Selected quad for the lemma: death_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A66253
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Preparation for death being a letter sent to a young gentlewoman in France, in a dangerous distemper of which she died.
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Wake, William, 1657-1737.
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1687
(1687)
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Wing W253; ESTC R5512
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22,586
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170
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next minute is our own and that he therefore who neglects his salvation to day may without danger put it off to to morrows consideration God has told us that his Spirit shall not alway strive with Man but as he offers to every one a space to repent so there is a time too if we omit that opportunity when there shall be no longer any space for it AND how can any of us tell that this hour is not the last wherein God will give us his grace for so great a work so that though we should live to see the next yet that then our sentence shall not be found already pronounced and we shall not be able to repent though we never so much desire it 3. SUCH obligations therefore have we all immediately to consider our ways and turn our feet to God's testimonies But Madam it has pleased his great goodness to lay more than ordinary ties upon you to do this He has taken you off by a peculiar instance of his Mercy from the vanities and tempations of the World He has disabled you from falling into many sins and calls upon you to watch against the rest He has brought you to an early knowledge of your self and of him at an age when most others are the servants of sin and creatures of vanity He has given you opportunity from the writings and conversation of the best Men to understand your duty your danger and your interest And Madam what you ought above all things to bless him for he has given you a heart too to receive instruction and that is desirous of his glory and though after so many better means as you have had of informing your self how to proceed in this important business after the knowledge you have attain'd and the progress you have made there is little need for me to add any thing on this subject yet I know I cannot better satisfie your piety or discharge my own duty than by laying before you in a short view a prospect of your labours through which you have so long been travelling and are now so nearly come to everlasting life 4. AT the first Creation when God created Man upon the Earth he planted in him a Law teaching him his whole Duty he gave him besides a positive Law not to eat of the fruit of the tree of Knowledge and to perform this he added a perfect strength and ability whereby he might for ever have lived without the least sin had Adam done this his perfection the Knowledge and Ability God created in him had still continued and after a certain period of years which God should have determined he had been rewarded with an assumption to eternal felicity 5. THIS is that which is usually called THE FIRST COVENANT which Adam fatally breaking by his disobedience soon forfeited and came short of that Glory which God had prepared for him yet it pleased the Lord to enter into a SECOND with him the tenour of which was That the Seed of the Woman should bruise the Serpent's head i. e. That Christ taking our nature upon him and so becoming the seed of the Woman should perform that Covenant of unsinning obedience which Adam broke and yet being faultless undergo a shameful and ignominious death for him and his Posterity and so bruise the Serpent's head i. e. deliver us from the power of the Devil who by this transgression had got the dominion over us 6. AND this is that Covenant we now live under the Promises of which are * pardon of sins through the blood of Christ * strength and grace to perform the conditions * and eternal glory to reward our labours This is what God on his part has declared to us for the requisites on ours what we must do to obtain these blessings that is the great business of us all to know and the peculiar design of this place briefly to consider 7. WHERE first I must lay down this for your encouragement that we are no longer now tied to the heavy yoke of a perfect unsinning Obedience not to have committed any deliberate sin nay or even to have persisted in a habit and course of it but it is * a sincere endeavour to perform whatsoever God enables us * an unfeigned Obedience to the whole Gospel of Christ and * a hearty bewailing of our own infirmities as often as we come short of it with * a real desire and * true endeavour of doing better for the future 8. To enter on a minute consideration of this would engage me to lay before you a Summary of the whole Gospel of Christ But Madam this were to exceed the limits of my design you have abundant assistances for this Knowledge in those excellent books which you have chosen for the companions of your Travels Only because certain it is that the very best of us come short of our duty and stand in need of God's pardon and forgiveness I will briefly lay before you the method you are to take to obtain this in the particular consideration of those two great duties of Faith and Repentance Sect. I. Of Faith. TTHERE is scarce any duty which ha's been so obscured in the writings of learned Men as this I will not enter here into any of their disputes but briefly say what I think fit for your practice and performance of it 2. FAITH then is an assenting to or believing * the whole word of God but especially of his Gospel and of the * Commands * Threats and * Promises therein contained This is the nature of that Faith which is required of us and it is then perfect when it affords to every one of these that assent which is proportioned to it viz. 1. A firm assent to whatever the Gospel has revealed 2. an obediential submission to the Commands 3. An humble fear and awe of the Threats and 4. a fiducial relyance on the promises of it 3. To have the first of these you must in general firmly believe that whatever God hath said is infallibly true and though in particular there be many revelations which you cannot it may be understand the possibility of as that God became Man was born of a Mother still remaining a Virgin that he suffered and died and yet lives for ever yet must you undoubtedly conclude that since he has plainly told you these things are so you ought firmly to believe him seem they never so repugnant otherwise to your apprehension 4. To have the second you must in general assent to God's commands that they are most fitting just and righteous and that all men therefore ought diligently to fulfill them and in particular you must resolve that by the assistance of Heaven you your self will. 5. FOR the third you must believe stedfastly that these threats shall certainly as most justly they ought be executed upon all those impenitent Sinners against whom they are denounced and that except you take care to work out your Reconciliation