Tears shall be able to deliver the guilty and polluted Soul from the impendent danger when it shall be said to the humble Friend sit up higher and to the proud Fool Give place to him that is more honourable than thou art when the Book of Conscience shall be opened and the Dead judged by the Contents of that Book when the Sinner will not know where to flee and his Spirits will fail him for fear of him that sitteth upon the Throne O God! Fix these Considerations in my Soul strengthen my Faith that I may believe these things unseen without wavering How apt is the World to get between this tremendous Day and my sight Quicken thou mine Eyes that I may see through all impediments into that Process and reflect what manner of Person I ought to be in all holy conversation and godliness Lord Jesu great Judge of the World let the Lines of that Judgment be written so legibly in my mind that my Soul may delight to read them that nothing may divert me from studying and considering them let this be my chief study and let me feel the fame effect that those men did who were converted at thy Apostles Sermon let me be prickt at the Heart and cry out What must I do to be saved Let the thoughts of this Day make a Reformation in my outward and inward Man that it may appear that thou hast touch'd me with a Coal from the Altar O God to whom Vengeance belongs shew thy self and disperse my foolish Desires Let my Soul feel the Transactions of that Day as well as believe them Clear my Understanding and enlighten my Mind that I may have a livelier Prospect of it I will not let thee go except thou bless me Look down from the Habitation of thy Holiness and visit my Soul Expel the Prejudices I have against Severity of Life and with the Thoughts of this Day destroy them utterly Let the consideration of this Day so work upon me that my Ambition Covetousness Pride and Anger may tremble at this sight and leave their habitation and may be ever afraid of returning Oh tell me that this Day will certainly come and that the Day of my Death will be the Emblem of it Oh assure me of the Terror of that Day that shall burn like an Oven wherein all that do wickedly shall be Stubble and the Fire shall burn them up that it shall leave them neither Root nor Branch let me not take example by the careless World that put this evil Day far from them Let it be always before me Let my Mind be never free from the Contemplations of it Let it mingle with my Business with my Meals with my Converse with my Sleep and with all my Undertakings In every Sin I am tempted to let it frighten me in my going out and in my coming in let it continually beat upon my Mind Oh my Lord let me muse upon this Day of Retribution this Day of Recompence this Day of Trouble this Day of Terror this Day of Joy this Day of Comfort this Day wherein thy Promises and Threatnings will be fulfilled this Day which must decide the controversie of my Life and Death this Day which will bring to light all hidden things this Day which will revive the good and confound the bad this Day of Consolation this Day of Consternation let me ruminate upon it till thoughts of this Judgment prevail with me to become a new Creature thy Grace must melt my stubborn Heart without thee I can do nothing O relieve me O come in with the Light of thy Countenance Stir up my Soul and rouze it from its carelesness Call to me as thou didst to thy People of old let that voice sound in my ears The great Day of the Lord is near it is near and hasteth greatly even the Voyce of the Day of the Lord the mighty Man shall cry bitterly that Day is a Day of Wrath a Day of Trouble and Distress a Day of Wastness and Desolation a Day of Darkness and Gloominess a Day of Clouds and thick Darkness a Day of the Trumpet and Alarm against the fenced Cities and against the high Towers and I will bring Distress upon men that they shall walk like blind Men be cause they have sinned against the Lord and their Blood shall be poured out as Dust and their Flesh as the Dung neither their Silver nor their Gold shall be able to deliver them in the Day of the Lord 's Wrath. O let me not lose the sense of this Day Oh let me consider how much better it is to be humble and contemptible and to hunger and thirst and to suffer here and afterwards to enter into my great Masters Joy than to be a Slave to my Lusts and Pleasures here and to be bound at last with everlasting Chains of Darkness Chains which never wear out Chains which always bind are always grievous always painful Oh let me consider how much better it is to mourn here and to water my Couch with my Tears and to afflict my Soul and after this to triumph with the Spirits of Men made perfect than to feed upon Pleasures which at the best are but like the crackling of Thorns under a Pot and then to be sent away to howl with Devils Help Lord help that my Soul may be concern'd at her danger and despise the World and prepare against that Day and encounter with Powers and Principalities and Spiritual Wickednesses in high Places if by any means I might attain unto the Resurrection of the Dead Such Prayers offered from a Heart that hath no Reserves from a Heart resolved to do any thing rather than miss of Salvation such Prayers I say if they express the very desires of our Souls will certainly put Death and Paleness into our sensual Pleasures and oblige us to entertain other Thoughts of the gauds and gaieties of the world than now we have and make us sensible that this casting such a damp on the foolish fatisfactions of the flesh with the Prospect of that Day is not only a Task fit for Hermits and Melancholick Scholars and contemplative Men but a Duty incumbent on all that carry immortal Souls in their Breasts which calls me to the Fourth Point 4. Whether every Man is bound to embitter his carnal Delights with this Prospect To this I must answer in the Affirmative For though the young Man be particularly mentioned here yet since the expression in the Text reaches all men who are fit for action all such must necessarily fall under the obligation of this Duty and all that are capable of such Delights are bound to make use of the aforesaid consideration in order to this self-denial if the young Man is obliged to this seriousness much more older Men if God will not allow of these Delights in Youth they must necessarily be intolerable in Years of greater Maturity and if the tender Age be concerned to embitter them with this Prospect
nothing so much as in these Quotations had they been false or supposititious However Plato's Writings have been conveyed to us without any signal corruption and he gives us a very accurate Account of this great Day as Hydaspes an ancient King of the Medes had done before him and the Heathen Poets though indulging their Fancies in some things yet have delivered many excellent Truths to us whereof this future Judgment is not the least we need go no farther than the Sixth Book of Virgils Aeneids where the Opinions of the Ancient Heathen Sages are collected and expressed in Verse and it is worth observing that he makes his Judge Rhadamantus inflict particular punishments on those Souls that have deferred their Repentance to their Death-Beds And how can we imagine that the whole World at least the wiser part of it should so unanimously believe a future Judgment after this Life if either there had not been a great propensity in their Nature to believe the Notion or Reason had not convinced them of the Certainty and Reality of the Thing If we grant that God hath given a Law to Man we must necessarily grant that there must be a Judge to call those to an account who have violated and broke those Laws Man we see is capable of being governed by a Law and without a Law to govern him would run wild and become a meer Brute we must therefore necessarily believe that God hath given us a Law and what Law more sutable to his Nature or the Principle of Reason than what we have in the Bible which is indeed the Law of Nature expressed in livelier and more legible Characters It is fit therefore there should a time come when the Obedience and Disobedience of Men may be taken notice of and the Obedient rewarded and the Disobedient punished God hath made Man his Viceroy here on Earth to which purpose David said Thou hast set him over the Works of thy Hands and hast put all things under his Feet and Experience shews that Man hath a dominion over all irrational Creatures and is it not convenient that at the end of the world when all Men have acted their part on this Stage this Viceroy should be examined and asked how true he hath been to his Sovereign King What he hath done with the Creatures which have been given him for his use And whether he hath not minded his own business more than his Masters If there is no Judgment to come there can be no God for without a future retribution this God cannot be just and a God that is not just is imperfect and if imperfect he cannot be God so true is that Saying of Averroes That whatever is most noble and most praise-worthy in Man must be attributed to the best and greatest Being God blessed For evermore Justice we see is that which makes a Prince on Earth great and is one of the highest Perfections he is capable of which was the Reason that when Ptolomy asked the Seventy Interpreters of the Jewish Law What King lived freest from fear and violence He was answered He that exercises Justice punishes the Bad and rewards the Good and consequently this Justice must be ascribed to God as the most perfect Being It would be the most unreasonable thing imaginable that those who love and fear him most should be most oppressed and go without reward and those that abuse and dishonour him slight and undervalue him should live prosperously and never feel his Displeasure or Indignation If God be wise and just this cannot be and since this reward of the Innocent and severity on the Wicked is not administred and dispensed in this World it must needs follow that it must be in another and the day of this future recompence we call the Day of Judgment And though the Apprehensions of that vast multitude of Men which believe or profess it about the manner and method of this day be very different yet it is enough that all agree in the thing even those who have not the revealed Scriptures of the Old and New Testament from whence we may justly fetch the truest and exactest description of it those Revelations and Writings the Christians have and what is said in them concerning the Righteousness of God being most agreeable to the Nature of God and the Actions of Men and the Rules the Supream Architect hath engraven on our Reason That there are some Men who deny a future Judgment we need wonder no more than we do that the Fool should say in his heart There is no God That which makes a Man deny the one tempts him to be bold in disbelieving the other It is the true Interest of a sinful Life there should be no Retribution and how can a Man act against God with any chearfulness or alacrity except he puts him out of his thoughts and to compleat the Folly fancies that he will never call him to a reckoning It s Mens Vices that are the cause of their Atheism and were it not that they are enamoured with their Lusts their Reason would soon joyn issue with these Verities It is not for want of Arguments that Men are Unbelievers in this knowing Age but for want of Sobriety and consideration and while they suffer themselves to be drawn away by their sensual Appetite no marvel if in time their Flesh incroaches upon their Understanding and their brutish Desires corrupt their very Reason and they begin to think that God is altogether such a one as they themselves Love to Vice darkens the Understanding which is never clearer than when Virtue governs the Man Its Notions then are clear and the Reasonableness of the things unseen appears without shadows and uncomfortable obscurities Vice by degrees clouds the Mind and Love to that makes the Man first regardless of those Truths soon after he questions those Verities and he begins to doubt whether he hath not been imposed upon all this while and at last he sinks into a downright denial The Devil we may suppose is not idle in these cases and having first debaucht the lower Faculties he soon corrupts the higher and the Sinner once in the Net comes to be involv'd in greater dangers not to mention that a just God withdraws his Light and Spirit whereby the Soul falls into greater Darkness But let 's see 2. What there is in the prospect of this future Judgment that is able to damp the greatest Mirth and Jollity 1. In the prospect of this Judgment there appears a very serious Judge even the mighty Jesus the Son of God who was seen to weep often but to laugh never even he that came into the World to teach men Self-denial in sensual Pleasures not only unlawful such as Wantonness Effeminacy Fornication Adultery Uncleanness Drunkenness Feeding our Eys with Lustful Objects and which produce ill Desires in us Deriding and Jeering our Neighbors for their Infirmities Luxury in Cloathing Eating and Drinking Mimick Gestures Filthy Jesting Love-tricks
sawest a Man whom the Divine Bounty hath crowned with variety of temporal Blessings This Person having a mind to take his Pleasure retires with his Family to his Country-House adorned with Tyrian Silks and Persian Carpets and with all the Eastern Riches and there lives merrily and at his ease one Night being very jovial at Supper a Servant of his base and ill-natured puts some Lethargick or Opiate Potion into his Master's and Fellow-Servants Cup and having rocked them all asleep opens the Doors le ts in Thieves and Robbers who having plunder'd the House at last lay violent hands on the Master and to make sport with him drag him thus intoxicated into the open Field and there leave him In the mean while the Heavens grow black and a hideous Tempest gathers in the Clouds and the Sky begins to lighten and the Voice of Thunder to be heard and a dreadful Rain falls and in the midst of all this Noise and Confusion the besotted Master wakes looks about quakes trembles believes himself in another World is astonish'd to see himself lying on a barren Turf without Servants without Attendants without Friends without Necessaries without Conveniencies among Showers and Storms and Tempests stist with Cold frozen to Death almost and beholding nothing but Misery about him O my Soul thou canst not but look upon such a Person as the very Emblem of Confusion and while thou dread'st this fearful State take heed thou dost not prepare for it or drop into it take heed of carnal Security for that will expose thee to the Rage and Fury of hellish Thieves and make God's Indignation strangely surprizing The Terror that will seize the sleepy Soul when it is summon'd away to the Bar of a righteous God will be beyond Storms of Hail and Tempests of Rain and Flashes of Lightning and Claps of Thunder When Covetousness would entice thee shew it the miserable Gehazi trembling before the Throne of God when Luxury would tempt thee bid it look upon the wretched Belshazzar mourning to eternal Ages for his Intemperance when worldly Mindedness would debauch thee find out Nabal among the damned Spirits and with that Sight fright the foolish Lust away when Envy would enter into thy Soul call out Cain from that unhappy Crew and bid it see its Doom in his Funeral when present Satisfactions would make thee slight the after-hopes of Glory bid the profane Esau stand forth from his fiery Cell to which he is condemned and it will lose its Courage Thou readest of the Syrians how in a Consternation sent upon them from above they fled in the Night leaving all their Provision behind them But what is this to the Consternation the Judgment Seat of Christ will strike into that Man who having slighted his Commands is on a sudden ordered to come and answer the Reason of his Contempt and forced to leave all his vain Excuses and Apologies behind him The Name of some Warriours hath frighted Men Women and Children and then how terrible will the Name of the Lord of Hosts be to them that have fought against his Holy Spirit by their Stubbornness O my Soul Blessed is he that watches and keeps his garments lest he walk naked and they see his shame Rev. 16. 15. 3. Walk circumspectly every Day and use that conscientiousness you would use were you sure you should be summon'd to Judgment at Night To be sure a dayly Conscientiousness can do no harm It may possibly deprive thee of the Pleasure of bad Company but where is the loss when by that means thou preservest thy better Part from being wounded May be thou may'st get the ill Will of some men that hate any man that will not run with them into excess of Riot but their Hatred is better than their Love not that a Man is to be fond of the Hatred of others but since the World does love his own and is fond only of People as loose as themselves it is a Mercy to be hated by such men because it is a sign we are not of their Temper The love of good men is ever to be valued but that of men loose and profane is but a trouble except it can be had without participating of their sins Say not next Year or when I have accomplished such a Business I will trim my Lamp and make it ready against the Bridegroom comes Every Day to live in expectation of the Summons is the act of a Wise and Blessed Servant And he that every Day walks with God walks in a mighty sense of his Omniscience and Omnipresence and in his company business conversation dealings keeps God in his Eye sets his Laws before him walks as one resolved to please God in all things le ts not a Day pass over his Head without doing some good uses the World as if he used it not and if through inadvertency he slips rises again presently and arms himself with fresh resolutions is the Person that lives every Day as if it were his last Day Sinner wert thou sure that this Night thou shouldst be summon'd to the Bar of God wouldst thou swear and lie and dissemble and be Cholerick or backward to good works Live as if thou wert sure of it For suppose thou continuest in the Land of the Living that Night thou losest nothing by this Preparation nay thou art a mighty gainer by it for hereby thy Soul is refresh'd thy Mind preserved in an excellent temper thy Goodness strengthen'd thy Graces renew'd thy Affections enlarg'd thy Understanding enlightned thy Will made more tractable thy Spirits eased thy Calmness maintain'd and thy very Body kept in Health God loves thee the Promises of the Gospel belong to thee Devils cannot hurt thee thou livest like a Christian actest like a Man of Reason preparest for thine own quiet thy Condition is happy thy Estate safe thy Life out of danger thy Conscience clear thy Confidence in God encreases thy Satisfaction swells thy Comforts grow bigger and thou freest thy self from that Mire and Clay in which so many Souls do stick and deliverest thy Soul from that terrible Pit which swallows up so many imprudent Travellers 4. When ever you see or hear of the judicial Process of a Malefactor think and reflect upon this Day To take occasion from things we see or hear to improve our Minds and to Meditate on things useful and great and beneficial is the part of a wise Man and a Christian who is to remember that his Reason is not given him only to teach him how to live easie but chiefly to direct him how to Purifie his outward and inward Man The great Design of the Gospel is to refine our Reason and to make it subservient to the Purposes of a Spiritual Life and he that makes External Objects Instruments of spiritual Thoughts and leads his Consideration from things visible to those which are not seen imitates the Holy Apostles and the best Patterns 2 Cor. 4. 18. The Judicial Process of a
Malefactor hath many Circumstances in it which very much resemble the Proceedings of the last Day Indeed our Saviour Mat. 5. 25 26. describes the last Judgment by the Processes made for Malefactors in this World Agree saith he with thine Adversary quickly while thou art in the way with him lest at any time the Adversary deliver thee to the Judge and the Judge deliver thee to the Officer and thou be cast into Prison Verily I say unto thee thou shalt by no means come out thence till thou hast paid the uttermost Farthing In which Words Christ represents to us the Scene of the future Judgment and consequently intimates that when we behold the one we should spend some serious thoughts upon the other Think how terrible the sight of the Judge is to the guilty Prisoner and how much more terrible the sight of a Majestick God will be to the unhappy Sinner that would not be kept in by the Laws and Sanctions of the great Commander of the World and stood more in awe of a Child or Servant when he was going to commit lewdness than of him who gave him life and being Think how the Malefactor is frighted and confounded with the vast company of Men and Women that crowd in to hear his Tryal and how much more the impenitent Sinner will be ashamed in the last Day when all the People that have been since the Creation of the World will look upon him and hear what his fate will be some Orators have been struck dumb with the greatness of their Auditory what effect then may we suppose will the Congregation of Mankind have upon a Wretch that never saw the hundred thousandth part of them before Think how it must be with the Malefactor before the Sentence of Death passes upon him how heavy his mind is how Melancholick his Thoughts how drooping his Spirits are and what Palpitations he feels about his Heart and how far greater the heaviness of the sinful Soul must be before the Sentence of Condemnation proceeds against her from the mouth of God how much more sad remembrances how much more dismal reflections will seize upon her And if it be so sad with her before the Sentence be past what trembling and horror will invade her after it A Malefactor here on Earth may yet entertain hopes of Pardon his Prince may be merciful pity the distressed condition of his Family remember past services and relent and change the Sentence but the sinful Soul once condemned to suffer hath no hopes of forgiveness no hopes of being Repriv'd no hopes of being released not but that God is infinitely more merciful than the meekest Prince on Earth can be but the time of Mercy is past Once he was merciful to her to a Miracle his Mercy was her Shield Mercy did encompass her Mercy lay entreating her Mercy courted her Mercy though abused came again and tryed new arguments Mercy followed her Mercy preserved her from a Thousand Evils Mercy would not suffer the roaring Lion to touch her for many years Mercy stood by her even then when she desperately affronted her Maker Mercy was patient towards her Mercy wept over her Mercy call'd to her Mercy would have pull'd her away from her Errors but she thrust this bright Angel away would have none of it made light of it laught at its charms despised its entreaties scorned its carresses disregarded its smiles refused its offers rejected its embraces and therefore cannot feed her self with hopes of Pardon now Nay the Malefactor here on Earth when Men will not Pardon hath yet hopes that upon his true Repentance God will Pardon him but the Soul that departs hence in a sensual carnal condition the same she lived in hath no higher Court to appeal to none above God to make her moan to none beyond the supream Law-giver to address her self to The God she hath despised and whose Mercy could make no impression on her is to be her last Judge and therefore how much more disconsolate must her state be than the condemn'd Malefactor's here on Earth 5. Whenever you converse with sick and dying men and are present when their Breath leaves their Bodies think and reflect upon this Day He visits a dying Friend to little purpose that only comes to condole with him or to look upon him or to ask him how he doth or what Medicines he hath taken or what Physitian he hath made use of The Chamber of a dying Person should make us as serious as a Church and compose our Thoughts as much as an Oratory In such a Room there are various Objects that invite us to Pious Thoughts and do naturally suggest to us very serious Considerations the sad looks of the Spectators the Groans of Relations the Tears of Friends the Lamentations of Neighbours and the dying Persons Pain and Misery and perhaps doubts of his Salvation which are not to be beheld with a careless Eye So that when you see the dying Person near Expiring think with your selves This man is going to be judged his Soul is entring into the Territories of another World to know what her everlasting state must be This will shortly be my case I must e'er long follow her to God's Tribunal here my stay will be but short here I have no continuing City here I am not to tarry long my Friend that 's gone shews me the way that I must go I saw him expire I heard his last groans I was by when his Eye-strings broke if the Lord Jesus gave him any assurance of his favour before he died with what chearfulness will his Soul meet her Bridegroom in the Air how welcome will he be in the Court of the great King What rejoycing will there be when he and the other glorified spirits behold one another and they see that one more is added to their Number for there is no envy in Heaven no grudges no fretting because so many are admitted into the Everlasting Mansions but the more holy Souls do enter there the more their joy encreases If this my Friend hath lived above the World while he lived here with what gladness will his Soul be brought and enter into the Kings Palace How will his Name be remembred there How kindly will Angels talk of him How favourable will the Judge be to him but if his Devotion and Piety hath been but Paint and Shew what a surprize will it be immediately upon his coming among the spirits of another World to be arrested at the suit of the Great God and to be carried away to his Tryal He is taken away from his sick Bed but should his Soul be sent away with a Curse how much worse will Hell be than his sick Bed In a sick Bed Physick may yet give some ease but Hell scorns all Medicines no Drugs are of any use there no Cordials no Cataplasms are to be found there no vulnerary Herbs grow in that Wilderness On a sick Bed Friends may yet comfort us but in
Friends what shall we say what Apology shall we make when this Judge shall plead for himself in that Day Thou disobedient Wretch I made thee of Clay with mine own hands and breathed the Breath of Life into thee I made thee after my Image I gave thee Reason and Understanding and Power and Dominion over the Beasts of the Field a Mercy which iâ— I had not vouchsafed unto thee those Creatures which are stronger than thou would have master'd and destroy'd thee I placed thee among the Pleasures of Paradise made thee a happy Inhabitant of Eden and when thou wouldest needs hearken to the false and treacherous Suggestions of thy sworn Enemy behold in pity and commiseration to thee I resolved to be born of a Virgin and accordingly took Flesh and became Man for thy sake was born in a Stable lay unregarded in a Manager swadled in Rags and Clouts endured all the Reproaches and Injuries that Childhood is subject to bore thy griefs and assumed thy infirmities and was made like thy self that thou mightest be like me in Felicity at the end of thy Race I suffered men to trample on me to buffet me to spit in my Face to give me Gall and Vinegar to drink to scourge me to crown me with Thorns to wound and nail me to the Cross and all this that I might deliver thee from Eternal Contempt and Torments Behold the Mark of the Nails which were struck into my Flesh. Behold my wounded side I suffered that thou mightest triumph I died that thou mightest live was buried that thou mightest rise and made my self a scorn of the People that thou mightest reign in Heaven and why wouldest thou throw away this Mercy Why wouldest thou refuse this Treasure What evil Spirit did possess thee to make light of these kindnesses Why wouldest thou pollute that Soul which I redeemed with mine own Blood Why wouldest thou make thy Heart a habitation of Devils which I intended for my Throne Why wouldest thou lose that which I purchased at so dear a rate What pleasure couldest thou take in doing that which cost me so many Sighs and Tears and a bloody Sweat Why wouldest thou make a mock of so great a Mercy How couldest thou undervalue a Favour of that importance and consequence Can any Hell be thought too much for such Stubbornness Either thou didst believe that thy God did all this for thee or thou didst not If thou didst not believe it why didst thou make confession of it with thy Mouth If thou didst how couldest thou be so ungrateful How couldest thou abuse a Friendship of that worth and value Thou lovest a Friend a Neighbour a Man a Woman for Kindnesses which are meer Shadows and Bubbles to my Love and hadst not thou reason to love me beyond all earthly Comforts Hadst not thou reason to prefer my Favour before the Smiles of a transitory World How did I deserve such preposterous usages at thy hands Couldest thou have dealt worse with a Slave or with an Enemy than thou hast done with me Did this condescension deserve dost thou think such Affronts and Injuries such Contempt and Disobedience as thou hast returned to me Therefore as for those mine Enemies which would not have this Man to reign over them bring them hither and slay them before me All this appears in the Prospect of a future Judgment and therefore there must be Vertue in it to check that Mirth and Jollity which infatuates Souls and leads them into ruine 4. In the Prospect of this future Judgment there appears the unspeakable anguish and misery of those who have been most jolly and merry in this Life Dives who cloath'd himself in Purple and fine Linnen and fared sumptuously every day appears there quaking and trembling and crying Father Abraham Have mercy on me and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my Tongue his Tables which were overlaid with Silver his richer Beds his Tapestry his Ornaments his Ointments his Balsams his Cordials his delicate Wines his various Dishes his Cooks his Flatterers his Parasites his Retinue his Servants and all the Noise and Pomp that attended him are not only extinct and turned into Ashes and Dust and Dirt but his naked Soul is dragg'd and carried before a tremendous Majesty to endure intolerable torments and before this terrible God â—e appears with his Eyes cast down blushing and ashamed trembling and fearful and all his former Comforts seem to have been but dreams to him See how the Scene is changed he to whom the poor man formerly supplicated for relief now is forced to supplicate to the poor Man to be relieved of him would be glad of Lazarus's Table who once scorned to let Lazarus gather the Crumbs that fell from his when Lazarus was near him he slighted him now he is afar off he adores him and himself now is the poor man while Lazarus swims in Riches such a discovery doth that last Day make who are the Rich and who are the Poor who the Wise and who the Fools In this Judgment Nimrod Senacharib Nebuchadnezzar Belshazzar Tiberius Nero Domitian men who would be thought Gods and denied themselves in no pleasure their Fancies craved stand all ashamed and confounded flames of a guilty Conscience burning in their Breasts and forcing their voices into bitter lamentations there Sardanapalus Croesus Cambyses Herod and all the Mighty men that spared no Woman in their Lust and no Man in their Anger appear all like guilty Malefactors their Hearts failing them for fear and they chaâ—tering like a Crane and mourning like a Dove and bewailing their aiery short and transitory satisfactions and cursing the Hour and the Minute when the first Temptations courted them to those dangerous Embraces there Cleopatra that sailed in a Vessel glistering with Gold a Vessel fitted for Pride and Luxury and Magnificence and tried how far Sensuality might be improved and to what height brutish Pleasure might be advanced there the wretched Woman is seen not so much with Serpents clasping about her Breast as with a Worm within that dies not tormenting her awakened Conscience with shapes of Death and Images of Ruine and all the Beasts that here could not be satisfied with Pleasure there cannot be eased of gnawing Vultures and Agonies for these the just God must at last inflict to make them sensible that his Threatnings were no Fables and to let them see that the Advices of wise Men and Philosophers who exhorted them to the study of Virtue were grounded on rational Foundations These Tortures and Vexations must not expire till the Ancient of Days who was affronted by their sins doth die and that 's never he being the same yesterday to day and for ever Thus their sweet Meat must have sour Sauce and if they will have their Pleasures they must feel the Sting too that 's inseparably affix'd to them The Bait cannot be swallowed without the Hook and as pleasant as the Honey is
So great is thy danger and canst thou loiter So near art thou to a tremendous Eternity and Oh wilt not thou be clean Thou standest upon the brink of Hell and wilt not thou step back Thou art within a Bows-shot of the great Tribunal and doth not thy countenance change Thou art within hearing of the Thunders that come forth from the Throne of God and do not thy thoughts trouble thee Thou seest the fatal Hand upon the Wall and do not thy Knees smite one against another Thou must shortly appear before all the Host of Heaven and art not thou got farther yet in Holiness Dost not thou quake to think that the Revenger of Blood is upon thy Heels As thou art a Christian thou art a Son of God and dost thou express that filial disposition in thy Gate and Looks and Face and Life Art thou born of God and canst thou degenerate from his Nature Art thou made after his Image and by Grace renew'd after his Similitude and canst thou be contented under a temper so different from that Holiness which is thy great Father's Perfection and Glory Does God expect thee at his Tribunal with the Qualifications of a Child and wilt thou appear before him as a Rebel Hath he given his Son on purpose to adopt thee and thinkest thou to present thy self before him in the shape of a Prodigal Thou art designed for a Citizen of the Celestial Jerusalem and wilt thou appear before him as an Inhabitant of Hell Thou art one of God's Family and wilt thou appear before him as a Traytor Thou art purchased by his Blood and wilt thou live as if that Blood had been spilt in vain Thou art wash'd in the Laver of Regeneration and canst thou wallow with the Swine in the Mire Thou hast known the Way of Righteousness and wilt thou with the Dog return to the Vomit Or art thou not afraid of that Saying that Dogs must stand without Thou art called to be faithful and hast given thy Faith to God Wilt thou break thy Faith and hope to be guiltless at this Bar Will not God revenge this Breach or canst thou think he will let thee go unpunish'd for thy Treacheries How canst thou expect the performance of his Promises while thou art so false to thy Engagements Thou hast vow'd thy self to him both in Baptism and the Supper of the Lord and canst thou imagine that thy Perjuries will not be remembred when thou comest to look the Judge in the Face By giving thee opportunity of becoming a Christian God hath made thee a King and wilt thou run to the Bramble and say Come thou and reign over me As a King thou hast power given thee to vanquish Flesh and Blood to tread upon Lions and Adders to defie Principalities and Powers and to crush Devils and wilt thou make thy self a slave to those Enemies over which God hath given thee power to trample them under thy Feet As a King thou art to appear before him and wilt thou come in the posture of a miserable Vassal Shall those Passions rule over thee which thy God hath given thee for Servants and Handmaids And what a dismal sight will it be when thou art to come before the Throne laden with conquests to appear fettered with Chains and the Devils Trophies God designs thee to be his Priest This is one of the Priviledges that came by the Blood of Christ But where are thy Sacrifices The Sacrifice of fervent Prayer the Sacrifice of an humble and contrite heart the Sacrifice of Praise and Delight in God And wilt thou come without the Marâ— of thy Office before the great Shepherd and Bishop of Souls Thou art enlightned by the Spirit of God and doâ— thou think to live in Darkness and after all to share in the boundless Inheritance with the Children of Light How unlike thy self wilt thou appeaâ— before God if thou come without these Qualifications Thou art a Christian but where is the Life of Christ thaâ— should be in thee Will the Judgâ— ever take thee for his Sheep when it'â— evident thou dost not hear his Voice How ridiculous is that Man that hangs out a Bush and yet hath no Wine to sell And how foolish is that Apothecary that writes glorious Names upon his Pots when the rich Drugs that are named have no being in his Shop And will it not tend to thy everlasting confusion that thou hast had the Name of a Christian and done nothing like a Christian Thus the particular Proceedings of that future Judgment must be applied to our selves if we resolve that the Prospect of a future Judgment shall damp our carnal Delights and Satisfactions and without using this Method we do but trifle and talk of breeding Mountains and bring forth ridiculous Mice play with Religion and are not in good earnest when we say we believe a future Account 3. But neither the Reflections aforesaid nor the Application we have spoken of will make any deep impression except all be seconded with earnest Prayer that God by his holy Spirit working in our Minds would make the Attempt effectual this must set to the Seal drive in the Nail and clench it The Eternal Spirit must give Success to these Enterprizes and in vain do we plant or water except he gives the increase He is that anointing which must supple the Soul and crown all with Laurels and Victory By strength of Thought and Application the Fort of Sin may be assaulted but without this Spirit lends his helping hand it will never be taken or subdued His Power must overcome the Oppositions our Flesh and the World will certainly make in this case and if he blows upon our Hearts the strong Holds of Iniquity like the Walls of Jericho will fall and nothing can stand before him and he will certainly come in to our assistance if our Prayer and Addresses be fervent and importunate Upon such Devotions the frequent Discourses of this Day of Judgment we read or hear will be so far from bringing the thing into contempt with our Souls that our Hearts will be awakened more and it 's impossible we can miscarry in the pious Design if with strong cries we apply our selves to him who hath appointed a Day in the which he will judge the World in Righteousness by that Man whom he hath ordained whereof he hath given assurance unto all Men in that he hath raised him from the dead Acts 17. 31. That which we are chiefly to insist upon in these Addresses is that we may get lively Apprehensions of that Day and such Apprehensions as no Pleasure no Folly no Temptation of the World may darken or destroy And here let the Soul break forth into such Ejaculations O God great and glorious make me deeply sensible of that Day and of that Hour when the Son of Man will come when the Goats shall be separated from the Sheep the Tares from the Wheat the Good from the Bad when neither Prayers nor
when it meets with any temptation to them without all Peradventure the stronger cannot be excused And the Reasons are these following 1. If they be not embitter'd with such Thoughts as these they will infallibly lead the Soul into innumerable dangers and there is no man but is obliged to preserve his Soul from danger It is said of the Prodigal Luke 15. 13. That he took his Journey into a far Countrey these sensual Pleasures alienated his Soul from God drove it away from him made him travel as far as Hell the Truth is the Soul is lost in such sensual Pleasures they wear out the bright Notions the Soul had of God and Religion as it is said of the Sicilian Dogs that running through the sweet and flowery Fields they lose their Sent in hunting so the Soul where these Pleasures these white Devils become her Familiars loses the noble Apprehensions it once had of Gods Omniscience and Omnipresence of his Holiness and Goodness and of the truth of his Promises and Threatnings and these Characters like Letters written with bad Ink vanish and consequently the Life of the Soul for which reason the Prodigal who drowned himself in these delights is said to be dead v. 32. These choak the good Seed that 's sown in the noble ground and as you have seen a Field of Wheat where the red Poppies spring up as fast as the richer grain though the proud Flowers are pleasing to the Eye yet they retard and hinder the growth of the more useful Blade and suck away the Moisture that should have fed the other so sensual Delights where they are taken in as Partners and suffered to grow in the Soul in which some Fruits of the Spirit do appear in a short time blast those excellent Fruits the Effects of the Holy Ghost or Education or the Ministry of the Word and prove Bryars and Thorns which will not fuffer any of the better Corn to grow under them Mans Soul and Body are like two Buckets while the one comes up full the other goes down empty Carnal Delights advance the brutish or fleshly part make it grow strong lusty and vigorous whereby it wrests the Scepter out of the hand of Reason and the Soul loses her Strength and Power and Sagacity in Spiritual things grows weak and faint and at last expires and dies I mean the vertuous Principles which either kind Nature or kinder Grace or Afflictions or some other Means and Instruments have incorporated with the Soul which indeed are the Life of that excellent Creature and the Soul being thus dead it falls a Prey to Devils who rejoyce over so great a Prey and lead it in Triumph take it Prisoner and make it draw in their Victorious Chariot and now all the Curses of the Law are in force against it the Threatnings of the Gospel become her portion and there is nothing left to stand betwixt her and eternal grief and anguish but the slender Thred of this Mortal Life which if it chance to break or tear the Soul sinks irrecoverably into the Gulph of Perdition from whence there is no returning so fatal is the influence of these flattering guests which in time starve their Keeper and finding the House empty swept and garnished like the Evil Spirit spoken of Matth. 12. 45. go and take with them seven other Spirits more wicked than themselves and they enter in and dwell there and the last state of that Man is worse than the first and thus they plunder and boldly rob the Soul of her Riches and hinder her from that Holiness which is her Food her Cordial and her greatest Support and without which no Man can see the Lord they had need therefore be embittered with something that 's sour and unpleasant to Flesh and Blood can smite the Stream and turn those sweeter Waters into Blood which nothing will do more effectually than the aforesaid Prospect 2. This embittering of sensual and carnal Delights is a thing of the greatest concernment and therefore must be necessary and all must be concerned in the vertuous Enterprize the greatest Blessings the want of which make a Man perfectly miserable depend upon it even God's Love of Complacency and the Application of Christ's Merits and the Benefits of his Death and Passion these belong not to the Soul that is enamoured with sensual delights no more than they appertain to Dogs or Swine nay they are useless and insignificant to such a Soul as much as the Mathematicks are to an Ass or Ideot There is a perfect Antipathy betwixt these and the Comforts we speak of for they are intended only for humble broken contrite hearts which temper a Person that 's fond of sensual delights is not capable of nor can such a Man relish them they are as Hay and Straw and Stubble to him and like a Person whose Appetite hath been spoiled by a raging Fever he looks upon them as unsavoury and insipid food and though he may talk of them yet it is only as blind men do of Colours As it is in Nature the Meat we eat must be agreeable to our Stomachs so it is in Grace There must be a holy Principle within that makes these Spiritual Comforts agreeable to it but sensual Delights destroy that Principle and as Darkness drives out Light so these two are incompatible and indeed our Blessed Saviour is very peremptory in his Assertion That he who doth not deny himself cannot be his Disciple Matth. 16. 24. And what Self-denial can there be where we do not deny our selves in that which is most pernicious to our better part For so are these sensual Delights Not to be Christ's Disciple is to have no part in him Not to have any part in him is to be none of his Sheep and not to be of his Sheep iâ— to be placed with the Goats at the lefâ— hand in the last Day and what the consequence of that is you may read Matth. 25. 41. It 's true maugre all that we can say to the contrary men who are resolved to indulge themselves in their brutish Delights will notwithstanding the contradiction they must needs be guilty of believe that they are Christ's Disciples and Favourites of Heaven and that Christ hath purchased Eternal Life for them and that at last they shall enjoy it but alas they know not what Eternal Life nor what Believing means as well may a man in Bedlam fancy him self to be a King as such Persons that they are the Beloved of God while they live in that which is most contrary to his Nature and like Enemies to the Cross of Christ like Persons that have nothing but Body nothing but Flesh nothing but Sense about them If men may be saved contrary to Christs Word contrary to his Declaration contrary to all the most solemn Protestations he hath made in the Gospel then such men may be saved not else who can reflect upon these doings without indignation or grief or sorrow or wishing for
rivers of tears That men should pretend to own the Gospel and yet live directly contrary to the Laws of it argues either Malice or Distraction or stupid Ignorance yet with such men for the most part we have to deal which makes S. Paul's Exhortation highly reasonable Finally Brethren pray for us that the Word of the Lord may have free course and be glorified and that we may be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men for all men have not Faith 2 Thes. 3. 1 2. 3. This embittering our carnal and sensual Delights is that which men for certain shall wish they had done when they come to stand before the great Tribunal In that Day mens Eyes will be opened and things will appear to them in other Colours than now they do Their Understandings will not be clogg'd with this World or Divertisements They will have other Apprehensions of the Nature of Vertue and Holiness and the Truth of what Christ hath delivered in the Gospel The Reasonableness of his Precepts the Equity of his Commands the Excellency of his Doctrine the Divinity of his Miracles the infallible Certainty of his Promises and Threatnings will all shine bright in their Eyes of all these they will be throughly convinced and no doubt no scruple no ambiguity will remain as to any of these Points the vileness of their Pleasures the brutishness of their Satisfactions the rashness of their Delights the baseness of their Enjoyments the brightness of those Vertues they have despised the glory of that Grace which they might have had and would not and the trivialness of the things they preferr'd before these will then appear so plain so legible that there will be no room left for Ignorance It 's true these things might be known here and would men take the right way they might come to be convinced and perswaded of them on this side Eternity for some we find are fully satisfied as to these Particulars and walk sutably to them and therefore it cannot be impossible for others to attain to it but their insensibleness is rather an Argument of stupid negligence and wilful laziness and so it must be where People are not or pretend not to be satisfied in things of this Nature It is therefore necessary there should a time come when they shall be able to make no excuse nor to evade the force of these Truths and when they shall behold how wise a choice the self-denying Soul hath made and what her mortifications and severities do end in what applauses they receive in Heaven what kind looks from the Everlasting Father what Honour what Dignity what preferment is designed and appointed for her how such a Soul Triumphs at this time over Hell and Devils dares all the Furies of the Burning-lake scorns those foes which led the sensual sinner captive makes her Nest among the Stars of Heaven is placed in the Quire of Angels meets with all the Caresses of a gracious God is encirled with Laurels and Crowns of Joy and all her Misery and Sorrows and Fears are at an end Reason tells us that the sensual Sinner when he shall behold all this will wish he had follow'd her example for that 's the necessary and eternal consequence of all imprudent Actions especially those that are grosly so for afterward men do as naturally wish that they had acted the part of wise men as Balaam that he might die the Death of the Righteous Thus men become wise after the Fact and when they find what fools they have been would be content that they had foreseen the evil and hid themselves Who would not wish in that day he had embittered his sensual delights that finds he is undone by eating of those luscious Apples And I need not tell you that it is every Man's Interest not to do that which he will wish he had not done when it is too late But of this I have said enough before The next Point follows and is a Case of Conscience how far sensual Delights must be embittered with this Prospect 5. Whether a Christian that would be saved is upon this account obliged to forbear and abandon all sensual and worldly delights and recreations whatsoever So not a few have thought in the Primitive times which made them retire from the World and deny themselves in all the Comforts of this Life and put themselves to very great hardships and self-denials being of opinion that they who laughed here would mourn hereafter and such as enjoyed the good things of this Life would be miserably poor hereafter They looked upon the two Worlds as opposites and consequently believed that the Means to arrive to the happiness of the future were directly contrary to all present satisfactions they concluded that they who would be happy hereafter must be unhappy here and that they who would be happy here could not be so hereafter from hence rose their selling all they had and giving it to the poor and the strange severities they used upon their Bodies whereof I have discoursed elsewhere and indeed the Gospel gives very little encouragement to any thing that savours of worldly pleasure nor do the Apostles allow much liberty in this particular whether it were that they thought that all sensual delights were improper for a state of persecution in which the Church then lived or whether it was that they were afraid such delights would damp their spiritual Fervour this is certain that there is little to be gathered from their Writings in favour of Sports and Recreations Yet as strict as the Gospel is it grants that we have Bodies as well as Souls and that if the Bow be not unbent sometimes the String will crack and become useless and though its possible for our Minds to soar so far above the World as to know and care for no other delights but what savour of God and the glories of another Life yet those spiritual delights will not be of any long continuance without the Body be allowed sutable refreshment and hath its intervals of ease and relaxation Were not some Divertisements lawful Christ would scarce have vouchsafed his Presence at the Wedding-Feast in Cana much less provided them Wine to encourage temperate chearfulness and hither may be referred St. John the Evangelist's playing sometimes with a Bird and going into a common Bath whereof Ecclesiastical Histories give us an Account yet since there is nothing more common with men than to confound their sinful Delights with lawful Recreations it will be necessary here to explain the Point in these following Porticulars 1. This must be laid down as a grand Principle of our Religion That a Spiritual delight in God in a Crucified Saviour and in the Blessed Effects and Influences of the Holy Ghost in the Graces and Fruits of the Spirit in feeling the Operations of the Divine Power and Glory upon our Souls in the precious Promises of of the Gospel in the Revelations God hath vouchsafed to Mankind in the Good
must be the fullness of his vertues that it may burst out from the mind within to the habit without and press from the conscience to the outward man that men from without may see what store and treasure he hath in the secret recesses of his Soul Voluptuousness and Wantonness must be renounced for by these the Vertue of Faith loses its masculine vigor I doubt the hand that hath been used to Bracelets will never endure the sturdiness of a Chain for Christ Jesus nor can I apprehend how the Knee used to a soft Garter will be able to endure the Stocks or Racks for the Gospel and I very much question whether that Neck which glistered with Pearls and precious Stones will ever yield unto the Sword of persecution therefore my beloved let 's chuse hard and uneasie things and we shall not feel them let 's forsake the pleasant things of this World and we shall not desire them these are the Anchors of our hope let 's lay aside these outward gayeties if we aim at the Wedding Garment in Heaven let not Gold prove the object of our love by which the sins of Israel are expressed let 's hate that which hath undone the Patriarchs and was adored by them after they had forsaken the fountain of living waters Come forth beloved and set before you the rich attire of the Prophets and Apostles of our Lord take your fairness from their simplicity your blushes from their modesty paint your eyes with their shamefacedness and your lips with their self-denial in speaking instead of Pendants insert in your ears the word of God and let your necks bear the yoke of Christ Jesus submit your heads to your own Husbands and then you 'll be dressed like Christians employ your hands about Wool and as much as you can keep at home and this will render you more amiable than Gold Clothe your selves with the Silk of Innocence with the Velvet of Holiness and with the Purple of Chastity and thus adorned God will fall in love with you 10. Delight in Painting and Patching and artificial meliorations of the Fate and Skin to please and delude spectators or to draw others into admiration of our persons as it is a thing which the very Heathens have condemn'd for reasons drawn from the light of nature so it is almost needless to discourse of it or to batter it with Arms and Weapons out of the Magazine of the Gospel This Delight hath in most Ages been infamous and the thing it self counted incongruous with the Law of our very Creation The Fathers of the second third and fourth Centuries derive the Original of it from the Devil and will allow nothing of this nature in any person that looks like a Christian It is a sign that the Spirit of Christ doth not dwell in a person that dares delight in such Vanities for that Spirit inclines the Soul to other things makes her regardless of Beauty and external Comeliness obliges her solicitous about inward Accomplishments and how she may please him that died and hath purchased an eternal Salvation for her and it 's enough that he that hath not the Spirit of Christ is none of his A Soul that hath the Spirit of Christ hath other things to do than spend her time and care in mending the Face for they that are after the Flesh do mind the things of the Flesh but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit And what are the things of the Spirit but setting our affections upon the things which are above meditating of the purchased possession longing after the light of God's countenance despising the world self-denial taking up the Cross of Christ a transcendent love of God a burning zeal to his Glory laying up in store a good foundation against the time to come growing strong in the Lord and in the power of his might resisting temptations growing in Grace labouring after a greater hatred of sin a greater fore-taste of Heaven a greater conformity to the Will of God a greater sense of the love of God c. And he that in good earnest minds these things will have no great desire to busie himself about such pitiful trivial and impertinent things these will be trash and dirt to him and his Soul will soar above them and scorn them as the Devils Lime twigs whereby he lies in wait to deceive And though I will not deny but that a man in case of danger and when his Life is in jeopardy or when he would pass through a party of his Enemies may lawfully disguise himself and by Art change and alter his Countenance that he may not be known and though a man who hath lately had the Small Pox or hath been Sun-burnt or whose Face hath been parch'd with Wind may lawfully take care by ordinary helps to reduce his face to his former or native colour and complexion and though we do not judge it against the Law of God to hide some great Blemish or Defect in the Face whereby Spectators may be offended and particularly Women that are with Child frighted and though it is not inconsistent with the Rule of the Gospel to wash the Face when dirty yet all those Pains and additional Washes and artificial black Spots whereby Men and Women endeavour either to set off their complexion the better to give themselves a more pleasing Colour or to mend their Meen or to make themselves look more beautiful or to attract the Eyes and Admiration and sometimes the unlawful Amours of those they converse withal are things which a Christian must be a stranger to When I say Men it is not without reason for we read of such a Beast as Paul the Second Pope of Rome who whenever he went abroad painted himself that the Beauty of his Face might in some measure be answerable to the Comeliness of his Stature which was procere and tall and it is to be feared that this Effeminacy dwells in too many Persons of the Masculine Sex at this day However as Women are usually more faulty this way than Men so they give us but small hopes to believe that they are Heirs of Heaven while they are so industrious to please their Acquaintance and others here on Earth St. Paul would not please Men no not in the Ceremonies of the Law which were things formerly commanded by God thinking it unworthy of a Christian that had been freed from that Yoke by the Son of God and how unworthy must it be then to please Men in things which God hath never commanded nay by many hints and places discovered his dislike of How justly may God look upon it as Presumption to alter that Face which he thought fit to create in that shape it is of And what is it but contending with our Maker and expostulating with the Potter Why hast thou made me thus and controuling his Art and Wisdom while not content with the Countenance he hath given we seek
Scripture speaks of cannot but conclude that there is less Danger in Seriousness and Sorrow than in Mirth and Jollity because there are fewer Temptations in the one than there are in the other Our Natures certainly are not so prone to sin in a Charnel House as they are at a Theatre nor our Affections so apt to run out into Licentiousness in a Church as they are at a publick Shew And though a Man may be strong and couragious and able to defie all Dangers yet a Sampson may be overcome by a Dalilah and if he be not overcome yet something may stick by him which may put an everlasting stop to his Growth in Grace and Virtue He that goes much to the House oâ— Mourning provides infinitely better for the Safety of his Soul than he that frequents the House of Mirth and Feasting the former walks in a beaten Path whereas the other ventures over a narrow Bridge or treads on the edge of a Wall where it 's possible he may come off with Safety but for one that escapes without a Fall there are twenty and forty that miscarry He that presses through a Hedge of Thorns may possibly get through without tearing his Cloaths but he that hath Patience till he comes to a Gate and opens it and so passes on takes the surer way The wisest Men in all Ages have judged it better to converse with Spectacles of Misery than with Objects savouring of external Splendour He that visits a Hospital where he beholds variety of distressed Creatures some lame some blind some wounded some deaf some sick some roaring under grievous Pains will certainly go away more edified than he that feeds his Eyes with all the Gayeties of a luxurious Court the former may leave some kindly Impressions upon him and oblige him to admire the distinguishing Mercy Goodness and Compassion of God who hath suffer'd no such Accident to befall him and season his Heart with Pity and Compassion with Tenderness and Charity whereas the excess and extravagance of the other will do what he can leave a touch of Lightness and Vanity upon his Affections That 's the Reason why some provident Men heretofore have carried their Winding-Sheets with them in their March others digg'd their Sepulchres and Graves in their Gardens others at their Solemn Feasts have had a Death's-Head served up and placed upon the Table others in a certain Room in their House have set an empty Coffin on purpose that looking upon these Spectacles often their Minds might be taken off from Admiration of worldly Satisfactions and placed upon Objects which might furnish them with more melancholick Contemplations and this in all Probability will be the effect of conversing with such Objects if we view them not as they belong to our Trade but as thinking Men and Philosophers The Sexton that digs his Neighbours Grave hath an Object serious enough before him but he goes to it as a Man that must maintain his Family with the Gain and therefore is never the wiser for his Familiarity with such Spectacles The Chyrurgion that goes among the Lame and Bruised and Wounded with no higher ends than to fill his Purse and to discharge the Office of his Art will come home as little edified as he went but he whose choice of such mortified Objects is voluntary and deliberate attended with suitable Designs of meliorating and advancing the Mind cannot but return enrich'd with that Wisdom the Merchandise of which is more precious than that of Gold and Silver Whatever the merry Sinner may think it 's better to weep than to laugh Our Great Master the Lord Jesus who is a good Christian's Pattern was of this Opinion and in Imitation of him not a few eminent Saints have preferr'd a Feast of Tears before a Banquet of Mirth and sensual Pleasure Arsenius Olympias Domnina Abraham the Hermite the solitary Pambo and St. Austin are famous in History for their Tears to St. Jerom they were in the nature of daily Bread and he professes that when his Eyes were fullest of Tears he saw the Quires of Angels and could discern the Orders of Seraphim and Cherubim such a Perspicuity of sight do Tears give to a Holy Soul That which made these great Men weep so much was either a Sense of their own and other mens Offences or a lively Prospect of the Love of God or a glorious foresight of the Joys above But worldly Sorrow is no Virtue and he that weeps much either because he cannot have those Conveniences he would have or is cross'd and disappointed in his Designs or because he hath lost such a great Man's Favour or because some other Loss befalls him weeps in vain nay sins by his weeping and his Sin if he continue impenitent brings on Death 2 Cor. 7. 10. Floods of Tears upon a mere temporal Account are insignificant in Heaven and no more than Water spilt upon the Ground such Tears God doth not put into his Bottle nor have the blessed Angels any Charge to number the drops that fall but where Religion and a mighty Sense of God and Tenderness of his Honour and Glory causes Rivers of Tears and where the Soul hath so delicate a Taste that it cannot think of God without weeping nor speak of him without weeping nor reflect upon his Goodness without weeping there the Man is come up to a Perfection which is the very Suburbs of Heaven It 's true all People cannot weep nor are they therefore in a damnable Condition for they may be sincere in Goodness and yet not be able to express their Sincerity in Tears though I am apt to believe that it is for want of refining the Soul into a high Relish of Divine Objects that puts a stop to these sacred Floods in most Men yet where they can weep and something they see â—n God or in the Word of God or in the Providences of God is the true Cause of those Tears every drop is richer than a Diamond and such a Soul may vye Happiness with the greatest Monarchs They are inestimable Treasures and though Man knows not how to value them yet the Spirits above esteem them at a mighty rate and magnifie them in Gods Presence Luke 15. 10. It 's a huge Mistake that Men cannot rejoyce except they laugh there are Tears of Joy as well as Tears of Grief and the very Heathen saw that true â—oy was a very serious thing Hence 〈◊〉 was that they confined true Joy to their Philosophers and left the louder â—aughter to Slaves and Carters and â—loughmen and how often have I â—en the richest Joys bubble forth from â—â—e largest Tears Nor would Men in those Circumstances change Condition with the most potent Prince in the World such Content such Satisfaction such Riches such Wealth appears in these Tears which Religion forces How much better is it to be afflicted where our Prosperity and a good Conscience are inconsistent than to enjoy Kingdoms and Principalities without the light of Gods Countenance
This was the excellent choice of Moses and of all the Martyrs of old who were content to be sawn asunder to be stoned to be tormented to wander about in Caves and Dens weeping and destitute rather than desile their Souls with Sin which puts me in mind of the good Advice St. Jerom gave to his Friend Heliodorus Did the Babe thy Grand child saith he hang about thy Neck should thy Mother that bare thee bid thee look upon the Breasts thou hast sucked should thine own Father lie prostrate at thy Feet and intreat thee to spare thy self and to forbear venturing on the Strictness and Severities of Religion get away from them my Friend and with dry Eyes fly unto the Banner of Christ Jesus in this case to be cruel is the greatest Piety This was the Case of the Primitive Believers who preferred their Distresses before Nero's Chair of State and took greater Pleasure in their seemingly forlorn Condition than Claudius or Caligula in their Affluence In the midst of their Tears they were greater men than their Persecutors and though they wanted all things and their Enemies had all that Heart could wish yet they justly believed themselves happier in their Funeral Dress than the other in their Triumphs The Man that roars in a Tavern or sings in an Ale-house or rejoyces in his Sin had more need to wish that his head were water and his eyes a Fountain of Tears were he in his Wits he would do so But his Reason is distorted his Understanding darkned his Eyes blinded his Mind unhing'd his Desires perverted his Affections led astray and like a distracted Creature he rejoyces in his Nakedness Ah brutish and inconsiderate Soul Thou weepest to see a Child or a near Relation dye and canst thou see thy Soul die and be robb'd of that Goodness which must give her Life and be unconcerned Thou weepest at the loss of a thousand Pounds and canst thou remember how thou losest God's Favour and all Right and Interest in the Merits of a crucified Saviour and keep thine Eyes dry Thou weepest to see a Friend drowning or burning in a merciless Fire and canst thou think how thou flingest thy self into the Furnace of God's Wrath makest his Anger kindle and wax hot against thee and dost what thou canst to turn it into a Fire which no Man no Angel can quench and will no Tears flow into thine Eyes How barbarous how inhumane is thy Joy What dost thou rejoyce in That Sin which makes thee merry that Folly which chears thy Spirit what is it but Ingratitude to thy kindest Benefactor What is it but requiting the greatest Good with the greatest Evil What is it but contempt of him who keeps thy Soul in Life What is it but bidding defiance to him who carries thee on his Wings and out-does the tenderness of a Mother the care of a Father and doth all that 's fitting to guard thy Soul from Ruin And are these fit things to rejoyce in Are these fit Objects of thy Mirth Are these Divertisements proper for a Creature that holds his very Being of God and is beholding to him for all the Blessings he enjoys What wonder if after all this Impiety and Stubborness God rejoyces too rejoyces in thy Groans rejoyces in thy Anguish rejoyces in thy Agonies rejoyces in thy Sense of his Justice rejoyces in thy Howlings This he must do at last to secure his Honour This he will be obliged to do in the end to vindicate the Veracity of his Threatnings This he will be constrained to do after all that Devils may not mock his Holiness nor deride his Thunders nor upbraid him with Partiality At that time this will appear very good Divinity no Fable no Romance no Trade of Priests no Invention of Politicians no old Wifes Tale no idle Story and if thou could'st exhaust the Sea in that day and weep it out again to testifie thy unfeigned Sorrow thou would'st do it Happy the Soul that thinks of this Happy the Man that believes these Terrors before he feels them How much wiser are those tender Hearts that do little else but weep and mourn and make their Life a Valley of Tears without a Metaphor whose Fear of offending God is so great that every little Defect and every accidental Miscarriage forces Tears from their Eyes Though there may be some Indiscretion in the Management of their Conscientiousness yet notwithstanding all this their Tears are the Wine of Angels these are the gaudy Dress of a holy Soul The Almighty that sees her adorned with these Pearls and glistering in these Pendants falls on her Neck and kisses her Fear not ye afflicted and toss'd with Tempests So the Lord Jesus wept though not for his own Sins yet for the Sins of others and was receiv'd into Glory so Mary Magdalen wept and on those Streams a gracious Pardon was convey'd into her Soul so the great St. Paul wept and found the Consolations of Christ abounding in him so the penitent Publican wept and went justified to his House They that sow in Tears shall reap in Joy Blessed are ye that weep now for ye shall laugh Luk. 6. 21. There is a place high wondrous high above where all Tears shall be wiped away and no Sorrow no Grief no Anguish shall appear so we have heard so we shall see e'er long in the City of our God Verily Verily I say unto you That ye shall weep and lament but the World shall rejoyce and ye shall be sorrowful but your Sorrow shall be turned into Joy A Woman when she is in Travel hath Sorrow because her Hour is come but as soon as she is deliver'd of the Child she remembers no more the Anguish for Joy that a Man is born into the World And ye now therefore have Sorrow but I will see you again and your Heart shall rejoyce and your Joy no Man takes from you Joh. 16. 20 21 22. 2. See here how differently spiritual things affect Men as they either attentively or inattentively think upon them The process of the Day of Judgment to a Man that retires and through Desire separates himself to think of it as the Covetous doth of his Gold or as the Timorous doth of his Danger i. e. in good earnest it will prove an invincible motive to self-denial Another that looks upon it as a thing spoke of in course every Lords day thinks of the Words as he hears them but ruminates not upon the Sense is no more moved with it than the Carcasses that sleep in their Graves forbears not one Sin for it but doth still as he used to do mind his Body gratifie his Flesh pursue his temporal Interest comply with sinful Men please himself regard Religion on the By and set his Affections on things below And as it is in this so it is in other Truths for do but take a view of the Publick Assemblies here the glad Tidings of God's Mercy to penitent Sinners shall make an humble Spirit
weep melt his Heart and force him into humble Thoughts and lively Admirations of God's Condescension there sits another and either sleeps all the while or continues in as even a Temper as he came What 's the Reason One weighs the Importance of this Truth considers the vast distance betwixt God and sinful Man thinks if these things be true how marvellous God's Love must be and that touches him to the Quick The other's Thoughts are unstable as Water uncertain and inconstant he satisfies himself with this that he hath heard a Sermon performed his Complement to God and consequently finds no Alteration in his inward Man How have I seen sometimes a pious Soul transported with a lively Description of the unseen everlasting Glory while the greatest part of the Congregation have been no more concerned at it than if the Orator had spoke of common Trees and Herbs and the Hysop on the Wall the Reason is plain The one thinks of it as a Believer the other as an Infidel The one reflects Lord what am I and what is my Father's house that thou intendest to advance me to this Dignity lift up a poor Worm from a Dunghil to a Throne and place him with Princes even with the Princes of thy People the innumerable Company of Angels The other pleases himself only with the Sound mingles the Thoughts of the World with his Devotion suffers not the glorious Object to lye long in his Mind and so it passes as it came without any Impression Here one rejoyces at the precious Promises of the Gospel his very Heart leaps at the joyful News and they come like Oyl into his Bones warm his very Soul and pierce even to the dividing asunder of Soul and Spirit there another sits like a Stock and wonders what ails his Neighbour to keep such a stir about a few empty Words But why should'st thou wonder at the Change thou see'st in thy Friend He thinks of the Veracity of God and how these Promises will most certainly be fulfilled he thinks how the Riches God promises exceed all the Treasures of this present World and what Satisfaction they afford to a hungry Soul how far they do transcend these earthly Glories and how to have a share in them is a far greater Priviledge than to be related to the greatest Monarchs and that raises his Soul into that secret Joy Thou thinkest no more than a Lyon or Elephant thinkest more of thy Profit and Gain than of these intellectual Treasures thy Thoughts are not busie about these Enjoyments thou thinkest it time lost to spend any serious Thoughts upon them and how should thy duller Soul be affected with them Here the Example of a valiant Saint that fought with his Lusts overcame his Desires stood stedfast in the hour of Temptation conquer'd the Devil vanquish'd all Oppositions kept the Faith finish'd his Course with joy draws an attentive Soul into Imitation of his Virtues There another that hears or reads the same Description feeds still on his Husks follows his careless Neighbour delights in vain Company continues in his Aversion from the stricter Lives of holy Men. The Reason is evident for the one thinks of the noble Attempts such Souls have made how they are applauded in Heaven how they have signaliz'd their Valour what Comforts they have prepared for and of the Reward they now enjoy the other looks upon them as melancholick Men thinks of his present Pleasure more than of a future Recompence dives not into the nature of these Conquests reflects not how agreeable they are to Reason or how necessary in order to a Crown but thinks he may have the Diadem spoken of with less Trouble and therefore he sits still upon his Dunghil Vain Sons of Men How long will ye turn your Glory into Shame Hath God bestowed upon you a Faculty which Beasts are Strangers to and for which Devils envy you even Reason and Understanding the true Image of your Maker and will you let it lie dormant in the Ashes and Rubbish of your sensual Inclinations When God hath distinguish'd you from the ignobler Brutes will you be like the Horse and Mule whose Mouths must be held with Bitt and Bridle Behold the Almighty hath prepared a Supper for you and when the Morning and Noon of your Life is spent designs a Feast for you at Night immediately after Death a Feast where the Lamb that was slain sits Master and intends to bid you welcome a Feast where the Meat will be Angels Food the Wine Hallelujahs and the Entertainment Perfection of Bliss and Glory the Company the Apostles of the Lamb and the Spirits of Men made perfect a Feast where no Good will be absent and no Evil present where Plenty and Affluence will last for ever where Joys will abound and the beatifick Presence of God will charm and ravish Souls to all Eternity To this Feast he calls you to this Banquet he invites you to this Table he sends for you to these Dainties you are bid to these Delicates you are entreated to come of these Varieties you shall be made Partakers and is it not worth considering what this mighty Offer means What if you see it not with mortal Eyes your Thoughts may see it your Understanding may behold it your Reason may take a view of it Your Thoughts will tell you that God who cannot lye hath promised it the Son of God who is Truth it self hath revealed it the Apostles who came attended with the Power of Miracles have publish'd it These will tell you that there can be no doubt of it and that it is as certain as if you were actually Sharers of it Give but your Understanding leave to search into this Mystery and you will be charmed with it give but your Reason leave to ascend and descend upon the Ladder of the Word of God and you will feel a Hunger and Thirst after it your Souls will long for it your Affections will breath after it and your inward and outward Man will labour after it and strive to enter in at the strait Gate and shall all these Riches be lost upon you for want of Thinking and Contemplation Could you by thinking make those Joys visible to you and will ye refuse it Could you by meditating make that Glory present to you and will you neglect the Opportunity Could you by musing and pondering bring Heaven into your Chambers and Closets and will ye debarr your selves of that glorious Sight See what you lose by your Inconsiderateness See what Consolations what Satisfactions what Cordials you deprive your immortal Souls of Can you see other Men run away with all the Comforts of the Gospel and remain senseless Can you see others get into the Pool of Bethesda before you and recover and are you fond of continuing lame and blind and poor and miserable Can you see others carry away the Crown and feel no Ambition in you Can you see others take away the Blessing of your Father
they had them not nor indeed did they care for them when they were offered them it was Religion that engrossed their Delight This made them joyful in all Conditions this raised their drooping Spirits under the Rage of their Persecutors and certainly it would be hard if a glorious God with all his Attributes and the wonderful things he hath revealed to our Comfort were improper Objects of Delight and since these are the genuine Delights of a Christian O besotted Soul why dost thou delight in broken Cisterns when thou hast the Fountain of living Waters to delight in Why dost thou delight in Apes and Peacocks when thou hast the Creator of all these to rejoyce in Why dost thou delight in a morsel of Meat when thou hast the Birth-right of eternal Glory to delight in Why dost thou delight in the shade of the Bramble when thou hast the shadow of God's Wings to delight in Why dost thou delight in the nether Springs when thou hast the upper Springs of Mercy to delight in Why dost thou delight 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when thou hast a House made without Hands to delight in Why dost thou delight in the Rivers of Damascus when thou hast the River of God's Pleasure to delight in Why dost thou delight in a fading Beauty when thou hast him that 's altogether lovely to delight in Why dost thou delight in the Voice of a deceitful Siren when thou hast him whose Voice comforts the Mourners of Sion to delight in Why dost thou delight in the Slavery of thy Lusts when thou hast him whose Service is perfect Freedom to delight in Why dost thou delight in a little Gain in Drops of Happiness in Crumbs of Bliss in shining Dust when thou hast a Sea of Glory to delight in How deep must thy Soul lye immerst in Body if such illustrious Objects cannot delight it How far must thou be yet from the Kingdom of Heaven if things of this nature cannot content thee How earthly must thy Heart be how debauch'd how perverted from the end of its Creation if these spiritual Delights are insipid to it There are some among us I believe who have tasted of both Delights the sinful ones of the Flesh and those which are proper for holy Souls tell me I beseech you whether you think a Fit of Laughter or a drunken Bout or a merry Meeting you once delighted in so sweet so comfortable so refreshing as the gentle and soft and kinder Influences of God's Spirit when you have been engaged in Prayer and Praises and Contemplations of a future State When you have been wrestling with God and after that work of Love have felt a holy assurance of God's Favour upon your Spirits can any thing be more pleasing or charming than those divine Communications When you have entred into Meditation of God's goodness and the Love of God hath shined bright upon your Souls have not you felt that which hath been as much beyond all sensual Delights as an oriental Pearl is beyond Brass or Copper or such baser Minerals Have not you found a Joy stealing upon your Souls after such refreshing Considerations as hath transported you even into love of Martyrdom How contented have you been after such Exercises or after some signal Self-denial How harmonious have your Spirits and Affections been after such Enjoyments of God's loving Kindness and how like soft and curious Musick have these Gales of the Divine Goodness composed your troubled Thoughts and hush'd them into a lasting Peace And is not this infinitely better than the Pleasures of Sardanapalus of Dives and other luxurious men Will not this turn to better account at last than fleshly Lusts which war against the Soul Look upon Heliogabalus who tryed how great a Monster a man could make himself in his Cloaths you should see nothing but Gold and Purple his Beds were embroidered and the Feathers that were in them must be the softer Feathers of Partridges taken from under their Wings mix'd with the finest Rabbets hair He would ride in a Chariot shining with Rubies and Diamonds and not only in the out-side of his Shooes but even within he would have precious Stones he would not ride abroad under six hundred Coaches with him his Beds and Rooms were strow'd with all sorts of curious Flowers and an everlasting Perfume filled his Halls and Parlors sometimes in a Frolick he would be drawn in a Chariot by four Mastiff Dogs sometimes by four Stags sometimes by four Tygers as Bacchus sometimes by four Lions as Cybele sometimes by four beautiful Women Now and then he would cause Ships to be richly laden with all costly Commodities and then sink them in the Sea At some of his Meals he would have six hundred Estriches Heads at the Table And when the Humour took him all his Courses should be nothing but Pheasants heaped and piled together in Dishes sometimes they should all be Pullets sometimes nothing would serve him but to have all sorts of deformed men at his Table eight lame Men eight blind eight Blacks eight gouty eight fat eight bald eight deaf In such Fooleries he delighted and because the Syrian Priests had told him that he would die an unnatural Death he would keep Poison in golden Vessels to kill himself before any Person should be able to lay hold on him to this purpose he would have silken Halters about him and Penknifes set with Diamonds to dispatch himself when he should see occasion And he built also a Tower which he over-laid with Gold that in Case of any sudden Attack he might throw himself from the top of it These were the sottish Delights of this man and yet after all he died in a Jakes I have mention'd this Brute and his Actions because there are in his short Life all the extravagant Actions that a distemper'd Brain can invent and all the Delights that a mad man could think of yet who would not prefer a Delight in a good Conscience and delight in God's Worship and delight in Acts of Charity and delight in heavenly Thoughts before it Sensual Delights must at last expire but spiritual Delights do not die but as you have seen those vast Balls of burnish'd Brass on Church-Steeples cast a glorious lustre assoon as the Sun shines upon them so at a serious man's Death his delight in Holiness upon God's favourable Acceptance of it instead of expiring and decaying immediately grows bigger in its Glory the Rays of it spread and enlarge their Borders and stretch themselves into Eternity And therefore 4. Who can harbour any hard Thoughts of Religion because it debars us of disorderly sensual Delights In doing so it does us a kindness is our Friend prevents our Danger saves us from the Pit delivers us from Hell makes us live like Men. It doth not debar us of that which will make us happy nor hinder us from solid Joy nor deprive us of such sensual Delights as are necessary for our Preservation The Delights it keeps us from
are fitter for Swine than for rational Creatures it separates us from delights which will lead the Soul into the Shadow and Valley of Death from Delights which dethrone the ruling part in us make the Master serve the Man and from Princes debase us to a state of Thraldom It denies us such delights as make God our Enemy move him to depart from us and provoke him to Indignation It will not suffer us to meddle with Delights which destroy the Glory of the Mind damp our Zealâ— alienate the Heart from God and drive away his holy Spirit from us It is against all such delights as would make us miserable and enamoured with Sin and the World and in being an Enemy to such Delights it consults our good It is more favourable to us than we are to our selves and seeks to make us like God God is above all sensual Delights he is not taken with the Beauty of the Face in Man or Woman he undervalues a great Table and hates the Prodigality of the Spend thrift he hath no Body to please no Eyes to satisfie with glittering Objects no Ears to delight with artificial Sounds no Blood to cherish with studied Cordials and though the World be his and the fullness thereof yet he solaces not himself in the Pleasures of it his Delights are great like himself spiritual like his Essence infinite as his Glory eternal as his Being he delights in himself and is to himself the Object of his Pleasure he delights in the eternal brightness of his own Glory and the express Image of his Person he delights in his own boundless Understanding whereby he knows all things past present and to come and sees all Beings before they are and what will come to pass and dives into their nature ends designs and the Accidents that befall them his delight lies in doing good and communicating the Rays of his Holiness to his Subjects He delights in his own Perfections and Virtue is the amiable Spectacle of his Eyes he delights in a Soul that loves him and an humble Heart is to him a glorious sight The Soul that loves her own Lowliness and is content to be little and despised in the World embraces Contempt and Reproaches and like the mighty Jesus runs with Patience the Race that 's set before her this causes Joy in Heaven To this likeness Religion would advance the Soul not that it attempts to give it the same Perfection but that it designs to work some Resemblance betwixt her and that Sovereign Being The Soul being in some measure capable of this Delight its Endeavour is to bring her to a sense of it In a word it seeks to reduce Man to the first state of Innocence from which by Sin he fell And though Adam had all the Riches and Glories of the World concentred in his Paradise yet his Delights were more spiritual than sensual since his Joys were not so much from the Flowers and Trees and Animals themselves as from the Excellency Power Wisdom Greatness of God which glistered in their Make and Use and the Ends for which they were created He saw indeed the proud Tulip the fragrant Rose the odoriferous Jessamin and rejoyced he beheld the Cherry the Fig the Almond and the Apple and triumph'd he cast his Eyes on the laden Trees and how they seemed to let down their Arms to put their richer fruits into his Mouth and was glad he took a view of the Fishes that danced and leap'd in the Chrystal Rivers that water'd the glorious place and his Spirits were enliven'd but at the same time the Bounty Liberality and Omnipotence of the great Architect of all appeared so lively to his Mind that he made his Garden a true Emblem of Heaven fell down and Day and Night sung the Praises of his Creator as if he vyed with the Angels of the upper World and were trying who should hold out longest at melodious Hallelujahs This Kindness Religion intends to our Souls and therefore suggests unto us the Promises and Threatnings of God to keep our Feet steddy in the way they are to walk in to this purpose it tells us That he who loves sensual Pleasure shall be a poor man poor in Grace poor in gifts of God's holy Spirit poor with Respect to God's Favour poor even to contempt destitute of those richer incomes which sanctified Souls receive deprived of the Juice and Sap which flows from the flourishing Vine the Lord Jesus in want of a fore-taste of Heaven and of a sense What the hope of God's calling is and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance is in the Saints and what is the exceeding greatness of his Power toward them that believe according to the working of his mighty Power which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead and set him at his own right Hand in heavenly places Eph. 1. 18 19 20. Who can grumble at Religion after all these advantages Who can find fault with it after this prospect of its benefits Who dares asperse that beauteous Virgin after such Fruits it bears Who would not esteem it Who would not prize it Who would not honour it Who would not speak well of it Who would not look upon it as a horn of plenty and a treasury of the greatest comforts Who would not maintain the honour of it against all opponents who would not vindicate it when it is abused Who would not rise up in defence of it when blasphemous Tongues would traduce and revile it Let no man say here I can follow my Carnal pleasures and yet be religious too Alas What Piety can that be where thy Affections are divided betwixt Religion and Worldly Pleasures and where these Delights commonly have the greater share May be thou sayest thy Prayers so have I seen Parrets and Magpies repeat a few Sentences which they have been taught May be thou goest to Church so have I seen a blind man sit down by a Candle but to no purpose Thou mayest attempt to reconcile the Temple of God and Idols but these attempts are as vain as thy pleasures are while these sensual delights ingross thy Mind the Word must needs be a dead Letter to thee Heaven cannot supple thy Soul Hell cannot fright it the Thunders of God are insignificant to it and thou art unfit to dye unfit to appear at the great Tribunal The Heathens tell this Fable That Ceres coming down from Heaven one day gave out that she was a Nurse whereupon King Eleusius took her to attend his Son Triptolemus and having him under her Tuition in the day time she sed him with celestial Milk and in the night she cover'd him with Fire to give him Immortality Religion is that Fire which must make you immortal this purges away your dross and cleanseth you Hearts from the dregs of Sin and Death makes you bright and shining and capable of eternal Light No Nurse is so tender of you as Religion is it feeds you
Hell there is no Friend all are Enemies all hate one another because none can deliver the other from his Torments In a sick Bed Neighbours may give their advice but in Hell no advice can be given for the Inhabitants are not capable of taking it The Devils indeed may advise them to speak evil of God because of the irreversible doom they lie under but that 's a Remedy infinitely worse than the Disease and they that follow this counsel increase God's Anger and their own Plagues and as they venture upon new Sins so God must inflict new Curses and try new Rods and new Scourges which makes the misery truly infinite Such Reflections the sight of a sick and dying Man will cause nor is this judging of his everlasting and final State but a mere occasional Meditation undertaken for no other end but to affect our own Souls with the day of God's righteous Judgment to improve our own Thoughts and to make a holy use of such Occasions as God's Providence thinks fit to present to us 6. Whenever you go to a Funeral think of this Day of Judgment It 's a marvellous thing to see how Men spend their time at Funerals Though they are in the Room where the dead Body lies yet they drink and laugh and are merry and talk of any thing that their Fancy or their Business or the Reports of People abroad do suggest Though Death stands before them and the Corps seems to exhort them to Contemplations of their Mortality and the Consequences of Death yet how carefully do they shun all Discourses and Thoughts of that Nature The Life the Actions the Vertues and the good Qualities of the dead Persons might deserve some Pious Conferences or his Change and passing from this Life into another and being freed from the Burden of the Flesh and from innumerable Troubles and Vexations which this Life is subject to would be no unseasonable Subject of Discourse upon such Occasions But so great is the Aversion of most men from such kind of Entertainments that any thing rather than this though never so frivolous shall be hearken'd to and either the News of the Town or their Trade or their Merchandise or their Sports or some thing of this Nature is preferr'd before the melancholy Prospect of Eternity Or if some Pious Person begins a Spiritual Discourse or to talk of something suitable to that Occasion the Company is struck dumb on a sudden and glad when the Stream turns and some other impertinent Subject is pitch'd upon In a word Men go to a Funeral as to a Play or Shew and as they bring no serious Thoughts with them so they carry none away But thus it must not be with you who are sensible that such Opportunities are presented to you by Providence to strengthen your inward Man And therefore when you see the Mourners go about the Streets when you your selves accompany the Corps to the Grave think of the great Sentence the Soul will receive upon her Approaches to the Throne of the Heavenly Majesty St. Hierom describing the Funeral of the happy Paula that famous Saint who while she lived here was Eyes to the Blind a Nurse of the Poor a Staff to the Lame and an Example to all religious Persons tells us That when she was dead there were heard no Shrieks no Howlings no Weeping no despairing Lamentations but Psalms and Hymns and spiritual Songs her Corps was carried to the Grave upon Bishops Shoulders Prelates carried Lamps and Wax-Candles before her and a Quire of Singing-Men accompanied her to her Tomb and most of the People of Palestina came together to attend the Funeral The Monks crept out of their Cells the Virgins from their Retirement and good Men in all Places thereabout thought it Sacriledge not to pay the last Office to her The Widows and Orphans as in the case of Dorcas came and shew'd the Garments she had made for them and all the indigent and needy cryed they had lost a Mother and for three Days Psalms were sung in Greek Hebrew Latin and Syriack and every Body celebrated her Funeral as if it had been their own When you behold the Funeral of such a holy Person think how with far greater Pomp the Angels meet the Soul of the deceased at the Gates of Heaven and on their Shoulders carry it to the Throne of everlasting Mercy Think how joyfully those blessed Ministers conduct such a Soul to her eternal Rest and how they triumph that she is deliver'd from the Burden of the Flesh and advanced from a Valley of Tears to a place of endless Glory When the great Constantius died in Britain his Ashes were put in a golden Chest and with great Pomp carried through France and Italy to Rome but think how far greater Honour it is for such a holy Soul to be convey'd by the Spirits of Light into the City coming down from Heaven prepared as a Bride adorned for her Husband the twelve Gates whereof are twelve Pearls and the Streets pure Gold as it were transparent Glass On the other side when you see the stately Funeral of a voluptuous and sensual Man such as Attila was the Soldiers tearing their Hair the Courtiers weeping the Body wrap'd up in Silk the Guard proclaiming his valiant Actions and Monuments erected upon the Grave of Gold of Silver and of Iron think on the more dismal Funeral of his Soul in case it was not wash'd here with the Waters of Repentance and which is the greatest Purification with the Blood of Jesus think if the Soul be for ever separated from the glorious Presence of God and commanded away into everlasting Darkness not all the stately Monuments raised for the honour of her Body will qualifie her Misery in the other World not all the Acclamations or Applauses of Flatterers will give her any Comfort not all the Riches she enjoy'd on Earth nor all her Wealth and Greatness and Dominion will there extinguish the least Spark of Fire her Conscience will feel This dreadful Funeral will be attended with crouds of unhappy Spirits who instead of mourning will rejoyce at the Guest that 's come into their Tents and Lycaon like cover her with eternal Darkness Such a Soul is laid in a worse Grave than her Body even in the burning Lake where the Misery is proportion'd to her former Sins and her Conscience frighted with Scenes of Horror and the Remembrance of her quondam Pomp encreases her Discontent and Anguish think of this and learn to be sober think of this and learn self-denial think of this and learn not to love the World think of this and learn to secure the Light of God's Countenance think of this and learn to honour them that fear the Lord think of this and learn to do good in your Generation 7. To avoid the Terror of this future Judgment judge your selves here on Earth for if we would judge our selves we should not be judged saith the Apostle 1 Cor.
Rule of Sincerity Sirs matter not whether men do look upon you as devout but pray that God may esteem you so Alas what doth it signifie that men call me Religious when God knows I am an Hypocrite What comfort can it be to me that men think me charitable when God sees I give Alms to be seen of men What will it profit me that men call me Zealous and Fervent when God sees that gain and profit is the cause of it What doth it avail me that men say I pray well when God sees I study to please the Company What great matter is it that men applaud me for a single Virtue when God sees I am partial in my Obedience What great advantage can it be to me that men say I am humble when God sees pride in that very humility The Apostle therefore bids us look to the manner of our performances He that gives let him do it with simplicity He that rules with diligence He that shews Mercy with cheerfulness Let love be without dissimulation be kindly affectioned one to another with Brotherly Love c. Rom. 12. 8 9 10. So when you pray let your Hearts breath out holy Desires when you sing let your Minds bear a principal Part in the Hymn when you come to the Table of the Lord let your Souls be touch'd with the Love of Jesus when you are kind to your Neighbours banish all sinister Designs when you express any holy Fervours let God's Glory be in your Eye when you discharge any part of your Duty to God and Man let a cheerful Obedience to the Gospel be the Motive Do all this as unto God not as unto Men do it as if no Creature saw you do it as if none but God were before you do it as if you were to be summoned this Moment to Judgment such Services will endure the Probe such Devotions will stand good such Acts of Piety will bear searching such Works God himself will bear witness of that they were wrought according to his Will and by the Power of his holy Spirit 9. What Injuries you receive in this World from Men bear them patiently out of regard to this great Day of Judgment when God will set all things to rights and take care that you lose nothing by your Sufferings Rejoyce Christian in thine Innocence which God intends to proclaim in this Day before all Men and Angels He 'll wipe off all the Dirt and Aspersions that are thrown upon thee in that day He will bring forth thy Righteousness as the Light and thy Judgment as the Noon-day What need'st thou take notice of an Affront offer'd to thee when thy God stands engaged to take notice of it with a Witness in that day What need'st thou seek Revenge when thy Master whom thou servest is resolved to judge thy Cause in that Day What need'st thou fret and rage at the Contempt Men put upon thee here when thy great Lord will be sufficiently angry with the Offender in that day What need'st thou grieve that Men abuse thee here when thy Sovereign Master will grieve every Vein of the Reviler's Heart in that day What need'st thou be concerned for the Reproaches Men cast upon thee for thy Righteousness sake when he for whose Name thou sufferest will vindicate thy Wrongs and call the Persecuter Fool for his Pains in that day Say not At this rate there will be no living for me in the World but trust that God who hath promised to clear thy Innocence in that day and he will hide thee under the shadow of his Wings while thou art in this troublesome World he that preserved Elijah when Ahab and Jezabel and all the Prophets of Baal were enraged against him knows how to keep thee in the Hour of Temptation Ay but Revenge is sweet What if it be so to Flesh and Blood it will prove bitter to thy Spirit and if ever thou art saved a bitter Repentance must come in and salve the Wound and wilt thou prepare for a needless and uncertain Repentance How knowest thou whether God will after the Fact give thee his holy Spirit to come to this Repentance And what Cruelty is it when God is resolved to revenge thy Quarrel that thou wilt needs revenge it too If thou revengest it God will take no care to plead for thee but if thou leave thy Cause entirely to him thy patience will be infinitely recompens'd in that day Thus did thy blessed Master who when he suffer'd threatned not but committed himself to him that judges righteously Wilt thou boast of being his Disciple and art thou loath to follow his Example Fear not those Men who wrong thee now will be sufficiently sorry for the Injury either here if ever they be truly converted or hereafter when the Almighty will convince them to their everlasting Grief how much they were mistaken in their Verdicts and what sinister Constructions they put upon thy Actions how barbarous their Rage was against thee how inhumane the ill Language they gave thee and how unjust all their Reproaches were Do but stay a little while and thou shalt see it with thine Eyes Have but Patience until that appointed day and thou wilt find the Prophet was in the right when he said The Righteous shall rejoyce when he sees the Vengeance so that a Man shall say Verily there is a reward for the Righteous Verily he is a God that judges in the earth Psal. 58. 9 10. 10. Consider particularly That it will be more tolerable for Heathens and professed Infidels at this day than for Christians and not without reason Treason is more excusable in a Stranger than in a Citizen or Domestick and more may be pleaded for a sinful Life in a Pagan than in one of Christ's own Houshold A Heathen is obliged to God by the Right of Creation and Preservation but a Christian hath besides these Baptism and his Vows to tye him his Motives to the Fear of God are stronger than they can be in other Religions Where the greatest Rewards are there we may justly believe People will be most industrious most laborious and most sedulous No Religion proposes those rewards that Christianity doth The Heathens either had doubtful Apprehensions of an everlasting Happiness or were Strangers to the nature of it Among us this endless Glory is not only professed but most clearly revealed we are sure of it confident of it have no reason to dispute the certainty of it and the nature of it is discovered to us by him who came out of his Fathers Bosom therefore he that under these Manifestations proves careless and negligent of God's Love can have no Excuse And as Heaven is or may be seen in all its Glories among us so we are assured of a burning Lake of an endless Misery which attends the unconscionable and disobedient whereof the Notions of Pagans and Idolaters were but dark and consequently we have a stronger Bridle to curb the Violence of
we see wrought in our selves and others in the Providences of God and in Contemplation of his various dealings with the several States Orders and Degrees of Men in Psalms and Hymns and Praises of the Divine Majesty in the thoughts and expectations of a better Life in the Treasures God hath laid up for them that fear him in another World and in the various Priviledges Prerogatives and Advantages of Holy Men c. It is certain I say that delighting and rejoycing in such Spiritual Objects is the chief the principal and sovereign delight which a Christian is with greatest application of Mind to labour after and in comparison of this is obliged to count all these outward Comforts Dross and Dung and Dogs meat this is the delight which must engross his Desires Affections and Inclinations this must rule in his Soul this must be Mistress and Queen Regent in his Mind to this all must stoop and then things cannot but go well if this be secured and established Without worldly Pleasure Thousands of Saints have arrived to everlasting Bliss but without this none Sensual Delights are no part of a Christians Comfort but this Spiritual Delight is the one thing necessary and till a prospect of a future Judgment causes this Delight to rise in our Souls whatever sudden impression it may make sometime the Plant is not of our Heavenly Fathers planting Such must be the temper of our Souls in the aforesaid Objects our Souls must delight more than in all Riches and this delight being once setled in us such worldly delights as are subservient to this and do neither diminish nor darken nor hinder nor quench it may justly be said to be lawful 2. This being premised we do not deny but such worldly delights as are neither sinful in themselves nor apparent Occasions of Evil are allowable And of this nature are all those Masculine Exercises whereby the Body is preserved in health and rendred more capable of serving the Soul in her Religious Severities as Walking or Riding abroad to take the Air Planting Gar dening Raising curious Plants and Flowers Running Wrestling Fowling Hawking Hunting Fishing Leaping Vaulting Casting of the Bar Tossing the Pike Riding the great Horse Running at the Ring and such Divertisements which stir the Blood make us active and vigorous fit us for greater and more useful Enterprizes and promote Chearfulness and Liveliness such cannot be supposed to be forbid by the Gospel provided that they be used 1. Seasonably not on those days and hours which are appointed either for Devotion or more weighty Business and therefore these cannot be proper Exercises of the Lords Day or Days of Fasting and Abstinence or Days of Mourning 2. With Moderation so that much time be not spent upon them and our love to them may keep within its due bounds and limits 3. For a good End which must be to render our selves fitter for the discharge of our Duty to God and Man 4. With purposes of Self denial so that we can leave or quit them for a greater Good when either a work of Piety or an act of Charity is to be performed or Scandal to be prevented where these Limitations are not observed the Honey turns into Gall and that which deserv'd only our Civility and transient Respect becomes our Idol and our Souls receive considerable hurt which had these Divertisements been used with circumspection might have been beholding to them in some measure for their welfare and edification 3. From this Rule we may rationally infer that delight in Orchards Gardens Rivers Ponds either Natural or Artificial and in the Comforts of Wife Children Friends in our Trades and Relations Houses Buildings and Possessions the bountiful hand of Heaven hath bestowed upon us is consistent with a serious prospect of a future Judgment not but that excesses may be committed in this delight as the best and most harmless things may be abused yet where we delight in them as they are the Gifts of God more than as they are Satisfactions to the Flesh and build not upon them rest not in them but still look upon them as things volatile and transitory and are ready to part with them whenever Providence shall think fit to remove them without grumbling or murmuring and do let the World see that in these delights we forget not the Rules of Gravity Modesty Decency and Charity they may lawfully be called inoffensive and as a Snake whose Teeth are pulled out handled without danger And though Solomon calls these Delights Vanity yet that which made them so was the immoderateness of his love toward them and his setting his heart and doating upon them and placing felicity in them making them his mark which should have been only a passage to nobler enjoyments and fixing there where he should have lodged only as in an Inn and so marched on to the City which hath Foundations whose Builder and Maker is God Delight in things of this nature may soon run beyond its bounds if either too much cost be spent upon them whereby the poor are robbed of their due or Men forget to employ their Thoughts upon sublimer Objects 4. The same may be said of delight in Musick whether Vocal or Instrumental a delight harmless enough if used as Salt not as Meat as Sauce not as Food as a Bit on the By not as a standing Diet and though the Men the Prophet speaks of Isa. 5. 12. are severely checked for the Harp and the Viol the Tabret and Pipe in their Feasts yet it was because they made their Musick an Appendix to their Drunkenness and as it is said in the same Verse regarded not the work of the Lord neither considered the operation of his hands David's playing upon the Harp was no sin while it was not to encourage wantonness but with an intent either to praise God or to divert Saul's Melancholy nor can I discommend the Pythagoreans who before they went to sleep composed their Minds with Musick We read in Gellius Aelian and others how men have been cured not only of irregular Passions but of very strange Distempers of the Body by Musick and what is signally conducing to the Good and Benefit of Mankind we must suppose is allowed by that God who himself consults the health and welfare of his Creatures and this made Jubal's Profession lawful who was the Inventer of Musical Instruments and therefore called the Father of all such as handle the Harp and Organ The end for which such Delights are used makes them either tolerable or impertinent and as he that designs them to refresh either his own or other mens weary Spirits and to glorifie God by them deserves commendation so he that makes them instrumental to feed mens Lusts or to promote Lasciviousness and Lightness in Conversation renders himself unworthy of the Name of a Christian and therefore those Fidlers and Musicians who shew themselves at merry Meetings or promiscuous Dancings which serve only to pamper the