of twelve in the pound Secondly The other sign of the Spirit is to have the mind of Christ which St. Paul so much urgeth Phil. 2.5 Let the same mind be in you which was also in Christ the spirit of God appeared like a Dove like a Fire and like a tongne Mar. 3.16 Act. 2.3 a Dove to shew simplicity a Fire to shew ardency and a Tongue to shew it loved to informe ignorance So did Christ he did no harm but much good and the zeal of Gods house did even consume him and his tongue never ceased to preach the glad tidings of salvation see then if you have pure simplicity without hypocrisie zeal without ignorance or partiality and a tongue ready to glorifie God then sure Christ is your life Thirdly the third sign is to love Christ for himselfe and all those that love Christ though I know not their persons or if I do yet to love them for this reason onely because they love Christ Thus wee passe from death to life if wee love the brethren 1 Joh. 3.14 And that it be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without dissimulation Rom. 12.9 But before wee passe to that life there is a vale of death to be passed which though it be common to all yet it is not advantagious to all but onely to such to whom Christ is life therefore wee will first looke upon it as it is common to all then how it is a peculiar benefit to some First Death is common to all Statutum est omnibus semel mori It is appointed unto all men once to dye Rom. 6.23 the reason is Man sinned and the wages of sin is death Ob. But some will say if man had not sinned yet he would have dyed because no body consisting of elements can be eternall Ans Wee answer that this is more then can be proved for though it be true according to Philosophy yet it will make no axiome in Divinity for wee must know that Phylosophers spoke according to the effects which sinne had brought upon the creature and to that estate in which the offence left mankind which sin it may be was unknown to the Phylosophers Besides we find death to be the issue of sin And threatned onely for sin and therefore surely had not Adam sinned Gen. 2.17 he had not been mortall Besides a change might have been without death as wee see in divers creatures the Eagle by casting or breaking off her Bill the Snake by shiftting off his old rugged skin becomes more lively and active Lastly the Tree of Life for ought we know might be as well restaurative as sacramental an help to Nature as well as a type of Christ Obj. Why then do other creatures dye which sinned not Ans They are subjected to vanity for our sakes They were made for man and therfore for man subjected Rom. 8.20 that man by them might be served and not starved for want of them therefore there is no injury done to the creature by God but by man when he doth abuse them by cruelty or surquedry Therefore being that to dye is common to man it behooves man to expect it Mat. 24.43 to suspect it as a thiefe that would steal upon him this contemplation when it proceeds not from Panick feare is holy and pious I mean when I do not feare death so much as a debt of nature but as the wages of sin for so to fear it is childish for many go out of the world easier then they came in and the vitall parts are not so quick of sense as other parts are therefore a religious fear of death is profitable because it prepares us to dye by making us to cast up our accompt and make all even before-hand 1 Cor. 11.31 And to judge our selves that wee may not be judged that so as by sin wee have made life away unto death so by a true preparation we may make death a passage to everlasting life for as saith S. Bernard Cecidimus omnes super lapidem in luto unde inquinati et vulnerati sumus Wee are fallen upon a stone in the dirt by which wee are both defiled and wounded wee must therefore before wee dye be washed in the laver of regeneration and cured by the blood of the Covenant There be three sorts of People can never prepare well for death The first is the Epicure and Socinian who deny the soules immortality such were in St. Pauls time who said Let us eate and drinke for to morrow wee shall dye 1 Cor. 15.32 and though that these thought of no resurrection at all yet it will not excuse them who imagine the soule to have no subsisting after this life as to be capable either of joy or sorrow and therefore they count the Parable of Dives and Lazarus Jos Stegman Disp not to be a thing propounded in a figure which may have a corresponding reddition but a meer fiction as of the Poets Tartarus and Elysium whom the Popes policy in setting up Purgatory will condemn to have lessereligion then himselfe these men can never prepare for death but rather for the continuance of life because with death their happynesse ends like a birds or a beasts But this error is confuted divers wayes First from the very instinct of nature which desires perpetuity of name fame 2 Sam. 18.18 and family which is but the shadow of eternity in the soule so also because the soul is no bodyly thing and therefore not corruptible it finds no satisfaction in finite things and therefore except it be made in vain cannot cease to be till it hath enjoyed the object adequated to it Greg. Nyss and then it can neither because that object doth quicken it the more for the vision of God is the life of the soule which vision it apprehendeth when it is separated from the body therefore God is said to be the God of Abraham Mar. 12.27 of Isaac and Jacob though they were dead because they lived to him Heb. 12.23 so in the Epistle to the Hebrews the 12. and 23. there is mention made of the spirits of just men made perfect which must needs be in heaven by the sight of God though their bodyes be not yet raised If wee thinke not thus how shall wee prepare to leave the certainty wee have here to enjoy we know not what nor when Nor doe they rightly prepare for death who sleight it for it is the King of terrours It is not putting on the ignorant bravery of a Roman spirit who knowes not what comes after that gives Death right entertainment Desperate resolutions are not heroicall Christian vertues For see revenge of wrongs dares death a man in griefe wooes death and the feare of dying hath prevented the cruelty of it Some have dyed in pittying of others as some of Otho's friends did And Christs Disciples had a touch of this when they said hearing Lazarus was dead Let us goe that we
his gain For what life can stirre up this resolution in a man but the life of Christ onely And what advantage are we like to make by gloryfying Christ in our bodies in life and death if death yeeld not an advantage when all is lost in this world But therefore he finding this fruit of resolution shewes the reason of it thus For to me to live is Christ and to dye is gain That makes me so bold to do as I say and because God hath given me grace to magnify Christ I am no lesse comforted for Christ is life to me and death advantage 1. What is common to man with other creatures To Live First let us see what is common to man with other creatures to wit to live and dye This is also common to all men to Heathens as Christians To live is no priviledge from the Ant to the Elophant every creature can boast as much a Dog hath his day a Flower hath its flourish and fading every leafe hath its spring and fall and wherein doth a man exceed these if he do but live Nay wherein do not these exceed him in naturall life For they have a certaine time of life man hath not Eccles 3.1 He that said there was a time for all things said not there was a time to live So they renew their age every yeare but man is in a continuall decay or decrease from his very birth Gen. 1.25 26. The Beasts and he were made all upon one day to forewarn him that he became not like one of them But man remained not in honour Psalm 49.12 but became like the Beasts that perish Nay worse He commeth up and is cut down like a flower Wee scarce can peep out our heads but Times Scyth is ready to mow us down For all flesh is grasse saith Isaiah It is not so good our bodies are like baskets of dust which a little wind can scatter and all our glory like a bladder of wind which the least incision will soon empty What is there in life to boast of but either A Being A Lasting or A Seeming happy Accident 1. Being First for a Being It is not worth boasting of every Emmet hath an Esse this makes a small difference let Solomon teach them better who boast of this Eccles 3.18 where he wisheth that God would so manifest himselfe to the sons of men that they who trust to an Esse or meer being might see themselves to be but Beasts Yet some men are infinitely in love with life why I know not I thinke if they found as many checks in it as some doe they would rather cry with Moses and Eliah 1 Kings 19.4 Lord take me out of the world that I may not see my wretchednesse But it may be they know no other happynesse which makes them dote on this life like Birds and Brutes and onely dream of worldly felicity as the Iews lookt for Christ in a temporall Kingdome and as the Turkes did and do looke for their great Prophet Mahomet who hath promised at his return to his Disciples the world to enioy at pleasure and all other men to be their slaves A doctrine taken up by some Christians long since Euseb 7. lib. cap. 24. as Ebion and Corinthus damnable Hereticks both and by others of late onely to keep up the lean hopes of their hungry followers who gape but onely after carnall felicity what ever they pretend to piety if they can be bewitched by such stuffe as this Poore soules All this is but an externall being Micah 2.10 which is not the place of your rest no more then your Lords Kingdome is of this world But these kind of teachers have cozened you of your meat and now for feare like children you should cry and scratch they fain would please you with a Puppet Beloved Believe not every Spirit 2 Pet. 2.18 19. Phil. 3.20 St. Iude tels you of dreamers Be not led by a dreamer of dreames nor be thou carryed away by high swelling words of vanity by which the hearts of the simple are deceived Look for Christ your life to appeare but not according to the fashion of this life Prepare to meet the Lord in the aire Coloss 3.2 not upon the earth set not your mind on things that are beneath but on the things that are above Let no man spoil you of your reward by thrusting himselfe into things he hath not seen vainly puffed up in his fleshly mind Let them enioy their thousand yeares upon earth without envy look thou to enjoy Heaven forever For that thousand yeares the Millenaries talk of so much Brightman on the Revelation taken from Rev. 20.4 is not any earthly Kingdome of Christ with his Saints Because it is called the first resurrection and seemeth to entail eternity onely upon those who did enjoy it Which if so I pray what shall become of the rest of the Saints who shall arise after the thousand years be past who maintain the war against Gog and Magog Are not they blessed though they did not partake of that thousand yeares Or are these the same Saints which did enjoy the thousand yeares If so then they must live upon earth more then a thousand yeares and so the truth of the 4th verse will be doubted Or what shall become of the Saints who never were beheaded for the testimony of Christ and yet good Christians shall not they be delivered from death at the second resurrection because of the first they could not partake being no martyrs Apage I willtrouble you nor my selfe no further with raking in this mud Yet some love life more then these it seemes who say that an evill Being is better then none at all First because say they a Being is good but no being is no good Secondly because a being has a capability of exaltation but no being hath none Nay some have been bold to say that it is better to be in hell then not to be at all But there I leave them For Solomon saith that a nonens Eccles 4.3 a not being is better then them both viz. who were oppressors or were oppressed though the one had power to do mischiefe which is a kind of unhappynes and the other had no power to resist it which is a great misery so ver 1. Yea Eccles 4.1 he preferres it before them that were dead whom yet he thinkes in better state then the living because the dead have had life and lost it and the living are subject to vanity and mutability while they have it And Christ himselfe saith Math. 26.24 It had been better for Iudas if he had never been born For certainly though that Being simply considered in it selfe is better then not to be yet it is not better to be in an evill condition then not at all because that which was never had was never lost and therefore no griefe vexeth one for that But to be and to be
a day may bring forth Being without well-being is not worth our desires wee must looke to another life if wee desire to see good dayes and that is the life Christian which doth difference our lives from all others For our life is hid with Christ in God Coloss 3.3 and from this life wee are denominated as righteousnesse doth a righteous man for as Non vivere sed valere est vita not to live but to be in health is life the rest is sicknes and deaths equipage so not to live is a Christian life but to live godly God lookes Non tam multum sed quam bene not how long but how well wee live there is therefore not onely a life naturall but a life spirituall which prepares us for a life eternall as the wildernes of Sin and the Kingdome of Bashan did lead to Canaan This is when wee lead a naturall life after a spirituall manner as to be a Mary in contemplation and so anticipate the joyes of heaven or a Martha by good actions and so become our own rewarders by laying up for our selves a good foundation against the time to come that wee may lay hold of eternall life or like Lazarus to come out of the grave at the call of Christ or to make Christ our pattern who hath left us an example that wee should follow his steps or like St. Paul to make Christ our life that death may be our gain So I come to that life which puts a difference between other men The life different of a Christian and a Christian viz. to be their life Of this St. Paul speakes who made not the world his life nor his pleasure his life but as the worke of Christ was his meat and drinke so Christ was his life also This may be understood Operativè Or Objectivè First Operatively that is if I live Christ is my life by the operation of faith Gal. 2.20 I live yet not I but Christ liveth in me and the life that I now live I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himselfe for me For Christ lives in a man by his Spirit by faith and by love First by his Spirit justifying me that his righteousnes is mine in the merit of it that he hath deserved for me to be held guiltlesse of all sin in the sight of God so by his spirit also sanctifying me to a new and true spirituall obedience lastly Rom. 8.16 exciting me by the same spirit to every good worke To this purpose St. Paul saith The spirit witnesseth to our spirits that wee are the sons of God This is Pignus salutis the pledge of our salvation Greg. which never goeth alone without the other for that spirit that gives the pledge of salvation giveth also the Robur vitae the strength of life by which those things are easie which before seemed hard and lastly Lumen scientiae the life of knowledge which like light doth illuminate what was darke and produceth what lay hid in our earthy natures Secondly Christ lives in me by faith urging me to believe that by his grace I am that I am Thirdly He lives in me by love by which fayth worketh me first to acknowledge my selfe to be his in all true obliegement and then to do him all manner of service Therefore St. Austin prayeth to God that his spirit may thus live in him Sanctum semper opus in me spira ut cogitem suade ut diligam urge ut faciam inspire me with thy holy worke perswade me to love urge me to do And so comes in the second sence of this text viz. Objectivè which I take to be here especially meant namely To me to live is Christ that is I accompt my life Christs to be spent and disposed of in him and for him to be spent in his service as David saith Psal 116.16 I am thy servant So all the Apostles write themselves CHRISTS and the CHURCHES servants the Pope writes himselfe so but t is meerly titular he Lords it too much over Gods inheritance to be a servant This is a good Christian complement when it is essentiall that whether wee live wee live to to the Lord or whether wee dye Rom. 14.8 wee dye to the Lord. Secondly To live to me is Christ if my life be willingly at his disposall as St. Paul said Acts 21.13 I am not ready onely to be bound but to dye for the Lord Iesus so that here we see if Christ be our life then our life must be Christs the one of these depends upon the other Christ hath bought us wee are not our owne Glorifie therefore saith the Apostle God in your bodies and in your spirits for they are Gods Wee must not live to our selves 1 Cor. 6.20 2 Cor. 5.15 let us first find that Christ is our life then the other wil be found also that our life shall be Christs for such an unionthere is between Christ and us as there is between the Head and the Members the Vine and the branches If the Body have a living Head the sense of the Body is derived from the Head and disposed of to the good of the Head and therfore here is set down that Christ is to me life because Christ is all in all to them that are his in the flux reflux of grace in the preventing operating in the donation and retribution Quest How shall I know Christ to be in me that I may say comfortably to my selfe That Christ is life to me Answ By the Spirit that he hath given us 1. Joh. 3.24 which Spirit is known by divers motions First by a purpose to obey God and an inclination to that purpose Therefore Christ minded Gods work with David Joh. 4.34 more then his dayly food and he was straitned till that was accomplished that he was sent to suffer but you must observe this purpose and inclination is in us not onely in extremities as in Pharaoh Exo. 9.28 while the rod was upon him he promised fair but even while we are in health and have the world at will God loves to be chosen as freely as he was forsaken and it is a great comfort to a man and a good token of Gods spirit when a man can say This good I did embrace and this evill I did forsake meerely for Gods cause without any other respect or constraint as Ioseph did Gen. 39 9. How can I do this great wickednes and sin against God The Devil as the Proverb is when he was sick would be a Monke which savours of more religion then those Monkes who while they be well will be devils but being well he was the devill still so many of us cry in affliction and pretend repentance but the storme being over we doe as he did that vowed to a Saint if he came safe to shore a wax Candle of twelve pound weight but when he came there he gave one
may die with him Joh. 11.16 Love sleights death A certaine Neapolitane leapt into the Sea when his wife was taken by Pyrates Tiberius Graocus having two snakes in his house male and female was told by the Southsayer that if he killed the female his wife should die if the male himselfe should He killed the male and dyed first himselfe Beauxamonts wife the Moore would be buryed with her husband Porcia the wife of Brutus dyed by eating hot burning coales for griefe her husband was dead But all these sorrowed as men without hope and did not prepare for death but provoked him against themselves Others of the Heathen dyed with lesse passion though for ought I know with as little hope As great Augustus in a faire complement with Livia Conjugii nostrimemor esto vive vale saying Be mindfull Livia of our wedlock bands live still and prosper But there is more to be done in this businesse First therefore be acquainted with death by dying to one sinne or other that liveth in thee or by killing that love to the world ease riches friends which makes death so bitter as saith Syracides Ecclus. 41.1 O Death how bitter is thy remembrance to a man that lives at ease in his possessions Secondly be temperate in all things against this fight So the Apostle counselleth the Corinthians 1 Cor. 9.25 They that strive for masteries are temperate in all things lest when he comes to fight you are loth to lose your delicates as many are loth to die so long as they can but receive meat These are such who make their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Phil. 3.19 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For banquetting is vinculum animae the bond of the soule and the fetters of the affections As we read of Philoxenus who would not leave the Polypus his head behind him though his Physitian told him that what he had eat already would kill him in seven houres Many there are Qui Curios simulant who seeme abstemious a while yet scarce a Fasting day but like the fish Musipula they suck up their frie againe which they had formerly vomited Thirdly Challenge death in thy shirt strip thee naked of all worldly habiliments He fights but as some Souldiers doe for booty If he finde nothing to spoile thee of he hath no spirit to fight with thee Job wooed him to wound him but he would not Job 4.13 It is our hugging of the world which makes death violent and our security that makes him so eager to obtain a Habeas Corpus But if he finde a man that Nil nisi cutem morti concesserit atrae Horat. who has nothing for death but his skin he is willing to let him alone till some better advantage happen to his liking Fourthly yet doe not take deaths part against thy selfe by lying at too open a ward of despair For that is it he would have and therefore makes thee beleeve that he will end all thy paine and grief shame and sorrows if thou wilt betray thy life unto him by some violent death Whereas indeed then begins thy misery for while there is life there is hope I waited long and at the last God heard me Psal 40.1 Know ye not that Blessed is the man that endureth temptation Jam. 1.12 for he shall receive at last a crown that fadeth not away You must like a faithfull Sentinell wait till your change come No Souldier is praised for marching without the word of command nor no Christian for spending his life till God take it I read of a Roman Conful that whipt a builder for using other timber then he had appointed though it may be more fit for the purpose If a practicall Carpenter was so served wanting onely the complement of obedience what have your pragmaticall builders deserved who out of the spirit of disobedience will have no cake but of Thamars making though it prove their owne ruine Well let us not call death upon our selves by the errour of our lives but prepare onely for it Dediscas vivere oportet si discas mori You must forget to live if you would learne to die as Saint Paul did who said By the rejoycing I have in Christ Jesus I thanke God I die daily 1 Cor. 15.31 Nor count death evill as those that dye without hope as one Mecaenas of whom Seneca saith He was of so weak a heart that he would refuse no torment Nec acutam crucem dummodo inter haec mala spiritus vita prorogentur He was content to endure any torment so his life might be prolonged Which saith Seneca was pessimum votum the worst desire and wish and argued him effeminate and base Quia distulit id quod est in malis optimum supplicii finē because Death is the end of all misery and punishment Yet the man could not be much blamed not knowing with Adrian what life was to come after whether any or none Which made him so discourse with his soule Animula vagra blanda quae nunc abibis in loca Little vagrant tender soule into what regions art thou posting hence And indeed if we know not that I wonder not to see folké loth to die for a living dog is better then a dead lion But death is not evill in it selfe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Not to die is evill but to die ill is evill Which that we may not doe wee must so prepare our selves that we may look back upon our lives with comfort and forward upon the object of our hope with joy that so it may prove an advantage to us So I come to the other thing in death which is proper to a true Christian viz. a Gaine Death is to me a gaine Obj. Death is a privation therefore a losse How is it then a gaine Ans Not in it self but in regard of the over-ruling power of Christ who hath conquered him and altered his nature so that of a privation it is become but a commutation from a losse to a gaine Therefore those that live to Christ lose nothing by death but gaine by it All things else lose by it as either life or pleasure or wealth But all these are gained by a good man in death first life Christ came that wee might have it more abundantly 1. Joh. 10.10 And for pleasure and joy In his presence is the fulnesse of joy and at his right hand are pleasures for evermore Psal 16.11 And for wealth there is no want Luk. 12.32 Wee change a Cottage for a Court and a Farme for a Kingdome This is not hard to prove if we could beleeve Scripture which tells us that no eye hath seen nor care heard nor tongue is able to expresse what God hath laid up for them that love him 2 Cor. 4.17 Saint Paul tells us of a crowne of Righteousnesse of a weight yea an everlasting weight of glory 2 Cor. 4.17
Now it is not so in this life For all that wee have here is either toilsome to get carefull to keep or fulsome to continue with as Seneca saith of satiety Cogita quamdiu eadem feceris Mori velle non tantum fortis miser sed etiam fastidiosus potest A man would die with wearinesse of reiterating the same thing though he were neither valiant nor miserable The best thing here is of a perishing nature but our inheritance there is incorruptible undefiled and fadeth not away and reserved in heaven where there is no feare of robbing 1 Pet. 1.4 or spoiling us of it either by the violence of the Souldier or the crast of the deceiver or the deceitfulnesse of the Lawyer But all things here are fading saving Grace and yet that hath much adoe to stick by us as saith Saint Paul I find a Law in my members fighting against the law of my mind Rom. 7.23 Who feels or sees not this decay except those whose eyes are too much fixed upon the worlds toyes whom the god of this world hath blinded Excellens sensibile destruit sensum They look too much much on the world and so are blinded by it They hold it not at a just distance from God and Godlinesse or look not upon it with a right spectacle of Gods Word which discovers to us all her adulterate ware That is the Reason why we see not the envie of honour the allurements of pleasure the inconstancy of riches the impediments of Poverty the temptings of the flesh the baits of beautie the infirmities of the body the certainty of evill and the danger of losing good What then is all this to what wee lose by being absent from the Lord whilst we are in the body 2 Cor. 5.6 Wee lose the blessed vision the sight of God the presence of Christ the full enjoyment of the holy Ghost the company of Angels and the Society of Saints all which we know but in part here but then we shall know even as we are knowne To ensure your self hereof look you that you have the fruit of this confidence that Christ is your life The fruit of this confidence and death is your gaine included in the word For which hath relation to that Resolution which this confidence bred namely to glorifie God in his body whether by life or death because Christ was his life and death was to him advantage And surely hee that desireth so to doe cannot chuse but find the other For Christ being his life makes him apt to glorifie God in life and in death And this he resolving to doe must needs produce this effect that death must be his gain For he that will lose his life for my sake shall find it Mat. 10.39 And not such a life simply but better an hundred fold in the happinesse of it and for the continuance everlasting The summe then of all is this Consider we are Christians which doth give us a right to a better life then nature can viz. a spirituall life in Christ and an eternall life with Christ To obtain either of these we must avoid the voluptuousnes of life naturall and let Christ be our contemplation and his example our pattern This is in mundo vivere vana mundi contemnere to live in the world Gal. 6.14 and yet despise it to use the world as not using it The world must be crucified to me as looking on it as a cursed thing Totus mundus positus in maligno and I must be crucified to the world by its hatred of me So that we must live as Saint Paul directs our loynes girded with truth lamps burning in our hand viz. shining in good workes and lastly watching in devotion lest we be found sleeping This being done we may bid death welcome for he brings advantage with him And if yet our infirmities present death formidable Consider what is death but a fall to rise like the setting of the Sunne A medicine to those miseries which sinne brought upon us For we having fallen by sinne into all manner of woe it was mercy as well as Justice in God to make us mortall lest we should live for ever miserable Pluto guessed well when he said Death was the Law of Nature Adrian said better and more full that Death was Paver divitum pauper is defiderium the feare of the rich and the desire of the poore Seneca said more divinely that it was Finis or Transitus an end to the wicked mans happinesse a passage to the good mans blessednesse Death cannot bite Innocence but smiles upon it Which made Saint Augustine to say He desired to see death as Christ had made it Secondly consider not so much the seares it has as the joyes it brings It is strange to see how light they made of it who had no such hopes as we have I meane the Heathen And we that count our selves the true Israelites need not be ashamed to borrow a jewel of these Egyptians Cato sent Caesar word that he feared more his pardon then his pain The joyes of death are such to those that live well as that they rejoyce when it draweth nigh For it is but a sleep and the grave a dormitorie where men rest from their labours In vitâ vigilant justi ideo in morte dicuntur dormire saith Saint Augustine Righteous men watch while they live and therefore are said to sleep when they be dead A certaine wise Roman said Non puerascam si Deus mihi largiatur He would not be a child again though God would permit it His reason was because now sayes he Ex hospitio ad domum discedam I shall goe from my Inne to my home For indeed the soule Non est ubi nunc est is not where it would be It looks ad futura to that which is to come And he that doth not beleeves not certainly the soules immortality nor the paine of death which being once apprehended makes us impatient to live in Mesech Ps 120.5 and desirous of dissolution with S. Paul Which gaine if thou wouldest make of death die to the world betimes He that begins a journey early makes a pleasure of it rather then a paine Such men are neither ashamed to live because they have lived well nor affraid to die because they are are but going whither they have beene alwaies travelling Remember therefore thy Creatour in the daies of thy youth Eccl. 12.1 before the evill day come Like the Bee and the Ant let not your provision be to make in the winter Christ taught us to prevent impediments of safety when he said to the people concerning the destruction of Jerusalem pray Mat. 25.20 that your flight be not in the winter nor on the Sabbath day because hee knew their opinion of the Sabbath would hinder their flight one way as the winter another So provide against this blustring day of death lest it hinder you in your passage to heaven
In a word let sin die before thee and then it cannot follow thee to judgment Feare not death but looke to the errour of your life break off sinne by repentance and entertaine Christ and death will be found without sting yea no crosse but a crowne no dart but a scepter shalt thou find in Christs hand or an olive in token of our victorie As confidently thou maist passe deaths teeth as once Ignat. did the teeth of wild beasts who said before hand when he was condemned I care not what death I suffer for seeing I am Gods corn I care not with what flaile of death he please to beat me out for I am willing to beground even by the teeth of these beasts that I may make cleane bread for Christ who became the bread of life for me How cheerfully may we then say Egredere anima mea egredere Goe forth my Soul Ps 142.9 to meet thy Saviour with David pray Lord bring my soul out of this prison that I may praise thy Name And with Saint Aug. Creasti nos ob te and Lord thou hast created us for thy selfe and I cannot be quiet til I come to thee And then shall begin that heavenly Epithalamium or wedding song of foure parts sung in Antiphona's and Responsories The Lamb saith Come and the Spirit saith Come and the Bride saith Come and thy soule shall say Come Lord Jesus come quickly So did this our deceased Sister Mrs MARY OVERMAN descended of an ancient and worthy Family of the Breretons marryed into an accomplished Family of the Overmans with whom though she found sufficiencie and satisfaction to her owne hearts desire yet she breathed after another life Not because she was sullenly faln out of love with the world but in love with Christ as appeared by her dying words which must eternize her memory when as a little before her dissolution this earnest and pious prayer departed from her first Lord when shall I come and appear before the presence of Christ my JESVS Dying MARY it seemes by this was ready for living CHRIST and living CHRIST as willing to receive dying MARY for soone after he took her to himselfe Who though she was weak in body yet was she strong in faith and hope which viaticum she had with her to strengthen her in her journey and to convey her soule into the hands of her Redeemer Herein as well approving as professing her selfe a true MARY in choosing that better part which now shall never be taken from her Next to Christ her Head in heaven she loved her Head on earth whom God had given her and like the Turtle loved her Mate yet was not like Rachel importunate for children nor yet dejected for want of them She spent her time not idly as many of her degree too usually doe even in these times whose miseries call to baldnesse and sackcloth but like another Dorcas she seemed to those that have seene her constant employment so farre from being idle that she was most an end well busied and full of good works So that as it was written of the Ladie Paula so it may be of Her too that she spent most of her time either in good workes or Gods worship Her chamber was not onely a shop of Confection as the fashion is but an Oratorie for Devotion Thirdly In a long and tedious consumption she behaved her selfe very patiently and knowing under whose hand she suffered opened not her mouth in any discontent and well perceiving it was the Lords doing thus to permit her to suffer she laid her downe and possest her soule in patience only with the meeke spirit of Iob intending Saint-like to imitate him in this her sanctified affliction in the depth of her consumption yet in the height of her devotion applyed ever and anon Jobs deploring words to her languishing selfe and like him wholy submitting her selfe to Gods dispoall said My months are moneths of vanity and sad nights are appointed for me And at other times in Davids words for she conversed much with dead Saints whiles she was living and had therefore learnt to use their language now she was dying when in his prayer he deciphered his miseries that he might the easier implore mercy Psalm 31.10 My life is consumed with greif and my years with sighing So that as Saint Ambrose said of one dying of such a disease so may we of hers that it seemd a martyrdome Yet was she not childishly afraid of death nor struggled she much to retaine life as some doe from whom God is faine as it were to teare away their soules but she offered up hers as a free-will-offering with a contempt of the world saying Away with all these things and with an earnest desire besides to be with Christ who having beene her life made death her gaine Which Text it seemes was some time since her owne meditation as appeares by her notes under her owne hand with this her devout paraphrase found upon them Heaven is my home I am a stranger here Which undoubtedly was the language of her heart as well as of her hand And if so what can we lesse perswade our selves she is then what she made her selfe by her pious endeavours a true a very MARY that is by interpretation Excellent Excellent in Contemplation thereby anticipating the joyes of heaven whilst she walkt upon the earth and excellent in action too her actions speaking her a perfect servant of the Almighty And therefore now no doubt after death a partaker of his glory with her fellow Saints for right dear in the sight of the Lord is the death of such Saints so deare that he takes them into his bosome And for our parts we may say of her as Saint Hierome said of Fabiola Ex annulo Ecclesiae monile perdidimus We even wee have lost a precious jewell out of the Ring of the Church But lost she is not I doe her wrong to say so of her whom God hath found She is not dead but sleepeth And her flesh doth rest in hope that what is sowne in weaknesse shall rise in power according to his mightie working who is able to subdue all things unto himselfe who bringeth downe to the grave and raiseth up by whom death is already swallowed up in victorie and so made an advantage to us Thus passed this precious Saint from sicknesse to perfect health from weaknesse to perfect strength from bondage to perfect freedome from trouble to perfect peace from losse to perfect gaine from heavinesse to perfect joyes In a word she is passed from death to life and from earth to heaven to be for ever in perfect happinesse where wee leave her safe and come to cloze with you Now therefore as the death of Christ doth for us make a gaine of death so may the death of good men and women worke some advantage also for us in that point and so their death may be a gaine to us Therefore Solomon sayes
and daunted his following enemies Even as a friend of yours a Commander did look that day upon the guilty faces of your Funerall-disturbers whom they answered with making faces altero ad frontem sublato altero ad mentum depresso supercilio by pulling one eye-brow up and the other down or else turning their backs God keep every good man from envy hatred malice and uncharitable men So entreating I may be excused for so long detaining your right from you which you had received long since in a better character but that mine adversaries stony hearts have bred upon me Calculum in renibus the Stone in the Kidneys a disease I never knew till I fell into the gravell-pits of their digging where I have suffered by paine and griefe a petty martyrdome But God I hope who hath will still deliver me from unreasonable men and from every evill way To whom I commit you and all your worthy family resting Your devoted servant in Christ Jesus Benjamin Spencer TO THE READER WHosoever reades this Copy I suppose will find nothing in it worth so much adoe as Envy made to prevent the preaching of it But as Envy is a Monoculus so also she is suspicious She had but one eye and that is a bad one but many jealousies of those she lookes asquint upon Doe not thou looke throw her spectacles and thou wilt find in the Author rather worke for pitty then Envy and his Sermon rather craving mercy then deserving malice Read then whithout prejudice this dumb Sermon of his whom his adversaries account no better of then a dead dog Thou needst not think the worse of him 1 Cor. 4.13 nor it The Apostles were reckoned as the filth and off-scouring of all things And Turks call Christians dogs And I wonder not when brethren of the same Family are falne out to hear them miscall one another For from among our selves must men arise speaking perverse things saith S. Paul Well Acts 20.30 let them speak doe thou read It may be Mutimagistri dumb teachers such as Books are may give thee more light then some great talkers God direct thee Farewell Errata Pag. 6. lin 27. r. Cerinthus p. 15. l. 17. r. Sesostris p. 22. l. 18. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 31. l. 26. r. vagula blandula ibid. l. 27. r. wandring sporting soule p. 42. l. 23. r. disposall p. 45. l. 22. r. the Living An Introduction to the Sermon THe Directory His speech intended before naming the Text. set forth by the Reverent Synod gives Ministers leave at Funeralls to put the living in remembrance of their dutie And I will doe no more And I hope that will give no offence to any good Christian since that is not to strow complementall flowers upon the hearse of the dead but will rather prove supplementall ornaments to the living I therefore being partly acquainted with our deceased Sisters life and death and requested therefore to this office by her friends who seing her lamp went not out in darknesse was loth that her earthen vessell should be interred without some light which might direct others how to walk from the womb to the tomb Leave therefore being first obtained of your Minister and Officers of this Church I have thought good to present you as a subject of your contemplation with such a peice of scripture as may both answer to our dead Sister the patterne and to us the living portraictures Which you shall find delineated by Saint Paul himselfe Philip. 1.21 PHILIP 1.21 For to me to live is Christ and to die is gaine WISE SOLOMON said in the old Testement that this is the summ of all Eccles 12.19 Feare God and keep his Commandements this is the whole duty of man So I say to live rightly by faith and to dye in hope are the two chiefe lessons of Christianity But because they under the Law saw Christ like Moses in a veile therfore was their lesson legall Fac hoc et vive do this and live But since Christ was revealed who is our life we must find our life in him that in our death we may find him with comfort To this tendeth the whol Law and Gospell For this life was veil'd in the old Testament and revealed in the new To this life tend all the examples of the Patriarchs Prophets Apostles which were written for our learning Rom. 15.4 of which St. Paul was not the least who could averre thus confidently of himselfe that to him to live was Christ and to dye was gain This blessed Apostle having saluted this Church of Philippi with grace and peace ver 2. and having shewed them his thankefulnesse to God and his love to them for the fruits of their faith and fellowship of his sufferings which he prayeth God to continue ver 4.5 to the 9. he makes in the next place an accompt to them of his labours at Rome and sheweth them that the talent wherewith Christ had entrusted him had encreased by his sufferings there ver 12. So that many waxed confident to preach as well as to believe ver 14. though it may be some of envy some of good will All which he saith he knoweth shall turne to his salvation according to his expectation to magnify Christ in his body whether by life or death ver 19.20 the reason of which confidence this verse sheweth in these words For to me to live is Christ and to dye is gain As if he should have said If it please God that I shall magnify Christ in my body living Christ is to me my way of living or my life shall be spent to set forth or set up the Kingdom of Christ It is life to me to do his worke as you may perceive it to be expounded in the next verse If I live in the flesh that is the fruit of my labour viz. To advance the Kingdome of Christ And to dye is gaine because I shall enjoy him for whom I laboured But this is not so to all yet to me it is who desire to magnifie Christ both in my Life and Death whom I finding to be my life I know death must needs be my gain because thereby I receive the end of my hopes the salvation of my soule There needs no accurate division of these words onely consider these three things First what is common to Christians and other creatures To Live and Dye Secondly What is proper in life and death to a true Christian besides to others viz. First to find Christ to be their Life Secondly Death to be their gaine Thirdly to find the fruit of this assurance which is included in the word FOR having relation to the former verse which is a resolution to glorify God in his body whether by Life or Death Which fruit will also prove this assurance to be good as all Gods graces are proved or improved one by another For upon such a resolution a man may well say that Christ is his life and death