again even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him Can the Head live and the body or members remain Dead Oh write those sweet words upon thy heart Christian Because I Live Ye shall Live also As sure as Christ lives we shall live And as sure as he is risen we shall rise Else the Dead perish Else what is our Hope what advantageth all our duty or suffering Else the sensual Epicure were one of the wisest men and what better are we then our beasts Surely our knowledg more then theirs would but encrease our sorrows and our dominion over them is no great felicity The Servant hath oft-times a better life then his Master because he hath few of his Masters Cares And our dead Carcasses are no more comely nor yeeld a sweeter savour then theirs But we have a sure ground of Hope And besides this Life we have a Life that 's hid with Christ in God and when Christ who is our Life shall appear then shall we also appear with him in Glory Col. 3.3 4. Oh let not us be as the purblinde world that cannot see afar off Let us never look at the Grave but let us see the Resurrection beyond it Faith is quick-sighted and can see as far as that is yea as far as Eternity Therefore let our hearts be glad and our Glory rejoyce and our flesh also shall rest in hope for he will not leave us in the Grave nor suffer us still to see Corruption Yea therefore let us be stedfast unmoveable always abounding in the work of the Lord for as much as we know our Labor is not in vain in the Lord 1 Cor. 15.58 It 's a Question much debated Whether a Resurrection be onely an effect of Christs Death and Resurrection And whether there should have been any Resurrection if Christ had not come Some that maintain the Negative of the last Question do also maintain That the Sin under the Covenant of Nature or Works did deserve onely the separation of Soul and Body and not Eternal Torments Whence also follows that the Soul is or at least then was Mortal or that it hath no Being or no Sense when it 's separated from the Body As also that Christ dyed to Redeem us onely from the Grave and not from Hell And so their Doctrine of Universal Redemption in this sence asserted doth neither so much honor the merits of Christ nor advance his mercy as they pretend For it maketh him to raise us onely from the Grave and bring all the world into a Capacity of Eternal Torment He fore-knowing the same time that most would certainly reject him and so perish But as I confess these of weight and difficulty so having professed in this Discourse to handle matters less controverted I pretermit them This sufficeth to the Saints Comfort That Resurrection to Glory is onely the fruit of Christs Death and this fruit they shall certainly partake of The Promise is sure All that are in the Graves shall hear his voyce and come forth Joh. 5.28 And this is the Fathers will which hath sent Christ that of all which he hath given him he should lose nothing but should Raise it up at the last Day Joh. 6.39 And that every one that beleeveth on the Son may have Everlasting Life and he will raise him up at the last Day Vers. 40. If the prayers of the Prophet could raise the Shunamites Dead Childe and if the dead Souldier revive at the touch of the Prophets bones How certainly shall the will of Christ and the power of his death raise us That voyce that said to Jairus Daughter Arise and to Lazarus Arise and come forth can do the like for us If his death immediately raised the dead bodies of many Saints in Jerusalem If he gave power to his Apostles to raise the Dead Then what doubt of our Resurrection And thus Christian thou seest that Christ having sanctified the Grave by his burial and conquered Death and broke the Ice for us a dead Body and a Grave is not now so horrid a spectacle to a beleeving Eye But as our Lord was neerest his Resurrection and Glory when he was in the Grave even so are we And he that hath promised to make our bed in sickness will make the dust as a bed of Roses Death shall not dissolve the Union betwixt him and us nor turn away his affections from us But in the morning of Eternity he will send his Angels yea come himself and roll away the stone and unseal our Graves and reach us his hand and deliver us alive to our Father Why then doth the approach of Death so cast thee down O my Soul and why art thou thus disquieted within me The Grave is not Hell if it were yet there is thy Lord present and thence should his Merit and Mercy fetch thee out Thy sickness is not unto death though I dye but for the Glory of God that the Son of God may be glorified thereby Say not then He lifteth me up to cast me down and hath raised me high that my fall may be the Lower But he casts me down that he may lift me up and layeth me low that I may rise the higher An hundred experiences have sealed this Truth unto thee That the greatest dejections are intended but for advantages to thy greatest dignity and thy Redeemers Glory SECT III. THe third part of this Prologue to the Saints Rest is the publick and solemn process at their Judgment where they shall first themselves be acquit and justified and then with Christ judg the World Publick I may well call it for all the world must there appear Young and old of all estates and Nations that ever were from the Creation to that day must here come and receive their doom The judgment shal be set and the books opened the book of Life produced and the Dead shall be judged out of those things which were written in the books according to their works and whosoever is not found written in the book of Life is cast into the lake of fire O Terrible O Joyful Day Terrible to those that have let their Lamps go out and have not watched but forgot the coming of their Lord Joyful to the Saints whose waiting and hope was to see this day Then shall the world behold the goodness and severity of the Lord on them who perish severity but to his chosen goodness When every one must give account of his stewardship And every Talent of Time Health Wit Mercies Afflictions Means Warnings must be reckoned for When the sins of youth and those which they had forgotten and their secret sins shall all be layd open before Angels and men When they shall see all their Friends wealth old delights all their confidence and false hopes of Heaven to forsake them When they shall see the Lord Jesus whom they neglected whose Word
more probable Arguments then our Baptism and common Profession and name of Christians they will stifly deny that ever they neglected Christ in hunger nakedness prison c. and if they did yet that is less then stripping imprisoning banishing or killing Christ in his Members till Christ confute them with the sentence of their condemnation Though the heart of their hopes will be broken at their death and particular Judgment yet it seems they would fain plead for some hope at the general Judgment But O the sad state of these men when they must bid farewell to all their Hopes when their Hopes shall all perish with them Reader if thou wilt not believe this it is because thou wilt not believe the Scriptures The holy Ghost hath spoke it as plain as can be spoken Prov. 11.7 When a wicked man dieth his expectation shall perish and the hope of unjust men perisheth Prov. 10.28 The hope of the righteous shall be gladness but the expectation of the wicked shall perish See Isai. 28.15 18. Job 27.8 9. For what is the hope of the Hypocrite though he hath gained when God taketh away his soul Will God hear his cry when trouble cometh upon him Job 8.12 13 14. Can the Rush grow up without mire Can the Flag grow without water whilst it is yet in its greeness not cut down it withereth before any other herb So are the paths of all that forget God and the Hypocrites hope shall perish whose hope shall be cut off and whose trust shall be a Spiders Web He shall leane upon his house but it shall not stand he shall hold it fast but it shall not endure Job 11.20 But the eyes of the wicked shall fail and they shall not escape and their hope shall be as the giving up of the Ghost The giving up of the Ghost is a fit but terrible resemblance of a wicked mans giving up of his hopes For first As the soul departeth not from the body without the greatest terror and pain so also doth the hope of the wicked depart O the direful gripes and pangs of horror that seize upon the soul of the sinner at Death and Judgment when he is parting with all his former hopes Secondly The soul departeth from the body suddenly in a moment which hath there delightfully continued so many years Just so doth the hope of the wicked depart Thirdly The soul which then departeth will never return to live with the body in this world any more and the hope of the wicked when it departeth taketh an everlasting Farewel of his soul. A miracle of Resurrection shall again conjoyn the soul and body but there shall be no such miraculous Resurrection of the damned's hope Me thinks it is the most doleful Spectacle that this world affords to see such an ungodly person dying and to think of his soul and his hopes departing together and with what a sad change he presently appeares in another world Then if a man could but speak with that hopeless soul and ask it what are you now as confident of salvation as you were wont to be Do you now hope to be saved as soon as the most godly O what a sad answer would he return They are just like Corah Dathan and their Companions while they are confident in their Rebellion against the Lord and cry out Are not all the people holy They are suddenly swallowed up and their hopes with them Or like Ahah who hating and imprisoning the Prophet for foretelling his danger while he is in confident hopes to return in peace is suddenly smitten with that mortal Arrow which let out those hopes together with his soul Or like a Thief upon the Gallows who hath a strong conceit that he shall receive a Pardon and so hopes and hopes till the Ladder is turned Or like the unbelieving sinners of the world before the Flood who would not believe the threatnings of Noah but perhaps deride him for preparing his Ark so many years together when no danger appeared till suddenly the Flood came and swept them all away If a man had asked these men when they were climbing up into the tops of Trees and Mountains VVhere is now your hope of escaping Or your merry deriding at the painful preventing preparations of godly Noah Or your contemptuous unbelief of the warnings of God What do you think these men would then say when the waters still pursued them from place to place till it devoured their hopes and them together Or if one had asked Ahab when he had received his wound and turned out of the battel to die what think you now of the Prophesie of Micaiah will you release him out of prison do you now hope to return in peace Why such a sudden overthrow of their hopes will every unregenerate sinner receive While they were upon earth they frustrated the expectations as I may say of God and man God sent his messengers to tell them plainly of their danger and said It may be they will hear and return and escape but they stiffened their necks and hardened their hearts The Minister studied and instructed and perswaded in hope And when one Sermon prevailed not he laboured to speak more plainly and piercingly in the next in hope that at last they would be perswaded and return till their hopes were frustrate and their labor lost and they were fain to turn their exhortation to lamentation and to sit down in sorrow for mens wilful misery and take up the sad exclamation of the Prophet Isai. 53.1 Who hath believed our report And to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed So did godly parents also instruct their children in Hope and watch over them and pray for them hoping that at last their hearts would turn to Christ. And is it not meet that God should frustrate all their hopes who have frustrated the hopes of all that desired their welfare O that careless sinners would be awaked to think of this in time If thou be one of them who art reading these lines I do here as a friend advise thee from the word of the Lord that as thou wouldst not have all thy Hopes deceive thee when thou hast most need of them thou presently try them whether they will prove currant at the touchstone of the Scripture and if thou finde them unsound let them go what sorrow soever it cost thee Rest not till thou canst give a reason of all thy hopes till thou canst prove that they are the hopes which grace and not nature only hath wrought that they are grounded upon Scripture-promises and sound evidences that they purifie thy heart that they quicken and not cool thy endeavours in godliness that the more thou hopest the lesse thou sinnest and the more painful thou art in following on the work and not grow more loose and careless by the increasing of thy hopes that they make thee set lighter by all things on earth because thou hast such hopes of higher
dayly expectations of renewed help or of growing insensible of the necessity of the continual influence and assistance of the Spirit When you once begin to trust to your stock of habituall Grace and to depend on your own understanding or resolution for duty and holy walking You are then in a dangerous declining State In every duty remember Christs words Joh. 15.5 Without me ye can do nothing And 2 Cor. 3.5 Not that we are sufficient of our selves to think any thing as of our selves but our sufficiency is of God SECT VII 7. HEre is supposed An Internal principle of life in the person God moves not man like a stone but by enduing him first with life not to enable him to move without God but thereby to qualifie him to move himself in subordination to God the first mover What the nature of this spiritual life is is a Question exceeding difficult Whether as some think but as I judg erroniously it be Christ himself in Person or Essence or the holy Ghost personally Or as some will distinguish with what sence I know not it is the person of the holy Ghost but not personally Whether it be an Accident or Quality or whether it be a spiritual substance as the soul it self Whether it be only an Act or a disposition or a habit as it s generally taken Whether a habit infused or acquired by frequent Acts to which the soul hath been morally perswaded or whether it be somewhat lower then a habit i. e. A power viz. potentia proxima intelligendi credendi volendi c. in spiritualibus Which some think the most probable and that it was such a power that Adam lost and that the natural man as experience tells us is still devoyd of Whether such a power can be conceived which is not Reason it self and whether Reason be not the Soul it self and so we should make the soul diminished and encreased as bodies Whether spirits have Accidents as corporal substances have A multitude of such difficulties occur which will be difficulties while the Doctrine of Spirits and Spirituals is so dark to us and that will be while the dust of mortality and corruption is in our eyes This is my comfort that death will shortly blow out this dust and then I shall be resolved of these and many more In the mean time I am a Sceptick and know little in this whole doctrine of spirits and spiritual workings further then Scripture clearly revealeth SECT VIII 8. HEre is presupposed before Rest an Actual Motion Rest is the end of Motion No Motion no Rest. Christianity is not a sedentary profession and employment Nor doth it consist in meer Negatives It is for not feeding not clothing c. that Christ condemns Not doing good is not the least evil sitting still will lose you Heaven as well as if you run from it It 's a great Question Whether the elicit Acts of the Will are by Motion or by subitaneous mutation But it s a Logomachy SECT IX 9. HEre is presupposed also as motion so such motion as is rightly ordered and directed toward the end Not all motion labour seeking that brings to Rest. Every way leads not to this end But he whose goodness hath appointed the end hath in his wisdom and by his soveraign authority appointed the way Our own invented ways may seem to us more wise comly equal pleasant but that is the best Key that will open the Lock which none but that of Gods appointing will do Oh the pains that sinners take and wordlings take but not for this Rest Oh the pains and cost that many an ignorant and superstitious soul is at for this Rest but all in vain How many have a zeal of God but not according to knowledg Who being ignorant of Gods Righteousness and going about to establish their own Righteousness have not submitted themselves to the Righteousness of God Nor known That Christ is the end of the Law for Righteousness to every one that believeth Rom. 10.2 3 4. Christ is the door the only way to this Rest. Some will allow nothing else to be called the way lest it Derogate from Christ The truth is Christ is the only Way to the Father Yet faith is the way to Christ and Gospel Obedience or Faith and Works the way for those to walk in that are in Christ. There be as before many ways requisite in Subordination to Christ but none in Co-ordination with him So then it 's only Gods way that will lead to this end and Rest. SECT X. 10. THere is supposed also as motion rightly ordered so strong and constant motion which may reach the end If there be not strength put to the bow the Arrow will not reach the mark The Lazy world that think all too much will find this to their cost one day They that think less ado might have served do but reproach Christ for making us so much to do They that have been most holy watchful painful to get faith and assurance do find when they come to dye all too little We see dayly the best Christians when dying Repent their Negligence I never knew any then repent his holiness and diligence It would grieve a mans soul to see a multitude of mistaken sinners lay out their wit and care and pains for a thing of nought and think to have eternal Salvation with a wish If the way to Heaven be not far harder then the world imagines then Christ and his Apostles knew not the way or else have deceived us For they have told us That the Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence That the gate is strait and the way narrow and we must strive if we will enter for many shall seek to enter and not be able which implies the faintness of their seeking and that they put not strength to the work and that the righteous themselves are scarcely saved If ever Soul obtain Salvation in the worlds common careless easie way then I 'l say there is a nearer way found out then ever God in Scripture hath revealed to the sons of men But when they have obtained Life and Rest in this way let them boast of it till then let them give us leave who would fain go upon sure grounds in point of eternal Salvation to beleeve that God knows the way better then they and that his Word is a true and infallible discovery thereof I have seen this Doctrine also thrown by with contempt by others who say What do you set us a working for heaven Doth our duty do any thing Hath not Christ done all Is not this to make him a half Saviour and to preach Law Ans. It is to preach the Law of Christ his Subjects are not Lawless It is to preach Duty to Christ No more exact requirer of duty or hater of sin then Christ. Christ hath done and will do all his work and therefore is a perfect Saviour but yet leaves for us a
this is a lower excellency then Scripture was intended to And thus I have done with this weighty Subject That the Scripture which contains the Promises of our Rest is the certain infallible VVord of God The reason why I have thus digressed and said so much of it is because I was very apprehensive of the great necessity of it and the common neglect of being grounded in it and withall that this is the very heart of my whole Discourse and that if this be doubted of all the rest that I have said will be in vain If men doubt of the Truth they will not regard the goodness And the reason why I have said no more but passed over the most common Arguments is because they are handled in many books already which I advise Christians to be better versed in To the meer English Reader I commend especially these Sir Phil. Mornay Lord du Plessis his Verity of Christian Religion Parsons Book of Resolution Corrected by Bunny the Second Part. Dr. Jackson on the Creed and come forth since I begun this Mr. White of Dorchester Directions for Reading Scripture Mr. John Goodwins Divine Authority of Scripture asserted though some of his Positions I judg unsound yet the Work for the main is commendable Also Read a Book Called A Treatise of Divinity first Part. Written by our honest and faithful Countryman Colonel Edward Leigh a now Member of the House of Commons Also Vrsins Catachism on this Question and Balls Catachism with the Exposition which to those that cannot read larger Treatises is very usefull For the Question How it may be known which books be Canonical I here meddle not with it I think Humane Testimony with the forementioned qualifications must do most in determining that As I begun so I conclude this with an earnest request to Ministers that they would Preach and People that they would study this subject more throughly that their Faith and Obedience may live and flourish while they can prove the Scripture to be the Word of God which contains the Promise of their Everlasting Rest. CHAP. VIII Rest for none but the people of God proved SECT I. IT may here be expected that as I have proved That this Rest remaineth for the people of God so I should now prove that it remaineth onely for them and that the rest of the world shall have no part in it But the Scripture is so full and plain in this that I suppose it needless to those who believe Scripture Christ hath resolved that those who make light of him and the offers of his Grace shall never taste of his Supper And that without holiness none shall see God And that except a man be regenerate and born again he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God That he that believes not shall not see life but the wrath of God abideth on him That no unclean person nor covetous nor railer nor drunkard c. shall enter into the Kingdom of Christ and of God Ephes. 5.4 5. That the wicked shall be turned into hell and all they that forget God That all they shall be damned that obey not the Truth but have pleasure in unrighteousness 2 Thes. 2.12 That Christ will come in flaming fire to take vengeance on them that know not God and obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power And Christ himself hath opened the very maner of their process in judgment and the sentence of their condemnation to eternal fire prepared for the devil and his Angels Matth. 25. So that here is no Rest for any but the people of God except you will call the intollerable everlasting flames of Hell a Rest. And it were easie to manifest this also by Reason For first Gods Justice requires an inequality of mens state hereafter as there was of their lives here And secondly They that walk not in the way of Rest and use not the means are never like to obtain the End They would not follow Christ in the Regeneration nor accept of Rest upon his conditions they thought him to be too hard a Master and his way too narrow and his Laws too strict They chose the pleasures of sin for a season rather then to suffer affliction with the people of God They would not suffer with Christ that so they might raign with him What they made choise of that they did injoy They had their good things in this life and what they did refuse it is but reason they should want How oft would Christ have gathered them to him and they would not And he useth to make men willing before he save them and not to save them against their wils Therefore will the mouths of the wicked be stopped for ever and all the world shall acknowledg the Justice of God Had the ungodly but returned before their life was expired and been heartily willing to accept of Christ for their Saviour and their King and to be saved by him in his way and upon his most reasonable tearms they might have been saved Object But may not God be better then his Word and save those that he doth not promise to save Answ. But not false of his word in saving those whom he hath said he will not save Mens souls are in a doleful case when they have no hope of Happiness except the Word of God prove false To venture a mans eternal salvation upon Hope that God will be better then his word that is in plain English that the God of Truth will prove a lyer is somewhat beyond stark madness which hath no name bad enough to express it Yet I do believe that the description of Gods people in England and in America must not be the same because as Gods Revelations are not the same so neither is the actual Faith which is required in both the same and as the Written and Positive Laws in the Church were never given them so obedience to those meer Positives is not required of them Whether then the threats against unbelievers be meant of Unbelief privative and positive only and not negative such as is all non-believing that which was never revealed Or whether their believing that God is and that he is a Rewarder of them that seek him will serve the turn there Or whether God hath no people there I acknowledg again is yet past my understanding CHAP. IX Whether the Souls departed enjoy this Rest SECT I. I Have but one thing more to clear before I come to the Use of this doctrine And that is Whether this Rest remain till the resurrection before we shall enjoy it Or whether we shall have any possession of it before The Socinians and many others of late among us think that the soul separated from the body is either nothing or at least not capable of happiness or misery Truly if it
who were wilfully the meritorious cause should also be the efficient in their own sufferings and then who can they complain of but themselves and they will be no more able to cease their self-tormenting then men that we see in a deep Melancholy that will by no Arguments be taken off from their sorrows SECT VI. 6. COnsider also how that their torment will be universal not upon one part alone while the rest are free but as all have joyned in the sin so must they all partake of the torment The soul as it was the chief in sinning shall be chief in suffering and as it is of a more spiritual and excellent nature then bodies are so will its torments as far exceed our present bodily sufferings As the joys of the soul do far surpass all sensual pleasures and corporal contentments so do the pains of the soul surpass these corporal pains and as the Martyrs did triumph in the very flames because their souls were ful of joy though their bodies were in pain so though these damned creatures could enjoy all their bodily pleasures yet the souls sufferings would take away the sweetness of them all And it is not onely a soul but a sinful soul that must suffer The guilt which still remains upon it will make it fit for the wrath of God to work upon as fire will not burn except the fuel be combustible but if the wood be dry or it light upon Straw how fiercely will it burn them Why the guilt of all their former sins will be as Tinder or Gunpowder to the damned soul to make the flames of hell to take hold upon them with fury And as the soul so also the body must bear its part that body that must needs be pleased whatsoever became of its eternal safety shall new be paid for all its unlawful pleasures That body which was so carefully looked to so tenderly cherished so curiously drest that body which could not endure heat or cold or an ill smell or a loathsome sight O what must it now endure How are its haughty looks now taken down How little will those flames regard its comliness and beauty But as Death did not regard it nor the Worms regard it but as freely feed upon the face of the proud and lustful Dames and the heart of the most ambitious Lords or Princes as if they had bin but beggers or bruits so wil their tormentors then as little pitty their tenderness or reverence their Lordliness when they shall be raised from their graves to their eternal doom Those eyes which were wont to be delighted with curious sights and to feed themselves upon beauteous and comely objects must then see nothing but vvhat shall amaze and terrifie them an angry sin-revenging God above them and those Saints vvhom they scorned enjoying the Glory vvhich they have lost and about them vvill be only Devils and damned souls Ah then how sadly wil they look back and say Are all our merry Meetings our Feasts our Playes our vvanton Toyes our Christmas Games and Revels come to this Then those Eares vvhich vvere vvont to be delighted vvith Musick shall hear the shriekes and cries of their damned companions Children crying out against their Parents that gave them incouragement and example in evil but did not teach them the fear of the Lord Husbands crying out upon their Wives and Wives upon their Husbands Masters and Servants cursing each other Ministers and People Magistrates and Subjects charging their misery upon one another for discouraging in Duty conniving at sin and being silent or formal when they should have plainly told one another of their misery and forewarned them of this danger Thus will Soul and Body be companions in Calamity SECT VII 7. ANd the greater by far will their Torments be because they shall have no one comfort left to help to mitigate them In this life when a Minister foretold them of Hel or Conscience begun to trouble their peace they had Comforters enough at hand to relieve them Their carnal friends were all ready to speak comfort to them and promise them that all should be well with them but now they have not a word of comfort either for him or themselves Formerly they had their business their company their mirth to drive away their fears they could drink away their sorrows or play them away or sleep them away or at least time did wear them away but now all these remedies are vanished They had a hard a presumptuous unbelieving heart which was a wall to defend them against troubles of minde but now their experience hath banished these and left them naked to the fury of those flames Yea formerly Satan himself was their comforter and would unsay all that the Minister said against them as he did to our first Mother Hath God said Ye shall not eat Yea shall not surely dye So doth he now Doth God tell you that you shall lye in Hell It is no such matter God is more merciful he doth but tell you so to fright you from sinning Who would lose his present pleasures for fear of that which he never saw Or if there be a hell what need you to fear it Are not you Christians And shall you not be saved by Christ was not his blood shed for you Ministers may tell you what they please they delight to fear men that they may be masters in their Consciences and therefore would make men believe that they shall all be damned except they will fit themselves to their precise humor Thus as the Spirit of Christ is the Comforter of the Saints so Satan is the Comforter of the wicked for he knows if he should now disquiet them they would no longer serve him or if fears and doubts should begin to trouble them they would bethink themselves of their danger and so escape it never was a theif more careful lest he should awake the people when he is robbing the house then Satan is careful not to awake a sinner And as a cutpurse will look you in the face and hold you in a tale that you may never suspect him while he is robbing your pockets so will Satan labour to keep men from all doubts or jealousies or sorrowfull thoughts But when the sinner is dead and he hath his prey and his stratagem hath had success then he hath done flattering and comforting them VVhile the sight of sin and misery might have helped to save them he took all the pains he could to hide it from their eyes but when it is too late and there is no hope left he will make them see and feel it to the utmost O which way will the forlorn sinner then look for comfort They that drew him into the snare and promised him safety do now forsake him and are forsaken themselves His ancient comforts are taken from him and the righteous God whose forewarnings he made light of will now make good his word against him to the least
hath made this reconciliation Surely not the great Reconciler He hath told us in the world we shall have trouble and in him onely we shall have peace VVe may reconcile our selves to the world at our peril but it will never reconcile it self to us O foolish unworthy soul who hadst rather dwell in this land of darkness and rather wander in this barren wilderness then be at rest with Jesus Christ who hadst rather stay among the VVolves and daily suffer the Scorpions stings then to praise the Lord with the Hosts of Heaven If thou didst well know what Heaven is and what Earth is it would not be so SECT VI. 5. THis unwillingness to dye doth actually impeach us of high Treason against the Lord Is it not a chusing of Earth before him and taking these present things for our happiness and consequently making them our very God If we did indeed make God our God that is our End our Rest our Portion our Treasure how is it possible but we should desire to enjoy him It behoves us the rather to be fearful of this it being utterly inconsistent with saving Grace to value any thing before God or to make the Creature our highest End Many other sins foul and great may possibly yet consist with sincerity but so I am certain cannot that But concerning this I have spoke before SECT VII 6. ANd all these defects being thus discovered what a deal of dissembling doth it more over shew We take on us to believe undoubtedly the exceeding eternal weight of Glory We call God our chiefest Good and say we love Him above all and for all this we fly from Him as if it were from Hell it self would you have any man believe you when you call the Lord your onely Hope and speak of Christ as All in All and talk of the Joy that is in Presence and yet would endure the hardest life rather then dye and come unto him What self-contradiction is this to talk so hardly of the world and flesh to groan and complain of sin and suffering and yet fear no day more then that which we expect should bring our finall freedom what shameless gross dissembling is this to spend so many hours and dayes in hearing Sermons reading Books conferring with others and all to learn the way to a place which we are loth to come to To take on us all our life-time to walk towards Heaven to run to strive to fight for Heaven which we are loth to come to What apparent palpable hypocrysie is this to lye upon our knees in publike and private and spend one hour after another in prayer for that which we would not have If one should over-hear thee in thy daily devotions crying out Lord deliver me from this body of death from this sin this sickness this poverty these cares and feares how long Lord shall I suffer these and withall should hear thee praying against death can he believe thy tongue agrees with thy heart except thou have so far lost thy reason as to expect all this here or except the Papists Doctrine were true that we are able to fulfil the Law of God or our late Perfectionists are truly enlightned who think they can live and not sin but if thou know these to be undoubtedly false how canst thou deny thy gross dissembling SECT VIII 7. COnsider how do we wrong the Lord and his Promises and disgrace his ways in the eyes of the world As if we would actually perswade them to question whether God be true of his Word or no whether there be any such glory as Scripture mentions when they see those who have professed to live by Faith and have boasted of their hopes in another world and perswaded others to let go all for these hopes and spoken disgracefully of all things below in comparison of these unexpressable things above I say when they see these very men so loth to leave their hold of present things and to go to that glory which they talked and boasted of how doth it make the weak to stagger and confirm the world in their unbelief and sensuality and make them conclude sure if these Professors did expect so much glory and make so light of the world as they seem they would not themselves be so loth of a change O how are we ever able to repaiâ— the wrong which we do to God and poor souls by this scandal And what an honor to God what a strengthning to Believers what a conviction to Unbelievers would it be if Christians in this did answer their professions and chearfully welcome the news of Rest SECT IX 8. IT evidently discovers that we have been careless loyterers that we have spent much time to little purpose and that we have neglected and lost a great many of warnings Have we not had all our life time to prepare to die So many years to make ready for one hour and are we so unready and unwilling yet VVhat have we done why have we lived that the business of our lives is so much undone Had we any greater matters to minde Have we not foolishly wronged our souls in this would we have wished more frequent warnings How oft hath death entered the habitations of our neighbors how oft hath it knockt at our own doors we have first heard that such a one is dead and then such a one and such a one till our Towns have changed most of their Inhabitants And was not all this a sufficient warning to tell us that we were also Mortals and our own turn would shortly come Nay we have seen death raging in Towns and Fields so many hundred a day dead of the Pestilence so many thousands slam of the Sword and did we not know it would reach to us at last How many distempers have vexed our bodies frequent Languishings consuming Weaknesses wasting Feavers here pain and there trouble that we have been forced to receive the sentence of death and what were all these but so many Messengers sent from God to tell us we must shortly dye as if we had heard a lively voyce bidding us Delay no more but make you ready And are we unready and unwilling after all this O careless dead hearted Sinners unworthy neglecters of Gods Warnings faithless betrayers of our own souls All these hainous aggravations do lye upon this sin of unwillingness to dye which I have laid down to make it hateful to my own soul which is too much guilty of it as well as yours And for a further help to our prevailing against it I shall adjoyn these following Considerations SECT X. 1. COnsider not to dye were never to be happy To escape death were to miss of blessedness Except God should translate us as Henoch and Elias which he never did before or since If our hopeth in Christ were in this life onely we were then of all men most miserable The Epicure hath more pleasure to his Flesh then
known duties either publike private or secret Art thou a slave to thine appetite in eating or â—rinking or to any other commanding sense Art thou a proud Seeker of thine own esteem and a man that must needs have mens good opinion or else thy minde is all in a combustion Art thou a wilfully peevish and passionate person as if thou wert made of Tinder or Gun powder ready to take fire at every word or every wry look or every supposed sleighting of thee or every neglect of a complement or curtesie Art thou a knowing deceiver of others in thy dealing or one that hast set thy self to rise in the world not to speak of greater sins which all take notice of If this be thy case I dare say Heaven and thy Soul are very great strangers I dare say thou art seldom in Heart with God and there is little hope it should ever be better as long as thou continuest in these transgressions These beams in thine eyes will not suffer thee to look to Heaven these will be a cloud between thee and God When thou dost but attempt to study Eternity and to gather comforts from the life to come thy sin will presently look thee in the face and say These things belong not to thee How shouldst thou take comfort from Heaven who takest so much pleasure in the lusts of thy flesh O how this will damp thy joyes and make the thoughts of that day and state to become thy trouble and not thy delight Every wilful sin that thou livest in will be to thy comforts as water to the fire when thou thinkest to quicken them this will quench them when thy heart begins to draw neer to God this will presently come in thy minde and cover thee with shame and fill thee with doubting Besides which is most to the point in hand it doth utterly indispose thee and disable thee to this work When thou shouldst wind up thy heart to Heaven alas it s byassed another way it is intangled in the lusts of the flesh and can no more ascend in Divine Meditation then the bird can flie whose wings are clipt or that is intangled in the Lime-twigs or taken in the snare Sin doth cut the very sinews of the soul therefore I say of this heavenly life as Master Bolton saith of Prayer Either it will make thee leave sinning or sin will make thee leave it and that quickly too For these cannot continue together If thou be here guilty who readest this I require thee sadly to think of this folly O man what a life dost thou lose and what a life dost thou chuse what daily delights dost thou sell for the swinish pleasure of a stinking lust what a Christ what a glory dost thou turn thy back upon when thou art going to the embracements of thy hellish pleasures I have read of a Gallant addicted to uncleanness who at last meeting with a beautiful Dame and having enjoyed his fleshly desires of her found her in the morning to be the dead body of one that he had formerly sinned with which had been acted by the devil all night and left dead again in the morning Surely all thy sinful pleasures are suche The devil doth animate them in the darkness of the night but when God awakes thee at the farther at death the deceit is vanished and nothing left but a carkass to amaze thee and be a spectacle of horror before thine eyes Thou thinkest thou hast hold of some choice delight but it will turn in thy hand as Moses rod into a Serpent and then thou wouldst fain be rid of it if thou knewest how and wilt â—â—ie from the face of it as thou dost now embrace it And shall this now dream thee from the high delights of the Saints If Heaven and Hell can meet together and if God can become a lover of sin theâ—â— maist them live in thy sin and in the tastes of glory and maist have a conversation in Heaven though thou cherish thy corruption If therefore thou finde thy self guilty never doubt on it but this is the cause that estrangeth thee from Heaven And take heed least it keep out thee as it keeps out thy heart and do not say but thou wast bid Take heed Yea if thou be a man that hitherto hast escaped and knowest no raigning sin in thy soul yet let this warning move thee to prevention and stir up a dread of this danger in thy spirit As Huâ—nius writes of himself That hearing the mention of the unpardonable sin against the Holy Ghost it stirred up such fears in his spirit that made him cry out What if this should be my case and so rouzed him to prayer and tryal So think thou though thou yet be not guilty what a sad thing it were if ever this should prove thy case And therefore watch SECT II. 2. A Second hinderance carefully to be avoided is An Earthly minde For you may easily conceive that this cannot stand with an Heavenly minde God and Mammon Earth and Heaven cannot both have the delight of thy heart This makes thee like Anselmne's Bird with a stone tyed to the foot which as oft as she took flight did pluck her to the Earth again If thou be a man that hast fancied to thy self some content or happiness to be found on Earth and beginnest to taste a sweetness in gain and to aspire after a fuller and a higher estate and hast hatched some thriving projects in thy brain and art driving on thy rising design Beleeve it thou art marching with thy back upon Christ and art posting apace from this Heavenly life Why hath not the World that from thee which God hath from the Heavenly When he is blessing himself in his God and rejoycing in hope of the glory to come then thou art blessing thy self in thy prosperity and rejoycing in hope of thy thriving here When he is solacing his soul in the views of Christ of the Angels and Saints that he shall live with for ever then art thou comforting thy self with thy wealth in looking over thy Bills and Bonds in viewing thy Money thy Goods thy Cattel thy Buildings or large Possession and art recreating thy minde in thinking of thy hopes of the favor of some great ones on whom thou dependest of the pleasantness of a plentiful and commanding state of thy larger provision for thy children after thee of the rising of thy house or the obeisance of thine inferiors Are not these thy morning and evening thoughts when a gracious soul is above with Christ Dost thou not delight and please thy self with the daily rolling these thoughts in thy minde when a gracious soul should have higher delights If he were a fool by the sentence of Christ that said Soul take thy rest thou hast enough laid up for many yeers What a fool of fools art thou that knowing this yet takest not warning but in thy heart speakest the same words Look them over seriously and
the dolors of a greivous wilderness Believe it Reader if thou knewest but what a cordial in thy griefs and care the serious views of glory are thou wouldst less fear these harmles troubles and more use that preserving reviving Remedy I would not have thee as Mountebanks take poyson first and then their Antidote to shew its power so to create thy affliction to try this remedy But if God reach thee forth the bitterest cup drop in but a little of the Tastes of Heaven and I warrant thee it will sufficiently sweeten it to thy spirit If the case thou art in seem never so dangerous take but a little of this Antidote of Rest and never fear the pain or danger I will give thee to confirm this but the Example of David and the Opinion of Paul and desire thee throughly to consider of both In the multitude of my thoughts within me saith David thy comforts delight my soul Psal. 94.19 As if he should say I have multitudes of sadding thoughts that crowd upon me thoughts of my sins and thoughts of my foes thoughts of my dangers and thoughts of my pains yet in the midst of all this crowd one serious thought of the comforts of thy Love and especially of the comfortable life in Glory doth so dispel the throng and scatter my cares and disperse the clouds that my troubles had raised that they do even revive and delight my soul. And Paul when he had cast up his full accounts gives thee the sum in Rom. 8 18. For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us Study these words well for every one of them is full of life If these true sayings of God were truly and deeply fixt in thy heart and if thou couldst in thy sober Mediditation but draw out the comfort of this one Scripture I dare them it would sweeten the bitterest cross and in a sort make thee forget thy trouble as Christ saith A woman forgets her travail for joy that a man is born into the world yea and make thee rejoyce in thy tribulation I will add but one Text more 2 Cor 4.16.17 For which cause we faint not but though our outward man perish yet the inward is renewed day by day For our light affliction which is but for a moment worketh for us a far more exceeding eternal weight of glory While we look not at the things which are seen but the things which are not seen For the things which are seen are temporal but the things which are not seen are eternal SECT VII 3. ANother fit Season for this heavenly duty is When the Messengers of God do summon us to die when either our gray hairs or our languishing bodies or some such like forerunners of death do tell us that our change cannot be far off when should we most frequently sweeten our souls with the believing thoughts of another life then when we finde that this is almost ended and when Flesh is raising fears and terrors Surely no men have greater need of supporting joyes then dying men and those joyes must be fetcht from our eternal joy Men that have earthly pleasures in their hands may think they are well though they taste no more but when a man is dying and parting with all other pleasures he must then fetch his pleasure from Heaven or have none when health is gone and friends lye weeping about our beds when houses and lands and goods and wealth cannot afford us the least relief but we are taking our leave of earth for ever except a hole for our bodies to rot in when we are daily expecting our final day it s now time to look to heaven and to fetch in comfort and support from thence and as heavenly delights are sweetest when they are unmixed and pure and have no earthly delights conjoyned with them so therefore the delights of dying Christians are oft-times the sweetest that ever they had Therefore have the Saints been generally observed to be then most Heavenly when they were neerest dying what a Prophetical blessing hath Jacob for his sons when he lay a dying And so Isaac what a heavenly Song what a Divine Benediction doth Moses conclude his life withal Deut. 32. 33. Nay as our Saviour increased in Wisdome and Knowledg so did he also in their blessed expressions and still the last the sweetest what a heavenly prayer what heavenly advice doth he leave his Disciples when he is about to leave them when he saw he must leave the world and go to the Father how doth he weane them from worldly expectations How doth he minde them of the Mansions in his Fathers House and remember them of his coming again to fetch them thither and open the union they shall have with him and with each other and promise them to be with him to behold his Glory There 's more worth in those four Chapters John 14.15.16.17 then in all the Books in the world beside When Blessed Paul was ready to be offered up what heavenly Exhortation doth he give the Philippians what advice to Timothy what counsel to the Elders of the Ephesian Church Acts 20. How neer was S. John to heaven in his banishment in Patmos a little before his translation to Heaven what heavenly discourse hath Luther in his last sickness How close was Calvin to his Divine studies in his very sickness that when they would have disswaded him from it He answers Vultisne me otiosum a domino apprehendi What would you have God finde me idle I have not lived idly and shall I dye idly The like may be said of our famous Reignolds When excellent Bucholcer was neer his end he wrote his Book De Consolâ—tiâ—ne Decumbentium Then it was that Tossianus wrote his Vade mecum Then Doctor Preston was upon the Attributâ—s of God And then Mr Bolton was on the Joyes of Heaven It were end less to enumerate the eminent examples of this kinde It is the general temper of the spirits of the Saints to be then most Heavenly when they are neerest to Heaven As we use to say of the old and the weak that they have one foot in the grave already so may we say of the godly when they are neer their Rest they have one foot as it were in Heaven already When should a Traveller look homewards with joy but when he is come within the sight of his home It s true the pains of our bodies and the fainting of our spirits may somewhat abate the liveliness of our joy but the measure we have will be the more pure and spiritual by how much the less it is kindled from the Flesh. O that we who are daily languishing could learn this daily heavenly conversing and could say as the Apostle in the forecited place 2 Cor. 4.16 17 18 O that every gripe that our bodies feel might make us more sensible of future ease and that every
be If I could see the Congregations provided with able Teachers and the people receiving and obeying the Gospel and longing for Reformation and for the Government of Christ O what a blessed place were England If I could see our Ignorance turned into Knowledg and Error turned into soundness of Understanding and shallow Professors into solid Believers and Brethren living in Amity and in the life of the Spirit O what a fortunate Iland were this Alas alas what 's all this to the Reformation in Heaven and to the blessed condition which we must live in there There 's another kinde of change and glory then this What great joy had the people and David himself to see them so willingly offer to the Service of the Lord And what an excellent Psalme of Praise doth David thereupon compose 1 Chro. 29.9 10 c. When Solomon was anointed King in Jerusalem the people rejoyced with so great joy that the earth rent at the sound of them 1 Kings 1.40 what a joyful shout will there be then at the appearing of the King of the Church If when the foundations of the earth were fastned and the corner stone thereof was laid the morning stars did sing together and all the sons of God did shout for joy Job 38 6 7. why then when our glorious world is both founded and finished and the corner stone appeareth to be the top stone also and the Holy City is adorned as the Bride of the Lamb O Sirs what a joyful shout will then be heard SECT XI 9 COmpare the joy which thou shalt have in heaven with that which the Saints of God have found in the way to it and in the foretastes of it when thou seest a heavenly man rejoyce think what it is that so affects him it is the property of fools to rejoyce in toyes and to laugh at nothing but the people of God are wiser then so they know what it is that makes them glad When did God ever reveal the least of himself to any of his Saints but the joy of their hearts were answerable to the Revelation Paul was so lifted up with what he saw that he was in danger of being exalted above measure and must have a prick in the flesh to keep him down when Peter had seen but Christ in his Transfiguration which was but a small glimpse of his glory and had seen Moses and Elias talking with him what a rapture and extasie is he cast into Master saith he it is good for us to be here let us here build three Tabernacles one for Thee and one for Moses and one for Elias as if he should say O let us not go down again to yonder persecuting rabble let us not go down again to yonder drossy dirty world let us not return to our mean and suffering state is it not better that we stay here now we are here is not here better company and sweeter pleasures but the Text saith He knew not what he said Matth. 17.4 When Moses had been talking with God in the Mount it made his Visage so shineing and glorious that the people could not endure to behold it but he was fain to put a vail upon it No wonder then if the face of God must be vailed till we are come to that state where we shall be more capable of beholding him when the vail shall be taken away and we all beholding him with open face shall be turned into the same Image from glory to glory Alas what is the backparts which Moses saw from the clefts of the Rock to that open face which we shall behold hereafter what is the Revelation to John in Patmos to this Revelation which we shall have in heaven How short doth Pauls Vision come of the Saints Vision above with God How small a part of the glory which we must see was that which so transported Peter in the Mount I confess these were all extraordinary foretastes but little to the full Beatifical Vision when David foresaw the Resurrection of Christ and of himself and the pleasures which he should have for ever at Gods right hand how doth it make him break forth and say Therefore my heart was glad and my glory rejoyceth my flesh also shall rest in hope Psal. 16.9 Why think then If the foresight can raise such ravishing joy what will the actual possession do How oft have we read and heard of the dying Saints who when they had scarce strength and life enough to express them have been as full of joy as their hearts could hold And when their bodies have been under the extremities of their sickness yea ready to feel the pangs of death have yet had so much of heaven in their spirits that their joy hath far surpassed their sorrows and if a spark of this fire be so glorious and that in the midst of the sea of adversity what then is that Sun of Glory it self O the joy that the Martyrs of Christ have felt in the midst of the scorching flames sure they had life and sense as we and were flesh and blood as well as we therefore it must needs be some excellent thing that must so rejoyce their souls while their bodies were burning VVhen Bilney can burn his finger in the Candle and Cranmer can burn off his unworthy right Hand when Bainham can call the Papists to see a Miracle and tel them that he feels no more pain then in a bed of Down and that the fire was to him as a bed of Roses when Farrer can say If Istir believe not my Doctrine Think then Reader with thy self in thy Meditations sure it must be some wonderful foretasted glory that can do all this that can make the flames of fire easie and that can make the King of Fears so welcome O what then must this glory it self needs be when the very thoughts of it can bring Paul into such a streight that he desired to depart and to be with Christ as best of all when it can make men never think themselves well till they are dead O what a blessed Rest is this Shall Sanders so delightfully embrace the Stake and cry out Welcome Cross and shall not I more delightfully imbrace my blessedness and cry Welcome Crown Shall blessed Bradford kiss the Faggot and shall not I then kiss the Son himself Shall the poor Martyr rejoyce that she might have her foot in the same hole of the Stocks that Mr. Philpots foot had been in before her and shall not I rejoyce that my soul shall live in the same place of glory where Christ and his Apostles are gone before me Shall Fire and Faggot shall Prisons and Banishment shall Scorns and cruel Torments be more welcome to others then Christ and Glory shall be to me God forbid What thanks did Lucius the Martyr give them that they would send him to Christ from his ill masters on earth How desirously did Basil wish when his persecuters threatned his
pride and peevishness and other sins that we could scarce oft-times discern their graces But now how glorious a thing is a Saint where is now their body of sin which wearyed themselves and those about them Where are now our different Judgments our reproachful titles our divided spirits our exasperated passions our strange looks our uncharitable censures Now we are all of one judgment of one name of one heart of one house and of one glory O sweet reconcilement O happy Union which makes us first to be one with Christ and then to be one among our selves Now our differences shall be dashed in our teeth no more nor the Gospel reproached through our folly or scandall O my soul thou shalt never more lament the sufferings of the Saints never more condole the Churches ruines never bewail thy suffering freinds nor lye wailing over their death-beds or their graves Thou shalt never suffer thy old temptations from Satan the vvorld or thy ovvn flesh Thy body vvill no more be such a burden to thee thy pains and sicknesses are all novv cured thou shalt be troubled vvith vveakness and vveariness no more Thy head is not novv an aking head nor thy heart novv an aking heart Thy hunger and thirst and cold and sleep thy labor and study are all gone O vvhat a mighty change is this From the dunghill to the throne from persecuting sinners to praising Saints from a body as vile as the carrion in the ditch to a body as bright as the Sun in the firmament from complainings under the displeasure of God to the perfect enjoyment of him in Love from all my doubts and fears of my condition to this possession vvhich hath put me out of doubt from all my fearful thoughts of death to this most blessed Joyful life O vvhat a blessed change is this Farevvell sin and suffering for ever Farevvell my hard and rocky heart farevvell my proud and unbelieving heart farewell atheistical idolatrous vvorldly heart farewell my sensual carnal heart And novv welcome most holy heavenly nature vvhich as it must be imployed in beholding the face of God so is it full of God alone and delighted in nothing else but him O vvho can question the love vvhich he doth so sweetly taste or doubt of that which with such joy he seeleth Farewell repentance confession and supplication farewel the most of hope and faith and welcome love and joy and praise I shall now have my harvest without plowing or sowing my wine without the labor of the vintage my joy without a Preacher or a promise even all from the face of God himself That 's the sight that 's worth the seeing that 's the book that 's worth the reading What ever mixture is in the streams there is nothing but pure joy in the fountain Here shall I be incircled with Eternity and come forth no more here shall I live and ever live and praise my Lord and ever ever ever praise him My face will not wrinkle nor my haire be gray but this mortal shall have put on immortality and this corruptible incorruption and death shall be swallowed up in victory O death where is now thy sting O grave where is thy victory The date of my lease will no more expire nor shall I trouble my self with thoughts of death nor loose my joyes through fear of losing them When millions of ages are past my glory is but beginning and when millions more are past it is no neerer ending Every day is all noontide and every moneth is May or harvest and every yeer is there a jubilee and every age is full manhood and all this is one Eternity O blessed Eternity the glory of my glory the perfection of my perfection Ah drowsie earthy blockish heart How coldly dost thou think of this reviving day Dost thou sleep when thou thinkest of eternal Rest Art thou hanging earthward when heaven is before thee Hadst thou rather sit thee down in dirt and dung then walk in the court of the Palace of God Dost thou now remember thy worldly business Art thou looking back to the Sodom of thy lusts Art thou thinking of thy delights and merry company wretched heart Is it better to be there then above with God is the company better are the pleasures greater Come away make no excuse make no delay God commands and I command thee come away gird up thy loines ascend the mount and look about thee with seriousness and with faith Look thou not back upon the way of the wilderness except it be when thine eyes are dazled with the glory or when thou wouldst compare the Kingdom with that howling desert that thou mayest more sensibly perceive the mighty difference Fix thine eye upon the Sun it self and look not down to Earth as long as thou art able to behold it except it be to discern more easily the brightness of the one by the darkness of the other Yonder far above yonder is thy Fathers glory yonder must thou dwell when thou leavest this Earth yonder must thou remove O my soul when thou departest from this body And when the power of thy Lord hath raised it again and joyned thee to it yonder must thou live with God for ever There is the glorious New Jerusalem the Gates of Pearl the foundations of Pearl the Streets and Pavements of transparent Gold Seest thou that Sun which lighteth all this world why it must be taken down as useless there or the glory of Heaven will darken it and put it out even thy self shall be as bright as yonder shining Sun God will be the Sun and Christ the Light and in his Light shalt thou have light What thinkest thou O my soul of this most blessed state What! Dost thou stagger at the Promise of God through unbelief Though thou say nothing or profess belief yet thou speakest so coldly and so customarily that I much suspect thee I know thy infidelity is thy natural vice Didst thou beleeve indeed thou wouldst be more affected with it Why hast thou not it under the hand and seal and oath of God Can God lie or he that is the Truth it self be false Foolish wretch What need hath God to flatter thee or deceive thee why should he promise thee more then he will perform Art thou not his Creature a little crum of dust a scrawling worm ten thousand times more below him then this flie or worm is below thee wouldst thou flatter a flea or a worm what need hast thou of them If they do not please thee thou wilt crush them dead and never accuse thy self of cruelty Why yet they are thy Fellow Creatures made of as good mettal as thy self and thou hast no Authority over them but what thou hast received How much less need hath God of thee or why should he care if thou perish in thy folly Cannot he govern thee without either flattery or falshood cannot he easily make thee obey his will and as easily make thee suffer
should be so it would be somewhat a sad uncomfortable doctrine to the godly at their death to think of being deprived of their glory till the resurrection and somewhat comfortable to the wicked to think of tarrying out of hell so long But I am in strong hopes that this doctrine is false yea very confident that it is so I do believe that as the soul separated from the body is not a perfect man so it doth not enjoy the Glory and happiness so fully and so perfectly as it shall do after the Resurrection when they are again conjoined What the difference is and what degree of Glory souls in the mean time enjoy are too high things for mortals particularly to discern For the great question what place the souls of those before Christ of Infants and of all others since Christ do remaine in till the Resurrection I think it is a vain enquiry of what is yet beyond our reach It is a great question what Place is But if it be only a circumstant body and if to be in a place be only to be in a circumstant bodâ— or in the superficies of an ambient body or in the concavity oâ— that superficies then it is doubtfull whether spirits can be properly said to be in place We can have yet no clear conceivings of these things But that separated souls of Believers do enjoy unconceivable Blessedness and Glory even while they remain thus separated from the body I prove as followeth Beside all those Arguments for the souls Immortality which you may read in Alex. Rosse his Philosophicall Touchstone part lâ—st 1. Those words of Paul 2 Corin. 5.8 Are so exceeding plain that I yet understand not what tolerable exception can be made agaiâ—st them Therefore we are alwayes confident knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord For we walk by faith not by sight we are confident I say and willing rather to be absent from the body and present with the Lord What can be spoken more plainly so also the 1 2 3 4. verses of the same Chapter 2. As plain is that in Philip. 1.23 For I am in a streight betwixt two having a desire to depart and to be with Christ which is far better What sense were in these words if Paul had not expected to enjoy Christ till the Resurrection Why should he be in a streight Or desire to depart Should he be with Christ ever the sooner for that Nay should he not have been loath to depart upon the very same grounds For while he was in the flesh he enjoyed something of Christ but being departed according to the Socinians doctrine he should enjoy no thing of Christ till the day of Resurrection 3. And plain enough is that of Christ to the thief This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise The dislocation of the word this day is but a gross evasion 4. And sure if it be but a Parable of the Rich man in hell and Lazarus yet it seemes unlikely to me that Christ would teach them by such a Parable as seemed evidently to intimate and suppose the souls happiness or misery presently after death if there were no such matter 5. Doth not his Argument against the Sadduces for the Resurrection run upon this supposition That God being not the God of the dead but of the living therefore Abraham Isaac and Jacob were then living i. e. in soul and consequently should have their bodies raised at the Resurrection 6. Plain also is that in the Revelations chap. 14. vers 13. Blessed are the dead that dye in the Lord from henceforth yea saith the Spirit that they may Rest from their labors and their works do follow them i. e. close as the garments on a mans back follow him and not at such a distance as the resurrection For if the blessedness were only in Râ—sting in the Grave then a beast or a stone were as blessed Nay it were evidently a curse and not a blessing For was not life a great Mercy was it not a greater mercy to enjoy all the comforts of life to enjoy the fellowship of the Saints The comfort of the ordinances And much of Christ in all To be imployed in the delightfull work of God and to edifie his Church c. Is it not a curse to be so deprived of all these Do not these yeeld a great deal more sweetness then all the troubles of this life can yeeld us bitterness Though I think not as some that it is better to be most miserable even in hell then not to be at all yet it is undeniable that it is better to enjoy life and so much of the comforts of life and so much of God in comforts and afflictions as the Saints do though we have all this with persecution then to lye rotting in the grave if that were all we could expect Therefore it is some further blessedness that is there promised 7. How else is it said That we are come to the Mount Zion the City of the living God the heavenly Jerusalem to an innumerable company of Angels to the generall Assembly and Church of the first born which are written in Heaven and to God the judge of all and to the spirits of just men made perfect Heb. 12.22 23. Sure at the Resurrection the body will be made perfect as well as the spirit To say as Lushington doth that they are said to be made perfect because they are sure of it as if they had it is an evasion to grosly contradicting the Text that by such commentaries he may as well deny any truth in Scripture To make good which he as much abuseth that of Philip. 3.12 8. Doth not Scripture tell us that Henoch and Elias are taken up already And shall we think they possess that Glory alone 9. Did not Peter and James and John see Moses also with Christ on the Mount Yet the Scripture saith Moses dyed And is it likely that Christ did delude their senses in shewing them Moses if he should not partake of that glory till the Resurrection 10. And is not that of Stephen as plain as we can desire Lord Jesus receive my spirit Sure if the Lord receive it it is neither asleep nor dead nor annihilated but it is where he is and beholds his Glory 11. The like may be said of that Eccles. 12.7 The spirit shall return to God who gave it 12. How else is it said that we have eternall life already John 6.54 and that the knowledg of God which is begun here is eternall life John 17.3 So 1. John 5.13 And he that believeth on Christ hath everlasting life John 3.36 John 6.47 He that eateth this bread shall not dye vers 50. For he dwelleth in Christ and Christ in him vers 56. And as the Son liveth by the Father so he that eateth him shall live by him vers 57. How is the Kingdom of God and of heaven which