Tuesday May the first 1660. Ordered THat the thanks of this House be given to Mr. Baxter for his great pains in carrying on the work of Preaching and Prayer before the House at Saint Margarets Westminster yesterday being set apart by this House for a day of Fasting and Humiliation And that he be desired to Print his Sermon and is to have the same Priviledge in Printing the same that others have had in the like kind And that Mr. Swinfin do give him notice thereof W. Jessop Cler. of the Commons House of Parliament Richard Baxter's Farewel Sermon Prepared to have been Preached to his Hearers AT Kidderminster At his departure but forbidden LONDON Printed for B. Simmons at the Three Golden Cocks on Ludgate-Hill at the West End of St. Pauls 1683. To the Inhabitants of the Burrough and Forreign of Kidderminster in the County of Worcester Dear friends WHile I was lately turning up the rubbish of my old Papers I found this Sermon in the bottom which I had quite forgotten that I kept but thought it had been cast away with many hundred others Much of the last sheet was added to the Sermon after I came from you and I remember that when I intended to send you this Sermon as my farewel I durst not then have so much converse with you for your own sakes lest it should raise more enmity against you and your displeasing circumstances of religious practice should be said to come from my continued Counsels to you I have lately taken my farwel of the World in a Book which I called My Dying Thoughts My pain of Body and debility increasing and my Flesh being grown to me more grievous than all my enemies or outward troubles I remembred the benefit I often received uppon your Prayers and craving the continuance of them till you hear of my dissolution therewith I send this as my special farewel to your selves whom I am bound to remember with more than ordinary Love and Thankfulness while I am Richard Baxter John 16.22 And ye now therefore have sorrow but I will see you again and your heart shall rejoyce and your joy no man taketh from you My dearly beloved in our dearest Lord I Will so far consent to your troubled thoughts of this unwelcome day as to confess that to me as well as you it somewhat resembleth the day of death 1. Death is the separation of the dearest consorts Soul and Body And how near the Union is betwixt us both that of Relation and that of Affection which must admit this day of some kind of dissolution I will rather tell to strangers then to you 2. Death is unwelcom both to Soul and Body of itself though it destroy not the Soul it doth the body So dear Companions part not willingly Your hearts and Mine are here so over forward in the application that words may be well spared where sense hath taken so deep possession 3. Death is the end of humane converse here on earth We must see and talk with our friends here no more And this our separation is like to end that converse between you and me which formerly we have had in the duties of our Relations We must no more go up together as formerly to the house of God I must no more speak to you publickly in his name nor solace my own soul in opening to you the Gospel of Salvation nor in the mention of his Covenant his Grace or Kingdom Those Souls that have not been convinced and Converted are never like to hear more from me for their conviction or conversion I have finished all the instruction reproof exhortation and â—erswasion which ever I must use in order to their salvation I must speak here no more to inform the ignorant to reform the wicked to reduce the erroneous to search the hypocrite to humble the proud to bow the obstinate or to bring the worldly the impenitent and ungodly to the knowledge of the world themselves and God I must speak no more to strengthen the weak to comfort the afflicted nor to build you up in faith and holiness Our day is past our night is come when we cannot work as formerly we have done My opportunities here are at an end 4 Death is the end of earthly comforts And our separation is like to be the end of that comfortable communion which God for many years hath granted us Our publick and private communion hath been sweet to us The Lord hath been our Pastour and hath not suffered us to want He made us lye down in his pleasant pastures and hath led us by the silent streams Psal 23.1 2. He restored our Souls and his very Rod and Staff did comfort us But his smiting scattering time is come These pleasures now are at an end 5. Death is the end of humane labours There is no plowing or sowing no building or planting in the grave And so doth our Separation end the works of our mutual relation in this place 6 Death is the effect of painful sickness and usually of the folly intemperance or oversight of our selves And though our conscience reproach us not with gross unfaithfulness yet are our failings so many and so great as force us to justify the severity of our father and to confess that we deserve this rod. Though we have been censured by the world as being over strict and doing too much for the saving of our own and others Souls yet it is another kind of charge that conscience hath against us How earnestly do we now wish that we had done much more that I had preached more fervently you had heard more diligently and we had all obeyed God more strictly and done more for the Souls of the ignorant careless hardened sinners that were among us It is just with God that so dull a preacher should be put to silence that could ever speak without tears and fervent importunity to impenitent sinners when he knew that it was for no less than the saving of their Souls and foresaw the joys which they would lose and the torment which they must endure if they repented not With what shame sorrow do I now look back upon the cold and lifeless Sermons which I preached and upon those years neglect of the duty of private instructing of your families before we set upon it orderly and constantly Our destruction is of our selves Our undervaluings and neglects have forfeited our opportunities As good Melancthon was wont to say In vulneribus nostris proprias agnoscimus pennas The arrow that woundeth us was feathered from our own wings 7. Death useth to put surviving friends into a dark and mourning habit Their lamentations are the chief part of funeral Solemnities And in this also we have our part The compassion of condolers is greater than we desire For sorrow is apt to grow unruly and exceed its bounds and bring on more sufferings by lamenting one and also to look too much at the instruments and to be more
shall they be exalted For the Lord is our defence and the holy One of Israel is our King Psal 89.15 16 17 18. What gladness was there at a private meeting of a few Christians that met to pray for Peter when they saw him delivered and come among them Act. 12.12.5.14 When the Churches had Rest they were edified and walked in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost Act. 9.31 3. But the great joy will be when Christ returneth in his Glory at the last day what a multitude of sorrows will there be ended And what a multitude of Souls will then be comforted What a multitude of desires and prayers and expectations will then be answered How many thousand that have sowed in tears shall then reap in everlasting joy When the Creature shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the Sons of God Rom. 8.26 27. When all the faith and labour and patience of all the Saints from the beginning of the World shall be rewarded with the Rivers of celestial pleasure and the just shall enter into their Masters joy Mat. 25.21 That you may the better understand the sweetness of all these sorts of joy which Christs return will bring to Saints observe these following ingredients in them 1. It is Christ himself that is the object of their joy He that is the dearly beloved of their Souls that for their sakes was made a man of sorrows It is he who is their hope and help with whom they are in covenant as their only Saviour In whom they have trusted with whom they have deponed their Souls If he should fail them all would fail them and they were of all Men most miserable They would be comfortless if he should not come unto them and were not their comfort The World cannot help and comfort them for it is empty vain a transient shadow It will not for it is malignant and our professed enemy For we know that we are of God and the whole World is in maligno positus set on wickedness or as some think because 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is put for the Devil in the foregoing Verse and the Article here also used is as it were planted into the Devil or put under the Devil to War against Christ and the holy Seed And indeed Satan seemeth in this War against the Church to have somewhat like success as he had against Christ himself As Christ must be a Man of sorrows and scorn and be crucified as a Blasphemer and a Traitour before he rejoice the hearts of his Disciples by his resurrection so the Church was a persecuted scorned handful of Men for the first three hundred years and then it rose by Christian Emperours to some reputation till Satan by another game overcame them by Judas his Successours that for what will you give me by Pride and Worldliness betrayed them into that deplorate state in which they have continued these 900 Years at least So that the Christian name is confined to a sixth part of the World and serious sanctified Believers are persecuted more by the Hypocrites that wear the Livery of Christ than by Heathens and Infidels themselves And when the Church is so low almost like Christ on the Cross and the Grave will not a Resurrection be a joyful change When it crieth out on the Cross My God My God why hast thou forsaken me Will not Christ appearing for its deliverance be a welcome sight It was when Adam had brought a Curse on himself and his Posterity and all the Earth that Redemption by the holy Seed was promised and when Satan had conquered Man that Christ was promised to conquer him It was when the World was destroyed by the deluge that its reparation was promised to Noah It was when Abraham was a Sojourner in a strange Land that the peculiar promises were made to him and his Seed It was when the Israelites were enslaved to extremity that they were delivered And it was when the Scepter was departing from Judah and they and the World were gone from God that Christ the Light of the World was sent And when the Son of Man cometh shall he find faith on the Earth When we see how vast the Heathen and Infidel Kingdoms are and what a poor despised People those are that set their chief hopes on Heaven and how Satan seemeth every where to prevail against them and most by false and Worldly Christians what a trial is this to our Faith and Hope As the Disciples said of a Crucified Christ We trusted it had been he that should have Redeemed Israel we are almost ready in the hour of temptation to say We trusted that Gods Name should have been Hallowed and his Kingdom come and his Will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven And O how seasonable and how joyful will the Churches Resurrection be after such low and sad distress Many a sad Christian under the Sentence of Death is going hence with fear and trouble When a Moment shall transmit them into the joyful presence of their Lord and the possession of that which with weakness and fear they did but believe 2. And Christ will not come or be alone With him will come the New Jerusalem He will put glory on each Member but much more on the whole O how many of our old Companions are now there Not under temptation or any of the tempters power Not under the darkness of ignorance error or unbelief Not under the pains of a languid diseased corruptible Body Not under the fear of Sin or Satan or wicked Men Not under the terror of Death or Hell of an accusing Conscience or the wrath of God O with what joy shall we see and enjoy that glorious Society To be translated thither from such a World as this from such temptations sins such fears and sorrows such perfidious malignant wickedness what will it be but to be taken as from a Goal unto a Kingdom and from the Suburbs of Hell unto the Communion of Blessed Saints and Angels and into the Joy of our Lord. Doct. 6. Your Joy shall no Man take from you The Joy that cometh at Christs return will be a secure everlasting joy Impregnable as Heaven it self Christ and his Church will be Crucified no more Nor any more despised scorned persecuted or falsly accused and condemned Look not then for Christ or his Church in the Grave he is not here he is risen Who can we fear will deprive us of that joy 1. Not our selves And then we need to fear no other Our folly and sin is our Enemies strength They can do nothing against us without our selves The Arrows that wound us are all feathered from our own Wings But our trying time will then be past and confirmation will be the reward of Conquest He that hath kept us in the day of our trial will keep us in our state of rest and triumph How the now fallen Angels came to
the corrections which are not improved by us to our amendment and reformation But the promise belongeth 1. to those sorrows which in sincerity we undergo for the sake of Christ and righteousness 2. To those sorrows which we our selves perform as Duties either for the dishonour of God or the sins or miseries of others or our penitential sorrows for our own offences 3. And to those sorrows of chastisement which we patiently submit to and improve to a true amendment of our hearts and lives For though sin be the Material cause or the Meritorious cause yet Love which maketh Reformatâ—on the effect will also make the end to be our Comfort Vse 2. If this be Gods Method condemn not then the generation use 2 of the just because you see them undermost in the world and suffer more than other men Think it not a dishonour to them to be in poverty prisons banishment or reproach unless it be for a truly dishonourable cause Call not men miserable for that which God maketh the token of his love and the Prognostick of their joy Methinks he that hath once read the Psal 37. 73. and Mat. 5.10 11 12. Joh. 13. 15. 2 Thes 1. and well believeth them should never err this old condemned Errour any more And yet it is common among carnal men to do as some beasts do when one of their fellows is wounded they all forsake him so these stand looking with pity or fear or strangeness upon a man that is under sufferings and slanders as if it must needs be a deserved thing and think it a great dishonour to a man how innocent soever when they hear that he is used as offendours malefactours are forgetting how by this they condemn their Saviour and all his Apostles and Martyrs and the wisest best and happyest men that the earth hath born And all this is but the blind and hasty judgment of sense and unbelief which hath neither the wit to judge by the word of God nor yet the patience to stay the end and see how the sorrows of the godly will conclude and where the triumph of the hypocrite will leave him And yet some there be that are apt to err on the other extream and to think that every man is happy that is afflicted and that such have all their sorrow in this life and that the suffering party is alwaies in the right and therefore they are ready to fall in with any deluded sect which they see to be under reproach and suffering But the cause must be first known before the suffering can be well judged of doctrine 2 Doct. 2. Christs death and departure was the cause of his disciples sorrrows This is plain in the words Ye Now therefore have sorrow but I will see you again And the causes of this sorrow were these three conjunct 1. That their dear Lord whom they loved and whom they had heard and followed and put their trust in must now be taken from them If the parting of friends at death do turn our garments into the signs of our sad and mournful hearts and cause us to dwell in the houses of mourning we must allow Christs disciples some such affections upon their parting with their Lord. 2. And the Manner of his death no doubt did much increase their sorrows That the most innocent should suffer as a reputed malefactour that he that more contemned the wealth and pleasures and glory of the World than ever man did and chose a poor inferiour life and would not have a Kingdom of this World and never failed in any duty to high or low should yet be hanged ignominiously on a Cross as one that was about to usurp the Crown That deluded Sinners should put to death the Lord of life and spit in the face of such a Majesty and hasten destruction to their nation and themselves and that all Christs disciples must thus be esteemed the followers of a crucifyed usurper judg if we had been in their case our selves whether this would have been matter of sorrow to us or not Had it not been enough for Christ to have suffered the pain but he must also suffer the dishonor even the imputation of sin which no man was so far from being guilty of and of that particular sin usurpation of Dominion and Treason against Caesar which his heart and life were as contrary to as light to darkness And was it not enough for Christians to suffer so great calamities of bodies for righteousness sake but they must also suffer the reproach of being the seditious followers of a crucifyed malefactour whom they would have made a King No! our Lord would stoop to the lowest condition for our sakes which was consistent with his innocency and perfection Sin is so much worse than suffering that we may take this for the greatest part of his condescension and strangest expression of his Love that he should take not only the nature and the sufferings of a man but also the nature and the Imputation of sinners Though sin itself was inconsistent with his perfection yet so was not the false accusation and imputation of it He could not become a sinner for us but he could be reputed a sinner for us and die as such And when our Lord hath submitted to this most ignominious kind of suffering it is not fit that we should be the choosers of our sufferings and say Lord we will suffer any thing except the Reputation of being offenders and the false accusations of malicious men If in this we must be made conformable to our head we must not refuse it nor repine at his disposal of us 3. And their sorrow for Christs departure was the greater because they had so little foresight of his Resurrection and return It is strange to see how dark they were in these articles of the faith for all their long converse with Christ and his plain foretelling them his death and resurrection and how much of their teaching Christ reserved to the Spirit after his departure from them Joh. 12 16. Luk. 18.31.32.33.34 Then took he unto him the twelve and said unto them behold we go up to Jerusalem and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of man shall be accomplished For he shall be delivered unto the Gentiles and shall be mocked and spightfully entreated and spit upon and they shall scourge him and put him to death and the third day he shall rise again And they unstood none of these things and this saying was hid from them neither knew they the things which were spoken Had they known all that would follow and clearly foreseen his Resurrection and his Glory they would then have been troubled the less for his death But when they saw him dye and foresaw him not revive and rise and reign then did their hearrs begin to fail them and they said Luk. 24.21 We trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel Even as we use