Truth 1. Prop. Man in his first Creation was not made Mortal or Corruptible Adam fell into a dying condition in the day that he Rebelled against the Crown and Dignity of Heaven I know the Question is much controverted Whether Adam were made Immortal or no This were to make Death necessary before Sin which the Apostle contradicts when he writes Rom. 5. That by one mans sin death came into the World and Rom. 6.23 The wages of sin is death Death is the fruit and effect of our Disobedience and passes upon all inasmuch as all have sinned Rom. 5.12 2. Prop. All men are now subject unto death as it is poenal The first Sentence reaches all Mankind Gen. 2.17 Most men look on Death as the common lot and condition of Mankind resulting from their frail condition and the jarring and warring Principles of their composition which for want of poise destroy one another They think it belongs onely to our Natural and not at all to our Moral Capacity reckoning it to be the consequent of their Being and not the demerit and punishment of our Guilt It is very true though the principles of our Nature are subject to Dissolution yet if we had not declined from the Law of our Creation we had not inclined to the Grave or Corruption but God had made our Life commensurate with our Holiness and prolonged our Time with our Obedience But alas Death now is not more Natural than it is Poenal All Mankind is Condemned as soon as Born Life is a Reprieve and short suspension of the execution of that Sentence which in the day of Adam's Transgression was pronounced on him and his descendants And oh miserable we if we improve not this small scantling of time to sue out our Pardon and make our peace with this incensed Judge of Heaven and Earth who though he be a Serene yet withal is a dreadful Majesty and will infallibly Execute the severity of the Sentence on every Offender who doth not timely accept and comply with those Terms and Articles of Peace which in the Preaching of his Gospel are tendred to them 3. Prop. Fear and Bondage are inseparable attendants on such a sinful and poenal state It cannot be avoided but that the expectation of Death in such a condition must be very troublesome This is a strait Yoak and will pinch the Necks of all the Sons and Daughters of Adam though some wear it more easily than others This will perplex our minds raise storms within and sink us frequently into deep despondencies for we know not how to cast it off in vain are all attempts to slip the Neck out of this Collar we are unable to deliver ourselves no man can free his own Soul We are in God's Chain and it is impossible to break it all our strivings will contribute nothing to its Removal but onely gall and torment us more 4. Prop. Whatsover bitterness and gall there is in Death it is from Sin that makes it more terrible than otherwise it would be 1 Cor. 15.56 The sting of Death is sin So many Sins as thou committest so many stings thou puttest into thy Death to render it more dreadful to thee Could a man dye and have no Sin laid to his Charge though there might be some pain yet there could not be Terror in his departure out of this World Well may Death be called the Terrible of Terribles when there is not onely an apprehension of the dissolution and divorce between the Soul and Body but there interposes and starts up the guilt of many Sins which confront the Sinner and stare him in the face nay those sins that had a gaudy and tempting dress will then be strip'd of all their feigned Beauties and appear in all their dreadful Circumstances agitating and terrifying the Consciences of men with the expectation and dread of future Evils When the Sinner dare not die yet cannot live what Convulsions must there needs be in his Breast which must terrify him like the cracks of a falling House What a calm and well-natured Death might a man have far beyond that Euthanasia which Augustus wished for himself if Sin and Hell and approaching Judgment and a gnawing Worm within did not drive him into Agonies and Despair Alas when nothing is in view to him but these things and the conclusion of the whole matter will with him be nothing short of hideous Darkness and a tormenting Fire having Heat but no Light gnashing of Teeth late Remorse incurable Wounds Self-hatred and all imaginable distresses even to be hated of God and to hate him for ever He must needs turn away his Face in the anguish of his Soul from beholding such distracting Objects These things our Sins procure for us and fill our Souls with all the anticipations of Hell 5. Prop. The Death of Christ applyed by Faith is the onely Soveraign Remedy to deliver us out of this estate of Fear and Slavery Our Heavenly Elisha hath cast Salt into those bitter Waters and so healed them Death to a Believer is a Serpent without a sting He hath fortified us against these Fears two ways 1. By giving us the example of his Dying His tasting of Death before hand keeps it from being a Cup of Trembling and wonderfully will this animate our Spirits under all dejections That our Lord walked in this dark Valley before us 2. By affording us the merit and efficacy of his Death This is very operative to this purpose to consider That our Redeemer and the Captain of our Salvation undertook our Deliverance by his own Death so that now there is no Condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus Rom. 8.1 For being justified by Faith in the Death of Christ they have peace with God and in themselves Rom. 5.1 Thus has Christ changed the nature of Death that it should be more desirable than dreadful to a good Man being like Josephs Chariot sent for dying Jacob to carry us to the place of our hope and desire This made the Apostle ring that sharp and shrill Note in the ears of Death and send that bold and brave Challenge to the last eneny 1 Cor. 15.55 O death where is thy sting O grave where is thy victory Death is swallowed up in Victory It is not now so much an Outlet of Temporal as an Inlet of Eternal Life Well might the Apostle write insultingly as a man offering Sacrifice for Victory and singing a Triumphant Song while his Feet stood on the Neck of his Enemy We know now to whom to have Recourse when our Spirits droop at the apprehension of our Decease not to Saints or Angels not to the Blessed Virgin her self but to her Son who is the Lord of Life that Brazen Serpent we are to look upon when that Fiery one of Death puts out his Sting and we are sufficiently Antidoted against all the Poyson that is spit at us Thus we see the Children though they cannot escape the stroak yet they are freed from
A SERMON Preached at St. Botolphs Aldersgate At the FUNERAL OF ROBERT HVNTINGTON Esq Who DIED April 21. and was BURIED April 30. 1684. BY TIMOTHY HALL Rector of Alhallows Staining London LONDON Printed for Tho. Parkhurst at the Bible and Three Crowns at the lower end of Cheapside near Mercers Chappel 1684. TO THE Worshipful and my much valued Friends Esquires Sons and Executors of the Deceased ROBERT HVNTINGTON JOHN FREIND THOMAS BRVMPSTED And to Mr. TIMOTHY DOD And to their Worthy and Religious Consorts Mrs. ELIZABETH HVNTINGTON Mrs. ANN FREIND Mrs. MARTHA BRVMSTED Mrs. ELIZABETH DOD FVnerals may well be stiled with Sacraments Visible Sermons because they teach by the Eye and outward Senses The Dead speak aloud to the Living and as it were in a Glass represent to them what their condition in the circulation of a little time will be Shortly we shall be in the place of Silence with them When we see others fall before us how easily and naturally is it infer'd that our standing cannot be long after them Yet how apt are we to flatter our selves with the spinning out of our Thred of Life to a great length A man would wonder that in the Wilderness where so many Thousands died Moses should then pray Lord so teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom Psal 90.12 If they who had so many dying Objects continually before them needed to be stirred up to pray in this manner surely much more have we to whom such spectacles though many are more infrequent To Correct this folly and madness which possesseth the hearts of men while they live Eccles 9.3 Who turn away their Eyes from their Sepulchre and divert them with more pleasing prospects I have ventured to comply with your Requests in Publishing this Sermon I am equally surprised That you should desire and I permit so thin a Discourse to appear abroad I expect to be Censured for distributing a Trifle amongst so many of you I take you all joyntly in the Dedication because on this occasion to have addressed to one might have been interpreted a disregard to the rest Besides it being Preached by your Order and by the same influence being now made Publick I engage you to be accountable with me for all the rude strokes in it I know your design was to keep up his Memory but such an hasty Monument Erected to it cannot long preserve it I had neither Art nor time to build one The Errand this Discourse comes on is not to desire you to remember your Father It would be a rudeness to request that he might live in your thoughts I am sensible you will do that without my being your Remembrancer but I beg That nothing which was Exemplary in him be Buried with him and sealed up in his Grave That you would improve what was delivered at his Funeral to the best Spiritual advantages that you may live as strangers in this World and persons belonging to a better That it may prove effectual to the furtherance and joy of your Faith shall be a considerable part of the hearty Prayers of Yours to Serve you TIMOTHY HALL Heb. II. 15. And deliver them who through fear of death were all their life time subject to bondage THE Apostle in the former part of this Chapter having asserted the nature and necessity of the Incarnation and Death of Christ he now in my Text and the preceding Verse to it acquaints us with the ends and uses of it All the Host of Heaven stood amazed at this great Mystery expecting what would be the issue of this great Trial. Men and Devils could not fathom the depths of God's design in this dismal Tragedy They verily concluded That the Captain of our Salvation would now be conquered and that they should hear no more of him when once he was humbled to his Grave Can he save others who cannot save himself Can he bring life to others by his own death After this Sarcastical manner the Heathens upbraided the Christians and the Apostle tells us That this Death and Cross of our Lords was a stumbling-block to the Jews and folly to the Greeks 1 Cor. 1.18 23. And thus indeed it well might have been had not that All-wise God who brings light out of darkness and meat out of the eater by his unsearchable counsel and wisdom over-ruled this matter so that the Death of Christ like to that of Sampson's should issue and conclude in the utter rout and overthrow of his and our greatest Adversaries Whil'st they bruised his heel he brake their head Thus by his wise disposal he made Suffering to be Saving Death Victorious and the Stripes of his Son to be Medicinal and Healing to us One end was to destroy the power of Satan to break the head of that Serpent stilling this enemy and self-avenger Psal 8.2 Leading captivity captive Psal 68.18 Binding the strong man Matt. 12. And dividing the spoil with him Isa 53. Thus this great destroyer was quelled and conquered and at the Sign of the Cross thus used by faith in his death I mean we may at any time put the Devil to flight and cast out the Prince of this World The other end is mentioned in my Text to deliver them who through fear of Death c. Which words acquaint us with a double subjection of the Servants or Children of God as they are called in the foregoing Verse 1. A subjection to Death 2. A subjection to Bondage upon account of Death From whence I gather these Propositions Prop. 1. God's own Children those for whom Christ dyed may be brought and kept under the fear of Death Prop. 2. The fear of Death is a state of Bondage Prop. 3. The onely deliverance from this fear is by the Death of Christ I shall make the first the subject-matter of my Discourse at this time and in treating on that shall comprehend the other God's own Children those for whom Christ died may be brought under nay kept under the fear of death and this fear may be so great and pressing that it may be a heavy burthen it may gall them much and deeply affect their Souls to their great disquietment so that they may have many uneasie hours and doleful complaints it may bring them into an Estate of Slavery and Bondage And this trouble may not onely be heavy and great for its nature but long and continued for its duration it may run Parallel with the longest date of their time and not come onely by way of Paroxism and Fit but hold them all their life long So that in the best the fear of Death is not wholly destroyed and removed Grace doth not extinguish Nature and the Christian doth not cease to be Man There is a double fear of Death 1. Natural and inseperable from our present condition There is implanted in Man a desire of Self-preservation and this is Natures aversation to its own dissolution This is an innocent and guiltless infirmity and
the sting of Death they can play upon the hole of this Aspe without danger and wellcome the grimmest approach of this Destroyer with a smile being freed from the Venom of this Serpent by him who is the Captain of the Lords Hosts who hath abolished Death and brought Life and Immortality to light He has by his own Death made Death to them not onely tollerable and easie but desirable and gladsome Indeed none dared cope with this King of Terrors but our Blessed Lord and he by dying went into the Den of this Dragon Fought it and Conquered it in its own Territories and Dominions 6. Prop. Notwithstanding all that Christ hath done to reconcile us to a view and prospect of our Dissolution yet so deep is the love of Life and fear of Death implanted in us all that Nature cannot but tremble at the approaches of it Though this Serpent is bereaved of his Sting and the Nature of it changed to every holy man yet its hissing affects us at sometimes with a cold sweat and shivering some regrets and aversation from it The heart of that man who is most heavenly and covetous of entring the promised new Canaan who breathes after that happy Country the Jerusalem above is now and then startled at his passage thorough the howling Desert which leads thither he would be cloathed with Immortality and yet unwilling to put off the Garment of this Body We would be blessed and happy but wish it might be some other way than by dying Loath weare to be absent from the Lord and yet desirous to be present here we may desire to be with the Lord and yet at sometimes very loath to depart it is often the case of many a Child of God that he very willingly would be at his journeys end and yet at the same time dreads the going the way of all flesh which leads to it thus like little Children we are covetous of being cloathed with a new Garment and yet may be so pained and pinched in the putting of it on that it may force a Tear or two to distil from our Eyes in the exchange of our Sute of Flesh for the Robes of Glory 7. Prop. This natural fear of Death frequently sinks and degenerates into a very vitious and sinful one It is difficult in this matter so to fear as not to over-fear Our Passions of this nature are often subject either to mistake their Object by fearing what we need not or else to exceed their bounds by fearing more than we need or ought Hence it often comes to pass That this dread of Death has proved a great snare to the best Men. What mean and unmanly shifts what poor tricks and artifices what unfriendly ways and methods have many used even to the spilling of others Blood to save their own They have sullied their Names and Reputations wounded their own Spirits and grieved those of their Friends and all to eke out an Inch of Life Abraham though dignified with that Illustrious Title of the Father of the faithful yet so unbelieving was he of God's Providence over him that he betakes himself to sinful Equivocations those Cousin-germains to a Lye to save his Life While we use any indirect means to prolong our days it plainly Reproaches us to our faces that we fear men more than God and Death more than Hell and Damnation which is very absurd and foolish to fear the less and not the greater evil to be afraid to dye but not to be Damned Great reason therefore there is to watch over this Natural Fear lest it prove immoderate and betray us into the hands of many foul Temptations as it did Abraham Isaac and Peter Our Saviour gives us praemonitions about it when he instructs us not to be afraid of men who can kill the body and after that have no more that they can do but I will forewarn you whom you shall fear c. Luke 12.4 5. One fear like fire drives out another If the fear of God more prevailed in our hearts it would wonderfully qualifie and moderate all the powers of our Souls that there would not be such prevailing excesses and disorders in them Our care therefore must be that our Natural Fear be compatible with that which is gracious and that we never dread any thing further than it is consistent with the fear of God 8. Prop. This Natural fear of Death being kept within due bounds may very much be improved to our advantage 1. It will help us to be more patient underder all poenal evils So Sentence of Death be not executed Stripes and Imprisonment Fines and Banishment are more easily under-gone Skin for skin and all that a man hath he will give for his life Job 2.4 A living man will not complain Lam. 3.39 Thou art alive man that one word encircles many Blessings and I pronounce an hundred Good things in that comprehensive Monosyllable Of all other evils we say They are not so bad as Death and therefore they may and must be bore 2. It will make us more watchful against all sinful evils God has in his Law appointed Death as a punishment for many Offences that it might be a curb and bridle in our Mouths to restrain us from the Commission of those Sins and when men throw this aside what wickedness is there which they will not attempt Eve was emboldned to sin by the Devils telling her she shall not die Men will not commit that wickedness which they know is not onely against God but against their own lives also 3. It will weaken our pride It will render us more low and vile in our own Eyes This will much abate our Pride and keep us humble Put them in fear O God viz. of Death that they may know themselves to be but men Psal 9.20 4. It will strengthen our Faith We received saith the Apostle 2 Cor. 1.9 10. the sentence of death in our selves that we should not trust in our selves but in God which raiseth the Dead While a man looks to sense and is upheld by sensible Comforts there is not that exercise for Faith which otherwise there would be for the exercise therefore and strengthning of his Grace so acceptable to God and advantageous to us God exposes his Children to this fear of Death that when all other helps and supports are removed they may fly to him for Refuge The Bohemians when they lost their famous Captain Zisca stiled themselves Orphans She that is a widdow indeed and desolate trusteth in God 1 Tim. 5.5 Whereas while she had an Husband and Children she trusted over-much in them The Hemorrhoisse made not her Applications to our Lord till all her stock was spent A poor and afflicted people will trust in the name of the Lord Zeph. 3.12 5. It will quicken our preparations for death God therefore wills it That we should have not onely some thoughts but also some fears of Death that we may improve the day of Grace and
made a man miserable before he was so Meer apprehensions of it to them whow wamed the Divine Oracles signified little to lighten their burden 2. Others supported themselves with the thoughts of necessity and inevitable fate and many such like considerations But alas tho Philosophy has been stiled animi medicina yet their Precepts in reference to comfort have been compared to the influence of the Moon which doth rather rotten then ripen in respect of the Suns influence They were ignorant of Christ the Prince of Peace of the holy Paraclete and Comforter and unacquainted with the Life of Faith They knew not how with Ignatius to invite the Cross and Fire Breaking on the Rack Quartering of Members and all the Torments that either Men or Devils could invent When the Emperor threatned St. Basil with Death O that it might come was his ready and chearful reply When Eudoxa the Empress threatned Chrysostome he sent her word Nihil praeter peccatum timeo he feared Gods wrath because of his Sins but not at all her These are the men that tread on the Lion the Asp and the Adder And that we may be enabled to do the like take these following Directions these comforts and consolations of Gods own Prescription in the Holy Scriptures which as far exceed all Philosophical Remedies as the Sun doth a Glow-worm I am constrained to be short in them and must leave it to you to blow every blossom into a Flower 1. Direct Rectify your Apprehensions and Opinions of Death Is not thy fear of it grounded upon a mistake Fears are apt to agravate evils Levis est dolor si nihil opinio adjecerit We fright our selves with Images and Idaeas of evils and dress up Bug bears and Mormoes to Torment our selves withal Christ himself walking upon the Waters was by the Disciples trembled at as a dreadful Apparition It may be thou lookest on Death as some utter Abolition and Extinction of thy Being Remember it is but a departing which thou callest a Death See how God himself stiles it to the Father of the faithful Gen. 15.15 Thou shalt go thy fathers in peace It is but a going away not a perishing and not a going to wo and misery but a comfortable going to our Fathers It is hence called the way of all the earth Josh 23.14 Christ intimates his Death under this Notion It is expedient for you that I go away John 16.7 Death is a journeying from one Region to another See in what familiar terms God conferred with Moses about his Death Deut. 32.49 50. Get thee up into this mountain and die in the mount whither thou goest up and be gathered unto thy people Death it self is so embalmed and cloathed in the Holy Scriptures that there is even a sweetness and beauty in it therefore called an uncloathing a putting off the flesh He that has wore his Cloathes long till they are foul and nasty will he not willingly strip himself to put on a fresh Suit Children fear their nearest Relations and best Friends when they appear under a disguise to them but when their Vizard is taken off they rejoice at their presence To sweeten our departure to us it is called a rest and sleep Is there any hurt in that Would not a man tired out with a long days work gladly go to bed Under these Notions we may bury all fearful thoughts of Death Our friend Lazarus sleepeth but I go that I may awake him out of sleep John 11.11 What more desirable and refreshing than a good nights rest Sleep is the Nurse of Nature the sweet Parenthesis of all our Griefs and Cares Cloathe thy Death therefore in a Scripture dress and this will help to allay the bitterness and beautifie the deformity of it Sleep is a short Death and Death is but a long Sleep The Babylonians are threatned with death under the name of a long sleep Jer. 51.57 They shall sleep a perpetual sleep and not wake saith the King whose name is the Lord of Hosts It is a Judgment to be cast into a sleep like death but a Mercy that Death is like a sleep Nay death is not a perpetual sleep A good man when he has done his work falls asleep and awakes in the great morning of the Resurrection to receive his wages Hence the Grave is call'd a Bed Isa 57.2 It is Gods Ark and Chest wherein he keeps the Bodies of his Saints and he will open this Cabinet in the great day of the Resurrection and take his Jewels out he will scowre and furbish them up again making their vile Bodies like unto the glorious body of Christ The Jews call the Grave Beth Chaiim i. e. The house of the living and when they return from the Burial of their Friends they pluck up the grass and cast it into the Air using those words of the Psalmist Psal 72.16 They shall flourish like the grass of the earth The Greeks call their Church yards Dormitories Sleeping places and the Germans say some call them God's-acre because their Bodies are sown there to be raised again Be not then daunted with the gloomy thoughts of a total dissolution no it is but a little intermission a disappearance for a while a short and sweet nap in their Beds which are warmed and perfumed for them by Christ's Body laid in the Grave with whom also they look to Rise to Eternal Life And this leads me forward to the 2. Dir. Be established in that weighty and great Doctrine of the Resurrection Soul and Body old Companions part but for a while Thou art not so sure to arise in the Morning when thou liest down at Night as thou art to awake at that day 1 Thes 4.14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him What an Antidote is this against the worst of Death That Christ who did arise from the Dead shall come again and bring all his with him in Glory These Scripture Consolations come home to the very heart which the Philosophical ones did not being in Tullies Phrase Medicine morbo imbecilliores well therefore might the Apostle call on them to chear up and comfort one another with such words of truth ver ult The Courage and Constancy of the Jewish Martyrs was such on this account that they would not accept of Deliverance in their Tortures that they might obtain a better Resurrection Heb. 11.35 The Resurrection they knew would recruit and recompence them Lucian called the Christians miserable Caitiffs for being stout to the Death in the belief of this Doctrine on the same account all wise and good people must pronounce them of all men then most happy Remember what God said to Jacob Gen. 46.3 Fear not to go down into Egypt for ver 4. I will go down with thee and I will also surely bring thee up again 3. Dir. Remember Death is the common condition and lot of all mankind Now
what reason hast thou to be troubld when as Joshua expresses it thou goest the way of all the earth If all Travel this Road art thou so foolish as to think there should be a by-path for thee to go alone None can Redeem his Brothers no not his own Life from Death Monarchs Emperors Patriarchs Prophets Apostles have trod this Tract nay Christ himself why then dost thou fear to follow such a glorious Company Grudg if thou wilt that thou art a Man grudg not that being a Man thou must die Where are the Fathers of old Do the Prophets live for ever This is the Kings high-way and the Beggars also You tread no untrodden Tract You are not the first set out this way nor will be the last Thou dost not break the Ice first 4. Direct Familiarize Death in thy thoughts This familiarity with it will breed contempt of it Men little think of Dying therefore are the terrors of Death so stinging Plato perswading to the thoughts of Death defined true Philosophy to be a Meditation of Death Even Tygers and Lions which at their first sight affright by frequent viewing abate their terror Look it often in the Face and thou wilt sooner be reconciled to its hard Features and grim Countenance Bid Death to thy Board to thy Bed to thy Closet to thy Counting house and thy Shop walk with him in thy Garden as Joseph of Arimathea did Dye daily in your Thoughts and Meditations and when you come to it actually you will die more delightfully It is for want of these thoughts that mens Souls are chased out by Violence rather than yielded up to God in Obedience 5. Direct Ponder on the happy advantage of your dissolution This is a large Cluster and I cannot tarry to give it you Grape by Grape 1. Death will give thee a freedom from all evil Whether of Sin or Sorrow cure all your Diseases and Infirmities dry up all your tears When the stroke is once struck adieu then to the Temptaions of Satan the rage of Persecutors distempers of Mind deformities of Body disgrace of Name unfaithfulness of Friends undutifulness of Children loss of Estate and whatever else makes life bitter Didst never cry out who should deliver thee with the Apostle Rom. 7.24 and art troubled when a Liberate is sent Art afraid to Land after such Storms and Tempests How many have desired Death nay sinfullly destroyed their Lives to deliver themselves from Griefs Fears Wants and Pains 'T is true he Sins highly that goes away out of this World before God calls him yet who would refuse to go when once he is call'd 2. It will put thee into possession of thine Inheritance I desire to depart and to be with Christ Who would tarry so long from his dear Lord that might have passage to him When the Heathen Socrates was to dye for his Religion he was greatly comforted at his Death with this that he should go to the place where he should meet Orphous Homer Hesiod and many other Worthies of the former Ages Had he but known Christ the order of Cherubim and Seraphim Angels glorified Saints Patriarchs Prophets Apostles Martyrs Confessors our Fathers Mothers near Relations and dear Friends and the rest of the glorious Heirarchy of Heaven he would then doubtless have taken down his deadly draught of Hemlock with greater relish and satisfaction The Proto-Martyr Stephen triumphed over Death when he saw the Heavens opened and the Son of man standing on Gods right hand Faith will help to the same beatifical Vision and Prospect It is pleasant to the eyes to behold the Sun but the Sun is as darkness and altogether useless in that Kingdom of Glory Rev. 21.23 Rev. 22.3 4 5. If David in the Wilderness so impatiently thirsted to appear before the living God in an earthly Jerusalem how earnestly should we long to see his glory in the heavenly one Psal 42. The glimps of his back parts was as much as Moses might behold yet that put a shining glory on his Face what will it be then to see him face to face The glimps of Christ in his transfiguration ravished Three Apostles who beheld it St. Pauls Vision that did wrap him up in the third Heavens advanced him above the rest of mankind but the beatifical Vision of the Glory of the Great God far excels all This leads me to the next particular 6. Direct Renew your familiarity with the blessed ones above Remember that great Army of God The souls of the just from Adam till now are all got safe thorough this dead Sea and are triumphing in Heaven already and that there are but a few straglers in the end of the World left behind and then which part do you desire to be with But especially remember that Jesus your head is entred into the Heavens before you and is preparing a place for you not being willing to be there without your company He would have you there to behold his Glory and do not these considerations provoke you to covet to be united to that heavenly Quire above which incessantly Sing not resting either day or night that melodious Anthem to him that sits on the Throne and unto the Lamb for ever and ever of blessing and honour and glory and power Rev. 5.13 Many more things might be added by way of Direction but I shall add but this one more tho the most considerable and important 7. Direct Act faith on the death of Christ Here is the main prop and pillar of comfort Who would have dared to dye had not our Lord dyed first he has taken away the Sting of Death what harm can there be in a stingless Snake He hath cut the lock of Sin where the strength of Death lay Hosea 13.14 O Death I will be thy plagues O grave I will be thy destruction Christ hath happily triumphed over it both for himself and thee his precious Blood has altered its Complexion and turn'd its pale Face into a beautiful Sanguine Our Redeemer having unstung it we may safely put it into our Bosomes It is an Enemy indeed but a Conquered and disarm'd one Dost dread an Enemy Vanquish'd to thy hand and sprawling at thy feet Hath David killed this great and formidable Goliah and shall not trembling Israel recover their Spirits and up and pursue the Philistines Shall a Conquered Enemy disanimate the Conquerors Remember and revive O Christian The Captain of thy Salvation has not onely destroyed but sanctified the Grave to thee and perfumed the dust thereof with his own body What comfortable words are those Because I live ye shall live also John 14.19 The Grave that otherwise affords but a noysom smell smells sweet ever since the Rose of Sharon and the Lily of the Vallies lay in it This dark hole is made lightsome ever since that true Light for a time Eclipsed shone out of it Thus our Sampson has found an honey-comb in the Carcase of this Lion Christ is the Lion of the