baptised for the dead This Custom was anciently observed by the Corinthians a sort of Hereticks who notwithstanding their own practise denyed the Resurrection of Bodies and it is likely were Authors of the Error taxed in this Chapter in the Church of the Corinthians wherefore S. Paul's meaning is that this custom which weighed so much in those days were very absurd if there were no Resurrection seeing that the very Ground and Foundation of Baptism not only Sacramental but Ritual is to seal unto us both our spiritual and corporal rising from the dead Rom. 6.3.4 Coloss 2.12 And the end of this particular Ceremony was the profession of the expectance of the blessed Resurrection of Believers a Custom which in following Ages was much abused unto Superstition but without doubt was primitively blameless and piously practicable Then the Apostle comes to a general Instance by way of Quaere why and for what reason and upon what hope do Christians expose themselves voluntarily to death and to so many Dangers Conflicts and Tryals for the Gospel and the Cause of Christianity if it bringeth us to no happiness after this life which happiness according to God's order and our own aims cannot be of the Soul alone without any relation to the body being eternally separate from it vers 19. and 32. compared Lastly he comes to his own personal experience and practise and by a most strong asseveration or assertion equivalent to an Oath which is in the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A particle never used by the Greeks but in Oath only which is here rendred I protest as if he had said as true as my chief Glory and Joy in this world is in the blessing of God on my Ministry towards you which he seems to speak so earnestly that he might the more oblige his Corinthians not to deprive him of that only comfort amongst so many sufferings as sure as you minister Joy to me or as I in my Ministry rejoyce you or that he might the more forcibly press on them his own Example and the more prevalently win them unto Imitation I die daily The words are but three and promptly furnish me with three part which I intend shall bound my Sermon The Protestant I. The matter protested Die The Diuturnity of its practice Daily The Protestant is presented in the personal Pronoun singular I S. Paul the Apostle of the Gentiles in his Order and Epistolar Writings which are tantamount his Sermons a great Preacher a living President to the Churches in all his holy life and labours His Eminency did not exempt him from strict Religion no more than from Mortality he who when he says I live he corrects himself Yet not I but Christ liveth in me Galat. 2.20 Philip 1.21 To whom to live was Christ When he says I die to be sure it is he the same that protesteth in his mortal but regenerate Estate affirming that the better birth is an entrance and engagement to a dying life and the choicest Saints are both Vessels of Earth and of Election as of Earth so must we return to our Earth and as of Election so must we die unto this world as Heirs of a better New creatures live by a new way of dying we live unto God by dying unto sin The chosen of God have a dying principle from the Prince of Life Rom. 6.3 to 12. who died and rose again S. Paul's Eminency in Grace directed him to the frequent exercise of Mortification Dying was his life whose Dignity was to live to God this is that only life which makes death the Christians Game To the common Herd of Men to live is sin and to die is loss but to S. Paul and such as he to live is Christ and to die is Gain Christ was that great Example of the dying life of a Christian whom this his Apostle followed in the exactness of so choice a Mystery of Dying Daily Who S. Paul the Prisoner Eph. 4.1 no wonder if a Prisoner saith I die for a Prison is but a larger Grave and such a one as is fettered and penned up within Bars and Bolts and Grates and Gyves is but one buryed alive and such a one may justly say I die No the Apostle shews himself a Freeman the Prison Gates are open the Bars are broken and Gyves are knocked off from him that can say I die in the sense of the Text. Time was when Paul himself thought he was a jolly person in a lively posture Rom. 7.9 yet Whâ—n the commandment came sin revived and hâ— diâ—d Then was Paul a Prisoner indeed even as a Gâ—lly Slave sold under sin then he stood in so great need of a Redeemer to deliver him from that body of death but now being made free from sin and become the servant of God he goes about to kill that which would have slâ—in him and to lead his Câ—ptivity captive to crucifie the old man that the B dy of Sin might be destroyed This is he wh◠〈…〉 Who S. Paul the aged well may such a one say I die for Age is the next stage to death nay Philemon v. 9. the next step to the Grave when one Foot is already in what a fardle of dying Infirmities doth old Age carry on its back yet the oldest living hopes to live a little longer yet there are many that have lived to great age and experience who have not yet learn'd to die 't was never in their study nor practice If men would exercise themselves this way what a Glory would it be to see many years and many-fold Graces to meet in one person the hoary Head is a Crown of Glory if found in the way of righteousness No doubt S. Paul's Age was to be reckoned by holy Endowments as well as hoary Hairs his Communion with the Ancient of days and his relyance on the Rock of Ages his Statuâ—e in Christ and his Improvements for Eternity his Growth in Grace and saving Wisdom his long serving God in his Generation and the innumerable advantages he had procured to the Churches of Christ and the everlasting good done so many souls which profited by his effectual Ministry were so happy productions of his time and pains as that his Age might be better computed by his good works than by multitude of years this was he who so lived every day that all his days of his Convert Life were his dying days Who S. Paul the Hebrew the Israelite 1 Cor. 1â— 22 23. c. of the stock of Abraham the Minister of Christ so abundant in labours so frequent in dangers so patient in sufferings for him to say I die you may believe him without an Oath and wonder rather that he lived when ye read the Catalogue of his Adventures 1 Cor. 11.28 His daily care of the Churches his intimate Sympathies and ardent â—â—plyances of Charity for such a one as wasted himself 〈◊〉 a burning Taper to give others light such an one as 〈◊〉
his Lungs spent his Breath macerated his boâ—y beating his brains and eating his bread in a worse â—â—eat than that of his brows breaking his sleep burning as in a Feaver of Zeal for God's Honour and the Gospels furtherance and bringing in of stubborn and gainsaying Sinners to Christ weeping in secret and vexing his righteous soul for the evil conversations and froward dispositions of men surely such a one may sadly yet safely say I die daily Or yet again is it Paul the chosen Vessel once a notorious Persecutor now an eminent Saint once a Blasphemer a cruel blood-sucker under whose Tyrannous Agitations many died daily Martyrs for the Truth of Christ once mad against the Church with too much zeal again reputed mad with too much Learning sometimes a Boanerges in his thundering Comminations then a Barnabas in his Consolatory Rhetorick such an one as hath experienced all the methods of the Christian Calling and the perils and persecutions attending that envied Cause such a one as had been in the Deeps by Soul-affliction 1 Cor. 12.2 and in the heights of the third Heaven by Rapture and Revelation one who might glory to the utmost even to the degree of his Apostolate or Saintship as to his excellency in Labours Faculties Gifts or Graces This is he who affirms of himself I even I die daily Now if we find him in this mortified posture considering his Eminency which might be so far doubted as that it put this holy man upon his Oath to attest it sans dispute he may be believed he died daily in his meaner and more ordinary capacities if he was so busie about dying as an Apostle we conclude him so too as a Tent-maker If he died daily as a Saint as the chief of Sinners much more It is enough to ground a President in the case and to render it an acquirable faculty and to determine it the Epitome or Brief of Practical Christianity To die daily But is not this Durus Sermo may we not with Nicodemus in such a case 〈◊〉 60. â— say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 How can these things be Can a man die whiles he lives Such sayings are Spirit not Letter Mystery not Demonstration This is a kind of dying which consists in Action not in Cessation in labouring not in rest from Labours Such as in Jacob's expression Gen. 48.21 Behold I die yet he had much to do and 't is the story of another Chapter before he gave up the Ghost noting there is a way of dying for good men before they expire To die in the Text may have a five-fold sense 1. To be in continual jeopardy of death in the foregoing Verse for we are subjected to death every moment by sentence on Adam's sin vers 22. we are under the statute of Mortality in our best and most vigorous strength and sufficiency whiles our Breasts are full of Milk and our Bones full of Marrow we have the sentence of death in our selves and through fear of death Job 21.24 are all our life time subject to bondage we live but as condemn'd persons under reprieve and life being but a span every Inch and Barley-breadth of time is but a respite of the divine patience protracting the Date for our better perfecting our Duty we are sure we carry deaths enough within us as to give our Bodies themselves the denomination of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as being incident to deaths stroke as open to deaths sting every moment Nor youth nor strength Rom â— 24 nor wisdom nor wealth nor power nor parts nor sufficiency nor sanctity can exempt nor prevent nor redeem from it And in weakness sickness and old age we are so under the sentence as we are not far from the season of death Thus because of the daily Incidencies it is prudential and pious to reckon upon the daily event And if the Heathens defined life to be continua mortis contemplatio the continual meditation of Death Christians with S. Paul should turn it into diurna expectatio a daily â—â—ing expectation and that 's one sense of the Text. 2. I die imports the vicinity of death Gen. 50.24 Jos ph said I die i. e. I must shortly go hence So Joshua This day I go the way of all the earth Josh 22 â—â— He reckoned his death for that day which happened not long after So Job computes to day Job 16.22 When a few years come I shall go to the place from whence I shall not return Our years which are the largest measure of man's time are but few by Moses his cast Psal 90.10 yet he makes days the Dividend though seventy years be the Quotient of man's life And David reckons by days noting that the longest life is but a day of life the Morning of Youth and Noon of Strength Job 9.25 Job 7.1 and Night of Age. Lord how swift is the revolution As a Post or the swift Ships as the day of an Hireling This holy David thus expresseth I am afflicted and ready to die from my youth Psal 88.15 3. I die is as much as to say I am willing to die It is my indifferency as to the time or manner or place but if it were left to my choice I would desire to be dissolved that I might be with Christ The present Tense is rendred in the Optative Mood In matters of Faith by faith things hoped for are made present Heb. 14.1 and become the matter of Prayer and Option A good Christian is a Voluntier for the Grave Phil. 1.23 'T was S. Paul's choice and Simeon's Prayer Luke 2.29 Having Christ in his Arms who had been so long in his hopes the old Expectant thought it a burden to live longer our Apostle always longing to go hence and seeming long first that which is so much in his expectation is frequent in his Option and that which is so much in option is in daily action and such actions as have a direct tendency to fruition Death naturally considered cannot be the object of Election because it is enmity to nature and no man rationally desires his own dissolution nor death penally considered cannot be the object of man's choice but as the dying Jesus hath unstung it and conquered its Malignity and destroyed him that had the power of death and consecrated Interitum into transitum a passage from earth to Heaven and Introitum the dark Entry to the Mansions of Bliss so to die bodily is a desireable benefit and Grace turns its necessity into election and brings inevitable destination into daily exercise We look for death and so with submission to God's will we long for it not only as a cessation from sufferings and sin and sorrows but as our Translation to eternal life our Convoy to Christ our Change our Removal and we daily labour and give all diligence to be found of Christ Jesus in peace And Job 14.14 all the days of our appointed time we wait till our change come 4.
a foolish boldness wherein there is no mixture of wisdom or pious forecast 2. There is great gain in dying for such as by frequent exercise are got skilled in it Job tells us of some that die without wisdom certainly they that never learn'd of God to number their days are to be numbered among those Ignorants the Learned in this Arithmetick reckon their days not by multiplication but by substraction so much for God for Heaven for Christ for Soul and for the Eternity as that the least part of time if any belongs to this life There is a time to be born and a time to die says the Preacher but he allows no term for this life For as soon as a man is born that which in nature only remains to him is to die and it is a wonder since all the Records of Scripture urge the certainty of death the uncertainty of its day the horror of the day of Judgment the severity of God the dissolution of the world the necessity of our last account and from all these premises the Spirit of God makes no other Inference but that we watch and be sober and stand in a readiness that we live in all holy conversation and godliness that we repent and turn to God that we try and examine whether we are in the faith that we work out our Salvation and make our Calling and Election sure And the Doctrines and Rules and Offices and Acts of Preparation are every where interspersed in Holy Scripture yet this among the rest which is indeed the Epitome of all To die daily is looked on as a Riddle and Paradox rarely received into the Faith and Practice of Men called Christians only some choice Souls hit on 't and to such To live is Christ and to die is gain And we have seen the vast difference of managing death when some inexpert persons have been called to it and the more experienced have been brought forth as Champions in Christ on the stage of the Death-bed It must needs come from this discriminating Character some with Paul have died so oft that they are grown intimate with it and act it to the life like Jacob and are meetly furnished for their Translation as Enoch And with Stephen first see the Heavens opened and then pass in with inexpressible Joy and Ravishment certainly such have been much versed in dying whiles they lived who die their last in so lively an assurance 3. He that dies daily hath but one days task to do when he dies He is come to his Journeys end after his dayly Travel and he is like a hard Traveller in this he is less weary the last day than when he first set out he can cast up his account readily for he kept his Day-book exact and now he is ready to be offered and the time of his departure is at hand he reviews his whole life and it hath been a continual Fight 2 Tim 4 6.7.3 and now he begins his Triumphant assault he hath daily been in his course and now comes to finish it and to pass to his Crown O the desperate state of such as instead of dying daily are sinning daily and so are dead whiles they live such are they as are drunk daily swear and whore and prophane and debauch daily Epicures Ephesian Beasts Cretian Liars daily who eat and drink to day though they die to morrow O take heed of dallying with death and since all our life we are dying and this minute in which I now speak death divides with me and hath got the surer part and more certain possession it is but reasonable we should be daily upâ—â— the â—â—â—â—ces of preparation If to day we were not dying and passing on to our Graves then we might with more safety protract our work till to morrow but the age of every day is a beginning of death and the night going â—â—ing us to sleep â—â—ds us go to our lesâ—â—â—â—â— because that night which is the end of the preceâ—â—ng day is 〈◊〉 a lesser death and 〈◊〉 â—â—d but a sâ—ster and 〈◊〉 Gâ—â—â—â— and whereas now 〈◊〉 have died so many days the last day of our life is but the dying so many more and when that last day of dying will come we know not methinks this very consideration should put us speedily upon the Religion of dying There is nothing to be added but the circumstances of sickness which also happens many times before only men are pleased to call that death which is the end of dying when we cease to die any more and therefore to delay dying till then is to put off the work of all our life till the time comes in which it is to cease and determine Remember how it was in thy purposes on thy last Sick-bed O that thy health might be such as thy sickness promised then thy mind was fixed on pious things and thou prayedst for sparing mercy and wert vowing religiously and thought on thy sins with sorrow and shame and the Prayers of the Church were needful and comfortable and the Ministers company and counsel desirable and good discourse acceptable and O if thou hadst time in hand again what a new man thou wouldst be Thy case is the same still if thou flatter not thy self thou art no farther from thy Grave when on thy feet than when on thy sick Bed only thou hast now in health better strength and better helps and better opportunities than when thou last wert dying return then to thy sickly but serious purposes and perform them now in thy health and freedom and practise to die now and 't will be an easier and happier task at last And to facilitate all look still on the dying Jesus thoâ— art called to a conformity with him whose name thoâ— bearest and if thou name the name of Christ depart from iniquity decline and abandon all such Acts in life 〈◊〉 might not be done if thou wert dying Every day tâ—â— view of your last and think either it is this or might be and remember Christ in the flesh was always doing his Fâ—ther's Work which was to die for Sinners O let us not live in the love of Sin because Christ so loved us as to die for our Sins and to save our Souls from the second death He began his Works betimes all his days were dying days till the hour came that he died for all Phil. 3.10 he was always waiting for his Fathers appointed time he was always faithful to his Fathers work and trust He held his life upon his Fathers Terms resolved himself into his Fathers Will and at the last resigned his life into his Fathers Hands Abi in fac similiter Go thou and do likewise Being made conformable to his death Christ died for Sin in way of Expiation Satisfaction and Pacification betwixt his Father and us we die unto Sin in a way of Crucifying Mortifying and destroying it in our selves O 't is a painful Task but it is a gainful State It sequesters us from the comforts of life I say it sweetens and sanctifies and makes all comforts savory 'T is hard and irksome only to corrupt flesh It rebates only the grosser and more feculent parts of our present Contents and Secular Enjoyments 'T will keep death in our minds in the height of our merriments 't is as a deaths head in the Lordly Dishes of our Feasts it is to corrupt minds no other than all Salvation work is grievous and burdensome but to the Faith of God's Elect easie and delightsome to pluck out the Right Eye is by interpretation not to have eyes full of Adultery to cut off the hand is to eschew all Acts of Violence Oppression Theft or Fraud to crucifie the flesh is but to keep the lower Faculties and bruitish Appetites from rebelling and rising against the supremacy of Reason and Virtue And so the Spirit of this Letter To die daily is no other than to order our selves and our conversations aright as Men and as Christians in hope of a better life when this is done which God shall shew us in Christ and here Seal unto us by his Holy Spirit to which our temporal Death shall translate us even our full Salvation Which God of his infinite Mercy grant c. Newly Printed THe Glory and Happiness of the Saints in Heaven or a Discourse concerning the blessed State of the Righteous after Death with Motives and Encouragements unto all Christians to secure to themselves an Interest therein Sold by Nathanael Ranew at the King's-Arms in St. Paul's Church-yard FINIS
I die imports the Apostles fitness for death Then is a Christian fit to die when he is furnished for a better life and daily practice breeds promptitude and the exercise of dying is a tuning and timeing us for the dying day that we may be made meet to be partakers of the eternal Inheritance It is with Christians as with tender and precious Fruits they are daily upon some incremental change till they come to be mature and mellow and fit for use and then they are every day falling to the earth as ready for the owners hand In Job 5.26 ye have an allusion to this in that Parabolical Speech of Eliphaz to Job Thou shalt come to thy grave in a full age as a shock of corn cometh in in its season This was a promise of Honour and Comfort in death As a shock of corn in its season notes a readiness and ripeness for that season Thou shalt come notes a willingness and chearfulness in dying In season notes the ripeness and fitness for death Now that the allusion may fully bear our Apostle helps us to the apprehension of it in the thirty sixth Verse of this fifteenth Chapter to the Corinthians he increpates the dullness of ignorant Atheists about the Resurrection Thou fool that which thou sowest is not quickened except it die Dying is in order to quickening and Growth until the Corn come to a full Grain in the Ear and be ripe for Harvest and the Ears are bound 〈◊〉 in the Sheaves and the Sheaves gathered into the Shock and the Shocks into the Barn And in this sense though a Child of God die in his Youth in the Flower and Spring of his days yet his death is as the Harvest Season to his hopes and the gathering of his Soul to God and his Body to his Fathers though in his natural capacity he be cut down whiles he is green and cropt in the Bud or Blossom yet in his spiritual capacity he never dies till he come to ripeness God ripens his Servants speedily when he intends to take them out of the world speedily he can and doth let out such warm Rays of his Spirit upon them as shall soon maturate the Seeds of Grace into a preparedness for Glory This is S. Paid's and every good Christian's profession so to live as to be daily ready for death 't was holy Job's cast of his state Job 17.1 My breath is corrupt my days are extinct the Graves are ready for me And I am ready for the Grave I am undressing my self daily to lie down in dust and sleep in death there is nothing now for me to think of I lay all aside and attend this business alone and 't is a business indeed of great necessity and no small difficulty daily to cast upon it and contrive how I may lie down in peace and rest in death I have fought a good fight I have finished my course I have done my work 2 Tim. 4.7 and am going to my Bed I have nothing to do but to die and this is my daily care to sequester my Soul from this world as one that hath life and portion and Inheritance in a better I die daily Lastly And so daily dying notes a continual Exercise of Mortification for in the Christian Dialect and Scriptural Style to die daily is a spiritual sanctified Habit made up of many Acts and quotidian Exercises of suppressing and destroying the old man and the whole body of Sin and this is meant in those Scriptures which speak of putting off the old man Eph. 4.12 â— Cor. 9. â—â— beating down the body and keeping it in subjection the Spring of Grace is a living Fountain always cleansing away the dead Sediments of Dirt aâ— Mire The expression of the Holy Ghost about this 〈◊〉 worthy of our serious consideration Rom. 6.6 Known that our old man is crucified with him Christ that the bâ— of sin might be destroyed that henceforth we should not sâ—◠〈◊〉 For he that is dead is freed from sin Lo here 〈◊〉 Appellation and its execution the old man partly in respect of Antiquity as old as the eldest of men partly in respect of the Renovation 1 Thess 5.23 which is universal of the whole man Body and Soul Then 't is called the body of Sin partly because mans corrupt nature Coloss 3.5 like a body or stock brancheth forth into divers actual enormities as so many Members partly because of its strength and for that men are as much naturally in love of their Sins as of their Limbs and are as impatient of Amputation But if ye take notice of Sins execution This old man is crucified Crucifixion is made up of many deliberate Acts and these bring on exquisite Torments and the Torments cause successive decays every hour so doth Sin by this crucifying Discipline grow weaker and weaker and nearer to its Grave and utter Abolition Regenerative Acts give Sin many wounds though as those that are crucified it dieth lingringly yet it dieth certainly Sin in the mortifying Mystery like a man in a Consumption is always wasting and dying till at last it is quite dead and the dying day of the Regenerate is the utmost date of Sins being Thus if as long as we live we give Sin a daily wound it may sprawl and move for a time but afterwards giveth up the Ghost For while Saints live though Sin be mortally wounded as the creature that hath lost its sting it may rage and stir but it abateth in strength and malignity and dieth with them In Psalm 88.4 Heman complains Thus My soul is full of troubles and my life draweth nigh to the grave I am accounted with them that go down into the pit I am as a man of no strength free among the dead The surest Interpretation of that sweet Singers Style and State is That he was much exercised in this sin mortifying austerity he was a great Proficient in it as we say of one that hath served a rigid Apprentiship he is his Crafts-Master he hath got the knack of it he is a Freeman at the Occupation And in this sense death is not to be looked on as a Saints expiration but as an accumulative Mystery and an high Improvement in the Faculty of Sin-slaying And some Ancients have been rare at it and some skillful Christians still are as well versed in it and they know how to encounter with Soul-Enemies as tryed Champions having been long conversant in the Artillery and Fencing-School of Christ as that they have been able to teach it by certain Rules and Rudiments and so it is one of the Gospel-Mysteries in which by frequent exercise we may grow Graduates and S. Paul had it seems commenced Doctor in it even in this rare Accomplishment of Dying Daily So then we are resolved upon the Question what this kind of Dying is It is not a natural dying consisting of many gradual Tendencies unto the Dissolution of this our mortal Body though