cry out with holy Job Chap. 6. 4. The arrowes of the Almighty are within me the poyson whereof drinketh up my spirit the terrors of God do set themselves in array against me Such is the nature of meditation or consideration that it will cause future and remote things to have a real powerful and deep impression on our minds As for instance A Merchant in India by his meditation or contemplation may converse with his Affairs his Wife Children and Friends in England or a Merchant that 's walking on the Exchange in London may have his mind and thoughts in Spain or Italy or else where a Malefactor cast into Prison for some notorious Crime may long before the Assizes converse with all the sad circumstances of his tryal he may in his thoughts see him self brought to the bar standing before a terrible Judge to heare his indictment read the Charge prov'd his doom and sentence pronounced and see as it were himself at the place of his execution with the rope about his neck which must immediately hang him and if you would in good earnest set your selves to consider your latter end you may really and heart-affectingly converse with old Age Weakness Sickness your death-Bed short-Breathing cold sweats dying Pangs and Groans Winding-sheets Coffins and see your selves as it were streched out nail'd up and on the shoulders of men carrying to the grave where Worms and filthy Vermine must feed upon you The Servants of God and Saints of old have done this with great success soul advantage and so should you They have reckoned or counted their Lives by dayes because they were every day liable to Death and expected it daily Teach us to number our dayes said Moses Psal 90. 12. Few and evil have the dayes of my life been said old Jacob. For man that is born of a woman is of few dayes Job 1. 1 5. All the time of which said Job will I wait till my change come Job 14. 14. For I know that thou wilt bring me to death and to the house a dark house appointed for all living And Chapter the 17. 1. he said my breath is corrupt my dayes are extinct the Graves are ready for me where-ever he went or came he was looking for a Grave Again by consideration we may not only look to the Grave but beyond it to the great Transactions and astonishing things that shall be after death We may converse with the worlds burning Christ's coming the Trumpets sounding the Graves opening the Deads rising the Wickeds roaring who as jolly as they are shall then cry to dead and deaf Mountains and Rocks to fall on them to hide them from the dreadful face of the now slighted Son of God for in that great day of his fierce and terrible wrath they will not be able to stand Rev. 6. 16. 17. By realizing this consideration we may see the Judge standing behind the door and the Son of God as it were ready to break forth out of the Clouds with power and great Glory as Hierom did who said whether I eat or drink I hear this voice in mine ears Arise ye dead and come to judgement Now if a right consideration of the great things to come be so penetrating and heart-awakening let death which alwayes doggeth you at your heels be often upon your thoughts your heads and hearts too should be much upon it every night you lye down and every morning you arise let there be some serious and awful thoughts of death and Eternity That which many have engraven on their Rings viz Remember to dye let it be by the Pen of a Diamond written on your hearts It 's storied of Philip of Macedon that he laid a charge upon one of his servants to come every morning into his chamber and proclame this that he was mortal and if a Heathen were so careful of keeping the memory of his mortality much more should a Christian we should alwayes remember the dayes of darkness and keep life and death heaven and hell before us there being but a step between us and death The neglect and want of this was Israels sin and Jerusalems too She did not remember her last and therefore she came down wonderfully Lam. 1. 9. And this God who would have us remember and consider doth sadly complain ofby the Prophet Isa 1. 3. calling heaven and earth to witness for him Hear O heavens and give ear O earth the Oxe knoweth his owner and the Ass his Masters crib but Israel doth not know my people do not consider Reas 3. A serious consideration of your latter end through grace will prove an absolute and soveraign Antidote to expel the greatest evil yea a means to escape an infinite loss viz. sin and the dreadful effects and consequences of it What is the cause of that inundation and sea of wickedness and most prodigious sins that are now in the world and in this Nation in every City Town and Place and in the most Families among all ranks and degrees of men viz. Magistrates Ministers People Parents Children Masters Servants but this their not duly and deeply considering their latter end this we find laid down in the word of God to be one main ground of all sin and of the neglect of all duties You careless souls did you beleive and remember that you must die and come to judgement that your naked souls and naked sins must shortly stand before the most tremendous direful Judge of quick and dead the reflection hereof would be as a knife at your throats as a sword at your breast or as a hand-writing on the wall to retard and hinder your constant and desperate course of wickedness O what horrid hellish outrages are now committed and that deliberality impudently obstinately even against the light of nature Conscience Scripture What Cursing Lying Swearing Blaspheming Sabbath-breaking Cheating Couzening Stealing what wantonness filthiness uncleanness swinish drunkenness covetousness earthly-mindedness what mocking scoffing wrath envy malice pride passion and spiritual wickedness too as unbeleif a theism impenitency hypocrisie apostacy hatred of God his people ministers wayes and ordinances every where aboundeth Men declare their sins like Sodom and are not ashamed of the unfruitful works of darkness and why but because they doe not set their minds and hearts upon their latter end Poor dying sinners Let me out of tender compassion to your bleeding and almost sinking souls intreat you as for the Lords sake to goe down to the grave to go down to hell in your thoughts and stop here and think of the King of terrours the worm of Conscience the approach of Devils the burning lake the bottomless pit the loss of God of Christ of Heaven and your precious souls remember those fiery scorching endless flames the presence and company of Devils Reprobates and damned spirits and your sweet morsels will be gall and wormwood to you these amazing things being truly reflected on will be as lightning in your eyes as thunder
you will be eternally undone Whilst it is called to day if you will hear his voice harden not your hearts Do not spend so freely of this swift and precious stream of Time every drop of which hath an influence upon Eternity Knowing the time that now it is high time to awake out of sleep The night is far spent the day is at hand cast off therefore the work of darkness and put on the Armour of light Let us walk honestly as in the Day not in Rioting and Drunkenness not in Chambering and Wantonness not in Strife and Envying but put you on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the Flesh to fulfil the lusts thereof Rom. 13. 12 13 14. 6. If Time and every part and moment of it must be improved this serves to confute those that reproach serious diligence in Duty as a needless thing If the business of our immortal soul did not require great care and diligence why doth Paul here enjoyn us to walk circumspectly not as fools but as wise Christians 't is your wisdom to know your work and the time to do it There 's no trifling about eternity now is the day for the things of your peace let it not be hid from your eyes It will be very sad when you are passing into the other World to see that you have all your life time been sowing the wind Use 2. Examination Try whether you are redeemers of time or not Reflect upon what I have said and thy Conscience will tell thee thou hast spent more of thy time in sin and vanity How fruitful are thy duties Are thy hours for God Do Time and Duty go hand in hand Maist thou not cry out many a time Diem perdidi daily I lose a day Examine your selves don't silence stop the mouth of Conscience if so it will cry aloud another day Let me ask you these few questions 1. Have you seriously bewail'd the loss of time and begg'd the pardon of it 2. Have your souls sincerely closed with Jesus Christ and freely and fully given up and resigned your selves to him to be his for ever 3. Do the great concerns of Gods glory and your salvation bear down all before them Canst thou say though I follow my Calling and take care for my Family yet I am most solicious about my everlasting condition whether they be pleasures or profits I can say Pleasures of sin be gone world stand by There is a God to serve and honour I have a soul must be sanctified and saved I have a short time to redeem I have a debt to pay an account to give a Sentence to receive an Eternity to live This is not to be slighted I must and will save my soul Hell iI most intollerable and eternal 4. Will you now promise and stand to it that for the future you will trade more for eternity and get better evidences for Heaven Go about the work of Faith and repentance speedily lest death should call and you not ready Use 3. Of Lamentation That Professors should bo so far from redeeming of time or of doubling their diligence that they neglect their duty I may cry out with the Prophet call for the mourning women for who is not guilty in this kind Amos 5. 16. Sirs for this should our souls mourn in secret places the serious consideration of which is enough to fetch blood from our hearts and flood of tears from our eyes How little care is taken in spending that well which when it is gone we have no hope it can be restored to us again Do not you complain of the want of time seeing you waste time There are many poor frivolous excuses the Servant will say that he hath a hard cruel Master the wife complains of her wicked Husband the Child of his Ungodly Father another of the poverty of his Family he can spare no time Whoever pretends the want of time let me tell thee Thou hast a carnal dead sinful slothful heart the cause of all Hast thou not time for every other thing namely a time for eating drinking sleeping potting piping playing and none for Heaven Can you rise early go to bed late and eat the bread of carefulness to get the meat that perisheth and find no time for God and your Souls will this excuse thee another day thou careless ignorant deluded soul Your Corn Cattel your Sheep your Swine your Hawks your Horses and Dogs are cared for but for the better part there 's no care at all Wilt thou tell the great and terrible Judge at the last day I would have been saved but I had no time There are many that eat their bread by the sweat of their brows that take time for their souls who will be brought in as witnesses against you at the last day Will you squander away your time and the days evil and opportunities for your souls hardly come at O consider it 's high time to awake out of sleep Exhortation to redeem Time Use 4. You have heard what it is to redeem time and how time must be redeemed Now let all resolve without delay to put this so necessary a Duty into practise Let young ones resolve upon it and the middle-aged with the hoary-heads Tender unto thy God the cream and flower of thy age and time and think it not too soon In things of far less moment you are for hast and speed If you were starving for want of bread you would think every hour long till you had a supply If your bodies were tortured and tormented with pain and sickness would you think that ease and health might come too soon If a man were in the Sea near sinking can a Boat come to soon Or can a condemned Malefactor receive his pardon too soon hast thou lived without God and Satan's Slave and in danger of dropping into Hell fifteen or twenty years and canst thou get into Christ to secure thy immortal soul too soon Hast thou not been the Devils too long already Suppose thou hadst dyed in thy Christless state where had thy soul been Is is not better to be the Lord's servant then Satan's Slave Ask the Godly man that hath made tryal and he will tell thee The sooner thou art in a state of Grace the fitter thou wilt be for glory Make speed in thy work do thy spiritual business thy wages is sure and thou shalt be blessed Consider there was never any one repented living or dying that they were the Lords and converted betimes And for you that have past the time of youth in the satisfying youthful lusts and liv'd it may be thirty forty or fifty years in a course of sin and vanity is it not more then time for you to bethink your selves In so many years you have made sad work who can tell how often you have offended that have been profane Swearers Drunkards Lyars Sabbath-breakers so long if you were certain of living so many years to come yet the Devil the
and your dear never-dying souls bound fettered and chained in that direful painful prison of hell is matter of the greatest wonder in all the world Have you not cause to doubt that many of your neighbours relations and sinful companions accquaintance are gone down thither it may be some of those you least suspect And you know not how many are now in flames for the very same sins that you stand guilty of if not less sinners then your selves O admire and bless God with your whole souls that you are yet on this side the grave and not gone down into that place of torment you enjoy many opportunities for your souls and are still exhorted to part with sin to turn to God to accept of Christ to think of death and hell that so you might never see it or feel it for there is much more in the paines of hell and wrath of God then ever you heard or can imagine According to thy fear said Moses so is thy wrath Psal 90. 11. Poor sinners you are still the living Monuments of infinite kindness and therefore let not the living man complain Suppose you had dyed when death seemed neer when you were sick and weak ready to give up the ghost or when those many thousands dyed by the Plague or Sword in what a miserable condition had your souls been to be shut up with Devils and damned spirits in that Lake that burneth with fire and brimstone And will you still maintain your enmity encrease iniquity and even dare God to damn you Sinners are you not besides your selves yea stark mad to make God that should be your best friend your worst fo for if his anger be kindled but a little it will burn to the lowest hell and none can quench it or stand before it Can thine heart endure or thine hands be strong in the day that I shall deal with thee Ezek. 22. 14. Who can dwell with devouring fire who would saith the Lord set the bryars and thorns against me in battel I would go through them I would burn them up together Isa 27. 4. O when will you come to your selves and throw away your arms and consider your souls or will you not be saved when shall it once be why will you dye Let these cords of love draw you and cause you to say Behold we come unto thee for thou art the Lord our God Consider others dreadful ruine hath been your warning that are now lockt up in that dark dungeon and shall come up no more and whom the Devils are now tormenting the worm biting and the fire burning You are at present free from that boyling Chaldron and in the Land of the Living O praise praise the Lord for his long-suffering you being but as it were under a repreive O prize and improve your life and timely prepare for death for if thy life were ended thy soul seperated and not peace with God made thou wert an undone soul There 's no place for repentance in the Grave no Christ or pardon to be obtained in hell Bless God your glass runeth your Lamp burneth the day of grace is yet continued your dear Lord is upon the Mercy-seat therefore there is hope Vse 2. This justly reprehendeth all that flight or neglect this great duty but especially these three sorts neither of which do seriously consider their latter end Viz. 1. The insolent Atheistical Sensualists 2. The Ignorant and considerate 3. The Self confident presumptuous 1. It condemneth Atheistical sensualists that put the evil day far from them Amos 6. 3. and who drown or banish the awful thoughts of God Death and Eternity out of our minds and hearts They take the Timbrel and Harp and rejoyce at the sound of the Organ and say unto God depart from us for we desire not the knowledg of thy wayes Job 21. 12 24. God is not in all their thoughts Psal 10. 14. They are resolved for a short life and a merry what ever the dreadful issue They chant to the sound of the Viol and drink wine in bowls and eat the Lambs out of the flock and stretch themselves upon their Couches saying in their hearts as that wretch Luk. 12. 19. take thine ease eat drink and be merry they will satisfie their lusts injoy the pleasures of the flesh walk in the wayes of their heart and in the sight of their eyes and hereby they make the breach wider and themselves seven times more the children of the Devil though at last they sit down in everlasting sorrow Let us eat and drink for to morrow we dye You poor desperately deluded souls did you beleive what you have read and heard of the other world or what the Scripture of infalilble verity speaketh of the infinitely holy great and terrible God who will in no wise clear the guilty you would quickly change your Course did you now consider you must dye and be judged that in a very little time you which hear me this day must stand before the dreadful God would you sin so freely love the world so immoderately mock at a Deity jeer at serious piety neglect your Duty trifle away your time forget eternity and hazard those your precious souls as you have done and do Such Rake hels and devils incarnate the Apostle speaketh of 2 Pet. 3. 10. Know this first i. e. before the end of the world There shall come in the last dayes scoffers walking after their own lasts and saying where is the promise of his coming Nevertheless these Vipers vile miscreants and monsters in mens shape think that they are wise when indeed they have no understanding Wise they are but it is to do evil to cavil against the truth dispute against the life of holiness but to do good they have no knowledg Jer. 4. 22. This was Jerusalems great sin immediately before the fierce anger of the Lord came upon them and this is the sad and dreadful case of many yea thousands in the world and in these Nations notwithstanding all those awakening desolating providences and amazing spectacles of mortality their eyes have seen There are but a few that look upon themselves as concerned at all just like a company of simple sheep in a fat pasture The Butcher cometh and fetcheth one to Day another to morrow the rest feed on and take no notice of what is become of their lost companions 'T is as if a company of condemned persons reprievd for a time should be appointed to be executed one after another within the space of so many Dayes This Day the first in order is brought forth and executed the day following a second yet all the rest that are to take their turnes fall a Drinking Carding Singing Swearing and so continue to the very last until they be all Hang'd Dead and Damn'd We may compare this mad deluded world to a company of poor blind men dancing about the brink of a very dangerous deep pit but do not perceive it or see how
each falleth in one after the other a first second and third drops down the rest not discerning the danger runs the round I shall thus apply it This day or hour a Swearer tumbleth down to hell The next a drunkard This evening or morning the pale horse mounteth one it may be a cursed Atheist or a malitious bloody persecutor or a filthy Adulterer or an idolatrous worldling and carrieth him to the place of Darkness The next day he receiveth his Commission to fetch some more of them those their brethren in iniquity that are lest behinde keep and continue their course and dance about the pit not considering they so must die and come to judgement How little do the living lay to heart this great business of their Mortality insomuch that when they would deny a thing with greatest confidence they will commonly say they thought no more of it then of their dying day as if death were not a matter of any moment but rather a meer toy or trifle not to be regarded She remembred not her last end Lam. 1. 9. You self destroying sinners Do you know that you must dye and leave the world for ever and are you so stupified and mad as not to think of Death in many dayes together yea hardly to entertain a serious thought of death and judgment at a house of mourning in the very sight of the dead you can be vain frothy jest pot pipe feast discourse of the world a sad proof that men do not consider their latter end Some at that solemn and sad season seem a little serious but as soon as the dead Corps is removed and the Grave and Coffin out of sight Death is no more remembred To make you sensible of this folly let me reason with you in a few plain hints What no thoughts of death you that have been under a sentence of death and brought to the very pits brink looking into Eternity Oh how sad is it to think how quickly those thoughts and impressions of your mortallity have worn out and past away Sinner remember and forget not those secret vows promises and engagements you then made to God viz. that you would part with sin leave your wicked company set loose to the world live godly and make it your business to be religious and loose no more of your precious time and opportunities for your soul If you have forgotten it the all-seeing and heart-searching God remembers it Know and consider in thy heart that death that did but warn thee then by sending his summons will shortly come himself Forgetful of Death and made of dust born of a woman and under a Decree not to be revoked by men or Angels Heb. 6. 27. Job 14. 3. As for man his dayes are determined the number of his months are with thee thou hast appointed his bounds that he cannot pass Not mind your death you that have sickly weak diseased bodies full of paines and aches that are so many partial quotidian deaths yea a dying daily What put off the thoughts of death thou that hast been at so many Funerals heard so many passing Bells or Knells seen so many Graves Skuls and Coffins before thine eyes Forget your death and yet sinners and sinning daily carrying the cause and sting of death in your bosoms mors in corpore the body is dead because of sin Rom. 8. 11. Thy body is but a body of death sin hath kill'd it the sentence is past Gen. 3. The wages of sin is death Rom. 6. 1. The soul that sins must dye Ezek. 18. 20. What put off this evil Day and dead in part old and cold having one foot in the grave viz. feeble knees trembling hands wrinkled faces gray or bald heads the grave being ready for you What no more serious thoughts of death and so many pieces and parcels of your selves gone before to this long home so many Relations and Children now a sleep in the dust of death are they buried in perpetual oblivion never to be remembred any more What Sinner What not think of Death and Death at thy very heels and before thine eyes whither can you direct your eyes and not see that which preacheth or representeth Death all the Winter Death is on the Trees in our Gardens in every flower At your Table every day you feed on the flesh of dead Creatures to tell you that you must die and is not death in your beds every night what is sleep but the picture and image of cold Death and your beds but the representation of your dark graves O careless besotted sinners not consider of death and have precious souls that must live or die be saved or damnted to Heaven or Hell to bliss or burning to God or Devils to Saints or cursed Reprobates as soon as the breath is gon which may be the next day or hour this pale horse death hath the red horse Hell following him Rev. 6. 8. Lastly what not think of and prepare for Death and called Christians that profess you beleive the Resurrection of the body and life everlasting a happiness beyond the Grave For in this life only saith Paul wt have hope in Christ we are of all men most miserable 1 Cor. 15. 19. Poor hardned sinners that now forget God and this great and mighty concern of your eternal souls what will you do in the day of Visitation when your iniquities shall compass you about and no friend in heaven above or in earth beneath that can stand you in stead and when conscience like a bold sturdy Sergeant shall take you by the throat and summon you in the Name of the great Judge to come and stand at or before the judgement seat Vnderstand ye brutish among the people and ye fools when will ye be wise Psal 94 8. to understand this to provide for your latter end 2. This blames the ignorant pettish and considerate soul who in an angry fit or passion wisheth for death out of a base end viz. as a writ of ease or out-let to present pain poverty sickness and other worldly troubles and perplexities not rightly considering how terrible death is or what are the dreadful consequences of it Now that we may be convinced of this sin and folly give me leave to tell you that between the worst longest and deepest miseries and calamities of this life and those after death there is no proportion but an exceeding distance Poor deluded souls what is the bite of a flea to the sting of a Serpent or a scratch on the hand to a stab at the heart what 's the heat and smart of a little candle to a hot fiery furnace or a devouring flame What 's a drop of gall to a Sea or Ocean of poyson or what is pain forture or anguish for an hour to intollerable misery time without end into which to the unconverted death will certainly be the door and are you so mad to imagine that there is nothing in the other world to be