the word seemeth to imply that when they lost their primitive purity they willingly lost that habitation of spiritual pleasures But whether he will or no he shall be banished those coasts though he now dog the Saint at and disturb him in every duty he shall do it no more The accuser of the brethren shall be cast down neither shall his place be found any more in heaven Rev. 12.8 9. Secondly a Christian by death shall not only be freed from the evil of sin and defilement but also from the evil of suffering and chastisement SublataeÌ„ causaÌ„ toâ—itur effectus the cause being taken away the effects will cease Sinne is that great-bellied mother or rather Monster which conceiveth and bringeth forth all those losses crosses diseases disgraces sorrowes and sufferings whatsoever that befall the children of men though man may be the Butt yet sin is the mark at which the arrows of Divine displeasure are shot man weaves a spiders web of sinne out of his own bowels and then in intangled in it Wickednesse alone is the original cause of all we Lament 3.39 Rom. 6. ult But now at the death of a Saint the fountain of sin will be dryed up and therefore the streams of sufferings must be dryed up also The fuel being taken away the fire will go out of it self sin and sorrow were born do live and shall die together As sin is the original cause of all so it 's the final cause of most afflictions Sometimes they are for probation as we shoot at good armour that we may prove it and that we may praise it but most commonly they are for purgation to amend something that is amiss the fathers of the flesh chastize for their pleasure but the father of spirits for our profit that we might be partakers of his holinesse Heb. 12.6 the quiet fruits of righteousnesse blossome from the correcting rod bitter Aloes purges the worms winds and thunder clear the air frosts and showers whiten cloaths the husbandman useth the flail to separate the chaff and the refiner the fire to consume the drosse but when the wheat shall be clean there will be no need of the flail when the gold pure no use of the fire now saith the Apostle if need be ye are in heavinesse 1 Pet. 1.6 Mark now if need be now men have hard knots and therefore need sharp wedges now men have strong corruptions and therefore need strong corrections now the rod is as necessary as our daily bread chastisements are to teach men in Gods law Psal 94.12 to search and heal their spiritual sores but now at death the Scholar in Christs school will have perfectly learned his lesson and therefore there will be no need of a rod then the wounds of the soul will be perfectly cured and these plaisters will fall off of themselves Death will make him whole that he can sin no more and so no worse or so bad thing shall come to him There are three evils of affliction which I shall mention The first on the Name The second on the Body The third on the Soul From all which a believer shall be freed by death First Death will free the Saint from ignominy on his name Here if the world cannot make the christian wound his conscience they will be sure to wound his credit Elijah is counted the troubler of Israel Nehemiah a rebel against the King David the song of the drunkards and the scorn of the gluttons Psalme 69.12.35.16 Isaiah and his children for signs and wonders Isa 8.18 Jeremiah is a man of contention Jer. 15.10 The son of man a wine-bibber a glutton Paul a pestilent fellow and a mover of sedition Acts 24.10 the uprightest Saint is markt for an hypocrite in the worlds Kalender If they cannot smite him with their hands their arms are not long enough alwayes they will not fail to smite him with their tongues What a precise fool say they is such a fellow he dares not take up his cups as we do but could we see his heart it is as bad as the worst of ours he will do as bad or worse when no body seeth him he will not swear but he will lie I 'le warrant you He spendeth his time in nothing but going to Sermons and meetings and is as arrant a dissembler as liveth Such an one of the same Society was guilty of such a sin and they are all alike these are your professours Thus the corruption of their hearts breaks out at their lips and they most wretchedly wound even Christ through the sides of the Christian But heaven will not only wipe away all tears from the christians eyes but also all blots off from his name Upright Hezekiah in heaven is above the sound of cursed Rabshekah's tongue which was set on fire of hell Now holy David is got up that heavenly hill that Mount Zion he heareth not the railings and revilings of sinful Shimei The most spiteful scorner of them all cannot throw that dirt so high with which he bespatters the Saints reputation here below Secondly As death will free the christian from ignominy in his name so likewise from infirmities in his body Diseases cause death but death will cure all diseases In this life Job had his botches Hezekiah his boil David his wounds and sores the poor widdow her issue of blood one man wasteth away with a consumption like a candle till all the matter is spent Another laboureth under a continual ach that like the importunate widdow will give him no rest day nor night this man spends his dayes in pain that man hath wearisome nights appointed to him In some the bridle is taken off the fire and they burn with a Feaver in others the flood-gate is taken up from the water and they are like to be drowned with a dropsie The patient man complaineth my breath is corrupt my days are extinct the grave is ready for me Job 17.1 the upright man cryeth out My wounds stink and are corrupt my loines are filled with a loathsome disease In one the keepers of the house tremble with a palsie or lamenesse In a second the sound of grinders is low through weaknesse In a third those that look out of the windows are darkned through blindnesse In a fourth the daughters of Musick are brought down with deafnesse O what an army not only of moral but natural adversaries hath every man in his own bowels constantly set in array against him marching up sometimes one Physicians tell us that 2000 diseases annoy mans body whereof 200 affect the eyes sometime another as the Lord of hosts giveth the word of command So that indeed mans body is a spittle or an hospital for diseases But death will help all this as the blind man told the lame when they met at the stake Brother you may cast away your staffe death will cure us both the Physician of souls will by death heal all the diseases of the Saints bodies
then it runneth most freely and plentifully None might approach the King of Persia's Court in sackcloth and mourning Est 4.2 but no wandring sinner may draw near to the King of Heaven without it Aut paenitendum aut pereundum Except ye repent ye shall perish God is resolved to break the sinners heart on earth or his back in hell He will have the wound search'd and the pain of it felt before it be bound up and cured The wicked Prodigal must come to his Father with compunction in his soul as well as confession in his mouth Look therefore O sinner into the book of thy conscience and read over the black lines that still are in thy cursed heart and the bloody leaves of thy wicked life how long thou hast lived to little purpose yea to the killing of thy soul for ever how farre thou hast been from accomplishing the end for which thou wast born and the errand for which thou wast sent into the world Keep a petty Assize in thy heart preferre a large Bill of Indictment against thy self accuse and condemn thy self not only verbally but cordially if ever thou wouldst have Christ to acquit thee Thou hast spent many years in sinning and shouldst thou not spend some hours in sorrowing Thou didst make the soul of Jesus Christ sorrowful unto death shall not therefore thy soul be sorrowful when thy sorrow may be unto life Did the Rocks rent when he died for sin shall not thy rocky heart that thou hast lived 〈◊〉 sin He bled for thee and wilt not thou weep for thy self Thou hast filled Gods a Iob 14.17 Bag with thy fins and hast thou no tears for his b Psal 46.8 Bottle Hast thou so long broken the holy Commandements of God and shall not thy heart now at last be broken The damned feel sin it lyeth heavy on their souls couldst thou lay thy ear to the mouth of that bottomlesse pit thou mightst perceive by their yellowings and howlings that sin is sin in hell how lightly soever it is regarded by men upon earth The Lord Jesus felt sin Hadst thou been in the garden and seen his blessed body all over in a goar blood beheld those drops yea clods of blood that trickled down his face surely thou wouldst have believed that it was some heavy weight indeed which caused such a bloody sweat in a cold winter night And art not thou yet weary and heavy laden Do I speak to a man or a beast to a living creature or to a rock that will never be moved If thou hast a disease in thy body thou canst greive and complain and why not for the diseases of thy soul Are not they farre more deadly more dangerous If thou losest a child O what crying and roaring what wringing of hands and watering of cheeks nay if thou losest a place of profit an house or a beast thou canst mourn and think of it often with sorrow And doth it not greive thee that thou hast lost not thy child or cattel but thy Christ thy Saviour thy Soul thy God to eternity If thou missest a good bargain that was offered thee whereby thou mightst increase thy estate or if thou buyest or hirest at too dear a rate how dost thou beshrew and befool thy self for it Hast thou not ten thousand times more cause to be really and highly displeased with thy self and to abhor thy self in dust and ashes that thou shouldst have all the riches and glory and pleasures of the eternal Kingdom tendered to thee with many intreaties and yet thou hast refused them for the lying vanities of this world and for the pleasures of sin which are but for a season Thou hast denyed Heavens happinesse for a bubble a butterfly all things for nothing Did ever any fool buy so dear and sell so cheap Like Saul busie himself in seeking Asses when a Kingdom sought him Like Shimei seek his servant and thereby lose himself No fool like the sinner that embraceth a shadow which will certainly flee from him and neglecteth the substance which endureth to eternity Honorius the Emperor hearing that Rome was lost cried Alas alas very mournfully fearing it had been his hen so called which he exceedingly loved but hearing it was the famous City of Rome that was become a prey to his cruel enemies he made a tush at it Thus too too many can greive sufficiently for the losse of vanities riches but not at all for the losse of God and Christ and enduring felicities Well Friend repent timely and truly of this thy folly for I must tell thee shortly it will be too late if repentance be hid from thy heart now repentance will be hid from Gods eye then by whose Law thou art now a condemned man already if thy heart be hardened now in sinning the heart of God will ere long be hardened in sentencing thee to an eternity of suffering It is an infinite mercy that God yet alloweth thee liberty for second thoughts that notwithstanding thou hast shipwracked thy soul yet thou mayst swim out safe upon the plank of repentance O therefore think no pains too great to break thy stony heart it is worth the while when free grace hath promised a vast reward to that heaven-born work Hadst thou once offered up to God the sacrifice of a spirit truly sorrowful out of love to God and self-loathing because of fin I could tell thee as good as joyful news as ever thine ears heard The Father of mercies and God of comforts will be reconciled to thee in the Lord Jesus Thy prayers for pardon and life will pierce Gods ears and find acceptance if they proceed from a broken heart from sincere repentance A penitent tear is a messenger that never went away without a satisfactory answer Prayers with such tears are prevalent yea in Luthers phrase omnipotent Musick upon the waters sounds most pleasantly Thou hast heard the voice of my weeping saith David Psal 6.8 Augustus Caesar having promised a great reward to any that could bring him the head of a famous Pirate did yet when the Pirate heard of it and brought it himself and laid it at his feet Suet. in vit not only pardon but teward him for his confidence in his mercy As * Plutarch in vâ—t Alex. Antipater was answered by Alexander Thou hast written a long Letter against my Mother but dost thou not know that one tear of hers will wash out all her faults When the returning sinner weeps the tender-hearted Father smi es As he rejoyceth and laugheth at obstinate sinners destruction and ruine Quodâ— Deus loquiâ—ur cum risu tu legas cum fletu Aug. Proverbs 1.26 so he rejoyceth and smileth at the penitent sinners conversion He will do something for an hypocritical humiliation to assure us that he will do any thing upon a sincere humiliation Seest thou saith God how Ahab humbleth himself this judgement shall not be in his dayes but in his Sons
lovely Cant. 5.15 how hastily he runs to meet thee more then half way loves pace is very swift Behold he cometh leaping over the mountains skipping upon the hills Cant. 2.8 Observe how bountifully he provideth for thy entertainment A feast of fat things a feast of wines on the lees of fat things full of marrow of wines on the lees well refined Isa 25.6 Behold he standeth at the door and knocketh if thou hear his voice and open to him he will come in and sup with thee and thou with him Rev. 3.20 4. Direct Dedication to God Fourthly Dedicate thy self soul and body and all thou hast unto the service and glory of Jesus Christ If thou hast been unfaigned in the practice of the former directions I doubt not in the least of thy willingnesse to this If thy sorrow for sin hath been sincere like a burnt child thou wilt dread that fire The Jewel of faith must be laid up in the cabinet of a good conscience Though faith justifie our persons yet good works must justifie our faith The sense of former unkindnesse to Christ is fresh in thy heart and a very glutton in pain under a distemper dares not but forbear such meats as will feed it If thy Marriage to Christ hath been hearty thou hast given an universal bill of divorce to other lovers and hast accepted him for thy head and husband to govern and command thee as well as to protect and provide for thee and instate heaven as a Jointure upon thee If thou expectest an immortal life from him thou must consecrate thy mortal life to him I hope then thou art contented to take Jesus Christ for better for worse with his shameful crosse as well as his crown of glory with his trials as well as triumphs with his gracious precepts as well as his precious promises nay I hope thou seest so much equity in his commands so much beauty in his wayes and worship so much of thy souls felicity wrapt up in holinesse in order to its perfection and happinesse that thou wouldest much rather chuse the easie yoke the light burthen of Christ than the drudgery of the world or the bondage of corruption Truly thus it must be with thee if ever thou art saved and thus I thought to have found thee at least to leave thee One excellently compareth holinesse and happinesse to those two sisters Leah and Rachel Salvation or happinesse like Rachel seems the fairer even a carnal heart may fall in love with that but sanctification or holinesse like Leah is the elder and beautiful also though in this life it appears with some disadvantage her eyes being bleared with tears of repentance and her face furrowed with the works of mortification But this is the law of that heavenly Countrey that the younger sister must not be bestowed before the elder We cannot enjoy fair Rachel heaven and happinesse except first we embrace tender-eyed Leah holinesse mortification self-denial and all those severe duties which the Churches Law-giver enjoineth Friend sit down and consider what it may cost thee to be a Christian It must cost thee the absolute denial of thy sinful carnal self of the body of death and its earthly members which are expresly forbidden in the Word of God and thy main work must be every day to crucifie and mortifie them Sin must die though it may be never so dear to thee or thy Soul cannot live If thou lettest any sin go since every one is appointed by God to destruction thy life must go for its life as the Prophet told Ahab 1 Kings 20.42 When Christ came in the flesh sin crucified him but when Christ comes in the spirit he will crucifie it As Samson an eminent type of Christ pull'd down the house upon the heads of the Lords of the Philistines that he might slay them and so be avenged on them for his two eyes So Jesus Christ if he be thy Saviour is resolved to pull the house in which sin harbours it self down about its ears and by its slaughter to be revenged on it for his two eyes for all the ignominy and shame agony and pain which sin put him to He will teach thee better than to beg the life of those Barrabasses those soul-murderers and robbers of God of his glory And surely ingenuity will learn thee otherwise than to expect such infinite favours from this King and yet to entertain in thy heart any that are rebels against his Majesty Thus it will cost thee the absolute denial of thy sinful self It must cost thee the conditional denial of thy natural self and all that is outwardly dear unto thee nay it may cost thee the actual losse of relations possessions honour pleasure liberty limbs life and all these for Jesus Christ Thou must resolve when ever they come in opposition unto or competition with Christ his glory Kingdome and Command to let them go As when Levies relations came in competition with the glory of God he did not know his father nor would he acknowledge his brethren Deut. 33.9 When Moses his glory and pleasures came in competition with a precept of God he chooseth to suffer affliction with the people of God rather than to enjoy the pleasures of the Court Heb. 11.25 When Pauls liberty and life come in competition with the Kingdome of Christ he is ready not only to be bound but to die for the name of the Lord Jesus Acts 20.24 They all willingly left their own comforts to obey Gods call and commands Dr. Reyn. Sermon on self-denyal In conversion as one well observeth the use and the property of all we have is altered All our vessels all our Merchandize must be super-scribed with a new title Holinesse to the Lord. Isa 23.18 Zach. 14.20 21. Then mens chief care will be to honour the Lord with their substance Prov. 3.9 to bring their sons their silver their gold to the name of the Lord the holy One of Israel Isa 60.9 All we are or have we have it on this condition to use it to leave it to lay it out to lay it down unto the honour of our Master from whose bounty we received it It was a notable saying of a Noble Lord of this Land That that person may be deceived L. Brooks who thinks to save any thing by his Religion more than his soul And surely he that saveth his soul saveth all that is worth saving He meant that his Religion might cost him the losse of all other things There is certainly if thou wilt be a Christian indeed a necessity of laying thy health strength time estate name friends interests in the world thy calling and comforts whatsoever at the feet of Christ to be employed wholly in his service and improved altogether for his glory and to be denied or enjoyed in whole or in part according to his call and command This may seem an hard saying to carnal minds that rather than break and leave off all
of Jesus Christ at death will quite dry up that issue of corruption Death will give thee a Writ of ease from all those weights and sins which do so easily beset thee Thou shalt be without fault before the Throne of God Rev. 14.5 Will it not indeed be a brave world with thee in the other world when thou shalt have as much holiness as thy heart can wish or hold If God should grant thee such a request upon earth that thou shouldst have as much of his Image and of his Spirit as thou couldst desire wouldst thou not think thy self the happiest man alive I am confident thou wouldst and also that nothing lesse than perfect purity would be thy prayer Well death will help thee to this When I awake I shall be satisfied with thy likenesse Psal 17. ult Now thou hast enough to stay thy stomack but then thou shalt have a full meal When the Israelites went out of Egypt towards Canaan there was not one feeble person among them When the Christian entereth into the true Canaan he that is feeble among them at that day shall be as David nay as the Angel of the Lord before him When thy frame of nature shall be ruined thy frame of grace shall be perfected and raised to the height of glory 4. It is comfortable against thy dissolution To thee to die is gain death will be thy passage into eternal life Thou needst not fear death as a foe it will be one of thy best friends How did this hope of happinesse at death hold up the Martyrs heads above water and carry them through those boistrous waves of violent and cruel deaths with the greatest serenity and alacrity of spirit Xenophon Agesilaus King of Sparta used to say that they which live vertuously are not yet blessed persons but they had attained true felicity who died vertuously What is there in death that thou art so afraid of it Wilt thou fear a Bee without a sting Dost thou not know it had but one sting for Christ and Christians and that was left in Christ the head whereby now though it may buz and make a noise about their ears yet it can never sting or hurt the members The waters of Jordan though tempestuous before yet were calm and stood still when the Ark was to passe over If thou hadst been banished many years from thy dear Relations whom thou lovedst as thy own soul and from thy rich possessions and comforts which might have made thy life pleasant and delightful into a place of bondage a valley of tears a prison where thy feet were fettered with irons and thy face furrowed with weeping Mors non vitamrapit sed reformat Prudentius wouldst thou be afraid of a messenger that came to knock off thy shackles and fetch thee out of prison and carry thee to those friends and comforts And why art thou afraid of death which cometh to free thee from thy bondage to Satan sin and sorrow and to give thee present possession of the glorious liberty of the sons of God Art thou afraid to be rid of thy corruptions of Satans temptations of the worlds persecutions Art thou afraid to go to â—aints where are no sinners to Christ without his cross to the full immediate eternal fruition of the blessed God then why art thou afraid to dye and dost not rather desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ knowing that while thou art present in the body thou art absent from the Lord 2 Cor. 5.6 Calvin in loc Jâ—el was offended at one that in h s sickness prayed for his life Well the best of it is thou art more afraid then hurt It is well observed by a judicious expositor that the Periphrasis of death mentioned John 13.1 where it is called a departing out of the world and a going to the father doth belong to all the children of God it is to them but a going out of the world to their dear and loving father And questionless this was that which made the Saints so desirous of death Basil when the Emperors Lieutenant threatned to kill him said I would he would for then he would quickly send me to my father to whom I now live and to whom I desire to hasten Calvin in his painful sickness was never heard to complain but often lifting up his eyes to heaven to cry out How long Lord How long Lord Plutarch in vit It is reported of an heathen Epaminondas that when he was wounded with a dart at Mantinea in a battel against the Lacedaemonians and told by the Chirurgions that when the dart was drawn out of his body Dicique beatus Ante obitum nemo c. he must needs dye he called for his Squire and asked him Whether he had not lost his shield Non est timendum quod nos liberat ab omni timendo Tertull. he told him no whereupon he bade them pull out the dart and so died Surely Christian thou hast more cause to dye with courage when thou hast not lost thy God nor thy soul nor any thing that was worth the keeping 5. It is comfortable against the death of thy friends and relations which dye in the Lord. To dye is gain if it be their gain why should it be thy grief nature will teach thee to mourn but grace must moderate that mourning We may water our plants but must not drown them We may sorrow but not as they which have no hope least we sin When Anaxagoras was told that both his sons were dead he boldly answered the messenger I knew that I begat mortal creatures The people were enraged and perplexed at the death of Romulus but were afterwards quieted and comforted with the news which Proculus brought That he saw him in glory riding up to heaven So when thou art sorrowing for the death of thy child or husband or father or mother or brother or sister that sleep in Jesus thou shouldst hearken to the news which faith brings that it saw them filled with joy mounting up to heaven and there enjoying rivers of pleasures and a weight of glory and surely if after such news thou shouldst continue weeping it should be for joy Friend this text containeth choice sweet meats for thee to feed on at the funeral of thy dearest godly friend Lugeatur mortuus sed ille quem gehenna suscipit quem Tartarus devorat Hier. I suppose if thy relation died out of Christ thou hast not a little cause of sorrow and probably that was the sharp edge of the sword which wounded the soul of David for the death of Absolom that he died in his sins his fear was that his son died not only in rebellion against the father of his flesh but also against the father of spirits But when thy relation dyeth in the Lord thou hast surely more cause to rejoyce that thou ever hadst such a friend or relation who shall to eternity be employed in the chearful
Turky or India or in Spain and Italy where the tree of knowledge is forbidden fruit where they may not read their fathers mind in their mother tongue but is it possible that in England where the will and word of God is more powerfully preached more practically applied more clearly discovered than in any nation of the world there should be any ignorant persons Alas alas We finde by woful experience that there are many very many Indians and heathen for ignorance in England Men and women that know as little of God and holiness of Christ his natures offices of true faith and repentance as if they had been born and bred up all their time in Turky or India I am ashamed to write what I know of the sottish stupid hellish ignorance of many and some that are aged too that are going to dye and yet never knew what it was to live either to God or their souls The good Lord affect my heart more with the danger and dreadfulnesse of their eternal conditions O how sad is it that so many precious souls should lie lazing on their beds of security and idleness and though the Sun shine brightly in upon them they will not draw their curtains and open their eyes to behold it That in a valley of vision a Goshen a land of light thousands should live and dye in worse then Egyptian darknesse that the Bible should be a sealed book to them and almost every one have the dark side of that glorious pillar towards him Reader To cure this soul-murdering distemper I have endeavored according to the trust committed to me and the grace bestowed on me to discover in this Treatise the life in Christ or true Christianity with the matchless endless felicity that accompanieth it as also the nature and danger of unregeneracy with the means to come out of it by which thou mayst see that many cozen their souls with counterfeit coin false evidences for heaven instead of true which will not abide the touchstone of Scripture and so like Uriah they carry those letters about them though they know it not which will at last cost them their lives and cause their eternal deaths That there is no fool like the sinner who selleth his soul for a song his Saviour his eternal happiness the unspeakable pleasures at Gods right hand for evermore for the perishing empty profits and base brutish pleasures of sin which are but for a season Though sin be delightful in the act to carnal wretches yet it will be bitterness in the end It will be a bitter-sweet to all its lovers when for their momentany pleasure they shall be recompenced with eternity of intolerable unconceivable pain That it is not for nothing that Ministers call so loudly and earnestly to thee to kill those lusts which would kill thee and to follow after holiness without which no man shall ever see the Lord Heb. 12.14 It will teach thee that God and Christ heaven and hell thy soul and eternity death and judgement are not things to be dallied with believe it thou wilt one day find that it is bad jesting with such edged tools Surely the greatest seriousness that is imaginable is too too little for them O hadst thou but the thousandth part of that seriousness about them which they deserve and call for at thy hands surely thou wouldst have other manner of thoughts of them and carriage towards them then now thou hast Well I have four special things at present from the living God to commend to thee and leave with thee in order to thine eternal good I known not how soon I may be taken from thee If thou lovest thy soul practice them faithfully if not answer the contrary when thou and I shall meet in the other world at the great and terrible day of the Lord Jesus First do thou labor for the knowledge of God and his Son thy self and the duty which thou owest to thy Maker and Redeemer hast thou not read the doleful consequence of ignorance and doth it not nearly concern thee to get out of that damnable condition Without this thou canst never be Religious notwithstanding all thy pretences that thou meanest well and hast as good an heart as the best If thou knowest not the God of thy fathers thou canst never serve him with a perfect heart 1 Chron. 28.9 All thy worship will be but wild and wandering from God all thy services but the sacrifice of a fool The foundation of obedience must be laid in knowledge Mal. 1.8 till then thou offerest up to the Lord the lame and blind which he will not accept God expecteth reasonable services Rom. 12.1 such for which thou canst give a good reason out of his word which must be the warrant of thy worship Be not therefore in shape a man a reasonable creature and as NebuchadneZZar in heart a beast be not as the horse and mule which hath no understanding Psal 32.9 Without knowledge thou canst not be saved If the Gospel be hid it is hid to them that perish 2 Cor. 4.4 Wilful ignorance is a sad sign that thou art in Gods black bill If God will ever have thee to be saved he will bring thee to the knowledge of this truth 1 Tim. 2.4 When Hammans face was covered his execution was near Do not delude and destroy thy soul by presuming that thy ignorance will not damne thee for if thou art without knowledge he that made thee will not save thee and he that formed thee will shew thee no mercy Isa 27.11 Mark Reader but this one place Psal 95.10 11. where the God of truth confirmeth it by an oath that they which do not know his ways shall not enter into his rest One would think that a prisoner should be both earnest and diligent to learn his neck verse who knoweth he must be hanged if he cannot read and dost not thou read in broad Characters in the word of God that thou must be an eternal monument of divine fury in hell if thou dost not learn to know the onely true God and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent doth it not then behove thee to be diligent for knowledge 1. How shouldst thou wait on the word of God which enlightneth the mind and maketh wise the simple Auditus est sensus disciplinae Psal 19.7 8. David had more understanding then the ancients because Gods word was his meditation Psa 119.98 99. Watch at wisdoms gate with an humble hungry soul and God may fill thee with good things God maketh manifest the favour of his knowledge by his Mnisters in every place 2 Cor. 2.14 If thou wouldst see go where the Sunne shineth 2. Ply the throne of grace with uncessant prayers Bene or assc est bene studuisse that God would enlighten thy mind in the knowledge of his will If any man lack wisdom or knowledge let him ask it of God who giveth liberally and upbraideth not Jam. 1.5 Intreat him to open thine
souls of them to whom the Sermâ— was preached and of the Parish whâ— the Lord had committed to my chaâ—â— I considered with my self that by râ—son of my sickly and infirm body I â— not likely to continue long with tâ— people to which the providence of â— did at first joyn me and from whicâ— far greater things could never divorce â— and therefore it might not be needâ— to leave them some testimony of my â— fained desires of their eternal welfaâ— Who knoweth what this mean piâ— may do if the divine power pleasâ— accompany it Possibly out of the â— that is here sown when the husbâ—â— man is dead an harvest may be â—ed of glory to God and good to souls Reader If thou gain any spiritual profit by it let God have the praise and let him be remembred in thy prayers who is Thy Servant for Christs sake George Swinnocke Febr. 22. 1658. 9. THE Contents TWo great Lessons to be learned of all page 1 The division of the Chapter p. 2 3. The meaning of the words p. 4 5. Doct. They that have Christ for their life shall have gain by their death p. 6. What is implyed in To me to live is Christ p. 6. 1. Christ the principle of a Christians life p. 6 7 8. 2. Christ the pattern p. 9 10. 3. Christ the Comfort p. 11. 12 13 14. 4. Christ the end p. 15. Wherein a Christian is a gainer by death p. 19. 1. He gaineth a freedom from all evil ibi 1. From the evil of sin p. 20. 1. From the commission of it p. 20 21 22. 2. From temptations to it p. 24 25 26. 2. From the evil of suffering p. 27 28. 1. From ignominy in his name p. 29 30. 2. From infirmities in his body p. 31 32. 3. From sorrow in his soul p. 33 34. 2. He gaineth the fruition of all good p. 3â— 1. The society of perfect Christians p 36 37. 2. Nearest communnion with Jesus Christ p. 38 39 40. 3. The enjoyment of the blessed God p. 42 43 44. which shall be Full p. 47 48. Immediate p. 49 50 51. 1. Use by way of Information The difference betwixt the estates of the good and bad at death p. 54. to 63. 1. The sinner loseth by death p. 64. 1. All his carnal comforts his relations wealth honor mirth and that for ever p. 65. to 68. The difference between a Saints loss of outward things by death and a sinners p. 68. to 73. 2. All the means of grace p. 73. to 78. 3. The society of all the Saints p. 78. to 82. 4. All his hopes of heaven p. 82. to 87. 5. His precious soul p. 87. to 95. 6. The blessed God p. 95. to 102. 2. The sinner gaineth by death 1. Fullness of sin p. 102. to 105. 2. Fullness of suffering In regard of intension p. 105. to 111. In regard of duration p. 111. to 122. 2. Use by way of Examination To try our title to happiness p. 122. to 127. 1. Arguments to inforce this use 1. It is easie and ordinary to mistake p. 127. to 132. 2. True Christians are very few p. 132. to 139. 3. The benefit of a faithful tryal p. 139. to 144. 2. Marks of a true Christian 1. To him to live is Christ 1. Is Christ the principle of thy life p. 144. to 147. 2. Is Christ the pattern of thy life p. 147. to 150. 3. Is Christ the comfort of thy life p. 150. to 152. 4. Is Christ the end of thy life p. 152. to 155. 2. He hath the Spirit of God p. 155 156. which is 1. A purifying Spirit p. 156. to 160. 2. Enabling to pray p. 160. to 163. Fervently p. 163. to 166. Frequently p. 166. to 170. Counsel to a Christian that upon tryal findeth his estate good p. 170. to 173. To him that findeth his estate bad p. 173 174. 3. Use by way of Exhortation To Labor for this spiritual life and thereby for this gain p. 175. to 180. Rich men should labor for it p. 180. to 185. Poor men should p. 185. to 190. Two requests to all that desire this spiritual life 1. Req To set about it speedily p. 190. to 195. 1. Hath not God waited on thee long enough already p. 195. to 198. 2. Hast thou not served sin long enough p. 198. 3. Thou wouldst not defer things of lesse concernment p. 199. 4. The longer thou delayest the farther thou wandrest from God and happiness p. 200. 5. Thou canst not promise thy self the next hour p. 201. 6. Art thou sure God will accept thee hereafter p. 202. 2. Req To set about it seriously and with all thy might p. 203. to 208. Inforced by a fourfold supposition 1. Sup. Thou hadst seen the terror of the day of judgement p. 208. to 213. â— Sup. Thou wert sure to dye this day moneth p. 213. to 217. â— Sup. Thou couldst speak with thy carnal sloathful neighbors in hell p. 217. to 218. 4. Sup. Thou hadst seen the Majesty and purity of the infinite God p. 219. to 222. Directions for the attaining this spiritual life 1. Direct Labor for the knowledge of thy sins and misery p. 224. to 234. Mark that six sheets are false figured in this place in the book 2. Direct Get thy heart truly affected with and throughly humbled for thy sins and misery p. 234. to 271. 3. Direct When thy heart is humbled cast thy self wholly and onely upon the merits of Jesus Christ p. 171. to 186. 4. Direct Dedicate thy self and all thou hast to the service commands and glory of Christ p. 186. to 200. 5. Direct Be diligent in reading hearing and meditating on the word of God p. 200. to 208. 6. Direct Be frequent and fervent at the throne of grace p. 253. to 263. Motives to labor for this spiritual life 1. It is the most honorable life p. 263. to 267. 2. It is the most comfortable life p. 267. to 275 3. It is the most profitable life p. 275. Conclusion of this large use to the unconverted p. 287. 4. Use by way of consolation to all that live spiritually p 288. It is comfortable 1. Against persecution from the world p. 290. 2. Against the temptations of the devil p. 294. 3. Against the corruptions of thy own heart p. 297. 4. Against our own deaths p. 300. 5. Againgst the death of our godly friends and relations p. 303. It is further comfortable if we consider 1. The excellency of this gain which will appear p. 305. 1. By the foretastes of it p. 306. 2. By the price paid for it p 309. 3. By the titles given to it p. 311. 2. The certainty of this gain p. 315. It is ensured by promise ibid. By witness by oath by seals p. 317. 3. The eternity of it p. 318 REader I desire thee to excuse the unsuitableness of some of the page titles that being the work of the Printers I intended a running Title according to the several heads which
first mover they follow its motion thus it is with the unregenerate part of a man it hath proper ends of its own pride and flesh-pleasing and the like contrary to the ends of the spirit but in obedience to the regenerate part the Christian leaveth the former ends and follows the ends of the latter Bonum est mihi si Deus me uti pro clipeo dignetur Bern. The honour of Christ is exceeding dear to a true Christian It is dearer then his name Lord saith a Father use me for thy shield to keep off those wounds of dishonour which would fall on thy majesty Let the reproaches wherewith they would reproach thee fall upon me Prorsus Satan est Lutherus sed vivit regnat Christus Amen And Luther is called a Devil saith Luther in an Epistle to Spalatinus but be it so so long as Christ is magnified I am well apaid nay the honour of Christ is dearer than life to a believer Paul as one saith of him stood a tip-toe to see which way he might glorifie Christ most whether by life or death Neither count I my life dear unto me so I may finish the Ministry I have received of the Lord Jesus Act. 20 and 24. I come now to the second thing promised and that is to manifest wherein the christian that hath Christ for the principle pattern comfort and end of his life shall be a gainer by death And truly Reader in speaking of this gain I shall acknowledge my self at a losse though my tongue were as the pen of a ready writer it could never expresse it and if my pen were as the tongue of a ready speaker it could never describe it The land of Canaan notwithstanding all the helps we have is still for the most part terra incognita an unknown land The sights there are light inaccessible as to mortal eyes 1 Tim. 6.16 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. quod fando explicari à quopiam homine non potest Beza â—rasm ita eo ponunt and the sounds there are words not audible as to mortal eares 2 Cor. 12.4 words which may not or cannot be uttered or both One being asked what God was answered that he must be God himself before he could know God fully I am sure it is requisite that that Christian should be in heaven first who would know heaven fully Fame which in other things is too free and prodigal in this is too sparing and penurious and that in so great a degree that Reader after thou hast heard it set forth by the holiest heavenliest man alive though of the greatest capacity and oratory yet if ever thou gettest thither thou wilt finde cause to speak as the Queen of Sheba did in another case 1 Kings 10 6 7. It was a true report that I heard in mine own land of thy glory and thine excellency Howbeit I believed not the words until I came and mine eyes had seen it and behold the half was not told me the delight and happiness exceedeth the same which I heard There it is indeed that God doth more for the believer then he is able to ask or think As the losse of the damned will be beyond the most melancholy mans fear so the gain of the saved will be above the strongest christians faith The eye of a man may see much good the ear of a man may hear more the heart of a man may conceive most of all but yet neither hath eye seen nor ear heard nor can it enter into the heart of man to conceive what God hath prepared for them that love him 1 Cor. 2.9 They which have written most of this subject might have added at the end of their books as in other Treatises some have done Desiderantur nonnulla or plurima desunt More is desired or more is wanting It is as easie saith one to compasse the Heavens with a span to contain the Ocean in a nutshel as to relate heavens happinesse Reader I shall speak to this subject but briefly Set the Holy Land before thee as it is in a Map in a little room yet by what I shall speak in this place and in the the last use as the spies by the clusters of grapes thou maiest gather the land is good it floweth with milk and honey and this is some of the fruit of it Numb 13.27 The christians gain by death will appear in these two particulars He shall gain a freedome from all evil the fruition of all good and is not this man a gainer Ademptio omnium malorum First he shall by death be freed from all evil the immediate and full presence of the chiefest good which the believer shall enjoy after death will cause the absence of all evil The influences of that Sun will scatter every mist and disperse all clouds which now darken the conditions of pious souls The day of a christians dissolution will be the day of his redemption Luke 21.28 this may be the reason why the Apostle placeth redemption last saith an Expositor 1 Cor. 1.30 Now we have Christ made into us wisdome righteousnesse sanctification but then redemption When the Saint is passed through the red Sea of death and landed at the true Canaan he shall then see all his bodily and spiritual enemies dead on the shore In the middle Region there are storms and tempests and so here below but above all is calm and quiet While the christian is upon earth evils like Jobs messengers follow him one upon the heels of another but when he leaveth the earth every evil will take it's eternal leave of him Therere are two evils which are indeed the onely evils though the first is by much the worst the evil of sin or defilement and the evil of suffering or chastisement Now a believer by death shall be freed from both these First from the evil of sin and in this take notice that death will deliver the christian both from the commission of it and from all suggestions tending to it First Death will free the Saint from the commission of sin In hell there is nothing but wickednesse In heaven there is nothing but holiness The unregenerate man is never so wicked as after death now sin is in its minority then it will be in it's maturity now it is but the sinners evening but then iâ— will be a perfect night of blacknesse oâ— darknesse The godly man is never so holy as after death grace is now in its infancy then it will attain to its full age now it is as the morning light then it will attain to its noon-day brightnesse Sin is now by a spiritual life mortified that it doth not raign but then by death it shall be nullified that it shall not so much as remain in a believer The ungodly after death shall be perfectly like the Divel the Indians some write have a conceit that death will transforme them into the ugly shape of the Divel and
therefore in their language they have the same word for a dead man and a Divel and the godly after death shall be perfectly like God They are now partakers of the divine nature and so like him yet how much unlike him but when they shall see him in heaven then they shall be like him indeed 1 Joh. 3.2 a Pet. Martyr tells us of a deformed woman married to an uncomely man that by looking much on beautiful pictures brought forth lovely childâ—en Loc. Com. pars 1. cap. 6. Vision causeth an assimulation in nature Gen. 30.37 38. in grace 2 Cor. 3.18 so here in glory The Schoolmen put the question How the Angels and souls of men in heaven come to be impeccable or without sinne * Visâ—o beatifica impotentes reddit ad peccandum and answer that it is by the beatifical visions The Apostle seemeth to intimate as much in the fore-quoted place When he shall appeare we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is As the Pearl by the often beating of the sun-beams upon it becomes radiant so the Christian being ever beheld by the Lord and alwayes beholding the face of his Father in heaven shall be more like him then ever child was to father on earth then that Profession of Christ will be abundantly verified Behold thou art faire my love behold thou art faire thou art all faire my love there is no spot in thee Cant. 4.1 7. Then the end of Christs passion shall be fully attained when he shall present to himself a glorious Church without spot or wrinckle or any such thing Ephes 5.27 not only in regard of imputed righteousnesse or justification but also in regard of imparted righteousnesse or sanctification Here the heart of a Christian is like Rebeccahs womb it hath twins struggling in it the appearance of the Church is as it were the company of two Armies Cant. 6.13 the old man and the new man flesh and spirit the Law in the members warring against the Law of the mind As there was war betwixt Asa and Baasha all their dayes so there is betwixt the regenerate and unregenerate part all the time of this life but this gracious conflict shall then end in a glorious conquest when the death of the body shall quite destroy this body of death Sin in the heart is like the leprosie in the house which would not out till the house was pulled down Levit. 14.44 45. But when soul and body shall be parted for a time sin and the soul shall be separated to eternity And as the heart so the life of a Christian is like a book which hath many errata's in it and therefore legendus cum veniâ the whitest swan hath her black feet the best gold must have its grains of allowance There is no man that liveth upon earth and sinneth not Eccles 7.20 All of us offend in many things and many of us in all things Jam. 3.2 * Omne opus justi damnabile est si judicio Dei judicetur Luther in Alsert Our righteousness as a filthy rag Isa 64.6 Our graces not without their defects Lord I believe help mine unbelief Mark 9.24 Our duties not without their defaults When I would do good evil is present with me Rom. 7.21 The purest fire hath some smoak the richest Wine some dregs but death will turn sinne out of all its holds and leave it not so much as a being in the Christian The bodies of men have usually a mighty shoot at death but O what a shoot will the soul of a Saint have when it shall be carried by Angels to the place where the spirits of just men are made perfect Heb. 12.23 2. The soul alive in Christ shall be freed at death from all suggestions and temptations to sin Then a Christian shall be above the reach of all Satans batteries then that promise will be performed That the God of peace will tread Satan under the Saints feet Rom. 16.20 Now Peter is winnowed Paul is buffeted David is stirred by the wicked one to number the people If Joshua be ministring unto the Lord Satan will be at his right hand to resist him Zach. 3.1 It 's no small unhappinesse to a Saint that he is here followed with unwearied assaults that the Prince of darknesse is restlesse in casting in his fire-balls to put the soul into an hellish flame though he should never be conquered yet for the Christian to have his quarters beaten up night and day must needs disquiet him To have blasphemous thoughts of a God infinitely great and gracious to have mean and vile apprehensions of a Saviour imcomparably precious cast into him though he close not with them cannot but wound him to the heart As for a chast Matron that loatheth the thoughts of dishonesty to be continually solicited to folly is a sore vexation The temptations of our Lord Jesus were a sad part of his humiliation But death will ease the soul of this trouble As in heaven there shall be no tinder of a corrupt heart to take so no divel like steel and flint to strike fire The crooked serpent could wind himself into the terrestrial but shall never creep into the celestial Paradise his circuit is to go to and fro in the earth he cannot enter the confines of heaven when he fell from his state of integrity he left that place of felicity and cannot possibly recover it again The Saints on earth indeed are militant fighting with him but the Saints in heaven are all Triumphant wholly above him more than conquerours through him that loveth them Rom. 8.37 There the children of God are gathered together and no Satan among them there the son of David delivereth his true Israelites from all their fears of this uncircumcised Philistine When the heavenly Mordecai comes to be a chief favourite in that high and holy Court he shall be freed from all his frights about this enemy and adversary this wicked Haman The Ark and Dagon could not stand together in one house much lesse can light and darknesse Michael and the Dragon God and the Divel dwell together in one heaven If Ireland as some write be so pure a soyle that it will not nourish any venemous creature I am sure heaven is so pure that into it can in no wise enter any thing that defileth Rev. 21. ult it will not harbour those poisnous serpents Heaven once saith an Author spued them out and it will not return to its vomit or lick them up again no such dirty dog shall ever trample on that golden pavement There is such a cursed irreconcileable contrariety in their natures to the blessed company and exercises in heaven that certainly they cannot desire much lesse delight in that place If the Presence of Christ were such a torment to them in his estate of humiliation what a torment would it be in his estate of exaltation it is observable they left their own habitation Jude ver 6.
there are some diseases which are called opprobria medici because they cannot cure them but none are opprobria Christi he healeth all whom he undertaketh If the higher an house standeth on earth it be esteemed the healthier surely then the highest heavens must be a pure air and all health Revel 20.4 there shall be no more death nor any more pain for the former things are past away So that every christian that dieth in the faith how diseased soever he were before shall then immediately as in the Gospel be made every whit whole John 7.23 Thirdly As death will free the believer from diseases in his body so also from sorrows in his soul The christian liveth upon earth as in a valley of tears and often mingleth his drink with weeping As he is a man he is born to sorrows as the sparks fly upward he cometh into the world crying and goeth out groaning and his whole life from the womb to the tomb is in some regard a living death or a dying life But as he is a christian he drinketh deepest of this cup of sorrows the world is a tender mother to her children but a step-mother to strangers Sometimes the afflictions of the good cause high-water in the Saints heart by the rivers of Babylon he sits down and weepeth when he remembreth Zion Psal 137.1 He cannot but sympathize with the miseries of his fellow-members as being himself in the body Sometimes the transgressions of the bad cloath him with mourning like Croessus son though dumb before yet he cryeth out when his father is wounded As with a sword they pierce his bones when they blasphemously say unto him Psal 42.10 Where is thy God rivers of tears run down his eyes because the wicked forsake Gods Law Psal 119.136 Sometimes his own corruptions like so many daggers stab him to the heart that he should abuse such an Ocean of unspeakable love by so unsuitable a heart and so unanswerable a life He confesseth his iniquities and is sorry for his sins Psal 38.18 Sometimes divine desertions darken and cloud all his comforts When God hides his face he is troubled Psal 30.7 As there are no joyes like to those joyes wherewith God reviveth him in the day of his favour so there is no sorrow like to those sorrows wherewith God depresseth him in the day of his anger Thus his life is a circle of sorrows but death will be the Funeral of his sorrows and resurrection of his joyes now he soweth in tears but then he shalâ— reap in joy The day of death is a Saints Marriage-day Sampsons wife indeed wepâ— on her wedding-day Judg. 14.16 but when the soul which in this life is contracted shall at death be solemnly espoused and more neerly conjoyned unto Jesus Christ all tears shall be wiped from its eyes there shall be no more sorrow Revel 21.4 At that Marriage-day Christ will turn all water into wine all mourning into mirth all sighing into singing and cause the bones which he hath broken to rejoyce Now the Saints sorrows are not perfect sorrows non dantur purae tenebrae to the believer it shineth and showreth at the same time he sorroweth not as they which have no hope but his joy at death shall be perfect joy fulness of joy Psal 16. ult and permanent joy when they shall see Christ at death their hearts shall rejoyce and their joy shall no man take from them John 16.22 then the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads they shall obtain joy and gladnesse and sorrow and sighing shall flee away Isa 35. ult So much for the privative gain of a christian by death or his freedome from evil There is a second thing which is positive Adeâ—pt â—o omnium bonoruâ— and that is the fruition of all good which a believer shall gain by death and in this Head I shall observe these three gradations First a believer by death shall gain the company of perfect Christians Death wil exempt him from all commerce with sinners and teach him fully the meaning of that article The communion of Saints In the field of this world the tares and the wheat grow together but in that heavenly Garner they are parted asunder There is no treacherous Judas among the Apostles no covetous Demas among the Disciples no Amorites to be prickes in the eyes and thorns in the sides of the Israelite no bestial Sodomite to vex righteous Lot with their unclean conversation no flattering Doeg sets his foot in that heavenly Sanctuary David doth not there complain Wo is me that I sojourn in Mesech that I dwell in the tents of Kedar My soul hath long dwelt with him that hateth peace Psal 120.4 5. nor Isaiah that he dwelleth among a people of unclean lips Isa 6.5 nor Elijah that he is left alone Hell holdeth none but sinners heaven hath onely Saints He that dieth in the Lord goeth to the congregation of the first-born to the spirits of just men made perfect Heb. 12.23 And questionlesse the sweet company will be part of our felicity If Platinus the Philosopher could say Let us make haste to our Countrey there are our parents there are all our friends and if Cicero the Orator could say O praeclaruÌ„ diem cùm ad illud animorum concilium coetumque proficiscar Cic de Senect O what a brave day will that be when I shall go to the councel and company of happy souls to my Cato and other Roman Worthies How much better will it be with the Christian when he wall sit down with Abraham Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of heaven when he shall leave the rout and rabble of wicked ones and be admitted into the society of all that died in the faith and be joyfully welcomed by the melodious quire of Angels and be heartily embraced by the Patriarchs Prophets Apostles yea all the Saints Surely if ever thar Proverb were true it is here The more the merrier The fair streams there will never be drawn dry though it be divided into many channels the musick there is not the lesse harmonious because many hear it nor the light of the Sun of righteousness the lesse pleasant because many see it and O what a gain will this be to enjoy the company of them that are holy If Aaron when he met Moses on earth was glad at his heart certainly there was greater joy at their meeting in heaven If David placed all his delight in the Saints here below when they shined a little with the light of purity like the Moon and had their spots in them what delight doth he take in them above now they have perfect purity and shine like the Sun in the firmament of their father Matth. 13.43 If it were so lovely a sight to see Solomon in his rags of mortality that the Queen of Sheba came so far to behold it what will it be to see him in his
he shall eat bread in the Kingdome of God They are before the Throne of God and serve him day and night in his Temple and he that sitteth on the Throne shall dwell among them they shall hunger no more neither thirst any more neither shall the Sun light on them nor any heat For the Lamb which is in the midst of the Throne shall feed them and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters Rev. 7.15.16 17. Observe Reader I say a Christian shall gain by death Immediate fruition of God a full immediate fruition of God now the Saint drinketh of the waters of life and they are pleasant though through the Conduits and Cisterns of Ordinances but with what joy will he draw water immediately out of the Well of salvation Dulcius â—x ipso fonte c. We read in Joshua 5.12 when Israel came to Canaan Manna ceased and they did eat of the fruits of the Land While the Saint is in the Wildernesse of this world he needeth and feedeth on the Manna of the Word Sacraments Prayer and the like but when death shall land him at that place of which Canaan was but a type the Manna of Ordinances shall cease he shall eat the fruits of that Land Ordinances are necessary for and suitable to our state of imperfection Jacob drove his flocks as they were able to go so doth Christ his sheep Here we are in a state of uncleanenesse and therefore want water in Baptisme to wash us saith an Eminent Divine in a state of darknesse and therefore want the light of the Word to direct us in a state of wearinesse and therefore want a Lords day of rest to refresh us in a state of weaknesse and therefore want bread in the Supper to strengthen us in a state of sorrow and therefore want wine to comfort us in a state of beggery and therefore want prayer to fetch some spiritual alms from the beautiful Gate of Gods Temple Whil'st the Saint is as a child he thinks as a child speaks as a child understands as a child but when he shall come to be a perfect man he shall put away these childish things when every earthly member shall be mortified and the body of death wholly destroyed when the faculties of the soul shall be enlarged and the sanctification of the inner man perfected when the rags of mortality shall be put off and grace swallowed up in glory The Sun shall be no more thy light by day nor the Moon thy light by night but the Lord thy God thine everlasting light and thy God thy glory Isa 60.19 Apostles Prophets Pastours Teachers are for the perfecting of the Saints for the edifying of the body of Christ no longer then till we all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man unto the measure of the stature of the fulnesse of Christ Ephes 4.11.12 13. When God shall be all in all then and not till then Ordinances will be nothing at all When the Saint comes to his journeys end he may throw away his staffe Now how much will this adde to the former that the Christian shall without ordinances enjoy God! How lovely is the face of God though it be but in the glasse of the Gospel 2 Cor. 3.18 this was the one thing which David begg'd that he might dwell in the house of the Lord to see the beauty of his face Psal 27.4 Ah how lovely will he be when the Christian shall see him face to face 1 Cor. 13.12 If it be so good to draw neer to God on earth Psal 73. ult and if they are blessed that watch at Wisdomes gates and wait at the posts of her doors Prov. 8.34 how good will it be to draw neer to God in heaven and how blessed are they that wait not at the door but dwell in that house How pleasant will it be for the soul when it's eyes shall be strengthened to see God as he is without the spectacles of Ordinances We esteem that honey sweetest which is suckt immediately out of the comb though hony out of a dish is sweet and we do with more delight eat that fruit which we gather ourselvs from the tree than we do that which is brought to us through others hands The enjoyment of God is so sweet in the dish of a Duty that a Christian would sooner lose the best friend he hath than it But O how sweet will it be in the comb of immediate communion This fruit is very delightful and pleasant as it is conveyed through the hands of Ministers though the liquor will sente of the cask but O with what delight Christian canst thou read it and thy heart not warmed with joy with what pleasure wilt thou with thine own hands gather this fruit from the Tree of life that standeth in the midst of Paradise Rev. 22. Thus I have given thee a little of that great gain which a Saint hath by death death will free him ftom all evil both of sin and suffering it will give him the fruition of ali good in the enjoyment of perfect Saints and the blessed Saviour and in full immediate communion with the infinite God who is blessed and blessing his for ever This is the heritage of a righteous man from God and this is the portion of his cup thus shall it be done to the man whom the King of heaven delights to honour There is but one thing more required to make the Christian perfectly happy and that is the eternity of all this but I shall speak to that in the last use I now proceed to the application of the Point The first use which I shall make of this Doctrine shall be by way of information If such as have Christ for their life shall have gain by their death it informeth us of the difference betwixt the deaths of the sinner and the Saint the one is an unspeakable gainer the other an unconceivable loser by death Death to the good is the gate through which they go into the kingdome of heaven death to the bad is the trap-door through which they fall into hell The godly dyeth as well as the wicked but the wicked man dieth not so well as the godly The metal and the drosse go both into the fire but the metal is refined and the drosse consumed As the cloud in the wildernesse had a light side to the Israelite but a dark side to the Egyptian so death hath nothing but light and comfort for the Israel of God nothing but darknesse and sorrow for the sinful Egyptians Death to every one is a messenger sent from the Lord of life it cometh to the regenerate as the young Prophet to Jehu I have an errand to thee O Captain and what was his errand he poured the oil on his head saying Thus saith the Lord I have anointed thee King over Israel 2 Kings 9.5 6. It is a messenger from God to call
the Christian to a Kingdome which cannot be shaken But it commeth to the unregenerate as Ehud to Eglon And Ehud said I have a message from God unto thee and what was his message Judges 3.20 21. And Ehud put forth his left hand and took the dagger from his right thigh and thrust it into Eglons belly It is a messenger from God with a mortal wounding killing stabbing message to a sinner The pale white horse of death rides before and the red fiery horse of hell follows after The people of God pass safely through this red Sea of death which his enemies assaying to do are drowned are damned There is a great dis-agreement in the lives of the holy and unholy but O what a vast difference is there in their deaths they are like two parallel lines how far soever they go together they never touch in a point Their wayes differ and therefore their ends must necessarily differ Every mans end is virtually in his way their ways differ as much as light and darknesse and therefore their ends must differ as far as heaven and hell The one walketh in his own wayes Prov. 14.14 in the wayes of his own heart Eccles 7.9 in the broad way of the flesh and the world Matth. 7.13 and so his end is damnation Phil. 3.19 his latter end is that he shall be destroyed Fine discernuntur improbi ab electis Moller in Ps 37 for ever Numb 24.20 The other walketh in the way of the Lord Psal 119.1 in the way of his testimonies ver 14. in the narrow way of self-denial mortification and crucifying the flesh Maâ—t 7.14 and so his end is peace Psal 37.37 Such as the seed is which is sown such is the crop wich is reaped the unregenerate man soweth to the flesh and of the flesh reapeth corruption The sanctified soul soweth to the spirit and of the spirit reapeth life everlasting Galat. 6.6 7. The blind world indeed as it seeth not their difference in life the life of a Saint is an hidden life Col. 3.3 the Kings daughter is all glorious but 't is within Psal 45.13 the jewels of her graces are laid up in that privy Drawer the hidden man of the heart so it beholdeth not the difference in their deaths As dieth the wise man so dieth the fool to the eye of sense and they want the eye of faith Eccles 2.16 We see no difference say they betwixt the death of them you call prophane and your precise ones they die both alike to our judgments But this conceit Reader if thou art such an Athiest proceedeth from thy blindnesse and unbelief Thou art probably in the chamber when a drunkard a swearer or a civil moral yet unsanctified neighbour departeth this life thou seest his body trembling panting groaning dying but thou doest not see the ten thousand times worse condition his poor soul is in thou seest his kindred or relations weeping but thou doest not see the infernal spirits rejoycing thou dost not see the greedy Devils that waited by the bed-side like so many roaring lions for their desired deserved prey thou doest not see when the soul left the body how it was immediately seised on by those frightful hell-hounds in a most hideous horrible manner and haled to the place of intolerable and eternal torments thou doest not see the shoutings of those legions in hell at the coming in of a new prisoner to bear a part in the undergoing of divine fury in their blasphemies against heavens Majestie and in their estate of hopelessnesse and desperation Men saith a modern writer like silly fishes see one another caught and jerkt out of the pond of life but they see not alas the fire and pan into which they are cast who die in their sins Oh it had been better surely for such if they had never been born as Christ said of Judas then to be brought forth to the murtherer that old man-slayer to be hurled into hell there to suffer such things as they shall never be able to avoid or abide On the other side thou standest by a scorned persecuted Saint when he is bidding adieu to a sinful world thou seest the struglings and droopings of his outward man but thou seest not the reviving cordial the Physician of souls is preparing for his inward man thou doest not see those glorious Angels which watch and wait upon this heaven-born soul That waggon or chariot which the son of Joseph sendeth to fetch his relation to a true Goshen Never Roman Emperor rode in such a Chariot of Triumph as the Saint doth to heaven the inheritance of the Saints in light is as invisible to thee as those chariots of fire on the mountain were to the servant of the Prophet When the soul biddeth the body good night till the morning of the resurrection thou doest not see those ministring spirits sent down for the good of this heir of salvation presently solacing and saluting it Thou doest not see how stately it is attended how safely conducted how gladly received into the bosome of Abraham into the fathers house into that City whose builder and maker is God Thou doest not see the soul putting off with the cloathing of the body all sin and misery and putting on the white linnen of the Saints even perfect purity matchlesse joy and eternal felicity When thou canst see these things with the eye of faith thou wilt easily grant a vast difference between the death of the gracious and gracelesse Reader if thou art dead in thy sins and unacquainted with this spiritual life which I have before described nothing of that endlesse gain which the godly shall enjoy at death belongs to thee none of that fulnesse of joy of those rivers of pleasures of that eternal weight of glory shalt thou partake of I may say to thee as Simon Peter to Simon Magus thou hast no part nor â—â—t in this matter for thine heart is not right in the sight of God Thou mayest like the mad-man at Athens lay claim to all the vessels that come into the haven but the vessels of the promises richly laden with the treasures of grace and love do not at all appertain to thee If like a dog thou snatchest at the childrens bread thou art more bold than wel-come and wilt one day be well beaten for thy presumption Reader if thou art unregenerate and so diest look to thy self for thy lot must fall on this side the promised Land Thou mayest like a Surveyour of Land take a view of anothers Mannor and bring a return how stately the house is how pleasant the gardens how delightful the walks how fruitful the Pastures how finely it 's seated how fully it 's woodded how sweetly it is watered how fitly it is every way accommodated but as long as the Pronoun is wanting it can be but little comfort it is none of thine So thou mayst read and hear much of that comfort joy and richnesse of that incomparable
be cleared though not changed that thy knowledge may increase thy sorrow Thou art now wilfully ignorant of him and his Will some never look up to the Sun but in an Eclipse but then thou shalt know so much of him to grind thee with tormenting grief for thy losse of him As a prisoner through the grates may see the costly apparel the precious liberty the pleasant and plentiful provision which others enjoy whâ—lest he is vexed with hunger nakednesse cold and bondage So thou shalt see bread enough in the Fathers house and the children sitting round about his table eating bread and feasting in the Kingdom of heaven while thou art perishing with hunger Thou shalt see those Rivers of pleasures wherein the godly bathe their souls those soul-ravishing delights which they enjoy in God the fountain of all good whilest thou art sentenced to an eternal separation from him Now tell me whether the sinful wretch be not a loser by death when he shall lose all his wealth friends and opportunities of grace the company of all the Saints all his false hopes of heaven his precious soul and the ever blessed God tel me whither sin how sweet soever it be in the commission will not be bitter in the conclusion whether in such an hour the Devil will not pay thee thy full wages for all thy wicked works whether it be worth the while to continue in thine unregenerate estate though thou couldst gain never so much when it will certainly end in such inestimable losse In a word answer me whether the greatest pleasure thou canst gain for thy flesh the greatest addition thou canst gain to thy estate by a sinful irreligious life can countervail the everlasting losse of God and thy soul But this is not all sinner I have not done with thee yet I have told thee a little of thy losse for the whole of it no tongue can tell no pen can write I will now tell thee thy gain by death and then do thou cast up the accompt and tell me whether thy wickednesse will not end in woe First By death thou shalt gain a cursed perfection of sin if it may be called a perfection Upon earth the most notorious sinner is a lion chained up and kept in but in hell he will be let loose and then his ravenous nature and cruel disposition will appear to purpose Gurnals Armour Part. 1. p. 257. Thou yet standest in a soil saith that accurate Writer not so proper for the ripening of sin which will not come to its fulnesse til trans-planted unto hel Thou who art here so maidenly and modest as to blush at some sins out of shame and forbear the actings of others out of fear when there thou shalt see thy case as desparate as the Devil doth his then thou wilt spit out thy blasphemies with which thy nature is stufft with the same malice that he doth The vilest man in this world Is like a swine in a fair meadow but in the other world there wil be the wallowing in the mire Thy heart now Is like the Sea which cannot rest but is ever casting up mire and dirt of sin foaming out thy own shame yet still it is shut up with bars and doors of restraining grace hitherto shalt thou come and no further and here shal thy proud waves be stayed but then the doors wil be opened the banks broken down and the flood-gates taken up and ô what a deluge what an overflow of sin will be there Here if God should not put a bridle into the mouth of these unruly beasts and hold them in there would be no living for a Saint among them but then when the good shall be parted from them the reins shall be laid in some respect on their own necks and then they wil run to the same excesse of riot and sin with the very divels Voluntas morientis confirmatur in eo statu in quo moritur All the weeping in hell will not wash thee a whit the cleaner and all the fire there wil not consume the least of thy drosse He that is filthy at death will be filthy still and he that is unjust then shall be unjust for ever Rev. 22.11 Arcem omnium turpitudinum Hell may fitly be called as Tertullian called Pompeys theatre the glory of old Rome a stye of filthinesse Every bottle of wickednesse wil be there filled with those bitter waters thou that now makest a match with mischief shalt then have thy belly full Here sin is thy sin and defilement but there it wil be thy hel thy punishment Here thou sportest with it but there thou shalt smart for it now it is thy pleasure but then it wil be thine everlasting pain Sin is ugly to a Saint on earth notwithstanding all her gaudy attire and painted face but O what a deformed monster wil she be in hel when she shall be stript of all her ornaments of pleasure and profit and when all her paint shall be washt off with Rivers of brimstone I thus preach and thus think saith Chrysostome that it is more bitter to sin against Christ then to suffer the torments of hell And holy Anselm saith that if the evil of sin were proffered to him and the torments of hell he had rather choose hell then sin Thus odious sinne is to a godly man in this world and surely it will not be amiable to a wicked man in the other world but they who now glory in their shame will then be ashamed of their glory and find their lusts more burthensome to them how lightly soever now they go with them then ever Prisoners did their chains and fettets If thy soul be so unhealthy in so pure an air as this comparatively is among the Saints of God how diseased will it be in that misty Region of darknesse in that Pest-house among Divels and infectious spirits 2. Thou shalt gain by death a fulnesse of sorrow when thy sins come to their highest degree then will thy sorrows likewise both in regard of intention and duration 1. In regard of intention and how great this will be I am not able to tell thee When one was desired to paint the Spanish Inquisition he took a Table and besmeared it with blood implying the torments were so cruel and bloody that his pencil could not delineate them Sure I am Phaleris Bull Low-countrey wracks and all out-landish tortures whatsoever are but plays and bug-bears to the sufferings of the damned There are no sorrows like to their sorrows wherewith the Lord afflicteth them in the day of his fierce wrath Unum guttula malae conscientiae totum mare mundani gaudij â—bsorbet Lu If the wrath of God be kindled but a little and a spark thereof light into the conscience of a Saint what a work doth it make there is no rest in his flesh nor quiet in his bones when the arrows of the Almighty stick within him the poison thereof soon
thence it is that spiritual things are so natural and delightful to his regenerate part as we see in David I delight to do thy will O my God how cometh this to passe but from an inward principle Thy Law is within my heart Psal 40.8 or as it is in Hebrew Thy Law is in the midst of my bowels But now an hypocrite usually acteth from some outward principle as the Pharisees did Matth. 23.14 27. Matth. 6.1 5. the wind from without makes their Mill to go some goads or whips force them forward hence it is that like tired Jades they are presently weary and desire nothing more then to rest and cease from such unpleasant labour 2. Ask thy soul what is the pattern of thy life whom dost thou labour to imitate is it Christ or thy Neighbour Do'st thou set thy watch by the Town Clock or by the dial of Scripture because that never faileth of going according to the Sun of Righteousnesse A man dead spiritually like dead fish ever swimmeth down with the stream of the times will follow a multitude to do evil cannot endure to be singular like the Planet Mercury at best if in conjunction with good he is good if with bad he is bad or like water taketh the figure of the vessel what ever it be into which it is put But now a living Christian doth not dresse himself by the glasse of the times whil'st he is in the Wildernesse of this world he may follow the cloud of faithful Witnesses but it must be no farther then they follow Christ 1 Cor. 11.1 Christ is the great standard by which he measureth and trieth and which he endeavoureth to imitate in his thoughts words actions He doth uti verbis nummis praesentibus vivere moribus praeteritis use such words and money as is currant at present but lives after that example which was in times past the patterns of godly men bear much sway with him but he knoweth there are some things in their lives Admonet non omnes promiscue esse imitandos Calv. in Phil. 3. which are sea-marks to be avoided and not Land-marks to direct us therefore like the Eagle he looketh most at the Sun Christ himself Now Christian examine thy selfe whom dost thou look upon for thy pattern is it thy desire and care to regulate thy Family and life as such a Knight or Esquire or Gentleman in the Parish where thou livest ordereth his or as thy prophane irreligious Neighbours do theirs or do'st thou look upon and labor to resemble Jesus Christ to govern thy house and heart as he did his praying with his Apostles instructing them in the Mysteries of the Kingdome of heaven and the like Matth. 6. walking humbly inoffensively and worthy of the Lord even unto all well-pleasing Heb. 7.26 1 Pet. 1.19 It is reported of Hierom that having read the Religious life and death of Hilarion he cried out holding up the book Well Hilarion shall be the Champion whom I will follow So when thou readest in the Scripture of the heavenly pious life and holy patient death of the Redeemer how he did all things well and none could convince him of sin is thy soul so ravish't with the beauty and lustre of those many graces which shined so eminently in him that it breatheth out O that I were like him O that I could be as meek and lowly as Christ that I could deny my self and despise the world and glorifie God as much as Christ did Christiani à Christâ— nomen acceperunt operae pretium est ut sunt haeâ—edes nominis ita sint imitatores sanctitatis Bern. Sentent p. 496 that the same mind were in me that was in Christ Jesus and though to thy hearty sorrow thou seest how far short thou comest of a perfect conformity to him yet thou resolvest to use all means appointed that thou mayst be more like him and concludest Well Christ shall be the only Champion whom I will follow Answer thy conscience within thee whether it be thus or no for if thou art a living Member thou wilt resemble thy Head Those whom God did fore-know he did predestinate to be conformable to the Image of his Son Rom. 8.29 As the Image in the glasse resembleth the face in figure feature and favour so doth the true Christian after his proportion resemble Jesus Christ 3. Is Christ the comfort of thy life when trouble like frosty weather overtaketh thee which is the fire at which thou warmest thy heart is it this friend or that place of preferment or any outward comfort whatsoever or is it thy Relation to Christ and his affection to thee when damps arise out of the earth is it the joy of thy soul that light springs down from heaven or do'st thou trust to the Candle of the creature which will burn blew and go out Is Christ man or the world the door through which thy joys come in the dish on which thou feedest with most delight If Christ should give thee the long life of Methuselah the strength of Sampson the beauty of Absolom the wisdome wealth and renown of Solomon and deny himself to thee canst thou contentedly bear his absence or wouldst thou say as Haman in another case and Absolom 2 Sam. 14.32 All this availeth me nothing so long as I may not see the Kings face Xenophon As Artabazus when Cyrus gave him a cup of gold and kissed Chrysantas told the King The cup thou gavest to me was not half so good gold as the kisse thou gavest Chrysantas so saith the living Saint when Christ blesseth him outwardly and with-draweth himself from the soul Lord the cups the wife and children the food and raiment the pleasures and treasures all the earthly mercies thou givest to me are not a quarter so good gold as the kisses of thy love which thou givest unto thy favourites O kisse me with the kisses of thy mouth for thy love is better then wine Cant. 1. Remember me O Lord with the favour that thou bearest unto thy children O visit me with thy salvation that I may see the good of thy chosen that I may rejoyce in the gladnesse of thy Nation that I may glory with thine inheritance Psal 106.4 5. Look thou upon me and be merciful unto me as thou usest to do unto those that love thy Name Psal 119.132 These are the holy Petitions of a gracious soul for a childs portion Common mercies will never content them that have special grace nor satisfie them that are sanctified indeed As the needle toucht with the Load-stone is restlesse till it points toward the North so the Saint that is toucht effectually by the Spirit of God is unquiet till he turn unto and have fellowship with Jesus Christ He may flutter up and down like the Dove over the waters of this world but can find no rest for the soles of his feet till he return to Christ the true Ark till Christ put forth his hand
he answered that when he was a common Friar he went dejected by looking downward for the keys of the Abby which now he had found and therefore left that posture So when an hypocrite hath the temporal good thing he desireth for that usually is most desired by him he hath his ends and his prayer an end too Or if God do not hear him presently he will not submit patiently but often flingeth away in a rage with that wicked King Why should he wait upon the Lord any longer If there come not in present profit he will give over his trade as Tully said to his Brother That he would pray to the Gods but that they have given over to hear Whereas a godly man will cry in the day and not be silent in the night he will direct his prayer to God und look up Psal 5.3 He will pray and wait wait and pray as you see beggars in some places they will beg and knit knit and beg and continue still begging and knitting So a right beggar at Gods door he will pray and work work and pray he will believe and pray hope and pray read and pray wait and pray he knoweth that it is not good to limit the holy One of Israel but it is good that a soul should hope and quietly wait for the salvation of God Lam 3.26 A Divine giveth me this Simile which doth excellently illustrate our present subject Take some draught horse Mr. Car. on Job 27. and he will draw when the load is coming Of Carolus Magnus it is said Carolus plus cum deo quam hominibus loquitur but if he feel it not coming he will trample and not draw but take a horse of a right breed and put his traces to a tree or a post he will strain and strain and die upon the place before he will give over though nothing comes So a rotten Christian if he find no present gain coming he gives over duty fearing all is lost but a right Christian will pray continually 1 Thess 5.17 whether God hear him presently or no he knoweth that both the command of God and his own wants call upon him never to give over Besides this spirit of prayer abides in him for ever John 4.14 and 16. Examine thy heart by these marks faithfully and do not by flattery or self-love or rather self-hatred deceive thy soul no deceit like soul-deceit but passe sentence upon thy self impartially and if thou findest thy condition good blesse God keep close to Jesus Christ and labour that thou mayst walk worthy of the Lord Col. 1.10 even unto all well-pleasing The great and extraordinary priviledges bestowed on thee do call aloud for gracious and extraordinary practices from thee How exemplary shouldst thou live among men who art to live eternally with God What singular things wilt thou do for that God for that Saviour that hath done such singular things for thy soul Can any love be too much Can any labour be too great Can any honor be too high Can any service be too holy for that God to whom thou art by millions of eternal obligations thus infinitely infinitely bound O let the fruitfulness of thy heart and life in holiness proclaim thine abundant thankfulness for such mercies as for weight and worth exceed the very thoughts of Men and Angels How abundant shouldst thou be in the work of the Lord when thou knowest that thy labour shall not be in vain in the Lord When thou art confessing thy sins meditate on the choosing calling love of that God against whom thy sins are committed and try whether the heat of that burning love will not thaw thy heart and dissolve it into tears when it is most hard and icie When thou art backward to a duty that hath some difficulty in it consider Jesus Christ was not backward to his bitter bloody sufferings for thy sins As the Souldier told Augustus when he denied his petition I did not serve you so at the battel of Actium So say to thy soul Jesus Christ did not serve thee so when he was to drink the cup of his Fathers fierce wrath for thee and see whether such melting perswasions will not prevail with thee to subject thy self to the hardest precept When thou art departing away from â—od by any sinister course or insincere carriage remember who thou art one that art called not to sin but sanctity not to uncleanness but holiness As Antigonus being invited to a place that might probably prove a temptation to sin asked counsel of Menedemus what he should do He bade him only remember he was a Kings Son So do thou remember thine high and heavenly calling and do nothing unworthy of the God that hath enrolled thy name in the Book of Life that hath ransomed thy soul with the precious blood of his Son and hath sanctified thee by the effectual operations of his Spirit but walk worthy of the vocation wherewith and whereunto thou art called Eph. 4.1 It is an excellent meditation of Eusebius Emissenus Though the Devil saith he should be damned for many sins and I but for one yet mine would exceed the Devils impiety they never sinned against a God that became an Angel for them they never sinned against a Mediator that was crucified for them but miserable and wretched I and it s wonderful that my heart melteth not when it thinketh on it I have sinned against a God that became a Man for me against a God that died an ignominious death for me against a God that hath left me an example of love and holinesse I am more unworthy then the Devils Consider it Friend no sins admit of higher aggravations nor are matter of deeper provocation then the sins of those that are interested in Gods special distinguishing affection In a word for I had not thought to have told thee so much it was for the sake of others principally that I penn'd this piece since it shall be thy reward to be like an Angel in happiness ever to behold the face of the Father let it be thy work and endeavour to be like an Angel in holiness to do the will of God readily heartily and universally But if thou find upon a thorough search that thou art a stranger to this spiritual life if conscience sent to enquire bring in its verdict that this purifying praying Spirit dwelleth not in thy soul Let me beseeth thee in the fear of the Lord to bethink thy self what is like to become of thee for ever One of the Martyrs put his finger into the candle to try how he could endure the fire in which he was afterwards to be burnt do thou but read over again the former use of information and consider whether thou art able to undergo that losse and that terrible intolerable eternal wrath of an omnipotent God which is therein declared and by Scripture proved to be the portion of all that live and dye in thy condition Suppose thou shouldst
thou therefore meditate much on the love of God and Christ to thy unworthy soul Think what love is it that still spareth thee notwithstanding all thy God-daring and soul-damning provocations and that when others probably better than thy self are every day and night sent to that place where God hath large interest for his long patience What love is it not only to forbear thee but also to doe thee good thou his enemy art hungry he feedeth thee thou art thirsty he giveth thee drink If a man find his enemy will he let him goe 1 Sam. 24.19 but lo God findeth thee every moment as all thy sins are within the reach of his eye so thou thy self art continually within the reach of his arm he can as easily turn thee into hell as tell thee of hell And yet he letteth thee goe and more than that doth thee good Thou spendeth every hour upon the stock of mercy God is at great charge and much cost in continuing meat and drink and health and strength and time which thou dost ravel out and wanton away unprofitably What love was that in the Father which sent his own Son to die that thou mightst live Well might the beloved Disciple say God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him might not perish but have everlasting life Joh. 3.16 In this the bowels of divine love are naked as in an Anatomy In other things the love of God is as the beames of the Sun scattered which are warm and comfortable but in this it is as the beames of the Sun united in a burning-glasse hot fiery burning love God so loved the world so dearly so intirely so incomparably so infinitely It is a sic without a sicut as one observeth a pattern which can never be parallel'd In this God commended his love towards us in that when we were sinners Christ died for us Rom. 5.8 when God sent his Son into the world he did as it were say to him My dear Son thou Son of my chiefest love and choicest delight go to the wicked unworthy world commend me to them and tell them that in thee I have sent them such a love-token such an unquestionable testimony of my favour and good-will towards them that hereafter they shall never have the least colour of reason to suspect my love or to say Wherein hast thou loved us Malachi 1.2 What love was that in the Son of God which moved him to become the son of man that thou mightst become the son of God What love was that which made him so willingly undergo the scorns and flouts and derisions of wretched men the rage and malice and assaults of ravenous devils the wrath and fury of a righteous God such pangs and tortures in his body as no mouth can expresse such sorrows and horror in his soul as no minde can conceive and all that thou mightest escape such misery and obtain everlasting mercy Greater love than this hath no man that a man lay down his life for his friend John 15.13 The passion of Christ was the greatest evidence of his affection The laying down of life did abundantly proclaim his love His love before was like wine in a cask hardly seen but O how did it sparkle and cast its colour in the glass of his sufferings This Diamond before hid in the shell doth shine radiantly in the ring of his death If his tears did so much speak his love to Lazarus that the Jews who saw him weeeping cryed out Lo how he loved him surely his heart-blood doth far more demonstrate his love to his members They that beheld him bleeding in the garden had far more reason to say Look lo how he loved his What love is that which did all this for such a worm as thou art such a sinner such a rebel what would God lose if thou wert eternally lost the least tittle of his happinesse would not be diminished this Sun is no loser when men shut their eyes and will not behold its light what gaineth God if he gain thee to himself to his service thou canst not adde the least cubit to the stature of his perfections the refreshment is to men not to the Spring when the weary passengers drink of it He doth not command thee to repent from any need he hath of thee but from the pity he hath to thee He entreateth thee to return not that he may be blessed and happy but that he may be bountiful liberal in bestowing on thee those blessings which accompany salvation Methinks the apprehension of Gods great love and goodnesse should have such an impression on thee as to make thee little and low in thine own thoughts Is it not a wonder that God should vouchsafe a gracious look upon such a clod of earth a piece of clay as thou art but what admiration can answer this love and condescension that God should wait and intreat to lift thee up who wouldst cast him down That an Emperour should sue to a traitour that Majesty should thus stoop to misery that the Lord of life and glory should prepare for thee exceeding rich and precious promises a crown of life a purchased possession and beseech thee to accept of them Were thy heart never such hard metal one would think that such an hot fire of burning love should melt it I hsve in two or three Authors read of five men that met together and asked each other what means they used to abstain from sin The first said The thoughts of the certainty of death and uncertainty of the time moved him to live every day as if it were his last day The second said He meditated of the day of of judgment and the torments of hell and they frighted him from medling with his dangerous enemy sin The third considered of the deformity of sin and beauty of holinesse The fourth of the abundant happinesse provided in heaven for holy ones The last continually thought of the Lord Jesus Christ and his love and this made him ashamed to sin against God Reader if thou hast but any ingenuity the abuse of such love and kindnesse should work upon thee Some say the blood of a goat will soften an Adamant shall not then the blood of this true goat dissolve thy adamantine heart Beasts themselves have been won by kindnesse and wilt thou be worse than a beast that such Philanthrophy and kindnesse of God shall no whit stir thee or humble thee There is a twofold necessity of a deep serious humiliation for which cause I have been the more large upon it though indeed I have added very much more than I first intended in order to the two next directions which I shall prescribe thee First in order to thy hearty acceptation of Jesus Christ Humiliation is like John Baptist to prepare the way of Christ before him Christ will not be a Saviour to them that do not set an high valuation upon him now
Christian mourn in some wildernesse till Dooms-day dig thy grave there with thy nails weep buckets full of hourly tears till thou canst weep no more fast and pray till thy skin and bones cleave together promise and purpose with full resolution to be better nay reform thy head heart life and tongue and some nay all fins live like an Angel shine like a Sun walk up and down the world like a distressed pilgrim going to another Countrey so that all Christians commend and admire thee die ten thousand deaths lie at the fire-back in hell so many millions of years as there be piles of grasse upon the earth or sands upon the sea-shore or stars in the firmament or motes in the Sun I tell thee not one spark of the wrath of God against thy sin shall be can be quenched by all these duties nor by any of these sorrowes for these are not the blood of Christ It is both unacceptable and unprofitable for thee to approach God either in himself or in thy self I dare not meddle with an absolute God saith Luther Nolo Deum ab olutum Luth. God in himself is a consuming fire but in his Son a loving father Do thou therefore now thou knowest thy self and sin labour to know Jesus Christ and him crucified 1 Cor. 2.2 And count all things dung and drosse for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus thy Lord Phil. 3.8 Read and pray and weep and pant and thirst that thou maiest be found in him not having thy own righteousness which is according to the law but that which is through the faith of him the righteousnesse which is of God by faith Phil. 3.9 Take a view of him in the Gospel where he is crucified before thine eyes and behold him displayed in both his natures and all his offices and therein his suitablenesse unto and sufficiency for all the wants and necessities of thy dying soul Doest thou see a cloud of judgments gathering apace and ready to pour down on thy head run to him for shelter he is both a shadow from the heat and a shelter from the storm Is thy conscience wounded with thy sins hasten to the wounds of thy Saviour by his stripes thou maiest be healed Isa 53. Do the murdering pieces of the Laws curses threaten to destroy thee flie like the distressed Dove to the clifts of the rock of ages the bored hands and feet the pierced side of the blessed Redeemer there thy soul may be sure of safety He is the onely Ark wherein thou maiest be saved when the whole world that lyeth in wickedness shall be drowned shall be damned He is the little Zoar whither thou mayst retire and thy soul shall live when fire and brimstone yea hell * Gehenna è caelo Salv. shall be rained from heaven on ungodly ones He is the true City of refuge wherein thou mayst assuredly escape the wrath of God which like the avenger of blood pursueth thee An hearty thankful acceptation of Jesus Christ as he is tendered in the Gospel will at the day of judgement be a plea as acceptable unto God and profitable unto thee as perfect subjection to all the commands of the Law Consider how full his merits are he is en horn of salvation Luke 1.69 i. e. strong to save the strength of the noble beasts lying in their horns * 'T is a folly to think that an Emperors Revenues will not pay a beggars debts Christ hath undertook to satisfie and he hath mony enough to pay Free grace can shew you large accounts and a long bâ—ll cancelled by the blood of Christ Mr. Manton on Jam. p. ult There is no sinner so black but the blood of this Saviour can make white Rev. 7.14 There are some diseases which other Physicians cannot cure but he healeth all diseases All are dangerously but none desperately sick whom he undertaketh Thou owest a vast debt to Justice but the Lord Jesus is an able Surety He is able to save to the uttermost those that come unto God by him Heb. 7.25 O what is it that thou wantest which perfect righteousnesse and infinite meritoriousnesse cannot procure Do'st thou want Remission God forgiveth sin for Christs sake Ephes 4. ult The blood of Jesus Christ his Son clenseth form all sin 1 John 1.7 He was a great sinner as Luther observeth by imputation that thou might'st be innocent through condonation and pardon * Themistocles appeased the anger of K. Admetus by holding the Kings young son in his armes so doth the Christian appease the beholding his Son in the arms of faith Dost thou want reconciliation with God He maketh peace through the blood of his Cross Coloss 1.20 God is in Christ reconciling the world to himself 2 Cor. 5.20 He endured his Fathers frowns and fury that thou might'st enjoy his smiles and favour Dost thou want sanctification His blood is sanctifying as well as justifying Heb. 9.14 He did not only buy off thy score of guilt but also purchast a new stock of grace for his bank-rupt creature to set up with again The oyl of grace was abundantly poured on the Churches head that it might fall down on the skirts and members Of his fulnesse thou mayst receive grace for grace Joh. 1.16 Dost thou want salvation He hath the power and gift of eternal life Joh. 10.28 John 17.24 He is the Authour of eternal salvation Heb. 5.9 Thou mayst have boldnesse through the blood of Jesus to enter into the holy of holies Heb. 10.19 20. He paid an infinite summe to purchase the Fathers house for thine everlasting home What ever thy need be he is able to supply it for he is an universal Treasure which can never be spent a Spring that can never be drawn dry In him dwelleth the fulnesse of the God-head bodily Col. 2.9 Consider also how free his mercy is as well as his merits full Thou mayst drink of the water of life freely Rev. 22.17 If thou wilt buy his benefits thou must leave thy mony behind thee His wine and milk is to be had without mony and without price Isa 55.2 Do not hold off thinking to carry worthinesse to Christ but believe on him and thou mayst fetch worthiness from Christ The same free-grace which gave Christ for thee without thy prayer will at thy desire give Christ to thee Do not alwayes lie poring upon thy unworthiness but if thou art sensible of it and sorrowful for it believe it thou art worthy enough to Divine acceptation though not to Divine satisfaction As his Omnipotency answereth thy weakness and his fulness thy wants so doth his free-grace all thy unworthiness The natural Sun doth not inlighten more freely then this Sun of Righteousness doth enliven all that come under the shadow of his wings Ponder how universal his offers of grace are Jesus Christ with all his merits are tendered to all The proposals of Divine mercy and love are general and universal Go preach the
yet he doth not see the wealth the infinite riches that lye buried in them So wicked men see the waters the afflictions the conflicts but not the wealth the comforts the inward joy of the children of God Thirdly as this spiritual life is the most honorable and comfortable so it is the most profitable life no calling bringeth in such advantage as Christianity godliness is profitable unto all things 1 Tim. 4.8 There is an universal gainfulness in real godliness Plutarch telleth us that the Babylonians make above three hundred several commodities of the Palme-tree but there are many thousand benefits which godliness bringeth no Merchant ever had his vessels returned so richly laden as he that tradeth heaven-ward Observe Reader after the Apostles affirmation his full confirmation of it Godliness saith he is profitable unto all things It hath the promise of this life and that to come i. e. It hath heaven and earth entailed on it and therefore it must needs be profitable It giveth the Christian much in possession the promise of this life but infinitely more in reversion the life that is to come The promises of God are exceeding great for their quantity and precious for their quality promises and they all belong to a godly man he is called an heir of the promises Heb. 6.17 Whensoever the tree of the Scripture is shaken whatsoever fruit of those precious promises falleth down it falleth into the lap of a godly man If at any time that box of costly ointment be broken and sendeth forth its fragrant sent and vertue it is to the refreshment only of the Saints Godliness is profitable to thy self If thou art wise thou art wise for thy self and if a scorner thou alone shalt bear it Prov. 9.12 The sinner is no bodies foe so much as his own the murdering peices of sin which he dischargeth against God miss their mark but do constantly recoyle and wound himself The Saint is no bodies friend so much as his own others fare the better for his great stock of grace but the propriety in all the comfort of all and the profit by all is his own It enables him to give away the more at his door but how rich a table doth he thereby keep for himself Godliness is profitable for thy children the just man walketh in his integrity and his children are blessed after him Prov. 20.7 personal piety is profitable to posterity yet not of merit but mercy Though grace come not by generation but donation and though God hath mercy on whom he will yet the seed of the Saints are visibly nearer the quickning influences of the spirit then the children of others When God saith he will be a â—od to the godly man and his children I believe he intendeth more in that promise for the comfort of godly parents then most of them think of Acts 2.36 Gen. 17.7 The children of believers are heirs apparent to the covenant of grace in their parents right Godliness is profitable in prosperity it giveth a spiritual right to temporal good things a gracious man holdeth his mercies in capite in Christ that is his tenure as Christ is a co-heir of all things he being married to him by this spiritual life is a co-heir with him he enjoyeth earthly things by an heavenly title and one peny enjoyed by special promise is far more worth than millions which ungodly men enjoy by a general providence as the beasts of the field do their provender It is godliness that causeth a sanctified improvement of mercies Grace alone like Christ turneth water into wine corporal mercies into spiritual advantages The more God oiles the wheels the more chearfully and swiftly he moveth in the way to heaven the more showers of heaven fall down upon him the more fruitful and abundant he is in the work of the Lord as we see in that gracious King Iehosophat 2 Chron. 17.5 6. The Lord established the Kingdom in his hand and all Iudah brought presents unto him and he had riches and honor in abundance and his heart was lift up in the wayes of God Mark the more Gods hand was enlarged in bounty the more his heart was enlarged in duty The more highly God thinks of David the more lowly he thought of himself 2 Sam. 7.18 Outward mercies to a believer are a ladder by which he mounteth up nearer to heaven Thus godliness like the Philosophers stone turneth iron and every thing into gold but the want of this spiritual life causeth a cursed hellish use of mercies ungodly men like the spider suck poison out of those flowers out of which the Bees the Saints suck honey Their mercies are like cordials to a foul stomach which do but increase the peccant humor He feedeth on such plenty that he surfeits himself because of their abundance Job 21.7 8 9 to 14. Therefore they say unto the Almighty Depart from us for we desire not the knowledge of thy wayes like the Israelites they make of the jewels which God giveth a golden Calf and worship that in stead of God Godliness is profitable in adversity it maketh a Christian like a Rabbit to thrive the better in frosty weather The child of God learneth the better for the rod Before he was afflicted he went astray but now he keepeth Gods word Psal 119.67 Well may grace be called the divine nature for it can bring not onely light out of light spiritual comfort and good out of outward good things but also light out of darkness good out of evil gain out of losses life out of death It will like Sampson fetch meat out of the eater like the Ostrich digest stones like Mithridates fetch nourishment out of poison When wicked men like Ahaz in their distress sin more against the Lord as fire the more it is kept in in an Oven the more it rageth so doth corruption but godly men far otherwise are by the fire of affliction the more refined and purified for their masters use Godliness is profitable to thee while thou livest In doubts it will direct thee as a light to thy feet and a lanthorn to thy paths In dangers it will protect thee by setting thee on high and giving thee for a place of defence the munition of rocks in wants it will supply thee by affording thee bread in the word when thou hast none on the boord and money in the promise 1 Tim. 4.8 which is by thousands the better when thou hast none in thy purse in thy pain it will ease thee in disgrace It will honor thee in sorrows it will comfort thee in sickness it will strengthen by causing thee to count the crosses of this life as nothing and unworthy to be compared to the pleasures and glory which shall revealed in all distresses it will support thee and make thee more then a conqueror over all through him that loveth us Rom. 8.37 Lastly godliness will be profitable to thee when thou diest death which is the terrible of terribles to
pitiful thing was it that Alexander that was Lord almost of the world should be troubled that Ivy would not grow in his garden at Babylon And is it not a poor thing for thee that art a Child of God the Spouse of Christ the Temple of the Spirit an Heir of the most glorious rich and delightful Kingdom that ever was to lie whining and pining if thy head do but ake or thy estate decrease or thy friend forsake thee For shame remember who thou art and to what thou art called and say as the Martyr Hold out Faith and Patience your work is almost at an end Thou shalt ere long leave this world and all its evils and go where there is neither sorrow nor sin and indeed there can be no affliction there because there wil be no corruption there which is the original of all miseries As there cannot be any thunder or lightning in the upper Region because the vapours which are the materials of it cannot ascend so high So because no unclean thing can be there therefore no sorrow no suffering can be there How may this comfort thee Basil tels us Basil 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 how the Martyrs that were cast out naked in a winters night being to be burned the next day solaced their souls with these words Sharp is the cold but sweet is Paradise Troublesome is the way but pleasant shall be the end of our journy Let us endure cold a little and the Patriarchs bosome shall soon warm us Let our feet burn a while that we may dance for ever with Angels 2. It is a comfort against the temptations of the Devil Whilst thou livest in this world thou art liable to his wiles If thou wilt go to heaven so boundless is his malice that he raiseth all the powers of hell against thee and forceth thee to fight every foot of the way He is the strong man that hath full possession of carnal unregenerate ones and therefore all is at peace with them Matth. 12. What need a Captain bend his Forces against a Town which hath delivered up it self into his hands What need he plant his Canons and batteries against these gates which are already set open to him This Gaoler doth not trouble himself much about those prisoners which are fast in his dungeon with his irons on their legs and are led captive by him at his will 1 Tim. 2.26 But for thee who hast by the help of Christ broken prison and in part got out of his power he raiseth all the Country with Hue and cry to bring thee back to thy old place of bondage But be comforted Christ hath conquered him already in his own person as thy head is daily conquering him in thee his member by his Spirit and will shortly crush him fully under thy feet Rom. 16.20 Paraeus in loc Some refer that shortly to the day of judgement which will come shortly and wherein Satan shall be utterly crushed under all the Saints feet for ever And it is as true of the day of death in reference to every particular Saint As when a man dyeth all those vexatious law-suits with which he was before molested do cease So when the believer dyeth all those false actions which Satan had commenced against him in the court of his conscience and all that inward trouble which did arise thereupon do all cease It is no bad sign now O Christian if thou resistest that thou art assaulted by the wicked one A Theif will not break into an house that is empty A Pirate will not fight but for some considerable prize A Father will not seek to destroy his own Children Temptation is no sign of Gods hatred but of the Devils But let this be thy solace that within a few dayes thou shalt be at rest not only from thy own labours but also from Satans snares and suggestions God doth thee much good by them now the noise of those guns causeth the Conies to hasten to their burrowes and the Birds to their places of refuge The more the tops of sound trees are shaken with the wind the more deeply their roots are fixed in the earth the more eagerly Satan followeth thee the faster thou fliest and the closer thou clingest to Jesus Christ But God will do thee the greatest good without them and when that shall be thou shalt be wholly freed from them Since the Devils were cast out of Heaven we read of their being sometimes in the Sea Matth. 8.33 sometimes in the Earth Job 1.7 and sometimes in the Air Eph. 2.3 and they are called Principalities and spiritual wickednesses in high places Eph. 6.12 but never in Heaven They aspire to get as high as they can but they can get no further than the Air Satan and his Angels find no more place in heaven Rev. 12.8 Now what comfort is this O Christian that thou shalt serve the Lord without distraction without temptations 3. It is comfortable against the corruptions of thine own heart What is it now that is thy greatest sorrow Is it not thy sin These are the weights which hang on the clock of thy heart and will not suffer it to rest day or night Well rejoyce in hope at death all these Achans which are the troublers of thy peace shall be stoned to death all these Jonahs which cause such stormes in thy soul shall be cast over-board all these Hamans which seek the ruine of thee and thy people shall be executed Now it is thy great care in every Ordinance to kill thy sins Dost thou not like Joab set the Uriah of thy beloved lust in the fore-front of every duty and retire from it out of pious policy that it may be slain And when at any time it pleaseth the Captain of thy salvation to send the supplies of his Spirit and wound mortally thy corruption that it lyeth gasping and dying before thee dost thou not look up to Christ and say as Cushi to David concerning dead Absalom Would to God that all the enemies of my Lord the King and all that rise against thee to do thee hurt were as that young man is Lord that all my sins might drink of the same cup and be served the same sauce Blessed be the Lord my God which hath avenged me this day of mine enemy If God should thrust the knife of mortification up to the haft in the very hearts of all thy sins that thou couldst see thy pride distrust unthankfulnesse hardnesse of heart and every corruption in a goar-blood fetching their last breath would it not be a lovely sight to thee Wouldst thou not look upon it with as much content as Hannibal did upon a pit full of the blood of men when he cried out O beautiful sight O formosum specta culum Or as that Queen that cried out when she saw her Subjects lie dead before her eyes The goodliest tapestry that ever she beheld At death all this shall be done for thee One touch
the message might have been wel-come and death desireable as a passage to eternal life but it 's Thou fool had it been this year or this month nay had it been this week the man might have been fore-warned and fore-armed but it is this night thy soul shall be required of thee Had it been this night thy riches shall be required of thee how harsh would it have sounded in his eares who had no other God but his gold who like a Mole lived in the earth as his element O how hard would it be to part this covetous muck-worm and his Mammon of unrighteousnesse but it is not thy silver but thy soul shall be required of thee Had it been This night thy relations shall be required of thee thy wife and children and all thy kindred shall be required of thee what heavy tidings would it have been to his heart that had had no kindred in heaven with what wringing of hands and watering of cheeks and sighs and sobs would such news have been entertained many an eye would a tender husband and father have cast upon his loving wife and lovely babes and O how would his eye have affected his heart with grief and sorrow to consider that these thriving hopeful plants must be removed into another soil that this near conjugal knot must be untied and he and his dearest relations who had so often and so much rejoyced together so suddenly be separated and that for ever but it is not thy wife that is one flesh with thee but thy Spouse that is a spirit within thee thy soul shall be required of thee Had it been This night all the means of grace shall be required of thee it had been worse then the losse of a limb to him that had had any spiritual life the Ordinances of God to a soul are as the Sun to the world without which notwithstanding all its earthly delights it would be but a place of darknesse and of the shadow of death Matth. 4.16 but it is thy soul the former might have spoken the mans condition very dangerous but this speaks it altogether desperate Thou fool this night thy soul shall he required of thee The former although sad are yet nothing to this not so much as the noise of a podgun to the noise of a Cannon This is the great Ordnance which includes and yet drowns those smaller pieces Couldst thou Ambr. ult pag. 69. saith one upen the fore-cited Text purchase a Monopoly of all the world hadst thou the Gold of the West the Treasures of the East the Spices of the South the Pearls of the North all is nothing to this incarnate Angel this invaluable soul O wretched worldling what hast thou done thus to undo thy soul Was it a wedge of gold an heap of earth an hoard of silver to which thou trustedst see they are gone and thy soul is required Alas poor soul whither must it go to heaven No there is another place for wandring sinners Go ye into everlasting fire prepared for the Divel and his Angels thither must it go with heavinesse of heart into a Kingdome of darknesse a lake of fire a prison of horrible confusion and terrible tortures Reader if thou art not new-born put this case to thy self and ask thy soul what it wil do in such an hour when the grave shall come with an habeas corpus for thy body and the Divel with an habeas animam for thy soul when thy soul shall leave this dwelling of thy body and passe naked of all its comforts into a far countrey where Divels and damned spirits are the inhabitants where screeching yelling and howling is the language where fire and brimstone is the meat and a cup of pure wrath without the least mixture is the drink where weeping and wailing is their calling where a killing death is all their life Assure thy self if thou diest unsanctified thou wilt find far more and worse then all this O my soul saith Bernard what a terrible day shall that be Bern. medita when thou shalt leave this mansion and enter into an unknown Region who can deliver thee from those ramping Lyons who shall defend thee from those hellish monsters Now thou most unworthily undervaluest thy precious soul little caring what flaws by sin thou causest in this Diamond like the cock on the dung-hill thou knowest not the worth of this Jewel but preferrest thy barly-corns before it I have read that there was a time when the Romans did wear Jewels on their shoes thou do'st worse thou tramplest this matchlesse Jewel under thy feet whil'st thy dying body is cloathed and pampered thy ever-living soul is naked and starved some write of Herod I suppose because of that infant massacre It was better to be his swine than his Sonne for when his superstition hindred him from slaying his hogs his ambition helpt him to kill his child I say it were better to be thy beast than thy soul thou canst every morning and evening what ever happen take care that thy beasts be watered and foddered and many times in the day look abroad after them to see what they ail and accordingly take order for their supply and yet O man or rather O brute thou canst let thy soul go an whole day and never feed it with the set meals of prayer Scripture and meditation yea and in an whole day nay it may be an whole week not ask thy soul in good earnest how it doth what it wanteth what sins it hath to be mortified what grace it hath to be bestowed or increased what spiritual necessities to be supplied Reader Is it not so let conscience speak and canst thou read these lines without blushing and heart-breaking that thou shouldest spend more time and strength upon thy beasts than upon that soul which truth it self saith is more worth than a world Matth. 16.26 which is created capable of such an high work as pleasing glorifying and enjoying God and of such an happy reward as the immediate and eternal fruition of and communion with his infinite majesty in heaven Well this soul thus despised when lost though then too late will be esteemed Hell will read thee such a Lecture of thy souls worth that it will make thee understand it and believe it whether thou wilt or no and then thou shalt have time enough in that eternity in which thy soul shall be lost to befool thy self for thy desperate madnesse in gratifying thy bruitish flesh and thus basely neglecting thy soul that heaven-born Spirit Sixthly Thou shalt by death lose the infinitely blessed God this is the losse of losses the misery of miseries the very hell of hell such a loss as there was never the like before it nor ever shall be again after it such a loss as no tongue can express as no heart can conceive yet such a loss as thou shalt know fully when experimentally The four first losses might have been born with comfort and delight by
the person that had but gained this good and the first could not have been without this The eternal death of the soul consisteth in its farthest separation from that God whose favour is far better than life This is the lowest round in that ladder by which thou shalt descend into the bottomless pit This is the foot of this black bloody account the head of that arrow which pierceth the hearts of the damned This is the worst effect and fruit of sin that it is privative of our union with and fruition of God Vines on James 4.8 pag. 23. Depart from me is as terrible a word as everlasting fire Ah whether do they go that go from him when he alone hath the power of eternal life how dismal how dark must that dungeon be where this Sun will not shine in the least degree with the light of his countenance well may it be called blacknesse of darknesse for ever Jude 15. the hell of the hypocrites which will be hottest of all is set out by this Job 13.16 the hypocrite shall not come before God Couldst thou have all the mercies that the world can give yet in this want of God thou wouldest be compleatly miserable Ten thousand words cannot speak a soul more unhappy than those two words Without God Ephes 2.12 Thou mayest be without riches without friends without health without liberty nay without all outward blessings and yet blessed but if without God thou art cursed with a curse When God would couch all arguments in one to perswade to duty this is instead of all Obey my voice and I will be your God Jer. 7.23 when he would disswade and drive them from iniquity Sicut Sole recedente succedunt densae tene brae sic Deo recedente succedit horribilis maledictio Paraeus in â— Hos this is the stinging whip Be instructed O Jerusalem lest my soul depart from thee Jer. 6.8 When he would strike Israel dead with a blow this is it Wo unto them when I depart from them Hos 9.12 How sad a saying is that of Saul I am sore distressed and well he might the Philistines are upon me and God is departed from me 1 Sam. 28.15 If a partial Eclipse of the Sun cause such a drooping in the whole Creation what will a total Eclipse of this Sun cause how mournfully doth Micah bemoan the losse of of his dunghil deity Ye have taken away my gods and what have I morâ—e and what is this that ye say unto me what aileth thee Judg. 18.24 surely the damned as they will have infinitely more cause so they will with more horrour and anguish bewail the losse of the true God though all the tears in hell are not sufficient to bewail the losse of this heaven If the body from which the soul is parted be such a deformed sad spectacle what shall the condition of that soul be from which God is parted for ever How unable are the children of God to bear the absence of God in this life though it be but in part and for a short time take Heman Psal 88.14 15. Lord why castest thou off my soul why hidest thou thy face from me I am afflicted and ready to die while I suffer thy terrours I am distracted Observe the good man is at deaths door and no wonder when as to his apprehension the life of his soul had left him for though no man can see the essential face of God and live yet no Saint can live unlesse he see the providential face of God Consider Job a man of courage one that had entered the list against Satan and foild him The Sabeans and Chaldeans were too hard for his servants and captivated his cattel but Job was too hard for them he conquered them the winde that blew down the house on his children could not blow down the tower of his confidence his hold on Christ yet when this valiant Warriour comes to encounter with the withdrawings of God how exceedingly is his courage withdrawn Job 13.24 wherefore hidest thou thy face and holdest me for thine enemy Why Lord are all the appearances from heaven so black and lowring Why is it that I see not the former smiles of thy face O what is the cloud that hindereth the light of thy countenance from shining on me What sin is the mist which is gathered about the true Sun impeding my fight of thee Behold our Lord Jesus himself that could bear the spiteful buffetings of some the bloody scourgings of others the scorn and derisions of many that could suffer the treason of one Apostle the denial of another and the unkindnesse of them all without complaining yet when the Deity did but withdraw it self for a time that the humanity might suffer for our sins how mournfully doth he sigh out that expression My God my God why hast thou forsaken me Matth 27.46 It was not his torturing from men nor the terrours of devils not the presence of all the powers of darkness that Christ complained so much of as the absence of God Now meditate O sinner if the departure of God though partial and temporal were so terrible to his Saints to his Son how intolerable will the losse of God be to thee when it shall be total and eternal Do they mourn so bitterly when for a small moment he forsaketh them though with great mercies he gathereth them when in a little wrath he hides his face from them though with everlasting kindnesse he hath mercy on them Isa 54.7 8. How bitterly wilt thou complain when he shall forsake thee to eternity when he shall hide his face from thee for ever and not bestow on thee the least mercy or the smallest kindnesse This will be a woe with a witnesse Suffering may be the portion of Saints but separation from God the punishment of Devils As the face and comfortable presence of God is the greatest felicity of the saved Summa mors animae est alienatio à vita Dei in aeternitate supplicii Aug. de civit Dei lib. 6. so the full withdrawings or absence of God will be the greatest misery of the damned Now thou doest not value the enjoyment of God thou thinkest often that he is too neer thee the coming of God to thee is as to the Devils a torment Matth. 8.29 If he draw nigh to thee sometime in a Sermon in a private Instruction in a motion of his spirit or in a conviction of thy conscience thou wishest him farther off with his precise laws that thou mighst have more liberty for thy fleshly lusts The voice of thine hellish heart unto God is Depart from me I desire not the knowledge of thy wayes Job 21.14 Well thy petition shall be granted to thy destruction and God will take thee at thy word and give thee thy wish to thy woe when thy doom shall be to depart from him Luke 13.27 Matth. 25.41 and then thou shalt know the incomparable worth of him thy understanding shall