yet is it their trouble to conflict yea but now death puts the Saints into such a condition that they are not only without a foyle but without fighting too Thus in respect of its concomitant Rest the death of Saints may well be resembled to sleep 3. In its Consequents which are two Excitationis facilitas Virium reparatio 1. Excitationis facilitas Awaking or rising from sleep Natural sleep is not perpetual we sleep and awake again Psal 3.5 I laid me down and slept I awaked So that though the body lies for a time in the grave yet it shall awake and rise again Many i. e. all of them that sleep in the dust shall awake Dan. 12.2 Psal 17.15 Isai 26.19 John 5.28 Job 19.26 27. Hos 13.14 Rev. 10.13 A time coming when the loud Trump shall awaken the sleeping ashes and those old friends soul and body meet and embrace and never part more 2. Virium reparatio renovatio restitutio The body that was sown in weakness shall be raised in power It was sown a natural body it shall be raised a spiritual body endowed with impassibility subtilty agility clarity It is sown in dishonour it shall be raised in glory 1 Cor. 15.42 43 44. It shall be like unto Christs glorious body Phil. 3.21 shining forth and sparkling like the Sun in its midday-glory Matth. 13.43 And thus we have dispatcht the parallel betwixt a Believers death and sleep The third thing promised was the Application and Improvement of the whole to which we now address our selves 3. Application Applica ∣ tion 3 By way of Information Exhortation Dehortation Consolation Informa ∣ tion 1 1. For the Information of our Judgements in four Corollaries 1. If a Believers death be a sleep then that Aphorisme of the wise Man appears to be a great truth Eccles 7.1 The day of death is better then the day of ones birth Man is born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward Job 7.5 Sparks have a principle in themselves by which they ascend they need no directing they fly upward naturally So 't is a natural course for man as soon as he is born to verge to sorrow Our birth is nothing else but a lanching forth into a deep Ocean of sin and sorrow an intrat to act our parts in a Scene of iniquity and misery Yea but now a Believers death is his happy Exit and Epilogue his calm [r] Rev. 14.13 Port and safe Harbour after all his tollings and tempests Of this truth that Mirrour of her Sex the Lady Jane Grey discovers a clear conviction who being requested by the Lieutenant of the Tower to write her Symbol in his book before her beheading wrote thus Let the glassy condition of this life never deceive thee there is a time to be born and a time to die but the day of death is better then the day of birth 2. If a Believers death c. Hence learn The infinite power wisdom and goodness of God in that he is able and willing to turn the worst of evils into so great a good out of the deadliest poyson to make the most soveraign Antidote to turn a Moses Serpent into a Rod and with that Rod to work wonders to fetch honey and sweetness out of the carcass of a Lion nay to turn the Eater into meat Death into sleep to make that which in it self is the greatest loss to become so great a Gain Phil. 1.23 to render the King of Terrors Job 18.14 most amiable yea most useful to make that so sweet a blessing which was threatned as the saddest curse to turn an Esau's malice into courtesie and salutes his intended stabs into tears and kisses Verily this is the Lords doing and it ought to be marvellous in our eyes 3. If a Believers death c. Hence see the vast difference between an Vnbeliever and a Believer in their death Death to an unbeliever is Poena peccati so threatned Gen. 2.17 so inflicted Rom. 5.12 Their end is destruction Phil. 3.19 Death comes fiercely to them pulls them by the threat like a grim Serjeant arrests and summons them to hell where after ten hundred thousand years scorching and yelling in flames their pain is never the nearer to its period No time gives them hope of abating yea time hath nothing to do with this eternity where they shall be ever dying but never die where Divels who were here ready to tempt them when graceless to sin are as ready to pursue them now damned with torments 'T is true their bodies sleep indeed for a while but 't is as Sampson in Dalilahs lap ready to be given up as a prey to the Philistins as Sisera in Jaels Tent the hammer and nail ready to be set to the Temples or as Peter slept between his cruell Keepers bound they are and lockt up in their graves as in a strait and loathsom prison a doleful disconsolate dungeon where they lie reserved in the chains of darkness until the judgement of the great day Jud. 6.7 But now the death of a Believer is quite another thing To them 't is instar dulcis somni Death comes mildly and sweetly to the m like an humble Page with a courteous invitation to a feast of glory and proffers its service to lead and conduct them to it Be not afraid saith death though my countenance be stern my hand is soft though my pangs seem grievous yet the rest I bring is sweet To others I am death to you only a sleep and such a sleep as God gives his Beloved Psal 127.2 That which is a Grave to others is a Bed to you Isai 57.2 where your bodies shall lie as Christ did in his grave with a guard of Angels John 20.12 Believers are delivered from the sting though not from the stroke of death If death be a Serpent to Saints 't is a Serpent without a sting it has left its sting and teeth and all in the sides of Christ Hence it is that we hear the Apostle sounding out his Io triumphe and find him treading on the neck of his vanquisht enemy playing on the hole of this Aspe and with an holy kind of Sarcasm flouting at it Oh death where is thy sting 1 Cor. 15.55 56 57. Thus we see a vast difference the unbeliever dies howling the Believer singing the one takes death for a gulf of sorrow the other for a port of safety The one sighs because stript for a scourging the other sings because he layes off his cloaths to go to bed and sleep after his toyle 4. If a Believers death be a sleep in Jesus Hence conclude That even death it self dissolves not the strict union that is between Christ and a Believer [t] Aug. de Civ Dei All the faithful though dead are yet the living members of Christ Jesus As in Christs death his soul and body though severed each from other remained united to the Deity so in death Believers souls and bodies still remain united unto
dormit itn etiam anima post mortem somnus sensus tantùm excteriores occupat non animam discourses then To say nothing of divine Raptures and Extasies when the body is as it were laid by as useless and uninstrumental to the soul as appears in paul 2 Cor. 12.2 3 4. when Paul's soul had an ear to hear such words as his body could not find a tongue to express And in John Rev. 1.16 In a word in sickness yea in death it self when the soul walks in the very valley and shadow of death in the very act and article of its dissolution what a fresh vigour does the soul many times put on How does this divine flame blaze in the very socket How does it crect and rouse it self and plainly tells us that it means not to fall with the body but only to leave it as an Inhabitant a ruinous house till it be repaired as a Musitian to lay aside his Lute whose strings are crackt till it be new strung 4. By the Light of Scripture The souls which were under the Altar were not asleep though their bodies were for they cryed with a loud voice c. Rev 6.9 10. In death the body that handsome Pile of dust returns to the carth as it was but the spirit the soul Ista Divinae aurae particula returns unto God who gave it Eccles 12.7 and to the spirits of just men made perfect Heb. 12.23 Had the soul of the penitent Thief slept how could it have been truly said to have been with Christ in Paradice Luke 23.43 With Christ in Paradice i. e in the highest Empyrean Heavens Acts 3.21 beholding his face in light and glory John 17.24 Had Paul but dreamt of the souls sleep he would never have groaned so earnestly to be cloathed upon with his house from heaven 2 Cor. 5.1 4. Nor to have had the union of his soul and body dissolved and the communion with God which he then enjoy'd interrupted at least if not broken off had he not been sure that immediately on that dissolution he should be with Christ Phil. 1.21 23. Thus Negatively The soul sleeps not 2. Affirmatively The body sleeps Matth. 27.52 Or if you will the state of a Believers death much resembles that of sleep which leads me to the second thing I promised viz. 2. Confirmation Now I shall prove this point generally and particularly 1. More generally Sleep is the image of death and death is more then the image of sleep Lighten mine eyes least I sleep the sleep of death 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. Least I sleep Death i. e. least I die Psal 13.3 Our friend Lazarus sleepeth John 11.11 Our Saviour interprets his own words Lazarus is dead v. 14. Many are sickly among you and many sleep i. e. are dead 1 Cor. 11.30 An usual phrase among the Hebrews for being dead was this They slept with their Fathers 1 King 11.43 2 King 20.21 Luke retains the Hebrew form and tells us that Stephen and David gave up the ghost and fell asleep Acts 7.60 and 3.36 And hence it is that the Saints graves are call'd their beds They shall rest in their beds Isai 57.2 When a Believer dies he is but gone to bed gone down from a bed of ivory to a bed of earth from a pillow of down to a pillow of dust Hence also both the Greeks and Latines stile the places where the dead are laid up and buried [i] i 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Dormitoria sleeping places Thus more generally But 2. More particularly By spreading before you the Analogy proportion resemblance paralel that is between sleep and death A Believers death runs paralel to sleep in its Antecedent Concomitant Consequents 1. In its Antecedet or that which usually goes before sleep and that is Vestium Depositio When a man goes to sleep he usually [k] Somnum capiens vestes exuit 1 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 uncloaths dismantles disrobes himself In like manner Peter calls his death 1 a putting off of his tabernacle 2 Pet. 1.14 Paul stiles it a dissolution of our earthly house of this tabernacle 2 Cor. 5.1 An uncloathing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 v. 4. When a Believer dies he laies aside not only the garment spotted with but even that which is made of flesh Thus Jubentius and Maximinus We are ready to lay off the last garment the flesh 2. In its Concomitant Or that which accompanies and attends on sleep and that is Quictis tranquilitas Sweet [m] 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Orph. de somn Tuque O domitor somne malorun requies c◠nimi Sen. Her sur Rest and Repose When a man goes to his sleep we say he goes to his rest So Job 3.13 Now should I have lien still and been quiet Now should I have slept I should have been at rest 'T is true rest is more then sleep Sometimes a man sleeps when he doth not rest but is troubled in his sleep But when rest is joyn'd with sleep this is perfect sleep In death a Believer enjoys a perfect rest A state wherein Believers lie quietly in their beds of earth and have not so much as one waking moment or distracting dream Here indeed those Doves find no rest for the soles of their feet but no sooner are they lodged in the Ark of death but they are at rest They shall [n] Isa 57.2 rest in their beds Now there is a five-fold rest which a Believer enjoyes in and by his temporal death From labour from trouble from infirmities from sin and from temptations 1. From labour and toil No working in the Grave There the servant is free from his master The poor Israelite from his Egyptian Task-master No tale of bricks demanded there There the weary with labour is at rest Job 3.17 19. This life is the day of the Saints working They as well as their Master must work while 't is day Death is the night of the Saints resting When the Sun of our Life ariseth we go forth to our labour until the evening of death Psal 104.23 and no longer for then they that die in the Lord rest from their labours Rev. 14.13 This life is a continual motion death a perpetual rest Our life is a stormy passage a tempestuous Sea-voyage death brings us to a peaceable Port. 2. From troubles miseries calamities And these either publick or private 1. Publick and National No warrs famine pestilence no bloody battels no garments rould in blood no sodding of the Babe to satisfie the hunger of the Mother in the Grave If a Cloud of blood hover over a Nation If an Angel on a red Horse be ready to mount and march through a Kingdome If commission be given to the Sword to eat flesh and to drink blood the death of a Believer houses him before the storm Josiah dies in peace and sees not all the evil which God will bring on Jerusalem 2 King 22.20 The Righteous man is taken from the evil to
Christ Rom. 8.38 39. Though Abraham Isaeac Jacob die yet God is still their God Matth. 21.31 32. The Relation of God to them is as strong when dead as when living Though dead to men yet they were not dead to God Sleep though it chains up the senses for a time yet it dissolves not the union between soul and body Nor does the sleep of the Spouse break the marriage knot between her and her Bridegroom the union that is betwixt Christ and Believers out-lives death Death indeed may and doth triumph over the naturall union betwixt body and soul but cannot in the least either dissolve or weaken the mysticall union betwixt the soul and Christ Let Believers live and they live from for and in Christ and let them die they do but sleep in him Thus for Information Exhor ∣ tation 2 2. Exhortation Is a Believers death no more then a sleep Then Believers 1. Be not afraid of death Your death Believers is a sleep a sweet sleep Eccles 5.12 and should the labouring man be afraid of a sweet sleep No but rather resolve with David though you walk in the valley of the shaddow of death yet there to fear no evil Psal 27.3 I disswade not from a naturall or from a spiritual fear of death The one is allowed the other necessary He is no man that doth not fear death Beside the pain Nature must needs shrink at the thought of parting and he acts not the Christian that doth not so fear death as to mind and prepare for its certain and yet most uncertain On-set I only disswade from that base cold cowardly carnal fear of death which makes the whole life nothing else but a living death which [v] Furer est ne moriare mori kills men daily because they must once die and keeps them under perpetual slavery and bondage Heb. 2.15 To drive this Naile home I would only offer these few Considerations 1. Such a slavish fear better becomes a Pharaoh and his Magicians then Israclites and Believers 'T is no wonder to see their courage fall when once the cry of death is in their Houses Exod. 12.29 30. This Basilisk may well affright those Enchanters and Mountebanks But a Moses an Israelite indeed may take it by the tayle handle it and turn it into an harmless wand yea into a rod budding with glory and immortality 'T is true the [w] Dar. 5.15 6. Caldean Tyrants face may look pale and grisly stam'd with the colour and fear of death Those hands which not long since lifted up his massie Goblets in scorn and desiance of the God of Israel may well hang down when death writes him a letter of summons to appear that night before a most strict and supreme Tribunal I do not wonder at Lewis the eleventh his strait charge to his servants when once they saw him sick never once to name that bitter word Death in his eare Well may these fear Death that know him but as a Pursuivant sent from Hell But that is not your case Believers 2. Consider How cheerfully have Gods people your fellow souldiers lookt death in the face Paul so farre from fearing that he earnestly pants and longs after a dissolution Phil. 1.28 How sweetly doth good old Simeon chant out his Swan-like song his Dom ns nunc dimittis Luke 2.29 How familiarly doth holy Moses hear of his end 't is no more betwixt God and Moses but go up to Mount Nebo and die Deut. 32.50 Had he been invited to a feast it could not have been in a more sweet compellation No otherwise then to other Prophets Go up and eat or sleep It has been no harsh news to Gods Children to hear of their departure To them death hath lost its horrour through Acquaintance That face which at first seemed ill-favoured by often viewing is grown out of dislike Saints that have had such intire conversation with God are not afraid to go to him Hence that of Ambrose I have not so lived that I am ashamed to live longer nor yet fear I death because I have a good Lord And that of Hilarion to his soul Egredere Anima egredere Get thee out my soul away thou hast seventy years served Christ and art thou now afraid of death 3. Whilst there lurks in the breast this slavish fear of death the least piece of this leaven is enough to soure the whole lump of all our joyes and comforts The least dram of this Coloquintida will marr the rellish of all our sweets and make us cry out there is death death death in the pot This little fly will soon taint our whole box of Ointment On these and such like Acceunts Believers may be strongly armed against the uncomely slavish fear of death But that is not all This truth calls yet for a more raysed and noble temper screws up Believers to an higher Cue Viz. 2. Is your death Believers a sleep so sweet a sleep 't is not enough for you not to fear it becomes you to be willing to die to desire to be dissolved Phil. 1.23 To groan earnestly to be uncloathed that you may go to rest 2 Cor. 5.1 4. Let it not be said of you that you are dragg'd and haled to your graves as of the foolish rich man Luke 12.20 x ' 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vehementius ab invito flagito Causab This night thy soul shall be taken from thee Go not as a Swine but as a Lamb to the slaughter Resign thy soul without a forcible entry Be a Voluntier in death Be not prest to it Death which is the Atheists fear should be the Christians desire Yet here observe this desire of death must not spring from a pet or passion meerly out of a taedium of living as a sick man desires to change his bed meerly out of weariness of and discontentment with his present condition Death may not must not be desired out of impatience under or distrust of Gods Providence Job 3.3.7.15 Jer. 20.74 Jon. 4.3 No nor yet to avoid the labour and duty of our callings To be weary of living on such accounts argues not Christianity or a more raised frame but pride peevishness cowardliness slug gishness of spirit But this grand condition alwayes understood viz. with submission to the will of God it hugely becomes a Christian considering the weight of his sins here and of his glory hereafter that death delivers from the one and ushers into the other with [y] Phil. 1.23 Paul to desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ And that on a double account 1. There is nothing here that can invite or deferre our stay Alas what is there here but darkness of ignorance distempers of passions complaints of estates fears and sense of evil hopes and doubts of good ambitious rackings covetous toylings envious underminings restless desires all vanity and vexation of spirit Eccles 1.1 many worlds of discontent in one Why then should we linger and han ker
after a continuance in this Baca of teares and not desire rather to enter into our Rest Shew me a man that ever truly knew what life was and was loath to leave it and I le in him shew thee a prisoner that blesles himself in his fetters a slave that likes his chains and gally 2. There is all that in a Believers death that may tempt and inflame his desires 'T is that to a Believer which a night of rest is to the weary Labourer 2 port to the weather-beaten Mariner freedom to the fetter-gal'd Prisoner the marriage-day to the loving Spouse the day of coronation to the king Why then should not a Saint conclude with Vid Bressius Oh that my soul had the wings of a Dove to fly and make hast to that mountain of God and Paradice of eternal pleasures Or with that aged Father in Austin who when his friends endeavouring to comfort him on his bed of sickness told him they hoped he should recover answered If I shall not die at all well but if ever why not now Oh then Believers pant after an holy and an happy dismission never cease tutoring and screwing up your souls till in Gods strength you can resolve that if you might die to day you would not choose to live till to morrow Never think your souls in an hail condition so long as you are 10th to think of dying Take this only comfort from the prolonging of your dayes not that you live long but that you are in a sphear of doing your own and others souls more good and bringing your God more glory And because the quelling of the slavish fear of death and rendring of a Believer willing to depart is a business of such grand concernment give me leave to prescribe a direction or two viz. 1. If ever you desire that death should not be your fear but gain and so desirable be sure to make Christ your life This was Pauls method Phil. 1.21 23. He that would sleep in Jesus must live to him Labour to be acted by the Spirit of Christ and the immediate fruits thereof viz. faith love filial fear as thy principle Rom. 8.14 Gal. 2.20 steer by Christs word as your Compass your Rule Canon Gal. 6.16 Level at Christs glory as your highest end 1 Cor. 10.31 Our life as it gives way to death so it must make way for it As the tree falls so it still lies and as it stands so usually it falls If ever we hope to sleep sweetly in death we must walk fruitfully in life 'T is the sleep of a labouring man that is sweet Eccles 5.12 To live holily is the only way to die happily Mark the upright man and behold the just for the end of that man is peace Psal 37.37 2. Fix your eyes on the death of Christ Christ by his death hath wholly routed yea conquered death Christ precious body lying in the grave hath sweetly perfumed that house of corruption Christ by his death hath cut off all deaths succors Whereas death borrowed its sting from sin its strength from the law and curle of God Christ hath disarm'd them all of their destroying killing power 1 Cor. 15.56 So that now as he falsly thou mayst say truly the bitterness of death is past 3. Act and exert Faith to the uttermost Quartan Agues are not so much the shame of physick as the fear of death is of all natural skill and valour This is Faiths proper evil Faith alone professes this cure undertakes it and performs it throughly Faith is that that can turn fears into hopes sighs into songs tremblings into exultings Faith singles out this Giant as her chief prize and grapples with him not as a match but as a vanquisht underling sets her foot on the neck of this King of Terrors Faith concludes that a Christ hath taken all the poyson out of the cup of death and made it an wholsom potion of immortality to his people so that now their death is nothing else but the funeral of all their sins cares and sorrows and the Resurrection of their true joys and comforts 3. Is a Believers death a sleep Be exhorted to that high and Honourable duty of serving your generation before you fall asleep So did holy David Acts 13.36 write after his Copy 4. Is a Believers death no more then a sleep Adore and bless the infinite mercy and goodness of the Lord Jesus who by his death hath quite pluckt out the sting of death and soaltered both its name and nature That which was once a grim death is now to you nothing more then a sweet sleep 5. Is a Believers death a sleep Oh then prepare for death Sleep steals and creeps upon us unawares so does death To day therefore while it is called to day Boast not thy self of to morrow for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth Prov. 27.1 Thou wilt repent to morrow But what if this night thy soul should be taken from thee Luk. 12.20 Hast thou not heard of fishes taken in an evil net and of birds that are caught in a snare so are the sons of man snared in an evil time when it falleth suddenly upon them Eccles 9.12 To this end 1. Live in a constant and serious [z] Gaena Damitiani sunebris Et AEgytiorum Sceletus inter pocula meditation of approaching death This was that which Meses so earnestly plies the Throne of Grace for Psal 90.12 So teach us to number our dayes that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom Plato's Philosophy in this was true Divinity The whole sum of a wise mans life is the commentation on his death Not every sleet and stitting flash but a frequent deep and sixed Contemplation This was that which saved the soul of the young Prodigal who for several dayes an hour together sixt his eyes and thoughts on the ring with a deaths-head given him by a friend on that condition Ortelius reports of some people that they thought this duty so necessary that they used the bones of dead men instead of money that death might be continually in their eye Those sunera Pacuri are of remark in story He was used every night to be carried to his chamber as to his [a] Sie ordinandus est dies omnis tanqua vitam consum met Seu. grave and the word at the close of the solemnity was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2. Look not on death at a distance as that that shall come certainly but as that that may comesuddenly Look on every day as thy last Do not as those that have set dayes of truce and peace in which they hang up their Armes a rusting and do not watch their beacons But rather as those that live in perpetual hazard of war and of the enemies inroad Have all things in daily readiness for service at half an hours warning on the least alarm Stand as it were centinel with musket loaded match lighted piece cockt ready to discharge Live not one hour
Division and strongly prest 1. A Duty proposed i. e. a mean a temper moderation in mourning for the dead Sorrow for the dead they might nay they ought Paul prohibits not but allows yea elsewhere commands to mourn But then it must be in measure not immoderately Greive as men they may and ought but then as christian men Not as men without [a] Contristamur nos in nostiorum mortibus necessitate amittendi sed cum sperecipi endi Aug. hope Grace destroys not Nature but rectifies it Religion doth not extirpate affections but only orders and moderates them 2. The Arguments by which this Duty is prest And these are taken 1. Ab Inhonesto Such an immoderate mourning for the dead would speak the Thessalonians if not grosly Ignorant at least deeply insensible and forgetful of the happy condition of the Saints departed I would not have you [b] Velim vos scire Trem. Syr. AEth ver sis ignorant Or I would have you know q. d. did you indeed clearly know firmly believe or seriously remember and consider what you have been taught nay and have profest viz. the thrice happy estate of Believers after this life you would not could not so intemperately bemoan their seeming-losse whilst you seriously recollect their reall gain 2. Ab Indecore Such an immoderate sorrow rather becomes an hopeless Heathen then an hopeful Thessalonian Sorrow not even as others that have no hope Q. d. The Heathens indeed wring their hands beat their breasts sigh to the breaking of their loins bedew nay furrow their cheeks with tears at the Funerals of their Relations and all this because they have no hope of their Resurrection to a new and better life They suppose they have taken their ultimum vale of their departed Friends bid them an eternal adieu that they are utterly extinct lost and gone 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that they shall never see or enjoy them more and so no wonder if they [c] Lugetur mortuus quem gehenna suscipit quem Tartarus devorat mourn and that immoderately But for you whose dearest Relations souls are by Angels transported into the highest Heavens and there install'd free Denizons of those glorious Mansions nay more even lodg'd and reposed in the bosom of our Lord Jesus for such as you to mourn immoderately and that for such as these it would argue an heathenish despair sway'd more in your breasts then a Christian hope 3. A qualitate Mortis Concerning them which are asleep in Jesus Q. d. And what is this you take so much to heart Is it that you call their death Alas you are quite mistaken their departure hence is not so properly to be termed a death as 1. A sleep What you mistake for a Serpent is indeed but a Rod. Their death is no more but a sleep a sweet silent refreshing sleep The Damsel is not dead but [d] Mark 5.32 sleepeth As our natural sleep is a breathing Emblem of death so our temporal death is nothing else but a fair resemblance of sleep The one is a shorter death the other a longer sleep And will you can you grieve immoderately when you see your dearest Friends when weary laid down to rest and gone to sleep 2. A sleep in Jesus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 [e] 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hellenism Enallage proposuionis ut 1 Tim. 2.15 Rom. 4.11 Spanhem 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Believers at their death fall asleep in Christ Death it self dissolves not that real spiritual closest union between Christ and true Believers No more then sleep doth that between soul and body Being truly ingrafted into Christ they have saithfully persevered to the end in the profession and practise of the faith have not left him in life and therefore Christ will not forsake them in death They then sleep in Christ And will you grieve immoderately to see a Child sweetly fallen asleep in his Fathers armes 4. A Certitudine Resurrectionis This their death is a sleep indeed but not a perpetual everlasting sleep T is not a sleep of eternal death No. But these that sleep now shall certainly awaks and arise from the dead and Christ shall give them life Christ their head being risen is the exemplar pattern pledge and will be the cause of their resurrection True Christ is gone a far journey but he will come again and all these That sleep in Christ will God bring with Him Having thus Anatomized the whole I shall only single out one of the parts and make that which Paul uses as his third Argument to back his Exhortation the Basis of my present Meditations and 't is this Observation A true Believers temporal Death is a sweet and silent sleep in Jesus Christ This truth I shall explain confirm improve For Explication Explica ∣ tion 1 Quest What is it that sleeps in a Believers death Sol. 1. Negatively Not his Soul As the soul cannot [f] Mat. 10.28 die so it doth not sleep i. e. after its dissolution from the body it lies not still without any motion or operation True indeed such acts of the soul as are meerly Organical i. e. such as the soul cannot exert but by the help of the body as seeing hearing tasting c. these indeed do and must needs cease But then there are other acts which are inorganical and immaterial which the soul can put forth of it self without the least commerce with or asistance from the body These cease not As appears 1. By the Light of Nature Natures dim eyes have been cleare enough to see this truth Hence the Platonists resemble the souls being and acting after death to the distinct being of the Wagoner after the Coach is broken To the swimming out of the Mariner when the Ship is wrackt To the creeping out of the Snail when the shell is crusht 2. By the Light of Reason What hinders me to conclude the being the quick and lively acting of the soul that pure immaterial and immortal substance in the Air in the Heaven or elsewhere as well as in the compass of my body Why should not that soul that existed without the body before it was created inspired infused as well exist and act after the union of it with the body is dissolved 3. By daily constant Experience Do we not find and feel the soul even whilst in the body to have its motions passions tempers quite different from and independent on the body Is not the soul often cheerful when that is in pain Does not the soul often sing when the body sighs Have not innumerable Martyrs triumphed in the midst of flames and tortures Does not holy Baynam tell the Papists that his flames were no more to him then a bed of Down or Roses Again in the deepest and deadest sleep when sleep with its strongest cords has most strongly bound up all our senses has not the soul its nimble workings and most rational [g] Corpore quiescente anima non
come Isai 57.1 A Believers grave is nothing else but one of Gods privy Chambers where he is hid from the indignation to come Isai 26 20. 2. Private and Personal No trouble no oppression no persecution no racks no strappado's in the Grave The voice of the oppressour is not heard there Job 3.18 This life indeed is a cloudy blustring passage to Gods Jonahs but death is that Whale which doth not so properly swallow them up as carry and convergh them 't is indeed both their Ship and Pilot to conduct them safe to shoar Poor Saints here they are usually the worlds Gally-slaves this lower Orbe is to them but a larger kind of Tunis of Argier but they are manumitted there Their death ransomes them Here they are at the foot of every bloody Bonner Gardiner Nero Trajan Dioclesian Julian but death sets them out of gun-shot The rod is taken off their backs and a palm put into their hands Rev. 7.9 14. There Peter no more feares the Crosse Paul the Axe James the Sword Isaiah the Saw Elijah Jezebel the noble Army of Martyrs the Cole-house Dungeon Halter Faggot Flames Hence Cyprian when dying God be thanked for this Goal-delivery And I. Buisson Now shall I have a double Goal-delivery one out of my sinful flesh another out of my loathsome dungeon 3. From all bodâ—ly [o] Hic quot venae tot morbi weakness infirmities pains griefs passions [p] Diu vivere nihil aliud est quà m diù torqueri Aug. miseries By reason of these Saints whilst here are subject to panting hearts moistned eyes blubber'd cheeks Here usually ashes are their bread and tears their drink Here the Saints life is usually so miserable that 't is an observation of Hierom and the resolution of an ancient [q] Christus non ploravit Lazarum mortuum sed ad hujus vitae arumnas ploraevit resuscitandum Concil Tolet. 3. Councel concerning Jesus his weeping over Lazarus John 11.31 That it was not so much a grief for Lazarus his death as the consideration of his [q] Christus non ploravit Lazarum mortuum sed ad hujus vitae arumnas ploraevit resuscitandum Concil Tolet. 3. raising again to a miserable life that drew those tears from our Saviours eyes But now Death wipes every tear from a Believers eye Rev. 7.17 sorrow and sighing do then fly away Rev. 21.4 Death is the great Catholicon panacea salve for all sores the reall and lasting cure of all the Saints diseases maladies infirmities So that good man Laverock comforted his fellow Martyr John ap Rice Come saith he be of good comfort Brother for my Lord of London is our good Physitian He will soon cure thee of thy blindness and me of my lameness this day 4. From sin He that is dead is freed from sin Rom. 6.7 From their own sin and from the sins of others 1. From their own sin and that both as to its guilt and silth 1. From the guilt I mean the sense and apprehension of guilt Poor Believers whilst here many times lie under the stabs and throws of a wounded Conâ—cience their souls stricken through with Gods venemous Arrowes and made as it were dizy with the wine of astonishment As they are forced to lye down in sorrow so they fear they shall rise up in Flames This was the case of Heman Asaph c. Many very many of the children of Light whil'st here walk in such darkness Isa 50.10 But now Death delivers them from this midnight darknesse brings them into the face and presence sets them under the beams of the Sun of righteousness which shall never more be clouded Not a wrinkle more now for ever to be seen on Gods face not the least frown on Gods forehead Every score quite blotted out every debt cancelled and they no lesse fully the freely acquitted and discharged Jeremiah 31.34 2. From the raging power yea from the polluting pestring presence of sin Poor Saints here labour under the intollerable burthen of a corrupt heart and sinfull life How was Paul prest opprest with that weight that mountain the law of his members warring against the law of his mind This makes him cry out likea forlorn Caitif 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 O wretched man that I am Rom 7.24 Paul that could rejoyce in tribulation could not but mourn under corruption This was that made the good man cry out Libera me a malo hoc est a me ipso Domine This made holy Bradford bewail himselfe as the living Christians of old when tied to dead carkasses But now when once death comes it soon knocks off these shackles takes off these weights that so easily beset us As the Martyrs formerly cheered themselves against the rage of their bloody persecutors Oh brethren said they our persecuters are sending of us thither where we shall never offend God more Death spares not one Agag alive Every Canaanite slain Every Egyptian drown'd Those corruptions they have seen to day they shall see them no more for ever Death presents them without spot or wrinkles Eph. 5.27 Totally frees them not only from the power but presence of sin The end of their living is nothing less then the end and period of their sinning 2. From the sins and corruptions of others Here the sinfulness and pollution of the times and places wherein Saints live specially of persons neerly related to them makes their lives grievous and is as it were a Coloquintida in the pot of their sweetest comforts Lots righteous soul vext with the Sodomites 2 Pet. 2.8 Rebeccah weary of her life because of the daughters of Heth Gen. 27.46 Woe is me saith David that I must dwell in Mesech Psal 120.5 Oh that I could leave my people saith weeping Jeremy Jer. 9.2 But now 't is not the least part of our happinesse by death that it brings us there where there are no ill neighbours There shall enter in nothing that defiles into those holy Mansions Rev. 21.27 Corrupt flesh and blood shall not cannot enter into the Kingdom of God 1 Cor. 15.50 5. From temptations Satans winnowings buffetings solicitations to sin Here ever and anon a messenger sent from Satan to buffet Saints 2 Cor. 12.7 Anakims to fight them Midianitish women to allure them Satan going about like a roaring Lion seeking whom and how he may devour 1 Pet. 5.8 Here Gods Adam's never without an Eve and a Serpent In this Egypt Christs Joseph's alwayes dogg'd with the suggestions of a Potiphars wife But now the death of Saints Brings them into that heavenly Paradice where there is no Serpent The great Dragon the Accuser and Tempter of the Brethren is cast down thence and never to be admitted more Rev. 12.9.16 Here the Saints alwayes wrestling not only with flesh and blood but principalities and powers and spiritual wickednesses in nigh places Eph. 6.12 Here though they ate never totally overcome yet are they stoutly charged and assaulted and though 't is the Saints honour to conquer