life having spoiled principalities and powers hath made a shew of them openly triumphing over them on his Crâ—ss Lo all the powers of hell were dragg'd after this glorious Conquerour when he was advanced upon that Triumphant Chariot Look therefore my son upon these hellish forces as already vanquished and know that in all things we are more then Conquerours through him that loved us Onely do thou by the power of thy faith apply unto thy self this great work that thy victorious Saviour hath done for the salvation of all the world of believers § 4. The great subtilfy of evil spirits and the remedy of the fear of it Power without malice were harmless and malice without power were impotent but when both are combined together they are dreadful But whereas Malice hath two ways to execute mischief either Force or Fraud the malice of Satan prevails more by this latter so as the subtilty of these malignant spirits is more pernicious then their power In regard of his power he is a Lion in regard of his subtilty he is a Serpent yea that old Serpent whose craft must needs be marvellously increased by the age and experience of so many thousand yeers So much the more careful ought we to be my son Lest Satan should get an advantage of us This is that he seeks and if our spiritual wisdom circumspection be not the more will be sure to find It is a great word and too high for us which the Apostle speaks For we are not ignorant of Satans devices Alas he hath a thousand stratagems that our weak simplicity is never able to reach unto The wisest of us knows not the deceitfulness of his own heart much less can he dive into the plots of hell that are against us We hear and are fore-warned of the wiles of the Devil but what his special machinations are how can we know much less prevent Even the children of this world saith our Saviour are in their generation wiser then the children of light how much more crafty is their Father from whom their cunning is derived Be as mean as thou wilt my son in thine own eyes say with Agur the son of Jakeh Surely I am more brutish then any man and have not the understanding of a man I neither learned wisdom nor have the knowledge of the holy But what ever thou art in thy self know what thou art or mayst be in thy God Consider what the man after Gods own heart sticks not to profess Thou through thy Commandments hast made me wiser then mine enemies for they are ever with me Lo the spirit of wisdom is ours and he who is the eternal Wisdom of the Father is made unto us wisdom as well as righteousness And he who over-rules hell hath said The gates of hell shall not prevail against his Church What are the gates of hell but the deep plots and consulâ—tations of those infernal powers The Serpent is the known embleme of subtilty The Serpents of the Egyptian Sorcerers were all devoured by Moses his Serpent wherefore but to shew us that all the crafty counsels and machinations of hellish projectors are easily destroyed by the power and wisdom of the Almighty when all was done it was the Rod of God that swallowed them all and was yet still it self when they were vanquished So as that whereby Satan thought to have won most honour to himself ended in his shame and loss What an infinite advantage did the powers of darkness think to have made in drawing our first Parents by their subtil suggestions into sin and thereby into perdition as imagining either mankinde shall not be or shall be ours the incomprehensible wisdom and mercy of our God disappointed their hopes and took occasion by mans fall to raise him up to a greater glory and so ordered it that the Serpents nibbling at the heel cost him the breaking of his head What Trophees did that wicked spirit think to erect upon the ruines of miserable Job and how was he baffled by the patience of that Saint and how was that Saint doubled both in his estate and honour by his conquering patience How confidently did the subtilty of hell say concerning the Son of God exhibited in the flesh This is the heir come let us kill him and the inheritance shall be ours How sure work did they think they had made when they saw him through their subtil procurement nailed to the Cross and dying upon that tree of shame and curse when they saw him laid dead under a sealed and guarded Grave-stone And now behold even now begins their Confusion and his Triumph now doth the Lord of Life begin to trample upon Death and hell and to perfect his own glory and mans redemption by his most glorious resurrection And as it was with the Head so it is with the members when Satan hath done his worst they are holier upon their sins and happier by their miscarriages God findes out a way to improve their evils to advantage and teaches them of these Vipers to make soverain Treacles and safe and powerful Trochisces Shortly the temptations of Satan sent out from his power malice subtilty are no other then fiery darts for their suddenness impetuosity penetration If we can but hold out the shield of faith before us they shall not be quenched onely but retorted into the face of him that sends them and we shall with the chosen vessel finde and profess that in all things we are more then conquerours through him that loved us and in a bold defiance of all the powers of darkness shall say 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 to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord To whom be all honour glory praise power and dominion now and for evermore The Vniversal Receit for all Maladies THese are my son special compositions of wholsome Receits for the several Maladies of thy soul wherein it shall be my happiness to have suggested unto thee such thoughts as may any whit avail to the alleviation of thy sorrows But there is an universal Remedy which a skilfuller Physitian hath ordained for all thy grievances and I from his hand earnestly recommend to thee Is any among you afflicted let him pray Lo here the great and soverain Panpharmacum of the distressed soul which is able to give ease to all the fore-mentioned complaints Art thou castâ— down upon thy sick bed Call for the Elders of the Church and let them pray This was Hezekiah's receit when he was sick unto death He turned his face to the wall and prayed This was David's receit Have mercy on me O Lord for I am weak O Lord heal me for my bones are vexed Take therefore the
God c. Lo the holiest man may not be exempted from the dread but from the slavish fear of the great Judge We know his infinite justice we are conscious to our selves of our manifold failings how can we lay these two together and not fear But this fear works not in us a malignant kinde of repining at the severe Tribunal of the Almighty as commonly whom we fear we hate but rather a careful endeavour so to approve our selves that we may be acquitted by him and appear blameless in his presence How justly may we tremble when we look upon our own actions our own deserts but how confidently may we appear at that Bar where we are beforehand assured of a discharge Being justified by faith â—we have peace with God through Jesus Christ our Lord. When we think of anâ— universal conflagration of the world how can we but fear but when we think of an happie restitution of all things in this day how can we but rejoyce in trembling § 4. In that great and terrible Day our Advocate is our Judge Thou quakest at the expectation of the last Judgement Surely the very Majestie of that great Assize must needs be formidable And if the very delivery of the Law on Mount Sinai were with so dreadful a pomp of Thunder and Lightning of Fire Smoke Earthquakes that the Israelites were half dead with fear in receiving it with what terrible magnificence shall God come to require an account of that Law at the hands of the whole sinful generation of mankinde Represent unto thy thoughts that which was shewed of old to the Prophet Daniel in Vision Imagine that thou sawest the Ancient of days sitting upon a Throne like the fiery flame 〈◊〉 a fiery stream issuing and coming forth from before him thousand thousands ministring unto him and ten thousand times ten thousand standing before him the judgement set and the Books opened Or as John the Daniel of the New Testament saw a great white Throne and him that sate on it from whose face the earth and the heavens fled away and the dead both small and great standing before God and the Books opened and the dead judged out of those things which were written in those Books according to their works Let the eyes of thy minde see before-hand that which these bodily eyes shall once see and tell me how thou feelest thy self affected with the sight of such a Judge such an appearance such a process And if thou findest thy self in a trembling condition cheer up thy self with this That thy Judge is thine Advocate That upon that Throne there sits not greater Majestie then Mercie It is thy Saviour that shall sentence thee How safe art thou then under such hands Canst thou fear that he will doom thee to death who died to give thee life Canst thou fear he will condemn thee for those sins which he hath given his blood to expiate Canst thou fear the rigour of that Justice which he hath so fully satisfied Canst thou misdoubt the miscarriage of that soul which he hath so dearly bought No my son all this divine state and magnificence makes for thee Let those guilty and impenitent souls who have heaped unto themselves wrath against the day of wrath quake at the glorious Majestie of the Son of God for whom nothing remains but a fearful expectation of judgement and fiery indignation which shall devour the adversaries But for thee who art not onely reconciled unto God by the mediation of the Son of his love but art also incorporated into Christ and made a true limb of his mystical Body thou art bidden together with all the faithful to look up and lift up thy head for now the day of thy reâ—emption is come And indeed how canst thou do other since by vertue of this blessed union with thy Saviour this glory is thine every member hath an interest in the honour of the Head Rejoyce therefore in the day of the Lord Jesus and when all the Tribes of the earth shall wail do thou sing and rejoyce and call to the heavens and the earth to bear thee company Let the heavens rejoyce and let the earth be glad let the sea make a noise aud all that is therein let the field be joyful and all that is in it Then shall all the trees of the wood rejoyce before the Lord for he cometh for he cometh to judge the earth and with righteousness to judge the world and the people with his truth §. 5. Frequent meditation and due prepaâ—ation the remedies of our â—ear Thou art affrighted with the thought of that Great Day Think of it oftner and thou shalt less fear it It will come both surely and suddenly let thy frequent thoughts prevent it It will come as a thief in the night without warning without noise let thy careful vigilance always expect it and thy soul shall be sure not to be surprised not to be confounded Thine Audit is both sure and uncertain sure that it will be uncertain when it will be If thou wilt approve thy self a good Steward have thine account always ready set thy reckoning still even betwixt God and thy soul Blessed is the servant whom his Master shall finde so doing Look upon these heavens and this earth as dissolving and think with Jerome that thou hearest the last Trump and the voice of the Archangel shrilling in thine ears as once thou shalt Arise ye dead and come to judgement Shortly let it be thy main care to live soberly righteously and godly in this present world looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity Who shall change our vile body that it may be fashioned like to his glorious body according to the working whereby he is able to subdue all things to himself Comforts against the fears of our spiritual enemies § 1. The great power of evil spirits and their restraint THou art affrighted at the thought of thy spiritual enemies No marvel Neither earth nor hell hath any thing equally formidable Those three things which are wont to make enmity dreadful and dangerous Power Malice Subtilty are met in them neither is it easie to say in which of these they are most eminent Certainly were we to be matcht with them on even hand there were just cause not of Fear onely but Despair I could tremble thou sayst to think what Satan hath done what he can do what contestation he enabled the Egyptian Sorcerers to hold with Moses how they turned every man his rod into a Serpent so as they seemed to have the advantage for the time of many Serpents crawling and hissing in Phoraoh's pavement for one How they turned the waters into blood How they brought Froggs upon the Land of Egypt 〈◊〉 as if thus far the power of hell would
with the expectation of that blessednesse which if thy torments were no lesse then those of hell would make more then abundant amends for all thy sufferings §. 12. 11. Comfort The favour of a peaceable passage out of the world Thou art sick to die having received the sentence of death in thy selfe thy Physitian hath given thee up to act this last part alone neither art thou like to rise any more till the generall resurrection How many thousands have died lately that would have thought it a great happinesse to die thus quietly in their beds whom the storme of warre hath hurried away furiously into another world snatching them suddenly out of this not suffering them to take leave of that life which they are forced to abandon whereas thou hast a fair leasure to prepare thy self for the entertainment of thy last guest to set both thine house in order and thy soule It is no small advantage my son thus to see death at a distance and to observe every of his paces towards thee that thou maist put thy selfe into a fit posture to meet this grim messenger of heaven who comes to fetch thee to immortality That dying thus by gentle degrees thou hast the leasure with the holy Patriarch Iacob to call thy children about thee to bequeath to each of them the dear legacy of thy last benediction and that being incompassed with thy sad friends now in thy long journey to a far country though thine and their home thou maist take a solemn farewell of them as going somewhat before them to the appointed happy meeting place of glory and blessednesse That one of thine own may close up those eyes which shall in their next opening see the face of thy most glorious Saviour and see this flesh now ready to lie down in corruption made like to his in unspeakable glory Comforts for the sick Soul § 1. The happiness of a deep sorrow for sin THy sin lies heavie upon thy soul Blessed be God that thou feel'st it so many a one hath more weight upon him and boasteth of ease There is musick in this complaint the Father of mercies delights to hear it as next to the melody of Saints and Angels Go on still and continue these sorrowful notes if ever thou look for sound comfort It is this godly sorrow that worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of Weep still and make not too much haste to dry up these tears for they are precious and held fit to be reserved in the bottle of the Almighty Over-speedy remedies may prove injurious to the Patient and as in the body so in the soul diseases and tumors must have their due maturation ere there can be a perfect cure The inwards of the Sacrifice must be three times rinsed with water One ablution will not serve the turn but when thou hast emptied thine eyes of tears and unloaded thy brest of leasurely sighs I shall then by full commission from him that hath the power of remission say to thee Son be of good comfort thy sins are forgiven thee § 2. Comfort from the welgrounded declaration of pardon Think not this word meerly formal and forceless He that hath the keys of hell and of death hath not said in vain Whose sins ye remit they are remitted The words of his faithful Ministers on earth are ratified in heaven Onely the Priest under the Law had power to pronounce the Leper clean had any other Israelite done it it had been as unprofitable as presumptuous It is a precious word that fell from Elihu When a mans soul draweth nigh to the grave and his life to the destroyer if there be a messenger of God with him an interpreter one among a thousand to shew unto that man his uprightness then he i. e. God is gracious unto him and saith Deliver him from going down into the pit I have found a ransom Behold this is thy case my son the life of thy soul is in danger of the Destroyer through his powerful temptations I am howsoever unworthy a messenger sent to thee from heaven and in the Name of that great God that sent me I do here upon the sight of thy serious repentance before Angels and men declare thy soul to stand right in the Court of heaven the invaluable ransom of thy dear Saviour is laid down and accepted for thee thou art delivered from going down into the pit of horrour and perdition § 3. Aggravation of the grievous condition of the Patient and remedies from mercy applied Oh happie message thou saist were it as sure as it is comfortable But alas my heart findes many and deep grounds of fear and diffidence which will not easily be removed That smites me whiles you offer to acquit me and tells me I am in a worse condition then a looker on can imagine my sins are beyond measure hainous such as my thoughts tremble at such as I dare not utter to the God that knows them and against whom onely they are committed there is horrour in their very remembrance what will there then be in their retribution They are bitter things that thou urgest against thy self my son no adversary could plead worse But I admit thy vileness be thou as bad as Satan can make thee It is not either his malice or thy wickedness that can shut thee out from mercy Be thou as foul as sin can make thee yet there is a fountain opened to the house of David a bloody fountain in the side of thy Saviour for sin and for uncleanness Be thou as leprous as that Syrian was of old if thou canst but wash seven times in the waters of this Jordan thou canst not but be clean thy flesh shall come again to thee like to the flesh of a little childe thou shalt be at once sound and innocent Be thou stung unto death with the fiery serpents of this wilderness yet if thou canst but cast thine eyes to that Brazen Serpent which is erected there thou canst not fail of cure Wherefore came the Son of God into the world but to save sinners Adde if thou wilt whereof I am chief thou canst say no worse by thy self then a better man did before thee who in the right of a sinner claimeth the benefit of a Saviour Were it not for our sin what use were there of a Redeemer Were not our sin hainous how should it have required such an expiation as the blood of the eternal Son of God Take comfort to thy self my son the greatness of thy sin serves but to magnifie the mercy of the Forgiver to remit the debt of some few farthings it were small thank but to strike off the scores of thousands of talents it is the height of bounâ—y Thus doth thy God to thee he hath suffered thee to run on in his books to so deep a sum that when thy conscious heart hath proclaimed thee bankrupt he may infinitly oblige thee
for the benefit that he hath been pleased to make of thine offending him § 5. â—omplaint 〈◊〉 relapses 〈◊〉 to sin â—ith the â—â—medy â—ereof But alas thou sayst my case is far worse then it is conceived I have been more then once miscarried into the same sin Even after I have made profession of my repentance I have been transported into my former wickedness Having washed off my sin as I thought with my many tears yet I have suffered my soul to be defiled with it again I may not flatter thee my son this condition is dangerous Those diseases which upon their first seizure have without any great peril of the Patient received cure after a recidivation have threatned death Look upon the Saints of God thou shalt finde they have kept aloof from that fire wherewith they have been formerly burnt Thou shalt not finde Noah again uncovered through drunkenness in his tent thou shalt not finde Judah climbing up again to Tamars bed Thou shalt not take Peter again in the High-Priests hall denying his Master or after Pauls reproof halting in his dissimulation But tell me notwithstanding art thou truly serious with thy God hast thou doubled thine humiliation for the reduplication of thine offence hast thou sought God so much the more instantly with an unfained contrition of heart hast thou found thy soul wrought to so much greater detestation of thy sin as thine acquainâ—tance with it hath been more hast thou taken this occasion to lay better hold on thy Saviour and to reinforce the vows of thy more careful and strict obedience Be of good chear this unpurposed reiteration of thy sin shall be no prejudice to thy salvation It is one thing for a man to walk on willingly in a beaten path of sin another thing for a man to be justled out of the way of righteousness by the violence of a temptation which he soon recovers again by a sound repentance The best cannot but be overtaken with sin but he that is born of God doth not commit sin he may be transported whither he meant not but he makes not a trade of doing ill his heart is against that which his hand is drawn unto and if in this inward strife he be over-powered he lies not down in a willing yeeldance but struggles up again and in a resumed courage and indignation tramples on that which formerly supplanted him Didst thou give thy self over to a resolved course of sinning and betwixt whiles shouldst knock thy brest with a formal God forgive me I should have no comfort in store for thee but send thee rather to the Whipping-stock of the Almighty for due correction if possibly those seasonable stripes may prevent thine everlasting torments But now since what thou hatest that thou doest and thou doest that which thou wouldst not and it is no more thâ—u that doest it but sin that dwells in thee cry out as much as thou wilt on the sinfulness of thy sin bewail thy weakness with a better man then thy self O wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from the body of this death But know that thou hast found mercy with thy God thy repeated sin may grieve but cannot hurt thy soul. Had we to do with a finite compassion it might be abated by spending it self upon a frequent remission like as some great river may be drawn dry by many small out-lets But now that we deal with a God whose mercy is as himself infinite it is not the greatness or the number of our offences that can make a difference in his free remissions That God who hath charged our weak charity not to be overcome with evil but to overcome evil with good justly scorneth that we should think his infinite and incomprehensible goodness can be checked with our evil It was not without a singular providence that Peter came to our Saviour with that question in his mouth Lord how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him till seven times that it might fetch from that blessed Son of God that gracious answer for our perpetual direction and comfort I say not unto thee Until seven times but until seventy times seven Lord if thou wouldst have us sinful men thus indulgent to one another in the case of our mutual offences what limits can be set to thy mercies in our sins against thee Be we penitent thou canst not but be gracious Comforts against weakness of grace §. 1. Comfort from the common condition of all Saints THou complainest of the weakness of grace some little stirrings thou feelest of Gods Spirit within thee but so feeble that thou canst not finde any solid comfort in them Thou seest others thou sayst whose brests are full of milk and their bones moistned with marrow whiles thou languishest under a spiritual leanness and imbecillity Thou wantest that vigorous heat of holy affections and that alacrity in the performance of holy duties which thou observest in other Christians I love this complaint of thine my son and tell thee that without this thou couldst not be in the way of being happie Thinkst thou that those whom thou esteemest more eminent in grace make not the same moan that thou dost Certainly they never had any grace if they did not complain to have too little Every man best feels his own wants and is ready to pass secret censures upon himself for that wherein he is applauded by others Even the man after Gods own heart can say But I am poor and sorrowful He was a great King when he said so it was not meanness in outward estate that troubled him but a spiritual neediness for he had before in the same heavenly Ditty professed O God thou knowest my foolishnesse and my guiltinesse is not hid from thee It was an old observation of wise Solomon There is that maketh himselfe rich and hath nothing there is that maketh himselfe poore yet hath great riches In this latter rank are many gracious soules and thine I hope for one who certainly had never been so wealthy in grace if they had been conceited of greater store Even in this sense many a Saint may say with Saint Paul When I am weak then I am strong Since the very complaint of weaknesse argues strength and on the contrary an opinion of sufficient grace is an evident conviction of meere emptinesse §. 2. Comfort from the improvement of weak graces and Gods free distribution But suppose thy selfe so poor as thou pretendest It is not so much what we have as how we improve it How many have we known that have grown rich out of a little whereas others out of a great stock have run into debt and beggery Had that servant in the Gospel who received but one talent imployed it to the gain of a second he had been proportionably as well rewarded as he that with five gained ten In our temporall estate we are warned by the wisest man
death another trembles to expect it one beggs for life another will sell it dearer here one would rescue one life and loseth two there another would hide himself where he findes a merciless death here lies one bleeding and groaning and gasping parting with his soul in extremity of anguish there another of stronger spirits kills and dies at once here one wrings her hands and tears her hair and seeks for some instrument of a self-inflicted death rather then yeeld her chaste body to the lust of a bloody ravisher there another clings inseparably to a dear husband and will rather take part of the murtherers sword then let go her last embraces here one tortured for the discovery of hid treasure there another dying upon the rack out of jealousie Oh that one man one Christian should be so bloodily cruel to another Oh that he who bears the image of the merciful God should thus turn fiend to his own flesh and blood These are terrible things my son and worthy of our bitterest lamentations and just fears I love the speculation of Seneca's resolutely-wise man that could look upon the glittering sword of an executioner with erected and undazeled eyes and that makes it no matter of difference whether his soul pass out at his mouth or at his throat but I should more admire the practice whiles we carry this clay about us nature cannot but in the holiest men shrink in at the sight and sense of these tyrannous and tragical acts of death Yet even these are the due revenges of the Almighties punitive justice so provoked by our sins as that it may not take up with an easier judgement Dost thou not see it ordinary with our Physitians when they finde the body highly distempered and the blood foul and inflamed to order the opening of a vein and the drawing out of so many ounces as may leave the rest meet for correction Why art thou over-troubled to see the great Physitian of the world take this course with sinful mankinde Certainly had not this great Body by mis dieting and wilful disorder contracted these spiritual diseases under which we languish had it not impured the blood that runs in these common veins with riot and surfets we had never been so miserable as to see these torrents of Christian blood running down our chanels Now yet as it is could we bewail and abandon our former wickedness we might live in hope that at the last this deadly issue might stop and dry up and that there might be yet left a possibility of a blessed recovery § 7. The woful miseries of Pestilence allaid by consideration of the hand that smites us Thou art confounded with grief to see the pestilence raging in our streets in so frequent a mortality as breeds a question concerning the number of the living and the dead That which is wont to abate other miseries heightens this The company of participants It was certainly a very hard and sad option that God gave to King David after his sin of numbring bring the people Chuse thee whether seven yeers famine shall come unto thee in thy Land or three moneths flight before thine enemies or three days pestilence We may believe the good King when we hear him say I am in a great strait Doubtless so he was but his wise resolutions have soon brought him out Let us fall now into the hand of the Lord for his mercies are great and let me not fall into the hand of man He that was to send these evils knew their value and the difference of their malignity yet he opposes three days pestilence to seven yeers famine and three months vanquishment so much oddes he knew there was betwixt the dull activity of man and the quick dispatch of an Angel It was a favour that the Angel of death who in one night destroyed an hundred fourscore and five thousand Assyrians should in three daies cut off but seventy thousand Israelites It was a great mercy that it was no worse We read of one City shall I call it or Region of Cayro wherein eighteen hundred thousand were swept away in one years pestilence enow one would think to have peopled the whole earth and in our own Chronicles of so generall a mortality that the living were hardly sufficient to bury the dead These are dreadfull demonstrations of Gods heavy displeasure but yet there is this alleviation of our misery that we suffer more immediatly from an holy just mercifull God The Kingly Prophet had never made that distinction in his wofull choyce if he had not known a notable difference betwixt the sword of an Angell and an enemy betwixt Gods more direct and immediate infliction and that which is derived to us through the malice of men It was but a poor consolation that is given by a victorious enemy to dying Lausus in the Poet Comfort thy selfe in thy death with this that thou fallest by the hand of great Aeneas but surely we have just reason to â—aise comfort to our souls when the pains of a pestilentiall death compasse us about from the thought and intuition of that holy and gracious hand under which we suffer so as we can say with good Eli It is the Lord. It is not amisse that we call those marks of deadly infection Gods Tokens such sure they are and ought therefore to call up our eyes and hearts to that Almighty power that sends them with the faithfull resolution of holy Iob Though thou kill me yet will I trust in thee It is none of the least miseries of contagious sicknesse that it bars us from the comfortable society and attendance of friends or if otherwise repaies their love and kinde visitation with death Be not dismaid my son with this sad solitude thou hast company with thee whom no infection can indanger or exclude there is an invisible friend that will be sure to stick by thee so much more closely by how much thou art more avoided by neighbours and will make all thy bed in thy sickness and supply thee with those cordialls which thou shouldst in vain expect from earthly visitants Indeed justly doe we style this The sicknesse eminently grievous both for the deadlinesse and generality of the dispersion yet there is a remedy that can both cure and conâ—ine it Let but every man look well to the plague of his own heart and the Land is healed Can we with David but see the Angell that smites us and erect an Altar and offer to God the sacrifices of our praiers penitence obedience we shall hear him say It is enough The time was and that time may not be forgotten when in the dayes of our late Soveraigne our Mother City was almost desolated with this mortall infection When thousands fell at our side and ten thousands at our right hand upon the publique humiliation of our soules the mercy of the Almighty was pleased to command that raging disease in the height of its fury
not as a man but as a Christian envie her not to that better Husband above who gives her no less dowry then immortality § 6. The mitigation of the loss of a dear and hopeful son Thy son is dead What marvel is it that a mortal Father hath begot a mortal Son Marvel rather that thy self hath lived to have or to lose a son We lie open to so many deaths that our very subsistence is almost miraculous Thou hast lost a piece of thy self for what are our children but as colonies deduced from our own flesh yea rather our selves made up in other models This loss cannot but go neer thee But tell me What was the disposition of the son thou mournest for If he were graceless and debauched as thy shame so thy sorrow should die with him set the hopes thou mightst have had of his reclaiming against the fears of his continuing and increasing wickedness and thou couldst have made no other present account but of dishonour and discomfort If it be sad that he is taken away in his wildness it had been more heavie that he would have added to the heap of his sin and therein to his torments If he were gracious he had a better Father then thy self whose interest was more in him then thine and if that heavenly Father have thought good to prefer him to a crown of immortal glory why shouldst thou be afflicted with his advancement Why shouldst thou not rather rejoyce that thy loyns have helped to furnish heaven with a Saint Were it put to thy choice that thy son might be called off from his blessed rest and returned to his former earthly relations couldst thou be so injurious in thy self-love as to wish the misery of so disadvantageous a change to that soul which as it was never of thy production so it were pity it should be at thy disposing Rather labour to have thine own soul so disposed that it may be ready to follow him into those blessed mansions and that it may love and long for heaven so much more for that one piece of thee is there before-hand Comforts against Poverty and loss of our estate § 1. The fickle nature of these earthly goods THou art driven into want and that which is worse out of abundance Those evils that we have been inured to as being bred up with us from our cradle are grown so familiar that we are little moved with their presence but those into which we fall suddenly out of an outward felicity of estate are ready to overwhelm us Let thy care be not to want those better riches which shall make thy soul happie and thou shalt not be too much troubled with the loss of this trivial and perishing stuff Had these been true goods they could not have been lost for that good that is least capable of loss as it is unsatisfying in the time of an imperfect and unsure fruition so in the losing it turns evil Didst thou not know that riches have wings and what use is there of wings if not to flie If another mans violence shall clip those wings even this very clipping is their flight Set thy heart upon that excellent and precious wealth which can never be taken from thee which shall never leave thee nor thou it thou shalt easily slight these poor losses As these were not goods so they were not thine Here thou foundst them and here thou leavest them What hadst thou but their use Neither can they be otherwise thine heirs whom thou leavest behinde thee I am ashamed to hear the Heathen Philosopher say All that is mine I carry about me when many of us Christians are ready to bug those things as most ours which are without our selves It was an unanswerable question which God moves to the rich man in the Parable upon the parting with his soul Then whose shall those things be which thou hast provided perhaps a strangers perhaps as in case of undisposed Lands the occupants perhaps a false Executors perhaps an enemies Call that thine that thou shalt be sure to carry away with thee that shall either accompany thy soul in its last passage or follow it such shall be thy holy graces thy charitable works thy vertuous actions thine heavenly dispositions Lo these are the Treasures which thou shalt lay up for thy self in heaven where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt where theeves do not break thorow nor steal § 2. Consideration that they are not ours but lent us Thou hast lost thy goods May I not rather say Thou hast restored them He parted with more then thou that said The Lord hath given and the Lord hath taken Lo whether it were by way of patrimony or by way of providence and industry the Lord gave it and whether it were by the hands of Chaldeans or Sabeans the Lord hath taken it the Lord is in both he did but give and take his own Is it not just so with thee What reason hast thou then to complain Or may I not yet rather say It was not given but lent thee for a while till it were called for and dost thou grudge to restore what thou borrowedst Nay that thou mayst have yet less claim to this pelf was it not onely left in thy hand by the owner to employ for his use till he should re-demand it with the increase What is it to thee but to improve and to account for If others have taken off thy charge whiles they have spoiled they have eased thee § 3. That the right valuation of riches is in the minde Thy wealth is gone Hast thou necessaries left Be thankful for what thou hast forget what thou hadst Hadst thou had more thou couldst have made use of no more then Nature calls for the rest could but have lien by thee for sight for readiness of employment Do but forbear the thought of superfluities and what art thou the worse Perhaps thy fare is coarser thy dishes fewer thy utensils meaner thy clothes homelier thy train shorter what of this how is thy minde affected Cuntentment stands not in quantities nor in qualities but in the inward disposition of the heart that alone can multiply numbers and raise prices that alone can turn honest freezes into rich velvets pulse into delicates and can make one attendant many Officers Wise Seneca tels thee truly that the true mold of wealth is our body as the Last is of the shooe if the shooe be too bigge for the foot it is but troublesome and uselesse and how poor an answer would it be of the Cordwainer to say that hee had Leather good store it is fitnesse which is to be regarded here not largenesse neither is this any other then the charge of the blessed Apostle Having food and raiment let us bee therewith content And if we have no more we shall be but as we were as we shall bee For wee brought nothing into the world neither shall wee carry any
Write this man childless As on the contrary it is a special favour of God that the barren hath born seven And it is noted by the Psalmist as a wonder of Gods mercy That he maketh the barren woman to keep house and to be a joyful mother of children It is pity he was ever born that holds not children a blessing yet not simple and absolute but according as it may prove She hath a double favour from God that is a joyful mother of children many a one breeds her sorrow breeds her death There is scarce any other blessing from God seasoned with so much acrimony both of misery and danger Do but lay together the sick fits of breeding the painful throws of travel the weary attendances of nursing the anxious cares of education the fears and doubts of mis-guidance the perpetual solicitude for their provision the heart-breaking grief for their miscarriage and tell me whether thy bemoaned sterility have not more ease less sorrow §. 2. The pains of child-bearing It is thy sorrow then that thou art not fruitful Consider that thou art herein freed from a greater sorrow In sorrow shalt thou bring forth children Do but think upon the shrieks and torments that thou hast seen and heard in the painful travels of thy neighbours One thou hast seen wearying the days and nights in restless pangs and calling for death in a despair of delivery Another after the unprofitable labours of Midwives forced to have her bowels ransackt by the hand of another sex One hath her dead burden torn from her by piece-meal another is delivered of her life and birth together One languisheth to death after the hand of an unskilful Midwife another is weary of her life through the soreness of her brests All these sorrows thou hast escaped by this one In these regards how many whom thou enviest have thought thee happier then themselves §. 3. The misery of ill-disposed and undutiful children Thou art afflicted that thou art not a mother Many a one is so that wishes she had been barren If either the childe prove deformed and mis-shapen or upon further growth unnatural and wicked what a Corrosive is this to her that bore him Rebecca thought it long to be after her marriage twenty yeers childless her holy husband at sixty yeers age prays to God for issue by her his devotion as the Jewish Doctors say carried him to Mount Moriah for this purpose that in the same place where his life was miraculously preserved from the knife of his Father it might by the like miracle be renewed in his posterity God hears him Rebecca conceives but when she felt that early combat of her strugling twins in her womb she can say If it be so why am I thus And when she saw a childe come forth all clad in hair and after saw his conditions no less rough then his hide do we not think she wished that part of her burden unborn Certainly children are according to their proof either blessings or crosses Hast thou a childe well disposed well governed A wise Son maketh a glad Father Hast thou a childe disorderly and debauched A foolish son is the heaviness of his Mother and the calamity of his Father Hast thou a son that is unruly stubborn unnatural as commonly the cions over-rule the stock He that wasteth his Father and chaseth away his Mother is a son that causeth shame and bringeth reproach And if such a son should live and die impenitent what can be answerable to the discomfort of that Parent who shall think that a piece of himself is in hell § 4. The cares of parents for their children Thou hast no children As thou hast less joy so thou hast loss trouble It is a world of work and thoughts that belongs to these living possessions Artemidorus observes that to dream of children imports cares to follow Surely as they are our greatest cares so they bring many lesser cares with them Before thou hadst but one mouth to feed now many And upon whom doth this charge lie but upon the Parent not Nature onely but Religion casts it upon him For if any provide not for his own especially for those of his own house he hath denied the Faith and is worse then an infidel Dost thou not see that many suckers growing up from the root of the tree draw away the sap from the stock and many rivulets let out from the main Chanel leave the stream shallow So it must be with thee and thine But this expence is not more necessary then comfortable I remember a great man coming to my house at Waltham and seeing all my children standing in the order of their age and stature said These are they that make rich men poor But he straight received this answer Nay my Lord these are they that make a poor man rich for there is not one of these whom we would part with for all your wealth Indeed wherefore do we receive but to distribute and what are we but the Farmers of those we leave behinde us And if we do freely lay out of our substance before-hand for their good so much of our rent is happily cleared It is easie to observe that none are so gripple and hard-fisted as the childless whereas those who for the maintenance of large Families are inured to frequent disbursements finde such experience of Divine providence in the faithful managing of their affairs as that they lay out with more chearfulness then they receive Wherein their care must needs be abated when God takes it off from them to himself and if they be not wanting to themselves their faith gives them ease in casting their burden upon him who hath both more power and more right to it since our children are more his then our own He that feedeth the young ravens can he fail the best of his creatures Worthy Mr Greenham tels us of a Gentlewoman who comming into the cottage of a poor neighbour and seeing it furnished with store of children could say Here are the mouthes but where is the meat but not long after she was paid in her own coyne for the poor woman coming to her after the buriall of her last and now onely childe inverted the question upon her Here is the meat but where are the mouthes Surely the great House-keeper of the world whose charge we are will never leave any of his menialls without the bread of sufficiency and who are so fit to be his Purveyors as the Parents for their own brood Nature hath taught the very Birds to pick out the best of the graines for their young Nature sends that moisture out of the root which gives life to the branches and blossomes Sometimes indeed it meets with a kinde retaliation some Stork-like disposition repaies the loving offices done by the Parents in a dutifull retribution to their age or necessity But how often have we seen the contrary
know that Senators take their name from age That therefore which is the weakness of old mens eyes that their visual spirits not uniting till some distance they better discern things further off is the praise and strength of their mental eyes they see either judgements or advantages afar off and accordingly frame their determinations It is observed that old Lutes sound better then new and it was Rehoboam's folly and undoing that he would rather follow the counsel of his green heads that stood before him then of those grave Senators that had stood before his wiser father Not that meer Age is of it self thus rich in wisdom and knowledge but Age well cultured well improved There are old men that do but live or rather have a being upon earth so have stocks and stones as well as they who can give no proof of their many yeers but their gray hairs and infirmities There are those who like to Hermogenes are old men whiles they are boys and children when they are old men These the elder they grow are so much more stupid Time is an ill measure of age which should rather be meted by proficiency by ripeness of judgement by the monuments of our commendable and useful labours If we have thus bestowed our selves our Autumn will shew what our Spring was and the colour of our hair will yeeld us more cause to fear our pride then our dejection §. 6. Age in some is vigorous and well affected We accuse our Age of many weaknesses and indispositions But these imputations must not be universal Many of these are the faults of the person not of the age He said well As all Wine doth not turn sowre with age no more doth every Nature Old Oil is noted to be clearer and hotter in Medicinal use then new There are those who are pettish and crabbed in youth there are contrarily those who are milde gentle sociable in their decayed yeers There are those who are crazie in their prime and there are those who in their wane are vigorous There are those who ere the fulness of their age have lost their memory as Hermogenes Cornivus Antonius Caracalla Georgius Trapezuntiâ—s and Nizolius There are those whose intellectuals have so happily held out that they have been best at the last Plato in his last yeer which was fourscore and one died as it were with his Pen in his hand Isocrates wrote his best Piece at ninety four yeers And it is said of Demosthenes that when death summoned him at an hundred yeers and somewhat more he bemoaned himself that he must now die when he began to get some knowledge And as for spiritual graces and improvements Such as be planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God They also shall bring forth more fruit in their age and shall be fat and well liking § 7. The fourth advantage of Age Neer approach to our end But the chief benefit of our Age is our neer approach to our journeys end for the end of all motion is rest which when we have once attained there remains nothing but fruition Now our Age brings us after a weary race within some breathings of our goal for if young men may die old men must A condition which a meer carnal heart bewails and abhors complaining of Nature as niggardly in her dispensations of the shortest time to her noblest creature and envying the Oaks which many generations of men must leave standing and growing No marvel for the worldling thinks himself here at home and looks upon death as a banishment he hath placed his heaven here belowe and can see nothing in his remove but either annihilation or torment But for us Christians who know that whiles we are present in the body we are absent from the Lord and do justly account our selves forraigners our life a pilgrimage heaven our home how can we but rejoyce that after a tedious and painful travel we do now draw neer to the threshold of our Fathers house wherein we know there are many mansions and all glorious I could blush to hear an heathen say If God would offer me the choice of renewing my age and returning to my first childhood I should heartily refuse it for I should be loth after I have passed so much of my race to be called back from the goal to the bars of my first setting out and to hear a Christian whining and puling at the thought of his dissolution Where is our faith of an heaven if having been so long sea-beaten we be loth to think of putting into the safe and blessed harbour of immortality Comforts against the fears and pains of death §. 1. The fear of Death natural THou fearest death Thou wert not a man if thou didst not so The holiest the wisest the strongest that ever were have done no less He is the King of fear and therefore may and must command it Thou mayst hear the man after Gods own heart say The sorrows of death compassed me And again My soul is full of troubles my life draweth nigh to the grave I am counted with them that go down to the pit as a man that hath no strength free among the dead Thou mayst hear good and great Hezekiah upon the message of his death chattering like a Crane or a Swallow and mourning as a Dove Thou fearest as a man I cannot blame thee But thou must overcome thy fear as a Christian which thou shalt do if from the terrible aspect of the messenger thou shalt cast thine eyes upon the gracious and amiable face of the God that sends him Holy David shews the way The snares of death prevented me In my distress I called upon the Lord and cried unto my God he heard my voice out of his Temple and my cry came before him even into his ears Lo he that is our God is the God of salvation and unto God the Lord belong the issues of death Make him thy friend and Death shall be no other then advantage It is true as the Wise man saith that God made not Death but that through envie of the devil Death came into the world But it is as true that though God made him not yet he is pleased to employ him as his messenger to summon some souls to judgment to invite others to glory and for these later Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his Saints And what reason hast thou to abominate that which God accounts precious §. 2. Remedy oâ— fear Acquaintance with death Thou art afraid of death Acquaint thy self with him more and thou shalt fear him less Even Bears and Lions which at the first sight afrighted us upon frequent viewing lose their terrour snure thine eyes to the sight of death and that face shall begin not to displease thee Thou must shortly dwell with him for a long time for the days of darkness are many do thou
carried them thus corrected in their bosome for coolnesse and for the pleasure of their smoothnesse The sting of death is sinne Hee may hisse and winde about us but he cannot hurt us when that sting is pulled out Look up O thou beleeving soul to thy blessed Saviour who hath pluckt out this sting of death and happily triumphs over it both for himself and thee O death where is thy sting O grave where is thy victory §. 8. Death is but aparting to meet again Thy soul and body old companions are loth to part Why man it is but the forbearing their wonted society for a while they doe but take leave of each other till they meet againe in the day of Resurrection and in the mean time they are both safe and the better part happy It is commendable in the Jews otherwise the worst of men that they call their grave Beth Chajim the house of the living and when they return from the buriall of their neighbours they pluck up the grasse and cast it into the aire with those words of the Psalmist They shall flourish and put forth as the grasse upon the earth Did wee not beleeve a Resurrection of the one part and a re-uniting of the other wee had reason to be utterly daunted with the thought of a dissolution now wee have no cause to bee dismayed with a little intermission Is it an Heathen man or a Christian such I wish he had been whom I hear say The death which wee so fear and flee from doth but respite life for a while doth not take it away the day will come which shall restore us to the light again Settle thy soul my sonne in this assurance and thou canst not bee discomforted with a necessary parting § 9. Death is but a sleep Thou art afraid of death When thou art weary of thy dayes labour art thou afraid of rest Hear what thy Saviour who is the Lord of life esteems of death Iohn 11. 11. Our friend Lazarus sleepeth And of Jairus his daughter The maid is not dead but sleepeth Neither useth the Spirit of God any other language concerning his servants under the Old Testament Now shall I sleep in the dust saith holy Job And of David When thy days be fulfilled and thou shalt sleep with thy fathers Nor yet under the New For this cause many are weak and sickly among you and many sleep saith the Apostle Lo the Philosophers of old were wont to call sleep the brother of death but God says death is no other then sleep it self A sleep both sure and sweet When thou liest down at night to thy repose thou canst not be so certain to awake again in the morning as when thou layest thy self down in death thou art sure to wake in the morning of the Resurrection Out of this bodily sleep thou mayst be affrightedly startled with some noises of sudden horrour with some fearful dreams with tumults or alarms of War but here thou shalt rest quietly in the place of silence free from all inward and outward disturbances whiles in the mean time thy soul shall see none but visions of joy and blessedness But Oh the sweet and heavenly expression of our last rest and the issue of our happie resuscitation which our gracious Apostle hath laid forth for the consolation of his mournful Thessalonions For if we believe saith he that Jesus died and rose again even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him Lo our belief is antidote enough against the worst of death And why are we troubled with death when we believe that Jesus died And what a triumph is this over death that the same Jesus who died rose again And what a comfort it is that the same Jesus who arose shall both come again and bring all his with him in glory And lastly what a strong Cordial is this to all good hearts that all those which die well do sleep in Jesus Thou thoughtst perhaps of sleeping in the bed of the grave and there indeed is rest but he tells thee of sleeping in the bosome of Jesus and there is immortality and blessedness Oh blessed Jesu in thy presence is the fulness of joy and at thy right hand are pleasures for evermore Who would desire to walk in the world when he may sleep with Jesus § 10. Death sweetned to us by Christ. Thou fearest death It is much on what terms and in what form death presents himself to thee If as an enemy as that is somewhere his style the last enemy death thy unpreparation shall make him dreadful thy readiness and fortitude shall take off his terrour If as a messenger of God to fetch thee to happiness what reason hast thou to be afraid of thine own bliss It is one thing what death is in himself a privation of life as such Nature cannot chuse but abhor him Another thing what he is by Christ made unto us an introduction to life an harbinger to glory Why would the Lord of Life have yeelded unto death and by yeelding vanquisht him but that he might alter and sweeten Death to us and of a fierce Tyrant make him a Friend and Benefactor And if we look upon him thus changed thus reconciled how can we chuse but bid him welcome § 11. The painfulness of Christs â—eath Thou art afraid of the pangs of death There are those that have died without any great sense of pain some we have known to have yeelded up their souls without so much as a groan And how knowest thou my son what measure God hath allotted to thee Our death is a Sea-voyage so the Apostle I desire to lanch forth wherein some finde a rough and tempestuous passage others calm and smoothe such thine may prove so as thy dissolution may be more easie then a fit of thy sickness But if thy God have determined otherwise Look unto Jesus the Authour and Finisher of our faith the Son of God the Lord of glory see with what agonies he conflicted what torments he endured in his death for thee Look upon his bloody sweat his bleeding temples his furrowed back his nailed hands and feet his racked joynts his pierced side Hear his strong cries consider the shame the pain the câ—rse of the Cross which he underwent for thy sake Say whether thy sufferings can be comparable to his He is a cowardly and unworthy Souldier that follows his General sighing Lo these are the steps wherein thy God and Saviour hath trod before thee Walk on courageously in this deep and bloody way after a few paces thou shalt overtake him in glory For if we suffer with him we shall also reign together with him §. 12. The vanity and miseries of life Thou shrinkest at the thought of death Is it not for that thou hast over-valued life and made thy home on earth Delicate persons that have pampered themselves at home are loth to stir abâ—â—ad especially