not as certainly now as he shall do in his sickness And yet in health these wretches will not be awakened so much to fear it as may restrain them from sin and help them to prepare for it It 's troublesome precise talk with them to talk of making ready to die Either they slight it or love not to hear or think of it And yet the same men when death is coming and they see they must away are even amazed with fear and horror And I cannot blame them unless they were in a better case But this I must blame them for as most unreasonable that they can make such a lamentable complaint when death and Hell are near hand and yet make so light of it all their life time CHAP. XXXIX Answer to their doubts that fear death BUt because this is the hardest part of self-denial and yet most necessary and the particular subject of my Text I shall stay upon it yet so much longer as to resolve a question of some doubting Christians and to give you some Directions for the furtherance of self-denial herein Object If it be a necessary part of self-denial to deny our own lives I am much afraid that I am no Disciple of Christ as having no true self-denial For I find that for all these Reasons I cannot be willing to die but when you have said all that can be said death is the most terrible thing in the world to me Answ I pray you lay together these following particulars for answer to this great and common doubt 1. Death as death is naturally dreadful to all and the best men as men are naturally averse to it and abhor it No man can desire death as death nor ought to do it If it had not been an evil to nature it had not been fit to be the matter of Gods punishment and to be Threatned to the world Threatnings would not do their work if that which is threatned were not naturally evil or hurtful and dreadful to the subject To threaten men with a benefit is a contradiction as much as to promise him a mischief and more 2. It is not therefore a simple Displacency or Averseness to die that God requireth you to lay by Self-denial consisteth not in reconciling us to Death as death For then he might as well perswade us to become Angels as to deny our selves and Preachers had as hard a work to do as to perswade men to cease to be men Death will be an enemy as long as it is death Even the separated soul hath so natural an inclination to union with its Body that the separation is part of the penalty to it And though heaven be their joy and Christ their life and fulness yet the separation from the body which they have even with Christ is a penalty and they have not that perfect measure of Joy and Glory as they shall have when they are joyned in the body again So that separation as such is penal to the soul in blessedness And even the separated soul of Jesus Christ that was more blessed than ours was as separated in a state of penalty when his body was in the grave Of which see my Appendix to the Reformed Pastor about the Descent into Hell 3. That which you have to look after therefore in your souls is not a love to death or willingness to death as death which no man hath or should have but it is 1. A Submission to it as a less evil than sin and Hell and the Displeasure of God and a choosing rather to die than wilfully to sin and forsake the Lord. 2. And a Love to that glory in the fruition of God which death is the passage to Seeing we cannot obtain the end of our faith and patience by any easier passage than death you must rather be content to go this strait and grievous way than miss of the state of eternal blessedness Let death be never so odious and dreadful to you if you had but rather die than forsake Christ by sin or miss of everlasting life with God you have that true self-denial even of life it self which is required in my Text. 4. And yet even a gracious soul may be so much unprepared as to desire to stay yet longer on earth though he be absent from the Lord while he is present in the body that so a better preparation may be made And also the love of God may make a man desire to stay yet longer for the service of the Church or to be with Paul in a strait between two Phil. 1. 21 22 23. 5. Have you not such pleasant apprehensions of the New Jerusalem and the coming of Christ in glory and the blessed state of the Saints in heaven as that you could most gladly enter into that blessed state by any other way than death And had you not rather die than miss of that felicity At least when you know that die you must had you not rather die sooner even a violent death by persecution than miss of your eternal life by saving your lives a little longer 6. And for your unwillingness to die as death is the last enemy to be conquered by Christ at the Resurrection so the fears of death and the power of it is the last evil that we shall be troubled with and you must not expect to be fully freed from these fears in this life for death will be death and man will be man But yet let me tell you that before you die God may very much abate your fears and very ordinarily doth so with his servants 1. By giving them that grace that is suited to a dying state and 2. By the help of sickness and pain it self And that is one great reason why sickness shall usually go before death that pain and misery may make the flesh even a weary of it self and make the soul a weary of its companion and both a weary of this miserable life And now I shall briefly name some few Directions which if you will practise you will more easily submit to death CHAP. XL. Directions to be willing to die Direct 1. BY all means endeavour the strengthening of your Belief of the Reality of eternal life and the truth of the promise of Christ concerning it For if you Believe it not you cannot die for it nor chearfully submit to a natural death through the hopes of it This is the sum or principal work of the Christian faith to Believe the everlasting life as procured for us by the love of the Father the Obedience Death Resurrection and Intercession of the Son and the Sanctification of the Holy Ghost It is the unsoundness or the weakness of this Belief that is the principal cause of our unwillingness to die Direct 2. By all means endeavour to get and maintain the Assurance of your Title to this Promise and Felicity Get sound evidence and keep it clear Expunge all blots without delay Take heed of such sin as woundeth Conscience
the burdens that are here upon you which should make you long to be with God One would think the feeling of them should force you to consideration and weariness of them and make the thoughts of rest to be sweet to you Have you yet not sin enough and sorrow and fear and trouble enough Or must God lay a greater load on you to make you desire to be disburdened Every hour you spend and every creature you have to do with afford you some occasion of renewing your desires to depart from these and be with Christ Direct 7. Observe and magnifie that of God which is here revealed to you in his word and works Study him and admire him in Scripture study and admire him in the frame of nature And when you look towards Sun or Moon or Sea or Land and perceive how little it is that you know and how desirable it is to know them perfectly think then of that estate where you shall know them all in God himself who is more than all Study and admire him in the course of Providences study and admire him in the person of Christ in the frame of his holy life in the work of Redemption in the holy frame of his Laws and Covenants study and admire him in his Saints and the frame of his holy Image on their souls This life of studying and admiring God and dwelling upon him with all our souls will exceedingly dispose us to be willing to come to him and to submit to death Direct 8. Live also in the daily exercise of holy Joy and Praise to God which is the heavenly Employment For if you use your selves to this heavenly life it will much incline you to desire to be there Exercise fear and godly sorrow and care in their places but especially after Faith and Love be sure to live in holy Joy and Praise Be much in the consideration of all that Riches of grace in Christ communicated and to be communicated to you And be much in Thanks to God for his mercies and chearing and comforting your soul in the Lord your God And thus the Joy of Grace will much dispose you to the Joys of glory the Peace which the Kingdom of God consisteth in will incline you to the peace of the everlasting Kingdom and the chearful Praising of God on Earth in Psalms or other ways of Praise will prepare and dispose you to the heavenly Praises And therefore Christians exceedingly wrong their souls and hinder themselves from a willingness to be with God in spending all their days in drooping or doubting or worldly dulness and laying by so much the Joy of the Saints and the Praises of God Direct 9. Dwell on the believing fore-thoughts of the everlasting glory which you must possess Think what it is that others are enjoying while you are here and what you must be and possess and do for ever Daily think of the Certainty Perfection and Perperuity of your Blessedness What a life it will be to see the blessed God in his Glory and taste of the fulness of his love and to see the glorified Son of God and with a perfected soul and body to be perfectly taken up in the Love and Joy and Praises of the Lord among all his holy Saints and Angels in the heavenly Jerusalem You must by the exercise of Faith and Love in holy Meditation and Prayer even dwell in the Spirit and converse in Heaven while your bodies are on earth if you would entertain the news of death as beseems a Christian But of this at large elsewhere Direct 10. Lastly if you would be willing to submit to death resign up your own understandings and wills to the wisdom and the will of God and Know not good and evil for your carnal selves but wholly trust your lives and souls to the Wisdom and Love of your dearest Lord. Must you be carking and caring for your selves when you have an Infinite God engaged to care for you O saith self I am not able to bear the terrors and pangs of death O saith Faith My Lord is easily able to support me and it is his undertaken work to do it My work is but to Please him and it 's his work to take care of me in life and death and therefore though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death yet will I fear no evil O saith Self I am utterly a stranger to another world I know not what I shall see nor what I shall be nor whither I shall go the next minute after death None come from the dead to satisfie us of these things O but saith Faith My blessed Father and Redeemer is not a stranger to the place that I must go to He knows it though I do not He knows what I shall be and do and whither I shall go and all is in his power And seeing it belongs not to me but to him to dispose of me and give me the promised reward it is meet that I rest in his understanding And it is better for me that his Infinite Wisdom dispose of my departing soul than my shallow insufficient knowledge I may much more acquiesce in his knowledge than my own O but saith self I fear it may prove a change of darkness and confusion to my soul what will become of me I cannot tell O but saith Faith I am sure I am in the hands of Love and such Love as is Omnipotent and engaged for my good and how can it then go ill with me If I had my own will I should not fear And how much less should I fear when I am at the will of God even of most Wise Almighty Love There is no true Centre for the soul to Rest in but the Will of God It is our business to Obey and Please his Will as dutiful Children and to commit our selves contentedly to his Will for the absolute disposal of us It is not possible that the Will of an Heavenly Father should be against his Children whose desire and sincere endeavour hath been to Obey and Please his Will And therefore learn this as your great and necessary Lesson with Joyful Confidence to Commit your selves and your departing souls to your Fathers Will as knowing that your Death is but the execution of that Will which is engaged to cause all things to work together for your good Rom. 8. 28. And say with Paul I suffer but am not ashamed for I know whom I have believed and I am perswaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed to him against that day 2 Tim. 1. 12. 1 Tim. 4. 10. Therefore we labour and suffer because we trust in the living God who is the Saviour of all men especially of those that believe say therefore as Job Though he kill me yet will I trust in him Or rather as Christ Father into thy hands I commend my Spirit Luke 23. 46. If the hands and Will of the Father was the Rock and
against Nature to consent to die but when it is for him that is the Lord and end of life it is agreeable to Nature that is though it be against our natural inclination as we are Animate and Sensitive yet is it agreeable to our true nature as reasonable And therefore lay all together it is to be said to be agreeable to Nature simply in such a case because it is agreeable to the Principal part in nature which should be predominant It is agreeable to nature also that Reason should dispose of the inferiour powers of the soul Object But when you have said all that you can as long as you plead against my nature I cannot consent to what you say words are but wind To perswade me to consent to die is as much as to perswade me not to feel when I am hurt or to be hungry or thirsty or sleepy which are not in my power because these things are Natural Answ 1. Though hunger and thirst and other natural and sensitive appetites or passions be not in your power yet a consent of the will to deny these is in your power As natural as it is to hunger and thirst your superiour faculty of Reason can prevail with you to suffer hunger and thirst in a Siege or sickness when the suffering of it will save your life You will be ruled by your Physician to forbear not only many a dish but many a meal which your appetite desireth And your Reason can perswade you to suffer the opening of a vein and the drawing out of your own blood yea or the cutting off a member when it is to save your life for all that feeling and self-love is natural to you And you are not acquainted with the nature of Friendship if you would not suffer much for a friend nor with humane affections if you would not suffer much for parents or children or your Country so that your will is free though your sense be not free nor your natural appetite Though you cannot choose but feel when you are hurt you might consent to that feeling for a greater good 2. And according to the tenour of this Objection you may as wisely and honestly plead for most of the wickedness of the world and say It is natural to me to lust and therefore I may play the Adulterer and fulfil it It is natural to me to desire meat and drink and therefore I may eat and drink as long as I desire it It is natural to me to seek to hurt those that I am much angry with or hate and therefore I may beat or kill them If you must deny the Passions and sensitive appetite and the inferiour faculties of nature in one thing why not in another These lower powers were made to be ruled by reason as beasts are made to be ruled by men and more And therfore seeing this Argument from Nature is but from the bruitish part of Nature it is but a brutish Argument And if yet you say that for all these words Death is so great an enemy to you that you cannot choose it I answer that is because your reason is not illuminated and elevated by faith to see the Necessity of choosing it and to see those higher and better things which by this means you may obtain Had you that heavenly life of faith and love which the spirit worketh in the Saints it would carry you above this present life and take you up with higher matters and shew you that and so shew it you as should procure your own consent to die But because this is the great point that Christ doth purposely here try our self-denial by and a point of such great necessity to be look'd after I shall stay a little longer on it while I give you first some Reasons to move you and 2. Some Directions to assist you to get a self-denying submission to Death when Christ requireth it The many lamentable defects in grace which the inordinate fear of death doth intimate I have already opened in the fourth part of the Saints Rest and therefore may not now repeat them but shall add some few Considerations more CHAP. XXXVIII Twenty Reasons for denying Life 1. COnsider that Our Lives are not our Own but God that doth require them is the Absolute Lord of them More truly than you are owner of any thing that you have in the world is he the Owner of your lives and you And therefore both in Reason and Justice we should be content that he dispose of his own If he may notfreely dispose of you your lives you may as well deny him the dispose of any thing and so deny him to be God for he hath the same right to you as to any thing else and the same power over you And therefore if you consent that he shall be God for which he needs not your consent you must consent that he be the Owner and Disposer of all and of you as well as all things else Otherwise he is not God 2. You can be content that the lives of others yea that all the world be at Gods dispose In reason you cannot wish it should be otherwise You are content that the lives of Emperors and Kings that are greater than you should be at his Dispose And is there not the same Reason that he dispose of your life as of theirs Are you better than they or more your own or hath the world more need of you than them or rather is it not unreasonable selfishness that makes so unreasonable a difference with you If Reason might serve the case is plain 3. You are contented that far greater matters than your lives should be at Gods dispose The Sun in its course the frame of nature Heaven and Earth and all therein are at his dispose and would you wish it otherwise Days and Nights and Summer and Winter and times and seasons are at his dispose and you dare not murmur that all the year is not Summer or day-light and that there is any Night or Winter The Angels of Heaven are at his dispose to do his will and are content to be used on earth for your service and they desire not to be from under his dispose And should you desire it or rather desire that his will may be done on earth as it is in Heaven If you would not have the Crowns and Kingdoms of the world at his Dispose and Heaven and Earth are at his Dispose you would not have him to be God But if you would have these greatest things at his dispose what are you then that your lives should be excepted 4. Whom would you have to be the Disposer of mens Lives but God Is any other fit for the undertaking No other can give life but he And no other can preserve and continue it but he If your life had been in any creatures hand you had been dead long ago For no creature is able to uphold it self much less another also Is
And from each of them we partake of an answerable Nature As is the Earthy such are they that are earthy even all of us in our fleshly state having earthy bodies from an earthy Adam and natural bodies from the natural Adam And as is the heavenly such are they that are heavenly for Christ makes men like himself even first gracious and then glorious as Adam begets us like himself that is natural and sinful And therefore all those that have followed Christ in the Regeneration shall follow him into Glory and having conquered by him shall reign by him and with him and having received the holy nature here which is the seed of glory they shall receive the glorious nature there which is the perfection of that Grace And so as Christ hath an heavenly spiritual body and â—â—â— an earthy natural body so shall his Members have that they may be like him And as we have here born the image of the earthy in having first a natural fleshly body we shall also bear the Image of the Heavenly Adam in having a spiritual body that is not fleâ—â— Now lest any doubt of it saith the Spirit of God this I say that Flesh and Blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God neither doth Corruption inherit incorruption 1 Cor. 15. 42. to 51. Object If there were but as much likelihood of a Resurrection as there is of the Reviving of the plants in the Spring I could believe it for there is a life remaining in the Root or Seed but the body of man hath neither Root nor seed of life and therefore it 's contrary to nature that it should revive Answ 1. If it be above nature that is all it is not contrary to it Or not so contrary as to be above the power of the Lord of nature Will you allow no greater works for God than such as you can see a reason of and can assign a natural cause of what did Nature in the creation of nature It was not certainly any cause of it self If Christ rose without a natural cause even so shall we 2. But why may I not say that the dead body of man hath a living Root as truly as the plants in winter The soul is the Root of the body and the soul is still alive And Christ is the Root of the soul and he is still alive For though we are dead yet our Life is hid with Christ in God and when Christ who is our life shall appear at the Spring of Resurrection then we shall also appear with him in Glory Col. 3. 3 4. And though there be no Physical contact between this living soul and the body yet there is a Relative Union and a deep rooted Love of the soul to its body and inclination to it so that it is mindful of it and waiteth with longing for that hour when the command of God shall send it to revive that body It is not incredible that a silly snail should by its natural life and power make for it self a beautiful habitation Or that the life of a Rose-tree that was buried in the root should fabricate a sweet and beauteous Rose by which it may make an ostentation of its invisible self to the world In how small a room doth the life of a silk-worm lie of which I spoke before in the winter That little grain or seed is such as yields no sign of life to the beholder yet doth it form it self a larger body and that body spin its silken web out of its own substance and in that house it self in a husk and take to it self another shape and thence become a winged Fly and so generate more But nearer us in the generation of man the vital principle in the seed doth quickly with concurrent causes form it self a body The warmth of the body of the Hen or other Bird can turn the egge into a Chicken Why then may not the living sâ—ul that is the Root and life of the body in the dust be the instrument of God to reform its own body as certainly it will be the principle that shall reinform it But you say the body being dead hath no natural root nor way of recess to life again because the privation is total To which I answer First the Relative union between the soul and it and the souls disposition to the Return into its body is as potent a cause of its reviving as the natural union of the Root and branches if withal you consider that Christ is the Root of the soul Rational agents if perfect will work as certainly as Natural For natural causes do nothing but by a Power communicated to them from an Intellectual cause even God himself Why should Nature do any of these things but because God that makes and ruleth all will have it to be so Now Jesus Christ is the Political Head of the Church The body in the grave hath its own Relation to him Christ is still living and resolved and engaged by promise and enclined by Love to revive that body And as Christ is the life of the soul so the soul is the life of the body and this soul as I said is waiting to be sent again into it And when the hour comes what can hinder The Love of the soul to its body and its desire to be reunited is a kind of natural cause of the Resurrection A candle not lighted is as far from light and as much without it as a dead body is without life And yet one touch of a lighted candle will light that which never was lighted before And so may one touch of the living soul that 's now with Christ put life into the body that lieth in the dust And as the lighted candle makes the other like it and communicateth of its own nature to it so doth the glorified soul communicate a new kind of excellency to the body which it never had before even to be a spiritual glorious incorruptible and immortal body In the first creating of man the new formed body as to the matter of it was no better than the body of a Beast or any common piece of earth But the soul made the difference when a Rational Soul was breathed into that Body it advanced the very body to a dignity beyond the bodies of brutes even such as the natural body of man had before sin When Christ was about to repair faln man it was the spirit of Christ informing the soul that caused the renewed soul to communicate again a dignity to the bodies of sanctified men above other bodies And so when the body was dead because of sin having the root of sin and death within it and being mortal therefore yet the spirit was life because of Righteousness being the Root of holy and Righteous dispositions and the new life in man himself Rom. 8. 10. For Christ the principal root of life and the spirit and holiness are first in order of nature in the soul and but by
that is but gainful be it never so unjust and will not believe but it is lawful because it is profitable for they suppose that gain is godliness 1 Tim. 6. 5. Hence it is that so many families will be so far Religious as will stand with their commodity but no further Yea that so many Ministers have the wit to prove that most Duties are to them no Duties when they will cost them much labour or dishonour in the world or bring them under sufferings from men And hence it is that so many Carnal Polititians do in their Laws and Counsels alwaies prefer the interest of their bodies before Gods interest and mens souls Yea some are so far forsaken by common reason and void of the Love of God and his Church as to maintain that Magistrates in their Laws and Judgments must let matters of Religion alone as if that self even carnal self were all their Interest and all their God and as if they were of the Prophane Opinion Every man for himself and God for us all or as if they would look to their own cause and bid God look to his From the Power of this selfishness it is that so many ☞ Princes and States turn persecutors and stick not to silence banish and some of the bloodier sort to kill the Ministers of Christ when they do but think that they stand cross to their carnal interests And if you will plead the Interest of Christ and souls against theirs and tell them that the banishment imprisonment silencing or death of such or such a servant of the Lord will be injurious to many souls and therefore if they were guilty of death in some cases they should reprieve them as they do women with child till Christ be formed in the precious souls that they travail in birth with so their Lives be not more hurtful by any contrary mischief which death only can restrain which is not to be supposed of sober men yet all this seems nothing to a selfish Persecutor that regards not Christs interest in comparison of his own ☞ Self is the great Tyrant and Persecutor of the Church 10. Observe also how few they be that satisfie their souls in Gods Approbation though they are mis-judged and vilified by the world and how few that rejoyce at the prosperity of the Gospel though themselves be in Adversity most men must needs have the Hypocrites reward Matth. 6. 2. even some commendation from men and too few are fully pleased with his eye that seeth in seret and will reward them openly Matth. 6. 4 6. And hence it is that injurious censures and hard words do go so near them and they make so great a matter of them Those times do seem best to selfish men which are most for them If they prosper and their party prosper though most of the Church should be a loser by it they will think that it is a blessed time But if the Church prosper and not they but any suffering befall them they take on as if the Church did stand or fall with them Self-interest is their measure by which they judge of times and things 11. Observe also how eagerly men are set to have their Own wills take place in publick businesses and to have their own opinions to be the Rule for Church and Common-wealth and then judge by this of their self-denial Were not self predominant there would not be such striving who should Rule and whose will should be the Law but men would think that others were as likely to Rule with Prudence and Honesty as they How eager is the Papist to have his way by an Universal Monarch How eager are others for one Ecclesiastical National Head How eager are the Popular party for their way as if the welfare of all did lie in their several modes of Government And so confidently do the Libertines speak for theirs that they begin now to make motions that our Parliament-men shall be hanged or beheaded as Traitors if any should make a motion in a free Parliament against the General Liberty which they desire Wonderful that men should ever grow to such an over-weening of themselves and over-valuing their own understandings as to obtrude so palpable and odious a wickedness upon Parliaments so confidently and to take them for Traitors that will not be Traitors or grosly disobedient against the Lord Self-denial would cure these peremptory demands and teach men to be more suspicious of their own understandings 12. Lastly Observe but how difficult a thing it is to keep Peace as in families and neighbourhoods so in Churches and Common-wealths and judge by this of mens self-denial Husbands and Wives brothers and sisters masters and servants live at variance and all through the conflicts that arise between their contrary self-interests If a beast do but trespass on a neighbours grounds if they be but assessed for the State or poor above their expectations if in any way of trading their commodity be crost you shall quickly see where self bears Rule This makes it so difficult a work to keep the Churches from Divisions Few men are sensible of the Universal Interest because they are captivated to their own And therefore it is that men fear not to make parties and divisions in the Church and will tear it in pieces to satisfie their interest or selfish zeal Hence it is that Parties are so much multiplied and keep up the buckler against others because that selfishness makes all Partial Hence it is that people fall off from their Pastors or else fall out with them when they are crost in their opinions reproved for their sins or called to consess or make restitution and perhaps that they may sacrilegiously desraud the Church of Tithes or other payments that are due Hence it is also that members so oft fall out with one another for foul words or differences of judgement or some point or other of self-interest Nay sometimes about their very seats in the place of Worship while every man is for himself the Ministers can hardly keep them in Charity and Peace And is any of this agreeable to our holy Rule and Pattern No man can think so that hath read the Gospel but he that is so blinded by selfishness as not to understand what makes against it And here besides what is largelier spoken after let me tell of a few of the evils of this sin and the contrary benefits of self-denial 1. The Power of selfishness keeps men strangers to themselves They know not their Original nor Actual sins with any kindly humbling knowledge The very nature of Original sin doth consist in these two things Privatively in the want of our Original Love or Propensity to God as God I mean the Privation of the Root or Habit or Inclination to Love God for himself as the Beginning or End of us and all things and the absolute Lord and infinite simple inestimable Good And Positively in the inordinate Propensity or Inclination to our selves as
of self-denyal 2. As God was mans ultimate End in his state of innocency so accordingly man was appointed to use all Creatures in order to God for his Pleasure and Glory So that it was the work of man to do his Makers will and he was to use nothing but with this intention But when man was faln from God to himself he afterwards used all things for himself even his carnal self and all that he possessed was become the provision and fuel of his lusts and so the whole creation which he was capable of using was abused by him to this low and selfish end as if all things had been made but for his delight and will But when man is brought to Deny himself he is brought to restore the Creatures to their former use and not to sacrifice them to his fleshly mind so that all that he hath and useth in the world is used to another end so far as he denyeth himself than formerly it was even for God and not himâ—elf 3. In the state of Innocency though man had naturally an aversness from death and bodily pains as being natural evils and had a desire of the welfare even of the flesh it self yet as his body was subject to his soul and his senses to his Reason so his bodily ease and welfare was to be esteemed and desired and sought but in a due subordination to his spiritual welfare and especially to his Makers Will So that though he was to value his Life yet he was much more to value his everlasting life and the pleasure and Glory of his Lord. But now when man is faln from God to Himself his Life and earthly felicity is the sweetest and the dearest thing to him that is So that he preferreth it before the Pleasing of God and everlasting life And therefore he seeketh it more and holdeth it faster as long as he can and parteth with it more unwillingly As Innocent Nature had an appetite to the objects of sense but corrupted nature hath an enraged greedy rebellious and inordinate appetite to them so Innocent nature had a love to this natural earthly life and the comforts of it but corrupted Nature hath such an inordinate love to them as that all things else are made but subordinate to them and swallowed up in this gulf even God himself is so far loved as he befriendeth these our carnal ends and furthereth our earthly prosperity and life But when men are brought to Deny themselves they are in their measures restored to their first esteem of Life and all the prosperity and earthly comforts of life Now they have learned so to love them as to love God better and so to value them as to prefer everlasting life before them and so to hold them and seek their preservation as to resign them to the will of God and to lay them down when we cannot hold them with his Love and to choose death in order to life everlasting before that life which would deprive us of it And this is the principal instance of self-denyal which Christ giveth us here in the Text as it is recited by all the three Evangelists that recite these words He that saveth his life shall lose it c. And what shall it profit a man to win all the world and lose his soul By these instances it appears that by self-denyal Christ doth mean a setting so light by all the world and by our own lives and consequently our carnal Content in these as to be willing and Resolved to part with them all rather than with him and everlasting life even as Abraham was bound to love his Son Isaac but yet so to prefer the Love and Will of God as to be able to sacrifice his Son at Gods Command And the Lord Jesus himself was the liveliest Pattern to us of his Self-denyal that ever the world saw Indeed his whole life was a continued practice of it And it hath oft convinced me that it is a special part of our Sanctification when I have considered how abundantly the Lord hath exercised himself in it for our example For as it is desperate to think with the Socinians that he did it only for our Example so it is also a desperate Error of others to think that it was only for satisfaction to God and not at all for our Example Many do give up themselves to Flesh-pleasing upon a misconceit that Christ did therefore deny his flesh to purchase them a liberty to please theirs As in his Fasting and Temptations and his sufferings by the reproach and ingratitude of men and the outward Poverty and Meanness of his condition the Lord was pleased to deny himself so especially in his last Passion and death As I have shewed elsewhere he loved his natural life and peace and therefore in manifestation of that he prayeth Father if it be thy Will let this Cup pass from me But yet when it came to the comparative practical Act he proceeded to choose his Fathers Will with death rather than life without it and therefore saith Not my Will that is my simple love of life but thy Will be done In which very words he manifesteth another will of his own besides that which he consenteth shall not be done and sheweth that he preferred the pleasing of his Father in the Redemption of the world before his own life And thus in their measure he causeth all his Members to do so that life and all the comforts of life are not so dear to them as the love of God and everlasting life 4. When God had created man he was presently the Owner of him and man understood this that he was God's and not his own And he was not to claim a Propriety in himself nor to be affected to himself as his own nor to live as his own but as His that made him But when he fell from God he arrogated practically though notionally he may deny it a propriety in himself and useth himself accordingly And when Christ bringeth men to deny themselves they cease to be their own in their conceits any more Then they resign themselves wholly to God as being wholly his They know they are his both by the right of Creation and of Redemption And therefore are to be disposed of by him and to glorifie him in body and spirit which are his 1 Cor. 6. 19 20. Rom. 14. 9. To be thus heartily devoted to God as his own is the form of Sanctification and to live as God's own is the truly Holy life 5. As man in Innocency did know that he was not his own so he knew that nothing that he had was his own but that he was the Steward of his Creator for whom he was to use them and to whom he was accountable But when he was fallen from God to himself though he had lost the Right of a Servant yet be graspeth at the Creature as if he had the Right of a Lord He now takes his Goods his
of many things unnecessary and vexatious or tempring may be part of a mans infelicity and misery And so he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow Eccl. 1. 18. As man that foreknoweth his own death is through the fear of it all his life time subject to bondage Heb. 2. 15. and the fear is more grievous than the death it self when a beast that knoweth not his death is freed from those fears Indeed in our faln estate there is some use for more of this kind of knowledge than before But in innocency man needed only to know his maker and his will and works and the Creature as his utensils and the glass in which he was to be seen and to fear with moderation the death which he had threatned meerly as threatned by him But by the temptation of Satan man grew desirous to be past a child at his Fathers finding and under his care and would take care and thought for himself and know what was good or evil for himself as to the natural man and so far turned his eye to the Creature to study it for himself when he should have studied God in it and to search after good and evil to himself in it which he should have searched after the attributes of God in it and daily gazed with holy love and admiration upon his blessed face that shined in this glass and so he would use the Creature directly for himself which he should have used only for Gods service And thus I conceive man did indeed by his fall attain to much more actual knowledge as to the number of objects than he had before which knowledge was indeed in it self considered Physically good but not Good to him as any part of his felicity or his vertue but rather by participation his sin and misery as being unsuitable to his condition It was better with him when he knew One God and all things in God as they conduced to the Love and Service of God and were suitable to his state than when he turned his mind from God and fell to study the Creature in it self and for himself as Good or Evil to himself and so lost himself and his understanding in a crowd of unnecessary and misused objects Like a foolish Patient that having a most judicious and faithful Physitian that will take care of his health and provide him the best and safest remedies doth grow to an eager desire to be acquainted himself with the nature of each medicine and to be skilful in the cure of his own disease that he may trust his Physitian no longer but may be his own Physitian and therefore hearkneth to a seducer that tells him The Physitian doth but keep thee in ignorance lest thou shouldst be as wise as he and able to cure or preserve thy self hearken to me and I will teach thee to known all these things thy self and so thou maist take care of thy self So man was seduced by Satan to withdraw himself from the fatherly care of God by a desire himself to be wise for himself in the knowledge of all that in the Creature which might be directly good or evil to himself so taking on himself the work of God and casting off the work that God had set him and withdrawing himself from his necessary dependence on his Maker And accordingly much of this selfishness knowledge of the Creature he did attain but with the woful loss of the Divine knowledge of the Creature and of the filial soul-contenting knowledge of God yea and of himself as in his due subordination to God This seems the sence of this text and this is the case of faln mankind Naturally now every man would fain have his safety and Comforts in his own hand He thinks them not so sure and well in the hand of God O what would a carnal man give that he had but his life and health in his own hand and might keep them as long as he saw good When he is poor he had rather it were in his hand to supply his wants than in Gods for he thinks it would go better with him When he is sick he had far rather it were in his own hand to cure him than in Gods for then he should be sure of it If he be in any strait he cannot be content with a bare promise for his deliverance but unless he see some probability in the means and work and unless he be acquainted with the particular way by which he must be delivered he is not satisfied for he cannot trust God so well as himself Is not this the case of all you that are carnal Would you not think your case much safer and better if it were in your own hands than you do now it is in Gods What would you not give that you were but as able to give ease and heath and wealth and honour and life to your selves as God is Hence it is that you so anxiously contrive for your selves and trouble your selves with needless cares because you dare not trust God but think you are faln to your own care and finding You think your selves quite undone when you have nothing left you but God and his Promise to trust upon and when you see nothing in your selves and the Creature to support you And thus are all men faln from God to themselves But Sanctification teacheth men that self-denyal which according to its measure doth heal them of this disease Though some actual knowledge of good and evil and some care of our natural selves be now become a necessary duty as suited to our lapsed state which yet had never been but through sin Yet that which is sinful self-denyal doth destroy It sheweth man that he is every way insufficient for himself and that he is not the fountain of his own felicity nor doth it belong to him but to God to preserve him and secure his welfare He seeth what a folly it is to depart from the tuition of his Heavenly Father and as the Prodigal Son to desire to have his portion in his own hands Experience tells him with smart and sorrow that he hath not been so good a preserver of himself nor used himself so well as to desire to be in the same hands any longer that have so abused him Yea he knoweth that it was God that indeed preserved him while he was over Solicitous about it himself and would needs have the managing of his own affairs He now believes that he can be no where safe but in the hands of God and no way sufficiently provided for but by his wisdom love and power Nor dare he trust himself hereafter with himself or any Creature He finds that he hath but turmoiled and distracted his mind by undertaking the management of his own preservation and that he hath brought himself into a wilderness and lost himself and ravelled his own affairs when if he had committed himself to God and been satisfied in his Wisdom Love and Power all had been
doctrine of Christ and how much it doth to make them like or dislike their teachers or any point or practice in Religion And he is a stranger even among Divines themselves that seeth not the sway that self doth bear in their judgements and disputes and course of life and the choice of their party or society to which they joyn themselves CHAP. VI. Mens great aversness to costly or troublesome duties 3. ANother discovering instance of the rarity of self-denyal is this The great aversness of men to any costly or troublesome or self-denying duty how necessary soever how plainly soever revealed in the Scripture and how generally soever acknowledged by the Church As if self had a Negative voice in the making of Laws for the Government of the world and none must be binding without its consent I shall come down to some more particular instances 1. The great duty of charitable relieving our brethren in necessity to the utmost of our power is commonly made almost nothing of in the world And men cheat their souls by thinking they are passed from death to life because they love the brethren with such a cold and barren love as will neither lay down estate for them nor venture life for them but think they are sure Christians because they can say as the believers that James mentioneth Depart in peace be you warmed and filled but give them not that which is necessary thereto James 2. 16. Though it be told them plainly by Christ himself that it is not a fruitless uneffectual love but that which causeth them to feed and cloath and visit the Saints that must stand them instead at judgement Matth. 25. and the Apostle asketh them How the love of God can dwell in that man that seeth his brother have need and shutteth up the bowels of his compassion from him 1 John 3. 17. Yet do men think that by dropping now and then a penny they have discharged all this great duty And when they see many wayes by which they might promote the Gospel and help the Church and serve God with their estates yet self will not let them see the meaning of the plainest Scriptures that do require it 2. When men should practise the great duty of forgiving injuries trespasses and debts and of loving our enemies and blessing them that curse us and praying for them that hate and persecute us how stubbornly doth selfishness resist these duties What abundance of words may you use in vain with most men to perswade them to any of this work No they must have their right and that which is their own though it be to the undoing of their brother Passion and revenge even boil within them and the thoughts of an injury stick in their minds and if they do take on them dissemblingly to forgive it yet they cannot forget it nor heartily love a brother that displeaseth them much less an enemy And all this is from the dominion of self and shews that it prevaileth above God in the soul and therefore shews a graceless heart 3. When the Ministers of the Gospel themselves should be painful in their great and necessary work and should watch over all the flock Acts 20. 28. warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom that they may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus Col. 1. 28. condescending to men of the lowest sort and teaching them in season and out of season what reasonings and shifts will self bring in to resist so great and excellent a duty and prove it no duty and that God will give them leave to spare their pains and all because of the Powerful interest of self 4. And let the same Ministers have a disordered flock that hath scandalous members especially if they be great ones or many and how rarely will they do their duty to them in plain reproof and in case of impenitency and continuance in sin by Publick Admonition and Rejection what shiftings and cavillings will they find against this displeasing work of Discipline even when they will reproach a man themselves whose Opinion is against Discipline and when they have preacht and written and disputed so much for it and almost all parties are agreed of the necessity of it in the substance yet when it comes to practice it cannot be done without procuring mens hatred and opposition and laying us open to much incommodity and therefore self doth perswade us to forbear and whether God or self have the more servants even yet in a reformed Ministry I leave you to judge as your observation of the congregations through the Land shall direct you But were it not for self I should undertake to do more for discipline and personal Instruction with most Ministers by one Argument than I have done by a volume and you might see an unanimous concurrence in the work and consequently a great alteration in the Churches 5. And whence is it but from selfishness that plain and close Application in our Sermons is taken to be an injury to those that think themselves concerned in it If a Minister will speak alike to all and take heed of medling with their sores they will patiently hear him but if he make them know that he meaneth them in particular and deal closely with them about their miserable state or against any special disgraceful sin they fall a railing at him and reproaching him behind his back and perhaps they will say They 'le hear him no more O saith the selfish ungodly wretch I know he meant me to day had he no body but me to speak against As if a sick man should be angry with the Physitian for giving directions and medicines to him in particular and say Had he no body to give Physick to but me Were there not sick men enough in the Town besides me When Christ told the Despisers of the Gospel of the certain and dreadful destruction that was near them Mat. 21. 41 44 45. its said that When the chief Priests and Pharisees had heard his Parables they perceived that he spake of them A hainous business and therefore they sought to lay hands on him but that they durst not do it for fear of the multitude 6. Nay let a Minister preach but any such doctrine as seems consequentially to be against Self and to conclude hardly of them and they are ready to say as Ahab of Micaiah I hate him for he prophesieth not good of me but evil 1 Kings 22. 8. Let us but tell them how few will be saved what holiness and striving and diligence is necessary though we have the express word of God for it Heb. 12. 14. Mat. 7. 13 14. Luke 13. 24. 2 Pet. 1. 10. yet because they think that it makes against their carnal peace they cannot abide it Plain truth is unwelcome to them because it is rough and grates upon the quick and tells them of that which is troublesome to know Though they must know their sin and danger and misery or
it were estrangeth him from himself that he may have communion with God and this makes him vile in his own eyes and abhor himself in dust and ashes He is lost in himself and seeking God he finds himself again in God It is not a Stoical Resolution but the Love of God and the Hopes of Glory that make him throw away the world and look contemptuously on all below so far as they are meer provision for the flesh Search now and try your hearts by these evidences whether you are possessed of this necessary grace of self-denial O make not light of the matter Sirs and presume not of it till you find good grounds For I must tell you that self is the most treacherous enemy and the most insinuating deceiver in the world It will be within you when you are not aware of it and will conquer you when you perceive not your selves much troubled with it and of all other vices is both the hardest to find out and the hardest to cast out the hardest to discover and the hardest to cure Be sure therefore in the first place that you have self-denial and then be sure that you use it and live in the practice of it And for this I must give you more particular advice CHAP. XII In what respect self must be denyed II. AND here I beseech you take heed of Self in all these following respects 1. You must Deny Self as it is Opposite to God and a Competitor with him and the Idol of the soul and of the world and this is in all the ten respects which I mentioned in the beginning and therefore shall not now rehearse And this is the principal part of self-denial 2. Self must be denyed as it is but conceived as separated from God and would be an End in a divided sense from God For our selves and all things else are created contingent dependent beings and must not be once thought of as if we were either our own beginning or end or in any capacity but subservient unto God Self becomes a Satan when it would cast off its due subordination to God and would be any other than the workmanship of God depending on him and ruled by him and living to him loving him desiring him and seeking after him and either mourning when we miss him or rejoycing when we find Communion with him 3. Self must be denyed as it stands up against the Truth of the Gospel and blindly and proudly quarrelleth with that word which faith relyeth upon for Justification and salvation Carnal self is both the most incompetent Judge of the word of God and of spiritual affairs and also the most forward and arrogant and audacious for all it is so incompetent And this is the damnable fountain of unbelief That self is an incompetent Judge of the word and waies of God is evident for 1. It is a natural enemy to them and an enemy is no competent Judge Rom. 8. 7. Because the Carnal mind is enmity against God for it is not subject to the Law of God neither indeed can be Deny therefore this enemy the power of judging the word of God Ill-will never saith well Enmity is credulous of all evil and overlooks the good and is accompanyed with false surmises and wresteth every word and suspecteth or maketh an evil sence where there was none there is not a worse expositor in the world And therefore no wonder if such a nature of enmity can find matter of quarrel with the very Scripture it self and with an holy life yea with God himself for it is him especially that the enmity is against 2. Moreover self is a party and therefore an incompetent judge It is self that the Scripture principally speaks against All over the Gospel there are the words of disgrace and the arrows of death directed against the very heart of Carnal self God there proclaimeth and manageth an open war against it And shall a party be the judge shall the traiterous delinquent be the judge A child will hardly speak well of the rod whatever he do by the Corrector but it 's not to be expected that a thief should love the halter or the gallows Gods word is the weapon that self must be slain by and therefore self is an incompetent judge of it 3. Moreover self is quite blind in the matters of God the natural man discerneth them not nor can do because they are spiritually discerned 1 Cor. 2. 14. And the ignorant and blind are incompetent judges 4. And the selfish man is no good student in the Laws of God even when he readeth the letter he doth not mind or savour the spirit of them Rom. 8. 5. For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh but they that are after the spirit the things of the spirit A fair world it would be if every Colliar should judge the Privy Council and the Judges of the Land or if every thief should sit upon his accuser and his Judge and every traitor should judge the Prince And a thousand-fold more insufficient is self to judge the Word of God And yet as insufficient as it is it is exceeding arrogant and steps up into the judgment-seat at every Chapter that is read or heard and if this blind and malicious Judge be unsatisfied forsooth the Scripture must be dark or contradictory or what he pleases This horrible presumptuous arrogancy of self is it that hath opened so many mouths against the blessed Doctrine of Salvation and made so many wretched Apostates in the world and cast so many others into doubtings of that word by which at last they must be judged and which should have been the ground of their faith and hope 4. Moreover self must be denyed as it stands up against the Lord Jesus Christ When Christ is presented in his wonderful Condescension in his Incarnation and mean despised life and in his ignominious death Proud self is offended at so low a Saviour and disdaineth that Humiliation which his own necessities did require and despiseth Christ because he became despised and a man of sorrows in our stead When he is propounded as the remedy of a miserable soul and as our only Life and Righteousness and Hope Self doth seduce the soul to undervalue him It will not easily be convinc'd of so much misery as to need such a remedy it is too well to value such a Physician it is too righteous to value the righteousness of a Mediator It hath too much Life and Hope at home in its own supposed innocency or sufficiency to set much by the Hopes that Christ hath purchased and to Live in him O down with self that Christ may be Christ to you How shall he come in while Self is the Porter that keeps the door How shall he pardon you when Self will not suffer you to feel the want and worth of pardon How shall he bind up your hearts when Self will not suffer them to be broken
to undergo Yet a little while and all will be over 7. In the mean time consider also that they are all Deserved sufferings You deserve them from God though not from man Nay they are a thousand fold less than your deservings If free grace have pardoned you the main and rescued you from the torments of Hell me thinks the remembrance of this wonderful mercy should make you patiently bear the Fatherly chastisements that tend to the perfecting your deliverance 8. And so much the rather because They are sufferings more gainful to you than the greatest prosperity is to the world When you have suffered for Christ as much as your natures are able to bear you need not fear being losers by him As he is engaged by promise to make you amends and to give you the reward of inheritance of glory so he is easily able to accomplish it All the Saints of God are in the way to glory but his suffering Saints are in the nearest way All his servants are unspeakably gainers by him but his sufferers are in the most thriving way They shall have an eminency of Reward or a Reward above the common Reward Rev. 7. 14. These are they that come out of great tribulation and have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore are they before the Throne of God and serve him day and night in his Temple and he that suteth on the Throne shall dwell among them The Churches therefore glory in their Martyrs and for the patience and faith of Christians in all the persecutions and tribulations which they endure A manifest token of the righteous judgment of God that they may be counted worthy of the Kingdom of God for which they suffer seeing it is a righteous thing with God to recompence tribulation to them that trouble them and to them that are troubled Rest with the Saints 2 Thess 1. 4 5 6. Mat. 19. 27 28 29. Peter said Behold we have for saken all and followed thee what shall we have therefore And Jesus said unto them Verily I say unto you that ye which have followed me in the Regeneration when the Son of man shall sit in the Throne of his glory ye shall also sit on twelve Thrones judging the twelve Tribes of Israel every one that hath for saken houses or brethren or Sisters or Wife or Children or Lands for my names sake shall receive an hundred fold and shall inherit everlasting life And is it not better suffer under these temrs of unconceivable advantage than to suffer in a natural way for nothing 9. And consider that if suffering seem so great a matter to you that you are resoved though by the way of sin to avoid it you will escape it at so dear a rate that you will wish a thousand times you had endured iâ— There is no scaping of Christian suffering when you are called to it but by running into eternal suffering There is no scaping the Prison torment fire of Martyrdom when you are called to it but by running into the fire of Hell God can deliver you indeed on easier terms by forbearing to call you to it or rescuing by his power But you cannot rescue your selves by refusing to suffer and yielding to sin without paying dearer for your freedom than it is worth And therefore deny your selves and bear what God shall call you to lest Christ deny you and make you suffer a thousand fold more to all eternity 10. Lastly consider also that this part of self-denial is it that Christ hath fully and purposely taught us by his own example Are you better than the Lord of life And did they not use him worse than you are used Do they slander you and did they not so by him calling him a gluttonous person a wine-bibber and a friend of Publicans and sinners a Sabbath-breaker an enemy to Caesar a Deceiver yea one that had a Devil and cast out Devils by Belzebub Do they put a Fools Coat on you and a Reed in your hand and make a laughing stock of you Remember what they did by Christ They mixed scorn and cruelty together when they crowned him with a Crown of Thorns and struck him when they had covered his eyes and bid him read who smote him And do they worse than this by you They spit in his face and saved a Murderer that he might be sure to die And do they worse than this by you Run therefore with patience the race that is set before you looking to Jesus the Author and Finisher of our faith who for the joy that was set before him endured the Cross despising the shame and is set down at the right hand of the Throne of God For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself lest ye be wearied and faint in your mind Heb. 12. 1 2 3. If when ye do well and suffer for it ye take it patiently this is acceptable with God for even hereunto were ye called because Christ also suffered for us leaving us an example that ye should follow his steps who did no sin neither was guile found in his mouth Who when he was reviled reviled not again when he suffered threatned not but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously 1 Pet. 2. 20 21 22 23. Upon all these considerations you may see that in the greatest afflictions or torments of the flesh we have reason enough for the practice of self-denial And therefore as Christ used Peter Mat. 16. when he perswaded him to have favoured himself and to have avoided suffering when it was necessary for us bidding him Get behind me Sathan thou art an offence unto me for thou savourest not the things that be of God but those that be of men ver 23. so do you deal by carnal self when it would perswade you to favour your selves and put by suffering by yielding to sin take this self to be but a Satan to you that savoureth not heavenly things but earthly and command it to be silent and to get behind you and do not so much as make your flesh of your Counsel nor hearken to any of its advice in case of suffering for Christ CHAP. XXXVII Natural Life to be denied 20. BUt the greatest point of self-denial is yet behind Nothing is so near to Self as Life Nothing that nature doth so highly value and dearly love and tenderly look to and unwillingly let go And yet this also must be denied for Christ All other parts of selfish interest are as it were summed up and contracted in this And many a one can yield in other points that when he comes to this is utterly stalled and will go away sorrowful rather than follow Christ to the Death Nothing in this world is so dear to natural man as his life And therefore death is a thing that he knows not how to choose nor to submit to if he could avoid it In three cases only I
remember that Heathens themselves have chosen death First in case of some extream torment or other misery which they had no other hope to prevent or end But this was but a choosing a speedier or easier Death before a more grievous death though remote or before a death that had so great a misery for its fore-runner or at least before such a life as is a continual death And so the conquered Heathens would frequently kill themselves to prevent a more dishonourable cruel death from the hand of the Conqueror And so many a one in uncurable misery wiâ—â—eth rather to die than endure it partly because that the suffering is so great as to overcome all the comforts of life For I yield that some degrees of misery with life are more terrible to nature than death and partly because that they know they must die at last however Secondly in a desire of fame that they may leave behind them an honourable name when they are dead But this is not to desire death but life Fain they would live for ever and because they know that it cannot be obtained on earth they had rather die some honourable death a little sooner that their names may live when they are dead than to die ignominiously shortly after Thirdly And some have chosen to die for the publick good of their Country But as it 's very uncertain whether the desire of a living Name were not their greater motive so it was but a choosing a present death for their Country before a latter unavoidable death without any such advantage In all these cases a natural man may venture on death that knows he cannot scape it long but must shortly die whether he will or no. But if they could avoid it there 's very few would submit to death but believers and none but in one of these cases 1. To end or avoid some extream intolerable uncurable misery 2. To deliver their Country or friends 3. And whether any would do it upon their ungrounded hopes of better things in the life to come I leave to consideration But if it be taken for granted that a natural man may love 1. The comforts of life above it self 2. And the good of his Country or the world or his children above his life 3. Or some carnal felicity falsly conceited to be had in another life yet it is certain that none but a sanctified believer can Love God better than his Life or can prefer those spiritual heavenly joys which consist in the holy Love and Fruition of God before his life And therefore he that for these can deny his Life is indeed a Christian and none but be Though it be an ungrateful word to the ears of some I must say it again and none but he For this is the very point in which Christ for instance doth put our self-denial to the trial He that will save his life shall lose it Whether you Love an immortal holy life with God or this earthly fleshly life better is the great question on which it will be resolved whether you are Christians or Infidels at the heart and whether you are heirs of heaven or hell Some Love to God may be in the unsanctified but not a love to him above their lives and in some cases they may submit to death but not for the Love of God But both these set together that is a submitting to Death for the Love of God or a Loving of God above this life is the most infallible proof of your sincerity I confess flesh and blood must needs think this is a very hard saying and though they might consent to acknowledge it a Duty and a Reasonable thing to die for Christ and a note of excellency and a commendable qualification of some few extrordinary Saints yet it goeth very hardly down with them that it should be the lowest measure of saving grace that the weakest Christian must have it that will be saved For say they What can the strongest do more than die for Christ But to this I answer 1. There is no rom for objections against so plain a Word of God It is the wisdom of God and not our Reason that disposeth of the Crown of life and therefore it is his Wisdom and not our Reason must determine by what we shall attain it And if God say plainly that If any man come to Christ and hate not his own life that is love it not so much less than Christ that for his sake he can use it as a hated thing is used he cannot be his Disciple Luke 14. 26. it is too late for the vote of man or all the clamour of foolish reason to recal this resolution The word of God will stand when they have talk'd against it never so long we may destroy our selves by dashing against it but we cannot destroy or frustrate it 2. And whereas men ask What can the strongest do more than die for Christ I answer Abundance more They can die for him with far greater Love and Zeal and Readiness and Joy than the weak can do and so bring much more honour to him by their death Though there be no higher way of outward expressing our Love to Christ than by dying for him yet the inward work of Love may be in very different degrees in persons that use the same expression of it Some may come to the stake with a little Love comparatively and some with fervent hot affections Some have much ado to yield to die and some die so chearfully that they rejoyce in the opportunity of honouring God and passing to him Yea and in the Expressions there is much difference in the manner Some give up themselves with so much readiness as works more on the standers by than their meer patience or the death it self And some are drawn so hardly to it as drowneth much of the honour and fruit of their martyrdom Of this read Mr. Pinks Serm. on Luke 14. 26. Obj. But Nature is of God and Nature teacheth us to Love and save our Lives and is it like that the God of Nature will command and teach us to cast them away and so contradict his own Law of Nature Answ 1. As Nature teacheth you to love your lives so God doth not forbid you But 2. Is it Natural to man to be Reasonable as well as to be sensitive and animate To have a reasonable soul as to have a temporal life 3. And doth not Reason tell us by the light of Nature that God should be loved better than our Lives If it did not yet by the help of supernatural light even Reason clearly tells us this And it is no contradiction for God to bid you Love your lives but love him better And he that bids you seek the preservation of your lives doth plainly except that you resign them to his dispose and that you seek not to save them from him when he commandeth you to lay them down So that it is not simply
any Creature wise enough to order the world and the affairs thereof Is any Creature powerful enough to dispose of the world and all things in it Is any Creature good enough to do it without the communication of its imperfection which would disorder destroy all I know you make no doubt of any of these things No Creature is fit to be God and therefore none is fit to undertake the work of God And therefore it must be God or none that must have the Disposal of your lives and you But I know what it is that self would have You would have the Disposal of your own lives or else have God to dispose of them as you would have him which comes all to one But how unreasonable is this Would you alone have the Disposal of your own lives or would you have all men else in the world also to have the Disposal of theirs If all should have this Priviledge what a miserable Priviledge would it prove No man then would die and then either you must forbear marriage or what would you do with your posterity when there were no room on earth And then you could not punish a Malefactor with death And what a world would it be if all men were Disposers of themselves when there would be as many different ends and minds as men every man would be for himself and an enemy to others and the world would run every man on his own head and a madder confusion than can be imagined would seize on all If you would have every man have the dispose of his own life you would have as many Gods as Men and so have no God and you would have as many Kings or Rulers as men and so have no Ruler and you would have the world to be no world when God were to them as no God And if you would not have it thus with all what reason have you to desire it for your self What are you more than all the world that you should be exempted from the common state of mortals and be at your own disposal more than they and be instead of God unto your selves 5. You think it neither cruelty or injustice that the lives of bruits should be much at your dispose Your poor fellow-creatures must die when you require it Birds and Beasts and Fishes even multitudes of them must die to feed you yea often for your delight to make you a Feast when you have no necessity The most harmless sheep you will not spare The most laborious Ox the most beautiful Bird must give up their lives to satisfie your pleasure And is not God ten thousand thousand times even infinitely more above you than you are above your fellow-creatures Is one creature fitter to kill another and afterwards devour it and becomes its grave than God to dispose of the Lives of all 6. Where could you wish your Lives to be better than in the hand of the most wise gracious God If you may rest content or have confidence in any it is in him You neednot doubt of his Goodness for he is goodness and Love it self And therefore though you see not the world to come that you are passing to yet as long as you know that you are in the hands of Love it self what cause have you of disquiet or distrust And that you know that he is wise as well as Good and Almighty as well as Wise and therefore as he meaneth you no harm if you are his children so he will not mistake nor fail in the performance You need not fear lest your happiness should miscarry for want of skill in him that is Omniscient or for want of will in him that is your Father or for want of Power in him that is Omnipotent You may far better trust God with your lives than your selves For you have not wisdom enough to know what is best for you nor skill to accomplish it nor Power to go through with it Nay you love not you selves so well as God doth love you Did you but believe this you would better trust him You can trust your selves in a narrow Ship upon â—he wide and raging Seas when you never saw the Country that you are gâ—ing to and all because you believe that the voyage is for your commodity and that you have a skilful Pilot. And cannot you commend your souls into the hand of God to convey you through death to the invisible glory as confidently as you dare commit your lives to the conduct of a man and to a tottering Ship in a hazardous Ocean You can trust your lives on the skill of a Physician And cannot you trust them on the will of God If you had your choice whether your lives should be at your own dispose or Gods you should far rather choose that God might dispose of them than your selves As it is better for an Infant to be guided and disposed of by the Parents than by it self A Good King will not kill his own Subjects needlesly And a natural Father or Mother will not not needlesly kill their own Children yea a very brute will tenderly cherish their young And do you think that God who is infinitely good will causelesly orinjuriously take your lives or that he doth not mean you good even in your death Object But how can I think it for my good to die and to have my nature dissolved Answ Paul did desire to depart or be dissolved and to be with Christ as best of all Phil. 1. 23. And did not he know what was for his good as well as you He was willing rather to be absent from the body and present with the Lord than at home in the body and absent from the Lord and therefore groaned earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with his house which is from heaven that mortality might be swallowed up of life 2 Cor. 5. 1 2 4 6 8. When the Hen hath sate to hatch her young ones they must leave the shell as good for nothing and must come into a world which they never saw before And what of that Should they murmur at the breaking of tâ—â—â—r former habitation or fear the passagâ— inâ—â— so 〈◊〉 â—â— wide so strange a place in 〈…〉 â—f 〈…〉 which they were in before No more 〈…〉 the breaking of these bodies and 〈…〉 the 〈…〉 of flesh and passing under the conduct of Angels into the presence of our Lord. God is but hatching us here by his spirit that he may bring us out into the light of glory And should we grudge at this 7. And what if God call you to sacrifice your lives to him as he called Abraham to sacrifice his Son What if he call you to come to him by a persecutors hand or at least to be willing of your natural death He calls you but to give up a life which you cannot keep and to do that willingly which else you must do whether you will or not Willing or unwilling die you must
How loth soever you are you are sure to die You may turn you every way and look about you on the right hand and the left to all the friends and means in the world and you will never find a medicine that will here procure immortality nor ever scape the hands of death It is appointed to all men once to die and after that the Judgement Heb. 9. 27. And no man can change the Decrees of Heaven And seeing all your turnings and unwillingness cannot avoid it is it not better to submit to it willingly than unwillingly God doth impose it on you as a necessity Your willingness may make a vertue of Necessity and out of Necessity extract a reward but your unwillingness may turn your suffering into your sin and a Necessary death unto an unnecessary misery now and hereafter if you be not true believers as Paul saith of his Ministerial labours 1 Cor. 9. 16 17. If I do this thing willingly I have a reward but if against my will a dispensation is committed to me for necessity is laid upon me So I may say in the present case If you give up your lives willingly in the love of God you have a Reward but if you do not Necessity is upon you and die you must whether you will or no. You may scape the Reward by your unwillingness but death you cannot escape And me thinks you should see that it 's little thanks to you to give up that life which you cannot keep And yet this is all that God requireth Perhaps you think that though you cannot keep it still yet somewhat longer you may keep it But you be not sure of that The next hour may God deprive you of it And O what a dreadful thing it were if as soon as you have denied God your lives he should snatch them from you in his fury and cast you into Hell and if he should distrain for his own as soon as you have denied it him and you should die as enemies that would not die as Martyrs and as his Friends And in this sence hath my Text been many a time fulfilled He that will save his Life shall lose it 8. Consider also that it is upon terms of the highest advantage imaginable to your selves that God calls you to resign and lay down your lives It is not indeed to lose them but to save them as my Text doth promise you He that loseth his life shall save it No more than you lose your cloaths which you put off at Night and put on again in the Morning Or rather no more than you lose your lousie rotten rags when you put them off at Night and are to have in the Morning a Suit of Princely attire in their stead Will any man say these rags are lost At least they will not say that the man is a loser by the change That is not lost that is committed to God upon the ground of a promise Nor that which is laid out in his Servive at his command Reason will tell us that no man can be a loser by a course of submissive Obedience to God You cannot be at so much cost for him or offer him so dear a service which he is not able and willing to satisfie you for a thousand fold God will not be beholden to any man You cannot bring him in your debt beyond what he doth by his bountiful promise But if you could he would not continue in your debt You 'l make nothing of your death if you do not either undergo it for Christ or bear it submissively by the power of heavenly love constraining you Meerly to die whether you will or no as a fruit of sin is common to the most ungodly men But if the love of God can make you voluntarily submit to death whether natural or violent from persecutors what a glorious advantage may you make of it You will 1. Put your salvation more out of doubt â—han any other course in this world could do For whosoever perisheth it 's most certain that such as these all be saved 2. And therefore you may die with the greatest confidence and joy as having seen the matter of your doubts removed and dying in the very exercise of those graces that have the promise of salvation and in such a 〈…〉 as hath the fullest and most frequent promises in the Gospel 3. And then the Crown of Martyrdom is the most glorious Crown You will not have an ordinary place in heaven These are that part of the Heavenly Host that si and nearest to the Throne of God and that praise him with the highest joys who hath brought them through tribulations and redeemed them by his blood If a man should make a motion to you to exchange your cottage for a Palace and a Kingdom you would not stick at it as if it were against you because you must leave your ancient home And how much less should you be against it when you are but moved to step out of your ruinous cottage into glory when it would shortly fall upon your heads and you must leave it whether you will or no for nothing 9. What reason have you to be so tender of the flesh Is it the greatness of its suffering that you stick at Why you put poor Beasts and Birds to as much and so do the Butchers daily for your use and they must suffer it And why should the body be so dear to you for the matter of it what is it but earth and wherein is it more excellent than the beasts that perish I think God hath purposely clothed your soul with so poor a dress that you should be the less unwilling to be unclothed and might learn to set more by your souls than by your bodies and to make more carefully provision for them It seems he hath purposely lodged you in so poor a cottage that you should not be at too much care for it nor be too loth to leave it You have its daily Necessities and Infirmities and pains and somewhat of its filth and lothsomeness to tell you of its meanness And why should you be so loth that so poor a cottage so frail a body should be turned to dust Dust it is and to dust it is sentenced When the soul hath left it but a week men can scarce endure to see it or smell it And should the breaking of such an earthen Vessel be so unpleasing a thing to you And for its usesulness though so far as it is obedient it was serviceable to your souls and God yet was it so refractory ill disposed and disobedient that it proved no better than your enemy Many a temptation it hath entertained and cherished and many a sin hath it drawn you to commit Those senses have let in a world of vanity Those wandring eyes have called in covetousness and pride and lust Those greedy appetites have been so eager on the bait that they have too oft born down your faith and
reason and drawn you to excess in meats and drinks for matter or manner for quality or quantity or both Many a groan those sins have cost you and many a smarting day they have caused you and a sad uncomfortable life you have had by reason of them in comparison of what you might have had And this flesh hath been the Mother or the Nurse of all You were engaged by your Baptismal Covenant to fight against it when you entred into the Church and if you are Christians this combate hath been your daily work and much of the business of your lives And yet are you loth to have the victory see your enemy under feet Do you fight against it as for the life of your souls yet are you afraid lest death should hurt it or break it down Have you fought your selves friends with it that you are so tender of it when you are the greatest friends to it it will be the most dangerous enemy to you And do not think that it is only sin and not the body that is the flesh that is called your enemy in Scripture For though it be not the body as such or as obedient to the soul yet is it the Body as inclining to creatures from which the sinful soul cannot restrain it it is the body as having an inordinate sensitive appetite and imagination and so distempered as that it rebels against the Spirit and casteth off the rule of Reason and would not be curbed of its desires but have the rule of all it self Was it not the very flesh it self that Paul saith he fought against and kept under and brought into subjection lest he should be a cast a-way 1 Cor. 9. 26 27. Why should sin be called Flesh and Body but that it is the Body of Flesh that is the principal-seat of those sins that are so called If ye live after the flesh ye shall die but if ye through the Spirit do mortifie the deeds of the Body ye shall live Rom. 8. 13. If ye sow to the flesh of the flesh ye shall reap corruption Gal. 6. 8. That which is first in Being is first in sin But it is the Flesh or Embryo endued with sense that is first in being Be not therefore too tender of that which corruption hath made your prison and your enemy Many a time you have been put to resist it and watch and strive against it and when you have been at the best it hath been hindring you to be better and when the spirit was willing the flesh was weak And quickly hath it caused your cooling declension Many a blessed hours communion between God your souls that flesh hath deprived you of And therfore though still you must love it yet you should the less grieve or be troubled at its sufferings seeing they are but the fruits of its sin and a holy contentedness shold possess your minds that God should thus castigatorily revenge his own quarrel yours upon it 10. But yet consider that were you never so tender of the body it self yet faith and reason should perswade you to be content For God is but preparing even for its felicity His undoing it but to make it up again As in the new birth he broke your hearts and false hopes that he might heal your hearts and give you sounder hopes instead of them so at death he breaketh your flesh and worldly hopes not to undo you and leave it in corruption but to raise it again another manner of body than now it is and give it a part in the blessedness which you hoped for If in good sadness you believe the Resurrection what cause is there for so much fear of death You can be content that your Roses die and your sweetest Flowers fall and perish and the green and beauteous complexion of the earth be turned into a bleak and withered hue because you expect a kind of Resurrection in the Spring You can boldly lie down at night to sleep though sleep be a kind of death to the body and more to the soul and all because you shall rise again in the morning And if every nights sleep or one at least were a gentle death if you were sure to rise again the next morning you would make no great matter of it Were it as common to men to die every night and rise again in the morning as it is to sleep every night and rise in the morning death would not seem such a dreadful thing Those poor men that have the falling-sickness do once in a day or in a few days lie as dead men and have as much pain as many that die And yet because they use to be up and well again in a little time they can go merrily about their business the rest of the day and little fear their approaching fall How much more should the belief of a Resurrection unto life confirm us against the fears of death And why should we not as quietly commit our bodies to the dust when we have the promise of the God of heaven that the Earth shall deliver up her dead and that this body that is sown in corruption shall be raisedin incorruption It is sown in dishonour it is raised in glory it is sown in weakness it is raised in power it is sown a natural body it is raised a spiritual body So great and wonderful the change will be as now is unconceivable we have now a drossie lâ—mp of flesh an aggravation of the Elements to a seed of life which out of them forms it self a body by the Divine influx Like the Silk-worm which in the Winter is but a seed which in the Summer doth move attract that matter from which it gets a larger body by a kind of Resurrection But it is another manner of body I will not say of flesh which at the Resurrection we shall have Not flesh and blood nor a natural body but of a nature so spiritual sublime and pure that it shall be indeed a spiritual body And think not that this is a contradiction and that spirituality and corporeity are inconsistent For There is a Natural Body and there is a Spiritual body The root of the fleshly Natural body was the first man Adam who was made a living soul to be the Root of living souls The root of the spiritual Body is Christ who being a quickning Spirit doth quicken all his members by his Spirit which Spirit of Grace is the seed of Glory as from an holy and gracious Saviour we receive an holy and gracious nature so from a Glorified Saviour we shall receive a glorious nature we are now changed from glory to Glory in the beginning as by the spirit of the Lord But it is another kind of Glory that this doth tend to Howbeit that is not first which is spiritual but the natural and afterwards the spiritual The first man was of the Earth Earthy The second man is the Lord from heaven
communication and secondarily in the Body But contrarily sin made its entrance first by the Body and hath its Root and Seat first in order of nature in the body it is so communicated to the soul Thus sin comes in at the back-door even at the wrong end and by the baser part But Grace comes in the right way by the Nobler part sin hath its Root in the viler part but Christ hath his seat first in the better part And yet I must add 1. That sin is not ripe till it reach the will though it enter by the flesh and senses it is not formed nor to be called sin till it reach the will and as there it is scituated but yet the thing it self is first in and by the flesh 2. And the will is truly the seat of Original sin it self as well as the sensitive part but not the first Root of the corruption Though sin be Worst in the Rational part because the corruption of the best is the worst yet it is not first there But Holiness is first also in the soul and so communicated to the body And so also Glory it self will be And therefore take notice of the wise and gracious providence of God that taketh the soul to heaven before-hand that it may be first Glorified and so may be fit to communicate glory to the body And so as the Natural Soul dignified the Natural Body and the Sanctified Soul did Sanctifie the body so the Glorified Soul by reunion with the body shall communicate its Nature to the body at the Resurrection and so it will be made spiritual immortal and incorruptible by the soul and soul and body are made such by Christ So that by this time you may see that there is more Reason for the Resurrection for all the body is turned to earth than there is Reason that a Candle that 's gone out should be lighted again by another or than there is Reason that I should put on my cloaths in the morning which I put off at night It 's true those cloaths have no power to put on themselves nor is there any natural necessitating cause of it but yet there is a Free cause in me that will infallibly if I live and be able produce it For nature disposeth me to abhor nakedness and desire my cloaths and therefore in the morning I will put them on And so nature teacheth the separated soul to desire a reunion with its body and therefore when the Resurrection morning comes it will gladly take the word from Christ and give that vital touch to the body that shall revive it and so put on its ancient garment but wonderfully changed from fleshly to spiritual from dishonourable into glorious And now I hope you see that you may put off these cloths with patience and submission and that it is no wrong to the flesh it self to be put off but tendeth to its highest advancement at the last Though the first cause of sin and the nest of sin shall be so broken first that it shall first be seen what sin hath done before it be seen what Grace will do and the fruit of our own wayes must first be tasted before we shall fully feed and live upon the blessed fruit of the grace of Christ 11. Moreover as there is a Resurrection for the body it self and that to a more perfect estate than it can here attain so the whole nature shall be perfected beyond our present comprehension This life was not intended to be the place of our perfection but the preparation for it As the fruit is far from ripeness in the first appearance or the flower while it is but in the husk or bud or the Oak when it is but an acorn or any plant when it is but in the seed no more is the very nature of man on earth As the Infant is not perfect in the Womb nor the Chicken in the shell no more are our natures perfect in this world Methinks for the sake of the body it self much more of the soul if we are believers we should submit contentedly to death While you are here you know that creatures will fail you enemies will hate you friends will grieve you neighbours will wrong you Satan will tempt you and molest you the world is changeable and will deceive you all your comforts are mixed with discomforts the body carrieth about with it calamities enough of its own to weary it What daily pains must it be at for the sustentation of its self in its present state and yet what grief and sorrow must it undergo Every member hath either its disease or a disposition thereto What abundance of passages can pain and sickness find to enter at and how many rooms that are ready to receive them As every member hath its use so every one is capable of sorrow and the sorrow of one is at least as much communicated to the whole as the usefulness is The pain of the simplest member even of a tooth can make the whole body a weary of it self What is the daily condition of our flesh but weakness and suffering with care and labour to prevent much worse which yet we know cannot long be avoided The sorrow of many a mans life hath made him wish he had never been born and why then should he not wish as much to die which doth ten thousand fold more for him if he be a Christian than to be unborn would have done Not a Relation so comfortable but hath its discomforts Not a friend so suitable but hath some discordancy nor any so amiable and sweet but hath somewhat loathsome troublesome and bitter Not a place so pleasant and commodious but hath its unfitness discommodities Not a Society so good and regular but hath its corruptions and irregularities And should we be so loth to leave whether naturally or violently such a life as this When the fruit is ripe should it not be gathered When the corn is ripe would you have it grow there and not be cut When the spirit hath hatched us for heaven should we be so loth to leave the shell or nest When we are begotten again to the hopes of immortality should we be so desirous to stay in the womb O Sirs it is another kind of life that we shall have with God They are purer comforts that stay for us above But if you will not have the Grapes to be gathered and prest how can you expect to have the Wine Me thinks our fleâ—h should have enough e're this time of sickness and pain and want and crosses and should be content to lie down in hope of the day when these shall be no more Little would an unbeliever think what a Body God will make of this that now is corruptible flesh and blood It shall then be loathsome and troublesome no more It shall be hungry or thirsty or weary or cold or pained no more As the stars of heaven do differ from a clod of
the more you should desire to be there where there is no strangeness This is not the time or place of most intimate acquaintance If you would be acquainted you should draw nearer and not draw back It 's death that must open you the door into that presence where strangeness will be no more And if it be the doubts of your interest in Christ and life that makes you shrink and loth to die Consider that to refuse to die for Christ is the way above all to increase those doubts but to give up your lives for him or chearfully to surrender your souls to him at his call is the readiest surest way in the world to prove you at present in a state of grace besides that you will be hastened into a state of glory where you shall be quickly and fully past all doubts of your state of former grace In a word as all the fears and sorrows of this life will then be at an end so with the rest will our fears of death And therefore death should be the more welcome because it is the end as of all other troubles so of these disturbing fears 14. Consider also what a multitude have trod this bloody way before you Almost all that ever were born have died and are now in the world that you are passing to You are not the first that entred at this narrow gate The dearest Saints of God have died If Abraham Moses Joshua David Peter and Paul could not escape the stroak of death what are you that you should murmur to follow such and so many that have gone before you You need not fear being solitary in heaven There are millions and millions more of Saints than there are on earth Many that you knew and millions more that will then be as dear to you as if you had known them Is it not better be among innocent souls than a defiled guilty world Is it not better be where no sin entreth and never a hâ—st or passion comes than to live as among Wild beasts with furious unreasonable sinners Is it not better be where Light is perfect and all your doubts are fully resolved than in darkness and perplexity and among an ignorant blind generation that are enemies to the light which you desire Is it not better be where is nothing but the perfect love of the Infinite God in perfect Saints and blessed Angels than to live among perverse ungodly men that make you almost weary of your lives If it be a delight to us to read the writings of the illuminated Saints of God and we think them such Jewels and Ornaments in our Libraries what a pleasure would it be to converse with them that wrote these Books and that in their celestial perfection where they have attained a thousand times more light than before they had and where all the doubts are resolved which their books could not resolve O blessed Society in comparison of that we now converse with 15. Nay more lest the bloody way of death should seem too strange and terrible to us the Lord Jesus our Head hath trod that path and that of purpose to conquer death by taking away the sting and principal cause of terrors and making that a passage to felicity that was a passage to everlasting misery So that ever since Christ hath gone this way there is no such danger in it to his followers Where the Captain of our salvation goeth his Souldiers may boldly follow him For asmuch as the children were partakers of flesh and blood he also himself likewise took part with them that he might destroy by death him that had the power of death that is the Devil and might deliver them that through fear of death were all their life time subject to bondage Heb. 2. 14 15. He hath cleared our way and taken out of it the forest thorns and hath prepared us an habitation with himself And shall we fear to go the way that Christ hath gone and purposely gone to clear it for us 16. Moreover Consider that the Celestial inhabitants have purposely made themselves familiar with us in this lower world that they might acquaint us with themselves and lead us upto their blessed habitation and fit us for it No man of common reason can doubt but that those more capacious glorious parts of the Universe are stored with inhabitants answerable to their glory when we see every corner of the lower world to be replenished with inhabitants And Scripture and some experience tells us that those Angels of God are conversant here about us men They bear us up in their hands that we dash not our foot against a stone they pitch their tents and encamp about us as an appointed guard for our security It is their very office for what are they but ministring spirits sent forth to minister for them that shall be heirs of salvation Heb. 1. 14. They converse with us though we see them not and are about us night and day They are among us in our holy assemblies observing our behaviour before the Lord 1 Cor. 11. 10. and they are witnesses of our good and evil Eccles 5. 6. From them as the Servants of God was the Law received Acts 7. 53. Gal. 3. 19. Heb. 2. 2. They read our books and study with us the Mysteries of the Gospel 1 Pet. 1. 12. And as near as they are to God they are glad to make the Church their book in which to read his manifold wisdom and know it by beholding it in us as in a glass Ephes 3. 10. The Nations have their Angels The Churches have their Angels and the particular Saints also have their Angels Dan. 10. 13 20 21 Rev. 1. 20. Acts 12. 15. Mat. 18. 10. They are not strangers with us but have charge of us to keep us in all our ways Psal 91. 10 11 12. They rejoyce in our conversion Luke 15. 10. They are part of the heavenly Society that we are already listed in Heb. 12. 22. They ascend and descend as ordinary passengers between heaven and earth Gen. 28. 12. They are round about us and we live as in their Camp Psal 34. 7. Before them we must be confessed or denied Luke 12. 8 9. They convoy our departed souls to Christ Luke 16. 22. They shall attend Christ at his second coming as they prcolaimed his first and attended him on earth Matth. 25. 31. Mar. 8. 38. They shall be his Heralds to call up the dead to judgement Mat. 13. 39 49. 24. 31. And at last we shall be their companions and equal to them Luke 20. 36. So that you see we have the same Society invisible which we shall have in heaven Yea and sometime when God is pleased they manifest their presence by visible or audible apparitions And shall we fear to remove into the presence of these blessed spirits that now attend us and are still about us and the instruments of so much of our good Yea the Lord Jesus Christ came
down to be familiar with us and to bring us into a state of friendship and holy boldness with God himself And yet shall we draw back 17. I would put this question to you for your serious answer Can you be contented yea do you desire to have no more of God than here you have Is this much of the knowledge of him and his will and works sufficient for you Would you be no nearer him and enjoy no more of him What ever your flesh say sure the love of God in your hearts will not suffer you considerately to say so Consult with your new nature with the holy principle that is in you Me thinks you should not be content to remain for ever at such a distance from God as you are If you can I blame you not to be afraid of death If not Why then are you loth to go to him 18. And I would ask you also Whether you are content with the measure of sanctification which you have or which is to be attained in this life Are you content to live for ever with no more knowledge or love of God No more faith or love to Christ No more sense of the worth of Grace No more righteousness or peace or joy in the Holy Ghost No more meekness humility or heavenly mindedness Are you contented rather to live for ever under all the pride and ignorance and passion and selfishness and lust and worldliness and all other sins that here beset you rather than to remove to the place of perfection and yield that death shall break the vessel and nest of your corruptions If you care so little for the grace of God and see so little beauty in his image and see so little odiousness in sin that you had rather keep it for ever than go to God by the passage of death I blame you not to be afraid to die But if otherwise Why do you desire perfection and deliverance and yet be so loth to come and receive it When you know that it is not to be had on earth 19. Moreover are you contented to remain for ever as unserviceable to God as here you are Alas how little do you for him how much do you to displease him lay together all the service of your lives and how small and poor a matter is it And would you still live at these rates Will this content you Me thinks it should not if you have grace in your hearts Why then do you not desire to depart and to be with Christ There you shall be perfectly fitted for his service and therefore perfectly perform it What other service God will have for us we cannot yet tell but Love and Praise we are sure will be the chief and the rest will be good and holy and honourable what ever it be If you are Christians me thinks the sense of your unprofitableness and of your unpleasing frame of heart and life should be your daily grief and therefore you should desire the state where you may be more serviceable and not be so unwilling of it 20. Lastly I would ask you Are you contented to attain no other end of all your life and labours and sufferings than here you do attain What is it that you pray for and seek and strive for is it for no more than is to be had on earth If you have no higher design intentions or desires I cannot much blame you to be loth to die But if you have me thinks no man should be unwilling to attain his end What have you done and suffered so much for heaven and now would you not go to it Had you rather all your labour were lost Do you desire to be happy or do you not If you do as certainly you do would you not go where happiness it to be had when you are sure that it is not not to be had on earth What say you is there not plain reason in all this that I propound to you It is a sad case when men seek not God and Heaven as their felicity but only as a lesser evil than hell which they would endure rather than enjoy when they can keep no longer this earthly life which they account their felicity where this is the case it 's a sad case And were not this a common case there would not be so much unwillingness to depart And now Christian Reader I beseech thee weigh these foregoing Considerations and judge whether it be not a contradiction to thy profession and unseemly for a believer to be unwilling to die when God shall call him Much more to cast away evelasting life for the saving of his temporal life but a little longer O learn the needful lesson of self-denial especially in this point of denying your lives He that can do this can do all and may be sure that he is mortified indeed And he that can do all the rest and sticks but at this and could part with any thing for Christ save his life doth indeed do nothing nor is it esteemed self-denying It is a lesson therefore that is exceeding necessary to be learn'd and worthy all your time and diligence even to deny your Lives for the love of Christ Perhaps you will say We live in days of peace and liberty and therefore are not like to be called to Martyrdom What need then have we to learn this lesson I answer 1. You are uncertain what changes you may see but if you never suffer yet you must be sure that you have a heart that would suffer if God did call you to it For though you may be saved without suffering where you are not called to it yet you cannot be saved without a heart that would suffer if you were put upon it 2. And if you cannot deny your lives for Christ you will not sincerely deny your pleasures or profits or honours for him If you would not suffer death for him if he called you to it you will not sincerely suffer losses and wrongs and reproaches for him which almost every Christian must expect So that to try your own sincerity you should look after it 3. And it is certain that death will shortly come and then if you have not learnt this lesson to deny your selves even in case of life you will die unwillingly and uncomfortably At least me thinks I might reason thus with any man of you good or bad Either death is indeed terrible or not If it be not why do you so fear it when it comes If it be why do you not as well fear it before it comes even in your youth and health For you are sure then that you must die as if it were upon you A wonderful thing it is that mans heart should be so unreasonably insensible and that there should be so great a difference in the affections of most in regard of death It 's no matter of doubt or controversie whether they shall die He is a block and not a man that knoweth it
and wasteth comfort and grieveth the spirit of Adoption by which you are sealed to the day of Redemption and by which you have your peace and comforts If by such sin your souls are clouded and estranged from God be diligent in seeking for healing and reconciliation and rest not till your peace be made with God For while you think of him as displeased you will be afraid of coming to him and this will double the fears of Death Direct 3. Deny your selves first in the carnal and worldly comforts of this life or else you are unlikely to deny your selves in the matter of Life it self Disuse your selves from unnecessary pleasures of the flesh And learn to endure dishonour contempt and reproach from the world and sickness and poverty when it 's inflicted on you by the hand of God Till you can deny your ease and profit and appetite and honour and all the delight of this present world you are never likely to deny your lives sincerely To deny your lives doth contain the denying of all these and more and therefore you must learn the lesser if you would do the greater These are the parts of life as it were and it 's easier thus to overcome it in its parts than in the whole when particular Souldiers are destroyed the Army is the weaker And the use of suffering the Afflictions of this life will make you hardy and make death seem a smaller matter For when you thus Die Daily you will the more easily die once Besides Death is half disarmed when the Pleasures Interests of the flesh are first denied For the leaving of fleshly contents and pleasures is much of the reason of mens unwillingness to die And therefore when these are denied before-hand the Reasons of your unwillingness are taken away If you pull down the Nest the Birds will be gone Men that are loth to leave their Country would willingly be gone if their houses were fired or they were turned out of doors and their friends and goods were all sent away This is it that makes men so unwilling to die because they practise not Mortification in their health but contrarily study to live as Pleasingly as may be to the flesh and think it part of their Christian Liberty thus making Christ a carnal Saviour as the Jews conceive of their expected Messiah and taking up with a carnal false salvation not purchased by Christ but given by Satan in the name of Christ and assumed by themselves They make it their business to have buildings and lands and meats and drinks and honours and all things as pleasing as may be to the flesh and then they complain that they are unwilling to die and I easily believe him it is no wonder They make it the work of their lives to feather their nests and make Provision for the flesh and then complain that they are loth to leave those nests that they have been feathering so long and loth to scatter all the heap and treasure which they have been gathering And did you think that gathering it was the way to make you willing to leave it Men load themselves with the lumber and baggage of the world and then complain that they cannot travel on their journey but had rather sit down They fall a building them habitations in their way when they should have none but Inns or Tents and when they have bestowed all their time and cost and charges on them they complain of their hearts for being loth to leave them Such mad doings as these are not the way to be willing to die To provide for self and flesh in your Life-time is not the way to Deny your Lives Sirs the way is this if you will learn it and stick not at the cost and trouble Self must be here stript naked of all its carnal comforts so that it shall have nothing left o fly to or trust upon nor nothing lest tâ—at it can take delight in then it will away If you would drive ouâ—â—n ill Tenant you will cast out all their goods and leave them nothing but the bare walls and not so much as a bed to lie on and uncover the house over their heads and then they will be gone So if you cast out all your sensual commodities and delights that when the flesh looks about it shall see nothing but the bare walls and cannot find a resting place then death will be less grievous and less unwelcome Or rather indeed even the flesh and self must be mortified and in the sense in which it must be denied it must have no being or life that is as it is withdrawn from its subordination to God And then there will be nothing to rise up against your submission to Death Though nature as nature will keep you from Loving death as death yet were but self-denial perfect there would be nothing to keep you from submitting to it and desiring to pass through it to immortality O that you would but try such a self-denying life and you would certainly die an easie comfortable Death Direct 4. Suffer not unworthy thoughts of God to abide in your soul Think not of his Infinite Love and Goodness with doubtfulness or diminution You will never be willing to come to God while you think of him as cruel or as a despiser of his creatures or unwilling to do Good But when once you think of him as the surest greatest Good and your fastest friend and the most lovely object that can be conceived of and these thoughts are deep and wrought into the very nature of your soul then you will be ready more chearfully to die No man can love the presence of a tyrant or an enemy or of him that is so far above him that there is no communion with him to be had If you entertain such blasphemous thoughts of God you are unlikely ever to desire his presence See you think as honourably and magnificently of the Goodness and Love of God as you do of his Knowledge or his Power and as you would abhor any extenuating conceptions of the one so do of the other And then the Loveliness and glory of his face will draw out your desires and make you long to be with God Direct 5. And by such means as this aforesaid Labour to bring up your souls to live in the Love of God It is love that is the Divine and heavenly nature in us and therefore must needs incline us heaven-wards The nature of love is to long after communion with him that we love The more Love the more of God in the soul and the more desire after God This is the grace that must live for ever and therefore bendeth towards the place of its perfection It 's want of Love to God that maketh most of us so contented to be from him Strengthen and exercise all other graces as far as in you lieth but above all live in the exercise of this enjoying heavenly grace Direct 6. Consider of all
fleshly Pleasures tend He that by faith hath seen both Heav'n and Hell And what sin costeth at the last can tell He that hath try'd and tasted Better things And felt that love from which all pleasure springs They that still watch and for Christs coming wait Can turn away from or despise the bait Flesh Must I be made the foot-ball of disdain And call'd a precise fool or Puritane Spirit Remember him that did despise the shame And for thy sake bore undeserved blame Thy journey 's of small moment if thou stay Because dogs bark or stones lie in the way If life lay on it wouldst thou turn again For the winds blowing or a little rain Is this thy greatest love to thy dear Lord That canst not for his sake bear a foul word Wilt thou not bear for him a scorners breath That underwent for thee a cursed death Is not Heav'n worth the bearing of a flout Then blame not Justice when it shuts thee out Will these deriders stand to what they say And own their words at the great dreadful day Then they 'd be glad when wrath shall overtake them To eat their wrrds and say they never spake them Flesh How Forsake all Ne're mention it more to me I 'le be of no Religion to undo me Spirit Is it not thine more in thy Fathers hand Than when it is laid out at sins command And is that sav'd that 's spent upon thy lust Or which must be a prey to thieves or rust And wouldst thou have thy riches in thy way Where thou art passing on and canst not stay And is that lost that 's sent to Heav'n before Hadst thou not rather have thy friends and store Where thou may dwell for ever in the light Of that long glorious day that fears no night Flesh But who can willingly submit to Death Which will bereave us of our life and breath That laies our flesh to rot in loathsome graves Where brains and eyes were leaves but ugly caves Spirit So nature breaks and casts away the shell Where the now beauteous singing bird did dwell The secundine that once the infant cloath'd After the birth is cast away and loath'd Thus Roses drop their sweet leaves under-foot But the Spring shews that life was in the root Souls are the Roots of Bodies Christ the Head Is Root of both and will revive the dead Our Sun still shineth when with us it's night When he returns we shall shine in his light Souls that behold and praise God with the Just Mourn not because their bodies are but dust Graves are but beds where flesh till morning sleep's Or Chests where God a while our garments keep 's Our folly thinks he spoils them in the keeping Which causeth our excessive fears and Weeping But God that doth our rising day foresee Pittie 's not rotting flesh so much as we The birth of Nature was deform'd by sin The birth of Grace did our repair begin The birth of Glory at the Resurrection Finisheth all and brings both to persection Why should not fruit when it is mellow fall Why would we linger here when God doth call Flesh The things and persons in this world I see But after death I know not what will be Spirit Know'st thou not that which God himself hath spoken Thou hast his promise which was never broken Reason proclaims that noble heav'n-born souls Are made for higher things than worms and moles God hath not made such faculties in vain Nor made his service a deluding pain But faith resolves all doubts and hears the Lord Telling us plainly by his Holy Word That uncloath'd souls shall with their Saviour dwell Triumphing over sin and death and hell And by the power of Almighty Love Stars shall arise from graves to shine above There we shall see the Glorious face of God His blessed presence shall be our abode The face that banisheth all doubts and fears Shuts out all sins and dryeth up all tears That face which darkeneth the Suns bright rayes Shall shine us into everlasting joyes Where Saints and Angels shall make up one Chore To praise the Great Jehovah evermore Flesh Reason not with me against sight and sense I doubt all this is but a vain pretence Words against nature are not worth a rush One bird in hand is worth two in the bush If God will give me Heav'n at last I 'le take it But for my Pleasure here I 'le not forsake it Spirit And wilt thou keep it bruitsh flesh how long Wilt thou not shortly sing another song When Conscience is awakened keep thy mirth When Sickness and Death comes hold fast this earth Live if thou canst when God saith come away Try whether all thy friends can cause thy stay Wilt thou tell death and God thou wilt not die And wilt thou the consuming fire defie Art thou not sure to let go what thou hast And doth not Reason bid thee then forecast And value the least hope of endless joyes Before known vanities and dying toyes And can the Lord that is most just and wise Found all mans duty in deceit and lies GET thee behind me Satan thou dost savour The things of flesh and not his dearest favour Who is my Life and Light and Love and All And so shall be whatever shall befall It is not thou but I that must discern And must Resolve It 's I that hold the stern Be silent Flesh speak not against my God Or else hee 'l teach thee better by the rod. I am resolved thou shalt live and die A servant or a conquered enemy LOrd charge not on me what this rebel sayes That alwaies was against me and thy wayes Now stop its mouth by Grace that shortly must Through just but gainful death be stopt with dust The thoughts and words of Flesh are none of mine Let Flesh say what it will I will be thine Whatever this rebellious Flesh shall prate Let me but serve the Lord at any rate Use me on earth as seemeth good to thee So I in Heav'n thy Glorious face may see Take down my Pride let me dwell at thy feet The humble are for earth and heav'n most meet Renouncing Flesh I Vow my self to thee With all the Talents thou hast lent to me Let me not stick at honour wealth or blood Let all my dayes be spent in doing good Let me not trifle out more precious hours But serve thee now with all my strength and powers If Flesh would tempt me to deny my hand Lord these are the Resolves to which I stand Richard Baxter October 29. 1659. The laâ—e Lord Chief Justice Oliver St. John See my Reasons of the Christ â—â—â—g since written I may with Tertullian call all our enemies to search their Court Records and â—ce how many of us have been cast out or silenced for any immorality but for obeying Conscience against the interest or wills of some who think that Conscience should give place to their Commands Read the two or three last Chapters in Dr. Holden's Analâ—fidei Read Mr. Stubbs and Mr. Rogers books against me and the souldiers openly thâ—â— calumaiâ—â—ed me and thâ—e in eâ— my death as the said Authors â—eâ—red them to call me to a trâ—al even for speaking and writing against their casting dow the Government of the Land â—â—ing 〈◊〉 themselves and aâ—â—â—pting at once to Vo e out all the â—arâ—â—h 〈◊〉 I know that it hardneâ—h thousands in impenitency to say that Others have done worse and Is the matter mended with you And will it also eâ—se men in heâ—l to think that some others suffer more The Quuakers and other Self-esteemers are reverthemore reconcil'd to us now we have been eleven years turned out of all So common it is for selfish meâ— to make their gain sayers as odious as they can devise that I conâ—eâ—s I wondred that I me with no more of this dealing my self from Papists Anabaptists or any that have turned their stiâ—e against me And at last Mr. Pierce hath answered my expectation and from my own confession not knowing me himself hath drawn my picture that I am Proâ—â—i Lazie False an Hypocrite uâ—just a Reader c. And from this Bolsecks credit I make no doubt but the Papists will think they may warrantably descrâ—bâ— me if I be thought worthy their reâ—embrance in all following Ageâ— though now I have nothing from them but good wordâ— But it is a small thing to be judged by man especially when our â—â—uâ—â— enjoy the Lord. They way-laid the Messengers that I sent Letters by to friends took them from the â— by force seâ—â— them to 〈…〉 to the Council of State to the trouble of those I wrote to though nothing was found but â—â—noâ—ency And this was by my old 〈…〉 who differed from â—â—â— in nothing but â—â—tant 〈…〉 Changes of our Government and yet 〈…〉