by the Frailty and Weakness of our Nature It would make a Man tremble to read what others have endured or how many several sorts of very painful Diseases belong to almost every part of humane Bodies how painful are the Methods that must be used for a Cure and how these painful Methods may be used and yet but encrease our Pain and be to no purpose And indeed when I consider saith Mr. Boile in his Occasional Reflections how many outward Accidents are able to destroy the Life or at least the Health even of those that are careful to preserve them and how easily the Beams of a warm Sun or the Breath of a cold Wind or too much or too little Exercise a Dish of green Fruit or an infectious Vapour or even a sudden Fright or ill News are able to produce Sickness and perhaps Death and when I think too how many inevitable Mischiefs our own Appetites or Vices expose us to by Acts of Intemperance that necessitate the Creatures to offend us and practises of Sin whereby we necessitate our Creator to punish us when we well consider this and consequently how many Mischiefs he must escape that arrives at gray Hairs the Commonness of the Sight cannot keep me from thinking it worth some Wonder to see an old Man especially if he be any thing healthy It is not to be imagined but by those that feel it what a damp the Pains and Indispositions of our Bodies put upon the motions of our Souls their Faculties are straitned bound and fettered that they cannot in their former manner perform their usual Operations When the Soul either in natural or spiritual Actions essays to do as it used to do it finds it self under a very great Weakness and Disability for the Body lies as an heavy Clog and Weight upon it as you know it is in the Head-ach the Tooth-ach or other pains which though they be of a short Continuance are very troublesome and would be more so were they to continue for many Months together How speedy an Alteration will the sharp sense of Pain make in the briskest and most merry Man For as Doctor Harris describes the sick Man Hezekiah's Recovery p. 172. He hath Eyes and scarcely sees Ears and hears not Mouth and speaks not Feet and walks not Those very Senses which let in
the Gift that he has given us for there is none more excellent among all natural things than the Gift of Life and whilst we hug and embrace this dear Enjoyment let us not forget the Donor of it Let us remember God who is the Fountain of our Life and lets us also remember that gracious Mediator by whose Death this and all other Mercies were purchased for us and by whose effectual Intercession they are bestowed and made our own Could they that were cured of Fevers Palsies Blindness Lameness and other Distempers by Christ here on Earth ever forget so skilful and so tender a Phisician doubtless where-ever they came they spake of him where-ever they met him they gave him Thanks and we should be no less thankful than they seeing his Goodness his Power and his Compassion has been the same to us that it was to them for as one says he shews his Power in the Greatness his Wisdom in the Seasonableness his Truth in the Constancy his Grace in the Freeness the Riches of his Mercy in the Fullness of his Blessings and Deliverances How great is the sum of all his Thoughts and his Benefits to us they are altogether innumerable and too many for us to remember but however we ought to suffer nothing to make us forget such as are greater and more eminent There are two great Changes that we ought always to remember when we are changed from a Death of Sin to a Life of Grace and when we are brought from the Grave to the Health and comfortable Enjoyment of this natural Life for in the Beginning and in the Consummation of our Deliverances there is nothing on which we should with more delight fix our Thoughts than on the Goodness and the Power of God who alone is able to save us from our Distresses and who is most willing to do so when we call upon him The End of the Third Sermon The Fourth SERMON PSAL. 30. ver 3 4. O Lord thou hast brought up my Soul from the Grave thou hast kept me alive that I should not go down to the Pit Sing unto the Lord O ye Saints of his and give Thanks at the remembrance of his Holiness I Now proceed to enquire after what manner we must remember our Deliverance from Sickness and Death And this we may do three ways 1. Remember them with an Admiration of God that he should be so good to you Admiration is the first of all the Passions next to Pleasure and Pain When an Object is perceiv'd that hath nothing new in it we consider it indifferently and without any commotion of the Soul but the Mercies that we have from above are new to us every Morning and to be admired for their being so Lam. 3. 23. When we are intent upon the Creature we may be guilty of an excess of Admiration which by immoderate fixing of the animal Spirits in the Brain may hinder their usual Influx into other parts of the Body and be very hurtful to the Health Natural History of the Passions p. 90. But when God is our Object and Things Divine raise this Motion in our Souls there is no danger of Excess There are two things that may cause us to admire the Goodness of God that he will bestow any of his Mercies upon us 1. The vast and immense Distance that is between him and us his unspeakably glorious Majesty and Greatness and our own poor mean being that is in it self very low and does appear much more so when compared with him When we consider the large extent of his Dominions the splendor of his Court the numerousness of his Attendants the glory of his Heaven the brightness of his Sun the beauty of his Earth and the largeness of the whole Creation and then from the sight of these behold our little selves have we not cause to say Lord what is Man that thou art mindful of him or the Son of Man that thou visitest him Psal. 8. 4. Is it not a wonderful thing that so great a God will take care of us when he needs not our Services nor all the Duties we are able to perform If we were to set in Darkness for ever he would shine with a Light as bright and clear as he he now does It is a mighty Condescension in him to pity our Distress to help our Weakness to cure our Wounds to solace our Hearts to pacify our Souls and refresh our Bodies and when we are dying to revive us and to bring us from the Grave So that we may say with David 2 Sam. 7. 18. Who am I O Lord God and what is my House that thou hast brought me hitherto Ver. 19. Is this the manner of Man O Lord God How freely dos he do us good when we could lay no Obligation at all upon him 2. Another thing that causes us to admire him for the Mercies that he bestows upon us is Not only that we are inconsiderable Creatures but guilty too and have deserved the contrary at his Hands We are not only as Jacob says less than the least of all his Mercies but we are worthy of his greatest and most severe Punishments We not only deserve to be plagued all the day long and to be chastned every morning Psal. 73. 14. but we deserve to be the Objects of his Fury for evermore We murmur and think it hard to be laid upon a Sick-bed but alas we have all deserved to be laid on a Bed of Flames We groan and with impatient Complaints express our Sorrows when he for holy and gracious Ends casts us into a fiery Furnace Whereas were not the Lord infinitely merciful to us our milder Sufferings might have been our Hell Every medicinal and gentle Stroak of our Heavenly Father might have been the Lash of Devils that would have shewed us no Mercy Alas where had you and I been long ago had God dealt with us according to our Sins I should not have been speaking to you nor you hearing me in this Place with hope We should have been all silent in the Grave or all in Torments in a worse Place 'T is our Self-love and our heinous Pride that makes us to be so impatient in our Sickness and so unthankful when we are recovered We think we are injured when we are afflicted and that we have but what we merit when we are delivered But what Miseries and Desolations have our Sins deserved our Original Corruption and all that impure Offspring that has descended from it How many thousand times do we sin every day How much Evil do we commit that we ought to forbear and how much Good that we ought to perform do we let alone Who is there among us that hath those serious and abiding and lively Thoughts of God that he ought to have Who is there that in his Trade and worldly Business maintains his Commerce with Heaven and with spiritual and pious Ejaculations Who is it that by constant Exercises of Religion makes
his Family as a Little Church when he is at home and that by an unintermitting Diligence and Watchfulness antidotes himself against the Contagions of bad Examples and vain Company and the Temptations of an evil World when he is abroad Who is it that walks so circumspectly as to be unblameable and without Offence Who is it that is so couragious in his Reproofs so zealous of good Works so tender of his own Salvation and of the Salvation of others as he ought to be Our neglect of many thousand Duties calls for long and severe Punishments at the Hands of God And it is a Subject of great Wonder that he will be gracious even to any of the Sons of Men. And what reason has every one that is delivered from Sickness and Pain and Death to bless his holy Name and to say What am I O Lord God that thou shouldst visit and uphold and refresh so great so inexcusable so wilful a Sinner as I have been What am I a poor Worm of the Earth that thou shouldst so mercifully regard me What am I that I should live by thy Goodness when I have so often deserved to die by thy Justice What am I that when I had spent so much of my Time to little purpose thou shouldst give me still more time that he should again put me into his Vineyard when I had loiter'd in it for so long a space and when I had misimproved many thousand Talents and knew not what to answer for them he should pass by and remit my former Debts and put into my Hands a new Stock What am I that his Dew should remain upon my Branches when he might have said of me as of the barren Fig-tree Cut it down why cumbreth it the ground any longer O what Grace is this that a God whom I had so frequently and so heinously provoked should spare me to recover Strength That when I had mock'd him with so many cold and lazy Prayers he should give me opportunity to pray again when I had so often misimproved his Sabbaths and his Gospel and the Offers of his Son that he should continue to me the Blessings of his holy Day the Invitations of his Word and the Calls of Christ that so I may repent of my careless Hearing my Lukewarmness and my Unbelief In the humble sense of our own Unworthiness let us contemplate and admire that God that brings us from the Grave Many People will say If we were humbled and if we did repent God would soon help us This is very true but if God should never be merciful to us till we are prepar'd for Mercy his Mercy and his Help I am afraid would come very late For as we may say It is of the Lord's Mercies that we are not consumed because his Compassions fail not so 't is of the Lord's Mercy that we are delivered and he is gracious because he will be so 2. When we are delivered from Sickness and from the Grave we must remember that Deliverance so as to excite our selves to more Fervour and Affection Before all our Duties we should stir up our selves and that is to be done by an intense and serious application of our Minds to that particular thing which we go about by considering aright the Nature and Consequence of a well-performed Duty Thus when we are going to pray we should say Remember O my Soul to what a glorious God thou dost approach and with what humble Self-abhorrence thou shouldst look unto his Majestick Throne Remember thy own Vileness thy Sins thy Miseries and thy Wants and what need thou hast of a Mediator to make thy poor and thy mean Oblation to be an acceptable Sacrifice what need thou hast of wrestling and striving that thou mayst obtain a Blessing Thus when we give Thanks we may say Remember O my Soul the excellent Perfections of God and the Benefits which thou hast received their Seasonableness their Worth and all the wonderful Particulars they are attended with This excitation of our selves is not acquirable by a few cold and transient Thoughts 't is not one Sally of Religious Meditations now and then but a continuance of these Acts arguing and pleading the Case with our own Souls till the Fire of our Love and Thankfulness begin to burn We should think of the Mercies of God till our Hearts under the sense of his Goodness begin to melt and warm till all that is within us move and stir with holy Elevations towards him Then will the Holy Spirit cherish our Endeavours And when we are with all the Skill we can tuning our Harps he will come in to our Assistance and make the Musick more harmonious and our Praise more sweet and by his vital Influences banish all that Coldness that does usually damp and clog our Hearts in the Duties of Religion There is a great advantage in Soliloquies and a Man may in this Work talk to himself without the reproach of folly This is a means to quiet and appease a rising Storm Psal. 42. 5. and this is the way to make us look upon it with Delight and Thankfulness when 't is past and gone We know that those Sermons which do but explain Truths to us and present them only in their native Excellency and Reasonableness do not equally affect us as those do that are pressed with a fervent and lively Application Nor do those Mercies which we only remember make so much impression as those which we often call to mind and as often urge upon our Hearts When we come before God we must make his Altar smoak with burning Frankincense we must cover it with our chearful Praises and a flaming Love Our knowledg of his Persections is obscure and weak but our Sense causes us very distinctly to feel his Benefits and therefore all our Affections should ascend towards him When his Sun shines full upon us our Hearts should open at his Coming smell with a sweeter Savour upon the being visited with his comfortable Beams As upon our being brought from the Grave and restor'd to Health there is a new Strength in our Bodies so there must be a new Vigour in our Souls and as we discover a very great Earnestness in our Petitions when we want a Mercy so there ought to be as much Fervor in Acknowledgment and return of Thanks when we have received it 3. After we are delivered from the Grave we ought to remember such a Mercy with very great Sincerity i. e. there ought to be a Correspondence between our outward Expressions and the more undiscernable Motions of our Hearts There must be in our Understandings an high Esteem of him who is the Author of all our Good a most deliberate and free choice of him as our Happiness and this Esteem and this Choice is the genuine Product of a real Admiration There is nothing indeed more common than for People on the smallest occasions to say I thank God for this or that but the manner in which
they speak it plainly discovers that the sense which they have of the Divine Goodness is but light and superficial Their Air their Countenance their Gestures and their whole Carriage shews that they are not fully thankful They many times by the formality of their Expressions take that Name in vain which they ought to magnify and bless But when we bless God there must be a very deep Reverence and sense of him upon our Hearts and we must sacrifice our dearest Lusts at his Command as well as the Calves of our Lips We must not remember in the general that God has been merciful to us but frequently let our Thoughts dwell upon those particular Mercies which we have received For as he is seldom truly penitent that makes a Confession of Sin only in the gross and descends not to the particular Transgressions which have stained his Life so neither is he sincerely thankful that contents himself with a cold Acknowledgment of God's Mercies without a distinct Enumeration of those which were bestowed upon him by a more than ordinary Power and Goodness and which upon that account should make a more particular and lively Impression upon his own Soul Secondly Another way by which we may improve our Recovery is in constantly praying to this God that has delivered us from the Grave He has pull'd our Feet out of the Snare but if he leave us we shall soon be as much entangled and as much in Danger as we ever were for it is not in Man that walks to direct his own Steps His Wisdom is as necessary to guide our Feet in the right way as his Power was to draw us out of the Pit We need as one says not only to be cured but to be preserved We need not only a Cordial to recover us but an Antidote to preserve us against an after-Poison Whilst we were hedg'd up with Thorns as Hos. 2. 6 7. we are not so liable to wander as we shall be now The most of us that God has recovered from the Grave have some little Pains or Indispositions left that now and then attack us like the scattered Souldiers of a defeated Army which though they are not so strong as entirely to ruin us yet give us a considerable Molestation Some Mercies God bestows that we may not altogether faint and some Evils he continues that we may not be too secure and careless He gives us something to incourage us and all that we would have he denies that we may still wait upon him We must join our Praises and our Prayers together Psal. 116. 13. I will take the Cup of Salvation and call upon the Name of the Lord. We must praise him for the Deliverances that we have had and pray to him to secure us from the Dangers that may without his Care come upon us We must praise him that so we may give him the Glory of his Goodness in helping us in our low Estate and pray for his Blessings that can only make our Life comfortable and easy to us In the greatest of our Triumphs there is need of Humility as in the greatest of our earthly Joys there will be some mixtures of Sorrow nor will our Day be so clear as to have no Cloud In the highest of our Praises there will be need of Prayer and this Duty is the very Pulse and vital Motion of the Soul when it is renewed and by our Fervour or deadness in the Performance of it we may very much discern the Advances or Decays the Strength or the Weakness of the spiritual Life We that have been near to Death should with a more exact care maintain our Communion with God for we have more sensibly felt the need of him than others have What would have become of us had not he appeared for our Relief when all the Help of Man was vain And shall we not delight to draw nigh to so good a God to whom is an easy Access through the Mediation of Christ who heard us out of the Depths and will still hear us if we call upon him It may be in our Affliction we sought him early and the violence of our Distress made us restless and importunate let our many Wants that none but he can supply make us still to be so We have a very convincing Experience of the benefit and the use of Prayer how by the Prayers of others our Chains have been struck off and how it hath opened the Doors of our Prison Let a Duty which has brought us such a Crowd of reviving Mercies be for ever a welcome and acceptable Duty to us 'T is an Act of Homage that we owe him as our Soveraign Lord as Praise is that which we owe him as our gracious Benefactor Besides God alone can teach us to profit by the Cross and make the Rod to blossom and to yield us Fruit when the Smart is gone Unless he uphold us we shall soon be diseased again Every Day of our mortal Life is pregnant with new Changes and Alterations with new Dangers and Vicissitudes and innumerable are the Miseries which may yet overwhelm us if he be not our Sun and our Shield Let us humbly beg of him that as he has been our Deliverer so he would please to be our Guide This is a Posture and an Action suitable to us as we are Creatures who cannot be nor live nor move without him And such an Address to his Throne will be graciously received because it is an Evidence of our Gratitude and testifies that we are sensible of the Blessings of his Providence And what Mercies we obtain by this method will be throughout Mercies and the Goods that are bestowed upon our humble Petitions we shall possess by a more lasting Title and with more Satisfaction than they do that never pray And if we should omit this Duty God may withdraw his Protection and then our Sins will quickly betray us to new Distresses and Calamities Thirdly Another Improvement that we ought to make of the being delivered from the Grave is To yield Obedience to that God that has delivered us And he gives us seasonable Mercies in the time of our sorest Distress to this very purpose That his Name may be magnified Psal. 50. 15. The Showers of his Mercy should render our Lives more fruitful and the Beams of his Favour are to make us shine with Holiness We must to use the words of Mr. Claude on another occasion give our Hearts entirely to him making a good use of our Afflictions We must call upon him with Humility serve him with Zeal love him with Fervour and have a horror for all that which may offend him He is gracious both to our Bodies and our Souls and we must employ both in his Service and consecrate and devote that Life to his Honour which he hath so wonderfully preserved His Benefits by their usefulness and by their seasonable approach must kindle the Flames of Love in our Hearts and that
again the first Visit they make is to their old Good-fellows as they call them and they are welcomed into the jolly Company with full Bowls and with loud Huzzaes but let us go to such as will entertain us with Praises to God for our deliverance and not drink our healths but seriously pray for them Eightly When God has brought us from the Grave let us by all means see that so sore an Affliction and so great a Deliverance may be sanctified to us And we may know that they are so when they produce these following effects First When they take off our hearts from the World and the Creatures and drive us more to God Secondly When they make us more frequent and fervent in our Prayers Thirdly When they produce those holy ends for which they were sent upon us Fourthly When they make us to acknowledge God and to see his disposal and his hand in all that is come upon us Ruth 1. 20. The Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me Ver. 21. The Lord hath testified against me and the Allmighty hath afflicted me Fifthly When they make us to humble our selves and to lay our Mouths in the dust knowing that tho our troubles were very severe yet they were very just Ezek. 16. 63. That thou mayest remember and be confounded and never open thy mouth any more because of thy shame when I am pacified towards thee for all that thou hast done saith the Lord God And Job 42. 5. When they fill our Hearts with Admiration and our Mouths with his Praise Seventhly When the Mercies we receive carry our Affections with more flame towards the Benefactor from whence they came As the warmth of the shining Sun causes a new fragancy and a sweeter smell among all the Flowers of the Garden Eighthly When they bring us to more knowledge of God and to more true calmness and joy in him These are glorious Effects of a sanctified affliction and of a sanctified escape from it and a sign that they came not by a common but by a special Providence and by a right of the Covenant of Grace by which all things are ours I might add in the ninth place when we taste his Fatherly Goodness and Love in all that we enjoy if we find these things within us 't is a sign we have both heard the Rod and him that did appoint it Mich. 6. 9. Oh how happy are we if God by taking away our health has given us himself and if by sending sharp sickness and pain upon us he has prepared us for a sweeter relish of his Love Happy are we if our Temporary Sickness tend to an Eternal Health and our short Sorrows to an Everlasting Joy Happy yet again are we if he have not only Commanded us to take up our beds and walk but also said unto us that our Sins are forgiven if we can say with Hezekiah Isa. 38. 17. Behold for Peace I had great Bitterness but thou hast in Love to my Soul delivered it from the Pit of Corruption for thou hast cast all my Sins behind thy Back It must be our great endeavour that after we have been tryed we may come forth like Gold and that we do not as the three Children in another case come out with our old Garments and with the same Sins upon us Let us earnestly beg of God that we may have a compleat Salvation and a total Recovery That as our Bodies are supplied with new strength so our Souls may prosper also For to be diseased in our Souls whilst our Bodies thrive is as if the House in which one lives were very well repaired and adorned to all advantage and the Man that dwells in so fair an Habitation were forced to go in raggs so fine a dwelling and so ordinary an Inhabitant would not agree well together Oh let us take care that whilst God has healed our Diseases we be not inwardly distempered with the Plague of our own Hearts That Man is not to be called healthful that let him look never so well has a Disease in his Vitals that by slow Degrees preys upon his Life Neither can that Man be truly said to be recovered whose Soul is either void of Grace or that having had it in some measure languishes and decays He is composed of Contradictions of Life and Death at the same time he is alive and well as to his Body but his Soul is dead in Trepasses and Sins The most excellent and valuable part of himself does remain under the power of Death and whilst it is so is an Object more unpleasing to God than a dissolving Carcass in the Grave would be to us The Welfare and Recovery of our Souls is what we ought more to seek than the Welfare of our Bodies Both indeed are Mercies but the former is much the greater of the two What is Purple and fine Linnen and soft Raiment that sets off a Man to the Eyes of others to that Faith and Love and Patience and Hope and those other Graces of the Spirit that beautifie the Soul and render it amiable in the Eye of God What is all the Meat and Drink that refresh our Bodies to that Heavenly Manna that Celestial Nourishment that an healthful holy Soul feeds upon The prosperity of our Bodies their ease and capacity of performing their several Actions is one of the greatest Ternporal Mercies but alas this will signifie nothing at all if we do not prosper in our Souls There is a way indeed whereby we may gather Grapes of Thorns and Figs of Thistles i. e. Refreshment and Comfort from those Afflictions that peirct us to the quick and that Sorrow which was at first unwelcom to us may prove an Angel of Light and strike off our Chains if we can say with David It is good for me that I have been afflicted that I might learn thy Statutes Psal. 119. 71. Ver. 67. Before I was afflicted I went astray but now have I kept thy Word His was a very blessed Cross that flourisht into such fruit as this I think I should not say amiss should I say that God has as it were brought every person here from the Grave and saved him from going down into the Pit from a Grave and a Pit which has been often digged for us by the Plots and Designs of our Enemies and into which we had long ago fallen had not God mercifully saved and helped us God has very lately done great things for our Brethren in Ireland whereof I do believe your Hearts are glad for as you mourn'd with them in their Sorrows so t is fit you participate with them in the Joys that they now have by the quick advances of their increasing Deliverance and from the dangers that so nearly threatned them And God has not after the mighty wonders of his Providence left us here in England when destruction has been coming towards us with hasty paces when it has from the proud Fleet of our Enemies threatned
much pain in this but this is not the common Lot You know that the poor Man at the Pool of Bethesda had an Infirmity thirty eight years Jahn 5. 5. You are told in Luke 13. 16. of a Woman that was a Daughter of Abraham whom Satan had bound eighteen years and when so malicious and cruel a Spirit had the management of her Bonds no doubt but he made them very strong It was without doubt a painful Distemper as appears vers 11. she was bound down and could in no wise lift up her self If you enquire of those that usually attend the Dying or if you look upon the Weekly Bills you 'l find there by what painful Diseases Men go to the Grave By the Stone or the Gout raging Fevers or Cholick or which is of all others most formidable and which more generally die of every Week than of any other Distemper i. e. Convulsions Or if they die not by these yet by others that by their length are as grievous and as uneasie Your bodily Pains may be protracted to a very long duration for it is a most false Maxim that if your Pain be long it will not be sharp and that if it be sharp it will not be long It is a saying to which dayly Experience gives a Confutation For how many are there that are groaning under Pains both very long and very sharp Fevers burn us Agues shatter us Dropsies drown us Phrensies unman us the Gout tortures us Convulsions rack us Epilepsies fell us Collicks tear us and there is no considerable Disease which is not very troublesom in it self however Religion may sanctify and sweeten it Boyle occas Refl Sect. 2. Med. 3. What a vain thing is our Body and how vain are the Projects of Men for the preservation of it How many are their Cares and Designs about it It is for this that Commerce and Navigation is maintained to bring home Foreign Drugs for Physick and Sawces of other Countries to raise our Appetites Pearls and Jewels for Ornament and Splendor The greatest part of Men are imployed meerly for the service of the Body Physicians by profession are obliged to study what may repair its defects and contribute to our ease and health the Husbandman labours all the year that the Ground may yield us Corn and Bread and Fruit Some build us Houses others beautify and furnish them Butchers are employed to kill the Creatures for us and Cooks to dress them and yet these Bodies are lyable all the while to pains which none of all these can remove To sicknesses of which no Perfumes no costly Raiment no pleasant Relishes can make us to lose the bitter Sense and the Thoughts of them ought to lessen greatly all that inordinate Concern which we have for what is only mortal for its being so makes it to be very vain We must use our selves to hardship and relinquish our too great tenderness and delicacy For he is the wisest Man who knowing he is once to suffer as we all are does learn betimes to do it Let us therefore keep our Bodies pure and clean and chast First Let us use a great Moderation in all those Accommodations that relate only to them Such as Houses Gardens Estates or the like that they be not too expensive or take up too much of our time or of our delight That they be not designed as the Trophies of our Pride or the means of Vain-glory or to get a Name We that have Souls to save have something else to do than to follow needless Superfluities When we were sick we knew that we were too much unwilling to leave the World Let us not paint it with more alluring colours lest we be still more in love with it and more loath to leave it For shall we more easily part with things sumptuous and splendid than with things that are meaner and less suited to a fleshly Mind and Life We are Pilgrims and shall we be so industrious to plant and build and sow in a strange Country when we confess we are distant from our home What Man would set himself to adorn his Inn from which he may dislodge the next morning and it may be never see it any more Secondly Let us use a great Moderation in our Apparel When you dress your selves remember that you dress a Body that will shortly be a Carcass without Beauty Life and Motion Consider how soon all the Sprightliness of your Eyes all the Pleasure of your Looks will be gone the Cold of Death will quickly freeze that Blood which now circulates with so brisk a motion in your Veins and Sickness in a few days may so change you even you that are most curious about your Body that you will not desire even to look upon your self When pain and trouble has sunk your Eyes and hollowed your Cheeks and turned your once delightful red into a decaying pale how seldom then will you visit that Glass to which you now go so often and at which you stay so very long What will your softest Raiment and your finest Cloaths avail a decaying Body which God hath clothed with the Garment of Heaviness Let the Consideration of this be a powerful Motive to excite you not to go to the highest Excesses of a luxurious Age but after the Fashion of the grave the modest and the religious part of People that allow to themselves some large portions of their Time to adorn their Souls with those Graces that make them shine with real worth and do not spend it all to set the Body off What is this Body but a Lump of animated Clay a poor ruinous Habitation that has a thousand decays ready to come upon it and whilst we are contriving how to repair it for many years it may be we have not then a Month to live And what is it when the Soul that gave it all its pleasant sensations all its comlyness and lustre is fled away If we look but upon a Friend an hour after he is dead how is his Countenance changed There is nothing then to be seen in him that did attract our Eyes before You then no more see any Smiles in that Face where you have before seen the signs of Chearfulness and Joy Where is his former Comeliness and Beauty his ancient Grace or his lovely Features You can then take no delight in being with him you have then no mind to look upon that very person that it may be a while ago was the Delight of your Heart and the Comfort of your Life Will all the Finery in the World procure for us a sweeter slumber in the Dust Why should we set our selves with so much application to regard our Bodies Is it to much purpose to paint a little Dust and Ashes Those light impressions that we make upon it the next Wind blows away Think but how vain and short your Life is and this will greatly suppress your inclination to Vanity Look upon your Watches and
consider how they give you notice of the haste of Time and to this purpose your Clocks may be of excellent use if as one says you design them not only as Civil Servants but as Militant Sentinels to advertise you every hour that your Enemy is advanced a step nearer to you for as every toling Bell may be said to be the Clock of Death so every Clock may not unfitly be called the Passing Bell of Time Thirdly Our Sickness should also teach us to be moderate in all those Pleasures that relate only to the Body Such we may use indeed as are necessary to divert our Minds when we are wearied with Study or the Duties of our Calling Such as are â—east expensive and take up the least me such as are no way scandalous and such as are both lawful and â—onvenient but we must especialâ—y avoid all those things that minister to Temptation to Sensuality to Covetousness to rash Anger 's and whatsoever else it is that indisposes us for Prayer for Self-Examination and all the other serious Acts of Religion for which we must be in a constant readiness We must enrich our Souls with nobler and higher Joys in communion with God in meditating on his Works and Attributes the Wonders of his Grace in Christ the mighty Preparations that he has made for our Happyness and Glory and these will be a good improvement of our Sickness and Recovery Nor will they be followed with such gloomy sorrows that eclipse all that which the World calls a brisk and a merry Life After this manner should our Sickness teach us to regard our Bodies not to be over-fond of them not to glory in our Strength in our Health in our Riches or any thing that is but of a short Continuance For wherein are all these things or wherein is Man himself whose Breath is in his Nostrils to be accounted of Jer. 9. 23 24. Secondly Do not provoke God to cut off your Life Your Life is an excellent Gift which those of us that have recovered have but newly received let us not by any means abuse it lest it be taken from us again which God will do if we make no suitable returns to the Kindness of him our Benefactor Eccl. 7. 17. Be not over-much wicked neither be thou foolish why shouldst thou dy before the time i. e. If we continue in a course of sin the Divine Vengeance will overtake us and make us to feel the sharp Effects of his just Severity and of our own Transgression To this end we must First Beware of all gluttonous Excesses in what we eat and drink For though by going beyond the bounds of what is lawful we discern no great hurt for the present yet we shall lay the foundation of manyfold Diseases which may break out afterwards and vitiate our Blood and waste our Spirits and when the pleasure of our Appetites is past we shall have a remaining Bitterness and Wounds and Sorrow Many wise and observing Men believe that of those that outlive their Childhood there is scarce one of twenty yea or of an hundred that dyeth but Gluttony is the principal Cause tho not the most immediate There is nothing that makes a Disease more insupportable than the thought of having brought it upon our selves by our own Carelesness and Security How many by this Method are withered in the Flower of their Age when they thought their Evening and Decay at a mighty distance What Havock and Murder and Desolation is made in the World by the force of the Sword and the violence of unjust Wars and yet more perish by their own Intemperance and all Diseases even those that are Epidemical Natural or Casual are by this and other Vices that attend it rendred far more sharp lasting malignant and incurable by that stock of corrupted Matter that they lodge in the Body to feed those Diseases and that Impotency that these Vices bring upon Nature to resist them Hale's Letter to his Son p. 17. Tho it be very true That let a Man be never so Religious he must both be sick and dye yet the prevailing sense of a Deity will sweeten these Evils when they come and also keep them longer off As t is said of Wisdom Length of Days are in her right Hand Prov. 3. 16. And 't is said by the Fear of the Lord Prov. 3. 11. By me thy days shall be multipled and the years of thy Life shall be increased And Chap. 10. 27. The Fear of the Lord prolongeth days but the years of the wicked shall be shortned But if our Belly be our God our end will be destruction even in this World Phil. 3. 19. When Men are gratifying their Appetites in all that they desire they are undermining their own Prosperity and giving fire to that Train which will certainly blow them up and at the rate they live they may well say Come let us eat and drink for to morrow we dye For indeed their Excess to day may cause their Death to morrow How many are now in their Graves over whom it may be truly writ This Man killed himself with drinking And how odious must the Memory of such an one be that so made himself away But let us remember Life is so great a Blessing that it is not for the sake of a few merry Companions or to gratify their humor to be parted with There are a sort of People that through the Power of their Ignorance are very apt to quarrel with the Providence of God for making their Lives so short and yet they will make them shorter than otherwise they might be and truly such sort of men have the least reason because their chief happiness lies in this World and not in that which is to come and their action is as foolish as if one would make haste to pull down the House he lives in and yet when he has done it knows not where to get another Secondly We must avoid all anxious Fears all inward fretting and discontent all foolish Anger Envy and the like passions for these are great enemies to Life As also all uncommunicated sadness and lasting griefs for any of those troublesome Accidents will unavoidably molest our present state And no less prejudicial are all uncertain hopes all immoderate cares and over-eager Studies for the mind by too vehement an intention will communicate its trouble to the Body and this will pine and languish by its sympathy and nearness to that and the Body cannot conceal the displeasure that arises to it from the more inward and spiritual troubles of the Soul There will be a Cloud of Sorrow in the Forehead when there is an abiding sadness in the heart whereas the Right Government of our Affections will spread a chearfulness both over the Body and the Mind 'T is said of Moses Deut. 34. 7. That he was an hundred and twenty years old when he dyed his Eyes were not dim nor his natural Force abated and to this
himself who in the night that he was betrayed was providing a Feast of Comfort for his poor Followers Fourthly T is very delightful to God when his Servants after the receipt of Mercies joyn their praises together If we had no experiences of his Goodness to us yet so excellent are the Perfections of his Nature that we ought even then to praise him much more when he is so kind to us who have deserved nothing He is pleased with with that homage which we give him by our Prayers and our hearing of the Word and when two or three are gathered together he is there It will also please him to see our Hearts and our Mouths full of Thanks for to this very purpose he gives his Blessings to us and it is grateful to him to see that they are not lost upon us As it is pleasant to an Husband-man to see a seasonable Harvest and that his Labour and Pains have not been in vain When there is a Consort of Musick there is the greatest Harmony and when a whole Assembly of sincere Christians joyn their Voices and their Hearts together with what a delightful sound do they go up before the Throne of God For as one observes the blessing and acceptance that Religion receives from the Divine Majesty is much greater for the publickness of it even in this sense two are better than one for they have a good reward for their labour In this sense their complicated services are more forcible their threefold Cord is not easily broken Not that God is prevailed upon to any change in himself or his Government by the services of his Creatures though in a multitude but he is pleased to found the occasions and opportunities of his most bountiful recompences in the drawing near of their greater numbers For as when God was pleased to communicate himself more freely he did it to a multitude of Creatures so he delights in receiving back the glory of having thus communicated himself from a multitude also and as there is more of himself in more of his Creatures whether of several sorts or of the same so there is more of his blessing in their approaches to him Whole Duty of Nations p. 9. What does the Great God obtain by all his Acts of Bounty to his Creatures but a Revenue of praise what other end does he design in all his Mercies therefore we should be most willing to pay him this easie Tribute Oh how pleasant is it to come into the house of God with the voice of joy and praise and with a multitude that keep holy day Psal. 42. 4. Private prayer does not honour him so much as publick this therefore as the now mentioned person expresses it it was the Policy of Nineveh's natural Religion to unite their Force in Humiliation Fasting and Prayer and to take advantage of joyning the mute desires of the Beasts that have a voice in the Ears of God Abraham's Servant made the Camels kneel down while he prayed to God And it was as he further observes Davids Art to gather up all the Praises even of the lowest of the Creatures that could so meanly give them and inspiring them with his own Reason made them as it were to follow his Harp and to unite in his own Halleluiahs Thus he served himself of them that making by them a greater Present of glory to God he might receive the greater Blessing from him We ought to be as eloquent in the numbring of our Mercies as we are in the compution of our Sorrows and our Praises ought to be as loud or rather louder than our Groans And yet alass how rare a thing is this mutual praise And it may be as a sign of it that so many desire Funeral Sermons to be preached for their departed Friends and few desire any Sermons for their own Recovery from Sickness and Death or for their Friends upon the like occasions 'T is strange that we should be more ready to mourn than to rejoyce and that our Sorrows should be more passionate and fluent than our joys that we are more enclined to bewail our Losses than to be glad for our Mercies especially when one has the advantage of pleasure on its side which the other has not we always meet and mingle our Tears together when our Friends are to be laid into the Grave and we should as solemnly meet when any of our Friends have been nigh unto Death and have escaped it that for so great a Mercy we may return to God our Common Praise Fifthly This mutual praising of God is a resemblance of Heaven In doing this we are beginning that blessed Work which we hope to be employed in for ever We poor Sinners here below are then something like to those Holy Souls that are above Will it not be a great part of Heaven to admire and adore and praise God for all his Deliverances granted to us to his Church and our fellow Saints There will be a common Joy and an Union of Praises for all his Mercies from the beginning to the conclusion of the World And then all the Myriads of his Elect being safely gathered into his own Kingdom shall keep a Thanksgiving-day and that Day shall be for ever It is to that pleasant and chearful Country that we at length hope to go Let us use our selves now to the Language of the Place and learn betimes to Sing the Songs of Sion Let us raise our Voices as high as ever we can in the Praises of our God and then knowing how unsuitable our highest Elevations are to his Excellent and Glorious Majesty let us long to joyn with Glorified Spirits in their louder and sweeter Hymns and being sensible of our own Weakness we may call to the blessed Angels to all Beings that are in Heaven or on the Earth in the Air or in the Seas to help us to praise the Lord. As we have the Example of David in sevèral Psalms and in the 103. 20 21 22. Bless the Lord ye his Angels that excel in strength that do his Commandments hearkening unto the voice of his word Bless ye the Lord all ye his Hosts ye Ministers of his that do his pleasure Bless the Lord all his Works in all places of his Dominions bless the Lord O my Soul The Conclusion of the Whole AND now to finish what I design to say from these Words Having been delivered from a long and severe Sickness I would most earnestly beg of you all to help me to praise the Lord for his great Goodness and Mercy to me Long I was upon the very brink of the Grave and nothing in this World could ease my Pain or mitigate my Sorrows God himself hath wrought Salvation for me And 't is for your sakes as well as mine own that you may see an instance of his mighty Power and Goodness who as he hath delivered me can also deliver you when you come to Straits and Difficulties I heartily wish that seeing my