How loth soever you are you are sure to die You may turn you every way and look about you on the right hand and the left to all the friends and means in the world and you will never find a medicine that will here procure immortality nor ever scape the hands of death It is appointed to all men once to die and after that the Judgement Heb. 9. 27. And no man can change the Decrees of Heaven And seeing all your turnings and unwillingness cannot avoid it is it not better to submit to it willingly than unwillingly God doth impose it on you as a necessity Your willingness may make a vertue of Necessity and out of Necessity extract a reward but your unwillingness may turn your suffering into your sin and a Necessary death unto an unnecessary misery now and hereafter if you be not true believers as Paul saith of his Ministerial labours 1 Cor. 9. 16 17. If I do this thing willingly I have a reward but if against my will a dispensation is committed to me for necessity is laid upon me So I may say in the present case If you give up your lives willingly in the love of God you have a Reward but if you do not Necessity is upon you and die you must whether you will or no. You may scape the Reward by your unwillingness but death you cannot escape And me thinks you should see that it 's little thanks to you to give up that life which you cannot keep And yet this is all that God requireth Perhaps you think that though you cannot keep it still yet somewhat longer you may keep it But you be not sure of that The next hour may God deprive you of it And O what a dreadful thing it were if as soon as you have denied God your lives he should snatch them from you in his fury and cast you into Hell and if he should distrain for his own as soon as you have denied it him and you should die as enemies that would not die as Martyrs and as his Friends And in this sence hath my Text been many a time fulfilled He that will save his Life shall lose it 8. Consider also that it is upon terms of the highest advantage imaginable to your selves that God calls you to resign and lay down your lives It is not indeed to lose them but to save them as my Text doth promise you He that loseth his life shall save it No more than you lose your cloaths which you put off at Night and put on again in the Morning Or rather no more than you lose your lousie rotten rags when you put them off at Night and are to have in the Morning a Suit of Princely attire in their stead Will any man say these rags are lost At least they will not say that the man is a loser by the change That is not lost that is committed to God upon the ground of a promise Nor that which is laid out in his Servive at his command Reason will tell us that no man can be a loser by a course of submissive Obedience to God You cannot be at so much cost for him or offer him so dear a service which he is not able and willing to satisfie you for a thousand fold God will not be beholden to any man You cannot bring him in your debt beyond what he doth by his bountiful promise But if you could he would not continue in your debt You 'l make nothing of your death if you do not either undergo it for Christ or bear it submissively by the power of heavenly love constraining you Meerly to die whether you will or no as a fruit of sin is common to the most ungodly men But if the love of God can make you voluntarily submit to death whether natural or violent from persecutors what a glorious advantage may you make of it You will 1. Put your salvation more out of doubt â—han any other course in this world could do For whosoever perisheth it 's most certain that such as these all be saved 2. And therefore you may die with the greatest confidence and joy as having seen the matter of your doubts removed and dying in the very exercise of those graces that have the promise of salvation and in such a 〈…〉 as hath the fullest and most frequent promises in the Gospel 3. And then the Crown of Martyrdom is the most glorious Crown You will not have an ordinary place in heaven These are that part of the Heavenly Host that si and nearest to the Throne of God and that praise him with the highest joys who hath brought them through tribulations and redeemed them by his blood If a man should make a motion to you to exchange your cottage for a Palace and a Kingdom you would not stick at it as if it were against you because you must leave your ancient home And how much less should you be against it when you are but moved to step out of your ruinous cottage into glory when it would shortly fall upon your heads and you must leave it whether you will or no for nothing 9. What reason have you to be so tender of the flesh Is it the greatness of its suffering that you stick at Why you put poor Beasts and Birds to as much and so do the Butchers daily for your use and they must suffer it And why should the body be so dear to you for the matter of it what is it but earth and wherein is it more excellent than the beasts that perish I think God hath purposely clothed your soul with so poor a dress that you should be the less unwilling to be unclothed and might learn to set more by your souls than by your bodies and to make more carefully provision for them It seems he hath purposely lodged you in so poor a cottage that you should not be at too much care for it nor be too loth to leave it You have its daily Necessities and Infirmities and pains and somewhat of its filth and lothsomeness to tell you of its meanness And why should you be so loth that so poor a cottage so frail a body should be turned to dust Dust it is and to dust it is sentenced When the soul hath left it but a week men can scarce endure to see it or smell it And should the breaking of such an earthen Vessel be so unpleasing a thing to you And for its usesulness though so far as it is obedient it was serviceable to your souls and God yet was it so refractory ill disposed and disobedient that it proved no better than your enemy Many a temptation it hath entertained and cherished and many a sin hath it drawn you to commit Those senses have let in a world of vanity Those wandring eyes have called in covetousness and pride and lust Those greedy appetites have been so eager on the bait that they have too oft born down your faith and
the more you should desire to be there where there is no strangeness This is not the time or place of most intimate acquaintance If you would be acquainted you should draw nearer and not draw back It 's death that must open you the door into that presence where strangeness will be no more And if it be the doubts of your interest in Christ and life that makes you shrink and loth to die Consider that to refuse to die for Christ is the way above all to increase those doubts but to give up your lives for him or chearfully to surrender your souls to him at his call is the readiest surest way in the world to prove you at present in a state of grace besides that you will be hastened into a state of glory where you shall be quickly and fully past all doubts of your state of former grace In a word as all the fears and sorrows of this life will then be at an end so with the rest will our fears of death And therefore death should be the more welcome because it is the end as of all other troubles so of these disturbing fears 14. Consider also what a multitude have trod this bloody way before you Almost all that ever were born have died and are now in the world that you are passing to You are not the first that entred at this narrow gate The dearest Saints of God have died If Abraham Moses Joshua David Peter and Paul could not escape the stroak of death what are you that you should murmur to follow such and so many that have gone before you You need not fear being solitary in heaven There are millions and millions more of Saints than there are on earth Many that you knew and millions more that will then be as dear to you as if you had known them Is it not better be among innocent souls than a defiled guilty world Is it not better be where no sin entreth and never a hâ—st or passion comes than to live as among Wild beasts with furious unreasonable sinners Is it not better be where Light is perfect and all your doubts are fully resolved than in darkness and perplexity and among an ignorant blind generation that are enemies to the light which you desire Is it not better be where is nothing but the perfect love of the Infinite God in perfect Saints and blessed Angels than to live among perverse ungodly men that make you almost weary of your lives If it be a delight to us to read the writings of the illuminated Saints of God and we think them such Jewels and Ornaments in our Libraries what a pleasure would it be to converse with them that wrote these Books and that in their celestial perfection where they have attained a thousand times more light than before they had and where all the doubts are resolved which their books could not resolve O blessed Society in comparison of that we now converse with 15. Nay more lest the bloody way of death should seem too strange and terrible to us the Lord Jesus our Head hath trod that path and that of purpose to conquer death by taking away the sting and principal cause of terrors and making that a passage to felicity that was a passage to everlasting misery So that ever since Christ hath gone this way there is no such danger in it to his followers Where the Captain of our salvation goeth his Souldiers may boldly follow him For asmuch as the children were partakers of flesh and blood he also himself likewise took part with them that he might destroy by death him that had the power of death that is the Devil and might deliver them that through fear of death were all their life time subject to bondage Heb. 2. 14 15. He hath cleared our way and taken out of it the forest thorns and hath prepared us an habitation with himself And shall we fear to go the way that Christ hath gone and purposely gone to clear it for us 16. Moreover Consider that the Celestial inhabitants have purposely made themselves familiar with us in this lower world that they might acquaint us with themselves and lead us upto their blessed habitation and fit us for it No man of common reason can doubt but that those more capacious glorious parts of the Universe are stored with inhabitants answerable to their glory when we see every corner of the lower world to be replenished with inhabitants And Scripture and some experience tells us that those Angels of God are conversant here about us men They bear us up in their hands that we dash not our foot against a stone they pitch their tents and encamp about us as an appointed guard for our security It is their very office for what are they but ministring spirits sent forth to minister for them that shall be heirs of salvation Heb. 1. 14. They converse with us though we see them not and are about us night and day They are among us in our holy assemblies observing our behaviour before the Lord 1 Cor. 11. 10. and they are witnesses of our good and evil Eccles 5. 6. From them as the Servants of God was the Law received Acts 7. 53. Gal. 3. 19. Heb. 2. 2. They read our books and study with us the Mysteries of the Gospel 1 Pet. 1. 12. And as near as they are to God they are glad to make the Church their book in which to read his manifold wisdom and know it by beholding it in us as in a glass Ephes 3. 10. The Nations have their Angels The Churches have their Angels and the particular Saints also have their Angels Dan. 10. 13 20 21 Rev. 1. 20. Acts 12. 15. Mat. 18. 10. They are not strangers with us but have charge of us to keep us in all our ways Psal 91. 10 11 12. They rejoyce in our conversion Luke 15. 10. They are part of the heavenly Society that we are already listed in Heb. 12. 22. They ascend and descend as ordinary passengers between heaven and earth Gen. 28. 12. They are round about us and we live as in their Camp Psal 34. 7. Before them we must be confessed or denied Luke 12. 8 9. They convoy our departed souls to Christ Luke 16. 22. They shall attend Christ at his second coming as they prcolaimed his first and attended him on earth Matth. 25. 31. Mar. 8. 38. They shall be his Heralds to call up the dead to judgement Mat. 13. 39 49. 24. 31. And at last we shall be their companions and equal to them Luke 20. 36. So that you see we have the same Society invisible which we shall have in heaven Yea and sometime when God is pleased they manifest their presence by visible or audible apparitions And shall we fear to remove into the presence of these blessed spirits that now attend us and are still about us and the instruments of so much of our good Yea the Lord Jesus Christ came
not as certainly now as he shall do in his sickness And yet in health these wretches will not be awakened so much to fear it as may restrain them from sin and help them to prepare for it It 's troublesome precise talk with them to talk of making ready to die Either they slight it or love not to hear or think of it And yet the same men when death is coming and they see they must away are even amazed with fear and horror And I cannot blame them unless they were in a better case But this I must blame them for as most unreasonable that they can make such a lamentable complaint when death and Hell are near hand and yet make so light of it all their life time CHAP. XXXIX Answer to their doubts that fear death BUt because this is the hardest part of self-denial and yet most necessary and the particular subject of my Text I shall stay upon it yet so much longer as to resolve a question of some doubting Christians and to give you some Directions for the furtherance of self-denial herein Object If it be a necessary part of self-denial to deny our own lives I am much afraid that I am no Disciple of Christ as having no true self-denial For I find that for all these Reasons I cannot be willing to die but when you have said all that can be said death is the most terrible thing in the world to me Answ I pray you lay together these following particulars for answer to this great and common doubt 1. Death as death is naturally dreadful to all and the best men as men are naturally averse to it and abhor it No man can desire death as death nor ought to do it If it had not been an evil to nature it had not been fit to be the matter of Gods punishment and to be Threatned to the world Threatnings would not do their work if that which is threatned were not naturally evil or hurtful and dreadful to the subject To threaten men with a benefit is a contradiction as much as to promise him a mischief and more 2. It is not therefore a simple Displacency or Averseness to die that God requireth you to lay by Self-denial consisteth not in reconciling us to Death as death For then he might as well perswade us to become Angels as to deny our selves and Preachers had as hard a work to do as to perswade men to cease to be men Death will be an enemy as long as it is death Even the separated soul hath so natural an inclination to union with its Body that the separation is part of the penalty to it And though heaven be their joy and Christ their life and fulness yet the separation from the body which they have even with Christ is a penalty and they have not that perfect measure of Joy and Glory as they shall have when they are joyned in the body again So that separation as such is penal to the soul in blessedness And even the separated soul of Jesus Christ that was more blessed than ours was as separated in a state of penalty when his body was in the grave Of which see my Appendix to the Reformed Pastor about the Descent into Hell 3. That which you have to look after therefore in your souls is not a love to death or willingness to death as death which no man hath or should have but it is 1. A Submission to it as a less evil than sin and Hell and the Displeasure of God and a choosing rather to die than wilfully to sin and forsake the Lord. 2. And a Love to that glory in the fruition of God which death is the passage to Seeing we cannot obtain the end of our faith and patience by any easier passage than death you must rather be content to go this strait and grievous way than miss of the state of eternal blessedness Let death be never so odious and dreadful to you if you had but rather die than forsake Christ by sin or miss of everlasting life with God you have that true self-denial even of life it self which is required in my Text. 4. And yet even a gracious soul may be so much unprepared as to desire to stay yet longer on earth though he be absent from the Lord while he is present in the body that so a better preparation may be made And also the love of God may make a man desire to stay yet longer for the service of the Church or to be with Paul in a strait between two Phil. 1. 21 22 23. 5. Have you not such pleasant apprehensions of the New Jerusalem and the coming of Christ in glory and the blessed state of the Saints in heaven as that you could most gladly enter into that blessed state by any other way than death And had you not rather die than miss of that felicity At least when you know that die you must had you not rather die sooner even a violent death by persecution than miss of your eternal life by saving your lives a little longer 6. And for your unwillingness to die as death is the last enemy to be conquered by Christ at the Resurrection so the fears of death and the power of it is the last evil that we shall be troubled with and you must not expect to be fully freed from these fears in this life for death will be death and man will be man But yet let me tell you that before you die God may very much abate your fears and very ordinarily doth so with his servants 1. By giving them that grace that is suited to a dying state and 2. By the help of sickness and pain it self And that is one great reason why sickness shall usually go before death that pain and misery may make the flesh even a weary of it self and make the soul a weary of its companion and both a weary of this miserable life And now I shall briefly name some few Directions which if you will practise you will more easily submit to death CHAP. XL. Directions to be willing to die Direct 1. BY all means endeavour the strengthening of your Belief of the Reality of eternal life and the truth of the promise of Christ concerning it For if you Believe it not you cannot die for it nor chearfully submit to a natural death through the hopes of it This is the sum or principal work of the Christian faith to Believe the everlasting life as procured for us by the love of the Father the Obedience Death Resurrection and Intercession of the Son and the Sanctification of the Holy Ghost It is the unsoundness or the weakness of this Belief that is the principal cause of our unwillingness to die Direct 2. By all means endeavour to get and maintain the Assurance of your Title to this Promise and Felicity Get sound evidence and keep it clear Expunge all blots without delay Take heed of such sin as woundeth Conscience
fleshly Pleasures tend He that by faith hath seen both Heav'n and Hell And what sin costeth at the last can tell He that hath try'd and tasted Better things And felt that love from which all pleasure springs They that still watch and for Christs coming wait Can turn away from or despise the bait Flesh Must I be made the foot-ball of disdain And call'd a precise fool or Puritane Spirit Remember him that did despise the shame And for thy sake bore undeserved blame Thy journey 's of small moment if thou stay Because dogs bark or stones lie in the way If life lay on it wouldst thou turn again For the winds blowing or a little rain Is this thy greatest love to thy dear Lord That canst not for his sake bear a foul word Wilt thou not bear for him a scorners breath That underwent for thee a cursed death Is not Heav'n worth the bearing of a flout Then blame not Justice when it shuts thee out Will these deriders stand to what they say And own their words at the great dreadful day Then they 'd be glad when wrath shall overtake them To eat their wrrds and say they never spake them Flesh How Forsake all Ne're mention it more to me I 'le be of no Religion to undo me Spirit Is it not thine more in thy Fathers hand Than when it is laid out at sins command And is that sav'd that 's spent upon thy lust Or which must be a prey to thieves or rust And wouldst thou have thy riches in thy way Where thou art passing on and canst not stay And is that lost that 's sent to Heav'n before Hadst thou not rather have thy friends and store Where thou may dwell for ever in the light Of that long glorious day that fears no night Flesh But who can willingly submit to Death Which will bereave us of our life and breath That laies our flesh to rot in loathsome graves Where brains and eyes were leaves but ugly caves Spirit So nature breaks and casts away the shell Where the now beauteous singing bird did dwell The secundine that once the infant cloath'd After the birth is cast away and loath'd Thus Roses drop their sweet leaves under-foot But the Spring shews that life was in the root Souls are the Roots of Bodies Christ the Head Is Root of both and will revive the dead Our Sun still shineth when with us it's night When he returns we shall shine in his light Souls that behold and praise God with the Just Mourn not because their bodies are but dust Graves are but beds where flesh till morning sleep's Or Chests where God a while our garments keep 's Our folly thinks he spoils them in the keeping Which causeth our excessive fears and Weeping But God that doth our rising day foresee Pittie 's not rotting flesh so much as we The birth of Nature was deform'd by sin The birth of Grace did our repair begin The birth of Glory at the Resurrection Finisheth all and brings both to persection Why should not fruit when it is mellow fall Why would we linger here when God doth call Flesh The things and persons in this world I see But after death I know not what will be Spirit Know'st thou not that which God himself hath spoken Thou hast his promise which was never broken Reason proclaims that noble heav'n-born souls Are made for higher things than worms and moles God hath not made such faculties in vain Nor made his service a deluding pain But faith resolves all doubts and hears the Lord Telling us plainly by his Holy Word That uncloath'd souls shall with their Saviour dwell Triumphing over sin and death and hell And by the power of Almighty Love Stars shall arise from graves to shine above There we shall see the Glorious face of God His blessed presence shall be our abode The face that banisheth all doubts and fears Shuts out all sins and dryeth up all tears That face which darkeneth the Suns bright rayes Shall shine us into everlasting joyes Where Saints and Angels shall make up one Chore To praise the Great Jehovah evermore Flesh Reason not with me against sight and sense I doubt all this is but a vain pretence Words against nature are not worth a rush One bird in hand is worth two in the bush If God will give me Heav'n at last I 'le take it But for my Pleasure here I 'le not forsake it Spirit And wilt thou keep it bruitsh flesh how long Wilt thou not shortly sing another song When Conscience is awakened keep thy mirth When Sickness and Death comes hold fast this earth Live if thou canst when God saith come away Try whether all thy friends can cause thy stay Wilt thou tell death and God thou wilt not die And wilt thou the consuming fire defie Art thou not sure to let go what thou hast And doth not Reason bid thee then forecast And value the least hope of endless joyes Before known vanities and dying toyes And can the Lord that is most just and wise Found all mans duty in deceit and lies GET thee behind me Satan thou dost savour The things of flesh and not his dearest favour Who is my Life and Light and Love and All And so shall be whatever shall befall It is not thou but I that must discern And must Resolve It 's I that hold the stern Be silent Flesh speak not against my God Or else hee 'l teach thee better by the rod. I am resolved thou shalt live and die A servant or a conquered enemy LOrd charge not on me what this rebel sayes That alwaies was against me and thy wayes Now stop its mouth by Grace that shortly must Through just but gainful death be stopt with dust The thoughts and words of Flesh are none of mine Let Flesh say what it will I will be thine Whatever this rebellious Flesh shall prate Let me but serve the Lord at any rate Use me on earth as seemeth good to thee So I in Heav'n thy Glorious face may see Take down my Pride let me dwell at thy feet The humble are for earth and heav'n most meet Renouncing Flesh I Vow my self to thee With all the Talents thou hast lent to me Let me not stick at honour wealth or blood Let all my dayes be spent in doing good Let me not trifle out more precious hours But serve thee now with all my strength and powers If Flesh would tempt me to deny my hand Lord these are the Resolves to which I stand Richard Baxter October 29. 1659. The laâ—e Lord Chief Justice Oliver St. John See my Reasons of the Christ â—â—â—g since written I may with Tertullian call all our enemies to search their Court Records and â—ce how many of us have been cast out or silenced for any immorality but for obeying Conscience against the interest or wills of some who think that Conscience should give place to their Commands Read the two or three last Chapters in Dr. Holden's Analâ—fidei Read Mr. Stubbs and Mr. Rogers books against me and the souldiers openly thâ—â— calumaiâ—â—ed me and thâ—e in eâ— my death as the said Authors â—eâ—red them to call me to a trâ—al even for speaking and writing against their casting dow the Government of the Land â—â—ing 〈◊〉 themselves and aâ—â—â—pting at once to Vo e out all the â—arâ—â—h 〈◊〉 I know that it hardneâ—h thousands in impenitency to say that Others have done worse and Is the matter mended with you And will it also eâ—se men in heâ—l to think that some others suffer more The Quuakers and other Self-esteemers are reverthemore reconcil'd to us now we have been eleven years turned out of all So common it is for selfish meâ— to make their gain sayers as odious as they can devise that I conâ—eâ—s I wondred that I me with no more of this dealing my self from Papists Anabaptists or any that have turned their stiâ—e against me And at last Mr. Pierce hath answered my expectation and from my own confession not knowing me himself hath drawn my picture that I am Proâ—â—i Lazie False an Hypocrite uâ—just a Reader c. And from this Bolsecks credit I make no doubt but the Papists will think they may warrantably descrâ—bâ— me if I be thought worthy their reâ—embrance in all following Ageâ— though now I have nothing from them but good wordâ— But it is a small thing to be judged by man especially when our â—â—uâ—â— enjoy the Lord. They way-laid the Messengers that I sent Letters by to friends took them from the â— by force seâ—â— them to 〈…〉 to the Council of State to the trouble of those I wrote to though nothing was found but â—â—noâ—ency And this was by my old 〈…〉 who differed from â—â—â— in nothing but â—â—tant 〈…〉 Changes of our Government and yet 〈…〉
very Pleasing of the Appetite doth recreate nature and further strength 2. And sometime the appetite shews what sort of food nature will best close with and concoct so that as to the quality if Reason have nothing against it it hath something for it because it is a sign that it 's like to be best digested which is most desired And so if you thus far follow the appetite as a sign directing your reason what is best and take nothing ultimately to please it but by pleasing it to preserve the health or vigour of your bodies for Gods service thus you may do and yet be self-denying for this is not a sensual serving of your flesh But if you will 1. Take that which reason tells you is unhealthful in quality 2. Or that which reason tells you is either hurtful or but needless and unprofitable in the quantity 3. Or have mastered your reason so far by your appetite that you will not believe that is hurtful or needless which you love but judge what is good for you meerly by your appetite as a beast 4. Or if you make the pleasing of your appetite your chief End in any meat or drink that you take all this is bestiality sensuality carnality gulosity and contrary to true moderation and self-denial Live therefore like men and not like beasts like Christians and not like Atheists and Epicures He hath as base a god as most of the vilest heathen Idolaters that makes his belly his god He that cannot deny himself a delicious cup or morsel would ill deny himself a Kingdom if it were made the bait of sin He that will not displease his appetite in so small a matter would leardly leave his estate or liberty or life if he were put to it either to sin or leave them As he is a faithful servant to God indeed that will not displease him in the smallest matter so he is most fully obedient to the flesh that cannot deny it the least thing that it desireth Though I know that the smalness of the matter doth often so relax the cautelousness even of the godly that they venture on a small thing who would not on a greater yet even with them it is some aggravation of the sin that they cannot bear so small a matter as the displeasing of their appetites in such a trifle and that they cannot deny themselves where they may do it at so cheap a rate and that they have the hearts to displease God and wrong their souls for a cup or a morsel which their appetite hath a mind to He sets little by Heaven or the favor of God that will venture it for so small a thing It hath oft times abated my compassion to dying men when I have known that their death was caused by a wilful obeying their ppetite against the perswasion of their Physitian and be the person never so dear to me I feel that there is somewhat in nature that inclineth us to consent to the sufferings of the willful or abateth our pity of them in their misery It was an aggravation of Adams sin that a forbidden morsel could entice him to venture on the wrath of God and the ruine of himself and his posterity And it will be a double aggravation of your sin if you will take the same course and take no warning by him or by the sinning world that hath followed him to this day when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was pleasant to the eye and a tree to be desired to make one wise she took of the fruit thereof and did eat Gen. 26. Thus entred sin and death by sin 2. ANother part of self-interest to be denied is the pleasing of lustful venereous inclinations Not only in avoiding the gross act of adultery and fornication it self but also in avoiding the pleasing of any of the senses by lascivious actions that lead to this especially some men that are naturally prone to lust have need to set a work both faith and reason and sometime call for help from others to quench these dangerous hellish flames For it is a sin that God hath spoken terribly against and that so often that intimateth mans proneness to it and expresseth Gods detestation of it And seldom doth Paul rebuke it but he reckoneth up the several kinds that he may make it odious and noâ—e may escape Gal. 5. 19. Now the works of the flesh are manifest which are adultery fornication uncleanness lasciviousness c. of the which I tell you before as I have also told you in time past that they which do such things shall not inherit the Kingdom of God The sins which he would not have the Ephesians name are fornication and all uncleanness neither filthiness nor foolish talking nor jesting which are not convenient because no whoremonger nor unclean person nor covetous man who is an Idolater hath any inheritance in the Kingdom of Christ and of God so Col. 3. 5 6. Mortifie therefore your members which are upon earth fornication uncleanness inordinate affection evil concupiscence and covetousness which is Idolatry for which things sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience 1 Cor. 6 9 10. Be not deceived neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers nor effeminate nor abusers of themselves with mankind c. shall inherit the Kingdom of God 1 Tim. 1. 10. The Law is made for whoremongers for them that defile themselves with mankind c. Heb. 13. 4. Whoremongers and adulterers God will judge Read also 1 Cor. 5. 11. Matth. 15. 19. Heb. 12. 16. 1 Thes 4. 3. Rom. 1. 28 29 c. 1 Cor. 6. 13 18. 10. 8. Jud. 7 8. These filthy dreamers defile the flesh c. 2 Pet. 2. 10 14. But chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness Having eyes full of Adultery and that cannot cease from sin Abhor therefore this filthy damnable sin which God abhorreth And to that end please not the flesh by any beginnings of it or any thing that savoureth of it or makes way to it Chambering and wantonness are mentioned by the Apostle among the fullfilling of the fleshly lusts Rom. 13. 13 14. the allurements of the lusts of the flesh and wantonness was the course of the wretched Apostates 2 Pet. 2. 18. 1 Pet. 4. 3. Eph. 4. 19. 2 Cor. 12. 21. Mar. 7. 22. And Christ himself hath told you that he that looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery already in his heart Mat. 5. 28. Suffer not therefore your eye to entice your hearts by gazing on beauty or any alluring objects touch them not come not near them without necessity The fire of lust doth need no blowing up but in some it needeth all that ever they can do to quench it Fly therefore from the temptations and occasions if you would escape cast not your selves upon opportunities of sinning Let temptations have as little advantage as you can
to be harlots It would make the ears of a modest person to glow on his head to hear the ribbaldry that is ordinary in some prophane families especially in many Inns and Alehouses where the quality of the company the nature of the employment is such from whence no better can be expected Let all that would be accounted Christians deny and abhor this part of sensuality in themselves and theirs Again consider the command of God But fornication all uncleanness or Covetousness let it not once be named amongst you as becometh Saints neither filthiness nor foolish talking nor jesting which are not convenient but rather giving of thanks Eph. 5. 3 4. 4. 29 30. Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth but that which is good to the use of edifying that it may minister grace unto the hearers und grieve not the holy spirit of God Mark here how such filthy speech is called Corrupt Communication or rotten like Carrion in a ditch which should cause all that pass by to stop their noses And yet this is our peoples sport what say these wretches may we not jest and be merry when we mean no harm without all this ado Have you no honester mirth than this nor no more cleanly jests than these will you feed upon that which is Carrion or corrupt and make it your Junkets to delight your palate will you make merry with that which God condemneth and threatneth to shut you out of his Kingdom for and makes the mark of the unsanctified and chargeth you not once to name it that is not without distaste and rebuke Have you nothing but filthiness and the service of the Devil and the wrath of God to play with and to make merry with Prov. 10. 23. It is a sport to a fool to do mischief I may well say of this as Solomon of another sin Prov. 26. 18 19. As a mad-man that casteth firebrands arrows and death so is the man that deceiveth his neighbour and saith Am not I in sport It 's mad sporting with sin especially to choose it purposely for a recreation and specially such an odious sin as this that infecteth others and banisheth all gracious edifying conference and increaseth the corruption of the mind and prepareth people to actual whoredom self-pollution and abominable uncleanness for thoughts and words are but preparatives to deeds CHAP. XXI Idle and worldly talk to be denied 4. ANother part of sensuality to be denied is Idle and worldly talk which most men make their daily recreation It is not to be made light of that Christ himself hath told you that for every idle word men shall give account in the day of Judgment Matth. 12. 36 37. such an account as that they shall be charged on you as sins and if they be not repented of and pardoned through the blood of Christ they will be your condemnation as well as greater sins By idle words is meant not only all wicked all lying words which are vain in a high degree and worse but also useless unprofitable speeches that tend not to any good and which you have no call to speak Tit. 3. 9. And that which the Apostle calls foolish talking Eph. 5. 4. When that Christian wisdom is left out that should guide and season our speech and direct it to some good end especially when by vain jesting men will make fools of themselves to please others or when they lay by Christian gravity and by jesting affect to become ridiculous Eph. 5. 4. much more when men jest with holy things and speak unreverently contemptuously or scornfully of the matters of God which is impiety in an high degree The same may be said of proud boasting words and of multitude of words even when the matter is good but the multitude of words unseasonable and unprofitable as also of rash unconsidered words that tend to stir up strife and passion as also censuring back-biting reproach flattery dissembling and many the like but the thing that I principally speak of now is the pleasing of a mans self by a course of idle unprofitable talk And alas how common is this sin Not only the fooliâ—â— multitude are guilty of it but persons of judgment and gravity and reputation How many may you come in company with before you shall have any edifying Communication that tends to minister grace to the hearers vanity is become the common breath of the greatest part What the better can any man be for their discourse unless by taking warning by them to avoid the vanity which we hear them guilty of Even antient persons with whom the words of wisdom should be found Job 12. 12. and who should be examples unto youth are yet given up to idle talk and an old story is more savoury with them than heavenly discourse even Parents and Masters that should be examples to their families will in their hearing multiply idle words as if they would teach them to be vain as they are when alas the souls of those about them have need of other manner of discourse and it 's another task that God hath set them Deut. 6. 6 7 8. 11. 18 19. Whence is it that Children learn a course of idle fooliâ—h talking more than of their own parents For one word of God and the Doctrine of the Gospel and the matters of salvation that their families hear from most of them they hear an hundred yea a thousand of the world and of unprofitable things Had God but the Tithe of their words we should account them very pious And they that cannot spare him the tithe of their words I doubt do not allow him the Tithe of their affections and would not allow him the tithe of their increase if they could tell how to keep it Not but that with some persons that are called to much worldly business more than ten parts of their daily speeches may â—â—wfully be about the creatures But then even those with godly men are ultimately for God and so are sanctified and not unprofitable and also they are glad to redeem what time they can for speeches of an higher and more excellent subject And the commonness of this sin of idle talk yea with many that we hope are godly doth make me think that it's thought to be a smaller matter than it is and I doubt this conceit is it that makes it to be so common And therefore I shall here give you some of the aggravations of this sin that you may hereafter judge of it as it is and not be encouraged in it by false apprehensions A custom of vain words is a sign of a vain and empty mind were the heart but full of better things the tongue would be employed in better speeches Either the head or heart or both is empty and vain in that measure as the tongue is vain Eccles 5. 3. A dream cometh through the multitude of business and a fools voice is known by multitude of words Eccles 10.
because you are idle that should use them Every hour that you lose in idleness what noble faculties and large provisions are all laid by As much as in you lieth you make the whole creation to be and work in vain Why should the Sun shine an hour or minute for you in vain Why should the Earth bear you an hour in vain why should the springs and rivers run for you an hour in vain why should the air refresh you an hour in vain why should your pulse beat one stroke in vain or your lungs once breathe a breath in vain shall all be at work for you to further your work and will you think that idleness is no sin 3. Moreover Laziness and sloth is a sin that loseth you much precious time All the time is lost that you are idle in Yea when you are at work if you do it slothfully you are losing much of your time A diligent person will go further and do more in an hour than the lazy flesh-pleaser will do in two When the slothful is praying or reading and working in his calling he is but losing half his time which diligence would redeem And is our time so â—…ort and precious and yet is idleness an excusable sin what loiter so near night so near eternity when we have but a little time to work O work while it is day for the night is coming when none can work Were it but for this that sloth doth steal so much of our time I must think it no better than an hainous Thievery 4. And by this means we rob our selves We might be getting some good all the time that we are idle or doubly advantage our selves if sloth did not keep us company in our work The slothful is brother to him that is a great waster Pro. 18. 9. slothfulness is self-murdering men die while they lie still and wish It 's a sin that famisheth soul and body Prov. 21. 25. The desire of the slothful killeth him because his hands refuse to labour It 's the common cause of beggery and want and what comfort can you have under such afflictions which you bring upon your selves If you want food or rayment if your wives and children are in want how can you think that God should take care of you and afford you relief when you bring this on your selves by pleasing your flesh which is his enemy If a Souldier get hurt by trucking with the enemy he may rather look that his General should hang him than relieve him And how should good men be moved to compassionate you If God do improveriâ—h you and you come to want by innocency or a righteous cause they must needs be ready to relieve you But if Sloth or Pride or Gluttony or Drunkenness bring you to it till you repent I see not how they should relieve you at least any further than to keep you alive For if you are set toplease your flesh by idleness must I joyn with you to please it by such supplies as shall cheriâ—â— you in your sin No one flesh-pleaser is enough for one man If you will please it either by Idleness or by Luxury your selves expect not that others should please it by your relief and make provision for your sin If I may not make provision for my own flesh to satisfie its lusts neither must I do it for another But that 's not the worst slothfulness is the common cause of mens damnation when they see a temptation and danger before them slothfulness hindereth them from resisting it When Heaven is offered them slothfulness makes them sit still and lose it They must Run and Strive and Fight and Conquer and these are not works for a slothful person especially when they must be continued to the death So that it 's manifest that most men in the world are undone soul and body by the sin of sloth 5. And by this you rob others as well as your selves You owe the world the fruit of your labours You rob the souls of men to whom you should do good You rob the Church that should be bettered by you You rob the Commonwealth of which you are a member and should have benefit by you You owe your labours to Church and Commonwealth and the souls of men and will you not pay so great a debt You deserve no room in the Church or Commonwealth but to be cut off as an unprofitable member if you bring no advantage to them They say the Bees will not suffer a drone in the Hive Nay if you be hired servants you plainly rob your Masters if you are slothful as much as if you stole their money or goods If you buy an hundred sheep of a man and he let you have but fourscore doth he not rob or cheat you And if a man buy a years or a days labour of you and you let him have but half a years labour or half a days labour because of your sloth do you not defraud or rob him of the other half So that the idle are thieves to themselves to the Church and the souls of men to the Commonwealth and those that they are related to even to their wives and children for whom they should provide due maintenance by their labour 6. And you are injurious to the honest poor in that you disable your selves from relieving them when God commandeth you to work with your hands not only for your selves but that you may have to give to them that need Eph. 4. 28. What if all men should do as you do how would the poor be maintained and the Church and Commonwealth served 7. Yea worst of all you are guilty of robbing God himself It is him that you owe your labours to and the improvement of all the talents which he lendeth you And idleness is unsaithfulness to the God of Heaven that setteth you on work Even in working for men you must do it ultimately for God Col. 3. 22 23. Not with eye-service as men-pleasers but in singleness of heart fearing God and whatsoever ye do do it heartily as to the Lord and not unto men knowing that of the Lord you shall receive the reward of the inheritance for ye serve the Lord But he that doth wrong shall receive for the wrong which he hath done If it be an offence to wrong man what is it to wrong God and if you may not be slothful in the work of a man what a crime is it to be slothful in the work of the God of Heaven The greater your Master is the more hainous it is to be lazy in his service Remember the curse on them that do the work of the Lord deceitfully Jer. 48. 10. All work that you have to do is the work of the Lord. 8. And consider That the Idle forfeit the protection and provision of God even their daily bread For must he support and feed you to do nothing His own rule is that if any man will not work neither should he
holiness more abound If so be not too hasty to censure their Zeal But usually all these dividing ways are the diseases of the Church which cause its languishing decay and dissolution 7. Lastly This selfish zeal is commonly censorious and uncharitable and diminisheth Christian Love and sets those a reproaching and despising each other that should have lived in the Union and Communion of Saints Where you find these properties of your zeal and desire for the promoting of your Opinions or parties in Religion you have great reason to make it presently your business to find out that insinuating self which maketh your Religion Carnal and to deny and mortifie it CHAP. XXXIV Carnal Liberty to be denied What. 17. ANother selfish interest to be denied is Carnal Liberty A thing that selfishness hath strangely brought of late into so much credit that abundance among us think they are doing some special service to God their Country the Church and their own souls when they are but deeply engaged for the Devil by a self-seeking spirit in a Carnal Course For the discovery of this dangerous common disease I must first tell you that there is a threefold Liberty which must carefully be differenced 1. There is an Holy Blessed Liberty which no man must deny 2. There is a wicked Liberty which no man should desire 3. And between these two there is a Common Natural and Civil Liberty which is good in its place as other worldly matters are but must be denied when it stands in competition with higher and better things and as all other worldly matters is Holy when it is Holily esteemed and used that is for God but sinful when it is sinfully esteemed and used and that is for Carnal self I. The first of these is not to be denied but all other Liberty to be denied for it This Holy Liberty consisteth in these following Particulars 1. To be freed from the Power of sin which is the disability the deformity the death of the soul 2. From the Guilt of sin and the wrath of God and the Curse of the Law 3. To be restored to God by Christ in Union Reconciliation and Sanctification and our enthralled spirits set free to know and love and serve him and delight in him Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is Libert y 2 Cor. 3. 17. God is the souls freedom who is its Lord and life and end and all 4. To be delivered from Satan as a Deceiver and enemy and executioner of the wrath of God 5. To be freed from that Law or Covenant of Works which requireth that which to us is become impossible 6. To be freed from the burdensome task of useless Ceremonies imposed on the Church in the times of infancy and darkness 7. To be freed from the accusations of a guilty conscience those self-tormentings which in the wicked are the fore-tastes of hell 8. To be freed from such temporal judgments here as might hinder our salvation or our service of God 9. To be free from the condemning sentence at the last day and the everlasting Torments which the wicked must endure 10. And to be delivered into the blessed sight of God and the perfect fruition and pleasing of him in Perfect Love and Joy and Praise to all eternity This is the Liberty which you must not deny which I therefore name that by the way you may see that it is not for nothing that the other sorts of Liberty are to be denied II. The second sort of Liberty is that which is wicked directly evil which all men should deny And this is a freedom from Righteousness as the Apostle calls it Rom. 6. 20. To be free from a voluntary subjection to God and free from his severe and holy Laws and free from the thoughts of holiness and of the life to come and free from those sighs and groans for sin and that godly sorrow which the sanctified undergo and to be free from all those spiritual motions and changing works upon their hearts which the Spirit doth work on all the Saints to be free from holy speeches and holy prayer and other duties and from that strict and holy manner of living which God commandeth to be at liberty to sin against God and to please the flesh and follow their own imaginations and wills let God say what he will to the contrary to be free to eat and drink what we love and have a mind of and to be merry and wanton and lustful and worldly and take our course without being curbed by so precise a Law as God hath given us to be free from an heavenly conversation and those preparations for death and that Communion with God which the Saints partake of This is the wicked Liberty of the world which the worst of carnal men desire And the next beyond this is a Liberty to lie in the fire of hell and a freedom from salvation and from the everlasting Joy and Praises of the Saints If freedom from Grace and Holiness deserve the name of Freedom then you may next call Damnation a Freedom And it is part also of this sinful miserable Liberty to be free from the Government and Officers and good Laws which rule the Church and Commonwealth And such wretches there are in the world that seriously judge it a desirable Liberty to be free from these They think that their Country is Free when every man may do what he list and they have no King or other Governors or none that will look after them and punish their miscarriages And they think the Church is free when they have no Pastors or when Pastors have least power over them and they may do what they list And indeed if they were rid of Magistrates and Ministers they were free As a School is free that hath shut out the Master or have rejected him and teach and rule one another And as a Ship is free when the Master and Pilot are thrown over-board and as an Army is free when they have cast off or lost their commanders or to speak more fitly as an Hospital is free when they are delivered from their Physician and as the madmen in Bedlam are free when they have killed or escaped from their Keepers As Infidels keep their Freedom by refusing Christ in himself so carnal Dividers and Hereticks keep their Freedom by refusing his Officers and Christ in those Officers For he that heareth them heareth him and he that despiseth them despiseth him and he that despiseth despiseth not man but God Luke 10. 16. 1 Thes 4. 8. And another part of this ungodly Liberty is to be free from the exercise at least of this power of Magistrates and Ministers so far as not to be restrained from sin though they be not free from the state of subjects To swear and be drunk and live as most Ale-sellers on the damning sins of others and make a trade of selling men their damnation and to have no Magistrate punish them no
reason and drawn you to excess in meats and drinks for matter or manner for quality or quantity or both Many a groan those sins have cost you and many a smarting day they have caused you and a sad uncomfortable life you have had by reason of them in comparison of what you might have had And this flesh hath been the Mother or the Nurse of all You were engaged by your Baptismal Covenant to fight against it when you entred into the Church and if you are Christians this combate hath been your daily work and much of the business of your lives And yet are you loth to have the victory see your enemy under feet Do you fight against it as for the life of your souls yet are you afraid lest death should hurt it or break it down Have you fought your selves friends with it that you are so tender of it when you are the greatest friends to it it will be the most dangerous enemy to you And do not think that it is only sin and not the body that is the flesh that is called your enemy in Scripture For though it be not the body as such or as obedient to the soul yet is it the Body as inclining to creatures from which the sinful soul cannot restrain it it is the body as having an inordinate sensitive appetite and imagination and so distempered as that it rebels against the Spirit and casteth off the rule of Reason and would not be curbed of its desires but have the rule of all it self Was it not the very flesh it self that Paul saith he fought against and kept under and brought into subjection lest he should be a cast a-way 1 Cor. 9. 26 27. Why should sin be called Flesh and Body but that it is the Body of Flesh that is the principal-seat of those sins that are so called If ye live after the flesh ye shall die but if ye through the Spirit do mortifie the deeds of the Body ye shall live Rom. 8. 13. If ye sow to the flesh of the flesh ye shall reap corruption Gal. 6. 8. That which is first in Being is first in sin But it is the Flesh or Embryo endued with sense that is first in being Be not therefore too tender of that which corruption hath made your prison and your enemy Many a time you have been put to resist it and watch and strive against it and when you have been at the best it hath been hindring you to be better and when the spirit was willing the flesh was weak And quickly hath it caused your cooling declension Many a blessed hours communion between God your souls that flesh hath deprived you of And therfore though still you must love it yet you should the less grieve or be troubled at its sufferings seeing they are but the fruits of its sin and a holy contentedness shold possess your minds that God should thus castigatorily revenge his own quarrel yours upon it 10. But yet consider that were you never so tender of the body it self yet faith and reason should perswade you to be content For God is but preparing even for its felicity His undoing it but to make it up again As in the new birth he broke your hearts and false hopes that he might heal your hearts and give you sounder hopes instead of them so at death he breaketh your flesh and worldly hopes not to undo you and leave it in corruption but to raise it again another manner of body than now it is and give it a part in the blessedness which you hoped for If in good sadness you believe the Resurrection what cause is there for so much fear of death You can be content that your Roses die and your sweetest Flowers fall and perish and the green and beauteous complexion of the earth be turned into a bleak and withered hue because you expect a kind of Resurrection in the Spring You can boldly lie down at night to sleep though sleep be a kind of death to the body and more to the soul and all because you shall rise again in the morning And if every nights sleep or one at least were a gentle death if you were sure to rise again the next morning you would make no great matter of it Were it as common to men to die every night and rise again in the morning as it is to sleep every night and rise in the morning death would not seem such a dreadful thing Those poor men that have the falling-sickness do once in a day or in a few days lie as dead men and have as much pain as many that die And yet because they use to be up and well again in a little time they can go merrily about their business the rest of the day and little fear their approaching fall How much more should the belief of a Resurrection unto life confirm us against the fears of death And why should we not as quietly commit our bodies to the dust when we have the promise of the God of heaven that the Earth shall deliver up her dead and that this body that is sown in corruption shall be raisedin incorruption It is sown in dishonour it is raised in glory it is sown in weakness it is raised in power it is sown a natural body it is raised a spiritual body So great and wonderful the change will be as now is unconceivable we have now a drossie lâ—mp of flesh an aggravation of the Elements to a seed of life which out of them forms it self a body by the Divine influx Like the Silk-worm which in the Winter is but a seed which in the Summer doth move attract that matter from which it gets a larger body by a kind of Resurrection But it is another manner of body I will not say of flesh which at the Resurrection we shall have Not flesh and blood nor a natural body but of a nature so spiritual sublime and pure that it shall be indeed a spiritual body And think not that this is a contradiction and that spirituality and corporeity are inconsistent For There is a Natural Body and there is a Spiritual body The root of the fleshly Natural body was the first man Adam who was made a living soul to be the Root of living souls The root of the spiritual Body is Christ who being a quickning Spirit doth quicken all his members by his Spirit which Spirit of Grace is the seed of Glory as from an holy and gracious Saviour we receive an holy and gracious nature so from a Glorified Saviour we shall receive a glorious nature we are now changed from glory to Glory in the beginning as by the spirit of the Lord But it is another kind of Glory that this doth tend to Howbeit that is not first which is spiritual but the natural and afterwards the spiritual The first man was of the Earth Earthy The second man is the Lord from heaven
down to be familiar with us and to bring us into a state of friendship and holy boldness with God himself And yet shall we draw back 17. I would put this question to you for your serious answer Can you be contented yea do you desire to have no more of God than here you have Is this much of the knowledge of him and his will and works sufficient for you Would you be no nearer him and enjoy no more of him What ever your flesh say sure the love of God in your hearts will not suffer you considerately to say so Consult with your new nature with the holy principle that is in you Me thinks you should not be content to remain for ever at such a distance from God as you are If you can I blame you not to be afraid of death If not Why then are you loth to go to him 18. And I would ask you also Whether you are content with the measure of sanctification which you have or which is to be attained in this life Are you content to live for ever with no more knowledge or love of God No more faith or love to Christ No more sense of the worth of Grace No more righteousness or peace or joy in the Holy Ghost No more meekness humility or heavenly mindedness Are you contented rather to live for ever under all the pride and ignorance and passion and selfishness and lust and worldliness and all other sins that here beset you rather than to remove to the place of perfection and yield that death shall break the vessel and nest of your corruptions If you care so little for the grace of God and see so little beauty in his image and see so little odiousness in sin that you had rather keep it for ever than go to God by the passage of death I blame you not to be afraid to die But if otherwise Why do you desire perfection and deliverance and yet be so loth to come and receive it When you know that it is not to be had on earth 19. Moreover are you contented to remain for ever as unserviceable to God as here you are Alas how little do you for him how much do you to displease him lay together all the service of your lives and how small and poor a matter is it And would you still live at these rates Will this content you Me thinks it should not if you have grace in your hearts Why then do you not desire to depart and to be with Christ There you shall be perfectly fitted for his service and therefore perfectly perform it What other service God will have for us we cannot yet tell but Love and Praise we are sure will be the chief and the rest will be good and holy and honourable what ever it be If you are Christians me thinks the sense of your unprofitableness and of your unpleasing frame of heart and life should be your daily grief and therefore you should desire the state where you may be more serviceable and not be so unwilling of it 20. Lastly I would ask you Are you contented to attain no other end of all your life and labours and sufferings than here you do attain What is it that you pray for and seek and strive for is it for no more than is to be had on earth If you have no higher design intentions or desires I cannot much blame you to be loth to die But if you have me thinks no man should be unwilling to attain his end What have you done and suffered so much for heaven and now would you not go to it Had you rather all your labour were lost Do you desire to be happy or do you not If you do as certainly you do would you not go where happiness it to be had when you are sure that it is not not to be had on earth What say you is there not plain reason in all this that I propound to you It is a sad case when men seek not God and Heaven as their felicity but only as a lesser evil than hell which they would endure rather than enjoy when they can keep no longer this earthly life which they account their felicity where this is the case it 's a sad case And were not this a common case there would not be so much unwillingness to depart And now Christian Reader I beseech thee weigh these foregoing Considerations and judge whether it be not a contradiction to thy profession and unseemly for a believer to be unwilling to die when God shall call him Much more to cast away evelasting life for the saving of his temporal life but a little longer O learn the needful lesson of self-denial especially in this point of denying your lives He that can do this can do all and may be sure that he is mortified indeed And he that can do all the rest and sticks but at this and could part with any thing for Christ save his life doth indeed do nothing nor is it esteemed self-denying It is a lesson therefore that is exceeding necessary to be learn'd and worthy all your time and diligence even to deny your Lives for the love of Christ Perhaps you will say We live in days of peace and liberty and therefore are not like to be called to Martyrdom What need then have we to learn this lesson I answer 1. You are uncertain what changes you may see but if you never suffer yet you must be sure that you have a heart that would suffer if God did call you to it For though you may be saved without suffering where you are not called to it yet you cannot be saved without a heart that would suffer if you were put upon it 2. And if you cannot deny your lives for Christ you will not sincerely deny your pleasures or profits or honours for him If you would not suffer death for him if he called you to it you will not sincerely suffer losses and wrongs and reproaches for him which almost every Christian must expect So that to try your own sincerity you should look after it 3. And it is certain that death will shortly come and then if you have not learnt this lesson to deny your selves even in case of life you will die unwillingly and uncomfortably At least me thinks I might reason thus with any man of you good or bad Either death is indeed terrible or not If it be not why do you so fear it when it comes If it be why do you not as well fear it before it comes even in your youth and health For you are sure then that you must die as if it were upon you A wonderful thing it is that mans heart should be so unreasonably insensible and that there should be so great a difference in the affections of most in regard of death It 's no matter of doubt or controversie whether they shall die He is a block and not a man that knoweth it
the burdens that are here upon you which should make you long to be with God One would think the feeling of them should force you to consideration and weariness of them and make the thoughts of rest to be sweet to you Have you yet not sin enough and sorrow and fear and trouble enough Or must God lay a greater load on you to make you desire to be disburdened Every hour you spend and every creature you have to do with afford you some occasion of renewing your desires to depart from these and be with Christ Direct 7. Observe and magnifie that of God which is here revealed to you in his word and works Study him and admire him in Scripture study and admire him in the frame of nature And when you look towards Sun or Moon or Sea or Land and perceive how little it is that you know and how desirable it is to know them perfectly think then of that estate where you shall know them all in God himself who is more than all Study and admire him in the course of Providences study and admire him in the person of Christ in the frame of his holy life in the work of Redemption in the holy frame of his Laws and Covenants study and admire him in his Saints and the frame of his holy Image on their souls This life of studying and admiring God and dwelling upon him with all our souls will exceedingly dispose us to be willing to come to him and to submit to death Direct 8. Live also in the daily exercise of holy Joy and Praise to God which is the heavenly Employment For if you use your selves to this heavenly life it will much incline you to desire to be there Exercise fear and godly sorrow and care in their places but especially after Faith and Love be sure to live in holy Joy and Praise Be much in the consideration of all that Riches of grace in Christ communicated and to be communicated to you And be much in Thanks to God for his mercies and chearing and comforting your soul in the Lord your God And thus the Joy of Grace will much dispose you to the Joys of glory the Peace which the Kingdom of God consisteth in will incline you to the peace of the everlasting Kingdom and the chearful Praising of God on Earth in Psalms or other ways of Praise will prepare and dispose you to the heavenly Praises And therefore Christians exceedingly wrong their souls and hinder themselves from a willingness to be with God in spending all their days in drooping or doubting or worldly dulness and laying by so much the Joy of the Saints and the Praises of God Direct 9. Dwell on the believing fore-thoughts of the everlasting glory which you must possess Think what it is that others are enjoying while you are here and what you must be and possess and do for ever Daily think of the Certainty Perfection and Perperuity of your Blessedness What a life it will be to see the blessed God in his Glory and taste of the fulness of his love and to see the glorified Son of God and with a perfected soul and body to be perfectly taken up in the Love and Joy and Praises of the Lord among all his holy Saints and Angels in the heavenly Jerusalem You must by the exercise of Faith and Love in holy Meditation and Prayer even dwell in the Spirit and converse in Heaven while your bodies are on earth if you would entertain the news of death as beseems a Christian But of this at large elsewhere Direct 10. Lastly if you would be willing to submit to death resign up your own understandings and wills to the wisdom and the will of God and Know not good and evil for your carnal selves but wholly trust your lives and souls to the Wisdom and Love of your dearest Lord. Must you be carking and caring for your selves when you have an Infinite God engaged to care for you O saith self I am not able to bear the terrors and pangs of death O saith Faith My Lord is easily able to support me and it is his undertaken work to do it My work is but to Please him and it 's his work to take care of me in life and death and therefore though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death yet will I fear no evil O saith Self I am utterly a stranger to another world I know not what I shall see nor what I shall be nor whither I shall go the next minute after death None come from the dead to satisfie us of these things O but saith Faith My blessed Father and Redeemer is not a stranger to the place that I must go to He knows it though I do not He knows what I shall be and do and whither I shall go and all is in his power And seeing it belongs not to me but to him to dispose of me and give me the promised reward it is meet that I rest in his understanding And it is better for me that his Infinite Wisdom dispose of my departing soul than my shallow insufficient knowledge I may much more acquiesce in his knowledge than my own O but saith self I fear it may prove a change of darkness and confusion to my soul what will become of me I cannot tell O but saith Faith I am sure I am in the hands of Love and such Love as is Omnipotent and engaged for my good and how can it then go ill with me If I had my own will I should not fear And how much less should I fear when I am at the will of God even of most Wise Almighty Love There is no true Centre for the soul to Rest in but the Will of God It is our business to Obey and Please his Will as dutiful Children and to commit our selves contentedly to his Will for the absolute disposal of us It is not possible that the Will of an Heavenly Father should be against his Children whose desire and sincere endeavour hath been to Obey and Please his Will And therefore learn this as your great and necessary Lesson with Joyful Confidence to Commit your selves and your departing souls to your Fathers Will as knowing that your Death is but the execution of that Will which is engaged to cause all things to work together for your good Rom. 8. 28. And say with Paul I suffer but am not ashamed for I know whom I have believed and I am perswaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed to him against that day 2 Tim. 1. 12. 1 Tim. 4. 10. Therefore we labour and suffer because we trust in the living God who is the Saviour of all men especially of those that believe say therefore as Job Though he kill me yet will I trust in him Or rather as Christ Father into thy hands I commend my Spirit Luke 23. 46. If the hands and Will of the Father was the Rock and
sin and misery I might have these mens consent so it reflected not upon themselves Were I to wring the unlawful gains out of the hands of another I might have their consent or were I to perswade another from his Pride or lust or passion they would give me free leave because it is not self that is concerned in it nor self-denial that is necessary to it in them But when we come to themselves there is no dealing with them till God by Grace or Judgement deal with them They cannot endure to know the worst by themselves much less to come out of it If we tell them of their sin and danger they say we speak against them And therefore they say It is out of malice or humour or pride And as well might all diseased persons say so of their Physicians that when they tell them of their disease and danger they speak against them and speak out of malice or ill will It is natural for men to think well of all that they love and of all that they do and whom do they love better than themselves Pride will not let men think so meanly and hardly of themselves as the Scripture speaks of them and Ministers must plainly tell them The Prophet wept that foresaw the cruelty of Hazael but he had so good a conceit of himself that he would not believe he should be so cruel 2 Kings 8. 13. Is thy servant a dog that he should do this The false Prophet Zedekiah could not forbear but struck Micaiah when he made it known that he was a lying Prophet 1 Kings 22. 24. And Ahab hated him because he prophesied not good of him but evil It was all the Proud men that rose up against Jeremiah and contradicted his prophecie and rejected his word Jer. 43. 2. The word of God is quick and powerful and a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart and it is the plain word of that God that feareth not the faces of the Proudest sinners on earth and will not flatter nor daub with any of them all but will tell them to their faces what they are and what will become of them if they do not turn and what they must trust to This is the word that God hath put into our mouths and commanded us to preach to them not the flattering words of an inferior nor the tender language of a man-pleaser but the commanding words of the God of heaven and the peremptory threatnings of everlasting fire against all unconverted unsanctified men denounced from him that feareth none of them all but will make them all stoop at last to him and fear and tremble before his Majesty And is it any wonder if Proud and selfish sinners are displeased with such a word as this They stand all the while they are hearing a plain and powerful Preacher as prisoners arraigned at the bar and sometime are ready to tremble as Felix did when he heard Paul dilating of righteousness and temperance and the judgement to come Acts 24. 25. And can self endure to be thus used and arraigned for its life especially when they think it is but by a man For they have not the understanding to know that it is Christ that owneth all that his Messengers speak by his Commission Hence it is that men hate those Ministers that they feel thus to judge them in their Doctrine and take them for their enemies for telling them the truth Gal. 4. 16. and think they are but the troublers of the Countrey as Ahab called Elijah the troubler of Israel which he had troubled himself 1 Kings 18. 17. and meet them as he did the same Prophet 1 Kings 21. 20. Hast thou found me O mine Enemy They meet not a Minister as the Messenger of God that calls them to repentance but as an enemy in the field to strive against him and raise up all the reasonings and passions of their souls against him because he condemneth their unregenerate state tells them but what God hath charged him to tell them when the poor sinners consider not that before God hath done with them as sure as they breathe he will make them either by grace or Judgement condemn themselves as much as any of his Ministers condemned them from the word of God at whom they were most offended Ah little do these Proud worms that rage at us now for faithful dealing and for telling them that which they will shortly find true little do they think that they shall shortly say the very same against themselves which they hated us for saying Nay with an hundred times more bitterness and self-revenge will they speak these things against themselves than ever we spoke them Hence it is that faithful plain-dealing Ministers are commonly hated and persecuted by the ungodly especially by the great ones and honourable sinners For their message is against self and therefore self will rise up against them and so many selfish unmortified persons as there be in the Congregation so many enemies usually hath such a Minister And therefore the Lords of Israel petition the King that Jeremy may be put to death Jer. 38. 4. And Amaziah the Priest calls Amos a conspirator against the King and tells the King that the Land was not able to bear his words and commands him to preach no more at the Kings Chappel or his Court Amos 7. 10 11 12 13. And what was the matter that deserved all this yea and the death of almost all the Prophets and Apostles of Christ why it was for speaking against self and its carnal interest But was it not a truth that was spoken True or false if it be against self it cannot be born As the Bishop of Ments that Luther speaks of meeting with a Bible and reading an hour in it I know not saith he what book this is but I am sure it is against us Meaning the Popish Clergy So these men say by our preaching and by the word of God it self Be it never so true we are sure it is against us Or rather we will not believe it because it is against us But if these men had their wits about them they would see that this is for them which they think is against them It is for their healing and salvation had they hearts to entertain it though it be for the troubling of them at the present by humiliation O how tender are carnal persons of this self How quickly do they feel if a Minister do but touch them How impatiently do they smart if he meddle with the galled place and plainly open their most disgraceful sins and most dangerous courses as one that had rather be guilty of displeasing them than of silently permitting them to displease God and undo their souls They fret and fume at the Sermon and go home with passion in their hearts and reproaches in their mouths against the Ministers And are of the mind of the desperate Sodomites Gen. 19. 9. that said to Lot when he
find in a holy walking with God Yea they will deny themselves everlasting life and the favour of God and cast themselves into endless misery and all this for a thing that is ten thousand times worse than nothing or for a very sensual brutish Pleasure And yet these men cannot deny themselves in life or liberty in gain or honour no nor in the filthiest lusts for the sake of Christ and their own salvation Even when they may know that they most deny themselves when they will not deny themselves They deny themselves eternal glory because they will not deny themselves in temporal vanity Heaven and earth will witness against such sottish and unrighteous dealing as this if true Conversion do not prevent it Hath God hath Christ hath your own salvation deserved no better at your hands than this O miserable souls All things can be easily denied save sin and Carnal self and these cannot be denied God can be denied Christ and Scripture and Heaven it self can be denied for flesh and sin and flesh and sin cannot be denied for God and for eternal Glory Do you think that this will look like wise or righteous dealing when you stand in judgement Ask now any stander by that is impartial whether God or the flesh should be denied Whether Heaven or Earth should be denied seeing one of them you must deny And if any impartial man will be now against you what think you will God be who is not only impartial but wronged by you and a hater of your unrighteous dealing CHAP. LXXII To be left to self is the sorest plague 10. LAstly remember that to be given over to our selves is the heaviest plague on this side Hell And therefore he that delighteth not to be miserable should not desire to be selfish To be given over to the Love of your selves is to turn from the Love of the blessed God to the Love of a filthy sinner and so to forfeit Gods love to you To be given over to care for your selves is to forfeit the fatherly care of God and to be at the care of a silly insufficient improvident sinner To be given over to your own Conceits or Wisdom is to be forsaken of the Sun and left in darkness and spend the rest of your days in a Dungeon the beginning of the endless utter darkness To be given over to your own wills is to be at the choice and disposal of a fool and of an enemy and to be in such hands as will certainly undo you and to be cast out of the hands of God To be given over to seek your selves is to lose your selves and God and your salvation To be given over to live as your own is to forfeit the Protection of God without which you cannot be kept an hour out of hell To be given over to the defending of your selves and delivering your selves in danger of soul and body is even to be exposed to certain and perpetual perdition To be given over to be ruled by your selves is to be relinquished as Rebels and exposed to the tyranny of sin and Satan So that in all things it is most certain that you are never well but in the hands of God and never so ill as when you are most in your own hands In Paradise innocent man was wholly at the Government of God and when by casting off his Government he had forfeited the benefit of it the most of the world became even brutish And when God had owned the Government of Israel above other Nations and kept the choice of the Soveraign under him in his own hands at last the foolish people in imitation of the Nations must needs have a King and extort the Nomination out of the hands of special extraordinary Providence that they might have more of it in their own and this was an increase of their misery Woe to that man that ever he was born that is finally given over to himself For this is a sign that God hath forsaken them and they stand at the brink of eternal death O think of this you that are self-conceited and self-willed and self-lovers and self-seekers and know not how to deny your selves Must self be so regarded and tenderly used Take heed you may have enough of self with everlasting vengeance if God once give you over to your selves and say of you as of them Psal 81. 11 12. But my people would not hearken unto my voice and Israel would none of them So I gave them up to their own hearts lust and they walked in their own Counsel So much for the Aggravations CHAP. LXXIII Ten Directions to get self-denial IV. I Come now to the last part of my task which is to tell you what course you should take to procure self-denial For though it be the gift of God yet there are certain means appointed us for the attainment of it and God useth to give it men in the use of his means and by those means must it be confirmed and continued Direction 1. Set faith a work upon the promises of God and upon everlasting life For the Flesh will not be taken off these lower things till you have found out better and such as will be sure to save you harmless The most covetous man would let go silver if he may have gold instead of it Set faith a pleading the case with the flesh and urge your own hearts with the Certainty the Nearness the Glory the Eternity of the Kingdom which by self-denial you may attain and if they will not yield to such a change as this they are unreasonable unbelieving hearts Direct 2. Never be deluded to forget the vanity the brevity and the emptiness and insufficiency of all these earthly things which self so adhereth to as to neglect the promised life of blessedness Acquaint your own hearts what a nothing it is that they make so much of and follow so greedily and hold so fast shew them in the Sanctuary the glass of the word of God which will tell them what will be the end of all and where all their worldly prosperity will leave them Ask your hearts Can I keep these things for ever or not If not Is it not better let them go for something than for nothing and to part with them as a child at the command of my heavenly father than to part with them as a thief doth with his prize at the Gallows Is it not better let them go to ease me and to secure my eternal peace than let them go to wound me and torment me And while I keep them what will they do for me that I should buy them at so dear a rate O how dear must I pay for my ease and honour and gluttony and drunkenness and sensual delights if I part not with them when God commandeth How cheap is a holy blessed life in comparison of this which I must pay so dear for Direct 3. To promote your self-denial Consider frequeâ—tly and seriously who