living and if this voice from heaven awake him not I must pronounce him not onely dead in sin but in Hell already For it is easy to observe That the ground of all despaire is not from hence That we cannot but that we will not Turne which much resembles that Despaire which chaines the damned Spirits in the place of torment so farre we are like to them that we despaire for want of Charity which they can never have nor the despairing Sinner as he thinks and therefore will not have not for want of Faith which they have as well as he and tremble we despaire not I say for want of Faith For 't is plaine If we did not beleeve we could not Despaire unlesse peradventure we doe with some conceive of Faith as that Instrument or habit by which we do apply and appropriate Christs Merits and Promises to our soules which indeed is rather an Act of our Hope then of our Faith Despaire being nothing else but the disability of applying Christs merits to our selves which is the effect not of Infidelity but ungodlinesse For we beleeve This is the way and we know we have not walkt in it and so Despaire we are no where in Scripture commanded to be assured of our Salvation but we are enjoyn'd in plaine Termes to make our Election sure nor are wee any where in Scripture forbid to Despaire but if we make not good the Condition we are forbid to Hope and in that commanded to love Christ and keep his Commandements that we may never despaire Miserable Dilemma when Imust neither Despaire nor hope for I cannot let in Despaire till I have let in that Monster sinne which begat it and when that is let in and hath gain'd the Dominion there is no room for hope Ask Judas himself and he will tell you there is a God for if there were no God no Heaven nor Hell There could be no such thing as Conscience Ask him againe and he will tell you he is true or he denies him to be God He will tell you of the riches of the glorious Mystery of our Redemption Coloss 1.27 and that in Christ Remission of sinnes was promised But his many sinnes and his late sinne of Betraying his Master cast so thick a Cloud over his Judgement that he could not see any beame of Mercy cast towards him and so he concludes both against God and himselfe There is mercy for Thousands but not for him God calls sinners to Repentance but not Judas and when all the world may Turne he will goe and hang himself Thus may our sinnes goe over our heads and over those Mercies too which might be over our sinnes and make us very witty to argue and dispute against our selves even dispute our selves into Hell A neglect of our Duty begate Despaire and Despaire basely improves and augments our neglect and if we judge rightly our non posse is a nolle we cannot turne because we will not turne for if we would but turne which we may if we will Despaire would sink and vanish out of sight and mercy would shine forth through this cloud and give light enough to fly farre from that evill the feare of which had cover'd our faces and in a manner buryed us alive for a Despairing man is but a dead carcasse actuated not by a soule but a Devill Wee need not seek farre for Arguments for despaire is an argument against it self For it there could never be any the best that we have heard of is but the Logick of Fooles which is Logick without reason I cannot hope because I cannot hope 'T is true he cannot hope in statu quo nunc as they speake in the state and condition he now is and there is reason for that for why should an enemy to God hope for his favour why should Dives hope for a place in Abrahams bosome and yet he may hope for his favour Resolve to turne from his evill wayes which will first build up him in righteousnesse and then build up a Hope upon the ruines of Despaire Sinne is the foundation of Despaire and if we repent not will beare it up but upon our Turne Righteousnesse casts downe the Foundation it self and with it Despaire and in the fall grindes it to peeces and in the place of it Erects a Pillar a saving Hope a hope which is not ashamed to enter the Holy of Holyes and lay hold on the Mercy-seat which was hidden and vayl'd before Quare contristaris anima mea Psal 43. Why art thou cast down Oh my soul why art thou troubled within me Spera in Domino trust thou in the Lord and if thou fear him and leave thy evil wayes thou mayest trust him he will not he cannot fail thee thou hast him fettered and entangled with his own promises which are yea and Amen and all the power on Earth all the Devils in Hell nay his own power cannot reverse them For his Justice his Wisdom his Mercy hath sealed them Read his character and he made it himself He is merciful righteous and full of compassion and Saint Ambrose it was that observed it that here is mercy twice mentioned Psal 116.5 and Justice but once and he adds for our encouragement what to hope nay but to turn that we may hope In medio Justitia est gemino septo inclusa misericordiae Justice is shut up in the midst and hedg d in on every side with Mercy if thou turn from thy evil wayes Mercy shines upon thy Tabernacle and Justice is the same it was but confin'd and bound up that it cannot that it shall never reach thee to destroy thee when thou sinnedst he was Just to punish thee and now thou turnest from thy evil wayes unto him he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a righteous Judge still but to receive thee and reward thee They in the Primitive times who fell away in times of persecution and afterwards returned to the bosom of the Church and confest and bewailed their Apostasie though it were rather verbal then real and to which they were drawn rather by the fear of smart then hatred to the Gospel were said by the Greek Fathers Cypr. 〈◊〉 lib. de Lapsis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Saint Cyprian interprets Elatum primâ victo viâ hostem secundo certamine superare to recover the field and by a second onset to foil that enemy who did glory in a former conquest and to defie the tempter after a fall The Novatians who called themselves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Puritans of those times and they had good reason so to do as good reason as a deformed man hath to call him self Boniface or a wicked man write himself innocent for they were proud mercilesse and covetous Nazianzens layes it to their charge goodly and fit ingredients to make up that sweet composition of Purity These withstood their receiving into the Church but not without the Churches heaviest censure Saint Jerom for all
of the Pharisees believe in him we might ask Did any of his Disciples believe in him Christ himself calls them Fools and slow of heart to believe what the Prophets had foretold their Feare had sullied the evidence that they could not see it the Text sayes they forsook him and fled And the reason of this is plain For though faith be an act of the understanding yet it depends upon the will and men are incredulous not for want of those meanes which may raise a faith but for want of will to follow that light which leads unto it do not believe because they will not and so bear themselves strongly upon opinion preconceived beyond the strength of all evidence whatsoever when our affections and lusts are high and stand out against it the evidence is put by and forgot and the object which calls for our eye and faith begins to disappear and vanish and at last is nothing quot voluntates tot fides so many wills Hilary so many Creeds for there is no man that believes more than he will To make this good we may appeale to men of the slendrest observation least experience we may appeale to our very eye which cannot but see those uncertain and uneven motions in which men are carried on in the course of their life For what else is that that turnes us about like the hand of a Diall from one point to another from one perswasion to a contrary How comes it to pass that I now embrace what anon I tremble at what is the reason that our Belief shifts so many Scenes and presents it self in so many severall shapes now in the indifferency of a Laodicaean anon in the violence of a Zelot now in the gaudiness of Superstition anon in the proud scornful slovenry of factious Profaneness that they make so painfull a peregrination through so many modes and forms of Religion and at last end in Atheist what reason is there there can be none but this the prevalency and victory of our sensitive part over our reason and the mutability yea and stubbornesse of our will which cleaves to that which it will soon forsake but is strongly set against the truth which brings with it the fairest evidence but not so pleasing to the sense This is it which makes so many impressions in the mind Self-love and the love of the world these frame our Creeds these plant and build these root and pull down build up a Faith and then beat it to the ground and then set up another in its place A double-minded man saith S. James is unstable in all his wayes Remember 2 Tim. 2.8 saith S. Paul that Jesus Christ of the seed of David was raised up from the dead according to my Gospel that is a sure foundation for our faith to build on and there we have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fair and certain pledges of it which are as a Commentary upon ego vivo I live or as so many beams of light to make it open and manifest to every eye which give up so fair an evidence that the malice of the Jew cannot avoid it Let them say his Disciples stole him away whilest their stout watchmen slept what stole him away and whilest they slept it is a dream and yet it is not a dream it is a studied lye and doth so little shake that it confirmes our faith so transparent that through it we may behold more clearly the face of truth which never shines brighter than when a lye is drawn before it to vaile and shadow it He is not here he is risen if an Angel had not spoken it yet the Earthquake the Clothes the clothes so diligently wrapt up the Grave it self did speak it and where such strange impossibilities are brought in to colour and promote a lye they help to confute it id negant quod ostendunt they deny what they affirm and malice it self is made an argument for the truth For it we have a better verdict given by Cephas and the twelve 1 Cor. 12.15 We have a cloud of witnesses five hundred brethren at once who would not make themselves the Fathers of a lye to propagate that Gospel which either makes our yea yea and nay nay or damnes us nor did they publish it to raise themselves in wealth and honour for that teacheth them to contemn them and makes poverty a beatitude and shewes them a sword and persecution which they were sure to meet with and did afterwards in the prosecution of their office and publication of that faith nor could they take any delight in such a lye which would gather so many clouds over their heads and would at last dissolve in that bitternesse which would make life it self a punishment and at last take it away and how could they hope that men would ever believe that which themselves knew to be a lie These witnesses then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are many and beyond exception We have the blood too the testimony of the Martyrs who took their death on 't and when they could not live to publish it laid down their life and sealed it with their blood And therefore we on whom the ends of the world are come have no reason to complain of distance or that we are removed so many ages from the time wherein it was done for now Christ risen is become a more obvious object than before the diversity of mediums have increased multiplied it we see him in his word we see him through the blood of Martyrs we see him with the eye of faith Christ is risen alive secundum scripturas saith S. Paul and he repeats it twice in the same chapter Offenderunt Judaei in Christum lapidem it is S. Austins let it passe for his sake when the Jew stumbled at him he presented but the bignesse of a stone but our infidelity will find no excuse if we see him not now when he appears as visible as a mountain Vivo Vivo that is vivifico I give life saith Christ I am alive there is more in this vivo than a bare rising to life 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he liveth is as much as he giveth life there is virtue and power in his Resurrection a power to abolish Death 2 Tim. 1.10 and to bring life and immortality to light a power to raise our vile bodies and a power to raise our viler souls shall raise them nay he hath done it already conresuscitati we are risen together with him and we live with him for we cannot think that he that made such haste out of his own Grave can be willing to see us rotting in ours From this vivo it is that though we dye yet we shall live again Christs living breathes life into us and in his Resurrection he cast the modell of ours Idea est eorum quae fiunt exemplar aeternum saith Seneca and this is such a one an eternall pattern for ours Plato's Idea or common
World thus to play with danger To seek Death first in the Errors of ourlife and then when we have run out our Course when Death is ready to devour us to look faintly back upon light For the Endeavors of a man that hath wearyed himself in sinne can be but weak and faint like the Appetite of a dying man who can but think of meat and loath it The later we Turne the lesse able we be to Turne the further we stray the lesse willing shall we be to look back For sinne gathers strength by delay devotes us unto it self gaines a dominion Over us holds us as it were in Chaines and will not soon suffer us to slip out of its power when the will hath captivated it self under sinne a wish a sigh a Thought is but a vaine thing nor have they strength enough to deliver us One Act begets another and that a Third many make up a habit and evill Habits hold us back with some violence What mind what motion what Inclination can a man that is drown'd in sensuality have to God who is a Spirit A man that is buried in the Earth for so every Covetous man is to God who sitteth in the highest heavens He that delights in the breath of Fools to the Honor of a Saint Here the further we go the more we are In That which is done once hath some affinity to that which is done often and that which is done alwayes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1. Rhet. c. 11. saith Aristotle when an arme or Limbe is broke it may have any motion but that which was naturall to it and if wee doe not speedily proceed to cure it will be a more difficult 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to set it in its right place againe that it may performe its natural functions now in sinne there is a deordination of the will there is a luxation of that faculty hence weakness seiseth upon the will and if we neglect the first opportunity if we doe not rectifie her betimes and turne her back againe and bend her to the rule it will be more and more infeebled every day move more irregularly and like a disordered clock point to any figure but that which should shew the Houre and make known the time of the day Wee may read this truth in Aged men saith Saint Basil Orat. ad Ditescentes when their body is worne out with Age and there is a generall declination of their strength and vigour the mind hath a malignant influence on the body as the body in their blood and youth had upon the mind and being made wanton and bold with the Custome of sinne heightens and enflames their frozen and decay'd parts to the pursuit of pleasures past though they can never overtake them nor see them but in Essigie in their Image or Picture which they draw themselves They now call to minde the sinnes of their youth with delight and act them over againe when they cannot Act them as youthfull as when they first committed them They have milk they thinke in their Breasts and marrow in their bones they periwigg their Age with wanton behaviour Their Age is Threescore and Ten when their speech and will is but Twenty They boast of what they cannot Act and would be more sinfull if they could and are so because they would It is a sad contemplation how we startled at sinne in our youth and how we ventured by degrees and engaged our selves how fearfull we were at first how indifferent afterwards how familiar within a while and then how we were setled and hardened in it at the last what a Devill sinne was and what a Saint it is become What a Serpent it was and how now we play with it we usually say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arist Ibid. Custome is a second Nature and indeed it follows and imitates naturall motion It is weake in the beginning stronger in the Progresse but most strong and violent towards the end Transit in violentiam voluntas antiqua That which we will often we will with eagernesse and violence Our first on-set in sinne is with feare and Reluctation wee then venture further and proceed with lesse regret we move forwards with delight Delight continues the motion and makes it customary and Custome at last drives and bindes us to it as to our Center vitia insolentiora renascuntur saith Seneca Sin growes more insolent by degrees first flatters then commands after enslaves and then betrays us First gains consent afterwards works delight at last 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a shamelesness in sinne Jere. 6.15 Were they ashamed They were not ashamed nay 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nihil magis in naturâ suâ laudare se dicebat quam ut ip sius verbo utar 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Suet. Caligula a senselesnesse and stupidity in sinne and Caligula's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a stubbornnesse and perverseness of disposition which will not let us Turne from sinne For by neglecting a timely remedy vitia mores fiunt Our evill wayes become our manners and common deportment and we look upon them as upon that which becomes us upon an unlawfull Act as upon that which we ought to do Nay peccatum lex sinne which is the Transgression of the Law is made a Law it self Saint Austin in his Confessions calls it so Lex peccati est violentia consuetudinis That Law of sinne which carries us with that violence to sinne is nothing else but the force of long Custome and Continuance in sinne For sinne by Custome gaines a Kingdome in our soules and having taken her seat and Throne there Lex alia in membris meis repugnavit legi mentiâ—… 〈◊〉 Româ— Lex n. peccati est violentia consuetudinis quâ trahitur tenetur etiam invitus animus eo merito quo in eam volens illabitur Aug. l. 8. Confess c. 5. promulges Lawes If she say Goe we goe and if she say Doe this we doe it Surge inquit Avaritia she commands the Miser to rise up early and lie downe late and eate the bread of sorrow she sets the Adulterer on fire makes him vile and base in his owne eyes whilst he counts it his greatest honor and preferrment to be a slave to his Strumpet She drawes the Revengers sword she feeds the intemperate with poyson And she commands not as a Tyrant but having gain'd Dominion over us she findes us willing subjects shee Holds us Captive and we call our Captivity our liberty Her poyson is as the poyson of the Aspick she bites us and we smile and Die and Feele it not 2. The danger of delay in respect of God Secondly It is dangerous in respect of God himself whose call we regard not whose counsels we reject whose patience we dally with whose Judgements we slight to whom we wantonly turn the back when he calls after us to seek his sace and so tread that mercy under foot which should save us
an eye of mercy There is an eye that looks right on Proverb 4.25 and there is a bountifull eye Prov. 22.9 and if you shut but one of them you are in darknesse he that hath an evil eye to strip his brother can never see to clothe him he whose feet are swift to shed blood will be but a cripple when he is called to the house of mourning and if his bowels be shut up his hand will be soon stretcht out to beat his fellow-servants Ps 147.1 It becometh the just to be thankfull In their mouth praise is comely it is a song 't is musick and it becometh the Just to be mercifull and liberall out of their heart mercy flows kindly streames forth like the River out of Eden to water the dry places of the earth there you shall find gold and good gold Bdellium and the Oynx stone all that is precious in the sight of God and man But the heart of an unjust man is as a rock on which you may strike and strike again but no water will flow out but instead thereof gall and worm-wood blood and fire and the vapour of smoke Ioel 2.30 Prov. 12.10 The tender mercies the bowels of the wicked are cruel their kisses are wounds their favours reproches their Indulgences Anathema's their bread is full of gravell and their water tainted with blood If their craft or power take all and their seeming mercy their hypocrisie put back a part that part is nothing or but trouble and vexation of spirit Thus do these two branches grow and flourish and bring forth fruit and thus do they wither and dye together And here we have a faire and a full vintage for indeed mercy is as the vine which yeeldeth wine to cheere the hearts of men hath nothing of the Bramble nothing of the fire nothing that can devour it yeeldeth much fruit but we cannot stand to gather all I might spread before you the rich mantle of mercy and display each particular beauty and glory of it but it will suffice to set it up as the object of our Love for as Misery is the object of our Mercy so is Mercy the object of our Love And we may observe it is not here to doe mercifully as before to doe justly and yet if we love not Justice we cannot doe it but in expresse termes the Lord requires that we love mercy that is that we put it on weare it as a robe of Glory delight in it make it as God doth make it his our chiefest attribute to exalt and superexaltate to make it triumph over Justice it self For Justice and Honesty gives every man his owne but Mercy opens those Treasuries which Justice might lock up and takes from us that which is legally ours makes others gatherers with us partakers of our basket and brings them under our own vine and fig-tree Et haec est victoria this is the victory and triumph of Mercy Let us then draw the lines by which we are to passe and we shall first shew you Mercy in the fruit it yeelds secondly in its root First in its proper act or motion casting bread upon the waters and raising the poore out of the dust Secondly in the forme which produceth this act or the principle of this motion which is the habit the affection the love of mercy for so we are commanded not onely to shew forth our mercy but to love it for what doth the Lord require but to love mercy c. We begin with the first and the proper act of mercy is to flow to spend it self and yet not be spent to relieve our brethren in misery and in all the degrees that lead to it necessities impotencies distresses dangers defects This is it which the Lord requires And howsoever flesh and blood may be ready to perswade us that we are left at large to our own wills and may do what we will with our own yet if we consult with the Oracle of God we shall find that these reciprocall offices of mercy which passe between man and man are a debt That we are bound as much to do good to others as not to injure them to supply their wants as not to rob them to reach forth a hand to help them as not to smite them with the fist of wickednesse and though my hundred measures of wheat be my own and I may demand them yet there is a voice from heaven and from the mercy-seat which bids me take the bill and sit down quickly and write fifty Do we shut up our bowels and our hands together Behold Habemus legem we have a Law and the first and greatest Law the Law of Charity to open them 'T is true what we gain by the sweat of our brows what Honesty and Industry or the Law hath sealed unto us is ours ex asse wholly and entirely ours nor can any Hand but that of Violence divide it from us but yet Habemus legem we have a Law another Law which doth not take from us the propriety of our Goods but yet binds us to dispense and distribute them In the same Court-roll of Heaven we are made both Proprietaries Stewards The Law of God as well as of Man is Evidence for us that our possessions are ours but it is Evidence against us if we use them not to that end for which God made them ours They are ours to have and to hold nor can any Law of man divorce them from us or question us For what Action can be drawn against want of mercy who was ever yet impleaded for not giving an Almes at his doore what bar can you bring the Miser to who ever was arraigned for doing no good but yet in the Law of God and in the Gospel of Christ which is a Law of Grace we find an action drawn de non vestiendis nudis for not clothing the Naked not feeding the Hungry not visiting the Sick I saith Nazianzen could peradventure be willing That Mercy and Bounty were not Necessary but arbitrary not under a Law but presented by way of Counsel and advice for the flesh is weak and would go to Heaven with as little cost and trouble as may be but then the mention of the Left hand and the right of the Goates of the torments they shall be thrown into not who have invaded other mens goods but who have not given theirs not who have beat down but who have not supported these Temples of the Holy Ghost this is that which strikes a terrour through me and makes me think and resolve That I am as much bound to do acts of mercy as I am not to do an injury as much bound to feed the poore man as I am not to oppresse and murder him To shew mercy to others is not an Evangelicall Counsel it is a Law And therefore as Homer tells us when he speaks of rivers or birds That men did not call them by their proper names for the Gods had
the grave Consummatum est all is finished and he is returned victoriously with the spoils of his enemies and of this last enemy death But for all this his triumph death may be still the King of terrours and as dreadfull as before All is finisht on his part but a covenant consists of two and something is required on ours He doth not turn Conditions into Promises as some have been willing to perswade themselves and others It must be done is not thou shalt do it If thou wilt believe is not thou shalt believe But every promise every act of grace of his implies a condition He delivers those that are willing to be delivered who do not feed death and supply this enemy with such weapons as make him terrible All the terrour death hath is from our selves our sin our disobedience to the commands of God that 's his sting And our part of the covenant is by the power virtue of Christs death every day to be plucking it from him and at last to take it quite away We we our selves must rise up against this King of terrours and in the Name and Power of Christ take the Scepter out of his hand and spoile him of his strength and terrour And this we may do by parts and degrees now cut from him this sin now that now this desire and anon another and so dye daily as Saint Paul speaks dye to profit dye to pleasure dye to Honour be as dead to every temptation which may beget sin in us and a sting in him and so leave him nothing to take from us not a desire not a hope not a thought nothing that can make us feare death Then we shall look upon it not as a divorcement from those delights which we have cast off already or a passage into a worse condition from that we loved too well to that we never feared enough but we shall consider it as a sleep as it is to all wearied pilgrims as a message sent from Heaven to tell us our walk is at an end and now we are to lay down our staffe and scrip and rest in that Jerusalem which is above for which we vowed this pilgrimage Et quis non ad meliora festinat Tert. de patientia What stranger will be afraid to return to his Fathers house or lose that life quam sibi jam supervacuam fecit which by dying daily to the world he hath already made superfluous and unnecessary To conclude this He that truly fears God can feare nothing else nor is Death terrible to any but to those who would build their tabernacle here who love to feed with swine on husks because they have not tasted of the powers of the world to come who wish immortality to this mortall before they put it on who are willing to converse and trade with vanity for ever who desire not with David to be spared a little but would never goe hence Last of all It will moderate our sorrow for those our friends who are dead or rather fallen asleep or rather at their journeys end For why should any man who knows the condition of a stranger how many dangers how many cares how many stormes and tempests he was obnoxious to hang down the head and complain that he had now passed through them all and was set down at his journeys end why should he who looks for a City to come be troubled that his fellow pilgrime came thither and entred before him It might be a matter of holy Emulation perhaps but why it should afflict us with grief I cannot see unlesse it be because we have not made it our meat and drink to keep Gods commandments which might give us a taste of a better estate to come unlesse it be because we have not well learnt to act the part of a stranger Miserable men that we are that we will be that know not our own quality and condition that are strangers and yet unwilling to draw neer our selves or to see others come to their home but think them lost where they are made perfect We stand by the bed of our sick and dying friend as if he were now removed to a place of torment and not of rest and to be either nothing or more miserable then he was in a region of misery we send out shreeks and outcries to keep time with his gasps to call him back if it were possible from heaven and to keep him still under the yoke and harrow when as the fainting of his spirits the failing of his eyes the trembling of his joynts are but as the motion of bodies to their center most violent when they are neerest to their end And then we close up his eyes and with them our hopes as if with his last gasp he had breathed out his soul into aire when indeed there is no more then this one pilgrime is gone before his fellows one gone and left others in their way in trouble and more troubled that he is gone to rest Migrantem migrantes praemisimus saith Saint Hierom we are passing forward apace and have sent one before us to his journeys end his everlasting sabbath With this contemplation doth religion comfort and uphold us in our way and keeps us in that temper which the Philosopher commends as best in which we do sentire desiderium opprimere she gives nature leave to draw teares but then she brings in faith and hope to wipe them off Sen. ad Marciam she suffers us to mourn for our friends but not as men without hope Nature will vent and love is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the Orator ever querulous and full of complaints when the object is removed out of sight and God remembers whereof we are made is not angry with our love and will suffer us to be men but then we must silence one love with another our naturall affection with the love of God at least divide our language thus Alas my Father Alas my Husband Alas my Friend but then he was a stranger and now at his journeys end and here we must raise our note and speak it more heartily Blessed are such strangers blessed are they that dye in the Lord even so saith the spirit that they rest from their labours For conclusion let us feare God and keep his commandments this is the whole duty of a stranger to observe those Lawes which came from that place to which he is going let these his Lawes be in our heart and our heart will be an elaboratory a limbeck to work the water of life out of the vanities and very dregs of world through which we are to passe It shall be as a rock firm and solid against every wave and temptation that shall beat against it and a shop of precious receipts and proper remedies against every evil It shall be spoliarium mortis a place where death shall be stript and spoiled of its sting and of its terrour In a word It