I die imports the Apostles fitness for death Then is a Christian fit to die when he is furnished for a better life and daily practice breeds promptitude and the exercise of dying is a tuning and timeing us for the dying day that we may be made meet to be partakers of the eternal Inheritance It is with Christians as with tender and precious Fruits they are daily upon some incremental change till they come to be mature and mellow and fit for use and then they are every day falling to the earth as ready for the owners hand In Job 5.26 ye have an allusion to this in that Parabolical Speech of Eliphaz to Job Thou shalt come to thy grave in a full age as a shock of corn cometh in in its season This was a promise of Honour and Comfort in death As a shock of corn in its season notes a readiness and ripeness for that season Thou shalt come notes a willingness and chearfulness in dying In season notes the ripeness and fitness for death Now that the allusion may fully bear our Apostle helps us to the apprehension of it in the thirty sixth Verse of this fifteenth Chapter to the Corinthians he increpates the dullness of ignorant Atheists about the Resurrection Thou fool that which thou sowest is not quickened except it die Dying is in order to quickening and Growth until the Corn come to a full Grain in the Ear and be ripe for Harvest and the Ears are bound 〈◊〉 in the Sheaves and the Sheaves gathered into the Shock and the Shocks into the Barn And in this sense though a Child of God die in his Youth in the Flower and Spring of his days yet his death is as the Harvest Season to his hopes and the gathering of his Soul to God and his Body to his Fathers though in his natural capacity he be cut down whiles he is green and cropt in the Bud or Blossom yet in his spiritual capacity he never dies till he come to ripeness God ripens his Servants speedily when he intends to take them out of the world speedily he can and doth let out such warm Rays of his Spirit upon them as shall soon maturate the Seeds of Grace into a preparedness for Glory This is S. Paid's and every good Christian's profession so to live as to be daily ready for death 't was holy Job's cast of his state Job 17.1 My breath is corrupt my days are extinct the Graves are ready for me And I am ready for the Grave I am undressing my self daily to lie down in dust and sleep in death there is nothing now for me to think of I lay all aside and attend this business alone and 't is a business indeed of great necessity and no small difficulty daily to cast upon it and contrive how I may lie down in peace and rest in death I have fought a good fight I have finished my course I have done my work 2 Tim. 4.7 and am going to my Bed I have nothing to do but to die and this is my daily care to sequester my Soul from this world as one that hath life and portion and Inheritance in a better I die daily Lastly And so daily dying notes a continual Exercise of Mortification for in the Christian Dialect and Scriptural Style to die daily is a spiritual sanctified Habit made up of many Acts and quotidian Exercises of suppressing and destroying the old man and the whole body of Sin and this is meant in those Scriptures which speak of putting off the old man Eph. 4.12 â— Cor. 9. â—â— beating down the body and keeping it in subjection the Spring of Grace is a living Fountain always cleansing away the dead Sediments of Dirt aâ— Mire The expression of the Holy Ghost about this 〈◊〉 worthy of our serious consideration Rom. 6.6 Known that our old man is crucified with him Christ that the bâ— of sin might be destroyed that henceforth we should not sâ—◠〈◊〉 For he that is dead is freed from sin Lo here 〈◊〉 Appellation and its execution the old man partly in respect of Antiquity as old as the eldest of men partly in respect of the Renovation 1 Thess 5.23 which is universal of the whole man Body and Soul Then 't is called the body of Sin partly because mans corrupt nature Coloss 3.5 like a body or stock brancheth forth into divers actual enormities as so many Members partly because of its strength and for that men are as much naturally in love of their Sins as of their Limbs and are as impatient of Amputation But if ye take notice of Sins execution This old man is crucified Crucifixion is made up of many deliberate Acts and these bring on exquisite Torments and the Torments cause successive decays every hour so doth Sin by this crucifying Discipline grow weaker and weaker and nearer to its Grave and utter Abolition Regenerative Acts give Sin many wounds though as those that are crucified it dieth lingringly yet it dieth certainly Sin in the mortifying Mystery like a man in a Consumption is always wasting and dying till at last it is quite dead and the dying day of the Regenerate is the utmost date of Sins being Thus if as long as we live we give Sin a daily wound it may sprawl and move for a time but afterwards giveth up the Ghost For while Saints live though Sin be mortally wounded as the creature that hath lost its sting it may rage and stir but it abateth in strength and malignity and dieth with them In Psalm 88.4 Heman complains Thus My soul is full of troubles and my life draweth nigh to the grave I am accounted with them that go down into the pit I am as a man of no strength free among the dead The surest Interpretation of that sweet Singers Style and State is That he was much exercised in this sin mortifying austerity he was a great Proficient in it as we say of one that hath served a rigid Apprentiship he is his Crafts-Master he hath got the knack of it he is a Freeman at the Occupation And in this sense death is not to be looked on as a Saints expiration but as an accumulative Mystery and an high Improvement in the Faculty of Sin-slaying And some Ancients have been rare at it and some skillful Christians still are as well versed in it and they know how to encounter with Soul-Enemies as tryed Champions having been long conversant in the Artillery and Fencing-School of Christ as that they have been able to teach it by certain Rules and Rudiments and so it is one of the Gospel-Mysteries in which by frequent exercise we may grow Graduates and S. Paul had it seems commenced Doctor in it even in this rare Accomplishment of Dying Daily So then we are resolved upon the Question what this kind of Dying is It is not a natural dying consisting of many gradual Tendencies unto the Dissolution of this our mortal Body though
in this sense every living person is daily dying Nor a providential Dying which consists in the daily vicissitudes of Crosses Tryals and Discomforts though this is the portion of every living Saint and is in part the assertion of our Apostle concerning himself but a spiritual and practical Dying consisting in the frequent and renewed exercise of mortifying Duties as Repenting Self-denying Self-judging self-humbling dying unto Sin mortifying our Members crucifying our Flesh subduing our Lusts being crucified to the world beating down our Bodies and bringing them into subjection subjugating our wills captivating our understandings submitting our reason to the righteousness of God governing our passions devoting our lives for the testimony of our Lord Jesus Christ and if need be and God so order to die for our Lord and so to live as to die in our Lord and so to die as to die unto our Lord that whether we live or die we may be the Lords These and many more such like are but the several Rules and methods and quotidian Exercises through which good Christians must pass before they come to the degree of Masters in this Gospel-Art To this S. Paul had eminently attained so as it fell into his daily practice I die daily Which brings me to the third part of my Text. The Diuturnity of the Apostles Practise 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 notes the Frequency Assiduity Succession and uncessancy of Action And with reference to what is done supposeth time of life to do it in To day Joh. 9.4 Eccles 9.10 whiles it is called to day for the day of life is the working day 't was so with Christ in our flesh and the Church-man Solomon tells us There is no work nor device nor knowledge nor wisdom in the grave whither thou goest If we would then set on this work this rare device of Christian Knowledge and saving wisdom it must be before we go to our Graves And it is not the work of a single day neither but the singular work of every day to be daily doing as if daily dying Nulla dies sine lineâ is the laudable industry of a Christian and without doubt there is no Particle of Life allowed for Idleness even Paradise and Perfection the place and state of Innocence and Bliss allowed not a space wherein to do nothing and Heavens Paradise though it be the Saints everlasting Rest yet hath its business for Eternity But this is to be understood of positive Acts but to be daily dying sounds harshly and uncomfortably to living Ears Death is a privation and to die a privative act and how can an habit grow out of Privatives Nay but this kind of dying is a positive duty in the Cristian Divinity 1. As it is an Act of the new Creature to die to sin and live unto God Christ purchased this Estate to us and preferred us to this capacity Rom. 6.10 In every birth there is something generated and something destroyed says the Philosopher so in our New Birth there is the production of Grace and the destruction of Vice the Life of Righteousness and the death of Sin And by dying daily we set up the Ark and throw down Dagon The Sinfulness of our Souls by our first birth consisted in our aversion from God and Grace and our being perverted to the Devil and his works in the defacing of God's Image and the imprinting of Satan's Now the sanctity of the Soul that is its recovery by the second birth consisteth in its conversion to God and aversion from sin to have the Image of the evil one rased out and the Impress of the Saviour re-ingraven and the Acts that appertain to these Issues must be in our daily Exercise 2. As it is the Answer unto the Divine Ordination Romans 8.29 which is our conformableness unto the dying Saviour our conformity to Christ is here our positive Duty in Grace as it shall be our everlasting Dignity in Bliss and the Elect are sent into the world to be planted into the likeness of Christ in his Death and Resurrection to this end baptised into Christ that we may follow his Steps Phil. 3.10 as well as bear his Name and so be found in the fellowship of his Graces and sufferings and all his life was a continued dying until his hour came that he died once for all There is a pertinent but difficult Text for this in S. Paul's case Coloss 1.24 I fill up that which is behind saith he of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his bodies sake which is the Church The personal Sufferings of Christ which he endured in his own body as the Mediator are once for ever finished but his general Sufferings which he endures in his mystical Body the Church are yet behind and must be filled up by S. Paul and his Fellows and Followers Not in way of Office as meritorious and satisfactory nor in proportion of weight and measure but in respect of their Cause and Managery and Issue Thus in dying by way of Resemblance Rom. 6.10 11. And the likeness is in these Instances voluntarily our daily dying must be spontaneous Though there be a great Reluctancy between Flesh and Spirit Grace and Nature the pure will of God and the perverse will of Man yet the superior powers of the 〈◊〉 carry the Mastery 〈◊〉 ◠2◠sanctified reason consents to mortifying Acts. To die daily is as irksome to Self-love as the Cup was to Christ's Flesh in the day of his Agony yet he willingly drank because it was his Fathers will he should Yet Christ's Death was violent he died not of nature but of force So should our self-mortifying be voluntary in respect of us but violent in respect of sin And herein is the life of daily dying that we lay violent hands on our corruptions pluck out the right Eye cut off the right Hand smite the sinful Breast break the perverse Heart and kill and destroy sin in its Flower strength and vigour many leave their sins who never mortified them He that dies daily never stays till his sins die for Lusts like Weeds if let alone will destroy all the good Seeds and then wither of themselves The old Adulterer hath left his Lust because his Body is dead And the griping Mammonist is angry with the world but it is because he can enjoy it no longer Eccles 12.1 O remember thy Creatour in the days of thy youth before the days come when thou shalt say I have no pleasure in them is a pertinent Caveat 'T were good to condemn and execute sin without Reprieve let not Lust live till to morrow bring your vicious Habits forth speedily in the sight of God arraign condemn crucifie them now mortifie them whiles they might yet live Yet the Death of Christ was lingring Matth. 27.45 he hung divers hours upon the Cross our Dying is daily sin cannot be destroyed all at once cut a Serpent in pieces yet every part will stir Sin
into security and spiritual deadness whiles life is only lent us and the days of life are lengthned to us only in reference to the fitting and better furnishing us to die at last why do we not put our selves into the daily expectation of and preparation for that which shall shortly put an end to us and our days and duties and all We have daily preparations and appurtenances for those very things which represent our death our journeying our apparelling our sleeping and why not for our dying too We need it much and it is as necessary for us to die daily is to die once we have abundance of sins and corruptiâ—ns to subdue of cares and crosses to manage of Gifts and Graces to improve a great Task and but a little time and it is necessary if we were so convinced to be daily â—â—ing that upon which eternal life and death depend it were no great matter if we had but one death that of the body to forethink of and it were needless to multiply the evil of dying one day by acting it every day for all could not prevent it though we may be the better qualified for it but there is the second death which calls for the preventives of daily mortification lest we die eternally Whoso dies daily when he goes hence no more to return shall carry a good conscience with him for an evil conscience is a worm that never dies and leave a good name behind him and that is very long lived Prov. 12.7 every man is hugely unwilling that his good name should die we are naturally ambitious of being thought of when we are gone those that have not living Monuments to perpetuate them affect to have dead if Absalom have not a Son he will erect a Pillar yet when we have done all time eats all out at last there is no remembrance of the wise more than of the fool for ever seeing that which now is in the days to come shall all be forgotten here 's a project then for a lasting Memorial Enoch walked with God and was not for God took him his walking with God did not exempt him from dying daily but engaged him in it and â—is not being here below was his blessedness and his whole story is upon record though in a small Character to the everlasting praise of his Faith Heb. 11.5 It is the Glory of the Christian Life to be daily under the Cross and as Christ once for all died on 't Luk 9.12 so for us daily to bear in our bodies the marks of the Lord Jesus Gal. 6.17.22 who passed to his Glory through the straits of daily sufferings till he finished all upon the Cross of his deadly Passion Et moriendo vicit he conflicted all his life by daily dying he conquered by his death once for all 2 Cor. 4.10 11. Thus by a lively faith in the Holy Jesus we encounter with and overcome our quotidian deaths our afflictions in pursuance of a better life we are in deaths oft Psa 44.22 and slain all day long as it were by piece-meal under the tyranny and troubles of a wordly life and yet are alive unto God and our selves yet it is a kind of death to be deprived of those comforts which are the life of our lives but if it be for the Lords sake in his way and for his ends it is a kind of daily Martyrdom to be accounted as Sheep for the slaughter This then is an excellent means to make our names to be Heirs to our Lives that we live at the rate of this Mystery Eph. 3.9 as in that Fellowship of it always bearing about in the Body the dying of the Lord Jesus that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our Body for we which live are always delivered unto death for Jesus sake that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh Lo here a Communion betwixt the dying Jesus and dying Christians in the sense and scope of the Text in his Death and Resurrection The Lord Jesus died in the Body so must we he once we always he bare his dying in the Body patiently and exemplarily on the Cross we must bear it about his dying was by Crucifixion ours by a holy and spiritual Necrosie or Mortification his new life was the manifestation of his Victory and it is manifested in our mortal bodies by new obedience So then our blessed Jesus can best give the rule of dying daily who died for us not only for our Ransom but for our Pattern to satisfie for us by dying and to exemplifie the dying Mystery to us and therefore he redeemed us from death only as to its curse and left us a method of cure and comfort in dying wherein else can death be our gain unless it become our Faculty and daily Trade and if persons bungle in their Calling they lose credit and comfort and custom and profit and all and turn Bankrupts in Religion so as we have need to study this Mystery seriously and practise it sedulously for it is by those that have experienced it a hard work to die both in the body and out of the body Nevertheless it is feasible else it had never been given us in precept or purchase or pattern no doubt that which was done by Christ and S. Paul and many others their succeeding Disciples may in proportion be done by us if we resolvedly set about it Let me give you some Incentives by way of consideration 1. He that dies daily can on no day die suddenly I consider that man is sure that he shall not die suddenly and therefore if Heaven be worth securing it were fit that we should reckon every day the Vespers of Death and therefore that according to the Rites of Grace the day be begun and spent with Religious Offices And if uncertainty of condition be an abatement of felicity and spoils the good we possess no man can be happy that doth not secure his felicity by an habitual and living piety for since God hath not told us when or where or by what means we shall die is it not certain he intended we should be daily ready for that whereof we are in jeopardy every hour A wise man therefore supposeth himself always upon his Death-bed and such a supposition is like making of his will he is not the nearer death for doing it but is the readier for it when it comes and he that daily dies bequeaths his Soul to God his Body to the earth and his Goods to the uses of Righteousness Holiness and Charity S. Jerom said well He deserves not the name of a Christian who lives in such a state in which he would not die And indeed it is a great venture to be in an evil state of life because every day and minute of it hath a danger and therefore such a succession of Actions in every one of which he may as well perish as escape is
a foolish boldness wherein there is no mixture of wisdom or pious forecast 2. There is great gain in dying for such as by frequent exercise are got skilled in it Job tells us of some that die without wisdom certainly they that never learn'd of God to number their days are to be numbered among those Ignorants the Learned in this Arithmetick reckon their days not by multiplication but by substraction so much for God for Heaven for Christ for Soul and for the Eternity as that the least part of time if any belongs to this life There is a time to be born and a time to die says the Preacher but he allows no term for this life For as soon as a man is born that which in nature only remains to him is to die and it is a wonder since all the Records of Scripture urge the certainty of death the uncertainty of its day the horror of the day of Judgment the severity of God the dissolution of the world the necessity of our last account and from all these premises the Spirit of God makes no other Inference but that we watch and be sober and stand in a readiness that we live in all holy conversation and godliness that we repent and turn to God that we try and examine whether we are in the faith that we work out our Salvation and make our Calling and Election sure And the Doctrines and Rules and Offices and Acts of Preparation are every where interspersed in Holy Scripture yet this among the rest which is indeed the Epitome of all To die daily is looked on as a Riddle and Paradox rarely received into the Faith and Practice of Men called Christians only some choice Souls hit on 't and to such To live is Christ and to die is gain And we have seen the vast difference of managing death when some inexpert persons have been called to it and the more experienced have been brought forth as Champions in Christ on the stage of the Death-bed It must needs come from this discriminating Character some with Paul have died so oft that they are grown intimate with it and act it to the life like Jacob and are meetly furnished for their Translation as Enoch And with Stephen first see the Heavens opened and then pass in with inexpressible Joy and Ravishment certainly such have been much versed in dying whiles they lived who die their last in so lively an assurance 3. He that dies daily hath but one days task to do when he dies He is come to his Journeys end after his dayly Travel and he is like a hard Traveller in this he is less weary the last day than when he first set out he can cast up his account readily for he kept his Day-book exact and now he is ready to be offered and the time of his departure is at hand he reviews his whole life and it hath been a continual Fight 2 Tim 4 6.7.3 and now he begins his Triumphant assault he hath daily been in his course and now comes to finish it and to pass to his Crown O the desperate state of such as instead of dying daily are sinning daily and so are dead whiles they live such are they as are drunk daily swear and whore and prophane and debauch daily Epicures Ephesian Beasts Cretian Liars daily who eat and drink to day though they die to morrow O take heed of dallying with death and since all our life we are dying and this minute in which I now speak death divides with me and hath got the surer part and more certain possession it is but reasonable we should be daily upâ—â— the â—â—â—â—ces of preparation If to day we were not dying and passing on to our Graves then we might with more safety protract our work till to morrow but the age of every day is a beginning of death and the night going â—â—ing us to sleep â—â—ds us go to our lesâ—â—â—â—â— because that night which is the end of the preceâ—â—ng day is 〈◊〉 a lesser death and 〈◊〉 â—â—d but a sâ—ster and 〈◊〉 Gâ—â—â—â— and whereas now 〈◊〉 have died so many days the last day of our life is but the dying so many more and when that last day of dying will come we know not methinks this very consideration should put us speedily upon the Religion of dying There is nothing to be added but the circumstances of sickness which also happens many times before only men are pleased to call that death which is the end of dying when we cease to die any more and therefore to delay dying till then is to put off the work of all our life till the time comes in which it is to cease and determine Remember how it was in thy purposes on thy last Sick-bed O that thy health might be such as thy sickness promised then thy mind was fixed on pious things and thou prayedst for sparing mercy and wert vowing religiously and thought on thy sins with sorrow and shame and the Prayers of the Church were needful and comfortable and the Ministers company and counsel desirable and good discourse acceptable and O if thou hadst time in hand again what a new man thou wouldst be Thy case is the same still if thou flatter not thy self thou art no farther from thy Grave when on thy feet than when on thy sick Bed only thou hast now in health better strength and better helps and better opportunities than when thou last wert dying return then to thy sickly but serious purposes and perform them now in thy health and freedom and practise to die now and 't will be an easier and happier task at last And to facilitate all look still on the dying Jesus thoâ— art called to a conformity with him whose name thoâ— bearest and if thou name the name of Christ depart from iniquity decline and abandon all such Acts in life 〈◊〉 might not be done if thou wert dying Every day tâ—â— view of your last and think either it is this or might be and remember Christ in the flesh was always doing his Fâ—ther's Work which was to die for Sinners O let us not live in the love of Sin because Christ so loved us as to die for our Sins and to save our Souls from the second death He began his Works betimes all his days were dying days till the hour came that he died for all Phil. 3.10 he was always waiting for his Fathers appointed time he was always faithful to his Fathers work and trust He held his life upon his Fathers Terms resolved himself into his Fathers Will and at the last resigned his life into his Fathers Hands Abi in fac similiter Go thou and do likewise Being made conformable to his death Christ died for Sin in way of Expiation Satisfaction and Pacification betwixt his Father and us we die unto Sin in a way of Crucifying Mortifying and destroying it in our selves O 't is a painful Task but it is a gainful State It sequesters us from the comforts of life I say it sweetens and sanctifies and makes all comforts savory 'T is hard and irksome only to corrupt flesh It rebates only the grosser and more feculent parts of our present Contents and Secular Enjoyments 'T will keep death in our minds in the height of our merriments 't is as a deaths head in the Lordly Dishes of our Feasts it is to corrupt minds no other than all Salvation work is grievous and burdensome but to the Faith of God's Elect easie and delightsome to pluck out the Right Eye is by interpretation not to have eyes full of Adultery to cut off the hand is to eschew all Acts of Violence Oppression Theft or Fraud to crucifie the flesh is but to keep the lower Faculties and bruitish Appetites from rebelling and rising against the supremacy of Reason and Virtue And so the Spirit of this Letter To die daily is no other than to order our selves and our conversations aright as Men and as Christians in hope of a better life when this is done which God shall shew us in Christ and here Seal unto us by his Holy Spirit to which our temporal Death shall translate us even our full Salvation Which God of his infinite Mercy grant c. Newly Printed THe Glory and Happiness of the Saints in Heaven or a Discourse concerning the blessed State of the Righteous after Death with Motives and Encouragements unto all Christians to secure to themselves an Interest therein Sold by Nathanael Ranew at the King's-Arms in St. Paul's Church-yard FINIS