death another trembles to expect it one beggs for life another will sell it dearer here one would rescue one life and loseth two there another would hide himself where he findes a merciless death here lies one bleeding and groaning and gasping parting with his soul in extremity of anguish there another of stronger spirits kills and dies at once here one wrings her hands and tears her hair and seeks for some instrument of a self-inflicted death rather then yeeld her chaste body to the lust of a bloody ravisher there another clings inseparably to a dear husband and will rather take part of the murtherers sword then let go her last embraces here one tortured for the discovery of hid treasure there another dying upon the rack out of jealousie Oh that one man one Christian should be so bloodily cruel to another Oh that he who bears the image of the merciful God should thus turn fiend to his own flesh and blood These are terrible things my son and worthy of our bitterest lamentations and just fears I love the speculation of Seneca's resolutely-wise man that could look upon the glittering sword of an executioner with erected and undazeled eyes and that makes it no matter of difference whether his soul pass out at his mouth or at his throat but I should more admire the practice whiles we carry this clay about us nature cannot but in the holiest men shrink in at the sight and sense of these tyrannous and tragical acts of death Yet even these are the due revenges of the Almighties punitive justice so provoked by our sins as that it may not take up with an easier judgement Dost thou not see it ordinary with our Physitians when they finde the body highly distempered and the blood foul and inflamed to order the opening of a vein and the drawing out of so many ounces as may leave the rest meet for correction Why art thou over-troubled to see the great Physitian of the world take this course with sinful mankinde Certainly had not this great Body by mis dieting and wilful disorder contracted these spiritual diseases under which we languish had it not impured the blood that runs in these common veins with riot and surfets we had never been so miserable as to see these torrents of Christian blood running down our chanels Now yet as it is could we bewail and abandon our former wickedness we might live in hope that at the last this deadly issue might stop and dry up and that there might be yet left a possibility of a blessed recovery § 7. The woful miseries of Pestilence allaid by consideration of the hand that smites us Thou art confounded with grief to see the pestilence raging in our streets in so frequent a mortality as breeds a question concerning the number of the living and the dead That which is wont to abate other miseries heightens this The company of participants It was certainly a very hard and sad option that God gave to King David after his sin of numbring bring the people Chuse thee whether seven yeers famine shall come unto thee in thy Land or three moneths flight before thine enemies or three days pestilence We may believe the good King when we hear him say I am in a great strait Doubtless so he was but his wise resolutions have soon brought him out Let us fall now into the hand of the Lord for his mercies are great and let me not fall into the hand of man He that was to send these evils knew their value and the difference of their malignity yet he opposes three days pestilence to seven yeers famine and three months vanquishment so much oddes he knew there was betwixt the dull activity of man and the quick dispatch of an Angel It was a favour that the Angel of death who in one night destroyed an hundred fourscore and five thousand Assyrians should in three daies cut off but seventy thousand Israelites It was a great mercy that it was no worse We read of one City shall I call it or Region of Cayro wherein eighteen hundred thousand were swept away in one years pestilence enow one would think to have peopled the whole earth and in our own Chronicles of so generall a mortality that the living were hardly sufficient to bury the dead These are dreadfull demonstrations of Gods heavy displeasure but yet there is this alleviation of our misery that we suffer more immediatly from an holy just mercifull God The Kingly Prophet had never made that distinction in his wofull choyce if he had not known a notable difference betwixt the sword of an Angell and an enemy betwixt Gods more direct and immediate infliction and that which is derived to us through the malice of men It was but a poor consolation that is given by a victorious enemy to dying Lausus in the Poet Comfort thy selfe in thy death with this that thou fallest by the hand of great Aeneas but surely we have just reason to â—aise comfort to our souls when the pains of a pestilentiall death compasse us about from the thought and intuition of that holy and gracious hand under which we suffer so as we can say with good Eli It is the Lord. It is not amisse that we call those marks of deadly infection Gods Tokens such sure they are and ought therefore to call up our eyes and hearts to that Almighty power that sends them with the faithfull resolution of holy Iob Though thou kill me yet will I trust in thee It is none of the least miseries of contagious sicknesse that it bars us from the comfortable society and attendance of friends or if otherwise repaies their love and kinde visitation with death Be not dismaid my son with this sad solitude thou hast company with thee whom no infection can indanger or exclude there is an invisible friend that will be sure to stick by thee so much more closely by how much thou art more avoided by neighbours and will make all thy bed in thy sickness and supply thee with those cordialls which thou shouldst in vain expect from earthly visitants Indeed justly doe we style this The sicknesse eminently grievous both for the deadlinesse and generality of the dispersion yet there is a remedy that can both cure and conâ—ine it Let but every man look well to the plague of his own heart and the Land is healed Can we with David but see the Angell that smites us and erect an Altar and offer to God the sacrifices of our praiers penitence obedience we shall hear him say It is enough The time was and that time may not be forgotten when in the dayes of our late Soveraigne our Mother City was almost desolated with this mortall infection When thousands fell at our side and ten thousands at our right hand upon the publique humiliation of our soules the mercy of the Almighty was pleased to command that raging disease in the height of its fury
infinite blisse how much more gladly would he have taken off his Hemlock and how much more merrily would he have passed into that happier world All this wee know and are no lesse assured of it then of our present beeing with what comfort therefore should we think of changing our present condition with a blessed immortality How sweet a song was that of old Simeon Lord now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace according to thy word for mineties have seen thy salvation Loe that which hee saw by the eye of his sense thou seest by the eye of thy faith even the Lords Christ he saw him in weaknesse thou seest him in glory why shouldst thou not depart not in peace onely but in joy and comfort How did the holy Protomartyr Stephen triumph over all the rage of his enemies and the violent fury of death when he had once seen the heavens opened and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God Loe God offers the same blessed prospect to the 〈◊〉 of thy soul Faith is the key that can open the heaven of heavens Fixe thy eies upon that glorious and saving object thou canst not but lay down thy body in peace and send up thy soul into the hands of him that bought it with the sweet and cheerfull recommendation of Lord Jesus receive my spirit Comforts against the terrours of Judgement §. 1. Aggravation of the fearfulness of the last judgement THOU apprehendest it aright Death is terrible but Judgement more Both these succeed upon the same decree It is appointed unto man once to die but after this the judgement Neither is it moâ—e terrible then lesse thought on Death because he strikes on all hands and laies before us so many sad examples of mortality cannot but sometimes take up our hearts but the last judgement having no visible proofs to force it self upon our thoughts too seldome affrights us Yet who can conceive the terrour of that day before which the Sun stall bee turned into darknesse and the Moon into blood That day which shall burne as an Oven when all the proud and all that doe wickedly shall bee as the stubble That day in which the heavens shall passe away with a great noise and the Elements shall melt with fervent heat the Earth also â—â—d the works that are therein shall be burnt â—p That day wherein the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty Angels In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God and that obey not the Gospel of our Lord Iesus Christ That day wherein the Lord will come with fire and with his Chariots like a Whirlewinde to render his anger with fury and his rebuke with flames of fire For by Fire and by his Sword will the Lord plead with all flesh That day wherein the Son of man shall come in his glory and all the holy Angels with him and shall sit upon the Throne of his glory and all Nations shall bee gathered before him That day wherein all the kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him Sâ—ortly that great and terrible day of the Lord wherein if the Powers of Heaven shall bee shaken how can the heart of man remain unmoved wherein if the world be dissolved who can bear up Alas we are ready to tremble at but a Thunder-crack in a poor cloud and at a small flash of lightning that glances through our eyes what shall wee doe when the whole frame of the heavens shall break in peeces and when all shall be on a flame about our eares Oh who may abide the day of his comming and who shall stand when hee appeareth §. 2. Comfort from the condition of the elect Yet bee of good chear mâ— sonne Amids all this horrour there is comfort Whether thoube one of those whom it shall please God to reserve alive upon earth to the sight of this dreadfull day he only knowes in whose hands our times are This we are sure of that we are upon the last houres of the last daies Justly doe we spit in the faces of S. Peters scoffers that say Where is the promise of his coming Well knowing that the Lord is not slack as some account slackness but that he that shall come will come and not tarry Well mayst thou live to see the Son of man come in the clouds of heaven and to be an Actor in this last Scene of the world If so let not thy heart be dismayed with the expectation of these fearful things Thy change shall be sudden and quick one moment shall put off thy mortality and clothe thee with that incorruption which shall not be capable of fear and pain The majestie of this appearance shall adde to thy joy and glory Thou shalt then see the Lord himself descend from heaven with a shout with the voice of the Archangel and with the Trump of God Thou shalt see thy self and those other which are alive and remain to be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air and so shalt thou be ever with the Lord. Upon this assurance how justly may the Apostle subjoyn Wherefore comfort one another with these words Certainly if ever there were comfort to be had in any words not of men or Angels onely but of the ever-living God the God of Truth these are they that can and will afford it to our trembling souls But if thou be one of the number of those whom God hath determined to call off before-hand and by a faithful death to prevent the great day of his appearance here is nothing for thee but matter of a joy unspeakable and full of glory For those that sleep in Jesus shall God bring with him they shall be part of that glorious train which shall attend the Majestie of the great Judge of the world yea they shall be coâ—â—seâ—â—ors to the Lord of heaven and earth in this awful Judica ture as sitting upon the Bench when guilty men and Angels shall be at the Bar To him that overcometh saith the Lord Christ will I grant to sit with me in my throne even as I also overcame and am set down with my Father in his throne What place then is here for any terrour since the more state and heavenly magnificence the more joy and glory § 3. Awe more fit for thoughts of judgement then Fear Thou art afraid to think of Judgement I had rather thou shouldst be awful then timorous When Saint Paul discoursed of the judgement to come it is no marvel that Fâ—â—ix trembled But the same Apostle when he had pressed to his Corinthians the certainty and generality of our appearance before the Judgement-seat of Christ that every one may receive the things done in his body whether good or evil addeth Knowing therefore the terrour of the Lord we perswade men but we are made manifest to
Didst thou conceive my son that grace would put thee into a constant and pepetually-invariable condition of soul whiles thou art in this earthly warfare Didst thou ever hear or read of any of Gods prime Saints upon earth that were unchangeable in their holy dispositions whiles they continued in this region of mutability Look upon the man after Gods own heart thou shalt finde him sometimes so courageous as if the spirits of all his Worthies were met in his one bosom How resolutely doth he blow off all dangers trample on all enemies triumph over all cross events Another while thou shalt finde him so dejected as if he were not the man One while The Lord is my Shepherd I shall lack nothing Another while Why art thâ—â— so sad my soul and why art thou so disquieted within me One while I will not be afraid for ten thousands of the people that have set themselves against me round about Another while Hide me under the shadow of thy wings from the wicked that oppress me from my deadly enemies who compass me about One while Thy loving kindness is before mine eyes and I have walked in thy truth Another while Lord where are thy loving kindnesses Yea dost thou not hear him with one breath professing his confidence and lamenting his desertion Lord by thy favour thou hast made my mountain to stand strong Thou didst hide thy face and I was troubled Look upon the chosen vessel the great Apostle of the Gentiles one while thou shalt see him erecting trophies in himself of victory to his God In all these things we are more then conquerours through him that loved us Another while thou shalt finde him bewailing his own sinful condition Oh wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from the body of this death One while thou shalt finde him caught up into the third heaven and there in the Paradise of God another while thou shalt finde him buffeted by the messenger of Satan and sadly complaining to God of the violence of that assault Hear the Spouse of Christ whether the Church in common or the faithful soul bemoaning her self I opened to my Beloved but my Beloved had withdrawn himself and was gone my soul failed when he spake I sought him but I could not finde him I called him but he gave me no answer Thus it will be with thee my Son whiles thou art in this frail flesh the temper of thy soul will be like her partner subject to vicissitudes Shouldst thou continue always in the same state I should more then suspect thee This is the difference betwixt Nature and Grace That Nature is still uniform and like it self Grace varies according to the pleasure of the giver The Spirit breathes when and where it listeth When therefore thou findest the gracious spirations of the holy Ghost within thee be thankful to the infinite munificence of that blessed Spirit and still pray Arise O North and come thou South winde â—blowe upon my garden that the spices thereof may slow out But when thou shalt finde thy soul becalmed and not a leaf stirring in this garden of thine be not too much dejected with an ungrounded opinion of being destituted of thy God neither do thou repine at the seasons or measures of his bounty that most free and infinitely-beneficent agent will not be tied to our terms but will give what and how and when he pleaseth Onely do thou humbly wait upon his goodness and be confident that he who hath begun his good work in thee will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. § 10. Complaint of unregeneration and deadness in sin answered It is true thou saist if God had begun his good work in me he would at the last for his own glories sake make it up But for me I am a man dead in sins and trespasses neither ever had I any true life of grace in me some shew indeed I have made of a Christian profession but I have onely beguiled the eyes of the world with a meer pretence and have not found in my self the truth and solidity of those heavenly vertues whereof I have made a formal ostentation It were pity my son thou shouldst be so bad as thou makest thy self I have no comfort in store for hypocrisie no disposition can be more odious to the God of truth in so much as when he would express his utmost vengeance against sinners he hath no more fearful terms to set it forth then I will appoint him his portion with the hypocrites Were it thus with thee it were more then high time for thee to resolve thy self into dust and ashes and to put thy self into the hands of thine Almighty Creatour to be moulded anew by his powerful Spirit and never to give thy self peace till thou findest thy selfâ— renewed in the spirit of thy minde But in the mean while take heed lest thou be found guilty of mis-judging thine own soul and mis-prising the work of Gods Spirit in thee God hath been better to thee then thou wilt be acknown of Thou hast true life of grace in thee and for the time perceivest it not It is no heed to take of the doom thou passest upon thy self in the hour of temptation When thy heart was free thou wert in another minde and shalt upon better advice return to thy former thoughts It is with thee as it was with Euâ—ychus that fell down from the third loft and was taken up for dead yet for all that his life was in him We have known those who have lien long in trances withovt any perception of life yea some as that subtil Joannes Duns Scotus have been put into their graves for fully dead when as yet their soul hath been in them though unable to exert those faculties which might evince her hidden presence Such thou mayest be at the worst yea wert thou but in charity with thy self thou wouldst be found in a much better condition There is the same reason of the natural life and the spiritual Life where it is is discerned by breathing sense motion Where there is the breath of life there must be a life that sends it forth If then the soul breathes forth holy desires doubtless there is a life whence they proceed Now deny if thou canst that thou hast these spiritual breathings of holy desires within thee Dost thou not many a time sigh for thine own insensateness Is not thine heart troubled with the thoughts of thy want of grace Dost thou not truly desire that God would renew a right spirit within thee Take comfort to thy self this is the work of the inward principle of Gods Spirit within thee as well may a man breathe without life as thou couldst be thus affected without grace Sense is a quick discrier of life pinch or wound a dead man he feels nothing but the living perceiveth the easiest touch When thou hast heard the fearful
for the benefit that he hath been pleased to make of thine offending him § 5. â—omplaint 〈◊〉 relapses 〈◊〉 to sin â—ith the â—â—medy â—ereof But alas thou sayst my case is far worse then it is conceived I have been more then once miscarried into the same sin Even after I have made profession of my repentance I have been transported into my former wickedness Having washed off my sin as I thought with my many tears yet I have suffered my soul to be defiled with it again I may not flatter thee my son this condition is dangerous Those diseases which upon their first seizure have without any great peril of the Patient received cure after a recidivation have threatned death Look upon the Saints of God thou shalt finde they have kept aloof from that fire wherewith they have been formerly burnt Thou shalt not finde Noah again uncovered through drunkenness in his tent thou shalt not finde Judah climbing up again to Tamars bed Thou shalt not take Peter again in the High-Priests hall denying his Master or after Pauls reproof halting in his dissimulation But tell me notwithstanding art thou truly serious with thy God hast thou doubled thine humiliation for the reduplication of thine offence hast thou sought God so much the more instantly with an unfained contrition of heart hast thou found thy soul wrought to so much greater detestation of thy sin as thine acquainâ—tance with it hath been more hast thou taken this occasion to lay better hold on thy Saviour and to reinforce the vows of thy more careful and strict obedience Be of good chear this unpurposed reiteration of thy sin shall be no prejudice to thy salvation It is one thing for a man to walk on willingly in a beaten path of sin another thing for a man to be justled out of the way of righteousness by the violence of a temptation which he soon recovers again by a sound repentance The best cannot but be overtaken with sin but he that is born of God doth not commit sin he may be transported whither he meant not but he makes not a trade of doing ill his heart is against that which his hand is drawn unto and if in this inward strife he be over-powered he lies not down in a willing yeeldance but struggles up again and in a resumed courage and indignation tramples on that which formerly supplanted him Didst thou give thy self over to a resolved course of sinning and betwixt whiles shouldst knock thy brest with a formal God forgive me I should have no comfort in store for thee but send thee rather to the Whipping-stock of the Almighty for due correction if possibly those seasonable stripes may prevent thine everlasting torments But now since what thou hatest that thou doest and thou doest that which thou wouldst not and it is no more thâ—u that doest it but sin that dwells in thee cry out as much as thou wilt on the sinfulness of thy sin bewail thy weakness with a better man then thy self O wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from the body of this death But know that thou hast found mercy with thy God thy repeated sin may grieve but cannot hurt thy soul. Had we to do with a finite compassion it might be abated by spending it self upon a frequent remission like as some great river may be drawn dry by many small out-lets But now that we deal with a God whose mercy is as himself infinite it is not the greatness or the number of our offences that can make a difference in his free remissions That God who hath charged our weak charity not to be overcome with evil but to overcome evil with good justly scorneth that we should think his infinite and incomprehensible goodness can be checked with our evil It was not without a singular providence that Peter came to our Saviour with that question in his mouth Lord how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him till seven times that it might fetch from that blessed Son of God that gracious answer for our perpetual direction and comfort I say not unto thee Until seven times but until seventy times seven Lord if thou wouldst have us sinful men thus indulgent to one another in the case of our mutual offences what limits can be set to thy mercies in our sins against thee Be we penitent thou canst not but be gracious Comforts against weakness of grace §. 1. Comfort from the common condition of all Saints THou complainest of the weakness of grace some little stirrings thou feelest of Gods Spirit within thee but so feeble that thou canst not finde any solid comfort in them Thou seest others thou sayst whose brests are full of milk and their bones moistned with marrow whiles thou languishest under a spiritual leanness and imbecillity Thou wantest that vigorous heat of holy affections and that alacrity in the performance of holy duties which thou observest in other Christians I love this complaint of thine my son and tell thee that without this thou couldst not be in the way of being happie Thinkst thou that those whom thou esteemest more eminent in grace make not the same moan that thou dost Certainly they never had any grace if they did not complain to have too little Every man best feels his own wants and is ready to pass secret censures upon himself for that wherein he is applauded by others Even the man after Gods own heart can say But I am poor and sorrowful He was a great King when he said so it was not meanness in outward estate that troubled him but a spiritual neediness for he had before in the same heavenly Ditty professed O God thou knowest my foolishnesse and my guiltinesse is not hid from thee It was an old observation of wise Solomon There is that maketh himselfe rich and hath nothing there is that maketh himselfe poore yet hath great riches In this latter rank are many gracious soules and thine I hope for one who certainly had never been so wealthy in grace if they had been conceited of greater store Even in this sense many a Saint may say with Saint Paul When I am weak then I am strong Since the very complaint of weaknesse argues strength and on the contrary an opinion of sufficient grace is an evident conviction of meere emptinesse §. 2. Comfort from the improvement of weak graces and Gods free distribution But suppose thy selfe so poor as thou pretendest It is not so much what we have as how we improve it How many have we known that have grown rich out of a little whereas others out of a great stock have run into debt and beggery Had that servant in the Gospel who received but one talent imployed it to the gain of a second he had been proportionably as well rewarded as he that with five gained ten In our temporall estate we are warned by the wisest man
turn his blessing into a curse Yea the same God who best knows the price of his own favours as he makes no small estimation of age himself so he hath thought fit to call for an high respect to be given to it by men out of an holy awe to himself Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head and honour the face of the old man and fear thy God I am the Lord. Hence it is that he hath pleased to put together the Ancient and the Honourable and hath told us that an hoary head is a crown of glory if it be found in a way of righteousness And lastly makes it an argument of the deplored estate of Jerusalem that they favoured not the Elders As therefore we too sensibly feel what to complain of so we well know what priviledges we may challenge as due to our age even such as nature it self hath taught those heathens which have been in the next degree to savage If pride and skill have made the Athenians uncivill yet a yong Lacedemonian will rise up and yeeld his place in the Theatre to neglected age §. 3. The advantages of old age 1. Fearlesnesse It is not a little injurious so to fasten our eyes upon the discommodities of any condition as not to take in the advantages that belong to it which carefully laid together may perhaps sway the balance to an equall poise Let it be true that old age is oppressed with many bodily griefes but what if it yeeld other immunities which may keep the scales even whereof it is not the least that it gives us firm resolution and bold security against dangers and death it selfe For the old man knowes how little of his clew is left in the winding and therefore when just occasion is offered sticks not much upon so inconsiderable a remainder Old age and orbity as Cesellius professed were those two things that emboldened him And when Castritius refused to deliver the hostages of Placentia to Carbo the Consul and was threatned with many swords hee answered those menaces with his many yeares And that wee may not disdain home-bred instances and may see that brave spirits may lodge in cottages In my time a plain Villager in the Rude Peake when theeves taking advantage of the absence of his family breaking into his solitary dwelling and finding him sitting alone by his fire side fell violently upon him and one of them setting his dagger to his heart swore that he would presently kill him if he did not instantly deliver to them that money which they knew he had lately received the old man looks boldly in the face of that stout Villain and with an undaunted courage returnes him this answer in his Peakish Dialect Nay even put fro thee sonne I have lived long enough but I tell thee unlesse thou mend thy manners thou wilt never live to see halfe my daies put fro thee if thou wilt What young man would have been so easily induced to part with his life and have been so ready to give entertainment to an unexpected death Surely the hope and love of life commonly softens the spirits of vigorous youth and disswades it from those enterprises which are attended with manifest perill whereas extream age teacheth us to contemn dangers §. 4. The second advantage of old age Freedome from passions Yet a greater priviledge of age is a freedome from those impetuous passions wherewith youth is commonly over-swayed for together with our naturall heat is also abated the heat of our inordinate lusts so as now our weaker appetite may easily be subdued to reason The temperate old man in the Story when one shewed him a beautifull face could answer I have long since left to be eyesick And that other could say of pleasure I have gladly with drawn my self from the service of that imperious mistresse What an unreasonable vassalage our youthfull lusts subject us unto we need no other instance then in the strongest and wisest man How was the strongest man Sampson effeminated by his impotent passion and weakned in his intellectuals so far as wilfully to betray his own life to a mercenary Harlot and to endure to hear her say Tell mee wherewith thou mayest be bouud to doe thee hurt How easily might he have answered thee O Delila Even with these cords of brutish sensuality wherewith thou hast already bound me to the losse of my liberty mine eyes my life How was the wisest man Solomon besotted with his strange Wives so as to be drawn away to the worship of strange gods And how may the firre trees howle when the Cedars fall who can hope to be free from being transported with irregular affections when wee see such great precedents of frailty before our eyes From the danger of these miserable miscarriages our age happily secures us putting us into that quiet harbour whence we may see young men perillously tossed with those tempests of unruly passions from which our cooler age hath freed us §. 5. The third advantage of age experimentall knowledge Adde hereunto the benefit of experimentall knowledge wherewith age is wont to enrich us every dram whereof is worth many pounds of the best youthly contentments in comparison whereof the speculative knowledge is weak and imperfect this may come good cheap perhaps costs us nothing that commonly we pay deare for and therefore is justly esteemed the more precious If experience be the mistresse of fools I am sure it is the mother of wisedome neither can it be except we be too much wanting to our selves but the long observation of such variety of actions and events as meet with us in the whole course of our life must needs leave with us such sure rules of judgement as may be unfailing directions for our selves and others In vain shall this be expected from our younger yeares which the wise Philosopher excludes from being meet Auditors much lesse Judges of true morality In regard whereof well might the old man say Yee young men think us old men fooles but we old men know you young men to be fooles Certainly what value soever ignorance may put upon it this fruit of age is such as that the earth hath nothing equally precious It was a profane word and fit for the mouth of an Heathen Poet That Prudence is above Destiny But surely a Christian may modestly and justly say That next to Divine Providence Humane Prudence may challenge the supreme place in the administration of these earthly affairs and that Age may claim the greatest interest in that Prudence Young Elihu could say Multitude of yeers should teach wisdom And the wise man Oh how comely a thing is judgement for gray hairs and for ancient men to know counsel Oh how comely is the wisdom of old men and understanding and counsel to men of honour In regard whereof the Grecians had wont to say that young men are for Action old men for Advice And among the Romans we
in the mean time entertain him let him be sure to be thy daily guest Thus the blessed Apostle I protest by our rejoycing which I have in Christ Jesus I die daily Bid him to thy board lodge him in thy bed talk with him in thy closet walk with him in thy garden as Joseph of Arimathea did and by no means suffer him to be a stranger to thy thoughts This familiarity shall bring thee to a delight in the company of him whom thou didst at first abhor so as thou shalt with the chosen vessel say I have a desire to depart and to be with Christ which is best of all § 3. The misapprehension of death injurious Thou art grievously afraid of death Is it not upon a mistaking Our fears are apt to imagine and to aggravate evils Even Christ himself walking upon the waters was by the Disciples trembled at as some dreadful apparition Perhaps my son thou lookest at death as some utter abolition or extinction of thy being and Nature must needs shrink back at the thought of not being at all This is a foul and dangerous misprision It is but a departing which thou callest a death See how God himself stiles it to the father of the faithful Thou shalt go to thy Fathers in peace thou shalt be buried in a good old-age And of his holy grand-childe Israel the Spirit of God says When Jacob had made an end of commanding his sons he gathered up his feet into the bed and yeelded up the ghost and was gathered unto his people Lo dying is no other then going to our Fathers and gathering to our people with whom we do and shall live in that other and better world and with whom we shall re-appear glorious Let but thy faith represent death to thee in this shape and he shall not appear so formidable Do but mark in what familiar terms it pleased God to confer with his servant Moses concerning his death Get thee up into this mountain Abarim unto mount Nebo which is in the land of Moab and behold the land of Canaan which I give unto the children of Israel for a possession And die in the mount whither thou go est up and be gathered to thy people as Aaron thy brother died in mount Hor and was gathered to his people Lo it is no more then Go up and die Should it have been but to go a days journey in the Wilderness to sacrifice it could have been no otherwise expressed oâ—â—s if it were all one to go up to Sinai to meet with God and to go up to Nebo and die Neither is it otherwise with us onely the difference is that Moses must first see the land of Promise and then die whereas we must first die and then see the promised Land § 4. Comfort from the common condition of men Thou art troubled with the fear of death What reason hast thou to be afflicted with that which is the common condition of mankinde Remember my son the words of Joshua the victorious Leader of Gods people Behold this day saith he I am going the way of all the earth If all the earth go this way couldst thou be so fond as to think there should be a by-path left for thee wherein thou mayst tread alone Were it so that Monarchs and Princes that Patriarchs Prophets Apostles were allowed any easier passage out of the world thou mightst perhaps finde some pretence of reason to repine at a painfull dissolution but now since all goe one way and as the wise Philosopher saies those which are unequall in their birth are in their deaths equal there can be no ground for a discontented murmure Grudge if thou wilt that thou art a man grudge not that being a man thou must die It is true that those whom the last day shall finde alive shall not die but they shall bee changed but this change of theirs shall be no other then an analogicall death wherein there shall be a speedy consumption of all our corrupt and drossie parts so as the pain must be so much the more intense by how much it is more short then in the ordinary course of death Briefly that change is a Death and our Death is a change as Job stiles it the difference is not in the pain but in the speed of the transaction Fear not then the sentence of death remember them that have been before thee and that come after for this is the sentence of the Lord over all flesh §. 6. Death not feared by some Thou fearest death So doe not infants children distracted persons as the Philosopher observes Why should use of reason render us more cowardly then defect of reason doth them Thou fearest that which some others wish O death how acceptable is thy sentence to the needy and to him whose strength faileth that is now in the last age and is vexed with all things and to him that despaireth and hath lost patience Wherefore is light given saith Iob to him that is in misery and life unto the bitter in soul which long for death but it commeth not and dig for it more then for hid treasures which rejoyce exceedingly and are glad when they can finde the grave How many are there that invite the violence of death and if hee refuse it doe as Ignatius threatned he would doe to the Lions force his assault Death is the same to all the difference is in the disposition of the entertainers Couldst thou look upon death with their eyes he should be as welcome to thee as he is unto them At the least why shouldst thou not labour to have thy heart so wrought upon that this face of death which seems lovely and desirable to some may not appear over-terrible to thee §. 6. Our death day better then our birth day Thou art afraid to die Couldst thou then have been capable of the use of reason thou wouldst have been more afraid of comming into the world then thou art now of going out for why should we be more afraid of the better then of the worse Better is the day of death then the day of ones birth saith the Preacher Eccles. 7. 2. Better every way Our birth begins our miseries our death ends them Our birth enters the best of men into a wretched world our death enters the good into a world of glory Certainly were it not for our infidelity as wee came crying into the world so wee should goe singing out of 〈◊〉 And if some have solemnized their birth-day with feasting and Triumph the Church of Old hath bestowed that name and cost upon the deaths-day of her Martyrs and Saints §. 7. The sting of death pulled out Thou abhorrest death and fleest from it as from a Serpent But doest thou know that his Sting is gone What harme can there be in a Sting-lesse Snake Hast thou not seen or heard of some delicate Dames that have
carried them thus corrected in their bosome for coolnesse and for the pleasure of their smoothnesse The sting of death is sinne Hee may hisse and winde about us but he cannot hurt us when that sting is pulled out Look up O thou beleeving soul to thy blessed Saviour who hath pluckt out this sting of death and happily triumphs over it both for himself and thee O death where is thy sting O grave where is thy victory §. 8. Death is but aparting to meet again Thy soul and body old companions are loth to part Why man it is but the forbearing their wonted society for a while they doe but take leave of each other till they meet againe in the day of Resurrection and in the mean time they are both safe and the better part happy It is commendable in the Jews otherwise the worst of men that they call their grave Beth Chajim the house of the living and when they return from the buriall of their neighbours they pluck up the grasse and cast it into the aire with those words of the Psalmist They shall flourish and put forth as the grasse upon the earth Did wee not beleeve a Resurrection of the one part and a re-uniting of the other wee had reason to be utterly daunted with the thought of a dissolution now wee have no cause to bee dismayed with a little intermission Is it an Heathen man or a Christian such I wish he had been whom I hear say The death which wee so fear and flee from doth but respite life for a while doth not take it away the day will come which shall restore us to the light again Settle thy soul my sonne in this assurance and thou canst not bee discomforted with a necessary parting § 9. Death is but a sleep Thou art afraid of death When thou art weary of thy dayes labour art thou afraid of rest Hear what thy Saviour who is the Lord of life esteems of death Iohn 11. 11. Our friend Lazarus sleepeth And of Jairus his daughter The maid is not dead but sleepeth Neither useth the Spirit of God any other language concerning his servants under the Old Testament Now shall I sleep in the dust saith holy Job And of David When thy days be fulfilled and thou shalt sleep with thy fathers Nor yet under the New For this cause many are weak and sickly among you and many sleep saith the Apostle Lo the Philosophers of old were wont to call sleep the brother of death but God says death is no other then sleep it self A sleep both sure and sweet When thou liest down at night to thy repose thou canst not be so certain to awake again in the morning as when thou layest thy self down in death thou art sure to wake in the morning of the Resurrection Out of this bodily sleep thou mayst be affrightedly startled with some noises of sudden horrour with some fearful dreams with tumults or alarms of War but here thou shalt rest quietly in the place of silence free from all inward and outward disturbances whiles in the mean time thy soul shall see none but visions of joy and blessedness But Oh the sweet and heavenly expression of our last rest and the issue of our happie resuscitation which our gracious Apostle hath laid forth for the consolation of his mournful Thessalonions For if we believe saith he that Jesus died and rose again even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him Lo our belief is antidote enough against the worst of death And why are we troubled with death when we believe that Jesus died And what a triumph is this over death that the same Jesus who died rose again And what a comfort it is that the same Jesus who arose shall both come again and bring all his with him in glory And lastly what a strong Cordial is this to all good hearts that all those which die well do sleep in Jesus Thou thoughtst perhaps of sleeping in the bed of the grave and there indeed is rest but he tells thee of sleeping in the bosome of Jesus and there is immortality and blessedness Oh blessed Jesu in thy presence is the fulness of joy and at thy right hand are pleasures for evermore Who would desire to walk in the world when he may sleep with Jesus § 10. Death sweetned to us by Christ. Thou fearest death It is much on what terms and in what form death presents himself to thee If as an enemy as that is somewhere his style the last enemy death thy unpreparation shall make him dreadful thy readiness and fortitude shall take off his terrour If as a messenger of God to fetch thee to happiness what reason hast thou to be afraid of thine own bliss It is one thing what death is in himself a privation of life as such Nature cannot chuse but abhor him Another thing what he is by Christ made unto us an introduction to life an harbinger to glory Why would the Lord of Life have yeelded unto death and by yeelding vanquisht him but that he might alter and sweeten Death to us and of a fierce Tyrant make him a Friend and Benefactor And if we look upon him thus changed thus reconciled how can we chuse but bid him welcome § 11. The painfulness of Christs â—eath Thou art afraid of the pangs of death There are those that have died without any great sense of pain some we have known to have yeelded up their souls without so much as a groan And how knowest thou my son what measure God hath allotted to thee Our death is a Sea-voyage so the Apostle I desire to lanch forth wherein some finde a rough and tempestuous passage others calm and smoothe such thine may prove so as thy dissolution may be more easie then a fit of thy sickness But if thy God have determined otherwise Look unto Jesus the Authour and Finisher of our faith the Son of God the Lord of glory see with what agonies he conflicted what torments he endured in his death for thee Look upon his bloody sweat his bleeding temples his furrowed back his nailed hands and feet his racked joynts his pierced side Hear his strong cries consider the shame the pain the câ—rse of the Cross which he underwent for thy sake Say whether thy sufferings can be comparable to his He is a cowardly and unworthy Souldier that follows his General sighing Lo these are the steps wherein thy God and Saviour hath trod before thee Walk on courageously in this deep and bloody way after a few paces thou shalt overtake him in glory For if we suffer with him we shall also reign together with him §. 12. The vanity and miseries of life Thou shrinkest at the thought of death Is it not for that thou hast over-valued life and made thy home on earth Delicate persons that have pampered themselves at home are loth to stir abâ—â—ad especially