penalty And if I grant as much of a natural disposition in the Body to a dissolution if not prevented by a Glorifying Change it will no whit advantage their impious cause But withall man was then so far Immortal as that he had a posse non mori a natural capacity of not dying and the mo ietur vel non morietur the actual event of Life or Death was laid by the Lord of Life and Death upon his obedience or disobedience And man having sinned Justice must be done and so we came under a non posse non mori an impossibility of escaping death ordinarily because of the peremptory sentence of our Judge But the day of our deliverance is at hand when we shall attain a non posse mori a certain consummate Immortality when the last Enemy Death shall be destroyed and how that is done I shall next enquire SECT II. YOu have seen the ugly face of Death you are next to see a little of the Love of our great Redeemer You have heard what sin hath done you are next to hear what Grace hath done and what it will do You have seen the strength of the Enemy you are now to take notice of the Victory of the Redeemer and see how he conquereth all this strength 1. The Beginning of the Conquest is in this world 2. The Perfection will not be till the day of Resurrection when this Last Enemy shall be destroyed 1. Meritoriously Death is conquered by Death The Death of sinners by the Mediators Death Not that he intended in his Meritorious work to save us from the stroke of death by a prevention but to deliver us from it after by a Resurrection For since by man came death by man also came the Resurrection from the dead 1 Cor. 15. 21. For as much as the children were partakers of flesh and blood he also himself likewise took part with them that he might destroy him through death that had the power of death that is the Devil and deliver them who through fear of death were all their life time subject unto bondage Heb. 2. 14 15. Satan as Gods Executioner and as the prosperous tempter is said to have had the power of death The fears of this dreadful Executioner are a continual bondage which we are liable to through all our lives till we perceive the deliverance which the Death of the Lord of Life hath purchased us 1. By Death Christ hath stisfied the Justice that was armed by sin against us 2. By Death he hath shewed us that Death is a tolerable Evil and to be yielded to in hope of following life 2. Actually he conquered Death by his Resurrection This was the day of Grace's triumph This day he shewed to Heaven to Hell and to earth that death was conquerable yea that his personal Death was actually overcome The blessed souls beheld it to their Joy beholding in the Resurrection of their Head a virtual Resurrection of their own Bodies The Devils saw it and therefore saw that they had no hopes of holding the Bodies of the Saints in the power of the grave The damned souls were acquainted with it and therefore knew that their sinful bodies must be restored to bear their part in suffering The Believing Saints on earth perceive it and therefore see that their bonds are broken and that to the righteous there is hope in death and that our Head being actually risen assureth us that we shall also Rise For if we believe that Jesus died and Rose again even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him 1 Thes 4. 14. And as Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more death hath no more dominion over him So shall we Rsie and die no more This was the beginning of the Churches Triumph This is the day that the Lord hath made even the day which the Church on Earth must celebrate with joy and praise till the day of our Resurrection We will be glad and rejoyce therein Psal 118. 24. The Resurrection of our Lord hath 1. Assured us of the consummation of his satisfacttion 2. Of the truth of all his Word and so of his promises of our Resurrection 3. That Death is actually conquered and a Resurrection possible 4. That believers shall certainly Rise when their Head and Saviour is Risen to prepare them an everlasting Kingdome and to assure them that thus he will Raise them at the last A bare promise would not have been so strong a help to Faith as to the actual Rising of Christ as a pledge of the performance But now Christ is risen and become the first fruits of them that sleep 1 Cor. 15. 20. For because he Liveth we shall live also John 14. 19. 3. The next degree of destruction to this Enemy was by the gift of his Justifying and Sanctifying Grace Four special benefits were then bestowed on us which are Antidotes against the Enmity of Death 1. One is the gift of saving Faith by which we look beyond the grave as far as to eternity And this doth most powerfully disable Death to terrifie and discourage us and raiseth us above our Natural fears and sheweth us though but in a glass the exceeding eternal weight of glory which churlish Death shall help us to So that when the eye of the unbeliever looketh no further than the grave believing souls can enter into Heaven and see their glorified Lord and thence fetch Love and Hope and Joy notwithstanding the terrours of interposing death The eye of Faith foreseeth the salvation ready to be revealed in the last time and causeth us therein greatly to rejoyce though now for a season if need be we are in heaviness through manifold temptations And so victorious is this Faith against all the storms that do assault us that the tryal of it though with fire doth but discover that â—t is much more precious than Gold that peâ—isheth and it shall be found unto praise and â—onour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ whom having never seen in the flesh we â—ove and though now we see him not yet believing we rejoyce with unspeakable glorious joy 1 Pet. 1. 5 6 7 8 9. and shall shortly receive the end of our Faith the Salvation of our Souls Thus Faith though it destroy not Death it self destroyeth the Malignity and enmity of DEATH while it seeth the hings that are beyond it and the time when â—eath shall be destroyed and the Life where death shall be no more Faith is like David's three mighty men that brake thorow the Host of the Philistines to fetch him the waters of Bethlehem for which he longed 2 Sam. 23. 15 16. When the thirsty soul saith O that â—ne would give me drink of the waters of Salvation Faith breaks thorow death which standeth in the way and fetcheth these living waters to the soul We may say of Death as it is said of the World 1 John 5. 4 5. Whatsoever is born of God overcometh
the world and this is the victory that overcometh the world even our Faith who is he that overcometh but he that believeth c. For greater is he that is in us than he that is in the world 1 John 4. 4. The believing Soul foreseeing the day when death shall be swallow'd up in Victory may sing beforehand the triumphing song O Death where is thy sting O grave where is thy Victory 1 Cor. 15. 54 55. For this cause we faint not though our outward man perish our inward man is renewed day by day For our light affliction though it reach to death which is but for a moment worketh for us a far more exceeding eternal weight of glory while we look not at the things that are seen but at the things which are not seen for the hings which are seen are temporal and therefore not worthy to be looked at but the things that are not seen are eternal and therefore more prevalent with a believing Soul than either the enticing pleasures of sin for a season or the light and short afflictions or the death that standeth in our way 2 Cor. 5. 16 17 18. Heb. 11. 24 25 26. 2. A second Antidote against the Enmity of Death that is given us at the time of our Conversion is The Pardon of our sins and Justification of our persons by the blood and merits of Jesus Christ When once we are forgiven we are out of the reach of the greatest terrour being saved from the second death Though we must feel the killing stroke we are delivered from the damning stroke Yea more than so it shall save us by destroying us It shall let us into the glorious presence of our Lord by taking us from the presence of our mortal friends It shall help us into Eternity by cutting off our Time For in the hour that we were justified and made the Adopted Sons of God we were also made the Heirs of Heaven even Coheirs with Christ and shall be glorified with him when we have suffered with him Rom. 8. 17. As Death was promoting the Life of the world when it was killing the Lord of Life himself So is it hastnening the deliverance of believers when it seems to be undoing them No wonder if Death be that mans terrour that must be conveyed by it into Hell or that imagineth that he shall perish as the beast But to him that knows it will be his passage into Rest and that Angels shall convey his Soul to Christ what an Antidote is there ready for his Faith to use against the enmity and excess of fears Hence faith proceedeth in its triumph 1 Cor. 15. 56 57. The sting of death is sin and the strength of sin is the Law But thanks be to God that giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ Let him inordinately fear Death that is loth to be with Christ or that is yet the heir of Death eternal Let him fear that is yet in the bondage of his sin and in the power of the Prince of darkness and is not by Justification delivered from the curse But joy and holy triumph are more seemly for the Justified 3. A third Antidote against the Enmity of Death is the Holiness of the soul By this the Power of sin is mortified and therefore the fears of Death cannot actuate and use it as in others they may do By this the Interest of the flesh is cast aside as nothing and the flesh it self is crucified with Christ and therefore the destruction of the flesh will seem the more tolerable and the fears of it will be a less temptation to the Soul By this we are already crucified to the world and the world to us and therefore we can more easily leave the world We now live by another Life than we did before being dead in our selves our life is hid with Christ in God and being crucified with Christ we now so Live as that it is not we but Christ Liveth in us the life which we Live in the flesh is by the faith of the Son of God that hath loved us Gal. 2. 20. The things that made this life too dear to us are now as it were annihilated to us and when we see they are Nothing they can do nothing with us Sanctification also maketh us so weary of sin as being our hated enemy that we are the more willing to die that it may die that causeth us to die And especially the Holy Ghost which we then receive is in us a Divine and heavenly Nature and so inclineth us to God and Heaven This Nature principally consisteth in the superlative Love of God And Love carrieth out the soul to the beloved As the Nature of a prisoner in a dungeon carrieth him to desire Liberty and Light so the Nature of a holy Soul in flesh inclineth it to desire to be with Christ As Love maketh husband and wife and dearest friends to think the time long while they are asunder so doth the Love of the Soul to God How fain would the holy loving Soul behold the pleased face of God and be glorified in the beholding of his glory and live under the fullest influences of his Love This is our conquest over the Enmity of Death As strong as Death is Love is stronger Eccles 8. 6 7. Love is strong as Death the coals thereof are coals of fire a most vehement flame which will not by the terrible face of Death be hindered from ascending up to God Many waters cannot quench Love neither can the floods drown it if a man would give all the substance of his house for Love that is to bribe it and divert it from its object it would utterly be contemned If the Love of David could carry Jonathan to hazard his life and deny a Kingdom for him and the Love of David to Absalom made him wish that he had died for him and the Love of friends yea lustful love hath carried many to cast away their lives no wonder if the Love of God in his Saints prevail against the fear of Death The power of holy Love made Moses say Else let my name be blotted out of the Book of Life And it made Paul say That he could wish that he were accursed from Christ for his brethren and kindred according to the flesh Rom. 9. 3. And doubtless he felt the fire burning in his breast when he broke out into that triumphant challenge Rom. 8. 35 36. to the end Who shall separate us from the love of God shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword As it is written For thy sake we are killed all the day long we are counted as Sheep to the slaughter Nay in all this we are more then Conquerours through him that loved us For I am perswaded that neither Death nor Life nor Angels nor Principalities nor Powers nor things present nor things to come nor height nor depth nor any other Creature shall be able
and the excellency of the Redeemers grace Adam was but to seek the continuance of his life and a translation to Glory without the terrors of interposing death He was never called to prepare to die nor to think of the state of a separated Soul nor to mind and love and seek a glory to which there is no ordinary passage but by death This is the difficulty that sin hath caused against which we have need of the special assistance of the example and doctrine and promse and Spirit of the Redeemer Adam was never put to study how to get over this dreadful gulf The threatning of death was to raise such a fear in him as was necessary to prevent it But those fears did rather hold him closer to the way of life then stand between him and life to his discouragement But we have a death to fear that must be suffered that cannot be avoided The strange condition of a separated soul so unlike to its state while resident in the body doth require in us a special Faith to apprehend it and a special revelation to discover it To desire and love and long for and labour after such a time as this when one part of us must lie rotting in the grave and the separated Soul must be with Christ alone till the Resurrection and to believe and hope for that Resurrection and to deny our selves and forsake all the world and lay down our lives when Christ requireth it by the power of this faith and hope this is a work that innocent Adam never knew This is the high employment of a Christian To have our hearts and conversations in Heaven Matth. 6. 21. Phil. 3. 20 when Death must first dissolve us before we can possess it here is the noble work of faith SECT VI. Use 4. MOreover this Enmity of Death may help us to understand the reason of the sufferings and Death of Christ That he gave his life a Ransome for us and a Sacrifice for sin and so to make satisfaction to the offended Majesty is a truth that every Christian doth believe But there was another reason of his death that all of us do not duly consider of and improve to the promoting of our Sanctification as we ought Death is so great an Enemy as you have heard and so powerful to deter our hearts from God and dull our desires to the heavenly felicity that Christ was fain to go before us to embolden the hearts of believers to follow him He suffered Death with the rest of his afflictions to shew us that it is a tolerable evil Had he not gone before and overcome it it would have detained us its Captives Had he not merited and purchased us a blessed Resurrection and opened heaven to all believers and by Death overcome him that had the power of death as Gods executioner that is the Devil we should all our life time have been still subjected unto bondage by the fears of Death Heb. 2. 14. But when we see that Christ hath led the way as the victorious Captain of our Salvation and that he is made perfect by sufferings in his advancement unto glory and that for the sufferings of death which by the grace of God he tasted for every man he is crowned with glory and honour Heb. 2. 9 10. this puts a holy valour into the soul and causeth us chearfully to follow him Had we gone first and the task of conquering Death been ours we had been overcome But he that hath led us on hath hew'd down the enemy before him and first prepared us the way and then called us to follow him and to pass the way that he hath first made safe and also shewed us by his example that it is now made passable For it was one in our Nature that calleth us his Brethren that took not the nature of Angels but of the seed of Abraham that is one with us as the Sanctifier and the sanctified are and to whom as children we are given Who hath passed through Death and the Grave before us and therefre we may the boldlier follow him Heb. 2. 11 12 13 16. Being found in fashion as a man he humbled himself and became obedient unto death even the death of the Cross and therefore God hath highly exalted him and given him a name above every name Phil. 2. 8 9. Hereby he hath shewed us that Death is not so dreadful a thing but that voluntary obedience may and must submit unto it As Abraham's faith and obedience was tryed in the offering up his Son to death at Gods command so the children of Abraham and the heirs of the promise must follow him in offering up themselves if God require it and in submitting to our natural death for that he doth require of all Examples work more then bare precepts and the Experiments of others do take more with us than meer directions It satisfieth a sick man more to read a Book of Medicinal Observations where he meets with many that were in his own case and finds what cured them then to read the Praxis or medicinal Receipts alone It encourageth the Patient much when the Physitian tells him I have cured many of your disease by such a Medicine nay I was cured thus of the same my self So doth it embolden a believer to lay down his Life when he hath not only a promise of a better life but seeth that the promiser went that way to Heaven before him O therefore let us learn and use this choise remedy against the immoderate fear of Death Let Faith take a view of him that was dead and is alive that was buried and is risen and was humbled and is now exalted Think with your selves when you must think of dying that you are but following your Conquering Lord and going the way that he hath gone before you and suffering what he underwent and conquered And therefore though you walk through the valley of the shaddow of death resolve that you will fear no evil Psal 23. 4. And if he call you after him follow him with a Christian boldness As Peter cast hinself into the Sea and walkt on the waters when he saw Christ walk there and had his command so let us venture on the jaws of death while we trace his steps and hear his encouraging commands and promises John 21. 7. Mat. 14. 28 29. SECT VII Use 5. MOreover from this Doctrine we may be informed of the mistakes of many Christians that think they have no saving grace because they are afraid of dying and because these fears deterr their souls from desiring to be with Christ And hence they may perceive that there is another cause of these Distempers even the ENMIMY of Death that standeth in the way You think that if you had any Love to Christ you should more desire to be with him and that if your treasure were in heaven your hearts would be more there and that if you truly took it for your felicity you
they have had tryal of cruel mockings and scourgings yea moreover of bonds and imprisonment they were stoned they were sawn asunder were tempted were slain with the sword Heb. 11. 35 36 37. Thanks be to God which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ 1 Cor. 15. 57. They overcome by the blood of the Lamb and love not their lives unto the death Rev. 12. 11. They fear not them that kill the body and after that have no more that they can do Luke 124. They trust upon his promise that hath said I will ransome them from the power of the grave I will redeem them from Death O Death I will be thy plagues O grave I will be thy destruction Hos 13. 14. Precious in the sight of the Lord is the Death of his Saints Psal 116. 15. Blessed are the dead which dye in the Lord from henceforth yea saith the Spirit that they may rest from their labours and their works do follow them Rev. 14. 13. SECT IX Use 7. MOreover from the Enmity of Death we may be directed which way to bend our cares and seeing where our difficulty most lyeth we may see which way our most diligent preparations must be turned Death cannot be prevented but the malignant influence of it on our souls may be much abated If you let it work without an Antidote it will make you live like unbelieving worldlings It will deterr your hearts from Heaven and dull your love to God himself and make your meditations of him and of your Everlasting Rest to be seldom and ungrateful to you And it will make you say It s good to be here and have sweeter thoughts of this present life than of your inheritance It will rob you of much of your heavenly delights and fill you with slavish fears of Death and subject you unto bondage all your lives and make you dye with agony and horrour so that your lives and deaths will be dishonourable to your holy faith and to your Lord. If it were meerly our own suffering by fears and horrours or meerly our loss of spiritual delights the matter were great but not so great But it is more than this For when our joyes are overwhelmed with the fears of Death and turned into sorrows our love to God will be abated and we shall deny him the thanks and cheerful praises which should be much of the employment of our lives and we shall be much discomposed and unfitted for his service and shall much dishonour him in the world and shall strengthen our temptations to the overvaluing of earthly things Think it not therefore a small or an indifferent matter to fortifie your souls against these malignant fears of death Make this your daily care and work your peace your safety your innocency and usefulness and the honour of God do much lie on it And it is a work of such exceeding difficulty that it requireth the best of your skill and diligence and when all is done it must be the illuminating quickning beams of grace and the shining face of the Eternal Love that must dothe work though yet your diligence is necessary to attend the spirit and use the means in subservience to grace and in expectation of these oelestiall rayes And above all take heed lest you should think that carnall mirth or meer security and casting away the thoughts of Death will serve to overcome these fears or that it is enough that you resolve against them For it is your safety that must be lookt to as well as your present ease and peace and fear must be so overcome as that a greater misery may not follow Presumption and security will be of very short continuance To dye without fear and pass into into endless desperation which fear should have wakened you to prevent is no desirable kind of dying And besides resolving against the terrours of Death will not prevent them When Death draws near it will amaze you in despight of all your resolutions if you are not furnished with a better Antidote The more jocund you have been in carnal mirth and the more you have presumptuously slighted Death it is likely your horrour will be the greater when it comes And therefore see that you make a wise and safe preparation and that you groundedly and methodically cure these fears and not securely cast them away Though I have given you to this end some Directions in other writings in the Saints Rest and in the Treatise of Self-denyal and that of Crucifying the world yet I shall add here these following helps which faithfully observed and practised will much promote your victory over Death which conquereth all the strength of flesh and glory of this world DIRECTION I. IF you would overcome the danger and the fears of Death Make sure of your Conversion that it is sound and see that you be absolutely devoted unto God without Reserves Should you be deceived in your foundations your life and hopes and joyes would all be delusory things Till sin be mortified and your souls reconciled to God in Christ you are still in danger of worse than Death and it is but the senselesness of your dead condition that keepeth you from the terrours of damnation But if you are sure that you are quickened by renewing grace and possessed by the sanctifying spirit and made partakers of the Divine nature you have then the Earnest of your inheritance Ephes 1. 14. 2 Cor. 1. 22. 5. 5. and the fire is kindled in your breast that in despight of Death will mount you up to God DIRECTION II. TO Conquer the Enmity of Death you must live by faith in Jesus Christ as men that are emptied of themselves and ransomed from his hands that had the power of Death and as men that are redeemed from the curse and are now made heirs of the grace of life being made his members who is the Lord of Life even the second Adam who is a quickning spirit The serious believing study of his design and office to destroy sin and death and to bring many Sons to glory and also of his voluntary suffering and his obedience to the death of the Cross may raise us above the fears of Death When we live by faith as branches of this blessed Vine and are righteous with his righteousness justified by his blood and merits and sanctified by his Word and Spirit and find that we are united to him we may then be sure that Death cannot conquer us and nothing can take us out of his hands For our life being hid with Christ in God we know that we shall live because he liveth Col. 3. 3. Joh. 14. 19. and that when Christ who is our life appeareth we shall also appear with him in glory Col. 3. 4. And that he will change our vile bodies and make them like to his glorious body by his mighty power by which he is able to subdue all things to himself Phil. 3. 20 21. In our own strength we
shortly begin their everlasting triumph The sin which thou hatest and longest to be delivered from and art willing to use Gods means against it is the conquered enemy which may assure thee of a full and final conquest supposing that thy hatred is against all known sin and that there is none so sweet or profitable in thy account which thou hadst not far rather leave then keep Quest 4. Moreover art thou not truly willing to yield to all the terms of grace Thou hast heard of the yoak and burden of Christ and of the conditions of the Gospel on which peace is offered to the sinful world and what Christ requireth of such as will be his Disciples What saith thy heart now to those terms Do they seem so hard and grievous to thee that thou wilt venture thy soul in thy state of sin rather then accept of them If this were so thou hadst yet no part in Christ indeed But if there be nothing that Christ requireth of thee that is not desirable in thy eyes or which thou dost not stick at so far as to turn away from him and forsake him and refuse his Covenant and grace rather then submit to such conditions thou art then in Covenant with him and the blessings of the Covenant belong to thee Canst thou think that Christ hath purchased and offered and promised that which he will not give Hath he sent forth his Ministers and commanded them to make the Motion in his name and to invite and compell men to come in and to beseech them to be reconciled to God and that yet he is unwilling to accept thee when thou dost consent If Christ had been unwilling he had not so dearly made the way nor begun as a suitor to thy soul nor so diligently sought thee as he hath done If the blessings of the Covenant are thine then Heaven is thine which is the chiefest blessing And if they be not thine it is not because Christ is unwilling but because thou art unwilling of his blessings on his terms Nothing can deprive thee of them but thy refusal Know therefore assuredly whether thou dost consent thy self to the terms of Christ and whether thou art truly willing that he be thy Saviour and if thy conscience bear thee faithful witness that it is so dishonour not Christ then so far as to question whether be be willing who hath done so much to put it out of doubt The stop is at thy will and not at his If thou know that thou art willing thou mayst know that Christ his benefits are thine if thou be not willing what makes theewish groan pray labour in the use of means Is it not for Christ his benefits that thy heart thus worketh and thou dost all this Fear not then if thy own hand be to the Covenant it is most certain that the hand of Christ is at it Quest 5. Moreover I would ask thee Whether thou see not a beauty in Holiness which is the Image of Christ and whether thy soul do not desire it even in perfection So that thou hadst rather if thou hadst thy choice be more Holy then more rich or honourable in the world If so be assured that it is not without Holyness that thou choosest and preferrest Holyness Hadst thou not rather have more faith and hope and love to God and patience and contentment and communion with Christ then have more of the favour and applause of man or of the riches or pleasures of this world If so I would know of thee whether this be not from the spirit of Christ within thee and be not his Image it self upon thee and the motions of the new and heavenly nature which is begotten in thee by the Holy Ghost Undoubtedly it is And the spirit of Christ thus dwelling in thee is the earnest of thy inheritance Dost thou find the spirit of Christ thus working in thee causing thee to love Holiness and hate all sin and yet canst thou doubt of thy part in Christ Quest 6. Moreover canst thou not truly say that Christs friends so far as thou knowest them are thy friends and that whinh is against him thou takest as against thy self If so undoubtedly thy enemies also are to him as his enemies and he will lay them at thy feet Thy troubles are as his troubles and in all thy afflictions he is as careful of thy good as if he himself were thereby afflicted Fear not those enemies that Christ takes as his own It is he that is engaged to overcome them And now when Conscience it self beareth witness that thus it is with thy soul and that thou wouldst fain be what God would have thee be and desirest nothing more then to be more like him and nearer to him and desirest no kind of life so much as that in which thou maist be most serviceable to him Consider what a wrong it is then to Christ and to the honour of his Covenant and grace and to thy poor dejected soul that thou shouldst lie questioning his love and thy part in him and looking about for matter of accusation or causeless suspition against his spirit working in thee and that thou shouldst cast away the joy of the Lord which is thy strength and gratifie the enemy of thy peace When sickness is upon thee and death draws nigh thou shouldst then with joy lift up thy head because thy warfare is almost accomplished and thy Saviour ready to deliver thee the Crown Is this a time to fear and mourn when thou art entring into endless joy Is it a time of lamentation when thou art almost at thy journeys end ready to see thy Saviours face and to take thy place in the Heavenly Jerusalem amongst those millions of holy souls that are gone before thee Is it seemly for thee to lament thus at the door when they are feasted with such unconceivable joys within Dost thou know what thy Brethren are now enjoying and what the heavenly Host are doing how full they are of God and how they are ravished with his Light and Love and canst thou think it seemly to be so unlike them that are passing to them I know there is such difference between imperfection and perfection and between earth and heaven that it justifieth our moderate sorrows and commandeth us to take up infinitely short of their delights till we are with them But yet let there not be too great a disproportion between the members of Jesus Christ We have the same Lord and the same Spirit and all that is theirs in possession is in right and title ours They are our elder brethren and being at age have possession of the inheritance but we that are yet in the lap of the Church on earth our Mother and in the arms of our Fathers grace are of the same family and have the same nature in our low degree They were once on earth as low as we and we shall be shortly in heaven as high
off your siding keep this blessed simple Unity you will then be wiser then in a passion to cast your selves into Hell because some fall out in the way to Heaven Nor will it serve your turn at the bar of God to talk of the miscarriages or scandalls of some that took on them to be godly no more then to run out of the Ark for the sake of Cham on out of Christs familie for the sake of Judas What ever men are God is Just and will do you no wrong and you are called to Believe in God and to serve him and not to believe in men Nothing but wickedness could so far blind men as to make them think they may cast off their love service to the Lord because some others have dishonoured him Or that they may cast away their souls by carelesness because some others have wounded their souls by particular sins Do you dislike the sins of Professors of Godliness So much the better We desire you not to agree with them in sinning Joyn with them in a Holy life and imitate them so far as they obey the Lord go as far beyond them in avoiding the sins that you are offended at as you can and this is it that we desire Supose they were Covetous or Liars or Schismatical Imitate them in holy duties and fly as far from Covetousness Lying and Schism as you will You have had Learned and Godly Bishops of this City Search the writings of those of them that have left any of their labours to posterity and see whether they speak not for the same substantials of faith and godliness which are now Preacht to you by those that you set so light by Bishop Laitmer Parrey Babington c. while they were Bishops and Rob. Abbot Hall c. before they were Bishops all Excellent Learned Godly men have here been Preachers to your Ancestors Read their Books and you will find that they call men to that strictness and holiness of life which you cannot abide Read your Bishop Babington on the Commandments and see there how zealously he condemneth the Prophaners of the Lords Day and those that make it a day of idleness or sports And what if one man think that one Bishop should have hundreds of Churches under his sole jurisdiction and another man think that every full Parish-Church should have a Bishop of their own and that one Parish will find him work enough be he what he will be which is the difference now amongst us is this so heinous a disagreement as should frighten you from a holy life which all agree for To conclude remember this is the day of your salvation Ministers are your Helpers Christ and Holiness are your way Scripture is your Rule the Godly must be your company and the Communion of Saints must be your desire If now any scandals divisions displeasures or any seducements of secret or open adversaries of the truth or temptations of Satan the world or flesh whatsoever shall prevaile with you to lose your day to refuse your mercies and to neglect Christ and your immortal souls you are conquered and undone and your enemy hath his will and the more confidently and fearlesly you brave it out the more is your misery for the harder are your hearts and the harder is your cure and the surer and sorer will be your damnation I have purposely avoided the enticing words of worldly wisdom and a stile that tends to claw your ears and gain applause with aery wits and have chosen these familiar words and dealt thus plainly and freely with you because the greatness of the cause perswaded me I could not be too serious Whether many of you will read it what success it shall have upon them or how those that read it will take it I cannot tell But I know that I intended it for your good and that whether you will hear or whether you will forbear the Ministers of Christ must not forbear to do their duty nor be rebellious themselves but our Labours shall be acceptable with our Lord and you shall know that his Ministers were among you Ezek. 2. 3 4 5 6 7 8. Yet a little while is the Lightwith you Walk while ye have the Light lest darkness come upon you for he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth Joh. 12. 35. O take this warning from Christ and from An earnest desirer of your everlasting Peace Rich. Baxter The CONTENTS THE Introduction p. 1. What is meant by an Enemy and how Death is an Enemy to Nature p. 4 5. How Death is an Enemy to Grace and to our salvation discovered in ten particulars p. 10. How Christ conquereth this Enemy p. 23. Four Antidotes given us against the Enmity of Death at our Conversion p. 26. How Death is made a destruction of it self p. 36. The full destruction at the Resurrection p. 39. The first Use to resolve the doubt Whether Death be a punishment to Believers p. 41. Use 2. To shew us the malignity of sin and how we should esteem and use it p. 43. Use 3. To teach us that man hath now a need of Grace for difficulties which were not before him in his state of innocency p. 47 Use 4. To inform us of the Reasons of the sufferings and death of Christ p. 50. Use 5. To rectifie the mistakes of some true Believers that think they have no saving Grace because the fears of Death deterr them from desiring to be with Christ p. 53. Use 6. To teach us to study and magnifie our Redeemers conquering Grace that overcometh Death and makes it our advantage p. 62. Use 7. To direct us how to prepare for Death and overcome the enmity and fear of it p. 71 Direct 1. Make sure that Conversion be sound p. 74. Direct 2. Live by faith on Christ the Conquerour p. 75 Direct 3. Live also by faith on the Heavenly Glory p. 77. Direct 4. Labour to encrease and exercise Divine Love p. 80. Direct 5. Keep conscience clear or if it be wounded presently seek the cure p. 82. Direct 6. Redeem and improve your precious time p. 84. Direct 7. Crucifie the flesh and die to the world p. 85. Direct 8. A conformity to God in the hatred of sin and love of holiness and especially in the point of justice p. 87. Direct 9. The due consideration of the restlesness and troubles of this life and of the manifold evils that end at Death p. 89. Direct 10. Resign your wills entirely to the will of God and acquiesce in it as your safety felicity and Rest p. 103. Use 8. Great comfort to Believers that they have no enemy but what they are sure shall be conquered at last p. 106. Object But what comfort is all this to me that know not whether I have part in Christ or no Answered to satisfie the doubts and further the assurance of the troubled Christian p. 111 Use 9. What a mercy the Resurrection of Christ
was to the world and how we should use it to strengthen our faith p. 129 The Lords day honourable p. 130. Use 10. How earnestly we should pray for the second coming of Christ though Death be terrible p. 134 Some imitable passages of the Life of Elizabeth late Wife of Mr. Joseph Baker whose Funerals occasioned this discourse p. 144. 1 Cor. 15. 26. The last Enemy that shall be destroyed is Death DEATH is the occasion of this days meeting and Death may be the Subject of our present Meditations I must speak of that which will shortly silence me and you must hear of that which will speedily stop your ears and we must spend this hour on that which waits to cut our thred and take down our glasse and end our time and tell us we have spent our last But as it hath now done good by doing hurt so are we to consider of the accidental benefits as well as of the natural evil from which the heavenly wisdome doth 〈…〉 them Death-hath now bereaved a body of its Soul but thereby it hath sent that 〈◊〉 to Christ where it hath now experience how good it is to be absent from the body and present with the Lord 2 Cor. 5. 8. It hath separated a faithful wife from a beloved husband but it hath sent her to a husband dearlier beloved and taught her now by experience to say That to be with Christ is best of all Phil. 1. 23. It hath deprived a sorrowful husband of a wife deprived us all of a faithful friend but it hath thereby brought us to the house of mourning which is better for us than the house of teasting a Paradox to the flesh but an undoubted truth for here we may see the end of all men and we that are yet living may lay it to our hearts Eceles 7. 2 3. Yes it hath brought us to the house of God and occasioned this serious address to his Holiness that we may be instructed by his Word as we are warned by his Works and that we may be wise to understand and to consider our latter end Deut. 32. 29. It s like you 'l think to tell men of the evil or enmity of Death is as needlesse a discourse as any could be chosen For who is there that is not naturally too sensible of this and who doth not dread the name or at least the face of Death But there is accidentally a greater evil in it than that which nature teacheth men to fear And while it is the King of terrours to the world the most are ignorant of the greatest hurt that it doth them or can do them or at least it is but little thought on which hath made me think it a needful work to tell you yet of much more evil in that which you abhor as the greatest evil But so as withall to magnifie our Redeemer that overshooteth death in its own bow and causeth it when it hits the mark to miss it and that causeth health by loathsome medicines and by the dung of our bodily corruption manureth his Church to the greater felicity Such excellent skill of our wise Physician we find exprest and exercised in this Chapter where an unhappy errour against the Resurrection hath happily occasioned an excellent discourse on that weighty Subject which may stablish many a thousand souls and serve to shame and destroy such heresies till the Resurrection come and prove it self The great Argument which the Apostle most insisteth on to prove the Resurrection is Christs own Resurrection where he entereth into a comparison between Christ and Adam shewing that as Adam first brought death upon himself and then upon his posterity so Christ that was made a quickening 〈◊〉 did first Rise himself as the first-fruits and their at his coming will raise his own And as in Adam all die so in Christ shall all be made alive And this Christ will do as our victorious King and the Captain of our salvation who when he hath subdued every enemy will then deliver up the Kingdom to the Father And the last enemy which he wil subdue is Death therefore our Resurrection is his final conquest The terms of the Text have no difficulty in them The Doctrine which they expresse must be thus unfolded 1 I must shew you that Death is an Enemy and what is meant by this expression and wherein its Enmity doth consist 2 I shall shew you that it is an Enemy to be destroyed though last and how and by what degrees it is destroyed And then we shall make application of it to your further Instruction and Edification 1. That you may know what is meant by an Enemy here you must observe that man being fallen into sin and misery and Christ having undertaken the work of our Redemption the Scripture oft speaketh of our misery and recovery Metaphorically in military terms And so Satan is said to take us captive and we to be his slaves and Christ to be the Captain of our Salvation and to redeem us from our bondage and thus our sin and misery and all that hindereth the blessed Ends of his undertaking are called Enemies Death therefore is called an Enemy to be destroyed that is a â—â—â—al evil to be removed by the Redeemer in order to our recovery and the glory of his grace 1. It is an Evil. 2. A punishment procured by our sin and executed by Gods Justice 3. It is an Evil that hindereth our felicity These three things are included in the Enmity That Death is an Enemy to Nature is a thing that all understand but all consider not how it is an Enemy to our Souls to the exercise of grace and consequently to the attainment of glory I shall therefore having first spoken briefly of the sormer insist a little longer upon the latter â— How great an Enemy Death is unto Nature doth easily appear in that It is the Dissolution of the Man It maketh a Man to become No Man by separating the Soul from the Body and dissolving the Body into its principles It pulls down in a moment a curious frame that Nature was long building and tenderly cherishing and preserving The Mother long nourishes it in her bowels and painfully brings it forth and carefully brings it up What 〈◊〉 doth it cost our Parents and our selves to make provision for this Life and death in a moment cuts it off How careful are we to keep in these Lamps and to maintain the Oyl and Death extinguisheth them at a blast How noble a creature doth it destroy To day our parts are all in order and busie about their several tasks our Hearts are moving our Lungs are breathing our Stomacks are digesting our Blood and Spirits by assimilation making more and to morrow death takes off the poise and all stands still or draws the pins and all the frame doth fall to pieces We shall breath no more nor speak nor think nor walk no more Our pulse will beat no more Our eyes
shall see the light no more Our ears shall hear the voice of man delightful sounds and melody no more we shall taste no more our meat or drink Our appetite is gone Our strength is gone Our natural warmth is turned into an earthly cold Our comeliness and beauty is turned into a ghastly loathsome deformity Our white and red doth soon turn into horrid blackness Our tender flesh hath lost its feeling and is become a senseless lump that feeleth not whether it is carried nor how it is used that must be hidden in the earth lest it annoy the living that quickly turns to loathsome putresaction and after that to common earth Were all the once-comely bodies that now are rotting in one Church-yard uncovered and here presented to your view the fight would tell you more effectually than my words do what an Enemy Death is to our Nature When corruption hath finished its work you see the earth that once was flesh you see the bones you see the skulls you see the holes where once were brains and eyes and mouth This change Death makes And that universally and unavoidably The Prince cannot resist it by his Majesty for he hath sinned against the highest Majesty The strong cannot resist it by their strength For it is the Messenger of the Almighty The Commanders must obey it The Conquerours must be conquered by it The Rich cannot bribe it The Learned Orator cannot perswade it to pass him by The skilful Physician cannot save himself from the mortal stroke Neither fields nor gardens earth or sea affordeth any medicine to prevent it All have sinned and all must die Dust we are and to dust we must return Gen. 3. 19. And thus should we remain if the Lord of Life should not revive us 2. And it is not only to the Body but to the Soul also that Death is naturally an Enemy The Soul hath naturally a Love and Inclination to its Body and therefore it feareth a Separation before and desireth a Restauration afterward Abstracting Joy and Torment Heaven and Hell in our consideration the state of Separation as such is a natural evil even to the humane Soul of Christ it was so while his Body remained in the grave which separated state is the Hades that our English calleth Hell that Christ is said to have gone into And though the Soul of Christ and the souls of those that die in him do passe into a far more happy state than they had in flesh yet that is accidentally from Rewarding Justice and the Bounty of the Lord and not at all from Death as Death the separation as such is still an evil And therefore the Soul is still desirous of the Bodies Resurrection and knoweth that its felicity will then be greater when the re-union and glorification hath perfected the whole man So that Death as Death is unwelcome to the soul it self though Death as accidentally gainful may be desired 3. And to the unpardoned unrenewed soul Death is the passage to everlasting misery and in this regard is far more terrible than in all that hitherto hath been spoken Oh could the guilty soul be sure that there is no Justice to to take hold on it after death and no more pain and sorrow to be felt but that man dieth as a beast that hath no more to feel or lose then Death would seem a tolerable evil But it s the living Death the dying Life the endless woe to which death leads the guilty soul that makes it to be unspeakably terrible The utter darkness the unquenchable fire the worm that dieth not the everlasting flames of the wrath of God these are the chief horrour and sting of death to the ungodly O were it but to be turned into Trees or Stones or Earth or nothing it were nothing in comparison of this But I pass by this because it is not directly intended in my Text. 4. The Saints themselves being sanctified but in part are but imperfectly assured of their Salvation And therefore in that measure as they remain in doubt or unassured Death may be a double terror to them They believe the threatenings and know more than unbelievers do what an â—sufferable 〈◊〉 it is to be deprived of the celestial glory and what an unspeakable misery it is to bear the endless wrath of God! And therefore so far as they have such fears it must needs make death a terrour to them 5. But if there were nothing but Death it self to be our Enemy foreknowledge of it would increase the misery A Beast that knoweth not that he must die is not tormented with the fears of death though nature hath possessed them with a self preserving fear for the avoiding of an invading evil But man foreknoweth that he must die He hath still occasion to anticipate his terrors that which will be and certainly and shortly will be is in a manner as if it were already And therefore fore-knowledge makes us as if we were alway dying We see our Graves our weeping Friends our sore-described corruption and dismal state and so our life is a continual Death And thus Death is an enemy to Nature 2. But this is not all nor the greatest Enmity that Death hath to the godly It is a lamentable hinderance to the work of Grace as I shall shew you next in ten particulars 1â— The fears of Death do much abate our Desires after God as he is to be enjoyed by the separated soul Though every believing holy soul do love God above all and take Heaven for his home and therefore sincerely longeth after it yet when we know that Death stands in the way and that there is no coming thither but through this dreadful narrow passage this stoppeth and lamentably dulleth our desires And so the Natural Enmity turneth to a Spiritual sorer enmity For let a man be never so much a Saint be will be still a Man and therefore as Death will still be death so nature will still be nature And therefore death as death will be abhorred And we are such timerous sluggards that we are easily discouraged by this Lyon in the way The ugly Pâ—â—er affrighted us from those grateful thougâ—â— of the New Jerusalem the City of God the heavenly Inheritance which otherwise the blessed object would produce Our sanctified affections would be mounting upwards and holy Love would be working towards its blessed object but Death standing in the way suppresseth our desires and turns us back and frighteneth us from our Fathers presence We look up to Christ and the Holy City as to a precious Pearl in the bottom of the Sea or as to a dear and faithful Friend that is beyond some dreadful gulf Fain we would enjoy him but we dare not venture we fear this dismal enemy in the way He that can recover his health by a pleasant medicine doth take it without any great reluctancy But if a Leg or an Arm must be out off or a stone cut out by a painful
dangerous Incision what a striving doth it cause between the contrary passions the love of life and the love of ease the fear of death and the fear of suffering Could we but come to Heaven as easily as innocent Adam might have done if he had conquered what wings would it add to our desires Might we be translated as Henoch or conveyed thither in the Chariot of Elâ—â—â— what Saint is there that would not long to see the face and glory of the Lord Were it but to go to the top of a Mountain and there see Christ with Moses and Elias in a glimpse of Glory as he did the three Disciples Who would not make haste and say It is good for us to be here Matth 17. 1 4 But to travel so chearfully with Abraham to the Mount of Moriah to sacrifice an only Son or with a Martyr to the flames is a harder task This is the principal enmity of death it deterreth our desires and thoughts from Heaven and maketh it a far harder matter to us to long after God than otherwise it would be Yea it causeth us to flie from him even when we truly love him And where Faith and Love do work so strongly as to overcome these fears yet do they meet with them as an enemy and must fight before they overcome 2. And as this Enemy dulleth our Desires so doth it consequently cool our Love as to the exercise and it hindereth our hope and much abateth the complacency and Joy that we should have in the believing thoughts of Heaven when we should be rejoycing in hope of the glory of God Rom. 5. 2. the face of death appearing to our thoughts is naturally an enemy to our joy When we think of the grave and of dissolution and corruption and of our long abode in the places of darkness of our contemned dust and scattered bones this damps our joyful thoughts of Heaven if supernatural grace do not make us Conquerours But if we might pass from Earth to Heaven as from one room to another what haste should we make in our desires How joyfully should we think and speak of Heaven Then we might live in the Joy of the Holy Ghost and easily delight our selves in God and Comfort would be our daily food 3. Moreover as our Natural Enemy doth thus occasion the abatement of Desire and Love and Joy so also of our Thankfulnesse for the Glory that is promised us God would have more praise from us if we had more pleasing joyful thoughts of our Inheritance We should magnifie him from day to day when we remember how we shall magnifie him for ever Our hearts would be turned into thankfulnesse and our tongues would be extolling our dear Redeemer and sounding forth his praise whom we must praise for ever if dreadful Death did not draw a veil to hide the heavenly glory from us 4. And thus the dismal face of Death doth hinder the heavenlinesse of our Conversation Our Thoughts will be diverted when our complacency and desire is abated Our minds be willinger to grow strange to Heaven when Death still mingleth terrour in our meditations Whereas if we could have come to God in the way that was first appointed us and could be cloathed with glory without being stript of our present cloathing by this terrible hand how familiarly should we then converse above How readily would our Thoughts run out to Christ Meditation of that glory would not be then so hard a work Our hearts would not be so backward to it as now they are 5. Faith is much hindered and Infidelity much advantaged by Death Look either to the state of soul or body and you will easily perceive the truth of this The state of a Soul incorporated we know by long experience what kind of apprehensions volitions and affections belong to a soul while it acteth in the Body we feel or understand But what manner of Knowledge Will or Love what Joy what sorrow belong to souls that are separated from the Bodies it is not possible for us now distinctly and formally to conceive And when men find themselves at a loss about the manner they are tempted to doubt of the thing it self The swarms of irreligious Infidels that have denied the Immortality and separated existence of the Soul are too full a proof of this And good men have been haunted with this horrible temptation Had there been no death we had not been liable to this dangerous assault The opinion of the sleeping of the soul till the Resurrection is but a step to flat Infidelity and both of them hence receive their life because a soul in flesh when it cannot conceive to its satisfaction of the being state or action of a separated soul is the easier drawn to question or deny it And in regard of the Body the difficulty and tryal is as great That a corps resolved into dust and perhaps first devoured by some other body and turned into its substance should be re-united to its soul and so become a glorified body is a point not easie for unsanctified nature to believe When Paul preached of the Resurrection to the learned Athenians some mocked and others turned off that discourse Acts 17. 32. It is no easier to believe the Resurrection of the Body than the Immortality or separated Existence of the Soul Most of the world even Heathens and Infidels do confess the latter but few of them comparatively believe the former And if sin had not let in Death upon our Nature thâ—â— perilous difficulty had been prevented Then we should not have been puzled with the thoughts of either a corrupted Body or a separated Soul 6. And consequently by all this already mentioned our Endeavors meet with a great impediment If Death weaken Faith Desire and Hope it must needs dull our Endeavors The deterred discouraged soul moves slowly in the way of life Whereas if Death were not in our way how chearfully should we run towards Heaven our thoughts of it would be still sweet and these would be a powerful Spring to action When the Will goes with full Sails the commanded faculty will the more easily follow We should long so earnestly to be in Heaven if Death were not in the way that nothing could easily stop us in our course How earnestly we should pray How seriously should we meditate and confer of Heaven and part with any thing to attain it But that which dulls our Desires of the End must needs be an Enemy to holy Diligence and dull us in the use of means 7. This Enemy also doth dangerously tempt us to fall in love with present things and to take up the miserable Portion of the worldling when it hath weakened faith and cooled our desires to the life to come we shall be tempted to think that its best take such pleasure as may here be had and feed on that where a sensual mind hath less discouragement Whereas if Death did not stand in the way and darken
Heaven to us and turn back our desires how easily should we get above these triftes and perceive the vanity of all below and how unworthy they are to be once regarded 8. Moreover it is much long of this last Enemy that God is so dishonoured by the Fears and droopings of believers They are but imperfectly yet freed from this bondage and accordingly they walk Whereas if the King of terrours were removed we should have less of Fear and more of Love as living more in the sight and sense of Love And then we should glorifie the God of Love and appear to the world as men of another world and shew them the faith and hope of Saints in the heavenly chearfulness of our lives and no more dishonour the Lord and our Profession by our uncomfortable despondencies as we do 9. Moreover it is much long of this last Enemy that many true Christians cannot perceive their own sincerity but are overwholm'd with doubts and troublesome fears lest they have not the faith and hope of Saints and lest the Love of God abide not in them and lest their hearts are more on Earth than Heaven When they find themselves afraid of dying and to have dark amazing thoughts about eternity and to think with less trouble and fear of earth than of the life to come this makes them think that they are yet but worldlings and have not placed their happiness with God when perhaps it is but the fear of death that causeth these unjust conclusions Christian I shall tell thee more anon that God may be truly loved and desired by thee and Heaven may be much more valued than Earth and yet the natural fears of death that standeth in thy way may much perplex thee and make thee think that thou art averse from God when indeed thou art but averse from Death because yet this Enemy is not overcome 10. Lastly this Enemy is not the smallest cause of many of our particular sins and of the apostacy of many hypocrites Indeed it is one of the strongest of our temptations Before man sinned none could take away his life but God and God would not have done it for any thing but sin So that man had no temptation from the malice of enemies or the pride of Conquerours or the sury of the passionate or the power of Tyrants to be afraid of death and to use any unlawful means to scape it An avoidable death from the hand of God he was obliged moderately to fear that is to be afraid of sinning lest he die else God would not have threatned him if he would not have had him make use of a preventing fear But now we have an unavoidable death to fear and also an untimely death from the hand of man by Gods permission And the fear of these is a powerful temptation Otherwise Abraham would not have distructively equivocated as he did to save his life Gen. 20. 11. and Isaac after him do the same when he sojourned in the same place Gen. 26. 7. If the fear of Death were not a strong temptation Peter would not have thrice denyed Christ and that after so late a warning and engagement nor would all his Disciples have forsaken him and fled Matth. 26. 56. Nor would Martyrs have a special reward nor would Christ have been put to call upon his Disciples that they Fear not them that can kill the body Luke 12. 4. and to declare to men the necessity of self-denyal in this point of Life and that none can be his Disciple that loves his Life before him Matth. 16. 39. Luke 14. 26. He is a Christian indeed that so Loveth God that he will not sin to save his Life But what is it that an hypocrite will not do to escape Death He will equivocate and forswear himself with the Jesuite and Familist He will forsake not only his dearest friend but Christ also and his Conscience What a multitude of the most hainous sins are daily committed through the fears of death Thousands where the Inquisition ruleth are kept in Popery by it And thousands are kept in Mahometanism by it Thousands are drawn by it to betray their Countries to deny the truth to betray the Church and Cause of Christ and finally to betray their souls unto perdition some of them presume to deny Christ wilfully because that Peter had pardon that denied him through surprize and through infirmity But they will not Repent with Peter and die for him after their repentance He that hath the power of an Hypocrites life may prescribe him what he shall believe and do may write him down the Rule of his Religion and tell him what changes he shall make what oaths he shall take what party he shall side with and command him so many sins a day as you make your horse go so many miles Satan no doubt had much experience of the power of this temptation when he boasted so confidently of it against Job 2. 4. Skin for skin and all that a man hath he will give for his life And its true no doubt of those that love nothing better than their lives Satan thought that the fear of Death would make a man do any thing And of too many he may boldly make this boast Let me but have power of their Lives and I will make them say any thing and swear any thing and be for any Cause or Party and do any thing against God or man When lesser matters can do so much as common sad experience sheweth us no wonder if the fear of death can do it In brief you may see by what is said that Death is become an Enemy to our Souls by being first the Enemy of our Natures The Interest of our Bodies works much on our Souls much more the Interest of the whole man The principle of self-love was planted in Nature in order to self-preservation and the government of the world Nature doth necessarily abhor its own destruction And therefore this destruction standing in the way is become an exceeding great hinderance to our affections which takes them off from the life to come 1. It is a very great hinderance to the Conversion of those that are yet carnal imprisoned in their unbelief It is hard to win their hearts to such a state of Happiness that cannot be obtained but by yielding unto Death 2. And to the truly godly it is naturally an impediment a great temptation in the points before expressed And though it prevail not against them it exceedingly hindereth them And thus I have shewed you that Death is an Enemy further than I doubt the most consider of If the unbeliever shall here tell me that Death is not the fruit of sin but natural to man though he had never sinned and therefore that I lay all this on God I answer him that Mortality as it signifieth a posse mori a natural capacity of dying was natural to us in our innocency or else Death could not be threatned as a
to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. You see here what it is that conquereth the enmity of death in our sanctification even that powerful love of God that is then given us which will go to him through the most cruel death 4. A fourth Antidote that is given us by Christ against the Enmity of Death is the Holy Ghost as he is the Comforter of the Saints He makes it his work to corroborate and confirm them As sin hath woven calamities into our lives and filled us with troubles and griefs and fears so Christ doth send his spirit to undo these works of Satan and to be a Comforter as well as a Sanctifier to his members As the Sanctifying Spirit striveth against the entising sinful flesh so the Comforting Spirit striveth against the troubling flesh as also against the persecuting as well as the tempting world and the vexing as well as the tempting Devil And greater is he that is in us than he that is in the world 1 John 4. 4. The Spirit of Christ overcomes the disquieting as well as the tempting Spirit But with some difference because our comforts are not in this life so necessary to us as our Holiness Joy being part of our Reward is not to be expected certainly or constantly in any high degree till we come to the state of our Reward And therefore though the Holy Ghost will carry on the work of Sanctification universally constantly and certainly in the Elect yet in many of them his Comforting work is more obscure and interrupted And yet he is a Conquerour here For his works must be judged of in reference to their ends And our comfort on earth is given us for our encouragement in holy wayes that we be not stopt or diverted by the fear of enemies and also to help on our love to God and to quicken us in thanks and praise and draw up our hearts to the life to come and make us more serviceable to others And such a measure of comfort we shall have as conduceth to these ends and is suitable to our present state and the employment God hath for us in the world if we do not wilfully grieve our Comforter and quench our joyes So that when Death and the Grave appear before and our flesh is terrified with the sight of these Anakims and say We are not able to overcome them and so brings up an evil report upon the promised Land and casts us sometime into murmuring lamentation and weakning-discouragements yet doth the Ho-Ghost cause Faith and Hope as Caleb and Joshua to still the soul Numb 13. and causeth us to contemn these Gyants and say Let us go up and possess it for we are well able to overcome it Ver. 30. The Comforting Spirit sheweth us his death that conquered death Heb. 2. 14 15. even the Cross on which he triumphed openly when he seemed to be conquered Col. 2. 15. He sheweth us the glorious Resurrection of our Head and his promise of our own Resurrection He sheweth us our glorified Lord to whom we may boldly and confidently commend our departing souls Acts 7. 59. And he sheweth us the Angels that are ready to be their Convoy And he maketh all these Considerations effectual and inwardly exciteth our Love and heavenly desires and giveth us a triumphing Courage and Consolation So that Death doth not encounter us alone and in our own strength but finds us armed and led on by the Lord of life who helps us by a sling and stone to conquer this Goliah If a draught of Wine or some spiritful reviving liquor can take off fears and make men bold what then may the Spirit of Christ do by his powerful encouragements and comforts on the soul Did we but see Christ or an Angel standing by our sick-beds and saying Fear not I will convoy thy soul to God this day shalt thou be with me in Paradise What an unspeakable comfort would this be to a dying man Why the Spirit is Christ's Agent here on earth and what the Spirit speaks Christ speaks And therefore we may take its comforting words as spoken to us by Christ himself who spoke the like to the penitent Thief to shew bellevers the virtue of his Cross and what they also may expect from him in their extremity And our Physician is most wise and keeps his Cordials for a fainting time The Spirit useth so sustain and comfort us most in our greatest necessities We need not comforts against death so much in the time of prosperity and health as when death draws neer In health we have ordinarily more need of quickening than of comforting and more need to be awakened from security to a due preparation for death than to be freed from the terrible fore-thoughts of it though inordinate fears of death be hurtful to us security and deadness hurts us more And therefore the Spirit worketh according to our necessities And when Death is neerest and like to be most dreadful he usually giveth the liveliest sense of the joyes beyond it to abate the enmity and encourage the departing soul And if the comfort be but small it is precious because it is most pure as being then mixed with no carnal joyes and because it is most seasonable in so great a strait If we have no more but meer support it will be yet a precious mercy And thus I have done with the third degree of the destruction of Deaths Enmity by these four Antidotes which we receive at our Conversion and the Consequents thereof 4. The fourth degree of this Enemies destruction is by it self or rather by Christ at the time and by the means of death which contrary to its nature shall advantage our felicity When Death hath done its worst it hath half killed it self in killing us It hath then dismissed our imprisoned souls and ended even our fears of death and our fears of all the evils of this life It hath ended our cares and griefs and groans It hath finished our work and ended all our weariness and trouble And more then this it ends our sinning and so destroyeth that which caused it and that which the inordinate fears of it self had caused in us It is the time when sin shall gasp its last and so far our Physitian will perfect the cure and our greatest enemy shall follow us no further It is the door by which the soul must pass to Christ in Paradise If any Papist shall hence plead that therefore allmenmust be perfect without sin before death or else go to Purgatory to be cleansed because as we die so Christ will find us or if they ask How death can perfect us I answer them It is Christ our Physitian that finisheth the cure and Death is the time in which he doth it And if he undertake then do it it concerns not us to be too inquisitive how he doth it What if the patient understand not how blood-letting cureth the infected blood that
is left behind Must he therefore plead against his Physician and say It will not be done because he knoweth not how it s done We feel that here we have our sinful imperfections we have for all that a promise that we shall be with Christ when death hath made its separation and we are assured that no sin doth enter there And is not this enough for us to know But yet I see not why the difficulty of the Objection should trouble us at all Death doth remove us from this sinful flesh and admits the soul into the sight of God And in the very instant of its remove it must needs be perfected even by that remove and by the first appearance of his blessed face If you bring a candle into a dark room the access of the light expelleth the darkness at the same instant And you cannot say that they consist together one moment of time So cold is expelled by the approach of heat And thus when death hath opened the door and let us into the immortal light neither before nor after but in that instant all the darkness and sinful imperfections of our souls are dissipated Throw an empty Bottle into the Sea and the emptiness ceaseth by the filling of the water neither before nor after but in that instant If this should not satisfie any let it satisfie them that the Holy Ghost in the instant of death can perfect his work So that we need not assert a perfection on earth which on their grounds must be the case of all that will escape Hell and Purgatory nor yet any Purgatory-torments after death for the deliverance of the soul from the relicts of sin seeing at the instant of death by the spirit or by the deposition of the flesh or by the sight of God or by the sight of our glorified Redeemer or by all this work will be easily and infallibly accomplished 5. The last degree and perfect conquest will be at the Resurrection And this is the victory that is mentioned in my Text. All that is fore-mentioned doth abate the enmity and conquer death in some degree But the enmity and the enemy it self is conquered at the Resurrection and not till then And therefore Death is the last enemy to be destroyed The Body lyeth under the penal effects of sin till the the Resurrection And it is penal to the soul to be in a state of separation from the Body though it be a state of glory that its in with Christ For it is deprived of the fulness of glory which it shall attain at the Resurrection when the whole man shall be perfected and glorified together Then it is that the Mediators work will be accomplished and all things shall be restored All that are in the graves shall hear the voice of the Son of God and shall come forth John 5. 28. For this is the Fathers will that sent him that of all that he hath given him he should lose nothing but should raise it up at the last day John 6. 39 40. We have hope towards God that there shall be a Resurrection of the dead both of the just and unjust Acts 25. 15. As by man came death so by man came also the Resurrection from the dead 1 Cor. 15. 21. Then shall there be no more death nor sorrow nor crying nor pain Rev. 21. 4. No more diseases or fears of death or grave or of corruption No terrible enemy shall stand betwixt us and our Lord to frighten our hearts from looking towards him O what a birth-day will that be when Graves shall bring forth so many millions of sons for Glory How joyfully will the soul and body meet that were separated so long Then sin hath done its worst and can do no more Then Christ hath done all and hath no more to do as our Redeemer but to justifie us in judgement and give us possession of the joy that he is preparing And then he will deliver up the Kingdom to the Father If you expect now that I should give you resons why Death is the last Enemy to be destroyed though much might be said from the nature of the matter the Wisdom and will of God shall be to me instead of all other Reasons being the fountain and the summ of all He knows best the Order that is agreeable to his Works and Ends to his honour and to our good and therefore to his Wisdom we submit in the patient expectance of the accomplishment of his promises SECT III. Use 1. I Now come to shew you the Usefulness of this Doctrine the for further Information of our understandings the well ordering of our hearts and the reforming of our lives And first you may hence be easily resolved Whether Death be truly penal to the godly which some have been pleased to make a Controversie of late though I am past doubt but the hearts of those men do apprehend it as a punishment whose tongues and pens do plead for the contrary Dust thou art and to dust shalt thou return was part of the sentence past on Adam and all his posterity which then proved it a punishment and it was not remitted to Adam that at the same time had the promise of a Redeemer nor is it remitted to any of us all Were it not for sin God would not inflict it who hath sworn that he takes no pleasure in the death of sinners And that he afflicts not willingly nor grieves the sons of men But my text it self decides the controversie Sin and punishment are the evils that Christ removeth And if death were no punishment as it is no sin how could it be an Enemy and the last enemy to be destroyed by the Redeemer When we feel the Enmity before described against our souls and also know its Enmity to our bodies we cannot think that God would do all this were it not for sin especially when we read that death passeth upon all for that all have sinned Rom. 5. 11 12. and that death is the wages of sin Rom. 6. 23. Though Christ do us good by it that proveth it not to be no punishment For castigatory punishments are purposely to do good to the chastised Indeed we may say O Death Where is thy sting because that the mortal evil to the Soul is taken out and because we foresee the Resurrection by faith when we shall have the victory by Christ But thence to conclude that Death hath no sting now to a believer is not only besides but against the text which telling us that the sting of death is sin and that the strength of sin is the Law doth inform us that Death could not kill us and be Death to us if sin gave it not a sting to do it with as sin could not oblige us to this punishment if the threatning of the Law were not its strength But Christ hath begun the Conquest and will finish it SECT IV. Use 2. FROM all this Enmity in Death we may see
Tim. 4. 8 and to look for the blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ Tit. 2. 13. The Spirit and the Bride say Come Come Lord Jesus Come quickly is the voice of faith and hope and love Revel 22. 17 20. But I find not that his servants are thus Characterized by their desires to die It is therefore the presence of their Lord that they desire But it is Death that they abhor And therefore though they can submit to death it is the coming of Christ that they Love and long for and it is interposing Death that causeth them to draw back Let not Christians be discouraged by mistakes and think that they love not God and glory because they love not this enemy in the way nor think that they are gracenor think that they are graceless or unbelieving worldlings because they are afraid of death as death But perhaps you will say that if grace prevail not against the fears of death then fear is predominant and we are not sincere To which I answer that you must distinguish between such a prevailing as maintaineth our sincerity and such a prevailing as also procureth our fortitude and joy If grace prevail not to keep us upright in a holy life renouncing the world and crucifying the flesh and devoting our selves entirely to God though the fear of death would draw us from it then it is a sign that we are not sincere But if grace do this much and yet prevail not against all fears and unwillingness to die but leave us under uncomfortable hideous thoughts of death this proves us not to be unsound For the soul may savingly love God that is afraid of death And he may truly love the End that fears this dark and dismal way Yet must there be so much to prove our uprightness as that in our deliberate choice we will rather voluntarily pass through death either natural or violent then lose the happiness beyond it Though we love not death yet we love God and Heaven so well that we will submit to it And though we fear it and abhor it yet not so much as we fear and abhor the loss of Heaven Let not poor Christians therefore wrong themselves and deny the graces of the Spirit as if they had more mind of earth then heaven and of things temporal then of things eternal because they are afraid to die All suffering is grievous and not joyous to our nature Paul himself desired not to be uncloathed but clothed upon with our house which is from Heaven that mortality might be swallowed up of life 2 Cor. 5. 2 4. it being better to be absent from the body and present with the Lord. Even Christ himself had a will that desired that the Cup might have passed from will if it had been agreeable to his Fathers will and the ends of his undertaken Office Matth. 26. 41 42. Raise therefore no unjust conclusions from these natural fears nor from the imperfection of our conquest but praise him that relieveth us and abateth the enmity of death and furnisheth us with his Antidotes and will destroy this enemy at last SECT VIII Use 6. FRom the Enmity of Death we may further learn to study and magnifie the victorious grace of our Redeemer which overcometh the enemy and turneth our hurt into our benefit and maketh death a door of life Though death be the enemy that seemeth to conquer us and to destroy and utterly undo us yet being conquered it self by Christ it is used by him to our great advantage and sanctified to be a very great help to our salvation The suffering of Christ himself was in the hour of his enemies and the power of darkness Luke 22. 53. which seemed to have prevailed against him when yet it was but a destroying of Death by Death and the purchasing of life and salvation for the world So also in our Death though sin and Satan seem to conquer it is they that are conquered and not we who are supervictors through him that hath loved us Romans 8. 37. They destroy themselves when they seem to have destroyed us As the Serpent bruised but the heel of Christ who bruised his head so doth he bruise but our heel who in that conflict and by the means of his own execution through the strength of Christ do bruise his head Gen. 3. 15. And this is the upshot of all his enmity against the womans holy seed Though Death was unsuitable to innocent man and is still a natural enemy to us all yet unto sinners it is an evil that is suitable and fit to destroy the greater evil that did cause it and to prevent the everlasting evil The fore-knowledee of our certain Death is a very great help to keep us humble and disgrace all the seducing pleasures of the flesh and all the profits and honours of the world and so to enervate all temptations It is a singular help to quicken a stupid careless siuner and to awaken men to prepare for the life to come and to excite them to seek first the Kingdom of God and to give all diligence to make their calling and election sure and to consider seeing all these things must be dissolved what manner of persons they ought to be in all holy conversation and godliness looking for and hastening to the coming of the day of God 2 Pet. 3 11 12. When we drop asleep the remembrance of Death may quickly awake us when we grow slack it is our spur to put us on to mend our pace Who is so mad as wilfully to sin with Death in his eye or who so dead as with Death in his eye to refuse to live a godly life if he have any spiritual light and feeling Experience telleth us that when health and folly cause us to promise our selves long life and think that Death is a great way off it lamentably cools our zeal and strengtheneth our temptations and dulls our souls to holy operations and the approach of Death puts life into all our apprehensions and affections It is a wonderful hard thing to maintain our lively apprehensions and strong affections and tenderness of conscience and self-denyal and easie contempt of earthly things when we put far from us the day of Death We see what a stir men make for the profits and honours of this world and how fast they hold their fleshly pleasures while they are in health and how contemptuously they speak of all and bitterly complain of the vanity and vexation when they come to dye And if our lives and the world be brought hereby into such disorders when men live so shore a time on Earth what monsters of ambition and covetousnesse and luxury would men be if they lived as long as before the FLOOD even to Eight Hundred or nine hundred years of age Doubtless long life was so great a temptation then to man in his corrupted state that it is no wonder if his wickedness
was great upon the earth and if it prepared for that great destruction of the universal deluge Should men live now but to the age of three hundred or four hundred years I fear it would so tempt them to over-value the world and so embolden them to delay repentance that one would be as a Wolf to another and the weak but be a prey to the strong and wickedness would overwhelm the world despising the reins and bearing down Religious and Civil opposition But when we stand over the grave and see our friends laid in the dust how mortified do we seem how do we even shake the head at the folly of ambitious and covetous worldlings and are ashamed to think of fleshly lusts So far are men from owning their vanities when that silent teacher standeth by It is Death that helps to humble the proud and abate the arrogancy and obstinacy of the wicked and make them regard the messengers of Christ that before despised them and their message It is Death that allayeth the ebullition of destracting thoughts and passions and helpeth to bring men to themselves and fixeth giddy discomposed minds and helps to settle the light and the unsettled and to restrain the worst As we are beholden to the Gallows for our purses and our lives so are we to the grave and hell for much of the order that is in the world and our peace and freedom procured thereby But it is a greater good that it procureth to believers If you ask How is all this to be ascribed to Christ I answer many wayes 1. It is he that hath now the Keys or power of Death and Hell even he that liveth and was dead and that liveth for evermore Rev. 1. 18. and therefore is to be feared by the world 2. It is he that hath by his Blood and Covenant brought us the Hope of Everlasting life which is it that gives the efficacy to Death Without this men would be but desperate and think that it is better have a little pleasure than none at all and so would give up themselves to sin and desperately gratifie their flesh by all the wickedness they could devise 3. And it ls Christ that teacheth men the right use of Death by his holy Doctrine having brought life and immortality to light by his Gospel 4. And it is Christ that sendeth forth the holy Spirit which only doth so illuminate the mind and quicken and dispose the heart that Death may be savingly improved The poyson is our own but it is his skill and love that hath made a Soveraign Antidote of it And let our bodies dye so our sin may dye If the foresight of Death destroy our sin and further our sanctification and the hour of Death doth end our fears and enter us into the state of glory though we will love Death as Death never the better for this much less the sin that caused it yet must we admire the love of our Redeemer And it is not only the Peril but also the Terrous of Death that we are in part delivered from Though Christ himself was in a bloody sweat in his Agony before his death and cryed out on the Cross My God why hast thou forsaken me because he bore the sins of the world yet Death is welcome to many of his followers that drink of his cup and are baptized with his Baptism For they taste not of these dreggs which he drunk up and they are strengthned by his supporting grace He that doth comfort them against sin and Hell doth also comfort them against Death So great is the glory that he hath promised them and so great is his comforting confirming grace that dreadful Death is not great enough to prevail against them As it was too weak to conquer Christ so is it too weak to conquer his Spirit in his peoples souls Without Christ we could not live and we durst not die but through him we can do and suffer all things and can boldly pass through this dark and shady vail of death yea we can desire to depart and to be with Christ as best for us for to Live is Christ and to die is gain Phil. 1. 21 23. For we know that if our earthly house of this Tabernacle were dissolved we have a building of God an house not made with hands eternal in the heavens And therefore sometimes we can earnestly groan desiring to be cloathed upon with our house which is from heaven And we are alwayes confident knowing that whilest we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord we are confident I say and willing rather to be absent from the body and present with the Lord and therefore labour that whether present or absent we may be accepted of him For we walk by faith and not by sight and it is God that hath wrought us for the self same thing who also hath given us the earnest of the Spirit 2 Cor. 5. 1 to 10. Though we long not to dye yet we long to see the face of God And though we lay down our bodies with natural unwillingness yet we lay down our sin and sorrows with gladness and spiritual delight And though our hearts are ready to faint as Peter's when he walked to Christ upon the waters yet Christ puts forth his hand of love and soon recovereth us from our fear and danger Melancholy and Impatience may make men weary of their lives and rush upon Death with a false conceit that it will end their sorrows But this is not to conquer Death but to be conquered by a lesser evil and it is not an effect of fortitude but of an imbecillity and impotency of mind And if a Brutus a Cato or a Seneca be his own Executioner they do but chuse a lesser evil in their conceits even a Death which they accounted honourable before a more ignominious Death or a Life of shame and scorn and misery But the true believer is raised above the fears of Death by the love of God and the hopes of Glory and Death though ungrateful in it self is welcome to him as the way to his felicity Let Tyrants and Souldiers take it for their glory that they can take away mens lives that is they have the power of a Serpent or of Rats-bane as if it were their honour to be their Countries pestilence and a Ruler and a Dose of Poyson were things of equal strength and use But it is the Glory of Christ to enable his Disciples to conquer Death and bear the fury of the most cruel persecutors The Martyrs have been more joyful in their sufferings than the Judges that condemned them in their Pomp and Glory When we are pressed above strength and despair of life and have the sentence of Death in our selves we are then taught to trust in the Living God that raiseth the dead 2 Cor. 1. 8 9 10. the saints by faith have been tortured not accepting deliverance that they might obtain a better resurrection
dare not stand the charge of Death and with it the charge of the Law and of our Consciences How dreadfully should we then be foiled and nonplust if we must be found in no other righteousness but what we have received from the first Adam and have wrought by the strength received from him But being gathered under the wings of Christ as the chickens under the wings of the Hen Mat. 23. 37. and being found then in him having the righteousness which is through the faith of Christ the righteousness which is of God by faith we may boldly answer to all that can be charged on us to our terrour If we know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings and are made conformable to his death Phil. 3. 9 10. if we are dead with him to the world and risen with him to a holy life if we have believingly traced him in his sufferings and conquest and perceive by faith how we participate in his victories we shall then be able to grapple with the hands of Death and though we know the grave must be for a while the prison of our flesh we can by faith foresee the opening of our prison-doors and the loosing of our bonds and the day of our last and full Redemption It strengtheneth us exceedingly to look unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith who for the joy that was set before him endured the Cross despising the shame and is set down at the right hand of the Throne of God When we consider what he endured against himself we shall not be weary nor faint in our minds Heb. 12. 2 3. DIRECTION III. LIve also by faith on the Heavenly Glory As one eye of faith must be on an humbled crucified Christ so must the other be on Heaven on a glorified Christ and on the glory and everlasting Love of God which we shall there enjoy This is it that conquereth the fears of Death when we belive that we shall pass thorow it into everlasting life If a man for health will take the most ungrateful potion the bitterness being short and the benefit long and if he will suffer the Surgeon to let out his blood and in case of necessity to cut of a member how light should we make of Death that have the assured hopes of glory to encourage us What door so streight that we would not pass thorow if we could to our dearest friend What way so soul that we would not travel to our beloved home And shall Death seem intolerable to us that letteth in our souls to Christ Well might Paul say To dye is gain Phil. 1. 21. when we gain deliverance from all those sins that did here beset us all those sorows that sin had bred We gain the accomplishment of our desires the end of our faith the salvation of oursouls We gain the Crown that fadeth not away a place before the Throne of Christ in the Temple of God in the City of God the New Jerusalem to eat of the hidden Manna and of the Tree of Life which is in the midst of the Paradise of God Rev. 2. 3. We gain the place prepared for us by Christ in his Fathers house Joqn 14. 1 2. For we shall be with him where he is that we may behold his glory Joh. 17. 24. We shall gain the sight of the glory of God and the feeling of his most precious love and the fulness of joy that is in his presence and the everlasting pleasures at his right hond Psal 16. 11. And shall we think much to dye for such a gain we will put off our cloaths and welcome sleep which is the Image of death that our bodies may have rest and refuse not thus to dye every night that we may rise more refreshed for our employments in the morning And shall we stick at the uncloathing of our souls in ordâ—â— to their everlasting Rest Set but the eye of Faith to the Prospective of the Promise and take a serious frequent view of the promised Land and this if any thing will make Death more welcome than Physick to the sick than uncloathing to a beggar that puts on new or better cloaths Shall a poor man chearfully ply his labour all day in hope of a little wages at night and shall not a believer chearfully yield to Death in hope of everlasting glory so far as Heaven is soundly believed and our conversations and hearts are there the fears of Death will be asswaged and nothing else will well asswage them DIRECTION IV. MOreover if you will conquer the enmity of Death do all that you can to encrease and exercise the love of God in you For love will so encline you to the blessed object of it that Death will not be able to keep down the flame Were God set as a seal upon our hearts we should find that Love is as strong as Death and the coals thereof are coals of fire and the flame is vehement many waters cannot quench it nor can the floods drown it Cant. 8. 6 7. If carnal Love have made the amorous to chuse Death that they might passionately express it especially when they have heard if the death of their beloved and if natural fortitude and love to their Country have made many valiant men though Heathens to contemn Death and readily lay down lives and if the love of fame and vain glory in a surviving name have caused many to dye through pride how much more will the powerful love of God put on the soul to leave this flesh and pass through Death that we may see his face and fully enjoy the object of our love So much as you love God so much will you be above the terrours of the grave and past through Death for the enjoyment of your beloved Perfect Love casteth out fear and he tqat feareth is not made perfect in love in Death and Judgement we shall have boldness if our love be perfect 1 John 4. 17 18. This maketh the Martyrs chearfully lay down their lives for Christ and love is glad of so precious an opportunity for its exercise and manifestation Love is a restless working thing that will give you no rest till your desires are attained and you be with God Nothing is so valiant as Love It rejoyceth when it meeteth with difficulties which it may encounter for the sake of our beloved It contemneth dangers It glorieth in sufferings Though it be humble and layeth by all thoughts of merit yet it rejoyceth in sufferings for Christ and glorieth in the Cross and in the participation of his sufferings and in the honourable wounds and fears which we receive for him that died for us DIRECTION V. TO overcome the terrours and enmity of Death it is necessary that we keep the Conscience clear from the guilt of wilful sin and of impenitency If it may be see that you wound it not if you have wounded it presently seek a cure
and live not in a wounded state The face of Death will waken conscience and cause it to speak much lowder than it did in health and in prosperity And then sin will seem another thing and wrath more terrible than it did in your security Conscience will do much to make your burden light or heavy If Conscience groundedly speak peace and all be sound and well at home Death will be less terrible the heart being fortified against its enmity But to have a pained body and a pained soul a dying body and a scorched Conscience that is afraid of everlasting Death this is a terrible case indeed Speedily therefore get rid of sin and get your Consciences throughly cleansed by sound repentance and the blood of Christ For so much sin as you bring to your death-bed so much bitterness will there be in Death Away then with that sin that Conscience tells you of and touch the forbidden fruit no more and kindle not the sparks of Hell in your souls to make the sting of Death more venemous As it will quiet a believing soul through Christ when he can say with Hezekiah Isa 38. 3. Remember now O Lord I beseech thee how I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart and have done that which is good in thy sight and it will be our rejoycing if we have the testimony of our Consciences that in simplicity and godly sincerity we have had our conversation in the world 2 Cor. 1. 12. So will it be most terrible to dye in the fears of unpardoned sin and to have Conscience scourging us with the remembrance of our folly when God is afflicting us and we have need of a well-composed mind to bear the troubles of our flesh A little from without is grievous when any thing is amiss within Get home therefore to Christ without delay and cease not till you have peace in him that Death may find your Consciences whole DIRECTION VI. REdeeming time is another means to prevent the hurtful fears of Death When we foreknow that it will shortly end our time let us make the best of time while we have it And then when we find that our work is done and that we did not loyter nor lose the time that God vouchsafed us the end of it will be less grievous to us A man that studieth his duty and spareth for no cost or pains and is as loath to lose an hours time as a covetous man is to lose an hundred pound will look back on his life and look before him to his Death with greater peace and less perplexity than another man But the thoughts of Death must needs be terrible to a man that hath trifled away his life and been an unthrift of his time To think when you must dye that now you are at your last day or hour and withall to think how many hours you vainly lost and that you knew not the worth of time till it was gone will make Death more bitter than now you can imagine What else is Deaah but the ending of our Time and what can be more necessary to a comfortable end then faithfully to use it while we have it DIRECTION VII ANother help against the Enmity of Death is the Crucifying of the flesh with its affections and lusts and the conquest of the world by the life of faith and crucifying it by the Cross of Christ and dying daily by the patient suffering of the Cross our selves When we are loose from all things under the Sun and there is nothing that entangleth our affections on earth a great part of the difficulty is then removed But Death will tear the heart that is glued to any thing in this world Possess therefore as if you possessed not and rejoyce as if you rejoyced not and use the world as not abusingit for the fashion of this world doth pass away 1 Cor. 7. 29 30 31. It is much for the sake of our flesh that must perish that Death doth seem so bitter to us If therefore we can throughly subdue the flesh and live above its pleasure and desires we shall the more easily bear its dissolution Shut up your senses then a little more and let your hearts grow stranger to this world and if you have known any persons relations accomodations after the flesh from henceforth know them so no more How terrible is Death to an earthly-minded man that had neglected his soul for a treasure here which must then be dissipated in a moment How easie is Death to a heavenly-mind that is throughly weaned from this world and taketh it but for his pilgrimage or passage unto life and it hath made it the business of his dayes to lay up for himself a treasure in Heaven He that hath unfeignedly made Heaven his end in the course of his life will most readily pass to it on the hardest terms For every man is willing to attain his end DIRECTION VI. IT will much help us against the enmity of Death to be duly conformed to the Image of God in the hatred of sin and love of holiness and in special in the point of Justice When we hate sin throughly and find it so incorporated into our flesh that they must live and dye together it will make Death the more easie to us because it will be the dath of sin even of that sin which we most hate and that God hateth and that hath cost us so dear as it hath done When we are in love with holiness and know that we shall never be perfect in it till after Death it will make Death the more welcome as the passage to our desired life When the Justice even the castigatory and vindictive Justice of God is more amiable in our eyes and we are not blinded by self-love to judge of God and of his wayes according to the interest of our flesh we shall then consent to his dissolving stroke and that see the bitterness of Death proceedeth from that which is good in God though from that which is evil in our selves Doubtless as Justice is one of the blessed Attributes of God so should it be amiable to man there being nothing in God but what is lovely It is the prevalency of self-love that makes men so insensible of the excellency of Divine Justice while they speak so respectfully of his mercy So far as men are carnal and selfish they cannot love that by which they smart or of which they are in danger But the soul that is got above it self and is united unto God in Christ and hath that Image of God which containeth the impress and effect of all his Attributes hath such an habit of impartial justice in himself and such a hatred of sin and such a desire that the honour of God should be vindicated and maintained and such an approbation of the Justice of God that he can the more easily consent or submit to the dissolving stroke of Death He hateth his own sin
and loatheth himself for all his abominations and is possessed with that Justice that provoketh him to self revenge in an ordinate sort and therefore doth love and honour that Justice that inflicteth on him the penalty of Death Especially since Mercy hath made it a useful Castigation As some penitent malefactors have been so sensible of their crimes that they have not deprecated Death but consented to it as a needful work of Justice as it s written of the penitent Murderer lately hanged at London So Holiness doth contain such a hatred of our own sins and such impartial Justice on Gods behalf that it will cause us to subscribe to the righteousness of his sentence and the more quietly to yield to the stroke of Death DIRECTION IX IT will somewhat abate the fears of Death to consider the Restlesness and troubles of this life and the manifold evils that end at Death And because this Consideration is little available with men in prosperity it pleaseth God to exercise us with adversity that when we find there no is hope of Rest on earth we may look after it where it is and venture on Death by the impulse of necessity Here we are continually burdened with our selves anonyed by our corruptions and pained by the diseases of our souls or endangered most when pained least And would we be thus still We live in the continual smart of the fruit of our own folly and the hurts that we catch by our careless or inconsiderate walking like children that often fall and cry and would we still live such a life as this The weakness of our faith the darkness of our minds the distance and strangeness of our souls to God are a continual languishing and trouble to our hearts How grievous is it to us that we can love him nomore nor be more assured of his love to us that we find continually so much of the creature and so little of God upon our hearts that carnal affections are so easily kindled in us and the Love of God will scarce be kept in any life by the richest mercies the most powerful means and by our greatest diligence Oh what a death is it to our hearts that so many odious temptations should have such free access such ready entertainment such small resistance and so great success that such horrid thoughts of unbelief should look into our minds and stay so long and be so familiar with us that the blessed mysteries of the Gospel and the state of separated souls and the happiness of the life to come are known so slightly and believed so weakly and imperfectly and meet with so many carnal questionings and doubts that when we should be solacing our souls in the fore-thoughts of Heaven we look toward it with such strangeness and amazement as if we staggered at the promise of God through unbelief and there is so much Atheism in our Affections God being almost as no God to them sometime and Heaven almost as no Heaven to them that it shews there is too much in our Understandings O what a Death is it to our minds that when we should live in the Love of Infinite goodness we find such a remnant of carnal enmity and God hath such resistance and so narrow so short so cold so unkind entertainment in those hearts that were made to love him and that should know and own no love but his What a bondage is it that our souls are so entangled with the creatures and so detained from the love of God and that we draggle on this earth and can reach no higher and the delightful Communion with God and a Conversation in Heaven are things that we have so small experience of Alas that we that are made for God and should live to him and be still upon his work and know no other should be so byassed by the flesh and captivated by self-love and lost at home that our affections and intentions do hardly get above our selves but there we are too prone to terminate them all and lose our God even in a seeming Religiousness while we will be gods to our selves How grievous is it that such wonders and glorious appearances of God as are contained in the incarnation life and death of Christ and in all the parts of the work of our Redemption should no more affect us than they do nor take up our souls in more thankful admiration nor ravish us into higher joyes Alas that Heaven commands our souls no more from Earth that such an infinite glory is so near us and we enjoy so little of it and have no more savour of it upon our souls That in the hands of God and before his face we do no more regard him That the great and wonderful matters of our Faith do so little affect us that we are tempted thereby to question the sincerity of our Faith if not the reality of the things believed and that so little of these great and wondrous things appeareth in our lives that we tempt the world to think our Faith is but a fancy Is not all this grievous to an honest heart and should we not be so far weary of such a life as this as to be willing to depart and be with Christ If it would so much rejoyce a gracious soul to have a stonger Faith a more lively hope a more tender Conscience a more humble self-abhorring heart to be more fervent in prayer more resolute against temptations and more successfully to fight against them with what desire and joy then should we look towards Heaven where we shall be above our strongest Faith and Hope and have no more need of the healing graces or the healing Ordinances nor be put upon self-afflicting work nor troubled with the temptations nor terrified by the face of any enemy Now if we will vigorously appear for God against a sinful generation how many will appear against us how bitterly will they reproach us how falsly will they slander us and say all manner of evil against us and it is well if we scape the violence of their hands and what should be our joy in all these sufferings but that Great is our reward in Heaven Matth. 11. 12. Alas how are we continually here annoyed by the presence and the motions and the success of sin in our selves and others It dwelleth in us night and day we cannot get it to stay behind no not when we address our selves to God not in our publick worship or our secret prayers not for the space of one Lords Day or one Sermon or one Sacrament in ordinary or extraordinary duty O what a blessed day and duty would it be in which we could leave our sin behind us and converse with God in spotless innocency and worship and adore him without that darkness and strangeness and unbelief and dulness and doubtings and distractions that are now our daily miseries Can we have grace and not be weary of these corruptions Can we have life and not be
is above the pride and vanities of this world and doth converse by a life of faith above and is usefull and exemplary in their generation alas how soon are they snatcht away and we are left in our temptations ripening and murmuring at God as Jonah when his gourd was withered as if the Lord had destinated this world to be the dwelling of unfaithfull worthless men and envied us the presence of one eminent Saint one faithful friend and one that a◠Moses when he had talkt with God hath a face that shineth with the reflected raies of the heavenly glory when indeed it is because this world is unworthy of them Heb. 11. 38. not knowing their worth nor how to use them nor how to make use of them for their good and because when they are ripe and mellow for eternity it is fit that God be served before us and that Heaven have the best and that be left on earth that is earthly Must Heaven be deprived of its inhabitants Must a Saint that is ripe be kept from Christ and so long kept from his inheritance from the company of Angels and the face of God and all lest we should be displeased and grudge at God for glorifying those whom he destinated to glory before the foundations of the world and whom he purchased and prepared for Glory Must there a place be empty and a voice be wanting in the Heavenly Chore Iest we should miss our friends on earth Are we not hasting after them at the heels and do we not hope to live with them for ever and shall we grudge that they are gone a day or week or year before us O foolish unbelieving souls We mourn for them that are past mourning and lament for our friends that are gone to Rest when we are left our selves in a vexatious restless howling wilderness as if it were better to be here we mourn and weep for the souls that are triumphing in their Masters joy And yet we say we believe and hope and labour and wait for the same felicity Shall the happiness of our friends be our sorrow and lamentation O did we but see these blessed souls and where they are and what they are enjoying and what they are doing we should be ashamed to mourn thus for their change Do you think they would wish themselves again on earth or would they take it kindly of you if you could bring them down again into this world though it were to reign in wealth and honour O how would they disdain or abhor the motion unless the commanding will of God did make it a part of their obedience And shall we grieve that they are not here when to be here would be their grief But thus our lives are filled with griefs Thus smiles and frowns desires and denyals hopes and frustrations indeavours and disappointments do make a quotidian ague of our lives The persons and the things we love do contribute to our sorrows as well as those we hate If our friends are bad or prove unkind they gall and grieve us while they live If they excell in holiness fidelity and suitableness the dart that kills them deeply woundeth us and the sweeter they were to us in their lives the bitterer to us is their death We cannot keep mercy but sin is ready to take it from us or else to marr in and turn it into Vinegar and Gall. And doth not Death accidentally befriend us that puts an end to all these troubles and lands us safe on the Celestial shore and puts us into the bosome of perpetual Rest where all is calm and the storms and billows that tost us here shall 〈◊〉 or trouble us no more And thus Death shall make us some recompence at last for the wrong it did us and the mortal blow shall hurt us less then did the dreadful apparition of it in our fore-thoughts Let not our fears then exceed the cause Though we fear the pangs and throws of travel let us withal remember that we shall presently rejoyce and all the holy Angels with us that a soul is born into the world of glory And Death shall gain us much more then it deprived us of DIRECTION X. THE last Direction that I shall give you to conquer the Enmity of Death is this Give up your wills entirely to the will of God as knowing that his will is your beginning and your end your safety your felicity and rest in which you should gladly aquiesce When you think of Death remember who it is that sends it It is our Fathers messenger and is sent but to execute his will And can there be any thing in the will of God that his servants should inordinately fear Doubtless his Will is much safer and better for us then our own And if in generall it were offered to our choice Whether all particulars of our lives should be disposed of by Gods will or by ours common reason might teach us to desire to be rather in Gods hands then our own The fulfilling of his will is the care and business of our lives and therefore it should be a support and satisfaction to us at our death that it is but the fulfilling of his will His Justice and punishing Will is good though selfishness maketh it ungratefull to the offendor But his children that are dear to him and tast no evil but that which worketh for their good have no cause to quarrell at his will Whatsoever our surest dearest friends would have us take or do or suffer we are ready to submit to as being confident they will do nothing for our hurt if they do but know what is for our good And shall we not more boldly trust the will of God then of our dearest friend He knows what he hath to do with us and how he will dispose of us and whither he will bring us and his interest in us is more then ours in our selves and shall we then distrust him as if we had to do with an enemy or one that were evil and not with love and infinite goodness It is the will of God that must be the everlasting Rest the Heaven the pleasure of our souls And shall we now so fear it and fly from it as if it were our ruine Look which way you will through all the world your souls will never find repose nor satisfying quietness and content but in the will of God Let us therefore commit our souls to him as to a faithful Creator and desire unfeignedly the fulfilling of his will and believe that there is no ground of confidence more firm Abraham may boldly trust his Son his only Son on the will of God And Christ himself when he was to drink the bitter Cup submitteth his own naturall love of life to his Fathers will saying Not my will but thine be done 'T is a most unworthy abuse of God that we could be quiet and rejoyce if our own wills or our dearest friends might dispose of our lives and
promise and leave us in the dust for ever It cannot be Hath he conquered Death for himself alone and not for us Hath he taken our Nature into Heaven to be there alone and will he not have all his members with him Remember then Christian when thou lookest on thy grave that Christ was buried and hath made the grave a bed of rest that shall give up her trust when his Trumpet sounds And that his Resurrection is the pledge of ours Keep therefore thy rising and glorified Lord continually in thy eye If Christ were not risen our preaching were vain and your faith were vain and all men were miserable but we most miserable that suffer so much for a life which we had no ground to hope for 1 Cor. 15 14 17 19. But now we have an Argument that Infidelity it self is ashamed to encounter with that hath been the means of the conversion of the Nations unto Christ by which we may put even Death it self to a defiance as knowing it is now a conquered thing If it could have held Christ captive it might also have held us But he being risen we shall surely rise Write it therefore Christians upon your hearts mention it more in your conference for the encouragement of your faith Write it on the grave-stones of your friends that CHRIST IS RISEN and that BECAUSE HE LIVETH WE SHALL LIVE ALSO and that OUR LIFE IS HID WITH CHRIST IN GOD though we are dead and when he shall appear who is our Life we shall also appear with him in glory John 14. 19. Col. 3. 3 4. Though we must be sown in corruption in weakness and dishonour we shall be raised in incorruption strength and honour 1 Cor. 1. 15. 42 43. While our souls behold the Lord in glory we may bear with the winter that befalls our flesh till the sping of Resurrection come Knowing that he that raised up the Lord Jesus shall also raise us up by Jesus For which cause we faint not but though our outward man perish yet the inner man is renewed day by day while we look not at the things which are seen but at the things which are not seen For the things which are seen are temporal but the things which are not seen are eternal 2 Cor. 4. 14 15 16 17 18. As we are risen with Christ to newness of life so we shall rise with him to glory Use 10. LAstly If Death be the last Enemy to be destroyed at the Resurrection we may learn hence how earnestly believers should long and pray for the second coming of Christ when this full and final Conquest shall be made Death shall do much for us but the Resurrection shall do more Death sends the separated soul to Christ but at his coming both soul and body shall be glorified There is somewhat in Death that is penal even to believers but in the coming of Christ and their Resurrection there is nothing but glorifying grace Death is the effect of sin and of the first sentence passed upon sinners but the Resurrection of the Just is the final destruction of the effects of sin And therefore though the fears of Death may perplex us me-thinks we should long for the coming of Christ there being nothing in that but what tends to the deliverance and glory of the Saints Whether he will come before the general Resurrection and reign on earth a thousand years which some expect I shall not presume to pass my determination But sure I am it is the work of faith and Character of his people to love his appearance 2 Tim. 4. 8. and to wait for the Son of God from Heaven whom he raised from the dead even Jesus who delivered us from the wrath to come 1 Thes 1. 10. and to wait for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ 1 Cor. 1. 7. and to wait for the adoption the redemption of our bodies with inward groanings Rom. 8. 23. O therefore let us pray more earnestly for the coming of our Lord and that the Lord would direct our hearts into the love of God and into the patient waiting for Christ 2 Thes 3. 5. O blessed day when the glorious appearing of our Lord shall put away all his servants shame and shall communicate Glory to his members even to the bodies that had laid so long in dust that to the eye of flesh there seemed to be no hope Though the Majesty and glory will cause our Reverence yet it will not be our terrour to the diminution of our joy It is his enemies that would not have him rule over them whom he cometh to destroy Lu. 19. 27. Behold the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his Saints to execute judgement upon all to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodlily committed and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him as Henoch the seventh from Noah prophesied Jud. 14. 15. But the precious faith of the Saints shall be found to praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ 1 Pet. 1. 7. When the chief Shepherd shall appear we shall receive a Crown of glory that fadeth not away 1 Pet. 5. 4. He that was once offered to bear the sins of many and now appeareth for us in the presence of God shall unto them that look for him appear the second time without sin to salvation Heb. 9. 24. 28. And When Christ who is our life shall appear then shall we also appear with him in Glory Col. 3. 4. The Lord shall then come to be glorified in his Saints and admired in all them that believe in that day 2 Thes 1. 10. This is the day that all believers should long and hope and wait for as being the accomplishment of all the work of their redemption and all the desires and endeavours of their souls It is the hope of this day that animateth the holy diligence of our lives and makes us turn from the carelesness and sensuality of the world For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared unto all men teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts we should live soberly righteously and godlily in this present world looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of our great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ Tit. 2. 11 12 13. The heavens and the earth that are now are kept in store by the word of God reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men And though the Lord seem to delay he is not slack of his promise as some men count slackness for a day is with him as a thousand years and a thousand years but as a day But the day of the Lord will come as a Thiefin the night in the which the Heavens shall pass away with a great noise and the elements shall melt with fervent heat the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burnt up Seeing then all