provision for his soule untill his last sicknes should for that sin alone bee snatcht out of the world in great anger even suddenly so that there bee scarce a moment betwixt the height of His temporall happinesse and depth of his spirituall misery That His foolish hope may bee frustrated and His vaine purpose come to nothing Hee may bee cut off as the Top of an care of corne and put out like a candle when hee least thinkes of death and dreames of nothing lesse then departure from His earthly Paradise They are exalted for a little while saith Iob but are gone and brought low they are taken out of the way as all other and cut off as the tops of the eares of corne Fifthly a long continued custome is not woont to bee shaken off in an instant Is it like that a Blackamore should change his skinne and a Leopard his spots in three or foure dayes which they have contracted in forty or threescore yeeres Therefore I marvell that any should bee so blindfolded and baffeld by the Divell as to embolden Himselfe to drive off untill the last by that Place before Confession At what time soever a sinner doth repent him of his sinne from the bottome of his heart I will put all his wicked out of my remembrance saith the Lord Especially if Hee looke upon the Text from whence it is taken which Mee-thinkes beeing rightly understood and the conditions well considered is most punctuall and precise to fright any from that desperate folly The words runne thus Ezech. 18.21.22 But if the wicked will turne from all his sinnes which hee hath committed and keepe all my Statutes and doe that which is lawfull and right hee shall surely live hee shall not die All his transgressions c. Hence it appeares that if any man expect upon good ground any portion in this pretious promise of mercy and grace Hee must leave all his sinnes and keepe all Gods Statutes Now how performest thou the condition of leaving all thy sinnes when as in this last extremity having received the sentence of death against thy selfe Thy sinnes leave Thee and not Thou thy sinnes that I may speake in the Phrase of an ancient Father And what space is left to come to comfort by keeping all Gods Statutes when thou art presently to passe to that highest and dreadfull Tribunall to give an exact and strickt account for the continual breach of all Gods Lawes all thy life long Sixthly many seeme to bee passingly penitent and promise exceeding faire in the evill day and upon their sicke Beds who beeing recovered and restored to their former state are the very same they were before if not worse I never knew nor heard of any un-wrought upon under conscionable meanes who after recovery performed the vowes and promises of a new life which Hee made in his sicknesse and times of extremity For if Hee will not bee mooved with the Ministry God will never give that honour unto a crosse to doe the deede Nay Father Abraham saith the rich Glutton but if one went unto them from the dead they will repent And hee said unto him If they heare not Moses and the Prophets neither will they bee perswaded the one rose from the dead Luke 16.30.31 It would amaze thee much if one of thy good-fellow companions should now rise from the dead and tell thee that Hee who was thy Brother in iniquity is now in Hell and if thou follow the same sensuall courses still thou must shortly most certainely follow Him to the Place of torment And yet even this would not worke at all if thou bee a despiser of the Word It may bee while the dead Man stood by Thee Thou wouldst be extraordinarily mooved and promise much but no sooner should He bee in His Grave but thou wouldst bee as gracelesse as thou wast before Seventhly what wise man seeing a fellow who never gave his name to religion in his life time now only troubled about sinne when hee is sure Hee must die will not suspect it to be wholly slavish and extorted for feare of Hell My sentence is saith Greenham that a man lying now at the Point of death having the snares of death upon him in that straite of feare and paine may have a sorrow for His life past but because the weakenesse of flesh and the bitternesse of death doth most commonly procure it wee ought to suspect c. Eighthly painefull distempers of body are wont to weaken much and hinder the activenes and freedome of the Soules operations nay sometimes to distract and utterly over-throw them Many even of much knowledge grace and good life by reason of the damp and deadnesse which at that time the extremity and anguish of their disease brings upon their spirits are able to doe no great matter if anything at all either in meditation or expression How then doest thou thinke to passe thorow the incomparably greatest worke that ever the Soule of Man was acquainted with in this life I meane the new-birth at the Point of death It is a wofull thing to have much worke to doe when the power of working is almost done When wee are come to the very last cast our strength is gone our spirits cleane spent our senses appalled and the powers of our Soules as numbe as our senses when there is a generall prostration of all our powers and the shadow of death upon our eyes then something wee would say or doe which should doe our Soules good But alas How should it then bee 3. When the spirituall Physition powres the baulme of mercy and oyle of comfort into a wounded conscience 1. Too soone The Surgeon that heales up a dangerous Sore and drawes a skinne over it before His corrosives have consumed the dead flesh before Hee hath opened it with his Tents ransackt it to the roote and rent out the Core is so farre from pleasuring that hee procures a great deale of misery to His Patient For the rotten matter that remaines behind will in the meane time rankle and fester underneath and at length breake out againe perhaps both with more extremity of anguish and difficulty of cure They are but Mountebankes as they call them Smatterers in Physicke and Surgery upon the matter but plaine Cheaters and Couseners who are so ready and resolute for extemporary and palliate Cures Sudden recoveries from rooted and old distempers are rarely sound If it be thus in bodily Cures what a deale doe you thinke of extraordinary discretion heavenly wisedome precise and punctuall ponderation of circumstances well-advised and seasonable leasure both speculative and experimentall skill heartiest ejaculations wrastlings with God by Prayer for a blessing is very convenient and needfull for a true and right methode in healing a wounded conscience Which doth passe immeasurably all other maladies both in exquisitenesse of paine tendernesse of touch deceitfulnesse of Depth and in highest and greatest consequence either for the
other hereafter in the meane time every day spent so sensually is a true Purgatory And every day passed in the contrary Christian course is an earthly Paradise 2. Secondly Let them marke well the different Ends of these men Tho the one now carries away the credite and current of the times and with all bravery and triumph tumbles Himselfe in the pleasures riches and glory of the world and the other is kept as they say under batches neglected and contemptible to carnall eyes trampled upon with the feete of pride and malice by the prouder Pharisees and hunted with much cruelty and hate by Men of this World Yet watch but a while and you shall see the End of this upright man whatsoever his sorrowes and sufferings troubles and temptations have beene in this life to be most certainly peace at the last Marke the perfect man and behold the upright for the end of that man is peace Psal. 37.37 He either passeth fairely and calmely thorow the Port of Death to the Land of everlasting rest and reioycing or else if a tempest of extraordinary temptation seize upon Him in the Haven when He is ready to set foote into heaven which is the Lot of many of Gods dearest Ones for ends seeming best to the ever-blessed Majesty as perhaps to harden those aboue Him that hate to be reformed c. Yet all the hurt he hath thereby is upon the matter besides serving Gods secret holy pleasure an addition to His happinesse for an immediate translation from the depth of temporary horrour as in Maister Peacocke and Mistris Bretlergh to the height of endlesse joy makes even the joyes of Heaven something more joyfull Hee feeles those never-ending pleasures at the first entrance more delicious and ravishing by reason of the suddaine change from that bitternesse of spirit in the last combate to the excellency and eternity of heavenly blisse His Soule in this case after a short eclipse of spirituall darkenesse upon His Bed of death enters more lightsomly into the full Sunne of immortall glory But what doe you thinke shall bee the end of the other Man He is in the meane time it may be in great power and spreading Himselfe like a greene Bay tree revelling in the ruffe and top of all worldly jollity and wealth wallowing dissolutely in choisest delights and vamest pleasures yet waite but a while and you shall see him quickely cut downe like grasse and wither as the greene herbâ— For God shall suddenly shoote at Him with a swift arrow It is already in the bow even a bow of steele shall send forth an arrow that shall strike Him thorow and shall shine on his gall His power and his pride shall bee overthrowne in the turne of an Hand All his imperious boisterousnesâ—e shall melt away as a vaine foame The eye which saw Him shall â—â—e him no more neither shall hiâ— place any more behold him He must downe into the grave naked and stript of all power and pompe all beauty and strength a weaker and poorer worme then when he fâ—â—st came out of the wombe Here further for this purpose and fuller exprâ—ssion of my meaning in this point how a worthy friend of mine instancing in the exemplary and dreadfull downe-falls of Haman Shebnah and others labours to fright gracelesse great Ones out of their luxury and pride security and sinfull pleasures by consideration of their Ends. Oh then saith he ye rich and great ye proud and cruell Ambitious and honourable take from their wofull examples the true estimate of your riches and your power your pleasure and your honour wherein ye trust and whereof yee boast but as Israell in Aegypt of a broken reede Consider that like sinnes will have like ends That God is to day and yesterday and the same for ever That the pride and cruelty oppression and luxury of these times have no greater priviledge then those of the former But when for a while you have domineered farre and neare Had what you would and done what you liâ—t dispeopled Parishes and plaines for your Orchards and walkes pulld downe many houses to set one up from betweene whose battlements and turrets at the top you can see no end of your meadowes your fields and your lands the measuring whereof as the Poet speakes would weary the very wings of the kite When your Clientary traine hath bin too long for the streete and your bare respect hath shooke the hat from the head and bent the knee afarre off when you have clapt whole Manours on your backs or turnd them downe your throates when you have scoured the plaineâ— with your horses the fields and woods with your bounds and the heaven with your hawkes when with pheasantâ— tongues you have furnisht whole feasts and with the Queene of Aegypt drunke dissolved pearle even fifty thousand pounds at a draught and then laide your headâ— in Dalilaâ—s lappe When if it were possible yoâ— have spent your whole lives in all that royall pompe and pleasure which that most magnificent King and Queeâ—â— did Hist. 1. for an hundred and fourescore dayes 〈◊〉 word when you have wallowed in all delights and stood in pleasures up to the chin Then even then the pit is digged and death of whom you dreame not stands at the doore Where are you now Or what is to bee done Come downe saith Death from your pleasant Prospects Alight from your Iades Hood your kites Cupple up your curres bid adew to pleasure out of your beds of lust Come naked forth and downe with mee to the chambers of death Make your beds in the dust and lay downe your cold carkasses among the stones of the pit at the roots of the Rockes And you great and delicate Dames who are so wearied with pleasure that you cannot rise time enough to dresse your heads and doe all your trickes against dinner To wash your bodies with muske and dawbe your faces with vermilion and chalke To make ready your pleasant baites to poyson mens eyes and their soules You whorish lezabels thinke you now you are meate for men Nay come head-long downe to the dogs If not suddenly so yet dispatch and put off your caules eare-rings and round tyres your chaines bracelets and mufflers your rings wimples and crisping pinns your hoods vailes and changeable sutes your glasses sine linnen with all your Mundus muliebris Isa. 3. And put on stinke in stead of sweete smell baldnesse in stead of well-set haire burning in stead of beauty Wormes shall make their nests in your brests and shall eate out those wanton windowes and messengers of lust Yea rottennesse and stinch slime and filth shall ascend and sit downe in the very Throne of beauty and shall dwell betweene your eie-browes All this is very wofull and yet there is a thousand times worse Besides all this Thou that now laies about the for thee world and wealth for transitory pelfe and rotten pleasures that lies soaking in luxury and pride vanity and all
an heavenly hoard of grace good conscience Gods favour c. happily treasured up while it is called Today hath the sole and sacred property and priviledge to hold up our hearts In times of horrour inabling us in the meane time patiently and profitably to master all miseries passe thorow all persecutions conquer all Commers and at length by the helpe of God to pull the very heart as it were out of Hell with confidence and triumph to looke even death and the Divell in the face and to stand with boldnesse before the terrour of the last Day like an unmooveable Rock when the Sonnes and daughters of confusion who have slept in harvest and mispent the gratious Day of their visitation shall intreate the mountaines and Rockes to fall upon them I say it being thus let every one of us like Sonnes and daughters of wisedome in this short Sommers Day of our abode upon earth and in this glorious Sun-shine of the Gospell and pretious seasons of grace imploy all meanes improove all oportunities to gather in with all holy greedinesse and treasure up abundantly much spirituall strength and lasting comfort against the evill Day To which let us be quickned by such considerations as these 1. This wise and happy treasuring up of heavenly hoards and comforts of holinesse afore hand will sweetely mollisie and allay the bitternesse and smart of that heavinesse and sorrow of those fearefull amazements and oppressions of spirit naturally incident to times of trouble and feare which ordinarily doe very grievously sting and strike thorow the hearts of carnall and secure Worldlings with full rage and the very slashes and fore-tastes of Hell Of all other passions of the Soule sadnesse and griefe grates most upon the vitall spirits dries up soonest the freshest marrow in the bones and most sensibly suckes out the purest and refinedst bloud in the heart All the Obiects of lightsomnesse and ioy are drowned in an heauy heart even as the beauty of a Pearle is dissolved in vineger Now the onely Cordiall and Counter-poyson against this dampe of light-heartednesse and Cut-throate of life is the secret sweetenesse and shining pleasure of that One pearls of great price three orient raies whereof are righteousnesse and peace and ioy in the holy Ghost treasur'd up in the Cabinet of a good conscience The glory pretiousnesse and power of which hidden treasure purchased with the sale of all sinne doth many times shine faireliest upon the Soule in the saddest times inspires for the most part into the hearts of the owners the greatest courage and constancy of spirit even in the dayes of adversity and vexation inables them to digest and beare without any great wound or passion those crosses and cruelties which would breake the backe and crush the heart of the stoutest Temporizer Was there not a great deale of difference thinke you betwixt the heart of Hezekiah who had walked before God in truth and with a perfect heart when He heard the newes of death from the mouth of the Prophet and the heart of Belshazzar when he saw the hand-writing upon the wall Giue me a great man who carries a way the credit and current of the times with all bravery and triumph wallowes and tumbles himselfe in the glory and pleasures of the present Throw Him from the transitory top of His heaven upon earth upon His last bed present unto His eye at once the terrible paÌ„gs of approaching death the ragefull malice of the powers of Hell the crying wounds of His bleding conscience the griesely fourmes of His innumerable sinnes His finall farewell with all worldly delights the pit of fire and brimstone into which He is ready to fall And I tell you true I would not endure an houres horrour of His wofull heart for His present Paradise to the worlds end But on the other side let me be the man whom the corruptions of the time confine to obscuritie who mournes in secret for the horrible abominations and crying sinnes that raigne amongst us who thinkes that day best spent wherein Hee hath gathered most spirituall strength against that last and sorest combate and by the mercies of God and humble dependance upon His omnipotent arme I will looke in the face the cruellest concurrence of all those former terrors with â—â—â—fidence and peace 2. Secondly By this spirituall hoarding of comfortable provision against the Evill day we may prevent a great deale of impatiency dependance upon the Arme of flesh base feares sinkings of heart un-manly deiections of spirit desperate resolutions and many passionate distempers of such raging and distracted nature which are woont to seize upon and surprise unholy and unprepared hearts when the Hand of God is heavy upon them How bravely and Heroically did patient Iob beare and breake thorow a matchlesse variety and extremity of calamities and conflicts The softest of whose sufferings would have strucke full cold to the heart of many a Carnalist and made it to dye within Him like a stone as Nabals did One of the least the losse of His goods I am perswaded would have caused many covetous worldlings to have laid violent and bloudy hands upon themselues For instance Ahitophel onely because the glory of his state-wisedome was obscur'd and overtopt at the counsell-Bord sadled His Asse gate Him Home put His houshold in order and hanged Himselfe The onely cause of His fainting in the day of disgrace and dis-acceptation was His false and rotten heart in matters of religion While the Crowne sate with security and safety upon Davids head He walked with Him as a companion unto the House of God But when the winde begun to blow a little another way and upon Absoloms side like a true Temporizer He followes the blast and turnes his sailes according to the weather And therefore His hollow heart having made the Arme of flesh His Anchor and a vanishing Blase of honour His chiefest blessednesse shrinkes at the very first sight and suspition of a tempest and sinkes this miserable Man into a Sea of horrour But now on the contrary what was the cause that Iobs heart was not crusht into pieces under the bitter concurrence of such a world of crosses of which any one severally was sufficient to have made a Man extreamely miserable The true reason of His patient resolution amid so many pressures was the spirituall riches He had hoarded up in the time of His happines Amongst which the divinest and dearest Iewel lay nearest unto His heart as a counterpoyson to the venome and sting of the Divels deadliest malice I meane a sound and strong faith in Iesus Christ the Lambe slaine from the beginning of the world which now began to shine the fairest in the darkest Midnight of His miseries and sweetly to dart out many heavenly sparkles of comfort and such glorious eiaculations as these Though he slay me yet will I trust in Him Cap. 13.15 And that cap. 19 23 c. Oh that my words were
That Heathenish Religion did inspire Her Worthies of Old with invincible victorious spirits But Christian Religion begets effeminatâ—nesse deiections and seare He speakes to this purpose which to me seemes strange That such a profound Professour of the depths or rather diuelishnesse of policy should dote so sottishly And yet it is no such strange thing for many times we may observe that deepest Policy by the curse of God upon it for opposition to goodnesse turnes into extremest folly And all counsels and politicke constitutions against Christ are but the brainelesse infatuations of Ahitophel For that which this fellow holds there holds strong contradiction both to common sense and a thousand experiences to the contrary For the first and in a word Let the great Master of mischiefe and of most abhorred atheisticall Principles of State tell me whether a reall assurance of a Crowne of life and endlesse ioyes in another world be not more powerfull to raise a Mans spirit to the highest pitch of undaunted noblenesse of spirit and unconquerable resolution then a vaine breath of immortall fame amongst miserable men after this life And in this lies the sinew of His proofe For the second Let the Acts of the ancient Iews be indiffereÌ„tly wayed from whose magnanimity in causes of most extreme hazard those strange and unwonted resolutions have growne which for all circumstances saith a great Divine no people under the roofe of heaven did ever hitherto match And that which did alwaies animate them was their meere Religion And let the Chronicles also say I of later times be searched and wee shall find from time to time many renowned Worthies to have for ever ennobled the matchlesse and incomparable courage of Christianity with in imitable impressions of valour and visible transcendency above all humane boldnesse and affected audacities of the most valiant Pagans To begin with great Constantine the first mighty Commander of a Christian Army with what victorious glory did He confound cut off many potent Heads of Paganisme Thrice was the whole world most famously fought for betweene Alexander and Zerxes Caesar and Pompey Constantine Licinius This last was most illustrious wherein Constantine the Great did mightily conquer and triumphantly carry all before him the heroicall and royall spirit of Christianity trampling victoriously upon the desperate rage of the most furious foole-hardy Pagan Tyrants I might here passe on to Theodosius and his miraculous conquests and so along but the disgression would bee too unseasonable Therefore I leave you for the prosecution of this point to Anti-Machiavel Even in later times wofully plagued under the reigne of Antichrist with a vast degeneration from primitive purity and power Christian Religion tho empoysoned with Popish superstition yet did so farre inspire it 's Warlike Professors with extraordinary spirits that in point of manhood they did wonders to the astonishment of the whole world and all succeeding Ages Godfrey of Bulloigne that famous Warriour with his followers conquered in lesse then foure yeeres all the goodliest Provinces of Asia and drave out the Turkes In that dreadfull and cruell conflict in Solomons Temple as himselfe reports in a letter to Bohâ—mund King of Antioch their men by the great slaughter of the enemy stood in blood above the ancles At that terrible and bloody battell at Ascalon as most report they slew an hundred thousand Infidels c. The valour and victories of Hunniades whose mighty spirit and incredible courage for any thing I know have no parallell in any precedent Story were so great and did like a violent tempest and impetuous torrent so batter and beate downe the enemies of Christ that Hee was rightly reputed the Bulwarke of Europe and thundring terrour of the Turkes amongst whom His name became so dreadfull that as the story reports they used the same to feare their crying children withall Hee fought five times with the Turkes upon one day and five times foyled and put them to flight with the losse of three thousand He killed that valiant Viceâ—oy of Asia Mesites Bassa with His sonne and twenty thousand Turkes moe at that famous battell of Vascape wherein he got the greatest victory that ever any Christian Prince before that time obtained against the Turkish Kings with fifteene thousand souldiers He overthrew Abedin Bassa sent against Him most ragingly by reason of a late shamefull losse according to Amuraths instructions by the slaughter of the Hungarians to sacrifice unto the Ghosts of their dead friends and companions with an Army of fourescore thousand fighting men Scanderbeg also was such a Mirrour of Manhood so terrible to the Turkes that nine yeares after His death passing thorow Lyssa where His Body lay buried they digged up His bones with great devotion reckoning it in some part of their happines if they might but see or touch the same and such as could get any part thereof were it never so little caused the same to be set some in silver some in gold to hang about their necks or weare upon their bodies thinking the very dead bones of that late invincible Champion would animate their spirits with strange and extraordinary elevation and vigour Besides an admirable variety of other rare exploits at one time with the losse of sixty Christians He slew Amesa with thirty as some say but at least twenty thousand Turks He kild with His owne hand above two thousand enimies When He entered into sight the Spirit of valour did so work within Him and the fiercenes of His courage so boyled in His brest that it was woont to make bloud burst out at His lips and did so steele His Arme that He cut off many overthwart by the middle But take notice by the way aâ— profession of Christian religion inspired these renowned Worthies with a marchles height of courage and might of spirit so the mixture with Popish Idolatry did then and doth to this day unhappily hinder all thorow successe and constant prevailing against that most mighty bloud-thirsty Turkish Tyrant the terrour of Christendome who drunke with the wine of perpetuall felicity holds all the rest of the world in scorne and is the greatest and cruellest scourge of it that ever the Earth bore And besides that the Idolatry of the Romish Church most principally and with speciall curse blasts and brings to naught all undertakings of the Christian world against that wicked Empire the practise also of some pestilent Principles proper to that Man of sin hath plagued the most hopefull enterprises in this kinde For instance The king of Hungary by the helpe of Hunmades was in a faire course and forwardnes to have tamed and taken downe nay to have for ever crusht and confounded the insolency and usurpations of that raging Nimrod but then comes in the Pope with a beastly tricke and utterly dashes and undoes all For He out of His Luciferian pride by the power or rather poison
unconquerablenesse in torment then affected with the raging paines of a most terrible execution 2. In others from a strong stirring perswasion and consciousnesse of the honesty and honour of some civill cause for which they suffer But fortitude in this case doth not arise from any inspired religious vigour or heavenly infusions but from the severer instigations of naturall conscience and acquired manhood of a meere morall Puritane Many such morall Martyrs have beene found amongst the more generous and well-bred heathen It is storied of a brave and valiant Captaine who had long manfully and with incredible courage with-stood Dionysius the elder in defence of a Citie that Hee sustained with strange patience and height of spirit the mercilesse fury of the Tyrant and all his barbarous cruelties most unworthy of Him that suffered them but most worthy him that inflicted the same First the Tyrant told him how the day before hee had caused his son and all his kinsfolkes to be drown'd To whom the Captaine stoutly out staring Him answered nothing but that they were more happy then himselfe by the space of one day Afterward hee caused him to be stripped and by his executioners to be taken and dragged through the Citty most ignominiously cruelly whipping Him and charging Him besides with outragious and contumelious speeches All which notwithstanding as One no whit dismaide Hee ever shewed a constant and resolute heart And witâ—â— cheerefull and bold countenance went on still lowdly recounting the honourable and glorious cause of His death which was that Hee would never consent to yeeld his Countrey into the hands of a cruell Tyrant With such stoutnesse did even meere morall vertue steele the antient Romane spirits that in worthy defense of their liberty for preservation of their Countrey or other such noble ends They indifferently contemned gold silver death torture and whatsoever else miserable worldlings hold deare or dismall 3. In some from an extreme hardnesse of heart which makes them senselesse and fearelesse of shame misery or any terrible thing This wee may sometimes obserue in notorious malefactours A long rebellious and remorselesse continuance and custome in sinne raging infections from their roaring companions a furious pursuite of outrages and blood Satans hoâ— iron searing their consciences and Gods iust curse upon their fearefull and forlorne courses so fill them with foole-hardinesse and with such a ferall disposition that they are desperately hardned against all affronts and dis-asters So that tho such savage-minded and marble-hearted men be to passe thorow the streetes as spectacles of abhorrednesse and scorne as hatefull monsters and the reproach of Mankind to be throwne into a Dungeon of darknesse and discomfort and there to be loaden with cold irons coldnes and want from thence to bee hurried to that loathed Place of execution and there to die a Dogs death as they say and finally to fall immediately and irrecoverably into a Lake of fire yet I say for all this out of a desperate hard-heartednesse they seeme still to bee in heart and to represent to the beholders a great deale of undauntednesse and neglect of danger in their carriage and countenances O the prodigious Rocke into which the stone in a gracelesse heart may grow both in respect of desperatenesse in sinning and sense-lesnesse in suffering 4. In others from an enraged thirst after humane praise and immortall fame as they call it Which may be so prevalent in them and transport them with such a vaine-glorious ambition this way that it may carry them with much seeming insensibility affected patience and artificiall courage thorow the terrors and tortures of a very violent and Martyr like death Heare what Austin saith to this Point Thinke yee there never were any Catholikes or that now there may not bee some that would suffer onely for the prayse of men If there were not such kind of men the Apostle would not haue said Though I give my body to be burned and have not charity I am nothing Hee did know right well that there might bee some which would doe it out of vaine-glory and selfe-love not for divine love and the glory of God O the bottomlesse depth of Hellish Hypocrisie which lyes hid in our corrupt hearts O the blind and perverse thoughts of foolish men O the murderous malice of that old red Dragon which exerciseth such horrible crueltie both upon our bodies and soules 5. In some from false grounds of a supposed good estate to Godward from an unsound perswasion of their present spirituall well-beeing and future wellfare Such Pharisies foolish Virgines and formall Professours are to bee found in all Ages of the Church especially in the fairest and most flourishing daies thereof and when the Gospell hath the freest passage who thus many times in the greate it of all earthly extremities even upon their Beds of death represent to all about them from a groundlesse presumption of being reconciled unto God a great deale of confidence resolution and many glorious expectations Vpon a partiall survay and perusall of their time past not stain'd perhaps with any great enormities notoriousnesse or infamous sinne out of a vaine-glorious consciousnesse unto themselues of their many good parts generall graces good deedes and plausiblenesse with the most by reason of a former obstinated distaste and prejudice against sincerity and the power of godlinesse as tho it were unnecessary singularity and peevishnesse and it may bee confirmed also unhappily in their spirituall selfe-cousenage by the unskilfull and unseasonable palliations I meane mis-applications of some abused promises unto their un-humbled Soules from some dawbing Ministers a generation of vilest men excellent Ideots in the mystery of Christ and mercifull Cut-throates of many miserable deluded Soules to whom they promise life and peace when there is no peace towards but terrible things even at hand tumbling of garments in blood noise of damned Soules and tormenting in Hell for ever I say from such false and failing grounds as these they many times in that last extremity the Lord not revealing unto them the unsoundnesse of their spirituall estate and rottennesse of their hopes demeane themselues chearefully and comfortably as tho they were presently to set foote into Heaven and to lay hold upon eternall life but God hee knowes without any iust cause or true ground For immediately upon the departure of the Soule from the Body shall they heare that wofull doome from Christs owne mouth as Himselfe hath told us before-hand Depart from mee I never knew you Such men as these having been formerly acquainted with and exercisde in the outward formes and complements of Religion are woont at such times to entertaine their visitants and By-standers with many goodly speeches and Scripture-Phrases representing their contempt of the World Willingnesse to dye readinesse to forgive all the World Hope to bee saved desire to bee dissolved and bee in Heaven c. They may cry aloude with much formall confidence Lord Lord open to
with the Divels painting and false luster carries away captive all carnall men and detaines in a Fooles-Paradise indeed an hellish prison a world of deluded Ones Yet those few illightened Soules whose eyes have been happily opened by spirituâ—ll Eye-salve to turne from darkenesse to light and from the power of Satan unto God behold a double deformity and ouglines in so foule a monster deceitfully dressâ—d in the Divels counterfeite colours and guilded over garishly in His personated Angelical glory 3. It is most filthy Farre filthier then the most stinking confluence of all the most filthy fulsome nasty loathsome things in the world And it must needs bee so For whatsoever a Man can conceive to bee most contrary distant and opposite to the infinite clearenes purity sweetnesse beauty and goodnesse of God all that and much more is sinne in the highest degree Hence it is that in the Scriptures it is compared to the filthiest myre in which a Sow will lie downe to coole and cover her selfe To the loathsome vomite not of a man but of a Dog To the unsavoury poysonfull dampe which rotten Carkases exhale out of opened graves To menstruous filth To the dirt under the nailes or the stinking sweat of the Body or the putrified matter of some pestilent ulcer To the very excrements which Nature having severed froÌ„ the purer part of the meate thrusts out of the stomack casts into the draught To the filthinesse pollutions and impurities of the world so called by a singularity for sin is the transcendent filth of the world To all the uncleannesses for which the Purifications cleansings washings and sprinklings were appointed in the Leviticall Law To abomination it selfe c. Nay and yet further which makes for the further detestation of sinne Whereas all outward filth defiles onely the Body this of sinne by the strength and contagion of it's insinuating poyson soakes thorow the flesh and the bone and enters and eates into the very minde and conscience Tit. 1.15 defiles the pure and immortall Soule of Man How long might wee cast dirt into the Aire before wee were able to infect the bright shining beames of the Sunne Yet so filthy is sinne that at once with a touch it infects the Soule a clearer and purer essence then it and that with such a crimsin and double-â—â—ed staine that the Flood of Noah when all the World was water could not wash it off Neither at that last and dreadfull Day when this great Vniversall shall bee turned into a Ball of fire for the purifying and renewing of the Heaven and the Earth yet shall it have no power to purge or cleanse the least sinne out of the impenitent Soule Nay the fire of Hell which burnes night and day even thorow all eternity shall never bee able to raze it out 4 It is most infectious Spits venome on all sides farre and wide corrupts every thing it comes neare By reason whereof it is fitly resembled to Leaven to a Gangreene to the Leprosie which filthy disease quickly over spreads the whole Body Numb 12.10 Infects the clothes the very Walles of the House Levit. 14.37 c. Posterity 2 King 5.27 The first sinne that eveâ— the Sunne saw was so pregnant with Soule-killing poyson that it hath already damnably polluted all the Sonnes and Daughters of Adam that were ever since and will still by the un-resistable strength of the same contagion empoysâ—n all their natures to the Worlds end Nay at the very first breaking out it suddenly blasted as it were both Heaven and Earth And so stained the beauty of the one the brightnesse of the other and the originall orient newly burnisht glory of the whole Creation that from that houre it hath groaned under the burden of that vanity and deformity to which this first sinne hath made it subject and will travaile in paine under the bondage of the same corruption untill it bee purged by fire in the great Day of the Lord. It but one sinne bee doted upon delightfully and impenitently like a lumpe of Leaven it soures all the Soule defiles the whole Man and every thing that proceeds from Him His thoughts desires affections words actions and that of all sorts naturall civill recreative religious It doth not onely unhallow his meate drinke carriage His buying selling giving lending and all His other dealings in the world even His plowing The plowing of the wicked is sinne Prov. 21.4 But also turnes all his spirituall services and divinest duties His prayer hearing reading receiving the Sacrament c. into abomination If but one raging corruption in a Minister Magistrate Master of a Family as lying swearing filthy-talking scoffing at Religion opposition to godlinesse Sabbath-breaking an humour of Good-fellowship or the like represent it selfe to the eye of the World in His ordinary carriage and hang out as a rotten fruite in the sight of the Sunne it is woont fearefully to infect or offend by a contagious insinuation and ill example all about Him to diffuse it's venome to His Family amongst His Sonnes and Servants over the Parish where Hee lives all companies where hee comes the whole Country round about especially if Hee bee a Man of eminency and Place 5. It is extremely ill A farre greater ill then the eternall damnation of a Man For when Hee hath Ilen many millions of yeeres in the Lake of fire and under the dominion of the second death He is never the nearer to satisfaction for sinne Not all those Hellish â—lames thorow all eternitie can possibly expiate the staine or extingvish the sting of the least sinne Nay the very destruction of all the creatures in the world of Men and Angels Heaven and Earth is a great deale lesse ill then to offend God with the least transgression of His lawes For all the creatures of ten thousand worlds were they all extant come infinitely short in excellency of worth of the Hearts-blood of Iesus Christ. And yet without the effusion of it no sinne could ever have been pardoned nor any Soule saved A man would thinke it a lesser ill to tell a lie then to lie in Hell But heare Chrysostome Altho many thinke Hell to bee the supreame and sorest of all evils yet I thinke thus and thus wil I daily preach That it is farre bitterer and more grievous to offend Christ then to bee tormented with the paines of Hell 6. It is full of most fearefull effects 1. It deprives every Impenitent 1. Of the fauour and love of God the onely Fountaine of all comfort peace and happinesse which is incomparably the most invalue-able losse that can be imagined 2. Of his portion in Christs blood of which tho the drops waight and quantity bee numbred finite and measurable yet the Person that shed it hath stampt upon it such height of price excellency of merit un-value-ablenes of worth that hee had infinitely better have his portion
there must bee a third thing To take them to our selves to beleeve they are ours and there needes a worke of the Spirit for this For tho the promises bee never so cleare yet having nothing but the promises you shall never bee able to apply them to your selves But when the holy Ghost shall say Christ is thine All these things belong to Thee and God is thy Father when that shall witnesse to our spirit by a worke of His owne Then shall wee beleeve c This is the order observed in our iustification 1. First There is a sight of our misery to which wee are brought by the Law 2. Secondly There is by the Gospell an holding forth of Christ as our redemption from sin and death 3. Thirdly there is a working of Faith in the heart to rest on Christ as the ransome from sinne and death Now when a man is come hither Hee is truly and really iust Wee teach that in trve conversion a man must bee wounded in his conscience by the sense of his sinnes His contrition must bee compungent and vehement bruising breaking renting the heart and feeling shee throwes as a woman labouring of Childe before the new-Creature bee brought forth or Christ truly formed in Him It is not done without bitternesse of the Soule without care indignation revenge 2. Cor. 7.11 But as some Infants are borne with lesse paine to the mother and some with more so may the new-man be regenerated in some with more in some with lesse anxiety of travell But surely grace is not infused into the heart of any sinner except there bee at least so great affliction of Spirit for sinne foregoing that He cannot but â—eele it c. This bruising is required before conversion 1. That so the Spirit may make way for it selfe into the heart by levelling all proud high thoughts c 2. To make vs set an high price upon Christs death This is the cause of relapses and Apostasies because men never smarted for sin at the first They were not long enough under the lash of the Law Hence this inferiour worke of the Spirit in bringing downe high thoughts is necessary before conversion By this time it doth most clearly and plentifully appeare what a foule and fearefull fault it is for men either in the managing of their Publike ministery or more private Passages of conference visitations of the sicke consultations about a good estate to Godward and other occasions of like nature to apply Iesus Christ and the promises to promise life and safety in the evill Day to Soules as yet not soundly illightned and afflicted with sight of sinne and sense of Gods wrath to consciences never truly wounded and awaked I insisted the longer upon this Point because I know it full well to bee a most universall and prevailing Policy of the Devill whereby hee keepes many thousands in His cursed slavery and from salvation To confirme as many Pastours as Hee can possibly willing enough to drive their Flocks before them to damnation in an ignorant or affected Preiudice and forbearance of that saving method of bringing Soules out of Hell mentioned before and made good with much variety of evidence And to nourish also in the hearts of naturall men a strong and sturdy disconceite opposition raging against downe-right dealing and those men of God able as they say but falsely and furiously against their owne Soules by their terrible teaching to drive their hearers to distraction Selfe-destruction or despaire who take the only right course to convert them and to bring them to Iesus Christ as Hee Himselfe invites them to wit labouring and heauy laden with their sinnes Matth. 11.28 Dawbers then who serue Satans craft in this kinde and all those who dispence their ministery without all spirituall discretion and good conscience of whom there are too many as great strangers to the right way of working grace in others as to the worke of grace in themselves I say they are a generation of dangerous men Old excellent as they say in an accursed Art of conducting poore blinded Soules merrily towards everlasting miserie and setting them downe in the very midst of Hell before they bee sensible of any danger or discovery of their damnable state Great men they are with the men of this world with al those wise fooles and sensuall great ones who are not willing to bee tormented before their time or rather who desire impossibly to live the life of pleasures in the meane time and yet at last to die the death of the righteous They have still ready at hand hand over head mercy and pardon Heaven and salvation for all commers and all they come neere without so much as a desire to put any difference or divide the pretious from the vile Which is a prodigâ—â—usly-arrogant folly pernicious in the highest degree both to their own soules and those they delude Heâ—â—e 〈◊〉 they are branded in the Booke of God calling them 〈◊〉 Sâ—wers under mens elboes Ezek. 1â— 1â— That 〈◊〉 laid soft and lockt fast in the Cradle of security thâ—â— may sinke suddenly into the Pit of destruction before they be aware Criers of peace peace when no peace is towards Ier. 6.14 but horrible stirs tumbling of garments in bloud burning and devouring of fire A â—â—n-pleasers â—alat 1.10 who chuse rather to tickle the itching eares of their carnall hearers with some fâ—othy Frier-like conceits out of Dung-hill 〈◊〉 And so smooth Great Ones in their humours by their cowardly flatteries especially if they any waies depend upon them for countenance rising and preferment rather then conscionably to discharge that trust 〈◊〉 upon them by their great Lord and Master in Heaven upon answerablenes for the bloud of those Soules which shal perish by their temporizing silence and flattering vnfaithfulnesse Healers of the hurt of their Hearers with 〈◊〉 words Ier. 6.14 while their Soules are 〈◊〉 by the wounds of sinne unto eternall death Preachers of smooth things Isa. 30.10 which kinde of Men the greatest part and all worldlings wonderfully affect and applaud tho to their owne everlasting vndoing They swell under such Teachers with a Pharisaicall conceite that they are as safe for salvation as the precisest of them all but alas their hope is but like a hollow wall which beeing put to any stresse when the tempest of Gods searching wrath begins to shake it in the time of a finall triall of it's truth and soundnesse it shatters into pieces and comes to naught Heare the Prophet Now go write it before them in a table and note it in a booke that it may bee for the time to come for ever and ever That this is a rebellious people lying children children that wil not heare the Law of the Lord which say to the Seers see not and to the Prophets prophesie not unto us right things speake unto us smooth things prophesie deceits Get you out of the way turne aside out
confession and repentance Davids Petition O cleanse thou mee from my secret faults did assuredly prevaile with God for the forgivenesse of all His unknowne sinnes and shall bee powerfull for that end to the worlds end to all those that so pray with Davids spirit and sincerely Besides these two cases first want of knowledge and secondly want of remembrance in the sense I have said There is also a third and that is thirdly want of time which if truly so doth also sometimes excuse the omission of some particular sinnes As wee may see in the Thiefe upon the Crosse. For want of leisure Hee could not possibly punctually revise His vile abominable life nor peruse with remorse all the particulars of His former wicked and abhorred courses But He had infused into His Soule by Iesus Christ an habituall grace of true Repentance which if Hee had lived would have carried Him faithfully along over all the notorious Passages of His lewd and lothsome life with a truly contrite broken and bleeding Soule So that if Hee had had space I doubt not but Hee would have prooved a very eminent extraordinary and exemplary Penitent And therefore the Lord in mercy did gratiously accept the desire and purpose the inclination and preparation of His heart that way But to returne to the Point and give my advise in the Case proposed Let the Party who so takes on for some notorious sin only and there takes up His rest be told That tho He dwell with deepest sighes heaviest heart and saltest teares upon some of His greatest and most speciall sinnes yet the rest must by no meanes bee neglected That which is most crying and crimson must serve as a Cryer that I may so speake to summon the rest into the Court of Conscience and as a Remembrancer to bring them to minde and remorse As Davids murder and adultery brought even His Birth-sinne into His memory Psalm 51. And that sinne of strange wives many other sinnes to Ezra's minde Ezra 9. When a father beates His childe for some one speciall fault He is wont to remember unto Him and reckon with Him for many former mis-demeanours also When a Bankrout is once clapt up for one principall debt the rest of His Creditours ordinarily come thicke and threefold upon Him When once Thou begins to reckon with thy conscience for some one extraordinary rebellion never cease untill thou hast searcht thorowly and ransackt it to the bottome that it may smart soundly before Thou hast done with penitent anguish and true remorse for all thy other sinfull corruptions also When horror for some one hainous sinne hath seiz'd upon thy heart follow Gods blessed hand leading thee to conversion and thorow the Pangs of the New-birth to unspeakeable and glorious joy by giving way to all the rest to bring in their severall inditements against thy Soule And bee not afraid thus to arraigne cast and condemne thy Selfe as guilty of innumerable sinnes and worthy ten thousand Hells before Gods just Tribunall For then shalt thou there most certainely find a gracious Advocate at His right hand To whom if Thou make sute and seeke in truth Hee will by the plea and price of His owne pretious blood sue out a pardon for thine everlasting peace When the guilty rage of thy raigning corruption begins to presse upon thy conscience lay on loade and more weight still by a penitent addition and painefull apprehension of all thy other sinnes that growing very sensible of thy spirituall slavery weary of the Dungeon of lewdnesse and lust sensuality and death wherein the Divell hath kept Thee long and thine heart being happily broken and bruised to the bottome and scorch'd as it were in some measure with Hellish flames of guilty horrour Thou mayst see and feele the greater necessity of Iesus Christ set Him at an higher price with more eagernesse and impatiency thirst for His righteousnesse and blood long for spirituall enlargement more then for worlds of pleasures glory or wealth rellish the hidden Manna of the promises most kindlily and cast thy wounded and bleeding Soule with more delight and sweetnesse into His blessed armes of mercy and love For O how acceptable is the Fountaine of living waters saith a worthy Divine to the chased Hart panting and braying The blood of Christ to the weary and tired Soule To the thirsty conscience scorched with the sense of Gods wrath Hee that presents Him with it How welcome is Hee Even as a speciall choise man One of a thousand The deeper is the sense of misery the sweeter is the sense of mercy The Traytour laid downe upon the blocke is more sensible of His Soveraignes mercy in pardoning then Hee who is not yet attached In our dead security before conversion God is faine to let the Law Sinne Conscience Satan a deepe sense of our abominable and cursed state loose upon us and to kindle the very fire of Hell in our soules that so wee might bee rouzed and afterward more sweetly and soundly raised and refreshed For after the most toylesome labour is the sweetest sleepe after the greatest tempests the stillest calmes Sanctified troubles and terrours establish the surest peace And the shaking of these windes makes the trees of Gods Eden take the deeper roâ—ting I confesse that commonly true Converts at the first touch and turning and after too cry out most of and are extraordinarily troubled with some One capitall sin and that which in their dayes of darknesse and vanitie wasted their conscience most and detained them with strongest entisements and hold-fast in the Divels bondage Hence it was that Zacchaeus was so ready and willing to restore fourefold that so Hee might bee rid of the sting and horrour of His former raigning sinne Luk. 19.8 That blessed Paul as it seemes amongst other dreadfull apprehensions of His former unregenerate courses was so much vexed and wounded in heart for that Hee had been a Persecuter 1. Timoth. 1.13 1. Cor. 15.9 But yet should they take-on never so much houle and roare for that one sinne if besides they did not by the conduct of the blessed Spirit descend also to a more particular acknowledgement confession and repentance of all other knowne sinnes and they ought by clearing the eye of naturall conscience industrious inspection into the pure Cristall of Gods Law discover as many as they can possibly all were nothing Hee which is grieved say Divines for one sinne truly and unfainedly from His heart will proportionably bee grieved for all the sinnes that Hee knoweth to bee in Himselfe If wee favour any one sinne in our heart or life or calling wee cannot enjoy Gods favour If there bee any sensuall lust or secret corruption which a man purposely labours to cover and conceale from Gods pure eye the search of His Word and mortifying grace what hope can Hee have that it is covered with the blood of Christ from the wrath that is to come or warranted by any promise of grace from
the damnation of Hell In a true Penitent there ought to bee an utter cessation from all grosse abandonable sinnes and at least dis-allowance dis-affection and all possible opposition even to un-avoidable infirmities and inseparable frailties of the flesh 5. Fiftly when the Physition of the Soule promiseth mercy and pardon hand over head without that spirituall discretion which is convenient for a matter of so great consequence and requiring such a deale of dexterity in discerning to a man upon His Bed of death who hath formerly bin notorious or onely civill howsoever a meere stranger to the power of godlines and the truth of Profession because now in the evill Day He takes on extremely by reason of His extremity cries out of his sins O I am an hainous horrible and grievous sinner If I were to live againe what would not I doe A World for comfort now and to die the death of the righteous because Hee Howles vpon His bed as the Prophet speaketh and breakes out oftentimes into a roaring complaint of sinne and cry for pardon by reason Hee now begins to feare and feele the revenging hand of God ready to seize upon Him for his former rebellions c. Or when Hee assures Him having been a formall Professour onely and foolish Virgine of blisse and glory because out of a former habituated spirituall Selfe-deceite Hee cries Lord Lord seemes to by-standers very confident that He shal presently receive a Crowne of life thankes God that nothing troubles Him Professes to every one that comes to visite Him that Hee believes and repents with all His heart forgives all the world makes no doubt of Heaven c. Here by the way wee must take notice that many having out-stood the day of their gratious visitation having neglected so great salvation forsaken their owne mercy and iudged themselues unworthy of everlasting life all their life long by standing out against the Ministry of the Word in respect of any saving worke upon their soules and now at length beeing overtaken after the short gleame of worldly prosperity with the boysterous winter-night of death and darkenesse of the evill day may keepe a great stirre upon their dying-Beds or in some great extremity with grievous complaints of their present intolerable misery and former sinfull courses procuring it with incessant cries for ease and deliverance being now caught like wilde Bulls in a Nâ—t full of the wrath of God with earnest and eager â—uing and seeking for pardon and salvation now when worldly pleasures are past and yet bee not truly penitent not soundly and savingly humbled not rightly fitted for Christ and comfort Consider for this purpose Prov. 1.24.28 In the day of visitation God called upon them and stretched out His hands but they refused did not regard set at naught all His counsell and would none of His reproofe And therefore in the Day of vexation when extremity and anguish shall come upon them like a Thiefe in the night a whirle-winde travaile upon a woman suddenly extremely un-avoidably Hee professeth before-hand that then they shall call upon Him but Hee will not answer They shall seeke Him early but they shall not find Him Psal. 78.34.35.36.37 When Gods hand was upon them then they sought him and they returned and enquired early after God c. Neverthelesse they did flatter him with their mouth and they lyed unto Him with their tongues For their heart was not right with Him c. Hos. 7.14 They howled upon their Beds Will not a Dog or a Beast or any unreasonable creature when they are pinched when they are in extremity will they not cry will they not mourne for helpe c. Their cries in the evill Day were not hearty prayers but Howlings upon their Beds Their earnestnesse in such a case is ordinarily like the teares prayers and cryes of a malefactour newly condemned Hee is very earnest with the Iudge to spare Him Hee roares out sometimes and takes on extremely yet not heartily for his former lewdnesse but horribly because Hee must now loose His life Hee seemes now when Hee sees His misery to relent and to bee toucht with remorse but it is onely because hee is like to bee hanged Againe many there are who satisfying themselves and others with a goodly shew of a Forme onely of godlines may upon their last Bed discover and represent to By-standers a great deale of fearelesnesse about their spirituall state much confidence many ostentations of Faith and full assurance and behave themselves as tho they were most certainely going to everlasting blisse when as God knowes their Answer at His just Tribunall must bee I know you not And in truth and triall they have no more part in Christ nor other portion in Heaven then the foolish Virgins and those Luk. 13.26.27 They are so confident not because they have escaped the danger but because they never saw the danger And hence it is that many of them die with as much confidence as the best Christians they have no more trouble then holy men To bee sure I am free from danger and not to know it may beget equall confidence Now concerning the present Case I must tell you that for my part I would not much alter my censure and conceite of a Man's spirituall state whom I have thorowly knowne before for the manner of His death The end of Gods dearest servant after an holy life and unblame-able conversation may not appeare in the eye of man so calme and comfortable as was expected by reason of much tendernesse of conscience some strong temptation spirituall desertion violent distemper of Body or because God would have the manner of His death serue the glory of His justice in hardning those about him who were so farre from being won by His godly life that they heartily hated it or for some other secret and sacred end seene and seeming good to Divine wisedome who ever disposeth every circumstance even of the least affaire most sweetly and wisely And yet this as it doth not prejudice His salvation neither should it His Christian reputation Heare that great Doctor in the Art of rightly comforting afflicted consciences But what if you should die in this discomfort For my part as I my selfe looke for no great things in my death I would not thinke more hardly of you neither would I wish any to iudge otherwise of Gods Childe in that state of death For wee shall not bee iudged according to that particular instant of death but according to our generall course of life not according to our deede in that present but according to the desire of our hearts ever before And therefore wee are not to mistrust Gods mercy in death bee wee never so uncomfortable if so bee it hath been before sealed in our vocation and sanctification On the otherside a notorious wretch which hath swumme downe the current of the times and wallowed in worldly pleasures all his life long may seeme to die
penitently and resoluedly to bee reformed if Hee recover and yet His sorrow of minde but such onely as the terrours of an awaked guilty conscience produce and His resolution to cast away His sinnes onely such as a man hath in a storme to cast away His goods not because hee doth not love them but because hee feareth to loose his life if hee part not with them Or a meere civill Man or formall Professour may upon His Bed of death bee very confident and seeme to bee full of comfort and yet that confidence no other then the strong imaginary ioyfull conceit of a covetous man grasping a great deale of gold in his dreame but when Hee awaketh behold his hands are empty For a more full and cleare apprehension of my meaning and iudgement in the Point let us take a survay of the different and severall kinds of death which ordinarily befall the Godly and the wicked The death of Gods Children are divers 1. Some of their holy and zealous lives doe determine and expire sweetly fairely and gloriously even like a cleare Sunne in a Summers evening without any storme or cloud of temptation and discomfort The darkesome and painefull passages and pangs of death are illightened and sweetned with the shining beames of Gods glorious presence and fast embracement of Iesus Christ in the armes of their Faith So that to them the very ioyes of Heaven and exultations of everlasting rest mingle themselues with those last agonies and expirations of death Their heads are as it were crowned with immortality and endlesse peace upon their beds of death Luther that blessed Man of God died sweetly and triumphantly over Hell the Pope and the Divell My heavenly Father said Hee at his death eternall and mercifull God thou hast manifested unto me thy deare Son our Lord Iesus Christ. I have taught him I have knowne him I love him as my life my health and my redemption whom the wicked have persecâ—â—ed maligned and with iniury afflicted Draw my Soule to Thee After this Hee said as insued thrice I commend my spirit into thine hands thou hast redeemed mee O God of truth God so loved the world that hee gave his onely Sonne that all that beleeve in Him should have life everlasting Ioh. 3. Heare how another blessed Saint of God ended his dayes Having the day before hee died continued his meditation and exposition vpon Rom. 8. for the space of two houres or more on the sudden Hee said O stay your reading What brightnesse is this I see Have you light up any candles To which I answered No It is the Sun-shine for it was about five a clocke in a cleare Summers evening Sun-shine saith Hee nay my Saviour-shine Now farewell world welcome heaven The Day-starre from on high hath visited my heart O speake it when I am gone and preach it at my Funerall God dealeth familiarly with man I feele his mercy I see his Maiesty whether in the body or out of the body I cannot tell God hee knoweth but I see things that are un-utterable So ravished in spirit Hee roamed toward heaven with a chearefull looke and soft sweete voyce but what Hee said wee could not conceive With the Sunne in the morning following raising himselfe as Iacob did upon his staffe hee shut up his blessed life with these blessed words O what an happy change shall I make From night to day From darkenesse to light From death to life From sorrow to solace From a factious world to an heavenly beeing O my deare brethren sisters and friends It pittieth mee to leave you behind yet remember my death when I am gone and what I now feele I hope you shall finde ere you die that God doth and will deale familiarly with men And now thou fiery Chariot that came downe to feth up Eliah carry mee to my happy Hold And all yee blessed Angels who attended the Soule of Lazarus to bring it up to heaven beare mee O beare mee into the bosome of my Best beloved Amen Amen come Lord Iesus come quickly And so hee fell asleepe That this is true the reporter and By-stander that ancient learned reverend Minister of God Master Leygh addeth I say the truth my Brethren I lie not my conscience bearing mee witnesse in the holy Ghost c. 2. Others may end their dayes very uncomfortably in ravings impatiencies and other strange behaviours Nay the fiery distempers of their hot diseases may sometimes even in the Saints of God produce furlous carriages fearefull distractions and some despairefull speeches But these being the naturall effects and issues of melancholike excesses Phrensies and burning Fevers are sins of infirmity in sanctified men For which if they come againe to themselves they actually repent if not they are all undoubtedly by a generall habituall repentance and Gods gratious acceptation thereof pardoned by the Passion of Christ and buried for ever in his bloody death That last and unreversable doome at the dreadfull Tribunall of the ever-living God must passe upon us not according to the violent and unvoluntary distempers at our last houre but according to the former Passages of our life the sinfull or sanctified expense of the daies of health Heare that other great Artist in the Mysterie of dealing with trouble consciences The common opinion is that if a man die quietly and goe away like a Lambe which in some diseases as consumptions and such like any Man may doe then hee goes straight to heaven but if the violence of the disease stirre up impatience and cause franticke behaviours then men use to say there is a judgement of God serving either to discover an Hypocrite or to plague a wicked man But the truth is otherwise For indeede a man may die like a lambe and yet goe to Hell and one dying in exceeding torments and strange behauiours of the body may goe to heaven 3. The death of some others is mixt to wit of fearefull tempestuous stormes and almost if not altogether despairefull agonies in the beginning of their last sicknesse and a faire refreshing glorious calme and ioyfull triumphs over temptations and feare towards the conclusion of their life For some secret end and holy purpose seeming good to his heavenly wisedome God suffers sometimes even his dearest servants to taste as it were of the fire of Hell and for a while to feele in their consciences those damned flames as a preparative to drinke more sweetly of the Well of life and Rivers of endlesse pleasures So himselfe is most honoured by helping when all hope is past The heart of his Child more ravisht with the first sight of those un-utterable joyes beeing suddenly rais'd to the height of happinesse from the depth of horrour The enemies to the narrow way dasht and confounded by observing his deliverance whom out of prophane blindnesse they deemed an Hypocrite Godly Christians gratiously reviv'd when they see That tho the Lord hide His face from his Childe for a moment
yet at last with everlasting kindnesse will Hee have mercy on Him And that Hee will never utterly and finally forsake any of His. Thus died those blessed Servants of God Mistris Bretergh Master Peacock c. Mistris Bretergh in the heate of temptatioÌ„ wished that she had never bin borne or that she had bin made any other creature rather then a woman But when that Hellish storme was over-blowne by the returne of the glorious beames of the Sun of righteousnesse into Her Soule She turnd her tune and triumphed thus Oh happy am I that ever I was borne to see this blessed Day I confesse before the Lord his loving kindnesse and his wonderfull workes before the sons of men For hee hath satisfied my Soule and filled my hungry Soule with goodnesse Master Peacocke in the height of His dreadfull Desertion told those about Him that hee converst with Hell-â—ounds That the Lord had cursed him That Hee had no grace That it was against the course of Gods proceeding to save Him c. But when that horrible tempest of spirituall terrours was happily disperst and the light of Gods comfortable countenance begun to shine againe upon His most heavy and afflicted spirit Hee dis-avowed all inconsiderate speeches as hee called them in his temptation and did humbly and heartily aske mercy of God for them all And did thus triumph What should I extoll the magnificence of God which is unspeakeable and more then any heart can conceive Nay rather let us with humble reverence acknowledge His great mercy What great cause have I to magnifie the great goodnesse of God that hath humbled Nay rather exalted such a wretched miscreant of so base condition to an estate so glorious and stately The Lord hath honored mee with his goodnesse I am sure hee hath provided a glorious Kingdome for mee The joy which I feele in my heart is uncredible 4. Some of Gods worthiest Champions and most zealous servants doe not answere the unreprooveable sanctity of their life and unspotted current of their former conversation with those proportionable extraordinary comforts and glorious Passages upon their beds of death which in ordinary congruity might be expected as a conuenient conclusion to the rare and remarkeable Christian cariages of such blessed Saints So bottomlesse and infinitely un-fathomable by the utmost of all created vnderstandings are the depths of Gods most holy waies and His inscrutable Counsells quite contrary many times to the probable conclusions of Man's best wisdome But every one of His sith he certainly passes thorow those pangs into pleasures and joyes endlesse and unspeakeable must be content to glorifie God to be seruiceable to His secret ends with what kinde of death Hee please whether it bee glorious and untempted or discomfortable because of Bodily distempers and consequently interpretable by undiscerning spirits or mingled of temptations and Triumphs or ordinary and without any great shew or remarkeable speeches after extraordinary singularities of an holy life which promised an end of speciall note and admiration Why may not some worthy heavenly-minded Christians sometimes by strong mortifying meditations and many conquering fore-conceits of death in their life time make it before-hand so familiar and easie unto them an by continuall conversing above and constant peace of conscience taste so deepely of spirituall ioyes that that dreadfull Passage out of this life as it may breede no great sense of alteration in themselves so no extraordinary matter of speciall observation to others Of the wicked and those who were ever strangers to the mystery of Christ and truth of godlinesse Some die desperately Tho thousands perish by presumption to One of these who despaire yet some there are to whom upon their beds of death all their sins are set in order before them and represented to the eie of their awaked consciences in such griesly formes and so terribly that at the very first and fearefull sight they are presently struck starke dead in soule and spirit utterly over-whelmed and quite swallowed up with guilty and desperate horrour So that afterward No counsell or comfort no consideration of the immeasurablenesse of Gods mercy of the unvaluablenesse and omnipotency that I may so speak of Christs bloud shed of the variety excellency of gracious promises of the losse of their owne immortall soules can possibly drive and divert from that infinitely false conceite and cursed Cry My sinnes are greater then can bee pardoned Whereupon most miserable and forlorne wretches they very wickedly and willfully throw themselves into Hell as it were upon earth and are damned above ground Thus the Lord sometimes for the terror of others glorifying his owne iustice bringing exemplary confusion upon impenitent obstinacy in sinne and willfull opposition to grace doth in greatest indignation by the hand of divine vengeance unclaspe unto them the Booke of their owne Conscience and of His owne holy Law In one of which they find now at length all their innumerable iniquities transgressions and sinnes engraven with the Point of a diamond enraged with Gods implacable wrath aggravated with the utmost malice of Satan And never to bee razed out or remitted but by the bloud of the Son of God in which they peremptorily professe themselves to have no part In the other they see the fiercenes and fulnesse of all the curses plagues and torments denounced there and due unto all impenitent sinners ready to bee poured upon their bodies and soules for ever And no possibility to prevent them no waies to decline them but by Gods infinite bounty thorow Iesus Christ in which they also utterly disclaime all right and interest And therefore they are now finally and desperately resolved to looke for no mercy But in their owne judgement and by their owne confession stand reprobates from Gods covenant and voide of all hope of His inheritance expecting with unspeakeable terrour and amazement of spirit the consummation of their miserie and fearefull sentence of eternall damnation They are commonly such as have been grosse Hypocrites like Iudas and lien in some secret abomination against the knowledge of their hearts all their life long that have followed still their owne sensuall wayes and course of the world against the light of the Ministry standing like an armed man in their consciences to the contrary who have been Scorners and Persecutours of the power of godlinesse and the good way who have abjured the Gospell of Iesus Christ and forsaken the Truth for honour wealth or worldly happinesse To whom the Lord in their life-time vouchsafed many mercies much prosperity great meanes of salvation long forbearance c. And yet they stood out still they still hated to bee reformed set as naught all His counsell and would 〈◊〉 of His â—â— proofe Wherefore the Day of gratious visitation beeing once expired a thousand Worlds will not purchase it againe Heaven and Earth cannot recall it No mercy no comfort no blessing can then bee had tho they seeke it with teares
cause of damnation is their false persuasion and groundlesse presumption of salvation Of all the foure kindes of death which ordinarily befall such as are not saved this is the fairest in shew but yet of greatest imposture to those about them and of most pestilent consequence to harden especially all of the same humour that heare of it 4. Some die Penitently But I meane seemingly so not savingly Many having served their appetites all their lives and lived in pleasure now when the Sun of their sensuall delights begins to set and the darke midnight of misery and horrour to seize upon them would very gladly bee saved And I blame them not If they might first live the life of the wicked and then die the death of the righteous If they might have the earthly Heaven of the worlds Favourites here and the Heauen of Christs Martyrs in the world to come These Men are woont in this last extremity to take on extremely But it is but like their Howling upon their Beds Hos. 7.14 Because they are pinched with some sense of present horror and expectation of dreadful things They cry out mightily for mercy But it is no other then their early seeking Prov. 1.28 Because distresse and anguish is come upon them They enquire eagerly after God and would now bee gladly acquainted with Him But just like them Psal. 78. When Hee slew them then they sought Him and they returned and enquired early after God And they remembred that God was their Rocke and the high God their Redeemer Neverthelesse they did flatter Him with their mouth And they lyed unto Him with their Tongs For their heart was not right with Him They promise very faire and protest gloriously what mended men they will bee if the Lord restore them But all these goodly promises are but as a morning cloud and as the early dew They are like those of a Thiefe or murtherer at the Barre which beeing now cast and seeing there is now no way but one O what a reformed man would Hee bee if Hee might bee reprieved Antiochus as the Apocryphall Booke of the Maccabees reports when the hand of God was upon Him horribly vowed excellent things O what Hee would doe so and so extraordinarily for the people of God! yea and that He Himselfe also would become a Iew and goe through all the world that was inhabited and declare the power of God But what was it thinke you that made this raging Tyrant to relent and thus seemingly repent A paine of the bowells that was remedilesse came upon Him and sore torments of the inner parts So that no man could endure to carry him for His intolerable stinke And He himselfe could not abide His owne smell Many may thus behaue themselves upon their Beds of death with very strong shewes and many boisterous representations of true turning unto God whereas in truth and triall they are as yet rotten at heart roote And as yet no more comfort upon good ground belongs unto them then to those in the fore-cited Places And if any spirituall Physition in such a case doe presse it hand over head or such a Patient presume to apply it it is utterly misgrounded mis-applied Heare what One of the worthiest Divines in Christendome saith Now put case One commeth to His ghostly Father with such sorrow of minde as the terrours of a guilty conscience usually doe produce and with such a resolution to cast away His sinnes as a Man hath in a storme to cast away his goods not because Hee doth not love them but because Hee feareth to lose His life if Hee part not with them doth not hee betray this mans soule who putteeh into His head that such an extorted repentance as this which hath not one graine of love to season it withall will qualifie Him sufficiently for the receiving of an absolution c. And another excellently instructed unto the Kingdome of Heaven Repentance at death is seldome sound For it may seeme rather to arise from feare of iudgement and an horrour of Hell then for any griefe for sinne And many seeming to repent affectionately in dangerous sicknesse when they have recovered have been rather worse then before It is true that true Repentance is never too late but late Repentance is seldome true For here our sinnes rather leave us then wee them as Ambrose sayes And as Hee addes Woe bee unto them whose sinne and life end together This received Principle among the ancient Fathers That late Repentance is rarely true implyes that it is often false and unsound and so by consequent confirmes the present Point Too manifold experience also makes it good Amongst many for my part I have taken speciall notice of two The one beeing laboured-with in prison was seemingly so extraordinarily humbled that a reverend Man of God was mooved thereby to bee a meanes for his reprive whereupon a Pardon was procured And yet this so extraordinary a Penitent while death was in his eye having the terror removed returned to His vomit and some two yeeres after to the same Place againe as notorious a Belial as Hee was before Another having upon His Bed of sicknesse received in His owne conceite the sentence of death against Himselfe and beeing pressed to humiliation and broken-heartednesse for Hee had formerly been a stranger and enemy to purity and the power of godlinesse answered thus My heart is broken and so broke out into an earnest confession of particular sinnes Hee named uncleannesse stubbornnesse obstinacy vaine-glory hypocrisie dissimulation uncharitablenesse covetousnesse luke-warmenesse c. He compared himselfe to the Thiefe upon the Crosse. And if God saith Hee restore mee to health againe the world shall see what an altered man I will bee When hee was prest to syncerity and true-heartednesse in what hee said Hee protested that hee repented with all his heart and Soule and minde and Bowels c. And desired a Minister that stood by to bee a witnesse of these things betweene the world and Him And yet this Man upon His recovery became the very same if not worse then Hee was before Now sith upon this Perusall of the different deaths incident to the godly and the wicked it appeares that some men never soundly converted may in respect of all outward representations die as confidently and comfortably in the conceite of the most as Gods dearest Children and that Christs best servant sometimes may depart this life uncomfortably to the eye and in the opinion of the greatest part And wee heard before that our last and everlasting Doome must passe upon us according to the syncerity or sensuality the zealous forwardnes or formality of our former courses and not according to the seeming of our last carriage upon Bed of death and enforced behaviour in that time of extremity I say these things beeing so I hold my conclusion still and resolution not much to alter my censure and conceit of a mans spirituall state for
undiscreet heaping a great deale of comfort there where as yet a good ground-worke of true humiliation is not soundly laid Many and lamentable are the spirituall miseries in those Places where such Dawbers with untempered morter domineere who never passed thorow the Pangs of the New-birth themselves were never feelingly acquainted with the wonderfull dealings of God in that great Miracle of a Mans conversion nor trained up experimentally in the Schoole of temptations painefull exercises of mortification and counter-minings against the Depths Wiles Devises and stratagems of the Divell The blessed Prophet paints them out to the life and denounces a dreadfull woe against such flattering and foolish Prophets Ezech. 13. A Ship-Master skilfull onely in Astronomy and other speculative Passages of the Art of Navigation is no body in conducting Men safely over some dangerous Sea to Him that besides sufficiencies of Art is furnisht also with experimentall skill in those Parts by passing formerly that way Himselfe and having discovered those dangers of ruine and hidden Rockes which the other Man might easily runne upon Give me a Man in whom variety and profoundnesse of best learning doth concurre in the highest degree of excellency yet if his owne heart bee not soundly wrought upon and seasoned with saving grace Himselfe experimentally seene into the Mystery of Christ and Secrets of sanctification as Hee shall bee hardly able to wound other mens consciences and pierce them to the quicke so Hee will bee found very unfit to manage aright the spirituall miseries of a troubled Soule and to transport it savingly thorow the tempestuous terrours and temptations incident to the New-creation into the Port of true peace and Paradise of the blessed Brother-hood A right dreadfull and tender Point it is to deale with distressed consciences so many depths of Satan and deceits of Mans heart mingle themselves with businesse of so great consequence Even a well-meaning Man without much heedfulnesse and good experience both in the Point and the Party may erre dangerously and bee much deceived herein I have heard from a Man of conscience and credit besides many and many in the same kind of a fearefull imposture to this purpose A man who for the world was well enough visited with some trouble of minde for his sinnes sent for a Minister to minister comfort Hee it seemes not sounding Him to the bottome or searching to the quicke heaped upon Him unseasonably and too soone mercies and hopes of spirituall safety Amongst other things Hee asked Him whether formerly Hee had ever felt testimonies and refreshings of Gods favour and love Yea answered the Party and here take notice of a notorious depth of the Divell Once riding alone upon the way in such a Place I grew upon the sudden very lightsome and light-hearted c. This was but a flash of Satans Angelicall glory cunningly to lighten and leade him the way to further confusion Why then replied the Minister you may build upon it God is constant in His favours and whom Hee loves once Hee loves for ever Hereupon the Patient was presently healed of his wounded heart and after fell unto his former courses and grew fully as prophane as Hee was before Amongst the many important Passages of our Ministeriall imployments I feare mee this waighty affaire of visiting the sicke is passed-over also more is the pitty with much ignorance slightnesse and neglect It is incredible to consider how fearefully many offend and what a deale of hurt they doe by observing one plodding generall forme and that a poore one too towards all Patients promiscuously without any judicious discretion in distingvishing the variety of spirituall states the different degrees of unregeneratenesse former courses of life c. Commonly their carriage in such Cases is the same to the notorious sinner the meere civill Man grosse Hypocrite carnall Gospeller formall Professor Back-slider the weake and strong the tempted and untempted Christian. If they but heare from the sicke Man a generall acknowledgement of his sinnes formall cries for mercy and pardon earnest desires to die the death of the righteous c. which may bee easily and ordinarily found in a Pharisie or foolish Virgine as you have heard before they will presently needs threape Him downe that He is as sure a saved Man as if Hee were in Heaven already Herein resembling saith Marbury a foolish Shepheard who wanting skill to helpe his poore sheepe out of the ditch is driven to play the miserable comforter and to take some other indirect course as many use to doe in such case to cut the sheepes throate in time to make him Mans meate left it should bee said Hee died in a ditch Many and many a time doe such fellowes as these empty and discharge their common-Place Bookes of all the Places of mercy and comforte collected curiously and industriously for that purpose upon those Men who were never acquainted with the waies of God in their life-time nor with the truth of humiliation or truly with the great worke of Repentance upon their Beds of death Those formall Church-men who stood about Marshall Biron that great Peere and Pillar of France at his death did in this respect very ill offices of Ghostly Fathers unto Him in his greatest neede and last extremitie For when Hee behaved himselfe more like a furious Divel already amongst the damned spirits in blasphemies impatiencies and most raging passions then a meeke and humble Saint of God ready to passe into everlasting Mansions of peace they notwithstanding out of their Popish divinity gave him this absolution assuring Him that His soule was ready to see God and to bee Partaker of his glory in Heaven When it had been farre fitter to have driven him to the sight of his sinnes sense of that dreadfull houre terrour of that strict Tribunall to which hee was ready to passe and fearefulnesse of that infernall fiery Lake from which no greatnesse can priviledge gracelesse Men. I feare me there are many Trencher-Chaplaines of the true Religion also who are ready to doe proportionable service to ungodly great Ones upon whom they depend by promising them life But many and dreadfull are the mistakings and miseries which fall upon the Soules of Men both Patients and By-standers by these flattering formall visitations and Funerall Panegyricks which ordinarily follow after Happy then and hopefull is that Man who in the troubles of His Soule meetes with that One of a thousand Iob 33.23 with those Sonnes both of Consolation and thunder who are as able ready and willing rightly to binde up a bruised spirit with the Baulme of mercy and promises of life as to breake in pieces a stubborne heart with the terrours of the Law Who as they labour in the first Place to fright and fire men out of their sinfull courses into penitent dejections of Conscience a needfull preparative to a saving conversion so they have learned both speculatively and experimentally to conduct them thorow the Pangs of the
salvation and loathnesse to believe adds in an other Place to ordinary invitation a stirring compassionate and quickning compellation or rather exclamation Ho saith Hee Isa. 55.1 Every one that thirsteth come yee to the waters c. And lest any thinke Hee shall come to His cost or should bring any thing in His hand Hee calls upon Him that hath no money and thus doubles His cry Come yee buy and eate yea come buy wine and milke without money and without price O most blessed and sweetest lines So full of love and longing to draw us to the Well of life that besides that holy pang of compassion and excitation Ho Hee cries thrice Come Come Come Yea but mayst thou say Alas I am so farre from bringing any thing in my hand that I bring a world of wickednesse upon my heart and that above ordinary both in notoriousnesse and number and therfore I am afraid the hainousnesse of my sinnes will hinder my acceptation tho the invitation bee most sweet and pretious Be it so yet the Spirit of God in the same Chapter doth purposely meet with and remoove that very scruple Let the wicked saith He forsake His way and the unrighteous man His thoughts And this is thy Case Thou art unfainedly set against all sinne both inward and outward and let him returne unto the Lord and Hee will have mercy upon Him and to our God for He will abundantly pardon verse 7. Hee will not onely have mercy upon thee but Hee will also abundantly pardon Hee will multiply His pardons according to thy provocations and that with super-abundance Rom. 5.20 4. If all this will not yet doe Hee descends out of the infinite riches of his grace to a miracle of further mercy For the mighty Lord of Heaven and earth sends Ambassadours unto us dust and ashes wormes and no men to beseech us to bee reconciled unto Him Now then we are Ambassadors for Christ as though God did beseech you by us wee pray you in Christs stâ—ad be ye reconciled unto God 2. Cor. 5 20. What man can possibly ponder seriously upon this Place but must bee transported with extraordinary admiration nay adoration of the bottomlesse depth and infinite height of Gods incomprehensible everlasting and free love We most abhorred vile wretches are the Offenders Traitors Rebels enimies and ought to seek and sue unto Him first upon the knees of our soules trembling in the dust and if it were possible with teares of blood and yet He begins unto us intreating us by His owne Son and His servants the Ministers to come in accept His favour and grace enter into the wise and good way which is pretious profitable honorable and pleasant that He may hereafter set upon our heads everlasting Crownes of glory and blisse An earthly Prince would disdaine and hold it in foule scorne to send unto His inferiour for reconcilement especially who had behaved Himself basely unworthily towards Him and justly provoked His royall indignation Would not the King of Spaine thinke you so great a Monarch hold it an inexpiable dishonour and indignity to send Embassadours now and sue unto the Hollanders so farre below Him for reconcilement and peace promising and assuring them of an entire restitution and exercise of all their ancient rights priviledges liberties and fundamentall Lawes that they should not need to feare that greatest tyranny and severest kind of persecution under heaven the Spanish Inquisition that He would resume His former Oath the Popes dispensation for which begun all the trouble c. Rather then He would do it He hath paid already a good while since above an hundred millions and the lives of above foure hundred thousand men And is still spending abundance of gold and blood It is thus indeede with wormes of the earth in whom there is no helpe and whose breath is in their nostrills But it is otherwise with the King of Kings who sitteth upon the Circle of the Earth and the inhabitants thereof are as Grashoppers and the Nations as the drop of a Bucket who bringeth the Princes to Nothing and maketh the Iudges of the Earth as vanitie Hee is content to put up at our hands this indignity and affront if I may so speake He is glad to sue unto us first and send His Ambassadours day after day beseeching us to bee reconciled unto Him O incomprehensible Depth of unspeakeable mercy and Encouragement to come in and trust in his mercy in case of spirituall misery able to trample under foot triumphantly all Oppositions of the most raging Hell or distrustfull heart 5. Nay Hee commands us And this is his Commandement that wee should beleeve on the Name of his Sonne Iesus Christ 1. Ioh. 3.23 This command alone of rhe All-powerfull God should infinitely out-weigh and prevaile against all other counter-maunds of Heaven or Earth flesh and blood Satan nature reason sense the whole Creation all the World It should swallow up all scruples doubts feares despaires Comming to Iesus Christ with broken hearts according to this Commandement It will beare us out against all oppositions accusations weaknesses of faith in the evill times in the houre of temptation upon our beds of death at that last and greatest day It will be a plea at such times utterly above all exception against all allegations terrours and temptations to the contrary to say I was humbled under the burden of sinne and sense of my spirituall misery God in mercy offered mee His Sonne Iesus Christ freely in the Mysterie of the Gospell by the Ministry of the Word I thereupon thirsted infinitely for His Person and pretious blood that I might thereby obtaine pardon and power against my sinnes Hee called upon mee and commanded mee to drinke my fill of the Water of life freely I accepted His gracious Offer and according to His Commandement cast my selfe upon the Lord Christ against all the contradictions of carnall reason and Sophistry of Satan and since that time Hee hath given mee power to serve Him in syncerity of heart This is my ground and warrant even the Commandement of my blessed God Thus to drinke when I was thirsty Against which the gates of Hell can never possibly prevaile In thy Case then who thirsts extremely and upon free Offer yet refusest to drink consider how unworthily thou dishonours God and wrongs thine owne Soule by suffering the Divels cavils and the groundlesse exceptions of thine owne distrustfull heart to prevaile with thee against the direct Command of Al-mighty God which thou oughtest to obey against all reason sense feares doubts despaires and Hellish suggestions Abraham the Father of the Faithfull did readily and willingly submit to Gods Commandement even to kill His owne onely deare Sonne with His owne hand naturally matter of as great griefe as could possibly pierce the heart of a mortall man And wilt thou beeing broken-hearted stand off from believing and refuse when Hee commands Thee
comest with thy cost Whereas God ever gives His Sonne freely and bids thee come and welcome and buy without money and without price Obiect 2. But will it not bee presumption in mee having no good thing in mee at all to bring with mee but comming now as it were fresh out of Hell from a most wicked impure abominable life to take Christ as mine owne and all those rich and pretious promises sealed with his blood Answ. Enough hath been already said to meete with this objection It is not presumption but good manners to come when thou art called How can Hee bee said to presume who is both invited and intreated commanded and threatned to come in c. Of which see before Thou must now in this extreme spirituall thirst of thine drinke of the water of life so freely offered that thou mayst receive some heavenly strength to bee good and power to become the Sonne of God Thou must throw thy sinfull Soule upon Iesus Christ bleeding and breathing out his last upon the Crosse as the Body of the Shunamites Childe was applyed to the Prophet stretching himselfe upon it That thou mayst thereby bee quickened with desired fruitfulnesse filled by little and little with all the fulnesse of God receiving grace for grace I am the resurrection and the life saith Christ Hee that believeth in me tho He were dead yet shall Hee live It were execrable presumption for any Man who purposeth to goe on in the willing practise or allowance of any one knowne sinne to believe that Christ is His righteousnesse and sanctification But where all sin is a Burden every promise as a world of gold and the heart syncere for a new way there a Man may be bold For thee to have pretended part in Christ wallowing yet in thy sinnes had been horrible presumption indeed and for mee to have applyed the Promises and preached peace unto thy remorselesse conscience before the Pangs of the New-birth had seazed upon thee had been damnable dawbing But in the Case I now suppose Thee to bee it is both seasonable and surely grounded for mee to assure thee of acceptation and pardon and for thee to receive Iesus Christ without any more adoe into the armes of thy humbled Soule 2. His sweet Name Exod. 34.6.7 Wherein is prevented whatsoever may any wayes bee pretended for standing out in this Case as appeares fully before pag. 415. line 25. 3. His glorious Attributes 1. His Truth Hee that believeth hath set to His Seale that God is true Ioh. 3.33 He that labours and is heavy laden with the burden of sin comes to Christ for case when Hee is called takes Him for his Saviour and His Lord and thereupon grounds a resolute unshaken and everlasting confidence that hee is His for ever puts to his Seale that Christ is true that His pretious promise Come unto mee all yee that labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest Mat. 11.28 is inviolable Whereby Christ Iesus blessed for ever is mightily honoured His truth glorified and thine owne soule with extraordinary blessednesse everlastingly enlived But Hee now that retires in this Case and holds off makes Him who is Truth it selfe a lyar Hee that believeth not God hath made Him a Lyar 1. Ioh. 5.10 Now what a fearefull indignity is this against the Lord God of Truth Wee see too often how miserable mortall men wormes of the earth take such an affront at the hands one of another For many times for the Lie given them they throw themselves desperately upon the irrecoverable ruine of their lives states soules and posterity by chalenging the field and killing each other Which dishonour to the mighty Lord of heaven and earth is the greater and is much aggravated by the infinite infallibility of the promises For besides His Word which were more then immeasurably sufficient Hee hath added a most solemne Oath for our sakes that wee might have greater assurance and stronger consolation 2. His Mercy most directly and specially And to say nothing of the freenesse of His mercy which springs onely out of the riches of his infinite bounty and the good pleasure of His will of his readinesse to forgive otherwise the death of Christ should bee of none effect His blood shed in vaine the greatest worke lost that ever was done of His delight in mercy Mich. 7.18 Mercy in man is a quality in God it is His nature and essence Now what wee doe naturally wee doe willingly readily unweariedly As the eye is not weary of seeing the eare with hearing c. A Bee gives honey naturally never stings but provoked When God is angry it is but as it were by accident upon occasion drawne unto it by the violent importunity of our multiplied provocations but Hee delights in mercy c. I say to say nothing of these this one consideration may convince us of extreme folly in refusing mercy in such a Case for all the hainousnesse or number of our sinnes to wit That no sinnes either for number or notoriousnesse in a truly broken heart can make so much resistance to Gods infinite mercies as the least sparke of fire to the whole Sea and that is little enough Nay as infinitely lesse as an infinite thing exceedes a finite Betweene which there is no proportion 3. His Power For thou art very like thus or in the like manner to reason within thy selfe and cavill cruelly against thine owne Soule Alas what talke you of taking Christ the promises of life and heavenly lightsomnesse my poore heart is as darke as the very middle of Hell much harder then a Rocke of Adamant as cold and dead as the senselesse Center of the earth as uncomfortable and restlesse almost as desperation it selfe c. It is more then infinitely impossible that such a darke hard dead comfortlesse Thing should ever bee enlightened softened quickened and established with joy c. But marke how herein thou unadvisedly under-valewes and unworthily sets bounds to the unlimited power of God Whereas thou shouldest imitate Abraham the Father of all them that believe who staggered not at the Promise of God through unbeliefe but was strong in faith giving glory to God And beeing fully perswaded that what Hee had promised Hee was able also to performe Rom. 4.20.21 Bee advised in this Case 1. To compare these two things together The making of the seven Starres and Orion and turning the shadow of death into the morning And the infusion of heavenly light into thy darke and heavy heart And doest thou not think that the second is as easie as the first to the same Omnipotent hand Nay it is easier in our conceit to the Divine Majesty nothing is difficult or un-easie For those glorious shining Constellations were created of nothing and nothing hath no disposition to any Beeing at all much lesse to any particular existence But a Soule sensible and weary of it's spirituall darknesse is
alwayes observed for a speciall difference betwixt good and bad men that the one hated sinne for the love of vertue the other only for the feare of punishment The like difference doe our Adversaries make betwixt Contrition and Attrition That the hatred of sin in the one proceedeth from the love of God and of righteousnesse in the other from the feare of punishment And yet teach for all this that Attrition which they confesse would not otherwise suffice to iustifie a man being ioyned with the Priests absolution is sufficient for that purpose Hee that was attâ—ite being by vertue of this Absolution made contrite and iustified that is to say hee that was led only by a servile feare and consequently was to bee ranked among disordered and evill persons being by this meanes put in as good a Case for the matter of the forgivenesse of his sinnes as hee that loveth God syncerely For they themselves doe grant that such as have this servile feare from whence Attrition issueth are to bee accounted evill and disordered men c. But leaving these blind Pharisies in the endlesse Maze of their inextricable errours untill it please the Lord to illighten them and by a strong hand pull them out which I heartily desire and will ever pray I come to prosecute mine owne Point 2. Secondly If you aske mee when trouble for sinne is saving I would answer when it is true If you further demand when it is true I would say when it drives Thee utterly out of thy Selfe and to sell all in the sense I have said before and brings thee with a syncere thirst and setled resolution to Iesus Christ to live and die with Him as a Saviour and a Lord and is accompanied with an universall change in Body Soule and Spirit 3. Thirdly take notice of such considerations as these 1. God beeing a most free Agent doth not tie Himself constantly unvariably to ordinary expected set and the same formes measures times proportions of his waies and workings upon his Children For Hee is wise without limit and above measure and therfore hath many secret and glorious ends and aimes which according to His good pleasure much diversifie the meanes serviceable and subordinate thereunto From whence may spring these three Conclusions 1. Hee may for the most part create in the heart of the true Convert terrours and troubles of Conscience amazements and mourning answerable in some good measure to the varietie vanity and villany of His former wicked waies and lewd life As appeares before in Manasses the sinnefull Woman Idolatrous Israelites Hearers of Peter and many in these dayes if it were convenient to name them For the most part saith a great Divine the violence of humiliation in the Calling of a sinner is according to the continuance and greatnesse of His actuall transgressions According to the same is the rent in the conscience and Soule Therefore if there bee any who hath been a great and grievous sinner and hath not with violence been pulled from his sinne Hee may doe well to suspect and search Himselfe soundly 2. Hee may sometimes suffer a notorious sinner â—â— passe something more easily and unterribly thorow thâ— Pangs of the New-birth But then such a One is woont to walke more humbly before God all His life after for that Hee was not humbled with more remarkeablenesse of penitent remorse and spirituall angvish in His conversion And so extension and continuance of Godly griefe that Hee was not more grieved makes up as it were that desired intension and extremity of pangs which might justly have pained Him in His passing from death to life Every hearty and sensible complaint that the Pangs of the New-birth were not more painefull and proportionable to the pollutions of His youth is as it were and in the sense I have said a Pang of the New-birth Or else upon some occasion afterward in His Christian course Hee may bee revisited and vexed afresh with more terrour and trouble of conscience then in His first change As in such Cases as these first If Hee should which God forbid by some volent enticement and snaring opportunity bee entangled againe and re-infected with any former sensuall pleasure of His unregenerate time or by neglect of His care and watchfulnesse over His waies bee suddenly surprised with some new scandalous sin Secondly upoÌ„ the assault of some extraordinary frighting temptation or pressing of hideous thoughts upon his melancholick imagination Thirdly when some heavy crosse or sicknesse after many prosperous daies shall seize upon Him which may lye sore and long Fourthly upon His Bed of death especially if Hee fall upon it immediately after some relapse backsliding or new wound of Conscience There is a kinde of naturall power besides Gods speciall hand in sicknesse sorrow darknesse melancholy the night extraordinary crosses the Bed of death to represent the true number and hainousnesse of sinnes with greater horror and more unto the life Whereas prosperity health and daies of peace doe rather delude the eyes of the conscience and like false and flattering glasses make those foule Fiends seeme fairer then they are indeede And therefore the christian especially that I speake of beeing outwardly distressed cast upon His Bed of death or any waies extraordinarily visited by Gods hand seeing his sinnes upon the sudden marshalled and marching against Him moe in number and more fiercely then heretofore may for the while bee surprised and exercised with unexpected terrour untill by meditation upon Gods former speciall mercy unto Him in spirituall things upon the markes and effects of His Change upon the uprightnesse of His heart towards God in the daies of health upon those testimonies and assurances which His ChristiaÌ„ friends can give Him of His beeing in a gracious state with such like holy helpes And so in cold blood and above all resolving to sack so ever fast to the Lord Iesus tho He kill Him Hee bee raised againe from such dejections of spirit to the â—oonteâ— confidence and comfort of His interest in Christ and salvation of His Soule Here by the way let none think it strange that even the dearest servants of Christ may bee re-visited with more horrour of conscience afterward then at their first turning on Gods side As appeares in Iob Ezechiah David in Miâ—â— Brettergh Mr. Peacock c. See before pag. 84. l 21. 31. Besides the proposed Cases this revisitation may befall them also Fifthly For their owne triall This was the end as it may seeme why Iob was set up as a marke for the envenomed Arrowes of the Almighty to aime at and whole armies of terrours to fight against Hee approoved Himselfe to be steele to the backe as they say by that victorious ejaculation Cap. 13.15 Though He slay mee yet will I trust in Him Whereby God was mightily honoured Satan utterly confounded that controversie whether Iob feared God for nought or no gloriously ended on Gods
from between the teeth of bloody persecuting Wolues 2. Tim. 4.17 Secondly Sometimes Hee takes away or lessens the sting and fury of the torment and torturers The fire had no force at all over the bodies of those blessed men Dan. 3.27 And no doubt in Queene Maries dayes of most abhorred memory Hee many times mollified and sweetned the rage and bitternesse of those mercilesse flames for our Martyrs sakes Thirdly Sometimes he supports and supplies them with supernaturall vigour and extraordinary courage over the smart and rigour of the most terrible and intolerable tortures The heart of that holy Proto-Martyr Steven was furnished and filled with those heavenly infusions of spirituall strength and ioy when the Heavens opening He saw the glory of God and Iesus standing on His right hand which were gloriously transcending and triumphant over the utmost of all corporall paine and Iewish cruelty And so graciously dealt He with many other Martyrs in succeeding ages as we may reade in Ecclesiasticall Stories Fourthly Hee may sometimes also out of His mercifull wisdome put into their hearts such a deale of Heaven before-hand and ravishing comforts of the World to come that the excesse thereof doth swallow up and devoure as it were the bitternesse of all bodily inflictions and sufferings of sense Thus mercifully dealt Hee with that worthy Martyr Master Robert Glover even when He was going towards the Stake He poured into His Soule upon the sudden such over-flowing Rivers of spirituall joyes that no doubt they mightily abated and quencht the ragefull fury of those Popish flames wherein Hee was sacrificed for the Profession of the Gospell of Christ and Gods everlasting truth And assuredly that comfortable Sun-shine of unexpresse-able joy which by the good hand of God was shed into Master Peacocks sorrowfull heart in the depth of His darkenesse and desertion a little before the resignation of His happy Soule into the hands of God did make the pangs of death and that dreadfull Passage a great deale lesse painefull and sensible if not very lightsome and pleasant Now in both these men of God a wofull spirituall dereliction was a fit introduction and immediate preparative to the effusion of such a sudden torrent of strange exultations and ravishments of spirit upon their sad and heavy hearts Conceive the Point then thus The Lord sometimes even in tendernesse and love to His owne deare Children whom Hee designes for extraordinary sufferings may purposely possesse them with such a Paradise of divine pleasures as a counter-comfort to the extremity of their paines that besides their owne private refreshing and support their couragious insensibility and victorious patience thereupon may bring a great deale of terrour to their tormentors glory to their Mercifull Maister credit unto the cause and confusion to the enemies of grace And that there may be an addition of more heart and life to such joyfull elevations of spirit and that He may make the excellency of that spirituall joy proportionable to the exquisitnes of their tortures and trouble He may in His unsearchable wisedome make way thereunto by a spirituall desertion As Hee did in the fore-named glorious Martyr Master Glover For want of the sense of the comforts of godlinesse for a season doth make our Soules a thousand times more sensible of their sweetnesse upon their re-infusion 8. Eighthly Thus may the Lord sometimes deale with His best and dearest Children even by withdrawing the light of His countenance leave them for a while to these inward conflicts and confusions of spirit that thereby they may bee fitted and informed with an holy experimentall skill to speake feelingly and fully to the hearts of their Christian Brethren which may afterward bee tempted and troubled as they have been For God is woont at all times in His Church so gracious is Hee purposely to raise up and single out some speciall men whom Hee instructs and enables in the Schoole of spirituall experiments and afflictions of Soule with extraordinary dexterity and Arte to comfort and recover other Mourners in Zion in their distresses of consciences stronger temptations spirituall desertions decaies of grace relapses Eclipses of Gods face and favour wants of former comfortable feelings in case of horrible thoughts and hideous injections darkenesse of their owne spirits and such other Soule-vexations And such a blessed Physition which is able to speake experimentally to a dejected sorrowfull heart out of practise and sense in His owne Soule is farre more worth both for a true search and discovery and sound recovery and cure of a wounded conscience then an hundred meere speculative Divines Such an One is that One of a thousand spoken of by Iob which can wisely and seasonably declare unto His Soule-sicke Patient the secret Tracks hidden Depths of Gods dealings with afflicted spirits Let us take instance in those experimentall abilities which David gained for such a purpose by His passing thorow that most grievous spirituall desertion Psal. 77. The Case of that Christian were most rufull both in His owne fearefull apprehension and to the un-judicious 〈◊〉 the Beholders who having spent a long time 〈◊〉 Zealous professiō of the Truth walking with God and secret communion with Iesus Christ should come to that passe and fall into those wofull straights of spirituall trouble First That Hee should feare not without extraordinary horrour lest the mercies of God were departed from Him for ever and that the Lord would never more bee intreated or ever shine againe with his favourable countenance upon His confounded Soule Secondly that the very remembrance of God which was woont to crowne his heart with a confluence of all desire-able contentments should even rent it asunder and make it fall to pieces in His bosome like drops of water Thirdly That the pouring out of His Soule with pittifull groanes and complaints in secret unto His God which heretofore did set wide open unto Him heavenly flood-gates of gracious refreshing should now quite overwhelme His spirit with much distracted amazement and feare Fourthly That that heart of His which had formerly full sweetly tasted those holy pleasures which farre passe the comprehension of any carnall conceit should now be so brim-full and damm'd up with excesse of griefe that no vent or passage should bee left unto His speech Fifthly And which Mee thinkes is the perfection of His misery in this kinde that amidst all these heavy discomforts His Soule should refuse to bee comforted That tho the Ministers and Men of God stand round about Him bring into His minde and presse upon Him the pregnant evidences and testimonies of His owne godly life the unchangeablenesse of Gods never-failing mercies to His the sweetnesse of His glorious Name the soveraigne power and mighty price of His Sonnes blood the infallible and inviolable pretiousnesse and truth of the promises of life c. Yet in the agony and angvish of His grieved spirit Hee puts them all away from 〈…〉 none of His nor as properly belonging to His
His soule in the Bundle of the living for ever now especially when Hee preferres the love and light of His countenance before life and would not willingly offend Him in the least sinne for all the World c. Let Him yet proceede further in Davids foot-steps and strengthen His fainting Soule with all that heavenly Manna of richest mercy which Hee hath heard read or knowne to have been showred downe at any time from the Throne of Grace into the heavy humble and hungry hearts of His afflicted hidden Ones Let Him refresh His memory with consideration of Davids deliverance by this meanes from deeper distresse Of that most memorable and triumphant resurrection as it were and recovery of those three worthy Saints of God Master Glover Mistris Bretâ—ergh Master Peacocke from greatest â—â—tremitie in this kinde into most un-utterable joyfull exultations of spirit And so of others within the Register of His observation remembrance and reading But principally and above all Let Him live and die Let Him rest and recreate Himselfe for ever with surest hold fast and sweetest thoughts upon that heavenly and healing Anti-type of the Red Sea the pretious Blood of the Lord Iesus And let Him ground upon it that tho Satan with all His hellish Hosts and utmost fury pursue his fearefull Soule like a Partridge in the mountaines even to the very brinke of despaire and mouth of Hell yet even then when all rescue and deliverance is neerest to bee utterly despaired of For it is the Crowne of Gods glorious mercy to save when the Case seemes desperate and there is no hope of humane helpe or possibility of created power to comfort I say then that Soule-saving Sea of His Saviours hearts-blood will most certainely and seasonably open it selfe wide unto Him as it did to those above-named blessed Saints and swallow up into victory Hell Death the Grave Damnation the present wofull desertion with all other adversary power and at length make Him a faire and pleasant passage thorow the sweetned pangs of death into the heavenly Canaan which flowes with joyes and pleasures un-mixed and endlesse more then either Tongue can tell or heart can thinke 9. Ninthly a spirituall desertion may seeme a proportionable fit and most proper punishment and meanes to correct and recover the Christian which out of infirmity and feare deserts the Lord Iesus and the Profession of His blessed Truth and Gospell If any bee ashamed of Him refuse to doe or suffer any thing for His sake who hath given unto us His owne hearts-blood it is most just that in such a Case Hee withdraw Himselfe in respect of all sense and feeling of divine favour and fruites of grace or any comfortable influence at all upon the Consciences of such Cowardâ—â— that so they being left to the darkenesse of their owne spirits and by consequent to the taste even of Hellish horrour for the time they may bee brought againe to themselves and taught by such terrours to returne and become infinitely more willing to embrace the Stake if the times should bee so cruell and kisse the instruments of death then langvish any longer in the despairing extremities of such a desertion to acknowledge it incomparably better to passe thorow the temporary bitternesse of Popish fire then to bee abandoned to everlasting flames Nay and that which is the greater Hell to bee robbed of and rent from Him in whose glorious presence alone is not onely life and all lightsomnesse even in this life but also fulnesse of ioy and pleasures for evermore in the life to come This Point appeares and is prooved by Gods dealing with some of our Martyrs in Qveene Maries time Thomas Whittell a blessed Martyr of Iesus was by the wicked suggestions of some Popish incarnate Divels drawne to subscribe to their Hellish Doctrine But considering in cold blood what Hee had done was horribly vexed and as Hee reports of Himselfe felt Hell in his conscience and Satan ready to devoure him Which terrible desertion and trouble of minde made Him quickly returne with great constancy and fortitude and turne a most invincible and un-mooveable Martyr Heare some passages from His owne Pen. The night after I had subscribed I was sore grieved and for sorrow of conscience could not sleepe For in the deliverance of my Body out of bonds which I might have had I could finde no ioy nor comfort but still was in my conscience tormented more and more c. And I said to Harpesfield sc. That my Conscience had so accused mee through the iust iudgement of God and His Word that I had felt Hell in my Conscience and Satan ready to devoure Mee And therefore I pray you Master Harpsfield said I let mee have the Bill againe for I will not stand to it When the Lord had led Mee to Hell in my Conscience through the respect of His fearefull iudgements against mee for my fearefulnesse mistrust and crafty cloaking in such spirituall and weighty matters yet Hee brought mee from thence againe c. See also the Story of Iames Abbes and Thâ— Benbridge Gentleman Act. and Monuments pag. 1864.2246 10. Tenthly God is many times forced by their frowardnesse luke-warmenesse worldly-mindednesse cowardlinesse Selfe-confidence falling from their first-love and other such spirituall distempers to visite and exercise His Children with variety and sometimes severity of crosses and corrections as losses in their outward state afflictions of Body disgraces upon their good name oppression by great Ones discomforts in Wives Neighbours Friends Children c. upon purpose to put life quicknesse fruitfulnesse and forwardnesse into them that thereby they may bee more gloriously serviâ—cable to Himselfe more profitable to others and more provident to treasure up peace unto their own Soules against an evill Day God humbleth us saith a worth Divine by afflictions and pricketh the swelling of our pride Hee cutteth and loppeth us to the end wee may bring forth the more fruit Hee filleth us with bitternesse in this life to the end wee might long for the life to come For those whom God afflicteth grievously in this World leave it with lesse griefe Hee who hath formed us to feare Him knoweth that our praiers are slacke and cold in prosperity as proceeding from a spirit that is cooled by successe and which are endited by custome The cries which our owne will produced are feeble in comparison of those which griefe expresseth Nothing so ingenious to pray well as sorrow which in un instant formeth the slowest tongues to an holy eloquence and furnisheth us with sighes which cannot be expressed c. But now many times this Physicke which pincheth onely the Body and wasteth us but in things of this World doth not so worke as Hee would have it and therefore Hee is constrained in love and for our good to proceede to more sharpe and searching Medcines to apply more strong and stirring Purges which immediately vexe the Soule As horrible and hideous injections A spirituall Desertion and
feriunt 〈◊〉 verberant Ergo tanquam â—â—elerum malitia suâ—â—tesâ—es extirpare funditùs nituntur tollere grauesque sibi putant tanquam vita eorum coarguatur Lactant. Lib. 5. cap 9. d Iob 20. a Caeterum vultu facie satis valens mente intellectu constantissimus memorià potentissimus nunquam eadem verba bis repetit venientes omnes ad se recipit sermones doctos graves ac maturos profert se iusto Dei judicio damnaâ—â—â— se jam in inferno esse inde inenter cruciari Optare se in loco Iudae Caini esse Gribaldi epist. de tremendo divini judicij exemplo c. pag. 38. Immisit Deus ex illà horâ in cor ejus vermem corrodentem ignâ—m inextinguibilem ut horrore Confusione desperatione subitò repleretur Qui vermis ignis nunquam exinde illum dereliquerunt ut se longè deteriâ—ri in statu testetur quà m si separatâ à corpore animà cum iuda Cain caeteris damnatis esset desiderans se loco cujusvis mortui damnati esse pottus quà m si in corpore vivere Ibid pag. 43. b Tom. 5. Serm. contra Gulam caeteras corporis volupt Producamuâ— homines duos in medium quorum alier lasciviae sit voluptatibus deditus alter verò prorsus sit his rebus demortuus c. Adeamus istorum domos Inveniemus certe alterum libris incumbentem vacantem rei divinae abstinentiae vel rebus necessarus incumbentem habentemque cum Deoser â—onemâ— de rebâ—s coelestibus dissâ—rentem Angelum potiùs agentem quà m hominem Alterum verâ— madentem mero-dantem operam lasciviae-debacchantem delicijs incumbentem non solùm vivendo 〈◊〉 mortem sed esse mortuis longè inferiorem perniciosioremque Daemone agitato furijs Vbi verò dies illuxit amâ—ttit omnem quam ex lasciviâ ceperat voluptatem si â—â—dem Familiam ob muâ—murantem insectantem se â—urgio conjugem objurgantes amicos â—â—â—micos ludibrio se habentes recognoscit * Quis igitur qui mentis sit compos non potiùs optet mille obire mortes quà m diem unum hanc vitam degere * I say Ordinarily 1. First because Sometimes 〈◊〉 notorious Ones and yet without all 〈…〉 may represent to the eye of un-judicious By-standers whereby they are 〈…〉 fearefully hardened a notable shew of dying well In my time saith the French Aâ—thor of Essaies Three of the â—ost exercrâ—ble persons that ever I knew in all 〈…〉 and the most infamous have been seene to die very orderly and quietly c. I have also my selfe oâ—served some of higher place notorioâ—sly wicked who by their cariage in their last sicknesse have suggested conceits especially to those who were willing to be hardned by their deaths that they made a good end as they say whereas they had no true touch in Conscience at all or feeling remorse for their former extreamely sinfull life Which is occasioned sometimes by the un-skilfulnesse of some spirituall Physitions about them who are ready to dawbe and draw a skin only over their un-searched sinfull sores now at their death as they were to play the Men-pleasers and Sow-pillowes under 〈…〉 in their life time Fellowes as excellent in palliate Cures as utterly un-acqâ—ainted with the mystery of comforting afflicted Consciences aright and speaking seasonably to such as lie upon their last Bed Heare Master Marburies censure of such Mountebaâ—ks This intolerable defect saith He meaning of experimentall knowledge in Ministers 〈…〉 it selfe more shamefully or with greater hurt then when Men have 〈…〉 death or in time of great affliction for at such times 〈…〉 want shall to helpe their poore sheepe out of the ditch are 〈…〉 and to take some other indirect course as many use to 〈…〉 in time to make him Mans meate lest it should be said He 〈…〉 2. Secondly because Some One of them perhaps I know not amongst how many thousands may be â—â—ke the Thiefe upoÌ„ the Crosse. 3. Thirdly because Tho meete civil 〈◊〉 utterly estranged from the life of godlinesse all their life long for the most part may make a calme quiet and peaceable end in the eye and estimate of the world which was never able to distinguish a secure blockishnesse from an holy security Observation whereof hardeneth a world of people in their unsaving state Heare Greenâ—ams doome of such a death They dye saith He like blockes And yet the ignorant 〈…〉 such fearefull deaths sayâ—â—â— he departed as meekely as a Lambe he went 〈…〉 shall when they might as well say but for their fether-bed and their 〈…〉 and perâ—shed like an Oxe in a ditch I say tho this sort of Men for the most part die so yet I have knowne some such upon the very first thought they should certainely die to have fallen into desperation and could never be recovered And altho many fâ—rmaâ—l Professours may goe to Hell with many gâ—od speeches and Lord Lord in them 〈…〉 appeares in the fâ—â—lâ—sh Virgins and those in the seuenth of Mattheww yet I â—ave â—nowne of some of them who have died very fearefully indeede and full of cruely desperate horrour Hos. 13.8 Isa. 66.15 Deut. 32.22 * Inter omnes tribulationes humanae animae nulla est major tribulatio quà m conscientia delictorum Namque si ibi vulnus non sit sanumqâ—e sit intus hominis quod conscientia vocatur ubicunque alâ—bi passus fuerit tribulationes illuc confugiet ibi inveniet Deum Si autem ibi requies non est propter abundantiam iniquitatum quoniam ibi Deus non est quid facturus est homo Quò confâ—giet cum caeperit patitribulationes Fugiet â—bâ—gro ad civitatem à publico ad domum à domo ad cubiculum sequitur tribulatio A cubiculo jam quò fugiet non habet nisi interius ad cubile suum Porrò si ibi tumultus est si fumus iniquitatis si sâ—aâ—nmasceleris non illuc potest confugâ—re Pellitur enimâ—nâ—e cum inde pellitur à seipso pellitur Et ecce hostem suum invenâ—â— quò confugerat seipsum quò fugiturus est Quocunque fugerit se talem trohit post se quocunque talem traxerit se cruciat se. In Psalm 46. p. 502. Poena autem vehemenâ— multò saevior illis Quaâ— Coeaitius gravis invenit Roadamanthus Nocte â—iâ—que suum gestare in pecture teâ—â—em * Let us not bee Scotners lesters and Deriders for that is the uttermost token and shew of a Reprobate of a plaine enemy to God in his wisedome Hom. Of some places of Scriptures by which some take offence P. 2. ** 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Thâ—ssal 2.16 a Shee prefer'd Iohn Baptâ—stâ— head before the halfe of Herod's kingdome Mark 6 2. b 〈…〉 rursâ—s haec in seâ—psam trâ—nssert â—llius verba quasi ad ejus ignominâ—am â—lâ—ta exissimans aliud conetlium Episcoporum contra eum cogendum curat Quâ re intellectâ