1.12 His infirmities are now at full and the symptomes which make it evident unto us are some inward some outward inward in his soul outward in his body we 'll take a view of them both Matth. 26.37 Mar. 14.33 Luk. 22.44 Ioh. 12.27 First his soul it began to be sorrowfull saith Matthew to be amazed and very heavy saith Mark to be in an agony saith Luke to be troubled saith Iohn Here is sorrow and heaviness and agony and trouble the estimate whereof we may take from his own words in the garden My soul is exceeding sorrowfull Matth. 26.38 John 12.77 even unto death Now was the time he purged not onely in his body but his soul too now is my soul troubled and what shall I say Father save me from this hour but for this cause came I unto this hour A fatall hour sure of which it was said before often his hour was not yet come but being come he could then tell his Disciples the hour is at hand and after tell the Iewes Matth. 26.45 Luk. 22.53 this is your very hour and the power of darkness Now was it that Christ yielded his soul for our souls to the susception of sorrow perpession of pain and dissolution of nature and therefore even sick with sorrow he never left sweating Heb. 5.7 weeping and crying till he was heard in that which he feared Secondly as his soul so his body had her symptoms of approaching death Our very eye will soon tell us no place was left in his body where he might be smitten and was not his skin was torn his flesh was rent his bones unjoynted his sinews streyned should we summe up all See that face of his fairer then the Sons of men Psal 45.2 Revel 1.14 how it is defiled with spettle swoln with buffets masked with a cover of gore-bloud see that head white as white wooll and snow how is it Crowned with thorns beaten with a reed and both head and hair dyed in a sanguine red that issued from it see those eyes that were as a flame of fire how they swim with tears are dim with bloud and darken at the sad approach of dreadfull death Revel ibid. see that mouth which speak as never man spake hovv it is vvan vvith stroaks grim vvith death John 7.46 and embittered with that tartest potion of gall and vinegar Should we any lower See those arms that could embrace all the power of the world how they are strained and stretched on the Crosse those shoulders that could bear the frame of Heaven how they are lasht with knotty cords and whips those hands that made the world and all therein how are they nailed and clenched to a piece of wood that heart where never dwelt deceit nor sinne how it is pierced and wounded with a souldiers spear those bowels that yearned with compassion of others infirmities how they are drie and pent with straining puls those feet that walked in the wayes of God how they are boared and fastened to a Crosse with nayls from hand to foot there is no part free but all over he is covered in a mantle of cold bloud whose garments were doft before and took of them that were his hangmen Poor Saviour what a wofull sight is this A bloudy face thornie head watery eyes wan mouth strained arms lashed shoulders nayled hands wounded heart griping bowels boared feet Here is sorrie pains when no part is free and these are the outward Symptomes of his state that appear in his Body We have thus far seen our Sun the Sunne of righteousnesse in the day-break and rising and height of his suffering Mal. 4.2 what remains further but that we come to the Declination and so end our journey for this time This Declination say Physicians is Galen lib. 3. de Cris cap. 5. when Nature overcomes sicknesse so that all diseases attain not this time but those and those onely that admit of a Recovery yet howsoever saith my * Senert institution medicinae lib. 2. par 1. cap. 12. de morb temp Authour there is no true declination before death there is at least a seeming declinatian when sometimes the symptoms may become more remiss because of weak nature yielding to the fury and tyrannie of death overcoming it I will not say directly that our Saviour declined thus either in deed or in shew for neither was the cup removed from him nor died he by degrees but in perfect sense and perfect patience both of body and soul he did voluntarily and miraculously resigne his Spirit as he was praying into the hands of his Father Here then was the true declination of this Patient not before death but in death and rightly too for then was it that this Sunne went down in a ruddy Cloud then was it that this Patient received the last dregs of his Purge then was it that Gods Justice was satisfied the consummatum est was effected all was finished as for his buriall resurrection and asscension which follow after this time they serve not to make any satisfaction for sinne but onely to confirm it or apply it after it was made and accomplished Vse 1 But what use of all this Give me leave I pray to shake the tree and then do you gather the fruit from the first part his birth we may learn Humility a grace most prevailing with God for the obtaining of all graces this was it that made David King Moses a Governour nay what say we to Christ himself who from his first entrance untill his departure to his Father Matth. 11.29 was the very mirrour of true Humility it felf Learn of me saith he to be humble and lowly in spirit and you shall find rest unto your souls Hereunto accorded his Doctrine when he pronounced them Blessed who were poor in spirit Matth. 5.3 hereunro accorded his reprehension when he disliked their manners who were wont to choose out the chief rooms at feasts Luke 14.7 Iohn 13.5 hereunto accorded his practice when he vouchsafed to wash his Disciples feet and to wipe them with the towell wherewith he was girded O Humility how great are thy riches that are thus commended to us thou pleasest men delightest angels confoundest devils and bringest thy Creatour to a Manger where he is lapped in raggs and cloathed in flesh Had we Christian hearts to consider the Humility of our Redeemer and how far he was from our haughty dispositions it would pull down our Pharisaicall humours and make us farre better to remember our selves Vse 2 Secondly as we learn humility from his birth so we may learn patience from his life Matth. 16.24 If any man will come after me saith our Saviour let him deny himself and take up his crosse and follow me Dear Christian if thou wilt be saved mind thy Christ Art thou abused by lies reproaches evil sayings or doings we cannot more shew how we have profited in Christs School then by enduring
now art thou arrayed in the shining robes of Heaven and all the Host do triumph at thy corronation Sweet soul how am I ravished to think upon thee What joy is this The Patriarchs salute thee the Prophets welcome thee the Apostles hug thee all hands clap for joy all harps warble all hearts are merry and glad O thou Creatour of men and Angels help us all to Heaven that when our dayes have been we may all meet together in thy blessed Kingdome I have done turn back by the same thread that led you through this labyrinth and you shall have in two words the summe of this whole Text. The time of our Lease what is it but our Life what is this Life but a number of few dayes what are these dayes but a world full of evil But a life but dayes but few but evil can we adde any more Yes Life is life howsoever we live and better you think to have a bad lease in being then our life to be quite extinguished nay be not deceived this life is but death the dayes that we spend they are past and done few and evill they have been Thus ends the Text with the exspiration of our Lease yet is not all done when we loose this life we have another free-hold prepared in Heaven and this is not leased but purchased not for a life but inheritance not for dayes but for ever Crosse but the words of my Text and many and happy shall the ages of thy life be in Heaven for ever and ever Amen FINIS Deaths Arrest LUKE 12.20 This night thy soul shall be required of thee MAns Bodie we say is closed up within the Elements his Bloud in his Bodie his Spirits in his Bloud his Soul in his Spirits and God or Sathan in his Soul Who holds the possession we may guesse in life but then is it most apparent when we come to death The tree may bend East or West or North or South but as it falleth so it lieth Our affections may look up or down towards heaven or hel but as we die we receive our doom and then whose we are shall be fully made manifest to all the world There is a parable of poor Lazarus Luke 16. whose life was nothing but a catalogue of miseries his body full of sores his mind full of sorrows what spectacle could we think more pitifull whose best dainties were but broken crumbs and his warmest lodging but the rich mans gates Here is a parable of a certain rich man who enjoyes or at least purposeth a delicious fare he hath lands vers 16. Vers 16. fruits vers 17. 17. buildings vers 18. 18. and if this be the Inventorie what is the summe see it collected in the verse succeeding Soul 19. thou hast much goods laid up for many years now live at ease Eat drink and take thy pastime These two estates thus different how should they be but of divers tenures Matth. 6.24 No man can serve God and Mammon See Lazarus dying and the Angels carry him in-Abrahams bosome See this rich man dying and they that is devils require his soul God receives one and his soul is in heaven Sathan takes the other and drags down his soul to hel he is comforted that received pains and thou art tormented that wast full of ease this is the doom and that he may undergo this death now gives the summons This night thy soul shall be required of thee The Text we may christen Deaths Arrest it is we that offend his Majestie of heaven and his precepts are given unto Death to attach our souls See here a president a rich man taken on a sudden who must instantly appear before the Judge of heaven when this night What thy soul Why it is required Of whom of thee Or if this will not find the offender see yet a more narrow search every word is like some dark closet therefore we will open the windovvs that you may have full light This Text is Deaths Arrest vvhich as it must be executed so it admits of no other time but This This what this day whilest the Sun gives light to the vvorld and the light gives pleasure to the eie this vvere some comfort no but then suddenly vvhilst all sleep securely not This day but This night And vvhat this night Is it to attach the bodie of some great personage vvhose looks might affrighten Officers had they come by day No let his bodie rot in dust vvhilest the Soul must ansvver his defaults it is not thy body 't is thy soul And what of his soul Is this a subject liable to arrests rather can they beg it at his hands or vvill he yield it at their fair intreaties no it is neither begg'd nor intreated but by vertue of Gods Writ it is required And hovv required of his sureties bound for his good appearing he hath many friends and all either have or vvould have entred bonds no he must go vvithout bail or main-prize it is not required of his sureties but himself not of others but of thee is thy soul this night required You hear the Texts harmonie of each string vve vvill give a touch and first note the time this night This. Doctrine NO other but This were it a fortnight a seven-night any but This night and his griefs were lessened the news is more heartlesse in that it comes more sudden You may observe Then are the greatest losses when they come on us by heaps and without fear or suspicion of any such matter Here was a man swimming in his fulnesse and a sudden death robs him of all his treasures To give you a full view see his possessions and how great was the losse because of the suddennesse This night First those goods whereof he boasted are now confiscate not a peny not a dram not a mite shall be left him save onely a token of remembrance I mean his winding-sheet which he carries along with him to his grave Secondly his goods and grounds both were took from him at his death he that commanded so much of earth must now have no more earth to pleasure him but a grave what a change was this his grounds were fertile Vers 16. and they brought forth plenteously but a blast of death hath struck both the fruit and ground and nothing is now left him but a barren Tombe Thirdly his lands and houses both went together You may guesse that great demeans must have stately Halls we read of his building and especially of his Barns when these were too little for his store he tells us he will pull them down and he will build greater He never thinks of any little room in the bowels of the poor Was his harvest so great that his barns would not hold it Whence came the blessing but from God How is it then he forgets God that bestowed this blessing It is written When ye reap the harvest of the Land ye shall not reap
how it is required when this night a fearfull sound unlookt-for message speedy dispatch no more delays nor days onely this night for then must his soul be taken from him You see all his losses and now to contract them there is one griefe more then all that all is lost on a sudden Losses that come by succession are better born with but all on a sudden is the worst of all yet such is the misery of man when he goes all goes with him and he and all pass away on a sudden As in the days of Noah they ate and drunk married and gave in marriage and knew nothing tell the floud came and took them all away so is the coming of the Son of man Matth. 24.38 Mat. 24.38 How many have been thus took tripping in their wickedness Belshazzar in his mirth Herod in his pride the Philistims in their banquetting the men of Ziklag in their feasting Jobs children in their drunkenness the Sodomites in their filthiness the Steward in his security this Churle in his plenty miserable end when men end in their sin Call to mind this O my soul and tremble sleep not in sin lest the sleep of death surprize thee The hour is certain in nothing but uncertainties for sure thou must dye yet thou knowest not on what day nor in what place Certa mors incerta hora. nor how thou shalt be disposed when death must be entertained Do you not see most dye whiles they are most busie how to live he that once thought but to begin to take his ease was fain that very night whether he would or no to make his end would you have thought this Psal 37.35 39 he but now flourished like a green bay tree his thoughts full of mirth his soul of ease but I passed by and loe he was gone gone whether his body to the grave his soul to hell in the middest of his jollity God threats destruction Devils execution death expedition and thus like a Swan he sings his funerals There is that saith I have found rest and now will I eat continually of my goods and yet he knoweth not what time shall come upon him and that he must leave those things to others and dye Ecclus 11.19 Eccles 11.19 The higher our Babel-tower of joy is raised the nearer it is to ruine and confusion Sodome in the heat of their sins had that showr of fire poured on their heads Nebuchadnezzar in the height of his pride became suddenly a beast that ruled before as a King once for all here was a man solacing singing warbling out pleasant songs of ease and pastime but O the misery in the middest of his note here is a suddain stop he dreames of longs and larges he hears of briefes and semi-briefes no longer a day but this very night and then shall thy soul be taken from thee See here the many losses of one man his goods his grounds his houses his friends his time his soul and all on a sudden whilest the word is spoken this night Vse 1 Our neighbours fire cannot but give warning of approaching flames Remember his judgment thine also may be likewise Ecclus 38.22 unto me yester-day and unto thee to day Whose turn is next God onely knows who knows all Is not madness in the hearts of men whiles they live Eccles 9.3 In the least suspition of loosing worldly riches all watch and break their sleep you shall see men work and toyl and fear and care and all too little to prevent a losse but for all these losses which are linked together our riches lands houses friends time and soul and all we have there is few or none regards them O that men are so carefull in trifles and so negligent in matters of a great importance It is storied of Archimedes that when Syracuse was taken he onely was sitting secure at home and drawing circles with his compass in the dust Thus some we have that when the eternall salvation of their souls is in question they are handling their dust nothing but suites or mony-matters are their daily objects but alas what will your goods or grounds or houses or friends avail you when death comes Where did ever that man dwell that was comforted by any of these in that last and sorest conflict Give me a man amongst you that spends the span of his transitory life in grasping gold gathering wealth growing great inriching his posterity without any endeavour or care to treasure up grace against that fatall hour and I dare certainly tell him whensoever he comes to his deaths bed he shall find nothing but an horrible confusion extremest horrour and heaviness of heart nay his soul shall presently down into the kingdome of darkness and there lye and fry in everlasting fires Nor speak I only to the covetous though my text seem more directly to point at them but whosoever thou art that goest on daily in a course of sin in the fear of God unbethink thee of mortality some of you may think I speake not to you and others I speake not to you the truth is I speake to you all but to you more especially that to this day have sinned with delight but never as yet felt the smart for sin upon your souls or consciences O beloved this is it I call for and must call for till you feel a change a thorow-change in you would but some of you at this present examine you consciences and say whether have I not been inordinate in drunkenness or wantonness or coveteousness whether have I not sworn an oath or told a lye or dissembled in my heart when I have spoken O who can say amongst you I am clean I am clean and assure your selves if you are guilty you must either feel hearts grief or you can never be provided for deaths dismall arrest If you were but sensible of sin if you felt but the weight and horrour of Gods wrath for sin I am verily perswaded you would not take a quiet sleep in your beds for fear and horrour and heaviness of heart what is it but madness of a man to lye down in ease upon a feather bed and to lodge in his bosome that deadly enemy sin But horrour of horrours what if this night whilest you sleep in your sin death should arrest you on your beds This I tell you is no wonder are not sudden deaths common and ordinary among the sons of men How many have we heard that went to bed well over night for ought any man could tell and yet were found dead in the morning I will not say carried away out of their beds and cast into hell fire whether it be so or no the Lord our God knows but howsoever it is with them if we for our parts commit sin and repent not thereof by crying and sobbing and sorrowing for sin it may be this night and that is not long to you may sleep your last in this world and
then shall your souls be hurried by Devils to that infernall lake whence there is no redemption O beloved O wretch whosoever thou art Canst thou possibly sleep in such a case as this Canst thou go to bed with a conscience laden with sin Canst thou take any sleep which is the brother of death when thou lyest now in danger of eternall death Consider I pray what space what distance how far off is thy soul from death from hell from eternity no more but a breath one breath and no more no more but a step one step and more O beloved were not this lamentable that some one of us that now are standing or sitting should this night sleep his last and to morrow have his body brought to be buried yea and before to morrow morning have his soul which the Lord forbid cast from his bed of feathers to a bed of fire and yet alas alas if any of us this night dye in his sin or in a state unregenerate thus will it be with him whosoever he be to morrow may his body lye could under earth and his soul lodg in hell with this miserable rich man Vse 2 But let me speake to you of whom I hope better things it is good counsell for you all to exspect death every day and by this means death fore-seen cannot possibly be sudden no it is he onely dyes suddenly that dyes unpreparedly Watch therefore saith our Saviour be ever in a readiness and finally that this rich man may be your warning you that tender your souls learn that lessen of our Saviour Lay not up for your selves treasure upon earth where moth and rust doth corrupt and where thieves break thorow and steal but lay up for your selves treasures in Heaven where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt and where thieves do not break thorow nor steal Mat. 6.19 20. Mat. 6.19 20. You will say What treasures are those I answer These treasures are those stocks of grace that will last for ever it is that circumspect walking Ephes 5.15 Ephes 5.15 that fervency of spirit Rom. 12.11 Rom 12.11 that zeal of good works Tit. 2 14. Tit. 2.14 that purity which St. Iohn makes a property of every true hearted professour 1 Joh. 3.3 1 Joh. 3.3 In a word it is the work the life the power of that prayer that the rest of our life hereafter may be pure and holy these are heavenly hoords indeed O that we would treasure up such provision against the day of calamity If while it is called to day we would make our peace with his heavenly Highness by an humble continued exercise of repentance if in this time of grace we would purchase Gods favour and those rarest jewells of faith and a good conscience if now before we appear at the dreadfull Tribunall we would make God and his Angels our friends in the Court of Heaven O then how blessed would out deaths be to us came it never so suddenly still should death find us ready and if ready no matter how suddenly yea though it were this this night I have broke ope the writ and you see when it must be served this night but in this Quando there is both suddenness and sadness it is not this day but this night Let this end this dayes discourse and the next day we will lay open the nights dark sadness it is a dismall time and God give us grace so to provide that we may be ready with oyle in our lamps and enter with our Saviour into his blessed Kingdome Night HE sins all day and dyes at night and why at night This you know is frequent and there is reason most are begot and born and therefore dye at night but we must further then the lists of nature this night was more then ordinary as being the fittest time to aggravate his griefe weigh but the circumstances First It was a night of darkness and this may encrease the horrour of his judgment think but what a fear seized on the Aegyptians Wisd 17.5 when no power of the fire must give them light nor might the clear flames of the stars lighten the horrible night that fell upon them The Husband-men the Shepherds the work-men Exod. 10.23 all were bound with one chain of darkness No man saw another neither rose up from the place where he was for three days Exod. 10.23 Was not this fearfull darkness you may guesse it by the effects they were troubled and terrified and swooned as though their own souls should betray them Wisd 17.18 19. Whether it were an hissing wind or a sweet noyse of birds among the spreading branches or a pleasing fall of waters running violently or a terrible sound of stones or the running of skipping beasts or the noyse of cruell beasts or the eccho that answereth again in the hollow mountains these fearfull things made them to swoon for fear And if thus the Egyptians how was it with this Worldling a darknesse seized on him that engendred a thousand times more intolerable torments Wisd 17.21 This was the image of that darkness which should afterward receive him and yet was he unto himself more grievous then the darknesse It was not an outward but an utter darknesse not onely to be not seen but to be felt and feared Imagine then what visions what sounds what sights what sudden fires appeared unto him Unhappy Worldling look round about thee although it be dark here is something to be seen above is the angry Judge beneath is the burning lake before is gloomy darknesse behind is infallibe death on thy right and left hand a legion of evil angels exspecting every moment to receive the prey Here is a sight indeed able to break the very heart-strings of each seer If some have lost their wits by means of some dreadfull sight yea if the very suspicion of Devils have caused many men to tremble and the hairs of their heads to stand staring upright what then was the fear and terrour of this man when so many dreadfull horrible hellish monsters stood round about him now readie to receive him O ye sonnes of men stand in aw and sinne not Psal 4.4 commune with your own heart and in your chamber and be still Will not this fear you from your sinnes Suppose then you lay on your beds of death were the Judge in his throne your souls at the Barre ths accuser at your elbows and hell ready open to shut her mouth upon you O then how would you curse your selves and bewail your sins What horrible visions would appear to you in the dark horrible indeed In so much saith * Cyril de vitae beati Hieron ad fin Epist one that were there no other punishment then the appearing of Devils you would rather burn to ashes then endure their sights Good God that any Christian should live in this danger and yet never heed it till he sees its terrour How many have gone thus
fearfully out of this miserable world I know not what you have seen but there is very few which have not heard of many too many in this case What were Judas thoughts when he strangled himself that his bowels gushed out again What were Cains visions when he ran like a vagabond roaring and crying Gen. 4.14 Whosoever findeth me shall slay me What are all their affrights that cry when they are a dying they see spirits and Devils flying about them coming for them roaring against them as if an hell entred into them before themselves could enter it I dare instance in no other but this wretched miser What a night was that to him when on a sudden a darknesse seized on him that never after left him Thus many go to bed that never rise again till they be wakened by the fearfull sound of the last Trumpet and was not this a terrour whose heart doth not quake whose flesh doth not tremble whose senses are not astonished whilest vve do but think on it And then vvhat vvere the sufferings of himself in his person He might cry and roar and vvail and vveep yet there is none to help him his heart-strings break the blessed Angels leave him Devils still exspect him and novv the Judge hath pronounced his sentence This night in the dark they must seiz upon him Yet this was not all the horrour it was a night both of darkness and drowsiness or security in sinne He that reads the life of this man may well wonder at the fearfull end of so fair beginnings walk into his fields and there his cattel prosper come nearer to his house and there his barns swell with corn enter into his gates and there every table stands richly furnished step yet into his chambers and you may imagine doun-beds curtain'd with gold hangings nay yet come nearer we will draw the curtains and you shall view the person he had toiled all day and now see how securely he takes his rest this night he dreams golden dreams of ease of mirth of pastime as all our worldly pleasures are but waking dreams but stay a while and see the issue just like a man who starting out of sleep sees his house on fire his goods ransacked his family murthered himself near lost and not one to pitie him when the very thrusting in of an arm might deliver him this and no other was the case of this dying miser at that night while his senses were most drowsie most secure death comes in the dark and arrests him on his bed Awake rich Cormorant what charms have lulled thee thus asleep Canst thou slumber whilest death breaks down this house thy bodie to rob thee of that jewell thy soul What a deep dull drowsie dead sleep is this O fool this night is thy soul assaulted see death approaching Devils hovering Gods justice threatning canst thou yet sleep and are thine eyes yet heavie Behold the hour is at hand and thy soul must be delivered into the hands of thine enemies heavie eies he sleeps still his care all day had cast him into so dead a sleep this night that nothing can warn him untill death awake him That thief is most dangerous that comes at night such a thief is death a thief that steals men Latro hominis which then is most busie whilest we are most drowsie most secure in sinne Heark the sluggard that lulls himself in his sinnes Yet a little more sleep a little more slumber is not his destruction sudden and poverty coming on him like an armed man Prov. 6.11 Prov. 6.11 Watch saith our Saviour for you know not when the master of the house cometh at even or at midnight at the cock-crow or in the morning lest coming suddenly he should find you sleeping Mark 13.35 Mark 13.35 36. Was not this the wretchednesse of the foolish virgins how sweetly could they slumber how soundly could they sleep untill mid-night they never wake nor so much as dream to buy oyl for their lamps imagine then how fearfull were those summons to these souls Behold the Bridegroom go ye out to meet him Matth. 25.26 Sudden fears of all others are most dangerous was it not a fearfull waking to this rich man when no sooner that he opened his eyes but he saw deaths uglinesse afore his face what a sight was this at his door enters the King of fear accompanied with all his abhorred horrours and stinging dread on his curtains he may read his sinns arrayed and armed in their grisliest forms and with their fieriest stings about his bed are the powers of darknesse now presenting to his view his damnable state his deplorable miserie what can he do that is thus beset with such a world of wofull work and hellish rage his tongue faulters his breath shortens his throat rattles he would not watch and now cannot resist the crie is made the mid-night come God sounds destruction and thus runs the proclamation This night so drowsie thy soul must be taken from thee And yet more horrour it was a night of drowsinesse and sadnesse How is he but sad when he sees the night coming and his last day decaying Read but the copy of this rich mans Will and see how he deals all he hath about him he bequeaths his garments to the moth his gold to rust his body to the grave his soul to hell his goods and lands he knows not to whom Whose shall these things be Here is the man that made such mirth all day and now is he forced to leave all he hath this night It is the fruit of merry lives to give sad farwels You that sport your selves and spoyl others that rob God in his members and treasure up your own damnations will not death make sorrie hearts for your merry nights a night wil come as sad as sadnesse in her sternest looks and then what a lot will befall you O that men are such cruell Caitiffs to their own souls Is this a life think ye fit for the servants of our God revelling swearing drinking railing what other did this miser he would eat and drink and revell and sing and then came fear as desolation and his destruction on a sudden as a whirl-wind If this be our life how should we escape his death Alas for the silly mirth that now we pleasure in you may be sure a night will come that must pay for all and then shall your pleasures vanish your griefs begin and your numberlesse sins like so many envenomed stings run into your damned souls and pierce them through with everlasting sorrow away with this fond Prov. 14.13 foolish sottish vanitie The end of mirth is heavinesse saith Solomon Prov. 14.13 What will the sonnes and daughters of pleasure do then all those sweet delights shall be as scourges and Scorpions for your naked souls Then though too late will you lamentably cry out Wisd 5.8.9 What hath pride profited us or what profit hath the pomp of riches
brought us all those things are passed away as a shadow or as a Poste that passeth by Look on this man as he lies on his bed of death here is neither smile nor dimple All the daughters of musick are brought low Eccles. 12.4 His voice is hoarse his lips pale his cheeks wan his nostrills run out his eyes sink into his head and all the parts and members of his body now lose their office to assist him Is this the merrie man that made such pastime Sweet God! what a change is this Esa 3.24 In stead of sweet smell there is a stench in stead of a girdle a rent in stead of well-set hair baldness in stead of beauty burning in stead of mirth mourning and lamentation weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth Must not sadnesse seize on that soul which incurs this doom Here is a malefactour stands at bar indited by the name of Fool charged with the guilt of treason condemned by the Judge of heaven and this night the saddest that ever he saw is that fearfull execution that his soul is taken And yet more horrour It was a night of sinne and this doth encrease the sorrow Psal 116.13 How dear in the sight of the Lord is the death of his Saints and we may say on the contrary How abominable in the sight of the Lord is the death of the wicked Was not this a grief to be took thus tripping in his wickedness even now whilest he was busily plotting his ease and pastime death stands at his door and over-hears all his plots and projects It was a death to his soul to be took in his sinne hear how he roars and cries O that I had lived so virtuously as I should had I embraced the often inspirations of Gods blessed Spirit had I followed his Laws obeyed his Commands attended to his will how sweet and pleasant would they now be unto me We and alas that I had not fore-seen this day what have I done but for a little pleasure a fleeting vanity lost a Kingdome purchased damnation O beloved what think ye of your selves whilest you hear this voice you sit here as senseless of this judgement as the seats the pillars the walls the dust nay as the dead bodies themselves on which you tread but suppose and it were a blessed meditation you that are so fresh and frolick at this day that spend it merrily use it profanely swearing revelling singing dancing what if this night while you are in your sin the hand of death should arrest you Could I speak with you on your death-beds I am sure I should find you in another case how but sorrowing grieving roaring that your time were lost and these words not heeded whiles the time well served how would you tear your hair gnash your teeth bite your nails seek all means possibly to annihilate your selves and can nothing warn you before death seize on you take heed if you go on in sinne the next step is damnation It was the Apostles advice Rom. 13.11 Now it is high time to wake out of sleep for now is our salvation nearer then when we believed Rom. 13.11 If this wretched man had observed the present time how happy had he been this hour of his departure But as Officers take malefactours drinking or drabbing so is he nearest danger when deepest in the mire of pleasure Look at all those that are gone before us and which of them thought their end so near while they lived so merrie I must needs tell you there is a fire a worm a sting a darkness an hell provided for all wicked wretches and there most certainly must you be this night if you die this day in your naturall state of sinne Lord that men should be so strangely bewitched by the Prince of the air as for the momentarie enjoyment of some glorious miseries bitter-sweet pleasures heart-vexing riches desperately and wilfully to abandon God and to cast themselves headlong into the jaws of Satan Such a prodigious madnesse seized on this Worldling he sings he revels he dallies Plin. l. 7. c. 23. then dies Thus greatest euils arise out of greatest joyes as the ears vvith vehement sounds and the eyes vvith brighter objects so many by felicity have lost both their sense and being Gallus dies in the act of pleasure 2 Sam. 4.7 Num. 11.33 Ishbosheth dies in the middest of sleep the Israelites die in their day of lust this Worldling dies in that night of sinne even then on a sudden his soul is taken And yet more horrour it vvas a night of death and this vvas the vvorst of all the darkness drowsiness sadness sin all vvere nothing to this all nothing in themselves if death had not follovved Aristot lib. 3. mor. cap. 6. this is that most terrible of all terribles all fears griefs suspicions pains as so many small brooks are svvallovved up and drovvned in this Ocean of misery Novv rich man vvhat saiest thou to thy barns buildings riches lands Do these pleasure thee in this thy extreme and dying agonie Thou liest this night on thy departing bed burthened vvith the heavie load of thy former trespasses the pangs come sore and sharp upon thee thy brest pants thy pulse beats short thy breath it self smels of earth and rottennesse vvhither vvilt thou go for a little ease or succour vvhat help canst thou have in thy heaps of gold or hoord of vvealth Discip de temp serm 118. ex Hum. in tract de septuplici timore should vve bring them to thy bed as vve read of one dying commanded that his golden vessels and silver plate should be set before him which looking on he promised to his soul it should have them all on condition of his stay with him but the remedie being silly at last most desperately he commends it to the Devil seeing it would not stay in his body and so gave up the ghost Alas these trifling treasures can no more deliver thee from the arrest of that inexorable Serjeant then can an handfull of dust Wretched men vvhat shall be your thoughts vvhen you come to this miserable case full sad and heavie thoughts Lord thou knovvest you may lie upon your beds like vvild buls in a net full of the furie of the Lord In the morning thou shalt say would God it were evening and at even thou shalt say would God it were morning for the fear of thine heart wherewith thou shalt fear and for the sight of thine eyes which thou shalt see Deut. 28.67 Deut. 28.67 Here is the terrour of that night of death vvhen you may vvish vvith all your hearts that you had never been born if the Lord once let loose the cords of your conscience vvhat account vvill you make of crovvns of possessions all these will be so far from healing the wound that they will turn rather into fiery Scorpions for your further torments Now now now is the dismall time of death what
will you do whither will you go to whom will you pray the Angels are offended and they will not guard you God is dishonoured and he will not hear you onely the Devil had your service and onely hell must be your wages Consider this ye that forget God Psal 50.22 lest ye be torn in pieces and there be none to deliver you It is cruel for your souls thus to suffer to be torn and torn in pieces and so torn in pieces that none may deliver you Better this Worldling had been a worm a toad an adder any venomous creature then so to live and thus to have died yet hither it is come his sickness is remediless his riches comfortless his torments easeless still he must suffer and there is none to deliver he is torn torn in pieces and none may deliver him What need you more now we are come to this period his glasse is run his Sunne is set his day is finished and now this night the verie night of Death his soul is required and received of him Lo here the dismall dreadfull terrible time of this mans departure it was in the night a night of darkness drowsiness sadness sinne death and destruction Vse 1 Who will not provide each day against this fearfull night howsoever we passe away our time in sinne we must of necessitie ere it be long lie gasping for breath upon our dying beds there shall we grapple hand to hand with the utmost powers of death and darknesse what should we do then but sow our seed while the seed-time lasteth we have yet a day and how short this day is God onely knows be sure the night cometh wherein none can work Joh. 9.4 and then what a fearfull time will come upon us I know there be some that dream of doing good in another world or at least will deferre it longer till some time hereafter such vain hopes of future performances hath undone many a soul I must work the work of him that sent me Joh. 9.4 while it is day saith our Saviour The way-faring man travels not in darknesse but while the day shines on him then he knows he is under the protection of the Laws the light of the Sunne the blessing of heaven Joh. 11.9 Are there not twelve hours in the day if any man walk in the day he stumbleth not because he seeth the light of this world but if a man walk in the night he stumbleth because there is no light in him Do good then and lay hold of every season which may get you to heaven Let the whole course of your life be a conscionable preparative against death Suppose every day your last as if at night you should be called to account before that high and great tribunall in a word whatsoever you think or speak or do say thus with your self Would I do thus and thus if I knew this night to be my last Who is it would sinne if he thought at that instant he must go to judgement Vse 2 But if we neglect the day be sure the night will come to our condemnation where be those wonders that so dazled our eies while the day shone on them Where is Absaloms beautie Jezabels paint Sauls personage nay where is this wretched Worldling he had a day to work out his own salvation and that being lost at last came night before he had gone two steps toward heaven Joh. 12.35 O beloved walk while yee have light that ye may be children of the light You may be sure the meanest soul that hath the work of grace upon it death is to him no night but the day-break of eternall brightnesse This may make us in love with the sincerity of religion this may make us to labour and never cease labouring till we have gotten out of the state of nature into the state of grace O that I could say of every one of you as Paul of the Ephesians Ye were once darkness but now are ye light in the Lord. Ye were once carnall but now are ye spirituall ye were once unregenerate Ephes 5.8 but now are ye a first-fruits dedicated to God If it were thus with you then to your comfort upon your dying beds you should meet with a glorious troop of blessed Angels you should feel the glorious presence of the sweetest comforter you should see the glorious light of Gods shining countenance you should have a night if it were night turn'd all into a mid-day Now the Lord give you such a day whensoever you dye through Christ our Lord. You have heard the time of Deaths arrest This night Now for the party wee 'll make a privy search and if we stir one word we shall finde him at next doore it is thy soul Thy Soul THe party under arrest is the rich mans Soul no warranty could prevail no riches satisfie no strength rescue death now demands it and there 's none can redeem it therefore This night they will have his soul Every man hath a jewell better worth then a world Observ and the loss of this is so much more dear by how much it is more precious What profits it a man to gain a world and to lose his soul said our Lord and Saviour Mat. 16.26 Mat. 16.26 Nay what are a thousand worlds when the soul is valued Give me leave to ope the cabinet and you shall see the jewell that is arrested it is the Soul The Soul what 's that Substantia creata invisibilis incorporea immortalis Deo similima imaginem habens creatoris sui Aug. in lib. de definitione animae Dicearchus it is saith Austin a substance that is created invisible incorporeall immortall most like to God as bearing the image of its Creator Please you that we illustrate this description and you shall see how every word shews forth some excellencies as the glorious lustres of this glorious pearle the Soul First if you ask what is the Soul 't is a substance How fond were the opinions of some Philosophers one would have it to be nothing vox praeterea nihil and how many of us are of this opinion Doe not we live as if we had no souls at all The epicure is for his belly the ambitious for his body but who is he that provides for his soul Sure we imagine it to be nothing valuable or how should our estimation of it be so grosse and vile to prefer the body to neglect the soul There were other Philosophers vvent a pace yet further and they gave it a being Galen but vvhat no better then an accident that might live or dye vvithout death of the subject this they call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 humorum a certain temper composed of the elements or nothing but the harmony of those humours in the body Is this the soul then of all creatures are men say vve 1 Cor. 15.19 of all men are we saith the Apostle most miserable most unhappy
of torments which like infinite rivers of Brimstone feed upon his soul without ease or end What avails now his pompous pride at his dolefull funerals the news is sounded hee is dead friends must lament him passing-peales ring for him an hearse-cloth wrap him a tombe-stone lye over him all must have mourning suites and may be rejoycing hearts but all this while his soul his going to judgment without one friend or the least acquaintance to speak in his cause O that his soul were mortall and body and soul to be buried both together in one grave must his body die and his soul live in what world or nation in what place or region it is another world another nation where Devils are companions brimstone the fire horrour the language and eternall death the souls eternall life never to be cured Bernard in Medit. and never must be ended O my soul saith Bernard what a terrible day shall that be when thou shalt leave this Mansion and enter into an unknown region who will deliver thee from these ramping Lyons who can defend thee from those hellish monsters God is incensed hell prepared justice threatned onely mercy must prevent or the soul is damned View this rich man on his deaths-bed the pain shouts through his head and at last comes to his heart anon death appeares in his face and suddenly falls on to arrest his soul Is it death what is it he demands can his goods satisfie no the world claims them must his body goe no the worms claim that what debt is this which neither goods nor body can discharge Habeas animam ejus coram nobis Gods warrant bids fetch the soul O miserable news the soul committed sin sin morgaged it to death death now demands it and what if he gain the world he must lose his soul This night thy soul shall be required of thee Vse 1 Animula vagula blandula said the heathen Emperour Pretty Adrian little wandring soul whither goest thou from me wilt thou leave me alone that cannot live without thee O what conflicts suffers the poor soul when this time is come must the soul be gone help friends physick pleasure riches nay take a world to reprive a soul so different are the thoughts of men dying from them living now are they for their pleasure or profit the body or the world but then nothing is esteemed but the soul what can we say but if you mean your souls must be saved O then let these precious dear everlasting things breathed into your bodies for a short abode scorn to feed on earth or any earthly things it is matter of a more heavenly metall treasures of an higher temper riches of a nobler nature that must help your souls Do you think that ever any glorified soul that now looks God Almighty in the face and tramples under foot the Sun and Moon is so bewitcht as was Achan with a wedge of gold no it is onely the Communion of Saints the society of Angels the fruition of the Deity Iosh 7.21 the depth of eternity which can onely feed and fill the soul So live then as that when you die your souls may receive this blisse and the Lord Iesus our Saviour receive all your souls Vse 2 I must end but gladly would I win a soul If the reward be so great as you know it to recover a sick body Si magnae mercedis est a morte eripere carnem quanti est meriti à morte liberare animam Ambros Offic. 1. Quid est quod velis habere malum nihil omnino Aug. in quod serm which for all that must die of what reward is that cure to save a soul which must ever ever live O sweet Jesu why sheddest thou the most precious and warmest bloud of thy heart but onely to save souls thou wast scourged buffetted judged condemned hanged was all this for us and shall we do nothing for our selves What is it thou wouldest have bad if thou couldest wish it good not thy house nor thy wife nor thy children nor thy good nor thy cloaths but no matter for thy soul I beseech you value not you souls at a less price then your shooes you can please the flesh with delicates which is naught but worms meat but the soul pines for want which is a creature invisible incorporeall immortall most like to God are we thus carefull of pelf and so careless of this pearl certainly I cannot choose but wonder when seeing the streets peopled with men that follow suits run to Courts attend and wait on their Councellors for this case and that case this house or that land that not one of these no nor one of all us will ride or run or creep or go to have counsell for his soul I must confess I have sometimes dwelt on this meditation and Beloved let me speak homely to you be our Counsellors in this Town every week solicited by their Clients and have we no Clients in soul-cases not one that will come to us with their cases of conscience sure you are either careless of your souls or belike you have no need of particular instructions O let us not be so forward for the world and so backward for the soul yet I pray mistake not I invite you not for fees as noble Terentius when he had petitioned for the Christians and saw it torn in pieces before his face gathered up the pieces and said I have my reward I have not sued for gold silver honour or pleasure but a Church so say I in middest of your neglect I have not sued for your good or silver for your houses or lands but for your souls your precious souls and if I cannot or shall not woe them to come to Christ God raise up some child of the Bride-chamber which may do it better if neither I nor any other can prevail O then fear that speech of Elies sons they hearkened not unto the voice of their father because the Lord would slay them 1 Sam. 2.25 In such a case O that my head were full of water and mine eyes a fountain of tears that I might weep day and night for your sins O that I could wash your souls with my tears from that filth of sin wherewith they are besmeared and defiled O that for the salvation of your souls I might be made a sacrifie unto death But the Lord be praised for your souls and my soul Christ Jesus hath died and if now we but repent us of our sins and believe in our Saviour if now we will but deny our selves and take up his cross and follow him if now we will but turn unto him that he may turn his loving countenance unto us if now we will but become new creatures and ever-hereafter walk in the holy path the narrow way which leads unto heaven why then may our souls be saved This is that we had need to care for Cur carnem adornas animam non
adornas Hugo de claustro animae not so much for the body as for the souls good to this purpose saith Hugo Why cloath we the body in silks which must rot in the grave and adorn not the soul with faith and good works which one day must appear before God and his Angels O think of this day this night this hour of death for then must your Souls be taken from you Thus far you see the rich mans arrest God injoyns it death serves it the time was this night and the party is his Soul God give us grace to provide our souls that when death arrests we may be ready and then O God have thou mercy on our Souls Shall be required THe originall is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They shall require it wherein you have the Sergeants Arrest The Sergeants They and the arrest it self They require his soul Wee 'll first take a view of the Sergeants They who not God he knows not sinners what should he do with a drunken profane covetous sensuall soul he that never so much as thought on God in this life will God accept of the commending of his soul to him at his death no the Lord of heaven will none of it he that forsook God is justly forsaken of God See the true weight of this balance he would not receive Gods grace into his soul and God will not receive his graceless soul into heaven But who then will the Angels take it no they have nothing to do with the soul of a dying sinner the Angels are onely porters for the souls of the just Poor Lazarus that could neither go nor sit nor stand for sores it is he must be carried on the wings of Angels but for this rich man not the lowest Angell will do him poorest service Who then will the Saints receive it no they have no such commission to receive a soul that blind opinion which every one may blush at that Saint Peter should be heavens porter and that none may go in but to whom he will open if it be true why may not a Saint help a departing soul Away with this dreaming folly not Peter nor Paul nor all the Saints of heaven have any such priviledg if God will not hear us what will our prayers do to Saints Heaven is too far off they cannot hear or were it nearer they will not cannot help it is God must save us or we perish ever Who then are the Sergeants not God nor Saints nor Angels no there is another crew Death and Devils stand in a readiness and they are the parties that arrest this prisoner Stay what would death have the soul cannot die and for the body no matter who receives it O yes there is a death of the soul as well as of the body I mean not such a death whereby it may be annihilated but a second death that shall ever accompany it this is a death of the soul that will always keep it in deaths pangs But not to speak of this death there is another death temperall that shall sever the soul and body each from other these two twins that have lived together since their first espousall these two lovely ones that were made and met and married by the hands of God these two made one till death them depart and make them two again now is their rufull time of divorce when death comes he gives over the body to the grave and arrests the soul to appear in presence before Gods high Tribunall Such a Bayliffe hath now laid hands on this rich mans soul when he least thought on 't death comes on a sudden and arrests his person O wretched worldling who is this behinde thee call we this Gods Sergeant What grim ugly monstrous visage is this we see have ever any of you seen the grisly picture of death before you how was it but with hollow eyes open skull grinning teeth naked ribs a few bones knit together with dry strings as presenting to your eyes the most deformed image of a man in moldes But what 's that in his hands an hour-glass and a dart the one expressing the decreasings of our life and the other deaths stroke that he gives us in our death Such emblemes are most fit to express mortality and imagine such a thing to arrest this rich man would it not terrifie him whilest looking back death suddenly claps him on his shoulder away he must with this messenger all the gold and pearl of East and West cannot stay him one hour now rich man what avails all thy worldly pleasure Hadst thou in thy hands the reigns of all earthly kingdomes wert thou exalted as the Eagle Obad. 1.4 and thy nest set among the starrs yet all this and whatsoever else thou canst imagine is not worth a button where did that man dwell or of what cloth was his garment that was ever comforted by his goods or greatness in this last and sorest conflict See worldling death requires thy soul no bribe will be taken no entreatie will prevail no riches rescue nothing at all redeem death death is impartiall But O horrour death is not all see yet more Sergeants Devils and Dragons are about thy bed and these are they that will hurrie away thy soul to hell How Devils O worldling stay thy soul and never yield it better to die a thousand deaths then to leave it in their hands but alas thou canst not choose thy last hour is come and here is neither hope nor help nor place of any longer terrying See but the misery of a miserable soul what shall it do whither shall it fly from these damned Furies would they take it and teare it into nothing it were somewhat tollerable but to teare it in pieces and never to make end of tearing to give it torments without all patience or resistance this is that load which it cannot bear and yet O extremity it ever ever must be born Think on this O my soul and whilest thou hast a minutes stay in this body call upon God to prevent this arrest of Devils was it not think yee a terrour to this rich man when so many hell hounds waited for his soul we read of one man Hartmundus Schedel in vit Pap. who being took away with a Devill through the air was said so to roar and yell that many miles distant his noise was heard to many a mans trembling And if a soul had but the organs of a sound what a shreek would it make being seized on by a Devil witness the cries of many desperate souls when as yet they are safe in their beds how do they roar and rage how do they call and cry Help help us save us deliver us from these fiends about us these are those evening wolves enraged with hellish hunger these are those ramping Lyons ever ready to devour our souls these are those walkers up and down the earth which are now come and entred into this rich mans lodging
Matth. 24.28 Wheresoever the dead carkasse is thither saith our Saviour will the Eagles resort and wheresoever a damned soul is thither with a lacrity will these spirits come O how they fly and flutter round about him what fires do they breathe to enkindle them on his soul what clawes do they open to receive her at the parting and what astonishment is that poor soul in that perceives these Sergeants even ready to clasp their in her burning armes See O Cosmopolite what thy sin hath caused lust hath transported thine eyes blasphemy thy tongue pride thy foot oppression thy hand covetousness thy heart and now Death and Devils they are the Sergeants that require thy soul Vse Reflect these thoughts on your own souls and consider with your selves what may be your cases it may be as yet thou standest upright without any changes hitherto thou hast seen no days of sorrow but even washed thy steps with butter and the rock hath poured thee out rivers of oyle Deut. 32.13 14. Alas was not this the case of this wretched worldling yet for all this you see a night came that paid for all and so may it be with thee a day an hour Casaub Dies hora momentum c. a moment is enough to overturn the things that seem to have been founded and rooted in Adamant who can tell whether this night this storm may fall upon thee art thou not strangely nailed and glued unto sence art thou not stupidly senceless in spirituall things that for pelf vanity dung nothing wilt run headlong and willfully into easelesse endlesse and remediles torments Yet such is thy doing if thou beest a worldling to get riches to thy body and let death and devils have thy soul O beloved consider in time and seeing you have such a terrible example set before you let this worldling be your warning We have done with the Sergeants but what 's their office to beg to sue No but to force to require thy soul is required How requried is any so bold to approach his gates and make a forcible entry Yes God hath his speciall Bailiffs that will fear no colours riches cannot ransome castles cannot keep hollows cannot hide hills nor their forts protect Sits Herod on his Throne there 's a Writ of Remove and the worms are his Bayliffs is Dives at his Table Death brings the Mittimus and Devils are his Jaylours sits Lazarus at his gates the King greets him well we may say and Angels are his keepers poor rich good bad all must be served at the Kings suit no place can priviledge no power secure no valour rescue no libertie exempt with a non omittas propter aliquam libertatem runs this Warrant 2. Sam. 22.5 O rich man what wilt thou now do The sorrows of death compasse thee and the flouds of Belial make thee afraid What no friends to help no power to rescue is there no other way but yield and die for it O miserie enough to break an heart of brasse again Imagine that a Prince a while possessed some royall City where if you walk the streets you may see peace flourishing wealth abounding pleasure waiting all his neighbours offering their service and promising to assist him in all his needs and affairs if on a sudden this city were besieged by some deadly enemie who coming like a violent stream takes one hold after another one wall after another one castle after another and at last drives this Prince onely to a little Tower and there sets on him what fear anguish and misery would this Prince be in If he looks about his holds are taken his men are slain his friends and neighbours now stand aloof off and they begin to abandon him were not this a wofull plight trow you even so it fares with a poor soul at the hour of her departure the body wherein she reigned like a jolly Princesse then droops and languishes the keepers tremble Eccles 12.3 the strong men bow the grinders cease and they wax dark that look out at the windows no wonder if fear be in the way when the arms the legs the teeth the eyes as so many walls wherein the soul was invironed are now surprized and beaten to the ground her last refuge is the heart and this is the little Tower whither at last she is driven But what is she there secure no but most fiercely assailed with a thousand enemies her dearest friends youth and Physick and other helps which soothed her in prosperity do now abandon her what will she do the enemy will grant no truce will make no league but night and day assayls the heart which now like a Turret struck with thunder begins all to shiver here is the wofull state of a wicked soul God is her enemy the Devil her foe Angels hate her the earth groans under her hel gapes for her the reason of all sin struck the alarm and death gives the battel it is but this night a minute longer and then will the raging enemie enter on her Death is no beggar to entreat no suiter to wo no petitioner to ask no soliciter to crouch and crave a favour she runs raging Quaque ruit furibunda ruit ruling charging requiring hark this rich mans arrest thy soul shall be required It shall yes the word is peremptory what be required yes it comes with authority Here 's a fatall requiring when the soul shall be forced by an unwilling necessitie and devils by force hurrie her to her endless furie Adieu poor soul the Writ is served the Goal prepared the judgement past and Death the Executioner will delay no longer This night thy soul shalt be required of thee Vse 1 But to whom speak I Think of it you miserably covetous that joyn house to house and call the lands after your own names You may trust in your wealth and boast your selves in the multitude of your riches but none of you call by any means redeem his brother no nor himself Psal 49.6 Psal 49.6.7 When Death comes I pray what composition with the Lord of heaven could ever any buy out his damnation with his coyn howsoever you live mirrily deliciously go richly yet Death will at last knock at your doors and notwithstanding all your wealth honours tears and groans of your dearest friends will take you away as his prisoners to his darkest dungeon Your case is as with a man who lying fast asleep upon the edge of some steep high rock dreams merrily of Crowns Kingdoms Possessions but upon the sudden starting for joy he breaks his neck and tumbles into the bottome of some violent sea Thus is your danger every hour Sathan makes you a bed lulls you asleep charms you into golden dreams and you conceive you are wallowing in the Sea of all wordly happiness at last death comes against which there is no resistance and then are you suddenly swallowed up of despair and drowned in that pit of eternall death and
dreadfull of hel yet coveting death in a continuall torment yet his own tormentour consuming himself with grief and horrour impatience and despair till at last he ended his miserable-miserable life And now beloved if such be the departure of a sinnfull soul O who would live in sinne to come to such a departure For my part I dare not say these parties thus miserable in their own apprehensions are now among Devils in hell I find the Authours themselves to incline to the right hand besides what am I that I should sit in Gods Chair onely this I say that their miserable deaths may verie well give warning to us all nor need you think much at me for uttering these terribilia terrible stories for if sometimes you did not hear of Gods judgements against sinne a day might come that you would most of all crie out on the Preacher To this purpose we have a story of a certain rich man who lying on his death-bed My soul said he I bequeath to the Devil who owns it my wife to the Devil who drew me to my ungodly life and my Chaplain to the Devil who flattered me in it I pray God I never hear of such a Legacy from any of you sure I had better to tell you aforehand to prevent it then not telling you to feel it And let this be for my Apologie in relating these stories Vse 2 But for a second Use give me leave I pray you to separate the precious from the vile Now then to sweeten the thoughts of all true penitents the souls of Saints are not required but received Rejoyce then ye righteous that mourn in Sion what though a while ye suffer death is a Goal-delivery to your souls not bringing in but freeing out of thraldome Here the good man finds sharpest misery the evil man sweetest felicity therefore it is just that there should be a time of changing turnes The rich mans Table stood full of delicates Lazarus lacks crums but now he is comforted and thou art tormented Luke 16.25 Wo unto you that laugh for you shall mourn Luke 6.25 Luke 6.25 Blessed are you that mourn for you shall rejoyce Matth. 5.4 Matth. 5.4 Happy Lazarus who from thy beggary and loathsome sores wert carried by Angels into Abrahams bosome happy Thief who upon thy true repentance and unfeigned prayer wert received from the Crosse to the Paradise of thy Saviour happy are all they that suffer tribulation Death shall lose their souls from bonds and fetters and in stead of a Bayliff to arrest them shall be a Porter to conduct them to the gates of heaven There shalt thou tread on Serpents trample on thine enemies sing sweet Trophies were not this enough thy Conquests shall be crowned by the hands of Seraphims triumphed with the sound of Angels warbled by the Quire of Spirits confirmed by the King of Kings and Lord of Hosts Happy Soul that art not required by Devils but received by Angels and when we die Lord Jesus send thine Angels to receive our Souls You see now Deaths Arrest and what remains further save to accept of some Bail But what Bail where you have the Kings Commandment from his own mouth this requiring is not of any other but himself of no suretie but of thee saith God must thy Soul be required Of thee ONce more you see I have brought this rich man on the stage his doom is now at hand and Death Gods messenger summons him to appear by Requiring of his soul but of whom is it Required had he any Sureties to put in or was any Bail sufficient to be taken for him no he must go himself without all help or remedie it was he that sinned and it is he must pay for it Of thee it is required How of thee Sure Death mistakes we can find thousands more fit none more fearfull there stands a Saul near him his armour-bearer behold a Judas such will outface deaths fury nay rather then if fail in its office they will not much question to be their own Deaths-men but this Of thee who art at league with hell in love with earth at peace with all is most terribly fearfull Stay Death there stands a poor Lazarus at the gates like Job on his dung-hil his eyes blind his ears deaf his feet lame his bodie struck with Boyls Job 7.15 and his Soul choosing rather to be strangled and die then to be in his bones were not this a fit object for deaths crueltie would he spare the rich he should be welcome to the poor but Death is inexorable he must not live nor shall the Beggar beg his own death for another Of thee it is required But Death yet stay thy hand here 's a better surety what needs death a presse when he may have volunteers there stands an old man as ready for the grave as the grave for him his face is furrowed his hairs hoary his back bowing his hammes bending and therefore no song is fitter then old Simeons Luke 2.29 Lord now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace Youth is loath but Age is merry to depart from misery let Death then take him that standeth nearest deaths-door No the old must die but the young may he must die soon yet be sure thou shalt not live long Of thee it is required Cannot this serve let death yet stay his hand there stands a servant waiting at this rich mans beck as if he would spend his own life to save his Masters he can make a Pageant of Cringes act a whole speech of flatteries every part owes him service feet to run hands to work head to crouch and as the eyes of a maiden unto the hand of a Mistris so the eyes of his servants look unto the hands of their Master but where be these attendants when death comes was ever any Master better then Christ were ever any servants truer then his Apostles yet see their fidelitie must their Saviour die one betrayes him another forswears him all run from him and leave him alone in midst of all his enemies what then is the trust of servants the rich man may command and go without if death should require them they would not or if they should desire death hee will not his arrest concerns not the servants it is for the Master himself he that command others now death commands him Of thee it is required Will not all do Let death but stay this once there stands a friend that will loose his own to save his life Greater love then this hath no man saith our Saviour when any man bestoweth his life for his friends John 15.13 John 15.13 Riches may perhaps procure such love and get some friend to answer deaths quarrel which he ows this man Jonathan loves David David Absolon and sure it was a love indeed when Jonathan preserves the life of David and David wisheth a death to himself in the stead of Absolon O my sonne Absolon 2.
with their flaming tongues usurers with talent hands drunkards with scorched throats all these tares like fiery faggots burning together in hell flames this is the first punishment all the tares must meet they are bundled together Observ 2 Secondly as the tares must together so they must together by themselves thus are they bundled and severed bundled all together but from the wheat all asunder Quia damni poenam infert Basil Ascer in c. 2. p. 255. Chrysost in Matth. Hom. 24. Bern. de inter domo cap. 38. Hell is called damnation Because it brings Heavens losse and this by consent of most Divines is the more horrible part of hell so Basil To be alienated or separated from the presence of God his Saints and Angels is farre more grievous then the pains of hell So Chrysostome The pain of hell is intolerable indeed yet a thousand hels are nothing to the losse of that most glorious kingdome So Bernard It is a pain far surpassing all the tortures in hel not to see God and those joyes immortall which are prepared for his children O then what hels are in hell when besides the pains of sense there is a pain of losse the losse of God losse of Saints losse of Angels losse of Heaven losse of that beatificall vision of the most Sovereigne Good our ever-blessed Maker Consider with your selves if at the parting of the soul and body there be such pangs and gripes and stings and sorrows what grief then will it be to be severed for ever from the Highest and supreamest Good Suppose your bodies as some Martyrs have been used should be torn in sunder and that wild horses driven contrary wayes should rack and pul your arms and legs and heart and bowels one piece froÌ„ another what an horrible kind of death would this be think you and yet a thousand rentings of this member from that or of the soul from the body are infinitely lesse then this one separation of the soul from God When Jacob got rhe blessing from his brother Esau Gen. 27.31 it is said in the Text that he roared with a great cry and bitter saying to his father Hast thou not reserved one blessing for me also Imagine then when the wheat must have the blessing how will the tares figured in Esau roar and crie and yell and howl again and yet notwithstanding this unspeakable rage all the tears of hell shall never be sufficient to bewail the losse of heaven Hence breeds that worm that is alwayes gnawing at the conscience a worâ—â— saith our Saviour that dies not Mark 9.44 Mark 9.44 It shall lie day and night biting and gnawing and feeding upon the bowels of the damned persons O the stings of this worm no sooner shall the damned consider the cause of their miserie to wit the mis-spending of their time the greatnesse of their sinne the many oportunities lost when they might have gotten Heaven for a tear or a sigh or groan from a penitent heart but this worm or remorse shall at every consideration give them a deadly bite and then shall they roar it out Miserable wretch what have I done I had a time to have wrought out the salvation of my soul many a powerfull searching Sermon have I heard any one passage whereof had I not wickedly and wilfully forsook mine own mercie might have been unto me the beginning of the new birth but those golden dayes are gone and for want of a little sorrow a little repentance a little faith now am I burning in hell fire O precious time O dayes moneths years how are ye vanished that you will never come again And have I thus miserably undone my self Come Furies tear me into as many pieces as there are moats in the Sun rip up my breast dig into my bowels pull out my heart leave me not an hair on my head but let all burn in these flames till I moulder into nothing O madnesse of men that never think on this all the dayes of your visitation and then when the bottomlesse pit hath shut her self upon you thus will this worm gnaw your hearts with unconceivable griefs Be amazed O ye Heavens tremble thou Earth let all creatures stand astonished whilst the Tares are thus sentenced Bundle them and burn them Thus farre of the word in generall but if we look on it with a more narrow eye it gives to our hands this speciall observation The tares must have chains proportionable to their sinns Observ Bind them in bundles saith my Text not in one but in many faggots an Adulterer with an Adulteresse a Drunkard with a Drunkard a Traytor with a Traytor as there be severall sins so severall Bundles all are punished in the same fire but all are not punished in the same degree some have heavier chains and some have lighter but all in just weight and measure The Proud shall be trod under foot the Glutton suffer inestimable hunger the Drunkard feel a burning thirst the Covetous pine in wants the Adulterer lie with Serpents Dragons Scorpions Give me leave to bind these in bundles and so leave them for the fire they are first bundled then burned Where is Lady Pride and her followers see them piled for the furnace Esay 3. you that jet it with your bals and bracelets tyres and tablets rings and jewels and changeable suits think but what a change will come when all you like birds of a feather must together to be bound in bundles What then will your pride avail or your riches profit or your gold do good or your treasures help Job 20.26 when you must be constrained to vomit up again your riches the increase of your house departing away and a fire not blown utterly consuming you and them The rich man in the Gospel could for a time go richly fare sumptuously and that not onely on Sabbaths or Holy-dayes but as the text every day yet no sooner had death seized on his body but he was fain to alter both his suit and diet hear him how he begs for water that had plentie of wines and see him that was cloathed in purple now apparrelled in another suit yet of the same colour too even in purple flames O that his delicate morsels must want a drop of water and that his fine apparrell must cost him so dear as the high price of his soul why rich man is it come to this the time was that purple and fine linnen was thy usuall apparrell that banquets of sumptuous dishes were thy ordinarie fare but now not the poorest beggar even Lazarus himself that would change estate with thee Change said I marrie no Remember saith old Abraham that thou in thy life time receivedst thy good things and likewise Lazarus evil things but now he is comforted and thou art tormented Luke 16.25 Luke 16.25 But there are other Bundles where is Gluttonie and her surfetters Do we not see how the earth is plowed the sea furrowed and all to
sutable Now the Thief seeing that Christ was first of all crucified and therefore in all likelihood should first of all die makes his request to this effect Lord thou shalt shortly enter into thy Kingdome remember me then to which Christs answer as the very words import is thus much I shall enter into Paradise this day and there shalt thou be with me but the God-head which is at all times in all places cannot be said properly to enter into a place and therefore not into Paradise Again When Christ saith Thou shalt be with me in Paradise he doth intimate a resemblance between the first and second Adam the first Adam sinned against God and was presently cast out of Paradise the second having made a satisfaction for sinne must presently enter into Paradise Now there is no entrance but in regard of the soul or man-hood and therefore to apply it to the God-head were to abolish this analogy betwixt the first and second Adam These reasons are weighty but should we say with Austin That Christ in his soul went down into hell one of our Worthies can tell us R. Clerk D. in D. Serm. that Christs soul united to his God-head might do all that and yet be that day in Paradise God works not lazily like man Satan could shew Christ all the Kingdoms of the world in the twinkling of an eye and Gods expedition exceeds his To this agrees another that we have no warrant in Gods Word so to fasten Christs soul unto hell for all the time of his death B. Bilson l. of the power of Hel destroyed fol. 219. Rom. 10.7 but that it might be in Paradise before it descended into hel That he was in Paradise must be received because himself doth affirm it and that he descended into the deep must be received also for the Apostle doth avouch it but how he descended or what time he descended as also what manner of triumph he brought thence cannot be limited by any mortall man To conclude I will not denie but that according to the Creed he descended into Hell yet howsoever we expound it Metaphorically or literally it hinders not this truth but that immediately after death his soul went into Paradise The objections thus solved now come we to the Thief thus comforted by Christ to day shalt thou be with me in Paradise What to day without all doubts or delayes here 's a blessed dispatch if we either consider the misery endured or the joy to be received First in regard of his miseries he was a Thief condemned and crucified we read of foure kinds of deaths in use amongst the Jews strangling stoning fire and the sword the Crosse was a death whether for the pain the shame the curse farre above all other we may see it in that gradation of the Apostle He became obedient to death even to the death of the Crosse Phil. 2.8 Phil. 2.8 What engine of torture was that it spins out pain it slowes his death yet a little and a little till it be more then any man can think see his hands bored his feet nayled his legs broken every part full of pain from top to toe and thus hangs this Thief the poyz of his body every moment increasing his pain and his own weight becoming his own affliction in this case were not a quick riddance his best remedie were not the news of death better then a lingring life Lo then to his eternall comfort Christ our Saviour in the same condemnation grants him his desire What would he have a dispatch of pain he shall have it this day as Samuels appearance said to Saul To morrow yea to day thou shalt be with me 1 Sam. 28.19 But secondly here 's a greater comfort his miseries have an end and his joys are at hand while he is even gasping in deaths pangs he is carried on a sudden from earth to heaven from his Crosse to Paradise from a world of wo to a kingdome of happiness and eternall blisse O how blessed is the change when in the very moment of misery joy enters Suppose you a poor man in the night time out of his way wandring alone upon the mountains far from companie destitute of money beaten with rain terrified with thunder stiff with cold wearied with labour famished with hunger and near brought to despair with the multitude of miseries if this man upon a sudden in the twinkling of an eye should be placed in a goodly large and rich palace furnished with all kind of clear lights warm fire sweet smels dainty meats soft beds pleasant musick fine apparell honourable company and all these prepared for him to serve him honour him and to anoint and crown him a King for ever what would this poor man do what could he say surely nothing but rather in silence weep for joy Such nay far happier was the case of this poor malefactour he was like the man wandring on the mountains full of as much pain as the crosse could make him but on a sudden he and our Saviour crucified with him both meet in his Kingdome and now Lord what a joy enters into him when he entred into heaven on Calvary he had nothing about him but the Iews at his feet and the nails in his hands and the Crosse at his back in stead whereof no sooner comes he to Paradise but the Angels Archangels Cherubims Seraphims all hug him and embrace him imagine with your selves how was he astonished and as it were besides himself at this sudden mutation and excessive honour done unto him Imagine with your selves what joy was that when he met our Saviour in his glorie whom that very day he had seen buffeted scourged crowned crucified blessed day that could ever bring forth such a change Beloved I know not how to express it but let your souls in some meditation flie up from Calvarie to Heaven in the morning you might have seen Christ and this Thief hanging on two Crosses their bodies stretched their veins opened their hands and feet bleeding in abundance the one desiring to be remembred of the other and the other complaining that he was forgotten of his Father Matth. 27.46 in this dolefull case both leaving the world ere night they meet again and now what hugs what kisses are betwixt them When Joseph met with Iacob Gen. 46.26 he fell on his neck saith Moses and wept on his neck a good while but never was any meeting on earth like this in Heaven here we have a Ioseph lift out of the dungeon to the Throne where no sooner set but our Saviour performs his promise of meeting him in Paradise at which meeting the Angels sing the Saints rejoyce all Harps warble all Hands clap for joy and the poor soul of this penitent Thief ravished with delight what does it or what can it do but even weep for joy if any weeping were in heaven to see on a sudden so great a change as this Vse And if
ULTIMA The last things in reference to the First and Middle things OR CERTAIN MEDITATIONS on Life Death Judgement Hell Right Purgatory and Heaven Delivered by ISAAC AMBROSE Minister of the Gospel at PRESTON in AMOUNDERNES in LANCASHIRE Deut. 32.29 O that they were wise that they understood this that they would consider their latter end Ecclus. 7.36 Whatsoever thou takest in hand remember the end and thou shalt never do amiss LONDON Printed for J. A. and are to be sold by Nathanael Webb and William Grantham at the Grey-hound in Pauls Church-yard 1650. To the Reader READER NOt to stay thee too long at the doore come in and thou mayst in this fabrick see these severall partitions Here is Mans misery in his Life Ser. 1. Death Ser. 2. Judgement Ser. 3. The Execution Ser. 4. Gods mercie in our Redemption Ser. 5. Salvation Ser. 6. The first part may bring thee to a sight and sense and sorrow for sin the second to a sight of Christ and a comfort in Christ and these are the principall means of conversion Nor is the work unprofitable if thou beest converted use them as daily Meditations and they will keep thee from sin and help thee towards heaven One of our Worthies can tell thee that Nothing more strongly bends men to sin then securitie or incogitancie of these things If thou ask what things he answers The end of our creation and redemption the certaintie of death the uncertaintie of life the severe account we must give the just retribution we shall have the miserie of the damned in hell the blessedness of the Saints in heaven these things being sadly and frequently thought upon would quench our burnings and lustings after sinne And true thou mayest find it that such good thoughts and an inordinate life are scarce consistible Will you hear another A serious and fruitfull meditation on these things so blessed M. Bolton hath ever been holden very materiall and of speciall moment to make us by Gods blessing more humble unworldly provident and prepared for the evil day And I take it every one of these following subjects would be an excellent theam or matter for our deliberate meditation See the Middle things Chap. 7. Sect. 4. Read then and practise these Meditations and I trust by these means thy end will be Heavens happiness So ends this work and to that end solely next to Gods glory I built it for thee Farewell Thine in all services I may for thy souls salvation I. A. Lifes Lease GEN. 47.9 Few and evil have the dayes of my life been WHen Pharaoh was Egypts King Joseph Pharaohs Steward and Jacob Josephs father there was a great famine which Pharaoh had dreamed Joseph fore-told and Iacob suffered God that sent Ioseph to Pharaoh brings Iacob to Ioseph the same providence so disposing of all that yet some food must be in Egypt when nothing was found in all the land of Canaan Thither come welcome as you may see in the storie Pharaoh salutes Iacob with this question What is thy age How many are thy dayes How many alas but few what are they alas but evil Thus we find Iacob at his Arithmetick the bill is short and the number but a cyphar Will you hear him cast his accounts First they are dayes and without all rules of falshood by subtraction few by addition full of evil contract all and this is the sum of all Few and evil have the dayes of my live been This Text briefly is the Lease of Iacobs life God the chief Lord inricht his substance yet limits the grant of his time will you question the Lease for what time no more but my life saith Iacob but a life what years no years but dayes saith Iacob but dayes how many not many but few saith Iacob but few how good not good but evil saith Iacob who can blaze the arms of life that finds not in it Crosse and Croslet the lease but a life the tearm but dayes the number few the nature evil nay when all is done we see all is out of date the dayes are not but are past they have been Few and evil have the dayes of my life been We must you see invert the Text and begin with that on which all hangs it is but my life saith Iacob Life VVOuld you know what is that take but a view of Nature and Scripture these will sufficiently describe our life First Nature whose dimme eye sees thus far what is it but a Rose Ut rosa Paestano languet adepta jugo Tifernas Ut herba solstitialis Plaut saith Tifernas which if you view in its growth the cold nips it heat withers it the wind shakes it be it never so fair it withers be we never so lively immediately we die and perish A Rose that is too beautifull Life is but grasse saith Plautus green now withered anon thus like the flower that is cut in Summer as soon as we are born Death is ready with his Sythe as soon as we are dead Angels gather in the harvest on whose wings we are carried to that Barn of Heaven 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Philemon Grasse no saith Philemon life is no better then a counterfeit picture what if the colours be fair and the resemblance near the shadow of death Scena est ludus quoque vita Luscin Cum parumper se ostendisset mox se abscondit Anonymus Rodol Agric. Tu quicscis securus in modum gliris sepultus jaces Philonius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Aristophanes and the Curtains of our grave will darken all A picture that is too honourable life is a worse resemblance but a Play saith Luscinius we enter at our birth and act all our life presently there is an exit or a back return and away we go shutting all up with a sudden Tragedie A Play that is too large Anonymus being asked what was life he shews himself a little then hides himself amain his meaning was this our life is but a little show and no sooner are we seen but immediately are we hid and gone A show that is too pleasant life is nothing but a sleep saith Philonius we live secure and Dormise-like we slumber away our time when all is done as if all this were too little we sleep again and go from our grave the bed to that bed our grave A sleep that is too quiet it is nothing but a dream saith Aristophanes all our worldly pleasures are but waking dreams at last Death rouzeth our souls that have slept in sinne 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pind. in Pyth. Vita quid nisi mortis imago Cato then lifting up our heads and seeing all gone we awake sorrowing A dream or the dream of a shadow saith Pindarus the worst the weakest dream that can be imagined sure one step further were to arrive at deaths door and yet thus farre are we lead by the hand of Nature nay if you will lower death suâ—ceeds life and life
is but the image of death saith Cato Here is a true picture of our frailty life is like death indeed so like so near together that we cannot differ each from other See here the condition of our life what is it but a Rose a Grasse a Picture a Play a Show a Sleep a Dream an Image of death such a thing is life that we so much talk of Vse And if Nature give this light how blind are they that cannot see lifes frailty you need no more but mark the Destinies as Poets feign to spin their threds one holds another draws a third cuts it off what is our life but a thread some have a stronger twist others a more slender some live till near rot others die when scarce born there 's none endures long this thread of life is cut sooner or later and then our work is done our course is finished Are these the Emblemes of our life and dare we trust to this broken staff how do the heathen precede us Christians in these studies Their books were skuls their desks were graves their remembrance an hour-glass Awake your souls and bethink you of mortality have you any priviledge for your lives are not Heathens and Christians of one Father Adam of one mother Earth the Gospel may free you from the second not the first death onely provide you for the first to escape the second death O men what be your thoughts nothing but of Goods and Barns and many Years you may boast of Life as Oromazes the Conjurer of his Egge which he said included the felicity of the world yet being opened there was nothing but Wind Think what you please your life is but a Wind which may be stopt soon but cannot last long by the law of Nature But secondly as Nature so Scripture will inform you in this point The life of man is but of little esteem what is it but a Shrub or a Brier in the fire As the crackling of thorns under the pot so is the life or laughter of the fool momentary and vanity Eccles. 7.6 Eccles 7.6 Nay a shrub were something but our life is lesse no better then a leaf not a tree nor shrub nor fruit nor blossome We all fade as a leaf and our iniquities like the wind have swept us away Esay 64 6. Esay 64.6 Yet a leaf may glory of his birth it is descended of a Tree life is a Reed sometimes broken at least shaken so vain so infirm so inconstant is the life of man What went you out to see a reed shaken with the wind Matth. 11.7 Matth. 11.7 Nay a reed were something our life is baser indeed no better then a rush or flag Can a rush grow without mire though it were green and not cut down yet shall it wither before any other herb Job 8 11 12. Job 8.12 What shall I say more what shall I crie a rush All flesh is grass and all the grace thereof as the flower of the field the grass withereth the flower fadeth surely the people is grass Esa 40.7 Esa 40.7 I am descended beneath just patience but not so low as the life of man as all these resemble life so in some measure they have life but life is a smoke without any spark of life in it thus cries David My dayes are consumed like smoke my bones are burnt like an hearth Psal 102.3 Psal 102.3 Yet is here no stay the smoke ingenders clouds and a cloud is the fittest resemblance of our life Our life shall passe away as the trace of a cloud and come to nought as the myst that is driven away with the beams of the Sun Wisd 2.4 Wisd 2.4 Neither is this all clouds may hang calm but life is like a tempest it is a cloud and a wind too Remember that my life is but a wind and that mine eye shall not return to see pleasure Iob 7.7 Job 7.7 Nay we must lower and find a weaker element it is not a wind but water said that woman of Tekoah We are as water spilt on the ground which cannot be gathered up again 2. Sam. 14.14 2. Sam. 14.14 yet is water both a good and necessary element life is the least part of water nothing but a foam a bubble The King of Samaria that great King is destroyed as the foam upon the water Hos 10.7 Hos 10.7 I can no more and yet here is something lesse a foam or bubble may burst into a vapour and What is your life it is even a vapour that appeareth for a little time and afterwards vanisheth away Iam. 4.14 Jam. 4 14. Lesse then this is nothing yet life is something lesse nothing in substance all it is it is but a shadow We are strangers and sojourners as all our fathers were our dayes are like a shadow upon the earth there is none abiding 1. Chr. 29.15 1. Chr. 29.15 See whither we have brought our life and yet ere we part we will down one step lower upon a strict view we find neither substance nor shadow Psal 39.5 onely a meer nothing a verie vanitie Behold thou hast made my dayes as an hand breadth and mine age is nothing in respect of thee surely every man living is altogether vanitie Psal 39.5 Psal 39.5 Lo here the nature of our life it is a shrub a leaf a reed a rush a grasse a smoke a cloud a wind a water a bubble a vapour a shadow a nothing What mean we to make such ado about a matter of nothing I cannot choose but wonder at the vanitie of men that runne rid toil travell undergo any labour to maintain this life and what is it when they have their desire which they so much toyl for we live and yet whilest we speak this word perhaps we die Is this a land of the living or a region of the dead We that suck the air to kindle this little spark where is our standing but at the gates of death Psal 9.13 Psal 9.13 Where is our walk but in the shadow of death Luke 1.79 Luke 1.79 What is our mansion-house but the body of death Rom. 7.24 Rom. 7.24 What think ye Is not this the region of death where is nothing but the gate of death An non haec regio mortis ubi porta mortis umbra mortis corpus mortis and the shadow of death and the body of death Sure we dream that we live but sure it is that we die or if we live the best hold we have is but a lease God our chief Lord may bestow what he pleaseth to the rich man wealth to the wise man knowledge to the good man peace to all men somewhat yet if you ask Who is the Lessor God Who is the Lessee Man What is leased This world For what terme My life Thus Jacob tels Pharaoh as the Text tels you Few and evil have the dayes of my
life been This is the Lease and now you have it let us see what use you will make of it Vse 1 It is a bad life some live Come say they and let us enjoy the pleasures that are present Wisd 2.6 7. and let us cheerfully use the creatures as in youth let us fill our selves with costly wine and oyntments and let not the flower of life passe by us What a life is here Can it be that pleasures wine and oyntments should have any durance in this vale of miserie Suppose thy life a continued scene of pleasures hadst thou Dives fare Solomons robes Davids throne Croesus wealth livedst thou many years without any cares yet at last comes death and takes away thy soul in the midst of her pleasures alas what is all thy glory but a snuff that goes out in a stench Couldst thou not have made death more welcome if he had found thee lying on a pad of straw feeding on crusts and crums Is not thy pain more grievous because thou wast more happie Do not thy joys more afflict thee then if they had never been O deceitfull world that grievest if thou crossest and yet to whom thou art best they are most unhappie Vse 2 But to speak to you who have passed the pikes and pangs of the new birth would you have life indeed and enjoy that joy of life which is immortall then hear revive watch and awake from sinne were you sometimes dead in sinne O but now live in Christ Christ is the life Iohn 14.6 John 14.6 Were you sometimes dumb in your dying pangs O but now abide in Christ Christ is the word of life Iohn 1.1 John 1.1 Are you as yet babes in Christ feeble and but weak through lifes infirmities why then use all good means eat and be strong Christ is the bread of life Iohn 6.48 John 6.48 Here is a life indeed would you not thus live for ever then believe in God and in Iesus Christ whom he hath sent and this is life eternal Iohn 17.3 John 17.3 O happy life which many a man never dreams of So much they strive to protract this brittle life which but adds more grief that they forget Christ nay they forget their Creed which begins with true life God and ends with life never-ending Life everlasting Others that hope for heaven fix not their thoughts on earth if you be Gods servants lift up your hearts above for there is life and the God of life the Tree of life and the Well of life the life of Angels and the Life everlasting One sand is run and the Text is lessened but as you have the lease so you may now exspect to know the date the lease is but a life the date lasts but dayes Dayes NOt weeks nor moneths nor years or if a year the best Arithmatick is to reduce or break it into Dayes so we have it in the last translations The dayes of the year Here then is the Summe a Year Fraction Dayes First a Year in the Spring is the youthfull spring of our age in the Summer is the aged time of our youth in the Autumn is the high noon or middle of our age when the Sun which is our soul rules in the Equinoctiall line of our life in the Winter we grow old and cold the nips of frost strip the tree of our life we fall into the grave and the earth that nourished us will then consume us See what is man a Spring of tears a Summers dust an Autumns care a Winters wo Read but this map and you need travell no further to enquire of life The first quarter is our Spring and that is full of sinne and miserie the infant no sooner breathes but he sucks the poyson of his parents in Adam all sinned and since his time all were defiled by his sinne Is it not Natures rule that every man begets one like himself And is it not Gods rule that every sinner begets another no better then himself How may a foul vessell keep sweet water or how may an earthy sinner beget an heavenly Saint we are all in the same state of sinne and so we fall into the same plunge of sorrow the child in his cradle sleeps not so secure but now he wakes and then he weeps cold starves him hunger pines him sores trouble him sicknesse gripes him there is some punishment which without sinne had never been inflicted It is wonderfull to consider how Nature hath provided for all creatures birds with feathers beasts with hides fishes with scales all with some defence onely man is born stark naked without either weapon in his hand or the least thought of defence in his heart birds can flie beasts can go fishes can swim but infant-man as he knows nothing so neither is he able to do any thing indeed he can weep as soon as born but not laugh as some observe till fortie dayes old so ready are we born to wo but so farre from the least spark of joy O meer madnesse of men that from so poor naked and base beginnings can perswade our selves we are born to be proud And if this be our Spring what think ye is our Summer Remember not the sinnes of this time prayes David Psalme 25.7 Psal 25.7 and why their remembrance is bitter saith Job Job 13.26 Job 13.26 If mirth and melody should never meet with end this were an happy life Rejoyce O young man in thy youth let thine heart chear thee in the dayes of thy youth walk in the wayes of thine heart and in the sight of thine eyes but remember for all these things God will bring thee to judgement Eccles 11.9 Eccles 11.9 This judgement is the damp that puts out all the lights of comfort could not Solomon have given the rains but he must pull again at curb Must youth rejoyce But for all this remember what a barre stands here in the very door of joy alas that we should trifle thus with toyes which no sooner we enjoy but in grievous sadnesse we repent our follies The wise man that gave libertie to his wayes what cries he but vanitie and after vanitie of vanities and at last all is vanitie what was the wisdome of Achitophel a vain thing what the swiftnesse of Hazael a vain thing what the strength of Goliah a vain thing what the pleasures of Nebuchadnezzar a vain thing what the honour of Haman a vain thing what the beautie of Absolon a vain thing Thus if we see but the fruit that grows of sin we may boldly say of laughter thou art mad and of joy what is this thou doest Eccles 2.2 Eccles 2.2 And if this be our Summer what may be our Autumn an hour of joy a world of sorrow if you look about you how many miseries lie in wait to ensnare you there is no place secure no state sufficient no pleasure permanent whither will you go The chamber hath its care the house hath
its fear the field hath its toyl the Countrey hath its frauds the Citie hath its factions the Church hath its Sects the Court hath its envie here is every place a field where is offered a battell or if this were better consider but your states the Beggar hath his sores the Souldier hath his scarres the Magistrate hath his troubles the Merchant his travels the Nobles their crosses the great ones their vexations here is every state a sea tossed with a world of tempests or yet if this were happier bethink you a little longer of your fleeting joys the sweet hath its sower the Crown hath its care the world hath its want pleasure hath its pain profit hath its grief all these must have their end here is a dram of sugar mixt with an Epha of bitter Is this manhood that is subject to all these miseries Nay what are these in comparison of all it suffers It is deformed with sinne defiled with lust outraged with passions over-carried with affections pining with envie burthened with gluttony boyling with revenge transported with rage all mans body is full of iniquitie and his soul the bright image of God through sinne is transformed to the ugly shape of the Devil And if this be our Autumn what I pray is the Winter then our Sun grows low and we begin to die by degrees shew me the light which will not darken shew me the flower which will not fade shew me the fruit which will not corrupt shew me the garment which will not wear shew me the beautie which will not wither shew me the strength which will not weaken behold now is the hour that thy lights shall darken thy cheeks wrinckle thy skinne be furrowed thy beautie fade and thy strength decay Here is the ambition of a long life thy lease lies a bleeding and death raps at the door of thy heart to take possession O forcible entrie will not pleasures delay cannot riches ransome dares not strength defie Is neither wit nor wealth able to deceive nor bribe what may rent this house that the soul may but lodge there one night longer Poor soul that dies or departs in unremedied pangs our sinnes may run on score and repentance forget her dayes of payment Yet our lease shall end the date exspire this body suffer and the soul be driven from her house and harbour See the swift course of our mortall Sun at North and South in our mothers womb and tomb both in one year Vse Consider this yet that forget God you have but a year to live and every season yields some occasion to tell you ye must die In childhood what is your chest of clouts but a remembrance of your winding sheets In youth what is your mirth and musick but a summons to the knell In manhood what is your house and enclosure but a token of the coffin In age what is your chair or litter but a shew of the beer which at last shall convey you to your graves Man ere he is aware hath drest his herse every season adding something to his solemnitie Where is the Adulterer Murtherer Drunkard Blasphemer Are you about your sinnes look on these objects there is a sunne now setting or a candle burning or an hour-glasse running or a flower decaying or a Traveller passing or a vapour vanishing or a sick man groaning or a strong man dying be sure there is something puls you by the sleeve and bids you beware to commit such enormities Who dares live in sinne that considers with himself he must die soon And who will not consider that sees before his eyes so many a remembrancer Alas we must die and howsoever we passe from childhood to youth from youth to manhood Senectutem nemo excedit from manhood to age yet there is none can be more then old here is the utmost of our life a Spring a Summer an Autumn a Winter and when that is done you know the whole Year is finished The summe is a Year the Items are Dayes And what Dayes can ye exspect of such a Year my text in relation to these dayes gives us two attributes the first is few the second is evil if you consider our dayes in regard of the fewnesse which this word seems rather to intimate you may see them in Scripture brought to fewer and fewer till they are well near brought to nothing If we begin with the beginning we find first that the first man Adam had a lease of his life in fee and as Lawyers say To have and to hold from the beginning to everlasting but for eating the forbidden fruit he made a forfeiture of that estate of this he was forewarned In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt die the death Gen. 2.17 Gen. 2.17 And this he found too true Because thou hast eaten of the tree whereof I commanded thee Thou shalt not eat what then amongst other curses this was one Dust thou art and to dust thou shalt return Gen. 3.19 Gen. 3.19 After him the longest life came short of the number of a thousand years The dayes of Methusalem saith Moses were nine hundred sixtie and nine years Gen. 5.27 Gen. 5.27 and had he come to a thousand which never was attained by man yet a thousand years are but one day with God 2. Pet. 3.8 2 Pet. 3.8 yea but as yesterday saith Moses A thousand years in Gods sight are but as yesterday Psalme 90.4 Psal 90.4 But what speak I of a thousand years no sooner came the floud but the age of man of every man born after it was shortened half in half These are the generations of Sem saith Moses Gen. 11.10 Gen. 11.10 to wit Arphaxad and Selah and Eber none of which three could reach to the number of five hundred years the longest liver was Eber and yet all his dayes before and after his first-born Peleg were but four hundred sixtie and four years Gen. 11.16 17. Gen. 11.16 17. nay as if half a thousand were more then too much you may see God halfs their ages once again Peleg lives as long as any man after him and yet his dayes were neither a thousand nor half a thousand nor half of half a thousand no no more then two hundred thirtie and nine years Gen. 11.18 19. Gen. 11.18 19. but this was a long life too If we come to arrive at the time of Jacob we shall find this little time well-near halfed again when he spoke this text he tells he was one hundred and thirtie years old and after this he lived no longer then seventeen years more so that the whole age of Iacob was but seven score and seven an hundred fortie and seven years Gen. 47.28 Gen. 47.28 Nay to leave Iacob a while and to come a little nearer our selves in Moses time we find this little time halfed again he brings seven score to seventie The dayes saith he of our age are threescore years and tenne
at Scripture and you will see it brought to a lesser passe Job for his part goes about to subduct the time of his birth which is the bud of life Let the day perish saith he wherein I was born nay let it not be joyned unto the dayes of the year nor let it come into the count of moneths Job 3.6 Job 3.6 Solomon could subduct not onely childhood but the time of youth too which is the strength of life Take away grief out of thine heart and cause evill to depart from thy flesh for childhood and youth both are but vanity Eccles 11.10 Eccles. 11.10 Paul could subduct the time of sinne which is the joy of life She that lives in pleasure lives not nay she is dead while she is alive 1. Tim. 5.6 1. Tim. 5.6 Summe all and suppose that the time of birth and childhood and youth and sin were gone to what an epitome were mans life come Think of this all ye that travell towards heaven had we not need to make haste that must go so long a journey in so short a time How can he choose but run that remembers his dayes are few nay that every day runs away with his life The workman that sets a time for his task he listens to the clock and counts the houres not a minute must passe but his work goes onwards how then do we neglect our time while we should serve God Work while it is day John 9.4 2. Cor. 6.2 saith Christ and this is the day of salvation saith the Apostle Would you know your task you must work would you know the time it is this day a great task a short time had we not need with Moses to number our dayes lest we loose a minute It is true of all numbers we cannot skill to number our dayes we can number our sheep our oxen our fields our coyn but we think our dayes are infinite and never go about to number them The Saints that went before us cast another account Moses had his tables Job had his measures all agree both for measure and number magnitude and multitude our life is but short our dayes are but few Few and evil they have been Give me leave a little to amplifie on this point would we throughly know the shortness of out time the fewness of our dayes I shall then set before you the magnitude of the one and the multitude of the other And first for the magnitude of the time of our life A man say the Philosophers is Microcosmus a little world little for goodness but a world of wickedness Of this world if you 'l have the dimensions according to the rules of Geometricians the length breadth and depth of our short life then first for our length from East to West from our birth to our buriall I need not to take so many paces as will make mille passus a mile our little life bears no proportion to such a length I dare not say as Stobaeus relates that our life hath the last of a cubits length Psal 39.5 for that 's more then the Scripture will afford it it is but a span or hand breadth saith David that 's little nay Alcaeus in carmine Lyrico saith it is but an inch long that 's lesse nay Punctum est quod vivimus adhuc puncto minus saith Plutarch All our life is but a prick a point yet lesse saith Seneca it is a point that we live and lesse then a point that 's less then either I can say or you conceive What is it not a mile but a cubit but a span but an inch but a point nay less then that here 's little longitude of life Well but our latitude perhaps is greater no take a measure if you please from one pole to another as we stand betwixt the terms of life and death and weresoever we are death is within an hand-breadth of our life if we be on the sea there 's but a thick board betwixt us and drowning if on the land there 's but a shoe-sole betwixt us and our grave if we sleep our bed is our bodies grave and there 's but a sheet perhaps a winding-sheet betwixt us and it when we are awake our bodie is our souls grave and there 's but a few skins as say Physicians betwixt death and us What is it but the breadth of an hand of a board of a shoe-sole of a thin sheet of a small skinne there 's little latitude you see Well but our profundity may help all this go to therefore and see what that is I shall not lead you down many steps for indeed there are not many steps to lead you down in one word come to the centre of the heart of man The Grecians to expresse the shallowness of this life give the same name to the heart that they do to death 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the heart the authour of life and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is destiny the worker of death to shew that as every man hath an heart so death hath a dart for every man Christians mortals consider your magnitude in all these dimensions alas how is it that many of you make your selves so great what mean those titles which you take upon you Your Greatnesse Your Highnesse your I know not what O consider the mortalitie of your bodies and that will tell you the just * Mors sola fatetur quantula sunt hominum corpuscula Juvenal Psal 90.10 scantling of your selves 2. For the multitude of our dayes he was branded with the name of a fool that thought he had many years to live Moses tells us The dayes of our years are threescore years and ten Psal 90.10 But now as you heard we value our life but at seven years as if six years we had to labour and to do all we had to do but the seventh were a Sabbath to rest with God Revel 14.13 Revel 14.13 nay yet the Scripture comes somewhat lower and because a plurality might cause a securitie it bestows but a unitie upon our years thus Jacob in this text reckons of a great number of one year The dayes of the year of my life are an hundred and thirty year Gen. 47.9 Gen. 47.9 nay Austin comes shorter and compares our life to a quarter of a year like Jehoahash reign which lasted about three moneths time 2 Kings 23.31 2 Kings 23.31 nay the Scripture descends from moneths to dayes Few and evil are my dayes saith Iacob implying that this life is but a few dayes or but * Vita nostra non diuturna sed diurna one day as some would have it which is the meaning of Christs prayer Give us this day our dayly bread Matth. 6.11 Matt. 6.11 And yet that we may not think our death a great way off the Scripture tells us it is not a day to come no boast not of to morrow for thou knowest not what a day
may bring forth Prov. 27.1 Prov. 27.1 thy day is this present day and therefore saith the Apostle To day if you will hear his voice Heb. 3.7 Heb. 3.7 nay to speak further this day saith Iob is past already we are but of yesterday Job 8.9 Job 8.9 nay as if a day were too long for the life of man most resembles it to the grasse that grows up in the morning and is cut down in the evening Psal 90.6 Psal 90.6 and Gregorie compares it to Ionahs gourd that came up in a night and perished ere the day was come Jonah 4.10 Jonah 4.10 The evening and the morning make but one day Gen. 1.5 but * Quem dies videt veniens superbum hunc dies videt abiens jacentem our day is oft times an evening without a morning and oft times a morning without an evening Nay yet to go lower as if half a day were more then our life could parallell Moses compares it to a watch which is but the fourth part of a night Psal 90.4 Psal 90.4 yea and as if this were longer then our life doth last the Scripture calls it but an hour John 5.25 John 5.25 The hour is coming and now is saith Christ nay our life is but a minute or if we can say lesse a moment in a moment they go down to the grave saith Iob Job 21.13 Job 21.13 and in a moment shall they die saith Elihu Job 34.20 Job 34.20 And a lying tongue is but for a moment saith Solomon Prov. 12.19 Prov. 12.19 and our light affliction is but for a moment saith Paul 2 Cor. 4.17 2 Cor. 4.17 Lo here the length of our little life this is the gradation that God makes of it at first a matter of seventie years but these were tythed from seventie to seven this number again was made no number one single year a year nay a moneth nay a day nay an hour nay a minute nay a moment as soon as we were born we began to draw to our end Wisd 5.13 Wisd 5.13 There 's but one poor moment which we have to live and when that is spent our life is gone How but one and a moment one is the least number that is and a moment the shortest time that ever was O what mean men to plot and project for the time to come as if this life would never be done O consider of the littleness of the time that thou hast to live O consider of the greatness of the matter that depends upon it thy body soul heaven and hel all hangs on this thread a short life a few dayes Few and evill have the dayes of my life been You have learned Moses Arithmetick to number your dayes practise a while and you find this use Vse 1 God shortens your time you that are unregenerate lest you defer your repentance it is said of the Devil that he is busie because his time is short Revel 12.12 Rev. 12.12 and are you worse then Devils is not your time shorter and yet are you more negligent how do you give way to that old serpent he delayes no time to bring you to hell and ye neglect all times to get you heaven What is your life but a Jonas gourd suddenly sprung up and by and by withered again and gone whatsoever ye do your wheel whirls about apace in a word ye die daily and you all know thus much that you have every one of you a poor soul to save I have wondered at men that desire time after time one time after another why if your souls perish the day will come soon enough It makes me weep said one of a better stamp when my hour-glasse is beside me and I see every drop of sand follow other so speedily Your dayes are but few and yet who knows whether this day his sunne may set Take heed you unregenerate if death come unawares it is the price of your souls how you are provided Who alas would defer to be good that knows not how soon he may go to judgement The enemie keeps a daily watch a friend prepares for your welcome and are you such enemies to your selves that never are prepared to welcome death Vse 2 But to speak to thee whosoever thou art that readest regenerate or unregenerate the best counsel thou canst learn is to be still in a readinesse think every day thou risest to be thy day of death and every night thou goest to bed that thou art laid down in the grave if thou shouldest forget will not each object be a remembrancer thy sheets of thy winding-sheet thy coverings of thy clasping dust thy sleep of thy death with whom I may say truly thou shakest hands every night who can forget his grve that lies him down in his bed and who then would not so provide himself as if every night he went to his grave Our dayes are but few and the night will be ere long that we die indeed What are we but Tenants at will in this Clay Farm the foundation of all the building is a small substance alwayes kept cold by an intercourse of air the pillar is but a little breath the strength some few bones tied together with dry strings howsoever we piece and patch this poor cottage it will at last fall into the Lords hands and we must give surrender onely in this tenour Few and evill have the dayes of my life been You now see the time of our Lease to the full out life lasts but dayes our dayes are but few who is so fond to settle his care on this Lease that so soon is exspired nay with a blast is gone out The man that is wedded to this world enjoyes neither length of dayes nor a day of joy as he is mortall so is he miserable you shall see my Text joyn both the hands nothing indeed but death can loose the bonds the dayes of my life are few the few dayes of my life are evill few in number evill in nature neither many nor good but few and evill Evill OUr life is but dayes our dayes are but few our few dayes but evil Into what a sea of misery have I now rushed sail Evill life evill dayes but few yet evil There waits on our life Sinne Punishment Both these are evil Sinne as the father playes the Bankrupt Jam. 1.15 and Punishment the sonne must pay the debt first Lust conceives and brings forth sinne then sinne being finished brings forth death Here is both the work and wages first we commit and then we suffer evil The evils we commit are sinnes and see what a troop of enemies march about us if you exspect the battel in array what say you to those evils originall these are the inheritance which we have from our first parents it is the same infection that distilled from them abides in us and therefore the same punishment is due to us that fell on them
his own knowledge Jer. 10.14 Jer. 10.14 Blessed God! what a world of evils are within us Orat. Manass We have sinned O Lord above the number of the sands of the seas our transgressions O Lord are multiplied our offences are exceeding many Many sure that contain these streams and yet how many are the rivolets that issue from them There be evils of weakness against God the Father whose attribute is Power there be evils of ignorance against God the Son whose attribute is Wisdome there be evils of malice against God the holy Ghost whose attribute is Love Can we adde any more Mark but our thoughts our delights our consents to evil or if these be not enough see a swarm indeed that continually assault us anger hatred envy distrust impatience avarice sacriledge pride despair presumption indevotion suspition contention derision exaction give me leave to breathe in the numbring of this bedroll perjurie blasphemie luxury simony perplexitie inconstancy hypocrisie apostasie here is a number numberless gross sins little sins known sins hid sins Who can understand his errours O Lord cleanse me from my secret faults Psal 19.12 Psal 19.12 The dayes of life are few but the evils God knows how many he that would number them may tell a thousand and yet not tell one of a thousand Can the proudest Pharisee justifie himself Remember the swarms that lurk in thy venomed conscience number thy wanton words thy carnal thoughts thy unchristian gestures thy outragious sins come they not in by troops and herds thicker then the frogs in Egypt well may we stand amazed at their number and as convicted prisoners cry for that Psalme of mercie Miserere mei Lord have mercy on us most evil wretched sinners Thus you see Beloved how evil be our dayes sith every day we do evil then to wander no further now we have found such a world of them will you see them in a map here is evils originall evils actuall evils of omission evils of commission evils of the body evils of the soul well may we pray Deliver us from evil what so many evils of sin now the Lord deliver us Vse 1 Remember your selves and who will not sing Davids burthen Psal 38.4 Mine iniquities are gone over my head and as a weighty burthen they are too heavy for me to bear There is in sin saith Austin both weight and number and is any one so dull or dead that he is sensible of neither go ye to the balance and what a mass lies upon you enough and enough again to sink you down to hel go ye to the count and what a swarm comes upon you a million and a million of millions to keep you out of heaven when all your sins must be called to account before that Judge of the world what account shall be given of this account that is endless see them like the stars onely these set and rise but your sins rise and never set see them like your hairs onely these shed and lose but your sinns grow ever more and more see them like the sands onely these are covered with the flouds and waters but your sins lie still open and are ever before you think on these stars these hairs these infinite innumerable sands of sins and when all is done let your tears be the floud to hide them over Psal 6.6 It was Davids saying Every night wash I my bed and water my couch with my tears if your daies be evil let not your night slip without repentance go not to bed but beat your breast with the Publican lay you not down but withall lift up your voice Lord be mercifull unto me a sinner How sweet a rest doth that night bring whose sleep is prevented with the consideration of our sins though we are begirt with a thousand devils this would be as the watch of our souls and the safeguard of our persons Vse 2 But I must speak with a difference I stand over some of you who are so far from * When I speak thus of tears or repentance I argue not a causality or merit onely I inferre a necessarie presence of repentance in those that obtain pardon of sin All that I positively affirm is this that repentance is the means or way which God hath appointed antecedently to to pardon Act. 3.19 Jer. 4.14 washing away your sins with tears that I fear you never took much notice of the multitude of your sins should I tel you that you brought sin enough with you to damn you when you first came into this world should I tell you that you have everie one committed thousands and thousand of thousands of actuall sins and yet any one of those thousands is enough to send you packing to hell You would think these strange points but if God be true there is no sin of man either originiall or actuall either of omission or commission either of the bodie or of the soul which without repentance will not produce eternall death and therefore in Gods fear take notice of your sins set before you the Commandments of God and thereto comparing your life you may find out such a catalogue of your sinnes that will throughly convince you of your damnable estate You may ask to what end should we be so carefull to find out our sins I answer to a very good end both in respect of the Unregenerate Regenerate First in respect of the unregenerate this is the first step of repentance this is one of those paces that will lead you towards heaven You may be sure without repentance no heaven without confession no repentance and without finding out sin there can be no confession It were good therefore and a singular means to bring you out of corruption into Christianity and out of the state of nature into the kingdome of grace that you would everie one of you have a Catalogue of your sins If you will not I can tell you who will there is an adversary called Sathan the adversary of mankind that stands at your back and I may say figuratively with a scroll in his hands wherein he writes down your sins not a day passeth on but he can easily tell how many sins you have committed all day Lord that men would think on 't Are you about any sin at that very time Sathan is registring the act and time and place and everie circumstance now wo wo to man that lets Sathan do his work for him Would you do this your self would you but study for a Catalogue of your own sins that so you might confess them to God and repent you thereof this would be a dash in the devils book so that he could not have whereof to accuse you but if still you go on securely in sin and never go about to call your sins to remembrance a day will come wo worth the day when that roring Lion shall set all your sins and transgressions in order before you then shall you read
perforce your sinnes originall and actuall of omission and commission of your bodies and souls And I must tell you herein is a great policie of Sathan he lets you alone in your securitie a while if you will not trouble him he will not trouble you if you will not tell your own sinnes neither will he tell you of them but he will change his note at furthest when your few evil dayes finish it is the very case as many creditours deal with their debtors while they have any doings as they say and are in trading they will let them alone in policie they will say nothing but if once down the wind in sickness povertie disgrace or the like then comes Serjeant after Serjeant arrest upon arrest action upon action just thus is Satans dealing with the unregenerate man if you will but sinne and never call your selves to a reckoning inpolicie he will say nothing but when the score is full and death comes to arrest you then will he bring out his black book of all your sinnes committed all your dayes O I tremble to speak of it then shall your sins fall as foul on your souls as ravens on the fallen sheep and keep you down for ever in the dungeon of despair Secondly in respect of the regenerate that you have readie by you or by heart a catalogue of your sinnes is necessary in many respects First to humble you for no sooner shall the poor soul look on all the sinnes he hath committed both before and after his regeneration but confessing them in prayer it will pull down his heart and make the wound of his remorse to bleed a fresh as before and therefore this catalogue is most necessary in dayes of humiliation Secondly it is necessarie to prepare you for the receiving of the Sacrament for indeed I would have none to presume to taste on that Supper but first to view over all his sinnes and to confess them in payer to his heavenly Father there be many that in Confession look on their sinns as they do on the stars in a dark cloudie night they can see none but the great ones of the first or second magnitude it may be here one and there one but if they were truly illightened and informed aright they might rather behold their sinns as those innumerable stars that appear in a fair frostie winters night they are many and many and therefore take a little pains in composing your catalogue that so you may confess all at least for the kinds before you presume to come near that Table of the Lord. Thirdly it is necessarie in times of desertion or visitation yea if the Lord shall please to exercise you with any crosse or disgrace or discountenance losse of goods disease of bodie terrour of soul or the like you may be sure as no miserie comes but for sinne so then the enumeration of your sinns from a bleeding broken heart is the prime and first means to cause that Sun of mercie to break through the clouds and to beget a clear day alas our dayes are evil and sure we have as good reason as ever Jacob had to confess it for my part though I keep my catalogue to my self yet in the generall I cannot but confesse to you all My dayes have been evil evil evil Few and evil And now we have done with the work it rests that you should know your wages there be dayes of sinn and then dayes of sorrow as you have spent your dayes so must you have your rewards first we trespasse and then we pay for it first we sin and then we suffer evil 2. The evils that we suffer may be ranked in this order first evils originall fill up the scene and what a multitude of evils do enter with them No sooner had Adam sinned but a world of miseries fell on man so that as the infection in like manner the punishment distills from him Rom. 5.12 By one man saith the Apostle entred sin into the world what sin alone no but death by sinne and so death went over all men Rom. 5.12 Infants themselves bring their damnation with them from their wombs or if that be omitted how many are the miseries of this life as the fore-runners of that judgement Look at the mind and what think ye of our ignorance not onely that of wilfull disposition but as the Schools distinguish of pure negation if it be not a sin what is it but a punishment for sinne that our understanding should be obscured and darkened our knowledge in things naturall wounded in supernaturall utterly extinguished O the miserable issue of that monster Sin But as evils come by heaps so of the same parent here is another brood Ignorance and Forgetfulness and is not this a miserie after all our time and studie to get a little knowledge quickly to forget that we are so long a learning Man in his whole state before the fall could not forget things taught him but now as the hour-glass we receive in at the one ear and it goes out at the other or rather like the sieve we alwayes keep the bran but let the flowre go so apt are we to retain the bad but we verie easily forget the good And is this all nay yet more evils see but our affections and to what a number of infinite sorrows griefs anguishes suspicions fears malices jealousies is the soul of man subject So prone are we to these miserable passions that upon any occasion we fall into them or for want of cause from any other we begin to be passionate with our selves Why hast thou O Lord set me against thee I am become irksome and burdensome even unto mine own self Job 7.20 Job 7.20 Alas poor man how art thou beset with a world of miseries and yet as if all these summed up together could not make enough look at the body and how many are its sufferings In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat thy bread said God Gen. 3.19 Gen. 3.19 The Spider spins and weaves and wastes her very bowels to make her net and when all is done to what purpose serves it but to catch a flie If this be vain work how vain is man in his fond imitation the birds and beasts can feed themselves without any pains onely man toils night and day on sea and land with bodie and mind yet all is to no purpose but to catch a flie to protract a life or to procure some vanitie And yet as if miserie had no mean besides our industry how is this bodie stuffed with many an infirmitie all the strength of man is but a reed at best shaken perhaps broken howsoever weakened by every wind that blows upon it The Physicians distinction of Temperamentum ad pondus justitiam gives us thus much to learn that no constitution is ever so happie to have a just temper according to its weight some are too hot others too cold all have some defects and so
that it might shine in heaven But this was but the beginning of his dayes now they are past they have been Go a little further we left him at school but how learned he Christ 1. Cor. 2.2 Psal 8.2 and him crucified this was the knowledge taught him by the Spirit of God in a wonderfull manner Out of the mouthes of babes and sucklings hast thou O God ordained strength To consider again his religious words his upright actions his hearty devotions his fear of God all then concluded as they did of John Luke 1.66 What manner of child shall this be No question the grace of God was with him If I should instance in any of these his frequencie in prayer his reading of Scripture his reasoning with others to get knowledge to himself we may wonder at Gods power in this childs poor weakness Excuse me whiles I tell nothing but truths and I hope they will tend to our own instruction In the morning he would not stir out of doors before he had poured out his prayers at noon he would not eat any meat before he had given the Lord thanks at night he would not lie down on his bed before he had kneeled down on his knees we may remember those times when sometimes that he had forgotten this dutie no sooner had he been in bed but up he would have got again and so kneeling down on his bare knees covered with no garment but his linens he would ask God forgiveness for that sinne of forgetfulness neither have his brothers escaped without his reprehension for had they eat any meal or meat without a grace his check was usuall Dare you do thus unless God be mercifull unto us this bit of bread might choke us The wise sentences the religious words which often dropt from his mouth like honey can we remember them and not grieve at the death of him that spake them What comfort had we in those dayes What sorrow have we to think those dayes are done Surely we cannot speak it without bitterness of soul they are gone they have been Thus he lived will you know how he died First a lingring sickness seized upon him against which to comfort him one tells him of possessions that must fall to his portion And what are they said he I had rather have the Kingdome of Heaven then a thousand such inheritances Thus he minds Heaven and God so minding him presently sent him his sickness that should summon him thither And now how should I repeat his words with the life that he spake them dying No sooner had God struck his body with that fatall sickness but he asks and needs would know his souls estate I have heard of the soul said he but what is the soul the mind he questions and questioning answers better I fear then many too many gray headed amongst us but the answer given how the soul consisted of the Will and the Understanding he sayes he is satisfied and now understands better then he did before Another comes to him and then he begins another question now he knows the soul he desires yet to know further How his soul may be saved O blessed soul how wisely couldst thou question for thine own souls good The answer given by faith applying Christs merits he heard it and had it anon telling them who before had taught it him Resolved in these questions he questions no further but will now answer them that go about to question him One asks him whether he had rather live or die he gives the answer and not without Pauls reason I desire to die said he that I might go to my Saviour O blessed Spirit bow didst thou inspire into this child thy wisdome and goodnesse This done his pain begins again to afflict him and this occasions another thus to question him whether he would rather still endure those pains or forsake his Christ Alas said he I know not what to say as a child for these pains might stagger a strong man but I will strive to endure the best I can Upon this he presently calls to mind that Martyr who being in prison Thom. Bilney the night before his burning put his finger in the candle to know how he could endure the fire O said he had I lived then I would have runne through the fire to have gone to Christ Sweet resolution of a silly child who can hear and not wonder wonder and not desire to hear that he may wonder still Blessed child hadst thou lived that we might have wondred at thy wisdome but his daies were determined and now is the number turned to this poor cypher they are not they have been I cannot leave him yet his sicknesse lasts long and at least three dayes before his death he prophesies his departure and how strange a prophecie not onely that he must die but fore-telling the very day On the Lords day said he look to me Neither was this a word of course which you may guesse by his often repetition every day asking till the day came indeed What is Sunday come At last the lookt-for day came on and no sooner had the Sun beautified that morning with his light but he falls into a trance What think ye meant his blessed soul whilest the body it self used such an action his eyes were fixed his face chearfull his lips smiling his hands and arms clasping in a bow as if he would have received some blessed Angel that there was at hand to receive his soul but he comes to himself and tells them how he saw the sweetest boy that ever eyes beheld and bids them Be of good chear for he must presently go with him One standing near as now suspecting his time of dissolution bids him say Lord into thy hands I commend my spirit Psal 31.5 Yes said he Into thy hands Lord I commit my spirit which is thy due for why thou hast redeemed it O Lord my God most true Who will not believe this child now sings in Heaven that so soon had learned this Davids Psalm on earth I cannot hold my self nor will I hold you long but how may I omit his heavenly ejaculations Beloved I beseech you pardon me whilest I speak his words and I will promise you to speak no word but the very same formally which were his own Pray pray pray nay yet pray and the more prayers the better all prospers God is the best Physician into his hands I commend my spirit O Lord Jesus receive my soul Now close mine eyes forgive me father mother brothers sister all the world Now I am well my pain is almost gone my joy is at hand Lord have mercy on me O Lord receive my soul unto thee Where am I whilest I speak these words Blessed Saint now thou singest in Heaven God hath bid thee welcome the Angels are hugging thee the Saints rejoyce with thee this day is the Crown set on thy head this day is the Palm of victory in thy hand
every corn of your field neither shalt thou gather the gleanings of the harvest How not reap it not gather it what then why Thou shalt leave them for the poor and for the stranger I am the Lord your God Levit. 19.9 Lev. 19.9 10. When Ruth came to glean in the fields of Boaz that good Master commands his servants Ruth 2.15 Let her gather among the sheaves and do not rebuke her Had this Worldling been so pitifull to the poor his barns might have stood himself might have lived his soul have been saved But now what a strange lot happens on him his Halls Houses Barns Buildings all runne round in a dance of Death before his eyes Fourthly his house and friends both left him when death came The Parable is common Ex Damasceno A man hath three friends two whereof he loved most entirely the third he made no account of this man being sent for to come before his King he desires his first friend to go with him but he could not onely he would give him something for his journey He desires his second friend to go with him but he would not onely he would bring him a little piece of his way When both these forsook him he goes to the last which before he esteemed least and this friend was the party that went with him to the King and answered for him in all his causes This is the case of every man dying the King our Judge sends death his Serjeant to summon you to your judgement Come to your first friends I mean your riches alas they cannot go with you but give you a sheet as necessary for your journey Come to your second friends I mean your acquaintance alas they wil not go with you but bring you to your graves and there leave you to your selves Come to your last friends which you now least think of I mean your Consciences and you shall find that is the truest friend that will go with you to the Judge answer for you to the King and either acquit you or condemn you bring you to the gates of heaven or deliver you to the goal of hell Have a care of your Consciences if you mean to speed well at this day how blessed a man had this Worldling been if onely a good conscience had accompanied him to the Judge of heaven but now when death summons him there is no friend to solicite no Advocate to plead no man to speak one word in his souls behalf it is his bad conscience keeps him company and though all others leave him he can devise no means to shake this from him Fifthly there is a jewell irrevocable of which this sudden death robs him I mean his time and what a losse was this all his goods grounds barns buildings were they more worth then the world it self yet were they not able to restore one minute of his time if this could be purchased what a rate would he give for a little respite nothing is now so precious as a piece of time which before by moneths and years he lavishly mis-spent they that passe away time with mirth and pastime shall one day see to their grief what a losse they have now we revell it out dally it away use all means and occasions to make it short enough but when this golden showre is gone and those opportunities of salvation lost by negligence then we may wish and wish again Oh had we a little time a little space to repent Imagine that this worldling whom now you must suppose to lie frying in hel flames were dispenced with for a little time to live here again on earth amongst us would but the Lord vouchsafe him one hour of a new triall a minute season of a gracious visitation oh how highly would he prize how eagerly would he apprehend with what infinite watching praying fasting would he improve that short time that he might repent him I know not how effectually this may work an your hearts but I am fully perswaded if any damned creature had but the happinesse to hear this Sermon you should see how his very heart would bleed vvithin him bleed said I nay break and fall asunder in his breast like drops of vvater Oh vvith vvhat inflamed attention vvould he hear and listen vvith vvhat insatiable grasping vvould he lay hold on Christ vvith vvhat streaming tears vvould he vvater his cheeks as if he vvould melt himself like Niobe into a fountain Blessed God! hovv fond are foolish men that never think of this till their time be lost vve that are alive have onely this benefit of opportunity and if vve neglect it a day vvill come vve knovv not hovv soon that vve shall be past it and cannot recover it no not one houre if vve vvould give a thousand ten thousand vvorlds for it What can I say reflect on your selves you that have souls to save you have yet a little time and the time present is that time vvhat then but so use it novv as vvhen you are gone you need not vvith grief vvish you here again Sixthly yet more losse and that is the losse of losses the losse of his soul his riches lands houses friends time and all were nothing to his soul This is that Paragon Peere Rose and Spouse of our well-beloved Christ How many a teare shed he to save it what grones cryes prayers teares and bloud poured he before God that he might redeem it from the jawes of Satan and is this lost notwithstanding all this labour O sweet Jesu what a losse is this thou wast born lived died and that a shamefull death the death of the cross and all this suffering was to save poor souls yet see a soul here lost and the bloud of God though able not effectuall to redeem it Whose heart would not melt into bloud that but knew this misery Suppose you could see the soul of this wretched worldling no sooner had it left the body but immediately was it seized on by infernall fiends now lies it on a bed of fire tortured tormented scourged and scorched in those furious flames there his conscience stings him his sorrow gripes him his pain so handles him that he cryes and roares Woe woe and alas evermore Who now for shadows of short pleasures would incur these sorrows of eternall pains In this world we can weep and wail for a losse of trifles an house a field an Oxe took from us is enough to cruciate us but how shall we bewail the losse of a soul which no sooner plunged into that pit of horrour but it shall feel a punishment without pity misery without mercy sorrow without succour crying without comfort torment without ease a world of mischiefe without all measure or redress Such is the losse of this mans silly soul whilest he was cheering it with an home-bred solace Soul thou hast much goods layd up for many years God whispers in his eares and tells him other newes What of his soul
Sam. 18.33 would God I had died for thee O Absolon my sonne my sonne But where be any friends so respective of this Worldling He wants a Ionathan a David upon a strict enquirie we find no friend no father no sonne neither heirs nor assignes to whom he may bestow his lands But what if he had friends as near to himself as himself no man can die or another Psal 49.7 8. or as the Psalmist No man may deliver his brother nor make agreement unto God for him for it cost more to redeem their souls so that he must let that alone for ever Should the poor man beg the old man pray his servants kneel his friends lie at deaths feet and all these offer up all their lives for this rich mans recovery all were but vain it is thy Soul is arrested and it is thy self that must yield it Of thee it is required You see there is no way but one with him to conclude then wee 'l bid him his farewel this is the last friendship we can do this rich man and so wee 'l leave him The hour is come and the dawning of that dreadfull day appeareth now he begins to wish that he had some space some piece of time to repent him and if he might obtain it O what would he do or what would he not do Releive the weak visit the sick feed the hungry lodge the stronger cloath the naked give half his goods to the poor and if he had done any wrong restore it him again seven-fold but alas all is too late the candle that but follows him cannot light him to heaven a sudden death denies his suit and the increasing of his sickness will give him no leasure to fulfill those duties what cold sweats are those that seiz upon him his senses fail his speech falters his eyes sink his breast swels his feet die his heart faints such are the outward pangs what then are the inward griefs if the body thus suffers what cares and conflicts endures the soul had he the riches of Croesus the Empires of Alexander the robes of Solomon the fare of that rich man who lived deliciously every day what could they do in the extremity of these pangs O rich man thou couldst tell us of pulling down barns and building greater but now imagine the vast cope of heaven thy Barn and that were large enough and all the riches of the world thy grain and that were crop enough yet all these cannot buy a minute of ease now that death will have thy body hell thy soul O dark dungeon of imprisoned men whose help wilt thou crave whose aid wilt thou ask what release canst thou exspect from such a prison the disease is past cure the sickness wants remedie alas what may recover now the heart strings break asunder thy date exspires thy last breath goes and now is thy Soul and Body required of thee I have hitherto with Nathan beat sinfull David on a strangers coat You must give me leave to take off the mask and shew you your own faces in this glass Believe thou O man who readest this that shortly there will be two holes where thine eyes now stand and then others may take up thy skull and speak of thee dead as I have done to thee living how soon I know not but this I am sure of Thy time is appointed thy moneths are determined Job 14.14 Job 14.5 Psal 90.12 John 11.9 thy dayes are numbred thy very last hour is limited And what follows but that thy bodie lie cold at the root of the rocks at the foot of the mountains Go then to the graves of those that are gone before us and there see are not their eyes wasted their mouths corrupted their bones scattered where be those ruddy lips lovely cheeks sparkling eyes comely nose hairy locks are not all gone as a dream in the night or as a shadow in the morning alas that we neglect these thoughts and set our minds wholly upon the world and its vanity we are carefull fearfull and immoderately painfull to get transitorie riches like children following Butter-flies we run and toyl and perhaps misse our purpose but if we catch them what is it but a flie to besmear our hands Riches are but empty and yet be they what they will be all at last will be nothing Saladine that great Turk after all his conquests gets his shirt fastened to his spear in manner of an Ensigne this done a Priest makes Proclamation Knolls Turkish History pag. 73. This is all that Saladine carryes away with him of all the riches he hath gotten Shall a Turk say thus and do Christians forget their duties Remember your selves ye sons of earth of Adam what is this earth you dote on be sure you shall have enough of it when your mouths must be filled and crammed with it and as your souls desire it so at that day shall your bodies turn to it O that men are thus given to gasping greediness there is a generation and they are too common amongst us that we may preach and preach as they say our hearts out yet will not they stirre a foot further from the world or an inch nearer unto God but could we speak with them on their death-bed when their consciences are awaked then should we hear them yell out those complaints What hath pride profited us or what good hath riches with our vaunting brought us Wisd 5.8 Assure your selves this day or this night will come and imagine I pray that the ten twentie thirty fourty years or moneths or dayes or hours which you have yet to live were at an end were you at this present stretched on your beds wearied with struggling against your wearied pangs were your friends weeping your Physicians parting your children crying your wives houling and your selves lying mute and dumb in a most pitifull agony Beloved Christian whosoever thou art stay a while I pray thee and practise this meditation Suppose thou now feeledst the cramp of death wresting thy heart-strings and ready to make that rufull divorce betwixt thy body and thy soul suppose thou lyest now panting for breath swimming in a cold fatall sweat suppose thy words were fled thy tongue struck dumb thy soul amazed thy senses frighted suppose thy feet beginning even to die thy knees to wax cold and stiff thy nostrils to run out thine eyes to sink into thy head and all the parts of thy body to lose their office to assist thee upon this supposall lift up thy soul and look about thee O I can tell thee if thou livest and diest in sinne there would be no where any comfort but a world of terrour and perplexity look upwards there shouldst thou see the terrible sword of Gods justice threatning look downwards there shouldst thou see the grave in exspectation ready gaping look within thee there shouldst thou feel the worm of conscience bitter gnawing look without thee there shouldst thou see good and evill
Angels on both sides waiting whether of them should have the prey now alas then wouldst thou say The soul to depart from the body were a thing intollerable to continue still therein were a thing impossible and to deferre this departure any longer supposing this hour thy last hour no Physick could prevail it were a thing unavoydable what then would thy poor soul do thus invironed with so many straights O fond fools of Adams sinne that neglect the time till this terrible passage how much wouldst thou give if thus it were for an hours repentance at what rate wouldst thou value a dayes contrition worlds are worthlesse in respect of a little respite a short truce would seem more precious then the Treasures of Empires nothing would then be so much esteemed as a trice of time which before by moneths and years thou lavishly mis-spent Think on thy sinns nay thou couldst not choose but think Satan would write them on the curtains of thy bed and thy agashed eyes would be forced to look upon them there wouldst thou see thousands committed not one confessed or throughly repented then too late thou wouldst begin to wish O had I lead a better life and were it to begin again O then how would I fast and pray how repent how live Certainly certainly if thou goest on in sinne thus would be thy departure thy carkass lying cold among the stones of the pit and thy soul by the weight of sinne irrecoverably sinking into the bottome of that bottomless burning lake Vse 2 But to prevent this evil take this use of advice for thy farwell whilest yet thy life lasteth whilest yet the Lord gives thee a gracious day of visitation ply ply all those blessed means of salvation as prayer and conference and meditation and Sermons and Sacraments and fastings and watchings and patience and faith and a good conscience in a word so live that when this day or night of death comes thou mayest then stand firm and sure as yet thou art in the way of a transitory life as yet thou art not entred into the confines of Eternitie if now therefore thou wilt walk in the holy path if now thou wilt stand out against any sin whatsoever if now thou wilt take on thee the yoke of our Saviour Christ if now thou wilt associate thy self to that sect and brotherhood that is every where spoken against if now thou wilt direct thy words to the glorifying of God and to give grace unto the hearers if now thou wilt delight in the word the wayes the Saints the services of God if now thou wilt never turn again unto folly or to thy trade of sin though Satan set upon thee with his baits and allurements to detain thee in his bondage but by one darling delight Psal 116.15 one minion-sin then I dare assure thee dear right dear would be thy death in the sight of the Lord with joy and triumph wouldst thou passe through all the terrours of death with singing and rejoycing would thy soul be received into those sacred mansions above O happy soul if this be thy case O happy night or day vvhensoever the nevvs comes that then must thy soul be taken from thee You may think it now high time that we bid this far-wel-funerall Text adieu then for conclusion let every word be thy warning Lest this be thy time provide for this and everie time 1. Thess 5.6 lest the night be dreadfull Do not sleep as do other but watch and be sober lest thy soul should suffer desire the sufferings of thy God to satisfie lest death require it of thee by foree offer it up to God with a cheerfull devotion and lest this of thee be fearfull who hast lived in sin correct these courses amend your wayes and the blessing of God be with thee all thy life at the hour of death now henceforth and for ever AMEN FINIS Doomes-day MATTH 16.27 Then shall he reward every man according to his works THe dependance of this Text is limited in few lines and that your eyes wander no further then this verse therein is kept a generall Assize the Judge Officers Prisoners stand in array the Judge is God and the Son of man the Officers Angels and they are his Angels the Prisoners men and because of the Gaol-delivery every man If you will have all together you have a Iudge his circuit his habit his attendants his judgments a Iudge the Son of man his circuit he shall come his habit in the glory of his Father his attendants with his Angels what now remains but the execution of justice then without more adoe see the Text and you see all the scales in his hande our works in the scales the reward for our works of just weight each to other Then hee shall reward every man according to his works This Text gives us the proceeding of Doomes-day which is the last day the last Sessions the last Assize that must be kept on earth or is decreed in heaven if you exspect Sheriffs or Judges Plaintiffs or Prisoners all are in this verse some in each word Then is times Trumpet that proclaims their coming Hee is the Judge that examins all our lives Reward is the doom that proceeds from him in his Throne Man is the malefactour every man stands before him as a prisoner Works are the inditements and according to our works must go the triall howsoever we have done good or evill Give me yet leave this Judge sits on trials as well as prisoners it is an high Court of appeal where Plaintiffs Counsellors Judges all must appear and answer would you learn the proceedings there is the Term Then the Judge hee the sentence shall reward the parties very man the triall it self which you may finde in all to be just and legall every man his rewards according to his works We have opened the Text and now you shall have the hearing Then THen when the answer is Negative Positive First Negative Then not on a sudden or at least not at this present This life is no time to receive rewards the rain and Sun pleasure both the good and bad nay oftentimes the bad fare best and Gods own children are most fiercely fined in the furnace of affliction Job 9.24 Matth. 16.24 The earth is given into the hands of the wicked saith Iob but if any man will follow mee he must take up his cross saith our Saviour Ioy and pleasure and happiness attend the ungodly while Gods poor servants run thorow the thicket of briers and brambles to the kingdome of heaven but shall not the Iudge of all the world do right Gen. 18.25 a time shall come when both these must have their change Mark the upright and behold the just for the end of that man is peace but the transgressours shall be destroyed together and the end of the wicked shall be cut off Psal 37.38 Psal 37.37 38. The effect of things is best known to
devoured of worms consumed by Serpents which craul and spring from the marrow of our bones look in a dead mans grave and see what you find but dust and worms and bones and skuls putrified flesh an house full of stench and vermine Behold then the power of God Almighty out of this grave and dust of the earth from these chambers of death and darkness shall arise the bodies of the buried the graves will flie open and the dead go out not an hair not a dust not a bone shall be denied but whatsoever holds their dust shall yield their bodies I saw the dead saith Iohn small and great stand before God Revel 20.12 13. and the Sea gave up the dead which were in it and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them and they were judged every man according to their works Revel 20.13 what a wonderfull sight will this be to see the sea and earth bring forth in al parts such variety of bodies to see so many sorts of people nations to come together huge armies innumerable as the Caterpillars of Egypt all shall arise and every one appear before the Lords Tribunall worms and corruption cannot hinder the resurrection he that said to Corruption Iob 17.14 Iob 19.25 thou art my father and to the worm thou art my sister and mother said also I know that my Redeemer liveth and mine eyes shall behold him O good God! how wonderfull is thy power this flesh of ours shall turn to dust be eate of worms consume to nothing if there be any reliques of our ashes the wind may scatter them the blasts divide them our feet trample them the beasts digest them the vermine devour them if nothing yet time will consume them But for all this God is as able to raise us from the dust as to create us of the dust not one dust of this clay shall perish though scattered divided trampled devoured consumed it shall be gathered recovered revived refined and raised and as one dust shall not be lost of one man so neither shall one man be lost of all the world this is that generall day that shall congregate all they shall come from the four winds and corners of the world to make an universall appearance all the children of Adam shall then meet together yea all the kindreds of the earth shall meet together and mourn Assemble your selves and come all ye heathen to the valley of Jehoshaphat for there will I sit to judg all the heathen Joel 3.12 Joel 3.11 12. The summons are sounded the dead raised and yet to give you a fuller view of the parties see how God the Iudg now sends his messengers to fetch the living bodies to his Court. Vse 3 He shall send his Angels saith our Saviour and they shall gather together his Elect from the four winds from one end of heaven to another Matth. 24.31 Matth. 24.31 True it is all shall be gathered yet with a difference some with a swift pace flie to the Throne where is the hope of their diliverance others draw and pull back whiles the Angels hale them to the Iudgment seat the righteous have nimble swift bodies that flie to the Iudg as a Bird to her nest and young ones but the wicked have their bodies black and heavy they cannot flie but flagge in the air and the Angels do not bear but dragge them to the judgment seat how can this chuse but fear the wicked when like malefactours they are brought before the wrathfull judg as they were born or buried so must they rise again naked and miserable what a shame is this and yet the more horrible in that their nakedness shall be covered with a filthy blackness needs must desperate fears sieze one the soul when it is again united to her body transformed to such an ugly form is this the body fed with delights and delicates is this the flesh pampered with ease and lust is this the face masked from the winde and Sun are these the hands decked with Rings and Diamonds how become these so swarthy horrible which before were so fair and amiable this the change of the wicked when through sorrow and confusion they shall cry to the Rocks cover our nakednesse and to the hills hide our ugliness nay rather than appear let the infernal Furies tear and totter us into a thousand pieces Look your beauties Beloved in this glasse such is the end of this worlds glory so vain the pleasure of this body Now is the end of all things come and what remains but a sea of fears and miseries rushing on them before shall the Angels drag them behinde shall the black Crew follow them within shal their consciences torture them and without shall hot flames of fire fume and fry and furiously torment them fear within fire without but worse then all a Iudg above all thither must they go Angels usher them Devils attend them the Cryer hath called them the Angels trump hath summoned them and now they must appear We have brought all together now we must part them asunder the sheep shall be put on the right hand and the goates on the left as every man hath deserved Two travellers go together feed together lye together sleep together but in the morn their wayes part asunder thus the sheep and goates eat together drink together sleep together rot together but at this day there shall be a separation let them grow together corn and tares untill the harvest this world is the flloor Matth. 13.30 fan while you will there will be some chaff love peace like lambs their will be some goats to trouble the sheep and goats live both together in one fold the world lye both together in one cote the grave the world is a common Inne which entertains all manner of passengers the rode-way to death is the Kings high-way free for all travellers after the passage of this weary day death hath provided a large bed to lay all in the grave all live together and all lye together all rest together and all rot together but when this night is past and the last day is sprung then is the wofull separation some turn on the right and those are the blessed others on the left hand and those are the cursed Here is the beginning of woes when the wicked shall curse and houl like the fiendes of hell O Lord punish me here saith one devoutly rack me in pieces cut me in shreds burn me in fire so that I may be there placed at thy right hand Domine hÃc ure hîc seca modo in aeternum parcas Aug. Blessed are they that have a place amongst those elect sheep what now remains but their doom which is a lot that must befall every man for he shall reward not one or some but every one every man according to his works The Summons are given the dead are raised the prisoners conducted to the bar and the sheep and
grones and suddain cryes the fire slakes not the worm dies not the chains loose not the links wear not revenge tyres not but for ever are the torments fresh and the fetters on fire as they came first from their Forge What a strange kind of torture falls upon the wicked they are bound to fiery pillars and Devils lash at them with their fiery whips Is there any part of man scapes free in such a fray the flesh shall fâ—â— the blood boil the veins be scorcht the sinews rackt Serpents shall eat the body furies tear the soul this is that wofull plight of Tares which he bound in Hell The sick man at Sea may go from his ship to his boat and from his boat to his ship again the sick man in his bed may tumble from his right side to his left and from his left to his right again onely the Tares are tied hand and foot bound limme and joynt their feet walk not their fingers move not their eyes must no more wander as before loe all his bound O these manacles that rot the flesh and pierce the inward parts O unmatchable torments yet most fit for Tares sin made them furious hell must tame their Phrensie the Judge thus commands and the Executioners must dispatch fetter them fire them Bind them in bundles to burn them I have lead you through the Dungeon let this fight serve for a terrour that you never come nearer To that purpose for exhortation consider Alas all hangs on life ther 's but a twine thread betwixt the soul of a sinner and the scorching flames who then would so live as to run his soul into hazard the Judge threatens us Devils hate us the bonds exspect us it is onely our conscience must clear us or condemn us Search then thy waies and stir up thy remembrance to her Items hast thou dishonoured God blasphemed his name decayed his image subduing thy soul to sin that was created for heaven repent these courses ask God forgiveness and he will turn away thy punishments I know your sins are grievous and my soul grieves at the knowledge many evills have possessed too many drunkenness and oathes and malice and revenge are not these guests entertained into all houses banish them your hearts that the King of glory may come in Ezek. 33.11 As I live saith the Lord I desire not the death of the wicked but that the wicked turn from his way and live Would God bestow mercy and should we refuse his bounty as you love heaven your souls your selves leave your sins Vse 2 And then here is a word of consolation the penitent needs not fear hell Gods servant is freed from bonds yea if we love him who hath first loved us Ephes 5.2 all the chains and pains of hell can neither hold nor hurt us Vse 3 O then ye Sons of Adam suffer a reproof what do ye that ye do not repent you of your sins is it not a madness above admiration that men who are reasonable creatures having eyes in their heads hearts in their bodies understanding like the Angels and consciences capable of unspeakable horrour never will be warned untill the fire of that infernall Lake flash and flame about their eares Let the Angels blush heaven and earth be amazed all the Creatures stand astonished at it I am sure a time wil come when the Tares shal feel what now they may justly fear you hear enough such weed must be bound thus straight is the Lords command Binde them in bundles to burn them But all is not done Chains have their links and we must bring all together Sinners are coupled in hell as Tares in Bundles But of these when we next meet in the mean while let this we have heard Binde us all to our duties that we hear attentively remember carefully practice conscionably that so God may reward accordingly and at last crown us with his glory The tares must be bound up in bundles but Lord make us free in Heaven to sit with Abraham Isaac and Iacob in thy blessed kingdome In bundles THe command is out what Bind whom them how in bundles The tares must on heaps which gives us a double observation Generall Speciall In the generall it intimates these two points the gathering of the weed and its severing from the wheat both are bound in bundles but the wheat by it self and the tares by themselves as at that doom when all the world must be gathered and severed some stand at the right hand others at the left so at this execution some are for the fire and others for the barn they are bundled together yet according to the difference of the severall parties each from the other Observ 1 First the tares must together Woe is me saith David that I am constrained to dwell with Mesech Psal 120.4 and if David think it wofull to converse with his living enemies then what punishment have the wicked whom the Devill and damned the black angels and everlasting horrour must accompany for ever The tares must be gathered and bundled and the more bundles the more and more miseries Company yields no comfort in hell fire nay what greater discomfort then to see thy friends in flames thy fellowes in torments the fiends with flaming whips revenging each others malice on thy self and enemy It was the rich mans last petition when he had so many repulses for his own ease to make one suit for his living brethren he knew their company would encrease his torment to prevent which he cries out I pray thee father Abraham Luk. 16.27 28. that thou wouldest send Lazarus to my fathers house for I have five brethren that he may testifie unto them lest they also come into this place of torment Why it may be God will hear him for them especially making such a reasonable request as this was that Lazarus might onely warn his brethren of future judgment no but to teach you if you sell your souls to sin to leave a rich posterity on earth you shall not onely your selves without all remorse and pity be damned in hell but your posterity shall be a torment to you whilest they live and a greater torment if they come to you when they are dead To converse with Devils is fearfull but altogether to accompany each other is a plague fit for tares In this life they flourished amongst the wheat Let them grow both together corn and tares untill the harvest But the harvest come God will now separate them both asunder and as in heaven there are none but Saints so in hell there are none but reprobates to encrease this torment as they grow together so all their conference is to curse each other Moab shall cry against Moab father against son son against father what comfort in this company The Devill that was authour of such mischiefs appears in most grisly forms his angels the black guard of hell torture poor souls in flames there live swearers
Peter what doest thou Is not he the beauty of the heavens the Paradise of Angels the brightness of God the Redeemer of men and wilt thou notwithstanding all this let him wash thy feet no leave O Lord leave this base office for thy servants lay down the towell put on thy apparell see Peter is resolute Lord doest thou wash my feet no Lord thou shalt never do it Yes Peter thus it must be to leave thee and us a memoriall of his humility I have given you an example saith Christ that ye should do as I have done unto you Vers 15. and what hath he done but for our sakes is become a servant yea his servants servant washing and wiping not their hands or heads but the very meanest lowest parts their feet And yet there is a lower fall How many hired servants said the Prodigall at my fathers house have bread enough Luk. 15.17 and I die for hunger and as if our Saviours case were like the Prodigals you may see him little lower then a servant yea little better then a beggar Yee know saith the Apostle the grace of our Lord Iesus Christ that though he was rich yet for your sakes he became poor 2 Cor. 8.9 2 Cor. 8.9 poor indeed and so poor that he was not worth a penny to pay tribute till he had borrowed it of a fish Mat. 17.27 Matth. 17.27 See him in his birth in his life in his death and what was he but a pilgrim that never had house to harbour in a while he lodges in an oxen-stall thence he flies into Aegypt back he comes into Galilee anon he travels to Jerusalem within a while as if all his life were but a wandring you may see him on mount Calvary hanging on the cross was ever any beggars life more miserable he hath no house no money no friends no lands and howsoever he was God the disposer of all yet for us he became man a poor man a mean man yea the meanest of all men and this another step downwards But this now low enough men are the image of God ay but the Son of God is not used as a man but rather as a poor dumb beast appointed to the slaughter what was he but a sleep said Esay of him Esai 53.7 Esay 53.7 a sheep indeed and that more especially in these two qualities First as a sheep before the shearer is dumb so he openeth not his mouth and to this purpose was that silence of our Saviour when all those evidences came against him he would not so much as drop one syllable to defend his cause if the high Priests question him What is the matter that these men witness against thee Matthew tells us that Iesus held his peace Mat. 26.63 Matth. 26.63 If Pilate say unto him Behold how many things they witness against thee Mark tells us that Iesus answered him nothing Mark 15.5 Mark 15.5 If Herod question with him in many words because he had heard many things of him Luke tells us that he answered him nothing Luk. 23.9 Luk. 23.9 As a poor sheep in the hands of the shearer he is dumb before his Judges and accusers whence briefly we may observe Christ came not to defend but to suffer condemnation Secondly as a sheep he is dumb and as a sheep he is slain Esa ibid. He was led saith the Prophet as a sheep to the slaughter O Jesu art thou come to this to be a man who art God a sheep who art man and so for our sakes far inferiour to our selves nay worse a sheep how not free as one that is leaping on the mountains or skipping on the hills no but a sheep that is led led whether not thither as David was who could say of his Shepherd that he fed him in green pastures and led him forth besides the waters of comfort no but led to the slaughter He is a sheep a sheep led Psal 23.2 a sheep led to the slaughter and such a slaughter that were he a dumb creature yet great ruth it were to see him so handled as he was by the Jewes And yet will his humility descend a little lower as he was the poorest of men so the least of sheep like a lamb saith the Apostle Act. 8.32 Act. 8.32 and Behold the Lamb said Iohn the Baptist even the Lamb of God which takes away the sin of the world Joh. 1.29 Joh. 1.29 This was that Lamb which the Paschall Lamb prefigured Your Lamb saith God to the Israelites shall be a Lamb without blemish and the bloud shall be a token for you that I will pass over you Exod. 12.13 Exod. 12.5 and 13. But was ever lamb like the Lamb of God he is without blemish saith Pilate I find no fault in him Luk. 23.4 Luk. 23.4 and the sprinkling of his bloud saith Peter is the right token of election 1 Pet. 1.2 1 Pet. 1.2 Such a lamb was this Lamb without blemish in his life and whose bloud was sprinkled at his death in life and death ever suffering for us who had he not done so should for ever and ever have suffered our selves Tell me O thou whom my soul loveth where thou feedest saith the Church in Canticles tell me yes If thou knowest not saith our Saviour go thy way forth by the foot-steps of the flock Cant. 1.8 Cant. 1.8 Our Saviour is become a man a sheep a lamb or if this be not humility enough he will yet take a leap lower What is he but a worm and no man yea the very scorn of men and the outcast of the people Psal 22.6 Psal 22.6 Did you ever think we could have brought our Saviour to thus low a degree what beneath a lamb and no better then a worm Heaven and earth may well ring of this as being the greatest wonder that ever was there is any bitter potion due to man which the Son of God will not partake of to the utmost dregs and thereforâ— if Iob say to the worm Iob 17.14 Iob. 25.6 thou art my sister and mother nay if Bildad say Man is a worm and the son of man is but a worm which is more then kindred behold our Saviour stooping thus low himself what is he but a man nay as if that were too much a worm and not a man as sung the Psalmist of him I am so low that unless we think him no body we can down no lower and yet here is one leap more that if we take a view of it we may suppose him to be nothing in esteem a No-body indeed Look we at every man in respect of God and the Prophet tells us All nations before him are as nothing Esai 40.17 Esai 40.17 And if man be thus why sure the son of man will be no lesse see then to the wondrous astonishment of men and Angels how greatness it self Ex omni seipsum ad nihil redegit
Beza in loc Tert. ad Mar. l. 5. to bring man from nothing Exinanivit se hath made himself nothing or of no reputation Phil. 2.7 Phil. 2.7 How nothing yes saith Beza He that was all in all hath reduced himself to that which is nothing at all and Tertullian little less Exhausit se He hath emptied himself or as our translation gives it He hath made himself not of little but of no reputation Lo here those steps the Scripture lighting us all the way by which our Saviour descended he that is God for us became an Angell a man a Serving-man a poor man a sheep a lamb a worm a nothing in esteem a man of no reputation Vse 1 Let every soul learn his duty from hence what should we do for him who hath done all this for us There is a crew of unbelievers that hear and heed not all the sufferings of our Saviour cannot move them a jot either towards God or from sin and is not this a wofull lamentable case I remember a passage in Cyprian how he brings in the Devill triumphing over Christ in this manner As for my followers I never dyed for them as Christ did for his I never promised them so great a reward as Christ hath done to his and yet I have more followers then he and they do more for me then his doe for him hear O heaven and hearken O earth Was ever the like phrensie The Devill like a roaring Lion seeks ever and anon to devour our souls and how many thousands and millions of souls yield themselves to his service though he never died for them nor will ever do for them the poorest favour whatsoever but pay them everlastingly with pains and pangs death and damnation On the other side see our Saviour God Almighty take on him the nature of a man a poor man a sheep a lamh a worm a nothing in esteem and why all this but onely to save our souls and to give them heaven and salvation yet such is the condition of a stubborn heart that to choose it will spurn at heavens crown and run upon hell and be a slave to Satan and scoffe at Christs suffering yea and let out his bloud and pull out his heart and bring him a degree lower then very beelzebub himself rather then it will submit to his will and march under his banner to the kingdome of heaven Hence it is that the Devill so triumphs over Christ As for my followers saith he I never died for them as Christ did for his no Devill thou never diedst for them but thou will put them to a death without all ease or end Think of this yee unbelievers me thinks like a thunderbolt it might shake all your hearts and dash them into pieces But a word more to you of whom I hope better things let me exhort the Saints that you for your parts will ever love and serve and honour and obey and praise the Lord of glory for this so wonderfull a mercy I pray have you not cause had your Saviour onely sent his creatures to serve you or some Prophets to advise you in the way of salvation had he onely sent his Angels to attend you and to minister unto you or had he come down in his glory like a King that would not onely send to the prison but come himself to the dungeon and ask saying Is such a man here or had he onely come and wept over you saying Oh that you had never sinned all these had been great mercies But that Christ himself should come and strive with you in mercy and patience that he should be so fond of a company of Rebels and Hel-hounds and yet we are not at the lowest that he would for us become a man a mean man a lamb a worm a nothing in esteem O all ye stubborn hearts too much stubborn are we all if judgement and the hammer cannot break your hearts yet let this mercy break you and let every one say O Iesu hast thou done all this for me certainly I will love thee and praise thee and serve thee and obey thee as long as I live Say so and the Lord say Amen to the good desires of your hearts To whet this on the more remember still it is you that should have suffered but to prevent this it is he that was humbled it is he that was crucified it is he that was purged what needs more John 18.5 I am he said Christ to the Iews when they apprehended him He what he I know not what but be he what he will he it is our Saviour Redeemer Physician Patient VVho had by himself purged our sinnes Thus far we have measured his steps downwards and should we go up again the same stairs we might bring him as high as vve have placed him lovv but his asscent belongs rather to the words following my Text for after he had purged then he sate down on Gods right hand on high Come we then to the next words and as you have seen the Person so let us look for a companion This may in miserie yield some comfort if but any society bears a share in his misery But me thinks I hear you say to me as the Athenians said 〈◊〉 32. to Paul We wil hear thee again of this matter another time By himself THe Time and Physician have prepared a Purge but who is the Patient to receive it it is man is sick and it is man must purge or otherwise he dies without all remedie or recoverie but alas what Purge what Purgatory must that be which can evacuate sinne Should man take all the virtue of herbs and mineralls and distill them into one sublime and purest quintessence yet impossible were it to wash away sinne or the least dregs of its corruption Not Galen nor Hippocrates nor all the Artists or Naturalists that ever lived on earth could find out or invent any remedie for sinne this must be a work of Grace and not of Nature yea and such a grace as neither man nor Angel could afford Behold then who it is that both administers and takes the receipt prepared it is man that sinned and God is become man that so being both he might administer it as God and receive it as man the same Person being Physician and Patient Compounder and Purger But what a wonder is this Are we a-dying and must he purge for it can Physick given to the sound heal the party that is sick It was the saying of our Saviour Matth. 9.12 The whole need not the Physician but they that are sick and Christ Jesus for his part is whole indeed No fault in this man saith Pilate Luke 23.14 Matth. 27.19 and he is a just man said Pilates wife of him to what end then should he purge that is whole and we escape it that are sick O this is to manifest the dearest love of our Soul-Physician our endeared Saviour the whole indeed need not the
washed his hands before the multitude saying I am innocent of the bloud of this just man Matth. 27 24 Matth. 27.24 but alas did Pilate so favour him as to free him no he fears to condemn him being innocent and yet dares not absolve him being so envyed as he was by the Iewes what then can a little water what can Iordans floods what can rivers of wine and oile do towards the washing of those hands that had power to release him and would not he knew they had delivered him of envy Matth. 27.18 Matth. 27.18 he confesses I find no fault in this man Luk. 23.14 Luk. 23.14 he tells him that he had power to crucifie him and he had power to loose him Iohn 19.10 Joh. 19.10 and yet fondly would he wash away the guilt of his unjust sentence with a little water on his hands no Pilate that ceremony cannot wash away thy sin that sin I mean which thou and the Gentiles in thee committed in delivering of Jesus to the will of the Iewes Luk. 23.25 But if delivered to the Iewes sure it is well enough he is their Country-man Kinsman of the stock of Abraham of the Tribe of Juda of the Family of Ioseph but this rather aggravates then allaies his misery that his own people should degenerate into Traitors not a Gentile but a Jew to be his Executioner what torment had not been a lenitive and a recreation in comparison of this Daniels Den the three Childrens Furnace Esays wooden Saw Israels fiery Serpents the Spanish Inquisition the Romish Purgatory are all as far short in torture as the last of them in truth to the malice of a Iew witness our Saviours death when they all conspired not onely to scourge him mock him buffet him slay him but to slay him in such a manner as to hang him on nailes and to make the Cross his Gibbet But what no comforter amongst them all do the Gentiles condemn him will the Jewes crucifie him and is there none to pity him Yes what say we of his Disciples that heard him followed him Luk. 10.1 and were sent of him by two and two into every City and place whether he himself should come Would you think that these seventy Luk. 10.17 for they were so many in number which for a time did his Embassage with joy would now have forsaken him yes if you mark it many of them went back Joh. 6.66 and would walk no more with him some stumble at his Doctrine others at his passion but all were offended as it is written I will smite the Shepherd and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered Matth. 26.31 Matth. 26.31 Yet if the Gentiles reject him they do but like Gentiles who were ignorant of God if the Iewes hate and maligne him Matth. 23.31 it is but their old wont of killing the Prophets if the Disciples that are weaker faint and waver in faith Matth. 8.26 it was no more then was said of them O ye of little faith but what say we to the twelve Apostles those Secretaries of his mysteries stewards of his mercies almners of his bounties will they also go away and leave him comfortless alone no can Peter say Master to whom shall we go thou hast the words of eternall life Ioh. 6.68 Joh. 6.68 or if he will have deeper protestations I am ready to go with thee saith Peter into prison and to death Luk. 22.33 Luk. 22.33 to death yes though I die with thee I will not deny thee and thus said all his Disciples Matth. 26.35 Matth 26.35 and yet like Ionas Gourd when the Sun beates hottest how soon are they all gone and vanished away loe one betrays him another forswears him all run from him and leave him alone in the midst of all his enemies And yet if his Apostles leave him what say we to Mary his mother and other his friends these indeed wait on him seeing sighing wailing weeping but alas what do those tears but increase his sorrows might he not justly say with Paul What mean yee to weep and to break my heart Act. 21.13 Acts 21.13 Pity and of all other feminine pity it is the poorest helpless salve of misery but howsoever it was to others this was so far from any salve to him as 't is one of his greatest tenderest sores about him Luk. 23.28 Daughters of Ierusalem weep not for me but weep for your selves and your children O see the wonder of compassion which he bears to others in his passion he hath more care of the women that follow him weeping then on his own mangled self that reels along fainting and bleeding even unto death the tears that drop from their eyes is more to him then all the bloud in his veins and therefore careless as it were of his own sacred person he turns about his blessed bleeding face to the weeping women Luk. 23.38 affording them looks and words too of compassion of consolation weep not for mee but weep for your selves and your children But O blessed Saviour didst thou flow unto us in showrs of Bloud and may not we drop a tear for all those purple streams of thine yes Lord thou dost not here forbid us weeping onely thou turnest the stream of our tears the right way that is to say homewards into our own bosomes pointing us to our sins the truest cause of thy sufferings But as for comfort to our Saviour whence trow ye may it come if we compass the earth the Gentiles Iewes his Disciples Apostles Mary his own Mother and all other his friends they are but as Iobs miserable comforters all but let us go up into heaven John 16.2 and there if any where be his comforters indeed alas what comforters If you imagine the Angels it is true they could attend him in the Desart and comfort him in the Garden but when he came to the main act of our Redemption not an Angell must be seen how not seen no they must not so much as look through the windows of heaven to give him any ease at all nor indeed were it to any purpose if they should for who can lift up where the Lord will cast down O yee blessed Angels how is it that your Hallelujahs cease that your songs which you warbled at his birth are finished at his death that your glorious company which are the delight of happy souls is denied to him who is the Lord and Maker both of you and them why thus it must be for our sakes I am full of heaviness said our Saviour in his type and I looked for some to take pity but there was none and for comforters but I found none Psal 69 20. Psal 69.20 And yet if the Angels be no comforters he hath a Father in heaven that is nearer to him Ioh. 10.30 I and my father are one saith our Saviour and it is my Father that honoureth mee Ioh.
Law exspected of all the faithfull from the beginning of the world and therefore the Apostle concludeth almost all things are by the Law purged with bloud and without shedding of bloud is no remission Heb. 9.22 Heb. 9.22 It is true Christ purged by his death and other his sufferings and yet are all these contained in the shedding of his bloud this bloud is the foundation of true Religion for other foundation can no man lay Wherefore neither was the first Testament ordained without bloud 1 Cor. 3.11 Heb. 9.18 Heb. 9.18 Nor is the new Testament otherwise sealed then with bloud Matth. 26.28 Matth. 26.28 What needs more If the bloud of Buls and of Goates in the old Testament sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh how much more shall the bloud of Christ in the new Testament purge your Consciences from dead works to serve the living God Heb. 9.13 14. Heb. 9.13 14. O sweet bloud of our Saviour that purgeth our Consciences evacuates our dead works restores us to our God will bring us unto heaven Esay 63.2 But O my Saviour wherefore art thou red in thy apparell and thy garments like him that treadeth in the wine-fat is it thy precious bloud that hath given this hew yes an hew often dipped in the Wine-fat and that we may the better see the colour let us distinguish the times when his Bloud was shed for us Sixe times saith a * Adams Crucifix Modern seven times saith * Bern. de passione Domini cap. 36. Bernard did Christ shed his bloud for us and to reduce them into order the first was at his Circumcision when his name Iesus was given him which was so named of the Angell before he was conceived in the womb Luk. 2.21 Bern. ibid. and was this without Mistery no saith Bernard for by the effusion of his bloud he was to be our Iesus our Saviour Blessed Jesu how ready art thou for the Sacrifice What but eight days old and then to shed thy bloud for the salvation of our souls Maturum hoc Martyrium here is a mature Martyrdome indeed It is a superstition took up with the Aegyptians and Arabians Ambros l. 2. de patriarch Abraham that Circumcision should fright away devils and the Iewes have a conceit not much unlike for when the child is Circumcised one stands by which a vessell full of dust into which they cast the Praepuce the meaning of it is that whereas it was the curse of the Serpent Dust shalt thou eate all the dayes of thy life Gen. 3.14 Pet. Mart loc com class 4. c. 7. Symbol Ruffini Tomo Jeronymi 4. they suppose therefore the Praepuce or fore skin being cast into the dust the Devill by that Covenant eates his own meat and so departs from the child But howsoever they erre of this we are sure that Christ delivered his flesh as a bait to Sathan held him fast with the hook of his Divinity through the shedding of his bloud this bloud was it first shed at his Circumcision and we cannot imagine it a little pain seeing the flesh was cut with a sharp stone which made Zipporah to cry out against Moses Surely a bloudy husband art thou to mee what a love is this that Christ newly born should so early shed his bloud Exod. 4.25 but all was for our sakes for the salvation of our souls You see one vein opened but in his second effusion not one but all the veins in his body fell a bleeding at once and this was at his passion in the garden when as the Evangelist testifies he fell into an agony and his sweat was like drops of bloud trickling down to the ground here is a physick-purgative indeed Luk. 22.44 when all his body evacuates sweat like drops of bloud but what be the pleurisie never so great how strange is the phlebotomy it seems not to consult where the sign lies you see all his body fals at once to sweating and bleeding not is the cure less strange then the physick for we had surfetted and it is he that purgeth we had the fever and it is he that sweats and bleeds for the recovery of our health did you ever hear of such a remedy as this oft-times a bleeding in the head say Physicians is best stop by striking a vein in the foot but here the malady is in the foot and the remedy in the head we silly wretches lay sick of sin and Christ our Saviour purgeth it out by a sweat like drops of bloud trickling down to the ground here is a wonder no violence is offered no labour is sustained he is abroad too in the raw ayr and laid down groveling on the cooler earth or if all this be not enough to keep him from sweating the night is cold so cold that hardier souldiers were fain to have a fire within doors and yet notwithstanding all this he sweats saith the Text how sweats it is not sudor diaphoreticus a thin faint sweat but grumosus of great drops and those so many so violent as they pierce not onely his skin but clothes too trickling down to the ground in great abundance and yet may all this fall within the compasse of a naturall possibility But a sweat of bloud puts all reason to silence yea saith Hilary it is again nature to sweat bloud Contra naturam est sudare sanguinem Hillar l. 10. trinitate and yet howsoever nature stands agast the God of nature goes thus far that in a cold night which naturally draws bloud inwards he sweats without heat and bleeds without a wound See all his body is besprinckled with a Crimson dew the very veins and pores not waiting the tormentors fury pour out a showr of bloud upon the suddain foul sin that could not be clensed save onely by such a bath what must our surfets be thus sweat out by our Saviour Yes saith Bernard we sin and our Saviour weeps for it Bern. in ramis Palmarum serm 3. not onely with his eyes but with all the parts of his bodie and why so but to this end That the whole body of his Church might be purged with the tears of his whole body Come then ye sons of Adam and see your Redeemer in this heavie case if such as be kind and loving are wont when they come to visit their friends in death or danger to observe their countenance to consider their colour and other accidents of their bodies tell me ye that in your Contemplations behold the face of your Saviour What think you when you see in him such wonderfull strange and deadly signes our sweat howsoever caused is most usuall in the face or forehead but our Saviour sweats in all his bodie and how then was that face of his disfigured when it stood all on dros and the drops not of a watrie sweat but of scarlet bloud O my heart how canst thou but rend into a thousand pieces O
true length yet spitefully they take it longer that so they may stretch and rack him on the cross till you may tell his bones Psal 22.17 And now all fitted his hands and feet are bored the greatness of whose wounds David fore-shewed by those words They digged my hands and my feet Psal 22.16 Psal 22.16 Socrat. l. 1. c. 17. And well may we think so for as Ecclesiasticall History reports so big were the very nailes that Constantine made of them an helmet and a bridle O then what pain is this when all the weight of his body must hang on four nailes and they â—o be driven not into the least sensible parts but thorow his hands and his feet the most sinew it and therefore more sensible pâ—rts of all other whatsoever yet to hang thus for a time were it may be somewhat tollerable but thus he hangs till he dies and so the longer he continues the wider go his wounds and the fresher is his torture And now my brethren behold and see Lam. 1.12 if there were ever any sorrow like unto this sorrow alas what else appears in him but bleeding veins bruised shoulders scourged sides furrowed back harrowed temples digged hands and feet digged I say not with small pins but with rough boystrous nailes and how then shot the bloud from those hands and feet thus digged Cant. 2.1 Bern. de pass Dom. c. 41. and digged thorow O I am the rose of Sharon it is truly said of Christ Look on one hand and on the other and you may find roses in both look on one foot and on the other and you may find roses in either In a word look all over his body and it is all over rosie and ruddy in bloud Can we any more yes after all these showrs of bloud here is one more effusion for after his death Longinus Bishop of Cappadocia Teste Herle Contemplations on Christs passion One of the souldiers with a spear pierced his side and forthwith came there â—â—t bloud and water Ioh. 19.34 Joh. 19.34 The Souldier that gave this wound they say was a blind man but our Saviours bloud springing out on his eyes restored him to his sight and so he became a Convert a Bishop and a Martyr a strange cure where the Physician must bleed but so full of virtue was this bloud that by it we are all saved And yet O Saviour why didst thou flow to us in so many streams of bloud one drop had been enough for the world but thy love is without measure Physicians are usually liberall of other mens bloud but sparing of their own here it is not so for in stead of the Patients arm it is the Physicians own side that bleeds in stead of a lancet here is a spear and that in the hand of a blind Chirurgeon yet as blind as he was how right doth he hit the very vein of his heart that heart where never dwelt deceit see how how it runs bloud and water for our sinnes here is the fountain of his Sacraments the beginning of our happinesse O gate of heaven O window of Paradise O place of refuge O tower of strength O sanctuary of the just O flourishing bed of the Spouse of Solomon who is not ravished at the running of this stream me thinks I still see the bloud gushing out of his sides more freshly and fully then those sweet golden streams which run out of Eden to water the whole world But is it his hearts bloud what keeps he nothing whole without him nor within him his Apostles are scattered in the garden his garments at the crosse his bloud how many wheres his skin they have rent with their whips his ears with their blasphemies his back with their furrows his hands and feet with their nails and will they yet have his heart too cloven with a spear what a wonderfull thing is this that after all those sufferings he must have one wound more why Lord what means this open cleft and wound within thee what means this stream and river of thy hearts-bloud O it is I that sinned and to wash it away his heart runs bloud and water in abundance Lo here those seven effusions of our Saviours bloud the first at his circumcision the second in the garden the rest when his cheeks were nipped his head crowned his back scourged his hands and feet nailed his side opened with a spear whence came out an issue of bloud and water Vse And be our sinnes thus purged Lord in what miserable case lay we that Christ our Saviour must endure all this for us were our sinnes infinite for which none could satisfie but our infinite God were not our iniquities as the sands for which no lesse then an Ocean of bloud could serve to cover them sure here is a motive if nothing else to draw from us the confession of our manifold sins Lord we have sinned we have sinned grievously heavily and with a mighty hand and what now remains but that we never cease weeping crying praying beseeching till we get our pardon sealed in the bloud of Christ O beloved let me entreat you for Christs sake for his blouds sake for his deaths sake that you will repent you of your sinnes which have put him to these torments and to this end I shall entreat you thus to order your repentance First after confession of your manifold sinnes look upon him whom you have pierced and by your meditation supposing him to lie afore you weep and weep over him whom you see by your sinnes thus clothed in his bloud Why thus shall it be with the house of David Zach. 12.10 Zach. 12.10 11. I will poure upon the house of David saith God and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and of supplications and they shall look upon him whom they have pierced and they shall mourn for him as one that mourneth for his onely sonne and be sorrie for him as one that is sorry for his first-born in that day there shall be a great mourning in Jerusalem as the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the valley of Megiddon What is the house of David and what are the inhabitants of Jerusalem but the elect people of God and if you be of that number then do you look on him whom you have pierced and mourn for him or mourn over him as one that mourneth for his onely sonne yea be sorrie for him or be in bitternesse for him as one that is in bitternesse for his first-born Is it not time think you do you not see how every part of our Saviour bleeds afore you his head bleeds his face bleeds his arms bleed his hands bleed his heart bleeds his back bleeds his belly bleeds his thighs bleed his legs bleed his feet bleed and what makes all this bloud-shed but our sinnes our sinnes O that this day for this cause we would make a great mourning as the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the valley
of this sin it is mine yours Ours every ones What is it but Sin which our Saviour purged this is that ill humour derived from our Parents inherent in our selves imputed to our Saviour and therefore saith the Prophet he bare the sins of many Esay 53.12 Esay 53.12 to whoâ— agrees the Apostle that he his own self bare our sins in his own body 1 Pet. 2.24 1 Pet. 2.24 What a load then lay on his shoulders when all our sins the sins of all the world were fastened upon him one mans sin is enough to sink him into hell and had not our Saviour intervened every one of us had known by a wofull experience how heavy sin would have been upon the soul of each man but O happie we the snare is broken and we are delivered To prevent sins effect Christ Jesus hath purged and washed it away And is this all the matter wherefore our Saviour suffered was sinne all the disease of which he laboured when he had by himself purged yes it was all and if we consider it rightly we may think it enough to cause sufferings in him when merely for its sake God was so wroth against us O loathsome sinne more ugly in the sight of God then is the foulest Creature in the sight of man he cannot away with it nor so righteous are his wayes could he save his own Elect because of it but by killing his own sonne Imagine then what a sicknesse is sinne when nothing but the bloud of the sonne of God could cure it imagine what a poyson is sin when nothing but a spirituall Methridate compounded and confected of the best bloud that ever the world had could heal it we need not any further to consider its nature but onely to think of it how hatefull it was to God how hurtfull to his Sonne how damnable to men Vse And was it Sinne he purged this may teach us how hatefull sinne is that put him thus to his Purge Every sinne is a nail a thorn a spear and every sinner a Jew a Judas a Pilate howsoever then we may seek to shift it on others yet are we found the principall in this act our selves you know it is not the Executioner that properly kils the man sin onely is the murtherer yea our sinnes onely are the crucifyers of the Lord of glory yea if you will please to hear me I will yet say more our sinnes onely did not crucifie him but do crucifie him afresh Heb. 6.6 Heb. 6.6 and herein how farre do we exceed the crueltie of the Jews then his body was passible and mortall but now it is glorified and immortall they knew not what they did 1 Cor. 2.8 for had they known they would not have crucified the Lord of glory but we know well enough what we do and say too they buried Christ in the earth and the third day he rose again from the dead but we through sinne so bury him in oblivion that not once in three dayes three weeks he ariseth or shineth in our hearts O shame of Christians to forget so great a mercie O sinne past shame to crucifie afresh the Sonne of God! Think of it beloved sin is the death of Christ and would you not hate him that kills your brother your father your Master your King your God beware then of sinne that does it all at a blow and if you are tempted to it suppose with your selves that you saw Christ Jesus coming towards you wrapt in linnens bound with a kercher and crying after you in this gastly manner beware take heed what you do once have your sinnes most vilely murthered me but now seeing my wounds are whole again do not I beseech you rub and revive them with your multiplyed sinnes pity pity me your Jesus save me your Saviour once have I dyed and had not that one death been sufficient I would have dyed a thousand deaths more to have saved your souls why then do you sin again to renew my sufferings O my Saviour who will not leave to sinne that but hears thy voice in the gardens Cant. 7.13 lo the companions hearken unto thy voice cause me to hear it it is I that have sinned and if this be the fruit of it let me rather be torn of beasts be devoured of Worms be violently pulled or haled with racks then wittingly or wilfully commit a sinne Secondly he purged sinne whose but our sinne and this tels us of the universality of this gracious benefit together with its limitation First of the universality he tasted of death for every man Heb. 2.9 Heb. 2.9 and he gave himself a ransome for all men 1 Tim. 2.6 1 Tim. 2.6 and he purged our sinnes saith my Text what ours onely no saith the Apostle he is the propitiation not for our sinnes onely but for the sinnes of the whole world 1 John 2.2 1 John 2.2 You will say all do not actually receive the fruit of his death you say indeed truly but I wonder through whose default Our blessed Saviour what is he but like a Royall Prince who having many of his subjects in captivity of thraldome under a Forrein enemie pays a full ransome for every one of them and then sending forth his Embassadours he woes them to return to their home and to enjoy their libertie some there are that reject the offer they will rather serve the enemy then return to the freedome of their Lord and are these all the thanks they give their Redeemer O sweet Saviour he made upon the crosse a full perfect and sufficient sacrifice oblation and satisfaction for the sinnes of the world but not all receive the benefit because many by their own demerit have made themselves unworthy and yet howsoever some despise liberty Num. 11.23 is the arm of the Lord shortned no see his arms spread on the Crosse to embrace all and here is the universality of this gracious benefit Vse The use hereof is full of comfort if any man any sinner will now come in with a truly penitent soul thirsting heartily for Christ Jesus and resolve unfeignedly to take his yoke upon him there is no number or notoriousnesse of sinne that can possibly hinder his gracious enterment at Gods mercy seat O then how heinously do they offend who refuse to take Christ Jesus offered thus universally if you ask who are they I answer they are offenders on both hands First those that too much despair secondly those that too much presume to begin with the latter Some there are that howsoever Christ and heaven and salvation be offered unto them yet so close do they stick and adhere to their sinnes that they are loath to leave them and they hope God is so mercifull that they can have Christ and their sinnes too Alas deceive not your selves though the dearnesse and sweetnesse and freenesse and generality of Christs offers be a doctrine most true we propound it unto you as a
off the burthen Matth. 11.28 Rev. 21.6 do they thirst after righteousness just then is the fountain of the water of life set wide open unto them are they contrite and humble in spirit Esay 57.15 just then are they become thrones for the high and lofty one that inhabiteth eternity to dwell in for ever O then come and welcome Christ excepts none that will not except themselves He died for all and be would have all men to be saved But yet let us be cautelous secondly he purged our sinnes and ours with a limitation the vse of Physick we say consists in application and howsoever our Saviour hath purged our sins yet this purge of his is nothing beneficiall to us unlesse there be some means to apply it As then it is in all other Physick so in this we must first take it secondly keep it 1. Take it for as the best plaister if not laid to can cure no wound so Christ himself and all his precious merits are of no virtue to him that will not apply them by faith when you hear the Gospel preached believe it on your parts believe Christ is yours believe that he lived and died and sorrowed and suffered and all this for you to purge your souls of your sinnes 2. But having taken it you must secondly keep it as men take Physick not onely in belief that it will do them good but in hope to keep it by the virtue and strength of the retentive parts so we take Christ by faith but we retain him by holiness these two faith and holiness are those two bonds wherewith Christ is united unto us and we unto Christ so that if we be of this number then truly may we say that he purged our sinnes for the both died for us and by virtue of our faith and holinesse through him his death is applied to us to us I say not in any generall acception but as we are of the number of his Saints for we had sinned and they were our sinnes onely that he effectually purged and washed away Vse And this lesson may afford us this use that howsoever the free grace and mercie and goodnesse of Christ Jesus is revealed and offered to all men universally yet our Saviour takes none but such as are willing to take upon them his yoke he gives himself to none but such as are readie to sell all and follow him he saves none but such as deny ungodlinesse and worldly lusts and live soberly righteously and godlily in this present world in a word he purgeth none or cleanseth none by his bloud from all sin but such as walk in the light as God is in the light who make conscience of detesting and declining all sins and sincerely set their hearts and hands with love and carefull endeavour to every duty enjoyned them why these are the men onely to whom his death is effectuall and therefore as we mean to partake of his merits or to have good by his death let us become new creatures It is true indeed and we cannot but maintain it that to justification nothing but faith is required but this caution must be added it must be a faith that purifies the heart that works an universall change that shews it self in the fruits if therefore any of us would come in let us have ready our answer as a late Divine speaks the dialogue betwixt Christ and a true Christian on this manner First saith he when God hath enlightened the eyes of a man that he can see where this treasure is what then Why saith the Christian I am so enflamed with the love of it that I will have it whatsoever it cost me yea saith Christ but there is a price upon it it must cost thee dear a great deal of sorrow and trouble and crosses and afflictions Tush tell me not of price saith the Christian whatsoever I have shall go for it I will do any thing for it that God will enable me Why saith Christ wilt thou curb thine affections wilt thou give up thy life wilt thou be content to sell all thou hast I will do it saith the Christian with all my heart I am content to sell all that I have nothing is so dear unto me but I will part with it my right hand my right eye nay if hell it felf should stand between me and Christ yet would I passe through it unto him This beloved this is that violent affection which God puts into the hearts of his children that they will have Christ whatsoever it cost them yet understand me I pray you It is not to sell our houses or lands or children but our sinns that I mean the Lord Jesus and one lust cannot lodge together in one soul no if we are but once truly incorporated into Christ we must take him as our Husband and Lord we must love honour and serve him we must endeavour after sanctification puritie new obedience abilitie to do or suffer any thing for Christ we must consecrate all the powers and possibilities of our bodies and souls to do him the best service we can we must grieve and walk more humbly because we can do no better and thus if we do though I cannot say but still we shall sin so long as we live on this earth yet here is our comfort 1. Joh. 2.1 2. We have an Advocate with the Father Iesus Christ the righteous and he is the propitiation for our sinnes I say for our sinnes effectually if we believe in his Name for it was for us he died and they were our sinnes he purged and this is that great benefit we receive from our Saviour in that he by himself hath purged our sinns And now our sinnes being purged our souls recovered I may well end this Text onely I shall give it one visit more and so Farwell You see the maladie Sin the remedie a purge the Physician he the patient himself our selves for our infirmities were laid on him and his sores became our salves by whose virtue we are healed Blesse we then God for the recovery of our souls and be we carefull for the future of any relapse whatsoever these relapses are they we had need to fear indeed for in them the diseases are more dangerous sinns are more pernicious Matth. 12.44 and men become seven times more the children of Sathan then ever they were before Now then we are healed be we studious to preserve it all the dayes of our life and we shall find at our death that he that purged our sinns will save our souls we need not any other Purgatory after death no when our souls shall take their flights from our bodies then are the Angels readie to conduct them to his Kingdome and thither may we come for his sake and his onely who by himself in his own person hath purged our sinnes AMEN FINIS Heavens happiness LUKE 23.43 To day shalt thou be with me in Paradise HE that purged our sinns is
this be his case who will not say with Balaam Let me die the death of the righteous and let my last end be like his Num. 23 10. O let us I beseech you present unto our souls the blessed condition to come and this will be effectuall to stir us up to every good duty and to comfort us in all conditions whatsoever what will a man care for crosses and losses and disgraces in the world that thinks of an heavenly Kingdome What will a man care for ill usage in his Pilgrimâ—ge when he knows he is a King at home we are all in this time of our abâ—ence from God but even strangers upon â—â—rth here then must we suffer in dignities yet here is the comfort we have a better estate to come and all this in the mean time is nothing but a fitting of us to that heavenly Kingdome â—s Davids time between his anointing and investing was a very preparing of him that he might know himself and that he might learn fitnesse for to govern aright so we are anointed Kings as soon as we believe we have the same blessed anointing that is poured on our head and runnes down about us but we must be humbled and fitted before we are invested 〈◊〉 time and but a 〈◊〉 we have yet here to spend and let this be our comfort howsoever we 〈◊〉 here it is not long ere we inherit Alas the 〈◊〉 of this life are not worthy of the glory that shall be shewed us Rom. 8.18 Rom. 8.18 and therefore Igâ—â—â—â—â— iâ— a burnâ—â—g 〈…〉 say 〈…〉 gallows Hieron in catalogo beasts breaking of my bones quartering of â—y 〈…〉 â—â—â—â—sâ—â—ng of my body all the torments of devils let them come upon me so I may enjoy the treasure of Heaven and well â—â—gâ—â— he say it that knew what a châ—nge would be one day 〈◊〉 never was cold shadow so pleasant 〈◊〉 hot Summer never was 〈◊〉 so delightfull after â—â—â—our as shall be this â—eâ—t of heaven to an afflicted â—our coming thither out of this valley of tears O then what service should we do what pain should we suffer to attain this â—est were it to runne through fire and water were it as Augustine said to suffer every day torments you Aug. serm 31. de sanct the very torments of Hell yet should we be conâ—enâ— to aâ—â—â—e it and how much more when we may buy it without money or money-worth we need not to part with any thing for it but sin This Thief now a blessed Saint in glory * I speak of suffering and repenting as means not as the cause for a dayes suffering an half dayes repenting was thus welcomed to Heaven imitate we him in his repentance not in his delay he indeed had mercy at the last cast but this priviledge of one inferres not a common law for all one finde mercie at the last that none should despair and but one that none should presume Be then your sins as red as Scarlet you need not despair if you will but repent and lest your repentance be too late let this be the day of your conversion now abhorre sinnes past sue out a pardon call upon Christ with this Thief on the Crosse Lord remember me remember me now thou art in thy Kingdome thus would we do how blessedly should we die our consciences comforting us in deaths pangs and Christ Jesus saying to us at our last day here our day of death our day of dissolution To day shalt thou be with me in paradise We have dispatcht with expedition this dispatch this expedition to day the next day you shall hear the happinesse of this grant which is the societie of our Saviour thou shalt be with whom with me in paradise With me ANd is he of the Societie of Jesus yes though no Jesuite neither for they were not then hatcht but what noble order is this where the Saints sing Angels minister Archangels rule Principalities triumph Powers rejoyce Dominations govern Virtues shine Thrones glitter Cherubims give light Seraphins burn in love and all that heavenly company ascribe and ever give all laud and praises unto God their Maker here is a Societie indeed I mean not of Babylon but Jerusalem whither Jesus our Saviour admits all his servants and whereto this Thief on the Crosse was invited and welcomed thou shalt be with me in paradise For if with me then with all that is with me and thus comes in that blessed company of Heaven we will onely take a view of them and in some scantling or other you may guesse at Heavens happinesse With me and therefore with my Saints blessed man that from a crew of thieves by one houres repentance became a companion of Saints and now he is a Saint amongst them what joy is that he enjoys with them O my soul couldst thou so steal Heaven by remorse for sinne then mightst thou see what all those millions of Saints that ever lived on earth and are in Heaven Heb. 12.22 there are those holy Patriarchs Adam Noah Abraham and the rest not now in their pilgrimage tossed to and fro on earth but abiding for ever on Mount Sion the City of the living God there are those goodly Prophets Esay Jeremy Ezekiel and the rest not now subject to the torments of their cruell adversaries but wearing Palms and Crowns and all other glorious Ensigneâ— of their victorious triumphs there live those glorious Apostles Peter Andrew James John and the rest not now in danger of persecution or death but arrayed in long robes washed and made white in the bloud of the Lamb Revel 7.14 there live those women-Saints Mary Martha and that Virgin-mother not now weeping at our Saviours death but singing unto him those heavenly songs of praise glory world without end there are those tender infants an hundred forty four thousand Revel 14.1 Revel 14.1 3 4. not now under Herods knife bleeding unto death but harping on their harps and following the Lamb whithersoever he goeth there lives that noble armie of Martyrs they that were slain upon the earth Revel 18.24 Revel 18.24 not now under the mercilesse hands of cruell tyrants but singing and saying their Hallelujahs salvation and glory and honour Revel 19.1 and power be unto the Lord our God tâ—ere dwell all the Saints and servants of God both small and great Revel 19.5 Revel 19.5 not now sighing in this vale of tears but singing sweet songs that eccho through the Heavens as the voice of many waters as the voice of mighty thunderings so is their voice saying Hellelujah Revel 19.6 for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth And is not here a goodly troop a sweet company a blessed societie and fellowship of Saints O my soul how happie wer't thou to be with them yea how happie will that day be to thee when thou shalt meet all the Patriarchs Prophets Apostles Disciples Innocents Martyrs the Saints and servants of the King of Heaven why thus happie
both give their lights that Lambe that was slain from the beginning of the world that body of his once crucified now brighter then ten thousand Suns O how infinitely glorious doth it make this Paradise this Citie of God His countenance is as the Sun that shineth in his strength saith Iohn Revel 1.16 Revel 1.16 But what starres are those in his hands and his feet Where the nayls pierced now it sparkleth where the spear entred now it glittereth gloriously if we look all over him Ibid. v. 14 15. his head and his hairs are as white as snow his eyes are as a flame of fire his feet like unto fine brasse as if they burned in a furnace no wonder then if such beams come from this Sun the Sun of righteousnesse that all heaven shines with it from the one end to the other And yet again the Lambe and the Saints all give their lights for we know that when he shall appear we shall be like him 1. Joh. 3.2 1. John 3.2 how like why he shall change our vile bodies that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body Phil. 3.21 Phil. 3.21 In what like even in this very quality for they that be wise shall shine Dan. 12.3 Dan. 12.3 How shine as the brightnesse of the Firmament nay more as the starres saith Daniel nay more as the Sun saith our Saviour nay yet more saith Chrysostome howsoever the righteous in heaven Heaven are compared to the Sun Matth. 13.43 Matth. 13.43 Chrysost in Matth. Hom. 6 It is not because they shall not surpasse the brightnesse of it but the Sun being the most glittering thing in this world he takes a resemblance thence onely towards the expressing of their glory Now then what a masse of light will arise in Paradise where so many millions of Sunns appear all at once If one Sunne make the morning sky so glorious what a bright shining and glorious day is there where 's not a body but 't is a Sunn Sure it is Revel 21.23 There shall be no night there no need of candle no need of Sunne or Moon or Star O that this clay of ours should be partakers of such glory what am I O Lord that being a worm on earth thou wilt make me a Saint in heaven this body of earth and dust shall shine in heaven like those glorious spangles in the firmament this body that shall rot in dust and fall more vile then a Carrion shall arise in glory and shine like the glorious body of our Saviour in the mount of Tabor To come neer my Text See here a Saint-Thief shining gloriously he that was crucified with our Saviour at whose death the Sun hid her face with a veil now he reigns in glory without need of Sunn for he is a Sunn himself shining more clearly then the Sun at noon he that one day was fastened to a Crosse now walks at liberty through the streets of Paradise and all the joyes all the riches all the glory that can be is poured upon him What else He is in Paradise and what is Paradise but a place of pleasure where sorrow is never felt complaint is never heard matter of sadness is never seen evil success is never feared but in stead thereof there is all good without any evil life that never endeth beauty that never fadeth love that never cooleth health that never impaireth joy that never ceaseth what more could this penitent wish then to hear him speak that promised Paradise and perâ—â—â—â—â—ed his promise To day thou shalt 〈…〉 with me in Paradise And thus in a Map have I 〈…〉 Paradise for quantitie great for quality glorâ—â—â—◠〈…〉 better when you shall walk through the 〈◊〉 observe the towers fully contemplate the glory 〈◊〉 that you may not wâ—â—â— of application before I 〈◊〉 Vse 1 Meditate then with what sweet delight everyâ—â—â— servant of God may bath himself before hand even in this valley of tears Did we but think on this gloriâ—â—â— place 〈…〉 â—hose heavenly mansions prepared for us did we spend many thoughts upon it and ever and anon sigh and seek after it until we came to the fingering and possession of it O how would these heavenly meditations ravish our souls as if Heaven 〈…〉 before we entred into Heaven Consider of this in what â—â—se soever we are whether we are vexed or injured or oppressed or persecuted for the name of Christ there is nothing so imbittered that a thought of heaven will not sweeten Yet I say not that wâ— are onely to think of it withall let us strive and strain to get into this golden Citie where streâ—â—◠〈◊〉 â—â—teâ— â—nd all is gold and pearl nay where pearl 〈…〉 noâ—hing worth in comparison of those things which shall be revealed unto 〈◊〉 faithfull soul Vse 2 On the other side Consider with your selves what fools are they who deprive themselves willingly of this endlesse glory who bereave themselves of a room in this City of Pearl for a few carnall pleasures what Bedlams and humane beasts are they who shut themselves out of Paradise for 〈…〉 rie pelf What sots and senselesse wretches are they who wittingly and wilfully bar themselves out of this Palace for the short fruition of wordly trash and 〈◊〉 As for you of whom I hope better things let me advise you for the love of God for the love of Christ for the love that you bâ—â—â— to your own soule that you will settle your affections or things above and not on things beneath and then you shall find oâ—â— lâ—y the comfort of it when leaving this world the Spirit of Gâ—â—st shall whisper to your souls this happy tidings To day shalt thou be with me in Paradise Here is an end Shall I now cast up the accounts of what I have delivered you The Total is this Every sinner that repents and believes shall be saved you need no other instance then this Thief on the Crosse at one hearty tear one penitent prayer Lord remember me in thy Kingdome the Lord gives him his desire see here the fiat thou shalt be the expedition to day his admission with me the place whither he is inducted it is into Paradise and there now he officiates doing service to God without ceasing world without end O Lord give me grace so to repent and believe that whensoever I go hence that day I may be with thee in Paradise AMEN SOâ—â— DEO â—Lâ— Printed for Nath. Webb and William Grantham at the Grey-hound in Pauls Church-yard MDCL