which will embalm their Names to Immortality while no Sear-cloaths nor Unguents nor Gums nor any other Art shall be able to preserve the Bodies of their unjust Judges from Putrefaction nor any Vindications their Names from rottenness and stanch worse than eternal Oblivion I say therefore as it matters not upon the square what kind of Death or where or how we die if so be we are prepared to die well so if there was any real difference caused by the kind manner time or place which might aggravate one kind of Death above another or make it more terrible or intolerable at one time or place than another yet the just consideration that the issue of every Death was to every good Man in all times and places the same and would certainly determine in his Eternal Felicity would allay all the affrightfulness our Imaginations are apt to raise in us remove all the Difficulties correct all the roughness and mitigate all the sharpness and pains they are ready to figure to themselves to be in any of the sorts of Death Now for the keeping up this assured Expectation of a Reward on which depends the meeting of a violent Death or the bearing a natural one or the Diseases preparatory to it with constancy that our Hope may enter within the Veil where this Happiness is kept a thing very difficult to do while our Souls have so much affinity with mortal Bodies and Commerce with Sence We are to consider who it is that hath promised to bestow it he is God and if the Word of a good Prince is as great security as a Subject can ask or desire surely nothing can be wish'd for or imagin'd greater than his who is immutable And that while the fulfilling of other Promises depends upon this tacit Condition if he sees it convenient for us the performance of this rests only upon the Performance of our Duty This Consideration of what Death S. 7. § 3. m. 3. The death of our friends with patience and evenness is and what it leads to as it will thus support us with Patience to bear its Sentence or arm us with Courage to meet it when it marches directly against our selves so it will uphold our Spirits that they sink not under the weight of Grief smooth them that they be not exasperated when its Stings pierce our nearest and dearest Friends a Passion which is many times too strong for those who have mastered all others as St. Hierom acknowledged of the Lady Paula because Nature even good Nature is on her side rather than lament their Loss if we were not corrupted by Interest to bewail our own in being bereft of their Society which was that St. Hierom confesseth sway'd them to mourn for Nepotian we should rejoyce at the important Advantages they have gained by it at their being safely landed at the Port for which they were bound arrived at that delicious place toward which they bent their Journey as being discharged from Prison manumised out of Servitude and infranchised of the noblest Country and City We should then regard the committing their dead Bodies to the ground while at the same time we know that they shall there rot and crumble into Dust be the Food of Worms and creeping things a Thought indeed which of it self without proceeding further or looking higher inclines us to make lamentation for those who warm'd with a spark of Life were the Light of our Eyes and the Joy of our Hearts but as a leading them officiously into their Chambers or their ceremonious entring into them and Isa 26. 20. shutting the Doors upon themselves as a resting themselves and sleeping on those Beds there for some short time from which being roused by the Archangels Isa 57. 2. powerful Voice crying Awake ye that sleep in the dust and rise together with the Blast of God's Trump and the mighty Shout with which the Lord attended by a numerous retinue 1 Thess 4. 26. of the Heavenly Host shall descend and quickned by a living Spirit which shall return again to their compacted organized Dust shall come forth out of those Dormitories recruited with new Vigour and Activity like Giants refreshed with Wine and Sleep decked and adorned with greater Finery than ever Royal Brides proceeding from their Bed-chambers to the Temple shew'd on the day of their Marriage more richly attired and more magnificently set out than Eastern Monarchs are on the day of their Birth or Coronation and thereupon think it as improper to shed Tears upon their Graves as it would be to weep upon such solemn occasions of Festivity as are the Birth-day Nuptials or inthronization of our Prince Had we this Contemplation at the Funeral of our Friends that instead of those vile ignoble frail lumpish Bodies they were cloath'd with here and which were deposited in the Grave instead of Dust and Corruption the Garment that shall cover them there they shall come forth thence at the day of the Resurrection apparelled in rich Vestures 1 Cor. 15. 42 43 44 45. of divers precious Colours gracefully mingled together i. e. to say in Bodies endowed with Impassibility Glory Strength Agility and that in these Bodies so nobly qualified and over and above actuated with Souls more Celestial than they were they shall be led into Mansions of Bliss such as mortal Eye never saw nor can nor Ear heard of by the relation of Fame nor are to be comprehended by the largest Heart as Mens are now there to abide forever Did we rise higher in our Contemplation or come nearer to our selves and consider that we our selves if we shall be found alive at that day when that Honour shall be done them shall have our Bodies as we wear them changed upon us into that glorious condition or if we have put them off and they are laid in the Grave we shall have them raised and exalted to the same state and that in Body and Spirit conjunctly we shall enjoy the mutual Society of each other in perfect and interminable Felicity without the possibility or fear of being separated again instead of having our Spirits miserably dejected as usually they are when we are divided from our Friends or are forced to part Company we shall have them exceedingly raised instead of doleful silence or sad astonishment which is our ordinary Behaviour upon such occasions we should break forth into singing and joy Cicero who had no perfect Knowledge Cic. de Consol of this Mystery of the Resurrection of the Body and Re-union both of Soul and Body and had only some little glimmering Light let in upon his Mind as through a Crany by which he discovered something of the Immortality of the Soul thought that the strongest Cordial we could administer to our selves for our Consolation upon the Death of our Friends was to be drawn from such Meditations as these That they were not wholly taken from us not utterly lost but only for a certain time removed out
for them in their Fathers House and to which the same Guardian Angels shall take care to convoy their Souls safe which at the moment of parting from their Bodies they commended into the hands of their merciful Redeemer The Thracians thought they had Valer. Max. l. 2. c. 6. Solin mela good reason to rejoyce at the Funerals of their Friends on one part meerly of this consideration because they were delivered from the Calamities which environed their Life here And others who thought they had reason to lament the Dead because they had lost the Light yet judged there was a Modesty to be observed in Grief and a measure set to Tears the Voluptuousness of a sick Mind as well as to other Pleasure And if after Death we make Lamentations for them it ought to be upon a Reflection that they were constrained to be so long absent from the Lord while they sojourned in Mesech either a Country or time of prolongation and were confined to the Tents of Kedar this Land of Darkness and Blackness or these gloomy Tabernacles of Earth as the same Thracians howl'd at the Birth of their own or Friends Children looking upon it as an entrance upon a woful Tragical Scene When he maketh the Storm a Calm Psal 107 28 29. translates our Friends from this Life into another so that the waves thereof are still they are no longer tossed upon instable Billows nor driven by uncertain Winds then as they are glad because they are at quiet and he bringeth them to their desired Haven So ought we to praise the Lord for his Goodness to them that they have got off the tempestuous and dangerous Sea and reach'd their quiet Port. Thus S. Hierom. Ep. 30. ad Oceanum the Christians at Rome celebrated the Obsequies of Fabiola with Psalms of Thansgiving and the loud sounding of the Hallelujahs upon this occasion shook the Temple's Roofs If we behave our selves otherwise grieve and make bitter Moan for their Death we do them wrong i. e. as much as we can do them any whose Felicity is incapable of being lessened by our ill Suspicions Jealousies and Fears or seeming ill ones of their condition whether it be happy or not or else our selves by distrusting or appearing to distrust the Immortality of the Soul and Resurrection of the Body as if supposing that the one at the moment of Death evaporates into Air and the other after some time shall be irrevocably lost in the Dust Upon which account St. Hierom adviseth Ep. 3. ad Heliodor Heliodorus to correct his Tenderness and repress his Tears for Nepotian left what was Affection to his Nephew might be construed by Infidels as Despair in God Or it seems as if we envyed their Beatitude if we believe they are possessed of it and repined at our own Lot that we are left in a state of Misery And we stain the Glory of our Faith while with the assistance of that we do not what Men of Infidelity could i. e. support the Death of their Friends without any piteous mourning or Complaints And yet it may not be indecent for them to weep for them whom they may think or at least cannot tell but they have utterly lost but its dishonourable for a Christian to do so while he knows they live or but professeth to believe that their Death is a translation to Life Eternal Mourning and Blacks are improper on this occasion and very disagreeable to their state of Felicity whom we believe to be arrayed in White Garments and Palms Since then such is the Advantage accrewing by Patience that it shall be rewarded with immortal Happiness and Diseases lead to the Door Death opens it or is the very Door it self through which we must pass to take Possession of it considering this What can we do more reasonably than upon a Bed of Sickness to uphold our weak Spirits and sustain our feeble afflicted Limbs with Patience Then to be armed with it when we see our last Enemy Death approaching towards us to seize our Persons and the more if it be violent with how much more terrible appearances Malice and Barbarity have dressed it or with how much more Horror it is arrayed by them on purpose to disorder us provided always our Cause be good and we are condemned to suffer it for Righteousness sake Or what can we do more reasonably than to support our Minds with this that they do not droop or flag when Death hath removed from us any of our beloved Friends if such whom we may upon sufficient grounds believe to have died in the Lord in peace with him while they died not for him or laid not down their Lives for a Testimony to him or signed his Doctrine with their Blood esteeming their Death to have done them the favour of instating them in the Regions of Bliss and thereupon looking on the other way of behaving our selves of immoderate Mourning for them as that which betrays either Infidelity in general of the Souls subsisting after this Life or too much suspicion and fear in particular of their happy Estate or if none of these yet too much partial Love to our selves because they are separated from us for a time or something of Envy while we lament their being made happy before us and our selves being left still to combat for that Prize they have obtained To this Armour this Shield of Faith S 7. § 7. 5. Ephes 13. 17. and Helmet of Salvation as the belief and hope of Eternal Rewards the consideration of which I have been recommending is called let us in the last place joyn the Sword of God's To read frequently the holy Scriptures and meditate on the Precepts and Examples of Patience there set forth and to be diligent in praying for this Grace Spirit which in the Apostles Interpretation who adviseth to take it is the Word of God i. e. Let us be frequent in conversing with the Holy Scriptures which inculcate the Practice of this Virtue that so our Obligation to do so being fresh in our Memories we may the more readily comply with it whereas for want of such a renewing as in time it my be effaced there so we shall be the more unfit to discharge it those Oracles put us upon labouring and striving to get the mastery of our Affections from which as long as they remain unsubdew'd arises all our disturbance all our intestine Wars and Fightings proceed whereas the Conquest of them yields the pleasing Fruit of Peace and renders us for ever after invincible for we can never be baffled while we desire nothing but what we have or are while God's Will is ours and the Circumstances his Providence hath placed us in are those which our very Hearts would wish for we are not to be disordered by the loss of Goods Lands Liberty good Name or when that of Life is threatned us nor to be transported with Success as Children when they have good Luck at
Passion may be allowed to speak with some agreeable Gusto of the Vertue I am destitute of but yet desire and thirst after it as much as they do for cooling Juleps § 3. This being premised I enter The Definition of Patience upon declaring what this Patience is which should Sovereignly preside o're and manage the Motions of the Inferiour Soul especially those of the Irascible Faculty Lactantius hath defined it to be the Lactant. Instit l. 5. c. 22. bearing all the Injuries and Despights which may be done us and all the sinister Accidents which may befal us with an Evenness of Mind | Lips de Const l. 1. c. 4. Another following the Decrees of the Stoicks calls it a ready or willing suffering of Evils without any manner of Complaint From whence we may collect that we then possess our Souls in Patience which is what we are commanded by our Saviour to do * Luk. 21. 19. or that Patience hath then it's perfect work which is what the Apostle exhorts us to let it have †Ja. 1. 3. when the several Vicissitudes and Changes without cause no Alterations within when we continue the same through all the various Scenes we pass or amidst all the Revolutions which turn over our Heads When we keep the same footing though all about us be moved and out of course stand firm though the Earth tremble Reel to and fro like a Drunkard Isa 24. 20. or be removed like a Cottage in the Prophets Elegancy or though the Sea make a noise and rage horribly and Psal 46. the hills be carried into the midst of it in the Psalmists are like Gold unchanged either in the Furnace of Affliction or in the Sun-shine of Prosperity are the same in foul and tempestuous Weather as in serene and calm in the violent Commotions of State as in it's most sedate Tranquility When we can with the same Temper receive a Disappointment and Success a Defeat and Victory the Death of Children as their Birth the safe arrival of a Ship in Harbour that is fraighted with our Wealth or the Account of it's being foundred at Sea or taken the Devastation of our Houses and Goods or their Preservation the Consumption of our Herds and Flocks by a Murrein or any other Casualty or their prosperous increase Banishment and Imprisonment of our Persons as the enjoyment of our Country and Liberty the Sentence of Death or the Grant of Life This in many Particulars was that equal Behaviour for which Job was renowned and in which he is propounded to us for an Example And such a Carriage is the fullest Evidence imaginable of our possessing our Souls in the most perfect measure of Patience to which whether we can attain or not we ought to aspire and contend for it And something like this was that frame of Mind which the Heathen Writers would have us believe the froward Xantippe could not choose but admire and extol in her Husband Socrates while she beheld in him the same unalter'd Visage at his returning home as at his going abroad which might very well be if as the Orator Cice. Tuscul 3. represents it There was no change in his Mind to make any in the Air of his Countenance But that which kept his Mind even and unvariable was his Patience which had the guard of it These Descriptions may possibly be of too large a Circuit to be adapted and appropriated to this single Vertue of Patience only since they seem likewise to involve and comprehend the Notions of Moderation Constancy and Firmness of Mind If therefore we would accurately distinguish and separate this Vertue of Patience from these which have such a Neighbourhood and near relation with it and limit and bound it within it's just terms we may define it forasmuch as it 's proper Object is Adversity to be a suffering Affliction without Preturbation or a bearing the Evils which may be intentionally done us or without the designed Malice of our Enemies may in the course of our Lives befall us with an evenness of Mind Arguments to show the necessity of Patience under Afflictions or represent the Advantages of it § 4. The Arguments which may serve to evince that we ought to have our Souls thus armed and fortify'd against the strokes of Adversity or that upon such an occasion we ought to support our selves with the Exercise of this Vertue are many whereof the first that I shall produce shall be framed by way of Remonstrance of the Inconveniences and Mischiefs proceeding from the contrary Vice of Impatience such as will sufficiently recommend this to our Practice As an ill Face represented together with a good one sets off the Beauties and Graces of this to Advantage This was the Original Sin of Lucifer Arg. 1. Impatience being the Original of all our ills le ts us understand the Benefits of Patience that bright Son of the Morning and of those Troops of Angels that associated with him It was his Impatience to endure a Superiour though that Superiour was his God and theirs to abide in those Stations his Wisdom placed them in though they were eminent ones which caused him and them to rebel as that wicked and unsuccessful Attempt occasioned his and their being deposed and thrown down from the highest Region of Light into the lowest Abyss of Darkness And as this Impiety has first brought on his own so it instigated him to compass Mankinds Misery His peevish regretting his own calamitous Fall and an envious disgust he took at Man's Felicity while innocent and at his ample Power who had the whole lower World subject to him and all things in it put under his Feet set him forthwith upon contriving and hurried him impetuously on to work the ruine of so noble a Creature For could he have endured without Grief and repining to have beheld him in that Orb of Greatness and Happiness he had never endeavoured the degrading him from the one or despoiling him of the other His Malice took its Rise from his Impatience to see that Excellency in another of which he himself was deprived and his Impatience encreas'd and enrag'd his Malice And it was this Distemper which disposed our first Progenitors to receive that fatal Wound which Satan had by that Temptation prepared to give their Felicity and ours in them For had our common Mother but with Patience resisted his Onset and opposed the Importunity of his Enticements had she but persevered in her Obedience to her Makers Command she had remain'd safe and secure or had she been afterwards qualified with this Vertue she had not derived the Contagion of Sin and Misery upon our great Father But restless until she had shown him the goodly forbidden Fruit and disburthen'd her self of all the fair Story the glozing Serpent told her of it's Vertue and unladed it in his Ears she drew him in also into the same Condemnation Cain's Murther of his Brother proceeded from
should every where and at all times preserve the same gentle Flow or the same Silver or Chrystalline Colour No it is only the Divine Life which hath no Succession of parts no Intervals to divide it that continues at one and the same stay of perpetual and immutable Happiness But if it were possible that in some one Persons Life there should be no such Interval of Joy to divide no such Parenthesis to break off his Grief and that he could not support himself with any reasonable Confidence That as God Hos 6. 1. had torn him he would heal him as he had smitten him so he would bind him up yet he might comfort himself with this Consideration that it could not be of very long durance and that would in some degree lighten the Burthen when it sat closest to him It cannot be longer liv'd than himself whose Age extended ro the farthest is but a Span long and Death the end of that Span which with that must put an end to his Misery also The Psalmist comforts himself with this and that God would set him at rest at the end of this Span if not before it And now Lord what wait I Psal 39. 5. for my hope is in thee For that is the Port where all ride safe even they who have been tossed most in a tempestuous Sea The Grave is the place where the weary are at rest the Prisoners hear not the voice of the Oppressor the Servant is free from his Master where all composed to stillness sleep quietly on Beds of Dust secure from Violence and undisturb'd with waking Pains and Cares There he that died in the bitterness Job 3. 18 19 20. of his Soul and never eat with pleasure shall alike lie down in the dust with him who died in his full strength Job 21. 22 23 24. being at ease and quiet But if Death be not the end of Humane Life as by our Christian Faith we are perswaded it is not if it be not the wearied Pilgrims utmost Stage yet it 's the way which without any further toyl leads him to Happiness the very Gate which opens upon it his Friendly Guide which conducts him to Mansions of Immortal Glory his kind Benefactor which gives him actual possession of them instates and settles him in them So that if weeping endure for a night the short night of our sojourning here a Night o'ercast with Darkness rather than a Day the Shadow of Death rather than the Light of Life yet Joy cometh in the Morning the Morning of our Souls Birth-day in which discharged from the Sepulchre of their Bodies they begin first truly to live or in the Morning of the Resurrection in which our Bodies shall spring up again like the tender Herb impregnated by the Morning Dew and quickened with a vital warmth from it's Mother Earth and flourish in a never-fading Verdure Add besides that as no Temptation can befal us but what is common to Men and that it 's less than Childishness to lament with a Woe and Alas when we suffer the common Incidents of Mortality and that Death which cannot be at a long Distance from any will put a Period to them so God who is faithful will not suffer 1 Cor. 10. 13. us to be tempted above what we are able but will with the temptation provide a way to escape it or one to bear it But let the weight of Misery be So born it becomes lighter what it will it 's Burthen as great as is imaginable yet they are made lighter and our Condition under them easier by supporting them with Patience which is a farther encouragement to the doing this I might say comparing it with the new load Impatience adds and the uneasiness that creates it alters the nature of suffering changes Pain and Torment into Pleasure Affliction into Recreation Judgment into Kindness and Mercy For it 's not the Stroke while we are smitten by God or lie under his correcting hand so much as our froward Carriage that causeth the smart This makes the Stripes look angry and inflamed this envenoms festers and rancours them as the wounded Deer the more he stirrs the more the Arrow which pierced his sides galls him The Burthen the Yoak the Cross the utmost harshness and sharpness with which God disciplines us here born with an even quiet mind become light soft and gentle Very use and custom in suffering have Cic. 3. Tuscul power enough not only to qualifie but to alter the nature of it and render it well nigh grateful whence we may rationally conclude that a patient Submission to the wise and gracious Will of the Imposer may be able to work the same yea a stronger Effect and introduce a nobler degree of change For thus it hath been observed that Slaves who have sigh'd deeply when they were first condemned to the Galleys have sometime after sung while being chained they tugged at their Bank of Oars that Men who were afraid at first to put out to Sea in a Calm have by frequenting it learn'd to laugh in Storms that such unfortunate Wretches who sentenced to work in the Mines have been fain to be driven and goaded on as it were to their laborious Task so reluctant was their Nature to the Service at first have within some compass of time after wrought in them with as much chearfulness as if they had been the absolute Lords and Masters of all the rich Oar they digged up that such miserable Slaves who doom'd to the Fencing School have hung back as if they had been going to the Slaughter-house to have been butchered immediately after a little inuring themselves to the bloody Combats there exhibited have not so much as cried Oh! when fighting a Prize they themselves have been mortally wounded or so much as changed Colour or shrunk in their Neck when fell'd to the Ground their Antagonist's Weapon was at their Throat The Noble Spartan Youths when according to their Country's severe Discipline instituted to harden them they were scourged at the Altar till the Blood streamed out yea sometimes till they died under their Stripes were so far from roaring out that they fetch'd not a Groan And now shall not Persons of mature Age and Judgment behave themselves as decently in the point of enduring Pain as raw Boys or green Youths Or shall not Reason sway us as powerfully in this as Usage did them Or shall not Religion and Grace work as effectually in us as ever Reason or Custom did or can Besides Time it self abates the strongest Calamity tames the most stubborn and obstinate Grief And is it fit we should be beholden to Time to do that for us which we might do our selves i. e. to put an end to our Sorrow Shall we stay for that to do this without our Wills which we ought to do of our own accord Why should we not rather by wise Considerations snatch the Glory of this from Time and out of
is I will support it because he who gave him took him away his hand cropt the Flower who caused it to shoot If I am struck with Blindness I 'll procure a Friend to read to me and so relieve my Melancholy if through Age or Accident I become deaf I will entertain my self under the Affliction with the Thought that I shall not be pestered with idle and vain or what is worse with Filthy Communication and that I shall have the more leisure for Meditation Contemplation of the Divine Perfections and conversing with my God Shall Poverty Hunger Cold Nakedness Diseases come upon me I will wait till my appointed Change shall come and in the mean time look upon that as a short or no Inconvenience which shall determine and conclude in so happy an end as Death His Justice in the most proper Act Chald. Paraphras in 30. Psal 104. of it punishing cannot be divided from his Mercy When he sent the Flood as he sat upon the Seat of Judgment to take Vengeance of the Wicked so he sat upon the Seat of Mercy to deliver Noah and his Family The weighing of God's Omnipotence Wisdom Goodness singly and apart by themselves would each of them supply us with a convincing Reason that we ought quietly to submit to the Rod of God when he lays it upon our backs and patiently receive the Correction he inflicts much more efficacious then must the putting of all these Arguments into the Scale together be to satisfie us of the reasonableness of doing so For what other Remedy I will not say what better can we devise to oppose against Calamities sent by Omnipotence than patiently to bear them as we do the Rigours of Winter Frosts or the extreme Heats of the Summer or any other Inclemency of the Season or Weather Or what can we do wiser than to acquiesce in the Choice which Infinite Wisdom hath made for us and take the Lot it hath assigned us Or what can we do more reasonably than contentedly to abide in the Station where boundless Goodness hath placed us Without question we can do nothing better wiser reasonablener than thus to deport our selves For Omnipotence is not to be controlled much less can our Weakness make any Resistance to it Infinite Wisdom cannot be mistaken in its Ends or Measures nor can infinite Goodness do an unkind Act. His All-sufficiency makes him the full Possessor of all good things His Almightiness able to bestow them and his Perfection which knows no Bounds willing to impart and communicate them And then why should we absolutely imagine that he who hath them to give and hath likewise Power and Ability Will and Inclinations to do so should not bestow them on us Could a Heathen Philosopher upon his Principles and Belief argue thus our Opinion then must be false if we conceive otherwise and our Practice which follows so blind a Guide must needs be extremely wrong But if we have right Thoughts of God in this point and yet in the mean while that we believe he dispenseth what is best for us we under that very Dispensation behave our selves frowardly we must be at an odd Strife with our selves our Actions contradicting our Judgment which should direct and govern them and our Judgment condemning our Actions whose Approbation they should have 7. As Afflictions which are the S. 4. § 7. Arg. 7. Patience necessary to Perseverance and so to Salvation because no Perseverance without it proper Objects for the Exercise of Patience are made the necessary Condition of a Christian Life He that will live Godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer Persecution hewn and saw'd as Stones are for the material Temple before we can be fit Spiritual Temples for God to dwell in and necessary as the means to Salvation made the Road which leads to it Through much Tribulation Acts 14. 22 we must enter into the Kingdom of Heaven We must pass through the Vale of Tears before we come to those Regions of Joy through the Vale of the Shadow of Death before we can arrive at Immortality there must be trod or threash'd as Corn was wont to before it was laid up in the Granary before we are fit to be gathered into the Lords Floor Sacrificed first at least to Publick Scorn and Hatred if not offered upon the Service of our Faith before we can be qualifyed as Priests to minister before God in the Tim. 2. 2 12. Heavenly Temples suffer with our Master here before we reign as Kings with him carry his Cross as the Standard of his Warfare before we can in Triumph bear Palms in our hands And there is no question to be made but some of the Twenty Four Rev. 4. 10. 6. 9. 20. 4. Elders whom St. John in one Vision saw standing about the Throne of God were such who in another Vision were represented to him to have had their Blood shed for the Word of God and the Testimony they held to have been slain for the Word of Jesus so the efficacy of them to reach that end for which they are designed and are necessarily subservient depends solely on supporting them with Patience and Constancy This Virtue is the Hinge upon the Practice or Omission of which turns our whole Future Estate of eternal Happiness or Misery For the first is suspended upon our Perseverance in doing well and suffering ill and our Perseverance in either or both these Estates is maintained by Patience The Apostle declares our continuing firmly settled in the Faith we have been planted into and immovable from the Anchor of that Christian Hope we have once cast to be the Dispositions which capacitate us for receiving the Benefits made by the Blood of Christ the Qualifications which fit us to be restored to the good Graces of of his Father and made whole in the Court of Heaven You saith he writing to the Colossians who were sometimes Col. 1. 21 22 23. alienated and Enemies in your mind by wicked works yet now hath he reconciled in the body of his Flesh thro' death to present you holy and unblamable and unreprovable in his sight But all this is upon Terms viz. If you continue in the Faith grounded and setled and be not moved away from the hope of the Gospel which you have heard In the same Apostles Judgment it Gal. 6. 9. must be Indefatigableness which must bring us in and give us the enjoyment of that Harvest of Glory we look for We shall reap saith he in due season if we faint not reap the Fruits the delicious Fruits of all our Labour and Toyls gather in all that rich encrease and store which our Hopes in the fair Blome or tender Blade presaged us if so be we will but wait till the Season of Reaping Harvest or that of gathering ripe Fruits Autumn i. e. till the last Day of the World if we shall survive to that time when we shall all Mat. 13. 39 40. stand
before the Judgment-seat of Christ to receive in our Bodies according to what we have done in them and the Wheat shall be gathered into the Garner and the Tares shall be gathered by Mat. 3. 12. the Angels whom God shall employ as Reapers and cast into the Fire the Chaff and Refuse shall be burnt up with unquenchable Fire or till the last moment of our Lives when we like ripe Corn shall be cut down by the Fatal Sickle and our Bodies shall be gathered to those of our Fathers in the Grave as that is carried into the Barn at what time our Souls which cannot be touch'd by Death shall have a particular Award or Doom by themselves They only who defend themselves and keep their Integrity to the last against all the rude Shocks of Temptations without capitulating with them or surrendring themselves up to them shall be made partakers of that Bliss of whose Incorruptibleness Life and of whose great Dignity a Crown is made the Emblem by God's Spirit Blessed is the man saith that Spirit by Jam. 1. 12. the mouth of St. James who endureth Temptation for when he is tryed he shall receive the Crown of Life which the Lord hath promised to them that love him They only who shall preserve their Loyalty untainted to the extreme Gasp against all the Blandishments and Allurements spread in the way to corrupt it which is probably a nobler sort of Defiance and a difficulter piece of Resistance than the former shall be crown'd St. John was commanded to give this conditional Assurance or Encouragement to the Angel of the Church of Smyrna Be thou faithful Rev. 2. 9. unto the end and I will give thee a Crown of Life On the other hand we find the endless Misery which is pressed by God's insupportable Displeasure by the aggravation of his Anger by that being doubled and redoubled till it be kindled into a fearful Fiery Indignation is definitively denounced shall be the inevitable Portion of them who retire on their way to another World or in their Journey thither relapse into their former abandoned vitious courses or retreat in the Warfare they have engaged in or revolt to the side of those Enemies they have once forsaken and renounced The just shall live by Heb. 10. 38 Faith but if he draw back my Soul shall have no pleasure in him For if Heb. 10. 26 27. we sin after we have received the knowledge of the truth there remaineth no more Sacrifice for Sins but a certain fearful looking for of Judgment and fiery Indignation which shall devour the Adversaries But now that Perseverance which is required as a Condition on our parts that we may be admitted unto and instated in the forementioned happiness or secured against this Misery depends upon our Patience in our active or suffering Estate for our Hope would quickly flag or sink if it were not cherish'd or sustain'd by this Vertue and we should grow faint and weary not meerly with labour and hardship but with length of Expectation if this did not keep us in Breath and Vigour our Loyalty and Fidelity be soon shaken if not supported by it and disheartned through the roughness and dangerousness of the way of Piety we should be ready to turn back or out of it if this did not keep up our Spirits and maintain in us a firm resolution of proceeding on in our Journey notwithstanding all the Discouragements of the Road soon be caught and entangled in the pollutions of the World did not this fortifie us with a true Gallantry of opposing all Temptations whether charming or terrifying ones to hold out against all their Sollicitations and endure all the Hardships they may create us rather than hearken to and comply with them It is upon this ground therefore that this single Virtue as being the support and consummation of all others is made the compleat Character of an upright Man how and such an one who shall have the recompence of his Integrity in Blessedness hereafter He is such an one who having heard the Word keeps it and brings forth with Patience That the Promise of Happiness is made to this Virtue in particular the Reward annext to it or to it in conjunction with Perseverance He will render to those who by patient Rom. 7 8 9. continuance in well doing seek and look for Honour and Glory and Immortality eternal Life He who endureth or patiently suffers or is patient to the end for Mark 13. 3 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Luk. 19. 21 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from that Verb whose Participle we have there rendred who endureth is derived from that Noun which we have elsewhere translated Patience shall be saved And its inseparable Connection with the Reward is asserted For ye Heb. 10. 36 12. 1. have need of Patience after ye have done the Will of God that ye may receive the Promise the Benefit of it or the Reward held forth in it Or its being absolutely requisite towards the successful finishing of the Course we are appointed here to run towards the gaining the Prize which hangs at the Goal Wherefore Let us run with patience the race that is set before us And again that Apostasie which shall be punished with the insupportable Effects of the Divine Wrath is the immediate and necessary Consequent of Impatience which makes Men affect Change and Variety whatever be the Inconvenience or Mischief ensuing upon it or grow weary of contesting with the Difficulties of the Journey or restless under the Pains they endure and incites them to seek a present Relief though the course they take be never so dangerous and at the long run it infinitely increaseth their Torments If such then be the intimate Conjunction between this Virtue of Patience and that of Perseverance if they are so closely and indivisibly combined that the last is not to be found without the first and the Recompence of our Warfare our Race of all the Labour we take of all the Pain we undergo lies at the foot of Perseverance or what 's the same of our patient continuance and that alone can take it up There is nothing can more plainly or more strongly evict the necessity of arming our selves with Patience than this unless we reckon there is no necessity of being happy hereafter or we can after such a Remonstrance of the Case and it's State choose to be miserable And now if any of these Arguments fetch'd from Reason and Religion or all of them together have convinced us that it is our Wisdom as well as Duty under all Events to possess our Souls in Patience to be the absolute Masters of all their Motions then like Men convinced we should yield and no longer perversely dispute i. e. Not act contrarily to that we are satisfied is our Obligation But our Practice should be conformable to our Judgment in the Point and our Deportment on all occasions requiring the special Exercise of this Vertue
these with the Psalmist as Divine Chastisements When thou Psal 39. 10 with rebukes dost correct man for Iniquity thou makest his beauty to consume away like a moth Thou hast chastned or corrected me but hast not given me over unto death For these Corrections are to be interpreted of Diseases And considering with the Apostle that God's Chastisements are the most Authentick Instruments and Attestations Prov. 13. 11 12. we can produce of being his genuine Sons and that to be destitute of them Hebr. 12. which all Sons have would be an undeniable Token and incontestable Proof of our being Bastards And 7. 8. considering yet further with the Wise Man and the same Apostle that they are the fullest and clearest Evidences to make out our being his darling Favourite ones For whom the Lord loveth 46. he chastneth and scourgeth every Son whom he receiveth The Collection we shall make from such Considerations will be That if we are Sons we cannot fail of the incorruptible Inheritance which our Father hath laid up for us in Heaven and if we are his beloved Sons we shall taste deep of his Bounty we cannot miss of an ample Portion of that Inheritance And by vertue of such a Deduction we shall be enabled to bear our Diseases which proceed originally from God and are not the Fruits of our own Dissoluteness and Debauchery with Patience at least If it doth not operate thus upon us but we are restless and clamorous for being thus treated we must be more mad than they would be who should complain of the trouble of carrying their Deeds they have to shew for proving their Title to a fair Patrimony and to be rid of this Inconvenience would throw them away The nearer Prospect that Diseases especially those of Age give us of this Inheritance and the consideration that they are taking us by the hand to put us into possession of it The nearer view they afford of our Journeys end and the consideration that they are bringing us to it as fast as they can and of our likelyhood to gain our Liberty while they are making wide and large Chinks in our Prisons or unlocking the Doors or undermining the Walls of them will very much conduce to this or else we must be extreamly stupid and egregious Fools For what Heir if he was not so distemper'd would be peevish and disquieted for being within a very little of having his Estate in his hands What Traveller that were not so after being sufficiently wearied and tired and his Spirits almost spent with the length of the Journey would repine for being nigh the end of it Or what Prisoner not being so would murmur that he had a fair opportunity of getting his Discharge or making his escape Afflicted with Infirmities and Pains this consideration is enough to make us bear them patiently that the recompence of such a Demeanour will be Our Bodies shall renew their strength like Eagles and we in them like Eagles shall mount up to meet the Lord 's coming in the Clouds and that as they shall renew their Vigour so they shall have a perpetual Exemption from all Labour and Fatigue be capable of rendring God a Homage day and night and be no more weary of that constant Service than Spirits are and perform it with as much Agility and Expedition as winged Seraphims fly upon the execution of his Commands that they shall be no more troubled with gross feculent Humours which by their excess and quantity are the matter and procreative causes of Diseases and Aches but shall be refined to a degree of Purity and Spirituality like that of Ethereal Substances Are we afflicted with Hunger and Thirst which when they are extream are of all our sensual Appetites the most violent and irresistible the consideration that we are approaching towards that condition and state of Life wherein we shall not hunger or thirst any more after that which perisheth and our hunger and thirst shall be after eternal good that the one shall be satiated with those Delicacies with which the Table at which all the Saints of God who have gone before us we shall sit down in the Kingdom of Heaven is furnished the other quench'd in those Rivers of Pleasure which are ever flowing at the Right Hand of God the most pleasant that Infinite Goodness which is always streaming out in Emanations of it self can make them for the Taste this thought if it will give us no ease will keep our Appetites from being enraged and inflamed higher by Impatience If under the loss of our sight we are not to be comforted with the Philosophical Hierom. Ep. 32. ad Abigal Speculations that we shall not behold those many offensive Objects we are every day at most constrained to do in the World Violence and Oppression that our Understandings will receive thereby brighter Illuminations and the Eye of our Soul see the clearer for which cause some Philosophers particularly Democritus is said to have blinded himself our Memories more enlarged and strengthened shall receive more and return better than before Nor under that of our hearing that our Ears are thereby shut against Impertinency Clamour Obscenity Blasphemy whatsoever might grate serious chaste or pious Ears Nor under Dumbness that our Tongues are bound up from uttering Vanity and Falshood they cannot be employed to the Dishonour of God or the Injury of our Neighbour certainly a sublimer Consideration fetch'd from Sacred Scripture that the recompence of bearing such natural Inconveniences contentedly and with all humble Deference to him who thought fit to annex them to the tenure of our being here shall be that our Eyes are opened now to behold the wondrous things of God's Law a Priviledge peculiar to God's Saints whereas Gnats and Flies Pismires and other Infects enjoy Light in common with us and shall be opened to behold the glorious Light of God's Countenance our Ears to be entertain'd with the Musick of the Angelical Choire our Tongues loosed to joyn in concert with them in singing the Divine Praises will impower us to submit and acquiesce 2. The same Contemplation will S. 7. § 6. N. 3. mem 2. Our own Death with Patience and Courage serve to make us bear with Patience that Evil which of all others is generally look'd upon as the most terrible and grievous because it deprives us of the Enjoyments we taste a sweetness in and of Life of which we are so ridiculously fond that for the most part we had rather be miserable than be without it while we have no Notion or a very wrong one of the Souls Immortality and no Faith of the Resurrection of the Body or if we believe both we do not attend to that Belief the Sentence of Death I mean when God denounceth it and to meet with Courage the Execution of it For setting the future Rewards before our Eyes we should look upon Death then as no other than the Goal at which the Race
of our sight and company to which when we arrived at the appointed Boundary of our Lives we should be restored again and renew the Sweets of our uninterrupted Acquaintance and Communication But we who have a clearer and distincter perception of the Immortality of the Soul by that Gospel which brought it to Life have consequently the benefit of a stronger consideration thence where we are taught that by the mediation of Death we shall be conducted to the enjoyment of the Society of those dear Friends whose Conversation we so highly valued on Earth when it was not without its Errors and Failings which shall be to our highest satisfaction because we shall have it in the noblest and perfectest manner love them to the utmost pitch of Fervency and the most refined degree of Purity for whom we had kind and unspotted Affections here and we shall Heb. 11. 39 41. 12. 22 23. have an eternal Vacation from all other employments to do this to love God and them his as well as our Friends and joyntly with them to adore his infinitely amiable Excellencies which under any less space than Eternity cannot be sufficiently admired or worthily magnified But we have yet a stronger Consolation than this that our Souls which now only have an imperfect Communication by the assistance or rather hindrance of bodily Organs shall then disroab'd of such Bodies immediately know and correspond with each other and have a farther discovery by the help of that Light of the Resurrection of the Body that the Bodies of our departed Friends being raised out of the Dust and made like unto that glorious Body of our Lord which is seated on the right hand of the Throne of Majesty on high and being rejoyned by their Spirits shall be caught up in the Clouds when he shall return again with all that Power in Heaven and Earth that was given him upon his Resurrection and in all the pompous Triumph that a Train or Guard of innumerable Legions of Angels clad in shining Light can make up to judge the World and that we who shall be found alive at that day having in an instant changed our Weeds and put on or being cloathed upon with Roabs of 1 Thess 4. 13 16 17 18. 1 Cor. 15. 23. 25. Immortality shall likewise be caught up together with them or immediately after them to meet him and shall when that business is dispatched ascend up with him into the highest Heavens and be ever there with the Lord and one another in Glory The Apostle who began at first with perswading us to dry up our Eyes and wipe away all Tears which might trickle thence through a natural softness for such Friends who died in the Lord in his Grace and Favour upon a firm belief that Jesus died and rose again and an assured hope grounded thereupon that those also who sleep in Jesus parted hence when Death closed their Eyes with a belief of his Resurrection as pass'd and their own as future shall God bring to him when he returns to Judicature that we should not be sorry as men who had no hope no hope of seeing them more proceeds in the next stop to stir us up to chearfulness upon the account of this Faith and Hope and counsels us to use them for the raising and animating one another if dejected upon such imagined Losses Wherefore comfort 1 Thess 4. 18. ye one another with these words The Evangelical Prophet Isaiah did before him propound the Consideration of this Doctrine though then but darkly delivered or faintly entertained for the same purpose for the inspiriting with Joy such Mourners in Judah who were disconsolate upon the Mortality of their Friends that their Dead should live again His Words are Thy dead men shall live together with my dead body shall they arise awake and sing Isa 26. 19. ye that dwell in the dust for thy dew is as the dew of herbs and the earth shall cast forth the dead And the sence of them seems to be this Chear and raise up your Hearts ye whom Affliction hath brought low whose Bellies by reason thereof cleave to the dust of the Ground who lie overwhelmed with and buried under loads of Sorrow for the Slain of your People whose Bodies lie scattered upon the ground or for your deceased Friends of whom Death hath by other ways possibly than the Sword bereft you for they o'er whom ye mourn shall at the last day together with my dead Body be raised out of the Dust or state of Corruption enlivened by the quickning Breath that shall return into them at the Word of the Almighty even as tender Herbs killed by the sharpness of Winter Frosts and Colds shall by those vital Dews and Heat the kind Spring liberally affords recover rear up their fallen Heads and put on their gaudy Livery again Let us therefore comport with the Apostles Exhortation instead of consuming our selves with Grief which corrodes and eats as much as Envy and Cares do for our departed Friends those I mean whose Piety and Virtue have made the Conjunction nearer and the Cement closer than meer Flesh and Blood could and whom we have ground to hope departed hence in the Lord let us comfort our selves that they have made so happy an Exit yea rather rejoyce considering their departure hence not as a forsaking but a preceding us who survive not as a going quite away from us but as an orderly passing on before into another World as a turning out of the ordinary road of Time wearied with the Journey that way into that of Eternity Those Persons indeed on whom Death executes the Office of a Sergeant arrests them to deliver them up to Divine Vengeance those for whom Tophet of old was ordained for whom everlasting Fire was prepared ought in just pity to be lamented because their departure hence is into that Lake of Brimstone which burneth which burneth with this Fire the mouth of Hell receives and devours their Souls as the Pit doth their Bodies and a second Death gnaws on them as Worms and creeping things do on their putrified Carcases Tears of Compassion may be shed for such Unbelievers and wicked impenitent Doers because they pass hence into the most sad deplorable Estate out of which neither our Prayers nor their own Cries can relieve them any more than the Tears of either can allay their Flames But we are to exult at the departure of the Righteous such blessed ones of their Father as had an Inheritance designed for them in his Kingdom before the foundation of the world of whom he gave his Angels charge here commanded them to serve and attend on them as ministring Spirits to their Salvation about whom he gave his Heavenly Host Orders to pitch their Camp to guard them from Evil as quitting only their incommodious Tabernacles of Flesh leaving only the Miseries and Disquietudes and Filthiness of this World to pass into Mansions of Rest and Bliss and Glory provided