is in any of us to be delivered from Death no Soul can be excused from that Work which is consequent upon it we could not be so happy in Heaven if we were not so employed as to be kept out of Heaven by an Immortality here and be most miserable IV. To Apply this By way of Information and Exhortation First Information 1. It is a great Act of Indulgence in God to spare us as he many times doth from Death since that dying is so great and necessary an Act of our Obedience If God had let loose his hand and cut us off many years ago it would have been our Duty to acquiesce in it but by his Favour as David said of his Mountain our clay Cottages do yet stand How many Mercies National and Personal have we liv'd to partake of which we might have been sent to our Grave without and as we could not have resisted the Will of God if it had been so so we ought not to have repin'd against it In how many lesser things hath God very often gratified his Servants by prolonging their Days wherein he could have denied them without doing them any wrong As the Life of old Jacob was lengthened out above Twenty years as some compute after he had given up his Son Joseph for dead to see him living and Governor of Egypt Gen. 46.30 So David saw his Son Solomon peaceably seated on his Throne before he fell asseep 1 Kings 1.48 2. If it be our duty to be Obedient to death it self how much more should we submit to all those Evils which are previous to death We are to Suffer according to the Will of God in every thing 1 Pet. 4 19. Or else how do we like David fulfil all his will Acts 13.22 and if in that which is great surely we must not stick at that which is less I do not only mean Sickness and Weakness c. which are the usual Harbingers of Death but all those other Troubles and Afflictions which we are born to and which we may naturally expect some share of while we are in this World He who cannot patiently part with any Comfort of Life when God takes it away from him is very ill-disposed to yield up Life it self at the Call of God Are we to obey God in dying and do we not think our selves oblig'd to bear these Calamities which Providence sends upon us while we live Are we to drink of such a Cup at last and can we think that we do well to be angry and discontented at any thing which befals us in the way These Things are inconsistent 3. How irregular are the workings of our Affections with respect to those that are fallen asleep in Christ God seldom or never removes any of our Friends especially if publickly useful Persons but that we are ready secretly at least to wish that they had not died when they did We know not how to restrain our selves from such desires and yet in desiring it we are like Peter when he talkt of making Tabernacles on the Mount who knew not what he said Luke 9.33 We do not only wish their Infelicity whom we pretend to love and value but we make our selves Rebels in Heart against God we wish in plain terms that our Wills might have stood in opposition to his and that our blind mistaken Judgments might have been allow'd to overturn or alter his Wise and Righteous unerring Counsels 4. How blessed should their Memories be above all others who are most eminently Exemplary in the performance of this Duty Going out of the World as Moses did is like the burning of rich and fragrant Spices which leave a sweet Perfume behind them 'T is observable that God did that to Moses who died according to his Word which he never did for any one before or since verse 6. And he buried him in a Valley in the Land of Moab c. Though there was none to accompany his Body to the Grave yet God's peculiar Undertaking for his Interment by the Ministry of Angels as may be reasonably supposed was ten thousand times more Honour to him than the pompous Funeral of the Patriarch Jacob when he was carried with so vast a Train of Mourners out of Egypt into Canaan Gen. 50.9 Secondly Exhortation Labour to learn this Lesson well of Obedience to the Divine Will in the Point of Death and that you may do so take these Directions 1. Make death familiar to you by frequent fore-thoughts of it Those things which surprize us most we are usually least submissive to God in but what we expect and look for we are gradually reconciled to If we propose a long Life to our selves and put away the remembrance of Death we shall certainly make our dying work so much the harder 'T is necessary not only to think that our Change must come unavoidably at last but that it may come quickly in a very little time If we live longer than we think we shall live the better but if we die sooner than we think we shall die the worse If God hath made our days generally as an hand breadth Psalm 39.5 we should measure them out successively by an hairs breadth that when we are at our utmost bounds we may quietly drop away 2. Look beyond death while you are looking for it Let not that terminate your Sight which in it self indeed is a doleful Melancholy Object Consider the Excellency of the Life to come which takes place immediately upon the conclusion of this We shall not die for ever as those words should be rendred which we read shall never die John 11.26 though we die once and there is nothing here so amiable and perfect as in that World we are going to If a view of that Canaan sufficed Moses which he was never to possess how much more satisfactory will the prospect of that Heaven be where we are to dwell eternally the seeing of our absent glorified Redeemer there will help us in our following of him thither and does distinguish us from the common Men of the Earth John 14.19 3. Look upon all the Enjoyments of this present Life with such an holy Contempt and Scorn as they deserve If we be not dead to these things before hand we shall not know how to part with them at Death If we lay up our Treasure here it must needs be troublesom and grievous to renounce and quit it He that would obey God chearfully in his going hence must not think that any of the things that are here beneath can make him happy and therefore the Heart should not be set upon them It made Rachel and Leah willing to go to Canaan that they had no Expectation left in Padan-aram Gen. 31.14 4. Make hast with your living work which God gives you to do with reference to the saving of your own Souls and the serving of your Generation A Man must be strangely stupified and harden'd in a false peace that can be content to leave
Vera Effigies TIMOTHEI CRUSO Aetat 40. 1697. T. Forster delin N. White scuÌ„lp TWENTY-FOUR SERMONS Preached at the MERCHANTS-LECTURE AT Pinners Hall By the late Reverend Mr. TIMOTHY CRVSO LONDON Printed by S. Bridge for Thomas Parkhurst at the Bible and Three Crowns in Cheapside MDCXCIX TO THE READER THese Sermons are some of the Reliques of one who is gone to receive the Fruit of his Labours who hath left Sowing for the sake of the Harvest wherein he is now reaping Though this is a Posthumous Piece yet it speaks out the living Praise of the dead Author whose it was without any Alteration or Addition being Printed from his own Notes If I may use the Phrase in Fashion he lived too fast not as too many do who shorten their Days by their Debaucheries and sinful Excesses but as a Taper which wastes it self to give Light to others His Bodily Constitution was too weak to undergo the Service his Soul put it to in constant Studies and hard Labour that he might Answer the Restlesness of his Mind which was always aspiring to greater Knowledge and higher Attainments whereby he laid greater load upon his Flesh than its weakness could bear and so sinking under the burden he died in the midst of his Days There is no need of my Epistle to Midwife these Excellent Discourses into the World nor had I had any hand in it had it not been to answer the Desires of some Relations of his to whom my Obligations will not allow me to deny any thing And also to take this occasion to Vindicate what I spake and published in his Funeral Sermon about the Vnion of the Spirit of Christ with the Dead Body of a Saint which hath by some been greatly stumbled at and called in question as a new Doctrine I therefore thought it Charity to such to remove this stumbling Block not by any Arguments further than what I have therein already urged but by calling in the Judgment of others in this matter and I shall look no farther back than to the Learned Men of our own Times Mr. Rutherford speaking of the Covenant of Grace Treatise of the Covenant of Grace p. 216. says It is thus Eternal in that the dead Parties Abraham Isaac and Jacob are still in the Covenant of Grace and there remains a Covenant Union between Christ and their rotten Flesh sleeping in the Dust Mr. Calamy says Morning Exercise of Giles in Fields Ser. 24. p. 548. The Bodies of the Saints shall be raised by vertue of their Union with Christ for the Body of a Saint even while it is in the Grave is united to Christ and is asleep in Jesus and shall be raised by vertue of this Union And in p. 557. If thou gettest into Christ while thou livest thou shalt die in Christ and sleep in Christ and be raised by Christ into Eternal Happiness Mr. Case speaking of the Vnion between Christ and Believers Case his Mount Pisgah first Part p. 38. says Not only in Death but even after Death this Union holds the Saints are said to sleep in Jesus that part of the Saints which is capable of sleep is not capable of Separation from Christ While their more noble Part is united to Christ in Heaven among the Spirits of Just Men made perfect Christ is united to their inferiour and more ignoble Part in the Grave their very Dust they sleep in Jesus Mr. Stedman says Stedman's Mystical Vnion of Believers with Christ p. 191. Death it self shall not separate Believers from Jesus Christ but still they are entirely in him even when they are dead As it was in the death of Christ himself though it made Separation between his Body and Soul yet it did not separate the Humane Body from the Divine So it is in the death of the Saints though it rend the Spirit from the Flesh yet it can part neither from the Son of God The very Bodies of Believers are united to Jesus when they are dead Dr. Collings on those words of our Lord Pool 's Annotations on John 11.26 He that believeth on me shall never die says Though his Body shall die because of sin yet his Spirit shall live because of Righteousness and God shall in the great Day quicken again his Mortal Body through the Holy Spirit which dwelleth in him and is united to him Dr. Thomas Goodwin Dr. Goodwin 's first Fol. on Ephes 1.14 p. â—â—1 Doth the Spirit dwell in you now When you are laid in the Grave that Spirit dwelleth in you as he did in the Body of Christ I do not say in the same manner The Spirit of God did dwell in the Body of Christ in the Grave and raised it up he never left him Though his Body was a dead Carkass without a Soul yet that Body was Hypostatically united to the Godhead therefore it was called Holy One My Holy One shall not see Corruption Now the Comparison is If we have the Spirit of Christ and if he dwell in us the same Spirit shall never leave our Bodies till he hath raised us up also Nay while thy Body is dead and rotten in the Grave the Holy Ghost dwells in it And hear what a great Man of the Church of England in his Day saith Christ's Deity was united to his dead Body his Resurrection was perform'd by the Power and Spirit of the Father God reached out his hand to him and raised him up Here then is our Comfort the same Spirit of God is communicable to us the same Arm of Power may be reached out to us He will imploy the same power for us as he did for Christ Ephes 1.19 And again in p. 210. His Spirit dwells in you The Inhabitation of God's Spirit that is the Ground of our Resurrection because it is Vinculum unionis the Spirit is the Bond of our Union and Conjunction with Christ By it we are Incorporated into his Body and made Members of it Now then if our Head rise all the Members must rise with it if the Head be in Heaven the Members shall not for ever perish in the Grave This Union by the Spirit is like the touch of a Load-stone it will attract and draw us to him that where he is we shall be also It is spoken of his Hypostatical but it is true also of his Mystical Union Quod semel assumpsit nunquam deposuit Christ will part with none of his Members Bishop Brownrig 2d Vol. p. 204. And again in the same Page Our Bodies by this Inhabitation are Consecrated to be a Possession of the Holy Ghost and the Temple of God must not be destroy'd God's Spirit takes Pleasure not only in these living Temples but owns them when they are dead takes Pleasure in the dead Bones and Favours the Dust of them I could multiply Testimonies of elder Date to prove the Truth of this Doctrine and that it is no new Notion but there needs no Proof from Humane Testimony
done Can we think that our Services would be so well recompenc'd by a perpetual stay here 't is impossible to think so When the Master is come and calleth for us as John 11.28 we cannot but know it is in order to our unspeakable Promotion and Advancement The Arrows which Death shoots though they kill yet they are directed and design'd in greater Love than Jonathan's to David which were to prevent him from being killed Death may seem formidable at a distance as one says like Esau to Jacob but is very friendly when it comes nigher to us and does us the kindest Office which to have undone would be our greatest loss Though it did no more than case us of the grievous weight of indwelling Sin that 's a matchless Benefit for if we had not mortal Bodies we must have immortal Corruptions 6. This is the concluding and crowning Act of our Obedience to God in this World 'T is the compleat finishing of our whole Work here when we have done this we have no more to do on Earth Now how incongruous and unseemly how reproachful and dishonourable would it be for a Man to live many Years in a course of Duty and then spoil all by Disobedience in the last Act Undoubtedly the Man whose Heart is perfect and upright with God shall never be left to do so If we have been truly Faithful to the Death we shall not be Rebellious in it But however Exhortations and Arguments are of use to the best through the efficacious Concurrence of the Spirit with them He that lives to the Will of God cannot be said to persevere finally unless he dies according to that Will also We do not follow God fully if we start and fly back just at the end of our Race when we should lay hold upon the Prize I know thy works and the last to be more than the first was Thyatiras's Commendation Rev. 2.19 God expects that at the last we should outdo all which we have done before If we have run well 't is pity that the last step should be the slowest 7. This being the last Act of our Obedience here in this World will have the greatest Influence on those whom we leave behind us As the last words of dying Persons are apt to make the deepest Impression upon surviving Friends so their last Acts are most likely to encourage Imitation When we forget most of the Passages of their Lives we remember their Deaths and are ready to take our measures from thence And indeed the Holy Ghost calls upon us especially to mark the End of the perfect and upright Man Psalm 37.37 and to consider the End of their Conversation whose Faith we are to follow Hebr. 13.7 The End here signifies the close the issue of their Conversation Now where this is unimitable it will obstruct our following of all that went before how good soever it were This will still stick most upon their Minds that should take Pattern from our Faith and Obedience and tend to dishearten them from walking with God if after a Life of service we should flinch and faulter in the last Extremity it may tempt some to believe that God is an hard Master and that we too late begin to think him so Whereas an holy submissive Death will have all the contrary Effects 8. This is an Act of Obedience from which God 's chiefest Favourites on Earth are not exempted If this were a Cup which passed from every one else and were only filled out to us it might be more bitter to drink of it and sinful Flesh might have the more to say against it but God lays no other Burden upon us herein than what all his Saints excepting two have born from the beginning of the World yea even those two underwent a Change in their Translation in some respects we are sure equivolent to Death Are we so much better than our Fathers than the many Thousands which have gone to Heaven the same way that we should expect any peculiar Privilege Are we greater than Abraham who is dead and the Prophets who are dead whom do we make our selves as the Jews said to Christ John 8.53 Does God deal worse with us or require more from us than from all the Excellent of the Earth Why must not we give place to others when God thinks meet as others have made way for us that successive Generations may still go and come That Life which we are prone to complain of as too short 't is probable hath been longer than many and the shortest is certainly longer than we deserve that it should be 9. 'T is an Act wherein God's Saints on Earth out-do the Obedience of Angels in Heaven This is a mighty Honour to us that we are capable of honouring God by dying according to his will which is out of their Power for they die not 'T is their bright and glorious Character that they do his Commandments Psalm 103.20 but this is a command which they cannot do and which they were never tried with They have no such Bodies as we have to be separated from and by the Settlement which God hath made meer spiritual Beings cannot taste of Death Now this is a thing worthy of our Ambition to bring more Glory to God than the highest Angel can for a Saint of God would seek to excel all Creatures 'T is no Tryal to Angels to execute the orders which they receive in comparison of what Moses did here in the Text and yet 't is astonishing to read how familiarly he hears of his own Departure there was no noise no striving no trouble in the case God only says to him Go up and die and he does it as when the Prophet Elijah had Food set before him and was invited to arise and eat to which an hungry Man in a barren Wilderness would need very little perswasion To which of the Angels did God say thus at any time Our Mortality gives us an opportunity of obeying which they want 10. All the Obedience which we have to yield after this to God in Heaven will be like that of the Angels most easie and delightful Glorified Saints are doing endless Service but there is nothing of Labour or Difficulty in it nor can there be the least degree of aversion or unwillingness to perform it When we have once poured out our Souls into the Bosom of God we shall launch into the pleasant Enjoyment of Eternal Praise and so far as we understand the Worship of the Church above this will be the whole business that we shall be exercised in A business which will contribute greatly to our Blessedness There is a great deal of weight and force in this Argument if we think seriously upon it how hard and painful soever the work of dying be all our work afterwards will be entire and perfect like crowding through a strait Gate into a spacious Mansion where we are to walk at Liberty for ever How desirous soever the Flesh
solemn Call and Dedication blessed Offices deep Abasement and Supereminent Advancement A Treatise of the Soul of Man wherein the Divine Original excellent and immortal Nature of the Soul are opened its Love and Inclination to the Body with the necessity of its Separation from it considered and improved The Existence Operations and States of separated Souls both in Heaven and Hell immediately after Death asserted discussed and variously applied Divers knotty and difficult Questions about departed Souls both Philosophical and Theological stated and determined The Method of Grace in bringing home the Eternal Redemption contrived by the Father and accomplished by the Son through the Effectual Application of the Spirit unto God's Elect being the second Part of Gospel Redemption The Divine Conduct or Mystery of Providence its Being and Efficacy asserted and vindicated all the Methods of Providence in our course of Life opened with Directions how to apply and improve them Navigation spiritualiz'd or a New Compass for Seamen consisting of Thirty Two Points of pleasant Observations profitable Applications serious Reflections all concluded with so many spiritual Poems c. A Saint indeed the great Work of a Christian A Touchstone of Sincerity or Signs of Grace and Symptoms of Hypocrifie being the second Part of the Saint indeed A Token for Mourners or Boundaries for Sorrow for the Death of Friends Husbandry spiritualiz'd or the Heavenly use of Earthly Things All these Ten by Mr. John Flavell A Funeral Sermon on the Death of that Pious Gentlewoman Mrs Judith Hammond late Wife of the Reverend Mr. George Hammond Minister of the Gospel in London Of Thoughtfulness for the Morrow With an Appendix concerning the immoderate Desire of foreknowing Things to come Of Charity in reference to others Mens sins The Redeemers Tears wept over lost Souls in a Treatise on Luke 19.41 42. With an Appendix wherein somewhat is occasionally Discoursed concerning the Sin against the Holy Ghost and how God is said to Will the Salvation of them that Perish A Sermon directing what we are to do after a strict Enquiry whether or no we truly Love God A Funeral Sermon for Mrs Esther Sampson late Wife of Mr. Henry Sampson Doctor of Physick who died Nov. 24. 1689. The Carnality of Religious Contention In two Sermons Preach'd at the Merchants Lecture in Broadstreet A calm and sober Enquiry concerning the Possibility of a Trinity in the Godhead A Letter to a Friend concerning a Postscript to the Defence of Dr. Sherlock's Notion of the Trinity in Unity relating to the calm and sober Enquiry upon the same Subject A View of that Part of the late Considerations Addrest to H. H. about the Trinity Which concerns the sober Enquiry on that Subject A Sermon preach'd on the late Day of Thanksgiving Decemb. 2. 1697. To which is prefix'd Dr. Bates's Congratulatory Speech to the King All these Eleven by Mr. John Howe The Good of Early Obedience or the Advantage of bearing the Yoke of Christ betimes Octavo The Almost Christian or the false Professor Tried and Cast Duodecimo Spiritual Wisdom improved against Temptation Duodecimo The Vision of the Wheels seen by the Prophet Ezechiel Quarto A Sermon of Unity or Two Sticks made one Quarto All Five by Matth. Mead Pastor of a Church of Christ at Stepney Discourses upon the Rich Man and Lazarus Octavo Three last Sermons of Mr. Cruso To which is added a Sermon on Novemb. 5. 1697. Octavo Both by Tim. Cruso M. A. His Funeral Sermon preach'd by Matth. Mead. Quarto The Life and Death of Mr Philip Henry Minister of the Gospel at Whitchurch in Shropshire who died June 24. 1696. Recommended by Dr. Bates David Jones's Sermon in Ember-Week preached before the University of Oxford The Qualifications requisite towards the Receiving a Divine Revelation A Sermon preached in the Cathedral Church of St. Paul January the 2d 1699. Being the First for this Year of the Lecture Founded by the Honourable Robert Boyle Esq By Samuel Bradford M. A. Rector of St. Mary le Bow