Pauls example who saith here he desired to be dissolved but it was not meerly to be rid of pain so himself tels us bonds and afflictions waited for him in every place yet he made no reckoning of them as you may see Act. 20.21 and 23. compared together Many a man would be ready to break prison but to be loosed from such bonds that is iron bonds or chains but Paul gloried in these yet cryes out of the chains of his sinnes and wisheth himself loosed from them Oh miserable man that I am who shall deliver me from this body of death he doth not say oh miserable man how am I afflicted Rom. 7.24 I am in deaths oft who shall deliver me from this death of the body but who shall deliver me from this body of death This this is it which makes many a godly Christian even to sigh and groan within himself longing for a dissolution that so the body of sin might be wholly destroyed who yet is willing patiently to bear any crosse his heavenly Father shall lay upon him to render him conformable to his head Christ and therefore they do very ill and shew that they have not learnt that self-denyall that becomes Christians who assoon as they begin to be afflicted in their bodies or estates presently call for death to come and take them away It was Jonas fault Oh saith he that thou wouldest take away my life from me he comes in a pelting chafe Jonah 4.3.8 in a pettish humour So many when they are crost of their wills wish with him they were out of the world that they were dead and laid in their graves who God knowes are but badly prepared and would be found in an ill case should death come indeed Therefore let this be a second Caution Thirdly this desire must never cause us to use any means to hasten our death I have read of one Hegesias a Philosopher of that eloquence and power in perswading that when he was pleased to represent before his auditours the miseries of this life his words struck such an impression in them that many of them went and made away themselves And in Hollingsheads Chronicles there 's a story of a great man in this Kingdome who in the times of the Barons wars being much perplext in his mind calld the Keeper of his Park to him told him he feared his Deer were stolen charged him every night to go into the woods to walk his rounds and if he spied any man that would not stand at the first word to shoot him some two or three nights after out of the depth of melancholly the Devil that Prince of darknesse working upon that black humour he himself rose out of his bed went into his Park the keeper spying him calld to him and bid him stand he answered not but walking on amongst the trees the Keeper took his Crosse-bow and shot his own Lord dead in the place thus he fell by his own counsell and procured his own death by the hand of his Keeper And if reports Lucernam non extinguebant sed ultro consumi Plut. Q. Rom. 468. Et tibi Publi piis omnibus retinendus est animus in custodia corporis nec injuslu ejus à quo ille est nobis datus ex hominum vita migrandum est ne munus humanum assignatum à Dco defugisse videamini Somn. Scip. or papers may be credited some have been brought to the same passe by reason of the sore pressure of our late troubles Now when I say that a man may desire death it is far from my meaning that a man should bring it upon himself in any such way grace teacheth us not to offer violence to nature and therefore as amongst the Romans the lights of the Temple were not to be put out but suffered to burn as long as they lasted so this candle of our lives must not be extinguisht till it consume and go out of it self or till God shall require it in the defence of some lawfull cause we must retain the soul in the custody of the body it must not be forced out of it till he that gave it call for it lest we should seek to forsake that office and imployment which God hath assigned us This is a third Caution Fourthly we ought also to consider that this is a kind of mixt desire as you may see here in S. Paul he desires death because it was so advantageous to him yet is content to stay for the benefit of Gods people To stay saith he is more expedient for you but for my self I desire rather to be dissolved and to be with Christ which is far better here 's you see a mixture of desires this is better one way that another for their private advantage Gods children desire to be in heaven for the benefit of others they are content to stay still in this world It is with them in this case as it is with a chast and loving wife her husband being gone from home she desires his coming home yet thinks sometimes oh that my husband would not come yet till such a businesse be dispatched such a room drest and made ready for his coming therefore keeps her self doing that nothing may offend the eye of her Lord when he comes and brings his guests with him So the godly Christian desires the coming of Christ above all Oh that thou wouldest rent the heavens and come down Come Lord Jesus Isa 64.1 come quickly Rev. 22.20 but because he knowes not what hour his Lord will come in deed therefore he busies himself in preparing and making all ready against his coming It is written of Ortelius that great Cosmographer that in his declining age he set up the Globe of the world in his Study Bucolch chron 803. with this inscription Contemno orno mente manu with his heart he contemnd the world though with his hand he adornd it This Embleme may teach us our duty Let us seek to adorn the world by the works of our hands let us endeavour what we can that the world might be bettered by us while we live in it yet let the world be in no esteem with us let our minds sit loose from the world ready to leave it whensoever the Lord shall call us and this is that we may learn out of that heavenly prayer of Christ They are not of the world even as I am not of the world I pray not that thou shouldst take them out of the world Joh. 17.14.15 but that thou shouldst keep them from the evil In which words he meets with an Objection Object Might some say If the Saints be not of this world as Christ is not of this world why do they not then follow Christ he is going out of the world why do not they go along with him Answ Oh no They must stay their time they must not go yet saith Christ I will not have them presently taken out of
the Creation and the Flood there was not a Coarse to be seen it may be in two or three hundred years they were then so long lived but now with us many hundreds dye and depart this world every year nay every week seeing then others dye so fast what reason have we to think our friends should be exempted or why should we be so full of grief Quid admirationis meretur res si scissum est quod eratscissile liquefactum quod eratliquesi si id crematum est quod erat ustile si id periit quod ita natum est ut possit perire Plut de consol 185. seeing death is so common a thing What wonder is it to see trees consume with age wax melt soluble things dissolved or to see frail mortals die that are born so that they cannot but dye is this any matter of wonder But that which should especially qualifie our grief is from my text and the doctrine delivered Death is a thing to be desired then not overmuch lamented we should I say desire and do desire it as oft as we say the Lords Prayer Thy Kingdome come Therefore let us turn our sorrow for the death of our friends into a desire of being with them in restand peace when Gods good will and pleasure is Vse 3 Is death a thing desirable see here then the difference between the true Christian and the worldling As it is with women some have living births and in their time they will come forth others have dead births and they stir not but dye and lye still in the womb so is it with men some are dead and they desire to lye here still others have living births are new born Christians and they cry out with Paul Oh miserable man that I am who shall deliver me Rom. 7.24 they would fain be delivered they long to be with Christ to enjoy his desired presence As a man that hath sores and ulcers on his body and his shirt begins to cleave thereto with what pain is it puld from his back Even so is it with worldlings whose affections are glewed to the earth they are haled and puld from it when they are to dye as Joab was from the horns of the Altar Oh death how bitter is the remembrance of thee to a man that lives in his pleasures It is the King of terrours to such men when the thought of it comes into their minds how doth it amaze and trouble them Solomon describing such a man saith All his dayes Ecclus. 41.1 Eccl. 5.17 Foaming anger with or in his sicknesse Pemb. in loc Invenitur aliquis qui malit inter supplicia tabescere perire membratim toties per stillicidiam amittere ani mam quà msemel exhalare Sen. 450. Epist he eateth in darknesse and he hath much sorrow and wrath with his sicknesse because he is loth to depart unwilling to leave this world As it was with the Gibeonites they were content to be hewers of wood drawers of water rather then depart from the tents of the Israelites So these men had rather do any thing here endure any drudgery then depart out of this world had rather consume in the midst of torments have their souls drop away in drops and all the members of their bodies perish one after another then dye and leave the world Object Oh Sir but life is sweet Answ What life do you mean for this we live here hardly deserves the name of life for how can we call that life where heat scorcheth cold pincheth meats and drinks make us dull and heavie fasting weakens us humours swell us up old age buckles us together shrinks our sinews wrinckles our skins dimms our sight ratling phlegme rises up and choaks us and at last death seizeth upon us What a life is this Oh vita non vitalis Oh wretched life that tendeth to death Let us therefore be in love with that life which death brings us unto for that is life indeed The Apostle saith Our life is hid with Christ in God the Saints aspire after this life and they have their affections wafted up to heaven and this to them is all in all When Christ is here present sometimes in his ordinances what comfort do they find herein But how much greater will it be hereafter when we shall see him as he is As a woman is glad of a Letter from her husband but more desirous of the company of her husband so it may comfort us a little that we hear from him and that God sends his Ministers and servants to us as Paul sent Timothy to the Thessalonians 1. Thes 3.2 to comfort us concerning our faith that he is pleased to give us his holy word which is as it were a letter sent us from heaven Oh but how much greater will our joy and happinesse be when we shall be with Christ enjoy his desired presence and follow him wheresoever he goeth Now then what terrour do we find in death or for what need we to fear it for it shall then come to us as an officer comes to an heir giving him possession of an inheritance So death is no more but Gods officer to bring us into the possession of the Kingdome of Heaven Vse 4 Therefore in the last place let it teach us to labour to get Pauls desire let us desire thus that we may desire death It s a great heighth this and God sometimes will not give his children so great a desire as at other times therefore labour thou to come to this which that thou mayst the better do consider these helps to further thee herein First because contraries are oft cured by contraries too much love of this bodily life Dulcedo divini amoris carnalis amoris suavitatem procul expellit Divinae dilectionis fervor internè ardens affectiones omnes externas quasi paleas absumit Comp. sper doct 198. with the love of the spirituall life too much affecting of earthly things with the love of heavenly therefore raise up thy self to consider the excellency of heaven and heavenly things and then earthly things will seem lesse as a man on the top of a high mountain or tower sees men below like crowes I remember a pleasant relation in Scipio's dream how that when he as he thought was taken up into heaven amongst his friends Paulus and Affricanus and they shewed him the motion of the Planets and the greatnesse of the Celestiall Orbs he cast his eyes down upon the earth which seemd but like a Tennis-ball searching to find out the place where his kingdome lay it was so small he could scarce discern it But as he was thus poaring on the ground Coelestia semper spectato illa humana contemnito Affricanus puls him by the sleeve and bid him mind heavenly things and not to regard earthly for what is it saith he to have a name upon earth say thou hadst Carthage and all Numantia yet
cannot thy name fly over this Caucasus nor swim over this Ganges Thou seest how small a thing the earth is and that sea pointing to the Atlantick which ye call the great sea and the main ocean which though it have so great a name thou seest how small a thing it is This was but a Philosophers dream yet 'c is pleasant to consider how far those men went Let us that are Christians seriously consider the excellency of heaven and vanity of earthly things let us mount aloft upon the wings of divine contemplation and our mindes being there all things here below will be as nothing to us Seek those things saith the Apostle that are above or on high What where the Orbs and Planets are No higher then so Col. 3.2 where Angels and Arch-angels are No higher yet where Christ sits on the right hand of God Oh if the soul of any here present were with Paul rapt up into the third heavens to be there but one hour to see what he saw how would he be ready to trample these things under his feet as vile and despicable he would count them trash in comparison of Jesus Christ as dung to that pearl It may be said all this is but matter of speculation therefore in the second place Give thy self to the practise of mortification desire to have all things mortified unto thee then thou wilt not care so much for them Offer what yee will to a dead man he regards it not So let us labour to get our affections whether covetous or pleasurable mortified and we shall not care for these things Mortifie therefore your members which are upon earth fornication uncleannesse inordinate affection evil concupiscence and covetousnesse Col. 3.5 Indeed this mortification of all evil affections is a hard work for as it is with men that have strong bodies and suffer violent deaths you see what a lamentable conflict there is what strugling between life and death and when you think the man quite dead a good while after he gives a great sigh or groan nature then gathering all her strength to withstand death flying as it were in the very face of death either to vanquish or to be overcome Even thus it is if we go about to take away the life of our dearest lusts they will gather all the forces they can either make of themselves or the devil and the world can supply them withall to stand before them and defend them that we may not come at them but if for all that we break through and smite them so that we give them their deaths-wound yet they will gather strength again and rise up to hurt us and do us a mischief afterwards Oh 't is hard 't is hard and many a Christian is forced even with tears in his eyes to cry out to heaven for help when he is at this work yet this yee see is that we are * Gal. 5.24 Rom. 6.6.8.13 calld to that which every regenerate man and woman sets himself to and he who hath in good earnest set himself to it and endeavoured the mortifying of his sins will not be afraid of death but rather see great cause why he should desire it whatsoever pains it brings he is provided for it and may say thus Oh death I regard not any sting thou canst sting my body withall for sin thy worst sting wherewith thou wouldest sting my soul to death is in some measure mortified and subdued by the power of Gods Spirit that conflict thou art now about to bring upon my body will be but short to that I have endured in my soul these so many years Oh welcome death come do thine office I have been endeavouring a long time the death of my sins and something through the power and mercy of God I have done though not so much as I would come lend me thy hand to finish this work I have oft smote my sins thinking to lay them in the dust yet they have risen again one stroke now of thy hand will cause them to dye that they shall never rise up any more Thirdly let us think oft and consider what our condition is while we are here subject to sin and misery do what we can we cannot so mortifie sin that it shall not be in us Non hîc sumus sine peccato fed exibimus sine peccato Aug. its true the old man hath received his deaths wound in every regenerate man and is bleeding out his life by degrees and at death shall quite expire and bleed his last but not till then Paul saith of himself I find a law in my members warring against the law of my mind who shall deliver me from this body of death Rom. 7.23 24. or oh that I were delivered from it There will be a body of sin and death in us so long as we carry this body of earth and flesh about us this is plain then as long as we live here we shall sin and what Christian desires to live to sin and to offend God! Oh ye that love the Lord hate sin saith the Psalmist hate that which is evil We should therefore desire it for this cause Psal 97.10 Fourthly let us oft look at death Plato said that the life of a Philosopher should be nothing else but a meditation of death much more the life of a Christian It was a custome amongst the Greek Emperours a Stone-cutter came to the Emperour on the day of his Coronation presented divers stones before him and desired to know of him which of those stones he would have for his Sepulchre And I have read of a people who at their feasts were wont to drink to one another out of dead-mens skuls to mind them of death Joseph of Arimathea who brought the Gospel hither into England he had his sepulchre hewn out of a rock Joh. 19.41 standing ready for him in his garden So let us when the world seems to crown us with its chiefest delights then remember death when we eat and drink think we see death on our tables when we are in our private Gardens then also let us take a turn with death and let us act death before it comes As a man that would fain fall asleep shuts his eyes draws the curtains layes his head to the pillow and so composeth himself to sleep so do thou oft think with thy self in what manner death will surprise thee look at it before it comes and it will be the easier when it comes And lastly as we must look at it so we must also look beyond it indeed it is a terrible thing to look at death but cast thine eye now beyond it and there will be no terrour in it Think of Paul's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 how it will be far better with us then then now in regard of Place Company our Bodies and our Soules But indeed as I noted to you before that glory is unspeakable As the Queen of Sheba said of Solomons glory She heard a great deal yet not half of it was told her the same may we say of eternall happinesse that we cannot declare half of it unto you meditate we may and ought of that glory yet this we must know that we come exceeding far short This therefore should make us go with as great desire to the grave as they use to go to a marriage because then we shall be married to Christ Jesus And as Travellers when the day is well spent and the Sun grows low come chearfully into their Inns at night so should we to this common Inne of Death FINIS
sin the proper cause of death this poysons our natures and continually cleaves to us as it was with Gehazi this was his sentence That the Leprosie should cleave to him and to his posterity for ever So sin cleaves close to us till the day of our death And as the Ivy sticks so close to the wall that you cannot get it out unlesse you pull the wall it self down so sin will not be had out of us till the earthly house of this Tabernacle be dissolved Object But what difference then is there between the death of the godly and the wicked Answ Magnum discrimen a great difference For God hath ordained that death to wicked men shall be a passage to misery but it is altered to the godly to them it is a passage to happinesse for to them the sting of it is taken away therefore they need not to fear it it can do them no hurt Even as when you see a snake or serpent its sting being drawn out you may play with it put it in your bosome it cannot hurt you so may we entertain death the sting being taken away Even as through the same gate the condemned person is led out to execution but the honest Citizen walks out for his pleasure and recreation so through the same gate of Death wicked men passe to the torments of hell but the godly to the paradise of heaven As it is with one that goes over a bridge to a fair medow so death is as it were a bridge to bring the saints to heaven As Moses from the top of mount Pisgah had a sight of Canaan before he died Deut 34.1 so when the Saints and servants of God are ready to dye they can see heaven before they depart this world or as the Israelites having travelld fourty years in the wildernesse being now come to Jordan they could look over it and see the land of Canaan they had no more to do but to passe over the foard and they were in the Land which flowed with milk and honey so the people of God when they have lived fourty or three-score years in the wildernesse of this world and are come to die they are onely to passe over the foard of death and then they are in the land of promise Thus you see that howsoever all die yet the death of all is not alike Num. 23.10 Oh let me dye the death of the righteous said that wizard Balaam and let my last end be like his shewing plainly that the death of righteous and wicked men in regard of their future estate do exceedingly differ alike they may be in their death but they shall be unlike to each other after death Vse Now for the use of this Is it so must all dye Let us then assure our selves of this and not onely say we are mortall as all men will say so but seriously think of it think that God may take us away this day this hour this may be the last word I may speak the last word that ye may hear therefore let us think of it seriously that so we may apply our hearts to wisdome let us live every day as if it were our last day The life of man how long soever is but a life of seven dayes which are multiplyed and run in a course Now as a man that hath seven servants to serve him if he be told that one of those seven will kill him narrowly observes every one of them when they come by course to serve him so man whose life runs upon seven dayes in the week which serve him by course since one of them will certainly make an end of him he should therefore watch every day saying to it as John to Christ Art thou he that should come or do I yet look for another sicknesse must come and death must come nothing so sure how are we provided for their coming When sicknesse is upon us we can do nothing for extremity of pain and therefore now when the marrow is in our bones and blood in our veins let us think of it and earnestly prepare our selves for death Now for the main Doctrine I desire saith he to be dissolved c. Doct. A Christian may lawfully desire death It s lawfull nay necessary sometimes to desire death Now when I say that a man may desire it it is a great height this and all attain not thereunto for death saith the Philosopher is the most terrible of terribles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Job 18.14 the King of fears as Job calls it when a man shall seriously take to heart and consider that his soul must be separated from his body those two old friends part and go assunder some doubting and fear will arise through our frailty and the best may have temptations in that kind we know this that when a man is to change his dwelling it puts him to trouble if it be but into the next Shire or the next town every remove is troublesome when therefore the soul shall depart as far from the tabernacle of the body as heaven from earth there may be some trouble at this great remove yet there is something overcomes this trouble whereby the Saints are willing to embrace death and desirous of a dissolution Would you see examples for it Paul here in my Text comes in with his cupio dissolvi and Simeon with his Nunc dimittis the old man had long waited for Jesus Christ and now when he had seen him Lord saith he let thy servant depart in peace Luk. 2.29 he had seen salvation beheld Christ with a spirituall as well as with his corporal eyes held him in the arms of his faith as well as with the arms of his body and now the world would no longer away with him Let me depart saith he let me be gone But before I come to shew what should move us to desire death I will speak a few things by way of caution and to prevent mistakes Cautions The first is this That this desire must alwayes be with submission to the will of God we must say as Christ Let this cup passe or come as thy will and pleasure is not my will but thy will be done If it be the will of Christ that Peter go Mat. 26.39 and John tarry still Joh. 2 1.22 they must both submit to it So must we for the time and manner of our death submit our selves to God our wills are never right but when they are conformable to the will of God That 's the first the rest will follow upon it As in the second place That it is no good desire to desire death merely to be rid of anguish and pain For what if it be the will of God to hold us long under the rod we must learn to kisse his holy hand that smites us he doth it for the tryall of our faith and other graces and therefore we ought to bear it patiently Thus much we may learn from
the world they shall stay a while to wrastle with their corruptions to preach the Gospel to the world that done I will receive them to my self Vers 24. he saith Father I will that those whom thou hast given me be with me yet here he saith I pray not that thou shouldst take them out of the world that is not yet Conformable to this will of Christ is the will and desire of the Saints they desire to be with Christ for where should the servant be but with his Lord the members but with their head the spouse but in the bosome of the bridegroome they desire therefore I say as the top of all their happinesse to be with Christ and know assuredly they shall one day be with him in glory yet they desire to keep themselves from the evil of the world so long as t is his pleasure to continue them in it Christ doth not pray his father to take us presently out of the world but to take the world that is the love of it out of us and that we may be satisfied with the truth vers 17. This should be our desire then that whether present or absent we may be accepted of him 2 Cor. 5 9. That man therefore can have no true desire to dye that hath no desire to live well neither doth he desire to have any communion with Christ after death that doth not desire it in his life he that desires to be with Christ after death desires also that Christ may be with him and dwell in him before death These two desires then are in effect one saving that one is the perfections of the other and in that regard the most desirable These things premised I now come to shew why death may be desired of us 1. It delivers us from manifold evils 2. It brings with it infinite good to those that are prepared for it 1. Bodily evils The evils from which we are freed by death Quis enim sufficit quantovis eloquentiae flumine vitae hujus miserias explicare August Eccles 1.8 Verstegan Antiquit 58. are either bodily evils or soul evils spirituall evils For the first bodily evils even these if I should begin to speak of them they are more then I am able to expresse All things are full of labour man cannot utter it What toile and labour are our bodies subject unto What hardship do they here endure Our old ancestours the Saxons counted the ages of their lives by Winters to shew how many seasons of sharp and cold weather they had overpast besides how many diseases are there incident to the frail bodies of men and women impostemes swellings agues aches apoplexies strangury stone gout c. oh the stinging torment that is in some of these I gave you an item indeed before that none of these temporall bodily evils should cause us to desire death through impatience or any repining disposition however there 's enough in them to wean us from this world and to let us see the misery of it and death when it comes it will free us from all these diseases when given by the hand of our heavenly Physician 't is the first physick that can be to cure us of them all And as our bodies so our estates likewise are subject to a thousand changes what losses and crosses do we meet with there as if a man be a rich man to day he may be a beggar to morrow if his estate lie in plate or money thieves may break through and steal it if in goods or houshold-stuffe they may likewise plunder him of all if in houses the fire may consume all how many Briefs tells us so if in lands the rain may come and slocken all his fruit if in merchandise the sea may swallow up all if in cattell the enemie as the Sabeans did Jobs may carry all away and he may then sit down and say as he naked came I out of my mothers womb and I see I shall return a naked man to the womb of the earth I add here again that a man must take heed of impatience and discontent otherwise I see no harme in it if these changes mind him of his last change and being thus stript and left naked he begin to think of lying down to his rest Besides this many are the afflictions of the righteous Acerrimum par media mors dirimit Seneca many are the wrongs they receive at the hands of wicked men what cart-loads of reproches and disgraces are they ready to cast upon them for there is an antipathy between the one and the other as there is between fire and water but when death comes it ends the quarrell 2. Spirituall evils But now for the second soul-evils or spirituall evils they are of far more force to draw on this desire The devil he is our continuall adversary and so long as we live here so long will he be tempting us he can no sooner look into my heart or thy heart but he will see to what our natures and dispositions are most inclind and thereby he will work upon us Rom. 7.19 Add hereunto that virus maternum that venome and poyson of originall corruption whereby we are disabled from doing the good we would and the evil we would not that we do The flesh lusteth against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh and these are contrary the one to the other Gal. 5.17 so that we cannot do the things that we would Paul had a pitcht field as it were between himself and himself Velis noli intra sines tuos erit Jebusaeus prm potest non exterminari Connatam habemus cupiditatem haec pussus est ut motus cordis quem nemo mortalium in hac vita reprimit Cas eth Dan. 3.23 25. As Rebecca had the two twins strugling in her womb so in every regenerate man there 's the flesh and spirit strugling together do what we can this Jebusite will still be in our coasts The seeds of sin may be in some measure supprest by the power of Gods spirit but never rooted out till death It is as the pulse of a mans body alwayes beating till then but then it will cease Death will do no more to us but what Nebuchadnezars fire did to the three children it never toucht nor harmd them onely burnt their coards wherewith they were bound and let them loose So death when it comes will loose us from these coards and chains of our sins and set us at liberty Therefore we ought to long after this full redemption I remember what the Heathen did they placed the Temple of rest without the City to shew that if ever we would have tranquility and quietnesse it must be by going out of this world then there will be no trouble or vexation of spirit no concupiscence no sin to withdraw us from God Death came into the world by sin and sin will not out of the world but by death God shall