bring upon us more heavy Punishments than what we have yet felt The Miseries that some of us have undergone have been such as the very remembrance of them is amazing and their Terror inexpressible But how terrible soever they have been yet God has more Arrows in his Quiver more Thunder in his Clouds more Judgments under his Command Let us therefore take that Advice of our Lord John 5. 14. Behold thou art made whole sin no more lest a worse thing come unto thee There are those here that would not for the enjoyment of all the Greatness of the World undergo that Anguish and Tribulation for one Week which distress'd them for many Weeks and Months together O let us sin no more lest the Clouds return after the Rain lest after one Storm is ceas'd another begin to blow Let us improve our present Calm to the Glory of our Helper lest another Earthquake come The best Security from future Miseries is to profit by the former We cannot take a better Medicine to sortify us against Evils to come than by remembring and improving such as are already past We are escaped with our Lives O let us not for the Lord's Sake look back with Affection upon our old Sins lest we that are now Monuments of Mercy be made Monuments of Justice Let us sin no more lest the Bones be broken again that are but newly set and lest the Wounds that seem to he healed bleed afresh and lest that Almighty and loving Physician that has once helped us depart and help us no more Let us sin no more for after such a deep distress and such a miraculous deliverance how hateful will our Sins be and if we knew not what to do in our former trouble what shall we do in the next and more terrible Visitation Woe unto us if we should provoke him to let us fall into longer and more violent and more irrecoverable troubles What a dreadful place is that Josh. 24. 20. If ye forsake the Lord then he will turn and do you hurt and consume you after that he hath done you good We that are now alive may set up our Ebenezer and say Hitherto the Lord hath helped us in his wrath he hath remembred mercy Oh let us not force him to do as Gideon with the Men of Succoth Judg. 8. 7. To tear us with thorns and bryars of the wilderness In other storms we have been like the Passengers that were in the Ship with Paul Act. 27. 44. Tho we have suffered Shipwreck yet in one way or other our Lives have been saved and with much difficulty we have escaped to Land Oh let us beware lest in the next storm that comes he suffer us to be cast away the Furnace into which we have been thrown has been very hot Let us desire God to purge us from our dross lest he cause one to be made for us that is seven times hotter Surely some of us have felt enough of the bitterness of Sin Oh let us not force him that does not willingly grieve the Children of Men to mingle for us another bitter Cup have the stroaks that made us to groan in the perplexity of our Souls been so very small that we should force him by our disobedience to send many more and to turn his Rods into Scorpions Lev. 26. 23 24. If ye will not be reformed by these things but will walk contrary to me then will I also walk contrary to you and will punish you yet seven times for your sins Jer. 7 8 9 10. Will you come and stand before me and say you are delivered to do all these abominations I even tremble at the mentioning of these things and God grant that neither you nor I may ever know any thing of them by our own experience If we will not for the love of him yet for the love of our selves our own Souls and Bodies Let us sin no more Fourthly Another way whereby we ought to improve the Mercy of Gods having brought us from the Grave is by trusting in him for the time to come We have greatly dishonoured him in our former straits by our own unbelief Let us in all future occasions give glory to him by our Faith Let us remember in the most violent and pressing troubles the years of the right hand of the Most High Let us after the wonderful experience of the great things that he has done for us such as our Forefathers could hardly tell us of but which we have seen in our days with respect both to the Nation and our selves let us never question his Goodness nor dispute his Power saying Can God provide for us can he deliver us Let us never murmur nor repine or despair again Having tasted how good the Lord is and being fortified with the sweet experiences of his Lovingkindness let us meet every new strait and danger with a greater Courage and never admit the least doubt of Gods Ability or of his Willingness tohelp us He that has delivered us from the paw of the Lion and of the Bear from the Pains of Hell and from the Agonies of Death can still save us tho in outward appearance we be like to perish His Faithfulness and Truth his gracious Nature and his promise will yield us in all our troubles a most comfortable and strong Support 2 Cor. 1. 9. We had the sentence of death in our selves that we should not trust in our selves but in God which raiseth the dead who delivered us from so great a death and doth deliver in whom we trust that he will yet deliver us When our Sense and Reason can discern nothing but Miseries and Desolation let our Faith lead us to that Rock that is higher than us to that God whose Wisdom is never at a loss and whose Hand can with ease and speed accomplish that which our Flesh and our Blood will tell us is impossible to be done Do not affront your great Deliverer by thinking that he who has wrought such great Miracles for us by his own Power will not compleat what he has so magnificently begun and so far advanced or that he will not perfect that which concerns us or that he will forget the Work of his own Hands We place a trust in those persons of whom we have had a tryal in matters of difficulty and much more do we owe to God whose Mercy and Faithfulness we have experienced when none was able to give us the least relief but he alone He is a sure and a tryed Friend we our selves have found him to be so Let us not be jealous of his future Care nor grieve him with unreasonable suspicions of his Love and this is a more needful caution because our base and corrupt Hearts upon every sudden and approaching danger are apt to resume new distrusts and doubts and we then feel the stirring of our old unbelief and when the Waves begin to rise we question the Care of our Master and give him
with the first by calling for the Elders by confessing their Sins by promising Repentance and by Prayers for good things requisite as well for the body as for the Soul Discourse of Extream Unction pag. 48. It is also the duty of those that are acquainted with the sick instead of vain and frivolous discourses of Common Affairs which have no relish with those that are in great pain to Minister as far as they are able to their Spiritual Wants to direct instruct and any other way to help them to set their Souls in order and to trim their Lamp See what Care the Holy Prophet used to his Enemies Psal. 35. 13 14. When they were sick my clothing was sackcloth I humbled my soul with fasting and my prayer returned into my own bosom I behaved my self as though he had been my friend or brother I bowed down heavily as one that mourneth for his Mother Those means which he used for their Recovery were an argument of the sincerity of his own Religion as well as of his most affectionate Sympathy and tenderness to them When you visit the sick you see in them the prospect of your own Mortal Estate You see how soon their Complexion their Temper their Sociableness and all that agreeableness of Humour which was pleasing to you is gone and changed In their broken feeble expressions in their wan and pale looks and in their fallen Countenances you behold that man in his best Estate is altogether vanity Psal. 39. 5. and how when God with rebukes does correct man for Iniquity he makes his beauty to consume away like a moth ver II. then you see that all flesh is grass and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field Isa. 40. 6. How many times do you see those whom you love strugling with pains strong and bitter even as death it self and you cannot though you never so earnestly desire it afford to them the least Relief not a moments ease nor the smallest interval of rest but when your hearts have sunk within you with the doleful and unintermitted accents of their Groans and Sighs how often have you prayed to God and he has appear'd to your help and theirs There may be many Cases wherein much speaking may do your afflicted Friends no good at all but there is no Case wherein your prayers may not be of great advantage either to preserve them with you or to obtain for them some Gracious discoveries of the Love of God or a more easie passage both which are very great Mercies What wonders have been wrought in all Ages by the power of the United Intercession of Believers when they have carried their sick to Christ. What numbers are there of perfect Souls in Heaven that can Witness to the Truth of this and how many deliver'd Captives are on Earth that can now with joy set their Seal to it and say with Transport truly God is a God hearing prayers The continued prayers of the Church for Peter did procure his Enlargement and an Angel was dispatcht to break his Chains and to send him to carry the welcom news to the then praying Church that their prayers were heard and he was deliver'd Many there are now alive that owe their Lives to this whereof I am one The Mercy of God which alone could help me and that was implored and sought by your prayers has brought me from the very Grave In all future occasions try this method for you know it is available and successful Is any afflicted let him pray himself is any so overwhelm'd that he cannot well perform it Let him call for the Elders of the Church and let them pray over him and the prayer of Faith shall save the sick Jam. 5. 14 15. He is to use this course as a means for the recovery of his Health for though we cannot with any Modesty pretend to the prayer of Faith here mentioned that is of a certain perswasion that the person for whom we pray shall be raised up yet we ought to pray in this Faith that it is pleasing to God when we express our dependance upon him by asking those things which we need that every good thing comes from him and therefore health and deliverance from death that though he does not alwayes give that particular thing which we ask yet 't is sometimes denied because we do not ask and that as he never gives the greatest Blessings of all which are those of a good mind but in answer to prayers So sometimes he does not send bodily good things because he is not prayed to for them And there is no less Reason for Prayer when God raiseth up the sick by Blessing ordinary means than when it was done by a supernatural Gift Discourse of Extream Unction pag 46. Inf. 2. There is great Reason to Fear and Reverence God For as he presides over all the Revolutions of Empires and Nations their Original their Growth their Prosperities and Decayes so he does likewise over particular persons in their Life and Death His knowledge and his Government reaches to all things for their Existence depends upon his Will It is in his power to destroy or to save He is the God in whose hand our Life is We lye at his Mercy and according as he Wills we must either be Healthful or Sick Live or Dye His are our times on his pleasure our present happiness and our future welfare depends He sits upon the flouds and orders with a steady and uniform design All that appears most uncertain and changeable to us He can either make the Waters of Affliction to drown us or say unto them as unto the waves of the Sea hitherto shall you go and no further even then when their swelling Pride threatens us with total desolation He has appointed his Sun to measure out our time and knows when shall be the last concluding day When those that are now living shall dye and by what sort of death and where after that they shall be placed whether in Happiness or Wo. He knows when the last Trumpet shall sound and when the dead shall be rais'd Of him therefore should we stand in Awe as having that voice continually in our ears Deut. 32. 39 40. See now that I even I am he and there is no God with me I kill and I make alive I wound and I heal neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand for I lift up my hand to heaven and say I live for ever What an abundance of diseases are at his beck what abundance of Arrows are in his Quiver what abundance of sins do we commit which cause him to bend his bow and provoke him to set us up as marks of his displeasure He can strike the most consident and secure sinners dead in a moment or with long abiding pains fill them with so great anguish and vexation that they shall chuse strangling and death rather than Life Alass what are we to this Great
longing Soul It is then upon the Mount and sees his smiling Face and would fain always see it it is loth to come down to the meaner Employments of this World and when the necessary Affairs of the present Life call it away it comes from the pleasant Work shining with brighter Grace and Holiness It is a thing of more Honour to You than a thousand honourable Titles that You keep up constantly the worshipping of God and reading the Scriptures in your Families Morning and Evening and indeed it is an Arrogance in those to call themselves Christians who neglect so sacred and so considerable a part of our holy Religion And your good Example in the due practice of these excellent Things will have a powerful Influence upon your Children and what you now do they will also do if they live to have Families and the sight of Religion in you will convey to them a greater Approbation and a more easy practice of it God has bless'd you with a numerous and an hopeful Offspring whose present and future Welfare I do with an undissembled Affection most heartily desire By their Seriousness their Ingenuity and their good Inclinations they give us cause to expect that though they are now as Olive-plants round about your Tables yet that they will hereafter refresh the Hearts of many more besides your own Families And that as it is expressed in Psal. 144. 12. Your Sons may be as Plants grown up in their Youth that your Daughters may be as Corner-Stones polished after the Similitude of a Palace I question not but the Prayers that you send up to Heaven for them will procure the Blessing of the Divine Providence which is the richest and the best Inheritance It is a Blessing of God that you have so many living Images of your selves in whom you see your own Life renewed And you are so happy as to have your Quivers full of them May they all live to be your Comfort and to maintain Religion in the World God has been pleas'd to give You several Instances of the Vanity of this World by the Deaths of several of your Relations some of which died in their most hopeful Youth and in the Flower of their Age whilst their Friends promised themselves a long Comfort and Delight in their Conversation who had they lived might have been of great use to their Country and to the Church of God And one Relation you lost by a way that was very afflicting to you but advantagious to him He died unseasonably as to us for we needed his Prayers and his good Example but his Death was seasonable as to himself for I do not doubt but he was prepared for it He died much beloved and greatly bewailed Those that knew him could not but esteem and value him for the Assableness and Civility of his Temper the Conscientiousness of his Dealings the Sincerity and Heartiness of his Expressions the good Order that he kept in his Family and for that Uprightness and unaffected Religion that appeared to all that observed his Conversation I may without any shew of Flattery say he was one of those good Men for whom many would have died could they have exchanged their meaner Lives for his more serviceable Life He died by a may somewhat terrible to Flesh and Blood but which by Faith he overcame His Zeal for the Liberties of this City and which he shewed whilst he was in an honour able Station rendred him obnoxious to those Persons then in Authority who gave liberty to their Revenge to fall upon those who knew not how to flatter or commend or promote their Arbitrary Designs It was a thing below him to use such sneaking and such unchristian Arts for Honour or for Safety There is nothing can satisfy his Friends for the loss of so excellent a Citizen so good a Man and so sincere a Friend but the consideraon of that Providence which tho it be mysterious and severe for the present yet will hereafter appear to have been very wise and very good to all those that love God Tho the Loss his Friends sustained by his removal from them be great yet it cannot but be a Satisfaction to them to consider that he was happy in his Death He is gone to that God that as he said himself knew his Innocence and to a Place where there are no false Accusations and where he and his holy Friends shall never part again This and much more than what I have said is due to the Memory of so great and so good a Man whom it is impossible for a true Lover of his Country ever to forget My Zeal to the remembrance of those Persons which I have mentioned and whom I honoured and esteemed together with the Respect that I ought to express to them has drawn me to a much greater Length than what I at first intended and tho when I consider the multitude of your Affairs both publick and domestick I am afraid I have too much presum'd upon your Time in this Dedication yet the Experience that I have often had of your Candour makes me to believe that you will forgive even so criminal a Presumption God has given you plentiful Estates and which is as great a Mercy Hearts to use them You have often been Eyes to the Blind and Feet to the Lame There are many hundreds whom your Charities have refresh'd the Blessing of those that were ready to perish has often come upon you And you have made the Hearts of the Desolate to sing for Joy And it is no small support of your Prosperities to have many praying for you to God and who are the more earnest as having been greatly obliged by you I do now thank you for all the many Kindnesses that I have received from you both in my former Health and in my late sore Affliction I thank you for Visiting me in my low Estate tho the greatness of my Pain and the anguish of my Thoughts allowed me not to take such notice of so great an Honour as otherwise I should have done I have often said when I was greatly afflicted That I should neither see you nor any others of my Friends till the great Day and till the Heavens were no more And God alone by his Soveraign Goodness hath brought me from the lowest Pit It was to manifest my Thankfulness to my great Deliverer that I preached the following Sermons in a Place where were many of my Friends many that had prayed for me many that had continued their Kindnesses to me when I could no way be serviceable to them and to whom I can make no other Requital than by praying for them and endeavouring to live to the Glory of that God for whose sake both you and they so kindly remembred me In these Discourses you will find a Relation of some part of my Affliction It is impossible to relate the whole of it for my Sorrows were beyond expression I have not here
some remaining indispositions I had not so long delayed to appear in this place I have thought indeed sometimes that I would with Sampson arise and do as I did at other times but that tedious and uncommon pain that afflicted me and the Consciousness that I have of mine inability to manage so Honourable and so difficult a work as this has long kept me back Moreover I thought there was no need of my weaker Light nor of my meaner Capacity whilest in my absence you had others whose understandings being better furnished could communicate to you in larger measures from their more abounding store But the deliverance which God by his own Power and Goodness has already given me is so wonderful so unexpected and especially so undeserved that I cannot but thrust my Sickle into the Harvest though it be with a very trembling hand And I promise my self that you will joyn your prayers with mine that it may be for the good of some Soul or other nay if God so please that it may be for the good of many Souls that I come here this Evening that it may be for the preservation of others from so thick a darkness and so woful a Condition as that wherein I have been I come to you as one from the dead to say no more and though if you hear not Moses and the Prophets and the well attested Revelations and Discoveries which God has made by them neither will any other methods be successful to your good yet one would think that the Words of one that has dwelt so long as in the very Grave and in the nearest Confines of Eternity ought to carry more than ordinary weight with them A peculiar attention is usually afforded to dying Persons and I think the same should not be denyed to such as in the Judgment of others and in their own opinion have been no longer for this World as I was for above a year and upon that account have Cause to say as in the Text. O Lord thou hast brought up my Soul from the Grave c. From the Words we may raise these two Observations First That God alone is the Soveraign disposer of Life and Death Secondly To be brought up from the Grave is a Mercy greatly to be acknowledged and for which all such as are recovered ought to be very thankful First God alone is the Soveraign disposer of Life and Death This great God concerns himself not only with the Nobler parts of his Dominions but with such as are more inconsiderable He not only preserves the vaster and the purer Orbes above but also this little drossy Globe His Care extends its self not only to the Highest Angel but to the least and the meanest Man And though Men are among us distinguisht by several Excellencies and Titles of Honour yet before him all flesh is as grass He gives a Being to the meanest Pile in its ordinary Garb as well as fine Apparel to the beautiful Lillies of the Field 'T is in him that we all live and move and have our being and if his Concourse be removed all our operations will immediately cease We cannot act without him for then we should be self-sufficient and Independant on him He is the Author and the Preserver of our Nature He first tyed our Bodies and our Souls together and 't is his care that maintains this Incomprehensible Union that is between parts in themselves so vastly different and when he pleases to suspend his Influence 't is dissolved and broken asunder He is the strength of our Life Psal. 27. 1. From him we have all our Healthfulness and Vigor He is the Great Agent the principal Efficient Cause of All that Exists and all second Causes in their several Actions depend upon him Though the manner of his Influx is very Mysterious and it becomes not the weakness of our Minds daringly to determine which way it is we that are extremely in the dark about many of the motions of our own Faculties ought not any way to Limit Him whose Wayes are Unsearchable and who is so far above us But this we most certainly know that our whole being and the continuance of it depends on him alone 'T is his Sun that does refresh our Spirits with his Temperate and Comfortable beams and that by his Amiable shine renders this World a place of delight For were it always covered with darkness it would be a place very undesirable and full of horror They are his Vapours that are drawn up to fill the bottles of Heaven and 't is his hand that opens them again and makes the Clouds dissolve to give being to Grass and Corn to feed the Beasts for us and to be the staff of our Life 'T is his Day in which we work and his Night in which we sleep 't is his Earth that bears us his Air in which we breathe and they are his Winds that purisie and fan that Air to make it healthful and serviceable to us It was this great and Gracious God that first breathed into us the breath of Life he formed our several parts with curious and inimitable Art and his own skilful hand brought us from the darkness in which we were inclos'd safely to the Light of Day 'T was by his Goodness alone that we were not strangled in our Birth or smother'd in the Cradle and that we did not there by the Carelessness of our Keepers and by the many distempers that attend our Early Age find a Grave His Goodness sav'd us from the dangers which we our selves were unable to apprehend and which without his extraordinary Favour would have clos'd our eyes as soon as we saw the Light and have sent us into the other World when we were but newly entred into this His Mercy deliver'd us from the unknown dangers of our heedless Infancy and from the unfear'd evils of our daring Youth 'T is God alone that holds ouâ— souls in life and suffers not our feet to b moved Psal. 66. 9. 'T is he that furnishes us out of his Stores wherewith to repair the daily decayes of Nature He gives us the things that are absolutely necessary to maintain our Life and those also that are necessary for refreshment and delight His corn his wine and his oil Hos. 2. 8. He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle and herb for the service of man that hâ— may bring forth food out of the earth and wine that maketh glad the heart of man and oyl to make his face to shine and bread which strengtheneth mans heart Psal. 104. 14 15. 'T is he that spreads our Table and who fills our Cup and makes the things which we take for the support of Life to give us strength for we live not by bread alone Mat. 4. 4. 'T is he that gave and that maintains that heat in our Stomaches and those Acid juyces there that alter and attenuate and distribute the several parts of our Meat 'T is he that gave
us the desire of Food and that drives away those diseases that would lessen and abate our Appetite And it is in the sense of his Providence that we ask his Blessing before we eat and return him thanks afterwards For were it not for his Gracious Influences our Faculties would quickly lose their proper Vertues and we should notwithstanding all our Care quickly dye All Sicknesses are at his disposal for it is he that kills and that makes alive he bringeth down to the grave and bringeth up 1 Sam. 2. 6. When he pleases to withdraw his most Common Blessings we droop and Languish and pine away Thousands of Diseases stand in a readiness waiting for his Command and when our sins make him to give the word they fall upon us with a mighty Violence and in a few restless dayes and nights change our Countenances break off our purposes and stain all our Pride and glory Fools because of their transgression and because of their iniquities are afflicted Their soul abhorreth all manner of meat and they draw nigh unto the gates of death Psal. 107. 17 18. God has fixed the bounds of our habitations and the very time of our stay and when it shall be that they must know us no more We are but Dust and Ashes and how soon can the mighty power of our great Creator blow away the most strong and healthful with more ease than we can our breath scatter a little dust All things in this lower World have their Rise their Progress and Decay by the Decree of God and so have the Lives of men There is a time wherein to be born and a time wherein to dye and both known to him though upon wise Reasons hid from our knowledge God does with great Wisdom cast a Veil of thick night upon all future Events that so we may without needless and diverting Curiosity perform our present duty He shews this Dominion that he hath over the Lives of Men in these two things First In the large difference which his Providence makes amongst those persons whose outward Circumstances seem to be much alike One sick man by the use of some mixtures or applications immediately recovers and another that with the most exact observance takes the same Physick consumes his days in tedious Sorrows and in the flouds of his own Tears is carried Mourning to the Grave Secondly He shews his Soveraign disposal of the Lives of Men in ordering the different Seasons and times of their Death One is cut down in his early Spring and in his blooming greener Youth and his Sun is covered with darkness almost as soon as it begins to rise whilest another weathers out the Storms and grows to a mature and full Age. One does but peep as it were into the World takes a short view of it and is commanded out again and is at his Journeys end in the morning of his Life and another is allow'd to travel till the shadows of the Evening are stretched out according to their most regular advances and till the Threescore and Ten that is the usual date of Long Life is expired One is quickly summoned to the Great Tribunal and judged whilest another has a longer space wherein to prepare for his Tryal and his Final doom 'T is the Divine Providence that sees and orders not onely the larger portions of the lives of Men such as Infancy and Childhood and Youth and Manhood but as God numbers the Hairs of our Heads so known to him are all the minutes and hours and days and particularities of our Life and every moment of our Time He has set us our bounds that we cannot pass and with respect to his Appointment no man dyes before his Time Though a man that dyes by an acute Disease or a violent Death dyes before that time which he might have reach'd in an ordinary Course and before old Age which we reckon to be the most seasonable time wherein to dye Bloody and deceitful men are said not to live out half their dayes that is according to the General Limit and Order of Providence as to the Age of Man viz. Seventy or Eighty years And indeed every Wicked Man in some sense dyes before his time because he is not sit to dye like Fruit that is gather'd before it be fully ripe I now proceed to some Application And from this Doctrine we may Infer First If God be the Soveraign disposer of Life and Death then the Friends of the Sick do them the greatest kindness when they recommend their Case to him And to this they are obliged by the Communion which they have with them in the same Humane Nature they are also in the body in such a body as is liable to as many pains as they see in others They may be plunged into the same distresses and need the same favour to be shewed to them Regard I beseech you your afflicted Friends with great tenderness and pity for whatsover their Case is your sins may bring you as Low and you have no assurance that what has happen'd to them may not be your own Lot before you come to the period of this miserable Life It is also the duty of the Sick themselves in the first assaults of Pain with great Humility and Contrition of Spirit to betake themselves to God as their onely helper and with a fervour suitable to the sadness of their Case to request of him Faith and Patience Repentance and Mortification and the pardon of sin and earnestly to pray that if it may be their sickness may not be very long nor very sharp For long and sore afflictions are so great Tryals of Humane Nature that they may very well be prayed against and I suppose no man thinks himself obliged to desire an heavy Cross. As to what concerns the Sick Man himself he is to put his Affairs into the best order he can upon the first warning the first beginning of his Illness for indeed in most Distempers those increasing pains that attend them will not allow him to do it afterwards Thus Job advises Chap. 33. 26. that When a man is chastened with pain upon his bed he shall pray unto God and he will be favourable to him and he shall see his face with joy But he that never begins to pray till he be almost at the last Gasp will not be able to make such a strong and fervent Prayer as is like to reach to Heaven As for them that try the Physitian till he gives them over and never till then seek the Prayers of the Church they have but little Reason to hope for help from God to whom they have no recourse till they are driven by the last extremity For they shew that if they could have had Relief without him they cared not to be beholden to him for it In which Case it is just with God to suffer the Sickness to be mortal which perhaps had not been so if Applications had been made to him
God but as Chaffe before the Wind but as Thorns and Briars before a Consuming Fire but by a reverential awe of him we may lay hold of his Strength and be at Peace Look up to his Heavens and that vastly extended Firmament that is above and then reflect and think how great is he that made all this Creation with a Word Look to his Law and consider how holy he is in his Precepts and Threatnings and then look to your selves and consider how Sinful and how Vile you are Look upon the strange punishments and miseries under which many of your Fellow-creatures groan and be not high-minded but fear because the God that afflicts them may perhaps very shortly do the same to you and let it fill you with the most awful thoughts when you consider how great is his power how severe his Justice and how unspotted is his Holiness How easie is it for him to bring you to the Grave if he do but withdraw sleep from your eyes so that you have no rest for three or four nights or for one Week Then there is a stop put to all your present projects and then all the Comfort of the World is gone For all Affairs depend upon Activity and Vigour and this will cease when sleep does no longer refresh your Spirits as it us'd to do All your apprehensions will change when you have lost this support of weak nature this onely prop of Comfortable Life God can make the strongest and most healthful persons quickly to feel Sickness and Diseases He can quickly turn a pleasant fruitful Land into barrenness and the most beautiful Habitations into Dust and Ashes We should greatly beware of provoking him of whose Mercy we stand in need and whose Wrath we cannot bear He can quickly change all our Joy into Mourning and our Day into Night and our Light into the shadow of Death When he frowns all the stateliness of Buildings all the Glory of Nations all the Pomp and Splendour of the World is gone How soon can he lay waste a flourishing Countrey with War or Plague or Famine he can quickly turn the house of Joy into an house of Mourning and deprive us of what is most pleasant in our Eyes and blast all our hopes You have seen that by letting loose an unruly Element of Fire he turn'd this City in two or three dayes into an heap of Ruins and by filling the Air with contagious Vapors sent many thousands in a very little time into the Grave and he can by letting loose any one Humour in your bodies make you a burden to your selves and to be weary of a World in which you can no longer live as you us'd to do Inf. 3. There is great Reason that under any Sickness or Distress that befalls us we should submit our selves to this God that brings even to death and back again If you be plagued all the day long and chasten'd every morning Psal. 73. 14. whilest others are in no trouble and if you feel your strength decay whilest theirs is firm let no murmuring thoughts fill your Minds because you are the Creatures of God and he may do with you what he will Keep a remembrance of his absolute Soveraignty alwayes imprinted on your Hearts Job 33. 12 13. God is greater than man why dost thou strive against him for he giveth not account of any of his matters Whatever he doth is therefore good and holy because he does it And when he chastens us very sore we should lay our Mouthes in the dust and bear with Patience his Indignation because we have sinned against him We must not yield our selves to our Miseries but to him that sends them and that you may submit in Great and Heavy Trials you must have recourse to the Promises of the Gospel the Mercy of God and the Righteousness of Christ the Merit of his Sufferings and the Efficacy of his Intercession and if you believe you will be established for without Faith in Christ there is no Hope and without Hope no Submission How can this be done if a man have no prospect of advantage by it either in this or the next World for no man can possibly submit to be for ever Miserable It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the Salvation of the Lord Lam. 3. 26. Inveigh not therefore against the Rod though it smart very much but look to the hand in which it is to that Wisdom that has the disposal of it and to those sins that have deserv'd it Look not upon your Evils as the product of Chance or Fortune but as the effect of an Holy Providence which though it is many times very severe yet is alwayes very just Adore this Providence with an humble Silence and Veneration You do not know which is better for you Health or Sickness Affliction or Deliverance he onely knows that knows all things and it will be very grateful to him if you give a chearful entertainment to his Order and Decree If he please who is your Gratious Creator and your Father he can therefore afflict you that he himself may be your Cordial and revive your fainting spirits from the very Grave but if not your Religion should teach you to approve of all the messages he sends you and by a quiet Resignation to put your Souls into his hands when he signifies by the Progress and Increase of your Distemper that your Race is finisht and that it is now your time to die And in order to this you must lay up a good store against that Evil day For you may be warned from the World with long Chronical Diseases that by their Acuteness and Violence may be as so many several Deaths complicated together And then when you have no hope of bodily ease any more then will be the great Tryal of your Faith Several Men will with great hardiness and resolution bear very great pains so long as there is the least hope of Life but to be patient and submissive in the deepest Sorrows and in the view of certain death this is what none can rightly attain to but those that Believe and not all those neither but such whose Faith is deeply rooted has for a long time flourisht and Conquer'd overwhelming doubts and so is of more than an ordinary growth This is that which rendred the Patience of our Blessed Redeemer so very remarkable that when he was lead to the slaughter where he knew he was to suffer violent and great pain from barbarous and cruel men yet even then he opened not his mouth and when he knew there was unspeakable bitterness in that Cup which he was going to drink yet notwithstanding all the Wormwood and the Gall that was in it and though his Innocent Nature did recoil a little yet he drank it off saying with an entire freedom of Choice and a full Acquiescence Father not my Will but thine be done And this was the fruit of a mighty trust
betray you to death or to long pain Seek chiefly to the Soveraign disposer of all things who can either cure you without means or make those that you try to be available knowing that without him not all the Cordials in the World can for one moment stay the departing Life Of which many Physitians are so sensible that they frequently tell you that by the blessing of God they hope to do you good Indeed they had need be men of Prayer that by their means Religio Medici might be as famous in reallity as it has been in scorn And though I pretend to no great skill in these affairs yet I have some Experience as to what I say I have often found the Insufficiency of all things that have been prescrib'd and that they have not given me the least Ease in my violent and sharp pain and how what I have taken with a design to help me has increased my Disease and made it more painful Therefore having severely smarted my self for my folly in expecting too much from humane help I may be allowed to warn others that they may not fall into the same snare and to desire them to trust more in God and less in Men. We may be as guilty of Idolatry in giving Men too much of our Trust as if we bowed before a Graven Image and it is an evil to which Men are as prone as to any other sin An Instance whereof is that which Suidas saith that the Book which Solomon wrote of Physick was affixed upon the Gate into the Entry of the Temple and because the People boasted too much in it neglecting the Lord Hezekiah caused them to pull away this Book and bury it and the Talmud saith that Hezekiah did two memorable things first he hid the Book of Physick which Solomon had written and secondly he brake the brasen Serpent which Moses made Weemes Exerc. div pag. 120. Indeed men do as that King said unto Hazael 2 King 8. 8. Take a present in thine hand and go meet the man of God and enquire of the Lord by him saying shall I recover of this disease They seek for Recovery first of all as that which would bring them the most acceptable News which made the Prophet use such Ambiguity in his Speech Verse 10. For 't is likely that 't was no dissimulation because his Sickness was not in it self Mortal yet he should surely dye that is by the Treachery of Hazael The hope of Recovery is so grateful to the Patient that Physitians are not a little tempted to conceal the danger when it is visible to all but to the Sick Man and of how ill Consequence is this I cannot better express it than in the Words of an Honourable person for whom men of all the Learned professions have a just value For my part sayes he who take the prognosticks of Phytians to be but Guesses not Prophesies and know how backward they are to bid us Fear till our condition leave them little hopes of us I cannot but think that Patient very ill advis'd who thinks it not time to entertain thoughts of death as long as his Doctor allows him any hopes of Life for in case they should both be deceiv'd 't would be much easier for the mistaken Physitian to save his Credit than for the unprepared Sinner to save his Soul Boyle Occasional Reflections Sect. 2. pag. 222. Our safest Course in all our Troubles and Sicknesses is to Go to Jesus Christ who has an Omnipotent Vertue and Ability to help as when he was on Earth he healed all manner of Diseases and among the rest a person that had suffered many things of many Physitians and was nothing bettered but rather grew worse Mark 5. 26. So he has still the same power and Compassion and though Thousands have shared in the Gracious effects of his Bevenolence yet he has still the same Charity and the same All-sufficient Fulness from whence to relieve us as the Sun after it has by its Light and Quickning influences given Being and Refreshment to so many several Creatures in the World suffers no diminution of its own Light and Heat and is no less Communicative and Beneficial to this very day then it was many hundred years ago The whole of what I have spoken upon this Head is onely to keep our spirits from placing an undue reliance on the Creatures when our Trust is chiefly to be fix'd on our Glorious and powerful Creator One would think it strange and yet so it is that when God has by some sharp and severe stroak beaten off our hold from those props whereon we us'd to lean in the time of our Careless Health when he has confin'd us to a solitary state and we can no longer have our Antient Friendships nor our former hope yet even in distress it self so great is our adherence to Creatures we substitute to Our selves new Reeds whereon to lay some strength and our vain trust does not expire but with our latest breath I would not have any part of what I have said to reflect in the least upon those worthy Physitians who in the time of my woful Calamity gave me their Charitable Visits though God was not pleas'd to succeed the Endeavours they used yet I hope and pray that he may reward them for their labour and their diligence As also Those that gave me their kind help when I was not able to help my self I owe to them all great Respect and Thanks and none can take it ill if I say what to his Glory I ought to say that God onely was my Physitian and my Deliverer and to him is all the praise due He hath torn and he hath healed he hath smitten and he hath bound me up he hath revived me and I live in his sight Hos. 6. 1. So that I may say with David Psal. 103. 1 2 3 4. Bless the Lord O my soul and all that is within me bless his holy name Bless the Lord O my soul and forget not all his benefits Who forgiveth all thine Iniquities and healeth all thy diseases who redeemeth thy Life from destruction who crowneth thee with Loving-kindness and tender mercies Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things so that thy Youth is renewed like the Eagles Observ. 2. To be brought up from the Grave and to be kept alive from going down to the Pit is a Mercy greatly to be acknowledged and for which we ought to be very thankful And thaâ— upon these following Accounts Reason 1. Because Life is the dearest of all our present Blessings All Happiness is usually represented by the name of Life and all Misery by the name of Death Other Evils take from us each of them some part of our Comforts Death bereaves us of them all Bondage deprives us of Liberty Banishment of our Countrey Sickness afflicts our Bodies shame or Infamy our Souls pain troubleth our Senses poverty incommodateth our Life but there is no Calamity so great
as not to leave us the use or enjoyment of some good or at least of our selves Death extinguisheth our Life and by this means overthrowing the very Foundations of our Enjoyments doth at the same time despoil as of all other good things altogether Daille sur Coloss. 2. 13. Life is the most excellent Gift of God but Death is an Enemy to Nature and cannot be lov'd for it self 't is the fruit of Sin Rom. 5. 12. 'T is the wages thereof Rom. 6. 23. For if Adam had persever'd in his Innocent Condition he had enjoyed a Glorious Immortality without those pains and that Death which is now our Lot The Philosophers indeed thought that death was natural to Man and all the discourses they grounded upon this false principle are so vain and empty that they onely serve to shew in the General how weak Man is seeing the greatest productions of the wisest Men are so mean and Childish Pascal pensees S. 30. Death is the matter of the Threat and therefore a punishment though Believers whose Faith is in exercise may quietly submit to it as a passage to Eternal Glory We give it indeed many soft names and seem to make nothing of it in our ordinary discourse we speak of nothing with more unconcernedness and with less Fear but it ceases not to be an Enemy though we give it never so many fair Characters Men at a distance from it can make a sleight matter of it but its nearer approaches if attended with the due sense of Futurity will make the boldest and the stoutest Man to tremble it will strike a damp into his Spirits mingle Gall and Wormwood with his Wine and Bitterness with his sweetest Joys Death is not the less formidable for being unavoidable but rather more so as a certain Evil is more an Evil than that which is only probable and which may never happen but do we consider what it is for the Union that is between the body and the Soul to be dissolv'd what it is to see Corruption what it is to have this Body turn'd into a Carkass without Life and Motion what it is to have this Body which we have tended with so long a Care which we have maintain'd at so vast a Charge of Meat and Drink and Time to have this Body in which we have slept and liv'd at Ease laid into the cold Grave and there in a loathsome manner to putrifie and consume away it cannot but occasion very great Commotions when the day is come that the two Friends who have been so long acquainted and so dear to one another must part Death is an evil to be prayed against for as such it cannot be the Object of desire And the old saying of Augustin is not unworthy of our Observation That if there were no bitterness in Death the Constancy of Martyrs would not be so remarkable Therefore says the Apostle 2 Cor. 5. 4. We would not be uncloathed but clothed upon It is promised as a favour to Ebedmelech that though he sustained many other losses yet he should have his life for a prey Jer. 39. 18. and Paul then whom none had a greater desire and esteem of Glory yet reckons it a Blessing for a good Man to be kept alive For he sayes of Epaphroditus Phil. 2. 27. He was sick nigh unto death but God had mercy on him And we find the Holy Men of Old very earnest for their Lives Return O Lord deliver my soul O save me for thy mercies sake For in death there is no remembrance of thee in the Grave who shall give thee thanks Psal. 6. 4. 5. Psal. 39. 13. Oh spare me that I may recover strength before I go hence and be no more Psal. 102. 24. I said O my God take me not away in the midst of my dayes And what doleful Expressions did Hezekiah use upon the news of his approaching death Isa. 38. 10. I said in the cutting off of my dayes I shall go to the gates of the Grave I am deprived of the residue of my years I said I shall not see the Lord even the Lord in the land of the living I shall behold man no more with the inhabitants of the Earth Reason 2. When a Man dyes 't is to him as an end of all the World He is no more considered as a Member of that Community to which he did once belong When his Eyes are once clos'd by Death he is no more to behold the Sun Moon and Stars which he now sees nor his Fields and Gardens his Shops and Houses his Estate and Lands As the waters fail from the Sea and the flood decayeth and drieth up So man lieth down and riseth not till the heavens be no more Job 14. 11 12. He quits for ever all those Earthly things on which he once set his Heart and when he is asleep in his Bed of dust he will not awake to pursue secular Affairs and Business which took up so much of his time and labour He must no more frequent his Exchange not read Books nor discourse with his Relations and Friends as he us'd to do among the Living here The first sound that he will he will hear will be the Voice of the Last Trumpet Arise ye dead and come to judgment The first sight that he will see will be the Mighty Judge in the Clouds and the Heavens and the Earth all in one flame All that little share of the World which he called his own will be undiscern'd and buryed in the vast ruins and desolations of the Great Day When a Man dyes 't is with him as an End of the World all the Affairs of Peace and War of Trade and Commerce and Gain and Riches all his projects and designs his large reaches his forecast his â—â—â—ughtfulness about News or about providing for his own Name or for posterity all these things are at an end with him for ever It would put a mighty Change upon the Face of things and the Circumstances of particular persons if they knew certainly the World would be at an end in four or five years or in so many Moneths and no man knows but it may be so as to him because before or at that time Death may cut him off and then he has no more to do with this Earth or with the Sons of Men. As the cloud is consumed and vanisheth away so he that goeth down to the grave shall come up no more He shall return no more to his house neither shall his place know him any more Job 7. 9 10. Reason 3. Because when we dye our Everlasting state is to be determin'd l After Death the Judgment The moment of our departure hence will pass us over to the Righteous Tribunal of God It will make us either to shine with the Angels above or to set with the Devils It will either fix us in a joyful Paradise or in an intolerable state of Wo. So that we may say with Nieremberg how
many things are to pass in that Moment In the same is our Life to finish our Works to be examined and we are then to know how it will go with us for ever and ever In that Moment I shall cease to Live in that Moment I shall behold my Judge in that moment I must answer for all my publick and my secret Actions for all that I have ever thought or spoke or done for all the Talents the Time the Mercies the Health the Strength the Opportunities and the Seasons and Dayes of Grace that I have ever had for all the Evil that I might have avoided for all the good I might have done and did not and all this before that Judge who has beheld my wayes from my Birth to the Grave before that Judge who cannot be deceiv'd and who will not be impos'd upon Little can he that has not been brought near to Death and Judgement know what Thoughts the diseased have when they are so Little very little does a Soul in Flesh know what it is to appear before the Great God This is so great and so strange a thing that they onely know it who have receiv'd their final Sentence but they are not suffer'd to return to tell us how it is or what passes then and God sees it fit it should be concealed from us who are yet on this side the Grave But who does not tremble to think of this mighty Change and of this Moment that is the last of Time and the beginning of Eternity that includes Heaven and Hell and all the Effects of the Mercy and Justice of God See Moral Essayes Vol. 4. Lib. 1. Chap. 9. Who does not tremble when he Considers that Infinite and Holy Majesty before whom the Angels cover their Faces that Considers his Omniscience and his Greatness and the mighty Consequences of that Sentence how sudden it is and how irresistible and that it is an irrevocable Decree and by a Word of this Mighty Judge we live or dye for ever It is no wonder if the thoughts of it make us shrink and quiver It is a greater wonder that when some or other whom we know are almost every week going to such a place and state as this we who are not yet cited to the Bar are no more concerned and use no more endeavors to be ready for it 't is a wonder that we put no higher a value on that Gospel that teaches us how we may avoid Condemnation 't is a wonder that we prize no more that Gracious Redeemer who alone can plead our Cause and that we labour and strive no more to be partakers of his Righteousness by which we may be Justify'd It is no wonder if this prospect throw men into strange Agonies as it frequently does those who are dying Many people will say when they hear the Complaints of the Sick and their Long Continued Groans It were well if God would take their souls away from their pained Languishing Bodies it were well indeed if that could put an end to their present and their future pain But do they not know that they must go into Eternity and be judged after death Oh my Friends when you come to the Borders of the Grave when you are within an Hour or two's distance from your Final Judgment and your unalterable state what a mighty Change will it cause in your thoughts and your apprehensions You will then know and feel it Then when the Perspective is turn'd and the other World begins to appear very great and this very little This that I have represented to you is a part of that which we call dying Death is that which the Philosophers have talk't of with great Contempt and with lofty Speeches but I believe they commonly talk't so confidently when they thought themselves far from it and I am sure they did so because they had not a distinct knowledge of Futurity For had they consider'd their own sins and the nature of their last Trial with the Consequents of it this would have lower'd all their Pride and Glory they would have changed their Language had they look't upon Death as the Conclusion of Time and the beginning of Eternity and not onely as a going out of this but as an entrance into a state that would never Change It is a great Mercy and greatly to be acknowledg'd that God allows us so much time wherein to prepare our selves for this final and irrevocable doom It is an instance of his Patience that is truly Divine that notwithstanding our many repeated Sins he has not cut us off It is his great Mercy that gives us leave to appear in his Courts before we appear at his Tribunal and that he affords us such large notice and warning that so we may be ready for our Last Tryal whereon so very much depends The Conclusion I May say to you this Evening as Christ to the People concerning John Mat. 11. 7. What came you out to see As for those who came hither out of a Curiosity onely to see one of whom they have it may be heard much discourse Let them know that though by reason of my long and sore Affliction I have been a wonder unto many yet now I can say with some hope that God is my strong Refuge As for those that came with an expectation of hearing something new and diverting that might please their Fancies or gratifie their Ears onely they find themselves by this time mightily disappointed But Those of you that came with a more serious Intention know that you see a Person that has by his own Sins and the Righteous Displeasure of God been for a long Season as in the very Grave and yet by the Power and Goodness of God brought from thence again You see a poor Reed that has been shaken indeed by the Wind but which the Grace of God has kept from being broken to pieces 'T is to you to whom I would principally direct my Speech 't is your Prayers which I would beg that so you would desire of God that the Deliverance which he has so far advanced may be compleated by the same Hand and Mercy that has hitherto reviv'd me You that have Health have cause to praise him for his Mercy and I that have been long sick have cause to praise him who has been my Physitian and my Helper O magnifie the Lord with me and let us exalt his name together Psal. 34. 3. Let us as we join our Prayers so unite our Praises to this mighty Lord. Do you praise him for keeping you from violent overwhelming pains and I will Praise him for mitigating those that I laboured under and though he chastened me sore yet he has not deliver'd me over to death And so by this means we shall bring an acceptable Sacrifice to his Altar and it may be that through Jesus Christ he will receive as an odour of a sweet smell this our Evening Sacrifice The End of the First Sermon Practical
DISCOURSES OF Sickness and Recovery SERMON II. PSAL. 30. ver 3 4. O Lord thou hast brought up my Soul from the grave thou hast kept me alive that I should not go down to the pit Sing unto the Lord O ye Saints of his and give thanks at the remembrance of his holiness Reason 4. DEliverance from the Grave is a great Mercy and greatly to be acknowledged because by that means a man has a longer time in which to prepare for another World And this is more a Mercy because it must go with us for ever according to what we have done in these bodies whether good or evil This Life is our onely state of Tryal and so shall it fare with us hereafter as we now behave our selves There is no knowledge nor invention in the Grave whither we are going None of those things can be performed there which to perform now is our most seasonable and necessary Duty If a man were to have a Tryal for his Estate or Life he would take it for a favour to have leisure given him wherein to make ready for it and to put his Affairs into the best posture that he could it ought to be reckoned a much greater kindness to have notice and time afforded us wherein to prepare for the Last determination of the State of our Souls which is vastly more weighty and Considerable It is a Mercy to have Sickness or some tollerable Affliction sent to summon us before the Arrival of the King of Terrours and to bid us put our Houses and our Minds in Order lest by sensual Enjoyments or the pleasing Enjoyments of the Flesh that Day come upon us unawares and left we be in a slumber when the Voice shall say Behold the Bridegroom eomes go ye out to meet him There is no question at all but that 't is very Lawful with submission to pray against Sudden Death for though it be a Mercy to those whose Grace is eminently strong and who are alwayes ready to dye without Lingring Pains and a Complication of acute and violent Diseases which make Death much more a Death than it would be without them yet to the most the danger of Surprisal is so very great and of being hurried to the Bar and judg'd to an Eternal Condition before we have done what we ought to do in time that we may esteem it none of the least Mercies of God that he does by some shaking blowes warn us before he give the last stroak and cut us down It is not onely the practise of an Holy Life and an Habitual Readiness which Believers have by Faith and the renewing Operations of the Spirit by the uprightness of their Carriage and the Constancy of their Prayers but a more particular preparation that they need 'T is necessary for them not onely to have Oyl in their Lamps but their Lamps burning not onely the Graces of the Spirit but those Graces in the fullest brightness and strength to which they can attain in this Mortal State The best can never be so much prepar'd for Death but they may be more so They never have proceeded so far in their Mortification but they are sensible that they have still more sins to mortifie they have never so much warmed their Hearts with the love of God but that they may still glow with a purer and an hotter Flame It is very desireable to the best to have their Faith more strong their submission more calm and their hope more lively 'T is very desireable to have more Acquaintance and Familiarity with God before they appear at his Tribunal to receive their final Sentence They know well that it is a great Work impartially seriously and constantly to search their own Hearts and to judge themselves aright that they may not be judged of the Lord. As also to discharge all the duties that they owe to God to themselves to their Neighbours and their Countrey and they cannot but be very thankful that they are allow'd more time to do it in That they may purifie their Consciences raise their Affections and review their Lives with exactness and Care when they are shortly to be lookt into by an Omniscient and unerring Eye They know it is a Mercy to be able to loosen their Hearts from the World which they are too much apt to love and in a weanedness from what is sensible to dye before they dye The most Religious have the clearest Apprehension that to appear before Christ is no sleight or Common thing that they must be such in whom he may take delight and be as a Bride adorned for her Husband They know that the Celebration of the Lords Supper and the hearing of the Word and Fast-dayes and extraordinary Seasons of Prayer are such duties as require the preparations of Humbling Sorrows lively Desires awful Reverence Meekness and Self-denial because God will be sanctisied of all that draw nigh unto him They dare scarcely go to the Lords Table without Fear and Trembling much less dare they go to the Lord himself without a most solemn Preparation What Care do men use if they are but about to Transplant themselves into some Foreign Countrey what Inquiries do they make about it What laying in of all necessary Stores that they may not be destitute of suitable accommodations when they come to the new place where they design to fix And 't is not to be wondred at that such as are to be removed into another World are very solicitous about it and very thankful that their season and their day of Grace is lengthned out Whoever Considers the many duties which the Scripture requires of those that believe what obligations they are under to their Saviour what to their Fellow-Christians and to those who are yet strangers to the Faith How many Omissions and Commissions they are guilty of and what need there is of running watching and striving with all their might that they may not loose Heaven and Glory whoso thinks of this must account it a Mercy that they have opportunity wherein to do what is so great and so indispensable And as the Apostle speaking of the new Heavens and new Earth inferrs What manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy Conversation and Godliness 2 Pet. 3. 11. So in this Case we may say what manner of persons ought they to be who must quickly go into Eternity How should they labour to increase with all the increase of God to have suitable Promises laid up in their Hearts from which in the sorest Distresses they may fetch Relief What need have they of manifold Expersences and of the Compleat Armour of Righteousness which may enable them to wrestle with and to subdue the various and unknown difficulties and Tentations of a dying Hour to have their Evidences for Salvation clear and unquestionable to know that they are in a state of Grace and that they have finished the work of their Generation Indeed the Careless part of Men think that the
Prolongation of Life is not in this respect so great a Mercy For they think that it is a most easie thing to be ready for Death and Judgement they think that a few Prayers at last a few Tears and Cryes to God with a Confession of their Miscarriages and a few Resolutions against what they once did amiss will put them into a good frame and serve their turn and so the time that was given them wherein to prepare for another World is lost and unimproved because they understand not the greatness of their Work nor the preciousness and value of that Time which is given them to do it in They ought to Remember if they have been near to death how that nearness changed their Thoughts and that they then found by the hurry and confusion of their Apprehensions that Sickness was no proper season wherein to begin an holy Course or to repair the disorders of an ill one Of all men in the World those who are recover'd from a Sickness that found them in their Impenitence have most Reason to be thankful because had they died in that Condition they had died for ever what thanks owe they to God that they are under Hope in the use of Means yet upon his Earth and not in Hell And there are two things with respect to our dying which render the Continuance of our Life a great Mercy First The small Acquaintance which we have with the Future state and the necessity we are under to get as lively apprehensions of it as we can There are many strange Vicissitudes in this World many changes that we see in Countreys when Kingdoms pass from one to another in Families when the number is either increased or diminished and we suffer many changes in our Bodies from Sickness to Health and from Health to Sickness again but there is no change that is so great as this by Death It is a thing of which we know but little and none of the Millions of Souls that have past into the invisible World have come again to tell us how it is All that go hence remain fixed in their own state some expecting and others fearing the Resurrection and the Great Day We have but very obscure apprehensions of that separated state we know but little of the Great All-comprehending Spirit and little with clearness and full satisfaction of our own Souls When we know something of Spirits by their effects and the discoveries they make of themselves and would more fully know their nature and have adequate Conceptions of them we are like little Children that see the Image and Representation of some delightful object in a Glass and then turn the glass hoping to see it in its full dimensions but by that means lose the sight of it altogether so it is with us in our most Critical Inquiries into Spiritual and Immaterial Substances Nevertheless it is very desireable to know in what condition our Souls will be when they leave the Body and what is the nature of that abode into which we must go but which we never saw Into what Regions we must then take our flight and after what manner this will be done When that Soul which touch't and wrought by our hands spoke by our tongue and heard by our Ears shall have her present Organs taken from her and pass from sensible objects on Earth to a spacious unseen World When as in the twinkling of an Eye our spirits will go from this lower state through the Aiery Region and the visible Heavens soaring till they come to the Throne of God All the Animal Actions of Nourishment and Growth all the Sensations that arise from outward and Material objects will cease and these spirits will be more vigorous and Active than now they are When Death comes it leaves the body though far different from what it was yet still in our view We see where it is and what Qualities it is invested with how it is disposed of we know and are able to give some exact Account of its Condition of this we have a more distinct Apprehension but none of a separated Soul but what is very imperfect 'T is certain the Soul will then preserve the Faculties that are natural to it viz. to Understand to Will to Remember as 't is represented to us under the Parable of Dives and Lazarus So long as 't is lodged here it sees and perceives Corporal things by the Organs of the Senses and reasons upon the Images that are labour'd in the Phantasie but there are in our Souls Idea's purely intellectual and which have in them nothing Material as the Contemplations of the Nature of God and of his Attributes We little know how the People of the disembodied Societies Act and Will and Understand and communicate their Thoughts to one another What Conception can we have of a separated Soul but that 't is all thought and that either in the Calmness of an elevated Joy or the bitterness of overwhelming Anguish according to the state in which it is and the sentence that is past upon it When a Mans Body is taken from him by Death he is turn'd into all Thought and Spirit either infinitely more pleas'd or more amaz'd than he could be in this World How great will be its thoughts when it is without any hinderance from these material Organs that now obstruct its operations In that Eternity as one expresses it the whole power of the Soul runs together one and the same way In this World the soul sends out Parties of it self divers wayes or to several ends the Judgment may be pleased in the main and yet the Affections disturbed or these more still and yet the Judgment dissatisfied and disturbed One thought goes out in high discontent another flyes after it recalls and reconciles it On the other side one thought leaps out of the Soul with pleasure another reproves daunts and dejects it with a correction of its haste But in Eternity the soul is united in its motions which way one Faculty goes all go and the Thoughts are all Concentred as in one whole Thought of Joy or Torment Beverley Great Soul of Man pag. 292. These things cannot but occasion great variety of thoughts in every Considering Man and the soul especially when it looks toward that World and thinks it self near it can no more cease to be Inquisitive about it than it can cease to be a soul. We may indeed be too curious in this matter though it seems to be a Curiosity that is most excuseable because it concerns a mans self his own soul and his own Eternity and when we have searched as deep as we can we must confess our Ignorance and say with the Prophet upon another occasion Lord thou knowest In these Contemplations we must make the Word of God our onely Guide and it is a Mercy greatly to be acknowledged that God allows us time wherein to Converse with that Gospel that has brought life and
immortality to light and with that Saviour who is the great Prophet and Teacher of the Church who came from Heaven and is now gone thither and we may fully rest and Acquiesce in the discoveries that he has given us of that Countrey for he knew it very well was very faithful in the discharging of his office and does not impose upon us any thing that is either false or incredible by our Holy Prayers we are to maintain a Commerce with him and with that World and by our frequent going thither in our Meditations we may gain a clearer knowledge of it Though there are no bounds on which our thoughts can terminate but onely the Revelations which God has been pleas'd to make in his own Word What is above those Heavens and that Firmament that we see there 's none can tell us but God and our Saviour who are there For when Men have abstracted their Thoughts with as much industry as they can from All that is material and sensible when they have refin'd their Understandings to the greatest spirituality and pored never so long upon the state of separation they will still remain in the dark about it And he is the most happy Man who in the sincere performance of the Duties of Religion can resign his Soul to Christ in Death and trust him though he is to be removed to a strange and a new World For immediately after he is loos'd from the Body he will understand more in an instant then all the most Learned in this World have ever understood by the labour and diligence of many years Secondly That which renders the continuance of Time to us wherein to prepare for Death a great Mercy is because we are to dye but Once and upon the well or ill doing of it depends our future Happiness or Misery It is a great Mercy that we have time wherein to make ready for our last Combat for if we lose the Battle once we are overthrown for ever it must not be fought over again It is a Mercy that we have leisure to compleat our journey well for we must never travel over the same Road again There will be no second Edition wherein to Correct our former Errors when a period is once put to the last Line of Life Oh what Faith what Courage what Strength is necessary to Conquer the Fears of Death and Death it self If men fail in their Trades they may by the kindness of their Friends be set up again if they have suffer'd Losses by Shipwrack by Fire or by Plunder they may be repaired but a Soul once lost will remain so for ever 'T is a long long Eternity that succeeds our Time if we should live on Earth as many Hundred years as the most Aged live Months it would bear no proportion with that vast and endless duration Whoever compares the shortness of our present state with the continuance of that into which we enter when we are to dye cannot but esteem the being brought back from the Grave to be a great Mercy If you have been careless of hearing at one season you may hear the Word again at another if you have heretofore been cold in your Prayers you may now excite your Hearts and pray with more fervour but if you once dye ill you must never mend so concluding a Miscarriage All the Tears we shed cannot give Life to the Body from which the Soul is fled All the Anguish of Miserable Souls cannot procure for them another Tryal They that are once cut down must never be planted by the Rivers side any more There is hope of a tree if it be cut down that it will sprout again and that the tender branch thereof will not cease though the root thereof wax old in the earth and the stock thereof die in the ground yet through the scent of Water it will bud and bring forth boughs like a plant But man dieth and wasteth away yea man giveth up the ghost and where is he Job 14. 7 8 9 10. Reason 5. Those who are brought up from the grave have cause to be thankful because by that means they have more opportunity to be serviceable to the Glory of God and to be useful in the World Meerly to live is not a thing very desireable considering how many Miserie 's there are in Life to what Evils and Inconveniences our Bodies are obnoxious and that the pains which they may suffer may be both very long and so secret that none can understand either what they are or how to remove them But it is a most desirable thing to Live when we can thereby obtain the Ends that are truly Great and Noble For First Hereby a man may do good to others He may teach the Ignorant reduce the wandring and by the sincerity of his Counsel by the zeal of his Prayers and the Lustre and Holiness of a good Example advance the power of Religion Our Lives are not our own they are Gods by a double title both of Creation and Redemption they are to be us'd for him who preserves or takes them away as he will Not onely Ministers but every private Christian is obliged by the Name he bears and by the Relation that he has to the holy Society of Believers and to the Kingdom of Christ whereof he is a Subject to enlarge it by all good ways that he can and every man is the more obliged to this when God has bestow'd a new Life upon him When we are near to the Gates of the Grave and look back and see with how little Zeal and Diligence we had spent our time and how little we had done for him who blest us all our dayes then we are enclined most earnestly to beseech him that he would grant us another Tryal and that then we would improve it much better than we did our former time and when he does grant us what we have askt then it should be our great indeavour not to frustrate and disappoint the designs of his Goodness and Mercy Then must we teach transgressors his way telling them how dreadful thing it is to fall into the hands of the living God Then we may tell the Healthful what Sickness is what we have found it to be by our own Experience then we may tell them how it makes very uneasie and troublesome Companions of our now beloved Bodies How it deprive us of all our Pleasures and Recreations in the day and of our rest at night That all their Friendships Conversations and Merryments without true Religion are altogether vain and not onely so but they leave a sting of guilt behind when the sweetness that once allur'd is gone away We may warn them to provide for the dayes of darkness and for the many Miseries of Life that will sooner or latter overtake them When we are Recover'd we can tell the Diseased of the Goodness and the Power of God that they can never be so distressed but that it is still
meet with Joy It will be a welcom day indeed when their Looks their Expressions their Carriage will all be changed for the better There will be no appearance of any thing that is dismal and grievous and it will be more welcom to us because we and our friends so suitable so loving and so perfect shall never part again Oh what a comfortable thought is this Oh what will our praises be when we are there where there will be no more sickness no more death for ever We shall behold what we were in our Mortal State how vain and how short-lived and what we are when we are made Immortal There will be no more restless and weary dayes nor nights as restless as the day not a sigh nor a groan will be heard in all the blessed place above What would one that is in great pain give for ease most readily would he give all he has in the World but upon our first entrance into that Land of pleasure and of health all our Diseases will be cured and so fully cured that we shall never Relapse nor be diseased again There will be no pain This to those that are at ease may seem a little part of Heaven but to those of us that have been in long and terrible sickness 't is a very sweet and reviving Consideration In this World one affliction is scarce past till another comes usually there is breach upon breach and a new sorrow treads upon the heels of the old one as one wave upon another We have scarcely dryed our eyes for one loss but another comes that will make us weep again but in the Heaven which we hope for there is no Language but that of Praise Here we are alwayes either bewailing our own Miseries or those of our Friends and Neighbours but there it will not be so God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes and there shall be no more death neither sorrow nor crying neither shall there be any more pain for the former things are passed away Rev. 21. 4. Oh what a joy will it be to us to be past death that is so terrible and to be for ever past it The ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with sons and everlasting joy upon their heads tĥey shall obtain joy and gladness and sorrow and sighing shall flee away Isa. 35. 10. We praise God indeed here and we have Cause to praise him but our Victories are not so compleat as to make a perfect Triumph we have one great Battel yet to fight and one great Gulph to shoot and a dark and a solitary way to go This is that which is grievous to our thoughts but oh what a joy will it be to us when we are past death and have dyed well who can express the mighty pleasure of it When the deliver'd Soul can say I that have been so furiously tempted so violently assaulted so siercely shaken by the blast of the terrible one shall be so no more all the Rage of Satan shall not come near me nor give me an unquiet thought for ever And I that griev'd and was disconsolate with tedious and uncommon pain shall never droop nor languish any more What a reviving prospect will it be when we stand on the other side of the Grave when the terrible forerunners of Death and Death it self shall be no more Then we may say indeed Oh death where is thy sting oh grave where is thy victory What consternation fear and perplexity fill'd the hearts of the poor Israelites when they were going out of Egypt when they were environed with rocks with their Enemies behind and with the Sea before They were in great trouble and knew not what to do But how different were their looks and Apprehensions when they beheld the Sea to give way and by an unheard of Miracle stand as a Wall on either hand till they past thorough How delightful was it to them when they were on the firm Land to see those very Enemies that Pharaoh and those Cruel Masters that had for so many years kept them in cruel bondage to find a grave in that Element which yielded and made a way for them Exod. 15. 1 2. So will it be with us when we shall see all our diseases all our Fears all our Temptations all our sinking thoughts to be destroy'd for ever The day of our death that will convey us to the blessed State will be better to us then the day of our birth that brought us into such an evil World as this Our Eyes will then no more behold grievous objects our Ears will no more hear any sad or doleful news Here we have many National and Personal Deliverances but alass we sin again and so bring upon our selves new Judgements But there which every sincere Soul reckons to be a great part of Heaven we shall sin no more for ever I that am now speaking come to you as from the Grave and can give you an account of Pain and Sickness but am not able to give you so distinct an Account of the Holy Cheerful Employment that is above But if one were to come to you from Heaven if he were but enabled to tell what he felt and your Capacities enlarged to understand the pleasing Narrative how would your glad hearts melt with an Admiring Joy and your Souls be raised to Praise and Wonder they will be much more raised and more joyful when you have your compleat and final Deliverance Then you shall say with those in Rev. 5. 12 13. Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honour and glory and blessing And again Blessing honour glory and power be unto him that sitteth upon the Throne and unto the Lamb for ever and ever The End of the Second Sermon The Third SERMON PSAL. 30. ver 3 4. O Lord thou hast brought up my Soul from the Grave thou hast kept me alive that I should not go down to the Pit Sing unto the Lord O ye Saints of his and give Thanks at the remembrance of his Holiness IF Deliverance from the Grave be so great a Mercy and for which we ought to be very thankful what cause have they to be thankful that are delivered from a Death in Sin As the Soul is much better than the Body so the Mercies that are bestowed upon it are much more valuable and without this spiritual Resurrection temporal Deliverance and Salvation would not be so great a Mercy A Soul under the Dominion and reigning Power of Sin is in a far more deplorable Condition than a Body that is consuming in the Grave the one suffers under a sort of innocent Misery which it cannot help the other suffers under a wilful Obstinacy and Impotence contracted by its own fault How sad a prospect is it to see Men far from God in whom alone there is Life a Separation from whom is far more terrible than the
separation of the Body and the Soul which yet is painful and sad enough They that are under the Power of this Spiritual Death taste not the Goodness of God they hear not his loudest Calls they tremble not at his most dreadful Threats they are not drawn with his Love nor start at his approaching Wrath. They are very sick indeed but they feel not their Sickness their Ignorance has deprived their Souls of all knowledg of their own Miseries they are in a state of Death and Insensibility and their Case is the more sad because they are like to fall under the Power of eternal Death and tho their temporal Life is prolonged for a Season yet we may say of them as of Malefactors under the Sentence of the Law for their Crimes they are dead Men though there be a Reprieve or a delay of Execution for a little space And if any of you as I hope there are many here are delivered from a state so dangerous and so miserable what Thanks and Praise should you give to God who hath quickned you when you were dead in Trespasses and Sins Eph. 2. 1. especially considering that you had no Inclinations no foregoing Dispositions to this spiritua Life You contributed nothing to your own Regeneration no more than a Carcass in the Grave can raise it self and live again no more than dry Bones can move of their own accord or clothe themselves with Skin and Flesh. When he passed by and saw you in your Blood Ezek. 16. 6. then he said vnto you Live The Hour is come in which they that are in the Grave shall hear the Voice of the Son of God and they that hear shall live Joh. 5. 25. How many of your Friends your Neighbours and your Fellow-Citizens are there in whom there are no Signs of Life at all that notwithstanding all their Civility and fair Carriage their Attendance upon the Word and the performance of several outward Duties have only a likeness to the Living but no real Life And why should God be so good to you and not to the rest of Men You were once the Children of Wrath and Enemies as well as they Were there any peculiar Excellencies in you more than in others to recommend you to his Favour No he has been merciful to you because he will be merciful and you may say as 't is in Eph. 2. 4 5. God who is rich in Mercy for his great Love wherewith he loved us even when we were dead in Sins hath quickned us together with Christ. 'T is a very great Mercy for those that have been sick to be restored to Health but you are delivered from a worse Death and have obtained a better Resurrection in as much as the second Death to which they were obnoxious is infinitely more painful and dreadful than the first What a Mercy do you enjoy to be brought from a state of Wrath and Condemnation into a state of Peace and Favour from the Guilt of your Sins which made you dead in Law you are freed in your Justification and from the Power of Sin which would have kept you in continual Slavery you are delivered by the sanctifying Influences and Operations of the blessed Spirit you have cause to be thankful for your selves and for your Relations too if God has given the same Mercies unto them you may invite your Neighbours and your Friends to a Participation of your Comforts and say as the Father of the Prodigal Come and rejoice with me for this my Son was lost and is now found was dead and is now alive To raise your Thankfulness consider what a condition you would have been in had not God blessed you with a part in the first Resurrection You whose Eyes are now fix'd on Heaven and Glory had been still slumbering as unconverted Sinners are on the very brink of Hell you had then been without all relish of that word which first produced and which does every day maintain your Life and which is sweeter to you than Honey or the Honey-Comb Psal. 19. 10. You had now been without all Esteem and Value of that dearest Redeemer who purchased for you this Happiness at a very dear price and that you might live was himself content to die you had then been without that reviving hope of seeing him for ever that smooths your way and guides your Steps and upholds your Spirits thô you meet with many a sharp and bitter Cross. You would now perhaps have been prophaning his Sabbaths vilifying his Ordinances tearing his Name to pieces with execrable Oaths you might not have known what is the Sweetness of a sincere and hearty Prayer what is the Blessedness of a Soul whose Sins are pardoned and how honourable is the Priviledg of having the great God for a Father and Christ for a Mediator You are delivered from spiritual Diseases which are worse than all bodily Distempers for Pride and Envy Impatience and Discontent and Ambition and Revenge are worse than even the worst of Pains than the Stone the Cholick the Strangury or the like These cause a momentany Trouble but the evil Habits the corrupt Inclinations and the disorderly Motions that bear sway in that poor Soul that is dead in Sin tend to an everlasting Misery Continually adore and magnify the Power of your Saviour that made your Hearts at length to yield to his own terms though they gave him a very great Opposition Bless the Skill and Wisdom of your gracious Physician that cures all the Diseases of your old Nature that is not in any part of it sound and healthful It is easy to kill and ruin and destroy that we can all do too well but who can recover and save but he alone And if he was to be admired when on Earth He heal'd the Sick and made the Blind to see the Lame to walk and the Dead to live He is much more now to be adored and his Power is not less miraculous when it displays its vertue in Regeneration and when he makes all the boisterous unruly passions of Nature to be still and quiet than in commanding the Seas and the Winds These things should be the matter of your Praise and Wonder as they will be the cause of Praise and Wonder to his Saints for ever and if David is thankful here when he says O Lord thou hast brought my Soul from the Grave what matter of greater Thankfulness is it when a Christian can say O Lord thou hast brought up my Soul from Hell from the Power of Satan from the House of Bondage and from the Neighbourhood of the second Death Long Life is in it self a Blessing and for which we may very lawfully pray I say 't is in it self a Blessing for it may be clog'd with those Miseries that may make it to be as a Curse As if a Man were to live long only to row in Galleys or to dig in Mines or to pine in a Dungeon or to live in Pain and Torment or
to languish on a sick Bed for many Years together without help or ease As we do not say a Ship that has been in a Storm for many days has failed long but the Ship has been long tost So life attended with innumerable Vexations and heavy Crosses were not so truely to be called Life as one continued Act of Dying To live to see nothing but Desolations to hear nothing but ill Tidings and to feel nothing but Pain these and many other things would make a long Life to be an Affliction and such as these made Jeremy to say Why died I not from the Womb To have Life and to have no Comfort with it to have such Diseases it may be as will not allow us to take any Delight in what we eat and drink in the Society of our Friends and good People or good Books when we have no other Language but Complaints no other work but to sigh and to groan and it may be Pains which we cannot bear Life with these Companions looks but as a poor and sorry thing but Life as it includes a Recovery from Sickness a Recovery from Distempers that hindred us either from the doing or the receiving good so indeed it is a Blessing and may be prayed for thô when we do so we must request it 1 st With great Submission to the soveraign Disposer of Life and Death to do with us so as may serve most his Interest and Kingdom in the World 2 dly We must in the desires of long Life propose to our selves great and honourable ends Some desire to live long that they may with more Freedom indulge and gratify their Appetites Some that they may get great Estates make some stately Buildings and Houses that they design to call by their own Names and hoping thereby to perpetuate their Memory These are the Desires of Men in whose Hearts the World bears too great a Sway and who are little acquainted with the Nature of Religion for this will teach us to make the Glory of God the Edification and Profit of our Neighbour and the Welfare of our own Souls the only end in our Desires of long Life and then we must inform our selves in the right Notion of long Life We commonly think that 70 or 80 is the duration of a long Life but it is not to be measured by the number of Years so much as by our Proficiency in Heavenly Wisdom He has lived long and well too that has attain'd to the end of Living that has got that Knowledg and those Graces which enable him to live to the Glory of God here and to enjoy him for ever and a Sinner that is an hundred Years old will be accurst Isai. 65. 20. if he arrive not to this he has been indeed a great while but has not truly lived at all And though the best are but Loiterers and have not that esteem of time which its real Preciousness does require at their Hands Yet he that hath an hundred Years time and loseth it all lives not so long as he that hath but twenty and bestows it well It is too soon to go to Hell at an hundred Years old and not too soon to go to Heaven at twenty Baxter's Saints Rest p. 613. Barely to live is a thing no way considerable for Birds and Flies and Gnats and other Animals live as well as we nay and many of them have a more delicate Pleasure in Life as wanting the Bitterness of our Griefs and the Fears of a sad Futurity but we then desire long Life aright when we beg it for this reason that we may live to God 't is what is very desirable in this respect though we ought not to promise it to our selves for we must always work with Zeal and Fervor as not knowing but we may have only a little time wherein to work I believe there is scarcely one among us all but hopes to live long and to attain to the Years of some of our old Progenitors and does not question but he shall do so When we see very aged People even in our dangerous Youth we hope that we shall live till our greener Heads be cover'd with the Winter and the Snow of Age. 'T is indeed a thing greatly to be desired where one is planted in the Vineyard of God not to be removed thence till the time of Harvest and not to have our Fruit blasted with rude and unseasonable Weather but that we may come to the Grave in a full Age Like as a Shock of Corn cometh in his season Job 5. 26. It was indeed a Blessing more insisted on and more largely promised in the Old Testament than 't is in the New for that Oeconomy was chiefly managed with respect to temporal Advantages and Prosperity They had in many Promises the Discovery of another happy Life though not so clear and distinct as that which the Gospel gives to us yet they had the Belief of it and their Belief was without doubt confirmed by the Translation of Enoch and the Rapture of Elias for they might easily think that God would not remove two Men so very good and so very useful unless it were to place them in a better State than that was which they had on Earth Long Life is a great Blessing but not such an one as God is always pleased to give to the best of Men Good Josiah the Glory of all the Kings in those Days did not live so long as many other worse than he All Israel was forced to lament his early Death whom to have seen alive would have been their greatest Joy Our good King Edward the 6 th that was in his tenderest Youth so great a Scholar so good a Christian and so excellent a King so hearty an Enemy to the Pope and so sincere and true Friend to the Reformation and so great a Promoter of it he died alas very young The Divine Providence is mysterious in its Conduct and far above our Thoughts For what Good might two such great and holy Men have done the one in Israel and the other in England They did much Good in the few years while they lived and might have done abundance more had they lived very long these excellent Kings were soon taken away whilst many Tyrants have waxed grey amidst the Hatred and the Curses of the People When we think of two such excellent Men as Mr. Joseph Allein and Mr. John Janeway and how soon they died that were less in Degree but as great in Grace as the former two we must needs be silent and adore the Providence that we do not understand we must needs conclude that there is something much better to be enjoyed in the next World than long Life in this otherwise such holy Men so full of Self-denial so very laborious for the Glory of God and the Good of Souls should have lived very long They were taken away by Sickness from that Work in which their Souls delighted and which in
in all our other Actions to be regulated by the Will of God and not by our own But indeed when a Man that has been very faithful and laborious in his Generation is by Pain rendred altogether unfit for Service when the Strength and Vigour which he laid out for God is wasted and decayed by old Age or a tedious Distemper when his Candle that has long burnt to enlighten others burns with a feeble and almost undiscerned Light he may then desire to die as a poor weary Man to go to Bed But the Saints of God do even then desire it with Calmness and Deliberation if they be not in a raging Disease for then it is impossible they have much ado to bring their Hearts to be sincerely and freely willing to depart Their Fears and Temptations and remaining Inclinations to the Body and their Friends on Earth render it a Work of Difficulty There are great Strugglings in that Moment between Nature and Grace between Faith and Sense though at last their Grace gets the Victory and so they long to be with Christ. If Deliverance from the Grave be so great a Mercy then Self-murther is a very great Sin The Law that forbids us to kill does extend to this as well as to the Murder of another Man this is a violating of that Soveraign Power that is in God and a taking upon us to dispose of our Life which is not our own but his 'T is an usurping upon his Providence which has determined when and after what manner we are to die and though 't is very likely there are several Accidents of Life that are worse than Death it self yet it is that Eternity that comes after Death that is most formidable and into which no Man ought to throw himself and when we are reduced to such a condition that to live seems to be far worse than to die yet even then the Unalterableness of our State afterwards should be a most powerful Restraint especially if we are uncertain where we are then to go It is against that Patience and Trust which we ought to repose in God It is a woful sort of dying to die in the doing of such a thing as this which he has most severely prohibited to tear our Souls from our Bodies with our own hands in such an ignominious and shameful manner and because of our Distress to pass Sentence upon our selves as not fit to live and then to be our own Executioners A Soul at Death should be in the Exercise of Grace and in a quiet and humble Resignation but in this case 't is in Fear and Horror and Discontent and what the Romans magnifi'd so much for Gallantry and an Heroick Spirit was the real Effect of Weakness and Cowardise as it is much more Heroical to sustain and meet a coming Danger than to retreat and fly from it It was from a Meanness of Spirit that Cato chose to kill himself because he could not see the Empire flourish under Cesar whom he did not love and however such Acts may be extoll'd by Heathen Historians they are not so by that Scripture which is the Rule of our Faith and the Guide of our Actions and which furnishes us with no Examples of those that did this Samson only excepted whose case had several things in it very singular but such as were very bad Men as Saul and Achitophel and Judas and as we would not have our portion with them in the other World so it is to be wish'd and endeavoured that our end may not be like to them in this But so great is the Love of Life and so strong the fear of Death in the most so dark the Knowledg of Futurity and so great our Unwillingness to go from a World with which we are well acquainted to that which we never saw that few Men are in danger of Self-murther till some great Affliction and overwhelming Pain and by the means of that some great Perplexity seize their Spirits I think few are in danger of it till their Griefs are unspoakably great or their Minds in that Anguish that is as the sad Foretaste of Hell till all their Thoughts are in hurry and Confusion and as then they are no way capable of being bettered by those Advices that seem proper to restrain them so it concerns you that are at ease and are able to pursue the Business and Affairs of Life and of Religion to pray earnestly to God that he withdraw not his Protection and the Guard of his Providence from you that he do not leave you to thick and gross Darkness nor to the Power of Satan who will push you forward to things that are most sinful and unwarrantable Pray hard that violent Tentations and overwhelming raging Pains may never overtake your for how evil soever Self-murther seem to you now you know not what you may be then prest to do pray earnestly that you may never be without the sense or hope of the Divine Favour for if which God forbid you once lose that woe unto you then you will be like a Ship without Sails or Rudder in a Storm you may be swallowed up or driven on the Rocks and broken to pieces It is Distress and violent Sorrow that exposes Men to the Commission of this Sin Saul fell not upon his Sword and killed himself till God had forsaken him and till he knew not what to do though it was his own Sin that brought him so low Cicero tells us indeed of one Cleombrotus who reading the Discourse of Plato concerning another more happy Life after this which could not be attained but by Death did thereupon kill himself to attain that Happiness but if that be true it is a thing that most rarely happens that any that have either hope of Heaven or Assurance of going thither are so impatient of being absent from it as to kill themselves to go thither And it may be you will be ready to ask me If they have no hope of being better when they die why do they long for Death or attempt to kill themselves They should rather strive to live that they may be better prepared for another World It is a Question that has been ask'd me by some People and seeing it is perhaps what you seldom have met withal I will give you an Answer to it and if it do not appear very rational yet I am sure it will contain that which has been the real Apprehensions of People under those Temptations I say then Men may desire to destroy themselves though they have no well grounded Expectation of Happiness after Death 1. Because of that Pain of Body and that Anguish of Soul which is intolerable to them they have no natural nor spiritual Rest nor Prospect of either and this fills them with Amazement and Horror and in that Amazement there is nothing which they will not dare to do 2. Because they may reckon that they are already as in Hell and that if they
I may but I have had no Rest at all then nor the next nor the next scarce any discernable Sleep I am sure none that was refreshing for above three quarters of a year together And if at any time I rested a little that little Rest was all the while disturb'd with terrible and amazing Dreams and when I awaked I always found my self in strange and unexpressible Pain in Anguish and Bitterness such as nothing in this World is able to represent even as to its lowest degrees And judg you into what Confusions and Disorders this alone would throw a Man if it were single My Disease and my Fears and sad Apprehensions came upon me as a Whirlwind like the rushing of many mighty Waters strange and horrible Pains and great Fears so that it was as an universal Storm from which there was no retreat I said with Hezekiah Isa. 38. 12 13. Mine Age is departed and is removed from me as a Shepherd's Tent I have cut off like a Weaver my Life He will cut me off with pining Sickness from day even to night wilt thou make an end of me I reckoned till morning that as a Lion so will he break all my Bones from day even to night wilt thou make an end of me I was continually full of restless Pain and amazing Thoughts I often said I am now cut off I am come to the End of my Journey I am going to the Grave there was but a Step but a Minute as it were between me and Death nay how often have I been by most terrible Convulsions in the very Jaws of Death They were to me as a Den of Lions and are as painful and as terrible as if a Man were actually torn to pieces And in all these not the least help nor prospect of Relief and these returning every day for many weeks or rather one continued Convulsion-fit and that always with a very quick and cutting Pain it never came upon me but as a Giant or an armed Man and whenever that was I thought my self in the very Moment of my Separation from the Body I thought my self very often just going to the Bar of God I was in Death often often as in the very Agonies and Pangs of Death but I could not die I seemed to have the strength of Brass it seemed to me as if I had been raised up by Almighty Power only that I might be capable to suffer Pains very strange and very terrible I sunk as in the deep Mire Psal. 69. 2. I saw indeed sometimes the Light of Day but it was never refreshing nor comfortable to me for I was often saying with Job chap. 3. 23 24. Why is Light given to a Man whose way is hid and whom God hath hedged in For my Sighing cometh before I eat and my Roarings are poured out like Water I was not in Safety neither had I Rest neither was I quiet yet trouble came For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me and that which I was afraid of is come unto me I often said I shall never see the World till it be in Flames never see my Friends or Acquaintance nor they me till the Heavens be no more and till the vast Appearance of the great Day Thus my Feet stumbled on the dark Mountains and all was hideous Darkness Woe and Desolation with me Sometimes by the Greatness of my Trouble I was even stifled with Grief that I could not for a great while speak a Word and when I spoke it was in a mournful manner for many Months I could not breath without a mighty Pain and as soon as with Difficulty I had breath'd every Breath was turn'd into a Groan and every Groan was big with a very deep Sorrow I was weary with my Groaning Psal. 6. 6. All the Night made I my Bed to swim and watered my Couch with Tears Nay the Sadness and the stinging Particularities that I apprehended in my afflicted Case made me to weep even till I had no more power to weep Psal. 88. 3. My Soul was full of Troubles and my Life drew nigh to the Grave c. I saw the Grave as beneath me continually opening to swallow me up I often said in my self I shall no more see the Congregations or Assemblies of God's-People I shall never any more enter into his Court nor sing his Praise I shall no more speak in his Name nor experience his loving-kindness in the Land of the Living any more These were some of my Thoughts and this was my inexcusable Infirmity and my Unbelief Those that are in Health will scarcely perhaps credit what I say they will think I am a melancholy Man and aggravate my Trouble and set it out more than needs or than it was and that in the whole there was a great deal more of Fancy than of Reality but I pray God they may never taste one drop of that bitter Cup whereof I was made to drink for if they should they 'l find it whatever Names they now give it to be then full of real Miseries As I have spoke nothing but what I fully believe to be true so I have spoke the more of it that it may be of some use to others that though Trouble and Distresses fall upon them which are very strange and very perplexing or such as rarely happen that they would hope even in the Depths for they may see by me that nothing is too hard for God There are few that having been so near to Death revive again few that have been near it so long together and fewer that after they have recovered are willing to speak of what they then saw and felt but methinks it is not unnecessary to shew to what woful Miseries we are obnoxious in this World and how many ways God has wherewith to correct and punish the Sins of Men. Most People are unwilling to speak of such things as these because others are unwilling to hear such doleful Relations they invent some other Discourse to put it off but their hearing of it is better than to feel it and this may help them to avoid manifold Mischiefs before it be too late You think it may be that I have spoke a great deal and your Attention may be wearied but I'lassure 't is many hundred times below what I felt Great Griefs as well as mighty Joys exceed all our Words and Bitterness is not to be described Never was any I believe nearer to Death not to die never was any compass'd with a greater Danger never any had less hope of an Escape than I and yet the Mercy of a God that is Omnipotent has relieved me And as 't is commonly said that Musick sounds best upon the Water so by setting our Sorrows and our Mercies together our Praise may be more harmonious You may in this behold the Severity and the Goodness of God his Severity in continuing on me so many smart Strokes for so long a space and his Goodness
in giving me help when no Power on Earth was able to give me the least Relief His Severity in continuing my Pain for so many long and doleful Months without any Mitigation and his Goodness in bringing me back when I was as in the Grave His Severity in withholding his Blessing from all those innumerable Means that were used with a design to help me so as that nothing that was intended for my Cure could any way promote it and 't was his Goodness that he himself became my Physician and that I did not continue to groan under the same Miseries as many Years as I did Months Remembring my Asfliction and my Misery the Worm-wood and the Gall my Soul hath them still in Remembrance Lam. 3. 19 20. The Storm indeed is in a great measure over blessed be God but I cannot without trembling call it to mind nor dare I think very long upon it I was brought very low as low as Calamity and Distress could make me but the Lord has kept me he has turned again my Captivity and I am really as in a Dream though it is a more pleasant one than any I ever had during my long Sickness and Calamity I can scarce believe that I am at so much ease as I now am I can scarce believe that I am in this Assembly of which I confidently thought I had taken my leave for ever When I look back upon the rough Waves and the stormy Seas I am ready to say Can it be that God has brought me safe to Land After I had conversed with the Dead am I now among the Living am I now with People under Hope blessed be the Name of the Lord I am It is a great Mercy to me and it is the more so as it was unexpected and above the Power of Nature contrary to all my hopes and above all humane help Those that have heard my Groans and seen my Agonies and heard of my Affliction cannot but wonder at it I often said that I could not be delivered without a Miracle and God himself has wrought it He has shewed Wonders to the dead Psal. 88. 3. For the raising them up is so from a case very sad and sadder than by any Words can be express'd has the Lord delivered me and certainly so terrible a Visitation so dreadful a Disease and so heavy a Judgment and so gracious a Rescue from it should never be forgotten To be rescued from Death from so great a Death is a very great Mercy Psal. 71. 19 20. Psal. 116. 3 4 5 6. It was by the Soveraign Goodness and meer Mercy and Grace of God that I obtained this Deliverance all this he did for a most unworthy Sinner for an impatient and fretful Sinner too is not this wonderful Mercy with a witness a Mercy never to be forgotten as long as I have a Day to live and I may say to you Come and bless the Lord with me come and help me to praise his Holy Name But on this I shall insist more when I come to that place that we ought not only to praise God our selves but to exhort others also to give Thanks at the Remembrance of his Holiness I have cause to do so for how many has he suffered to sink when the Waves were not so high against them as those that rowl'd over me the Storms and the Winds that blew them down not so fierce in some respect against them as they were against me and yet they are covered in the Grave whilst I though sorely weatherbeaten have outlived the Storm How many are there dead since I was ill many excellent and Holy Men are now silent in the Dust who were more knowing more useful more zealous and better qualified than ever I am like to be and yet God has spared a poor Shrub whilst he has torn up some of the Cedars of our Lebanan by the Roots Therefore to quicken my self and in some measure to excite others who have been recovered after long and sore Affliction O let us all agree to remember such reviving Mercies as God is pleased to vouchsafe us when he brings us from the Grave Let not a day pass wherein you do not call to Mind what he has done When you awake then remember what a great Mercy your Sleep is and what you would once have given even all the World if you had had it for one Hour of sound Rest Never bow your Knees in Prayer but call to mind his Mercy that has loosed your Bonds mitigated your Distress and enabled you to pray When you enter into such Assemblies as this on his Holy Day then remember what sad Sabbaths those were when you were confined to your sick Beds and could do nothing but if you had so much hope send your sorrowful Requests to beg the Prayers of others and when instead of singing his Praises as you now do you could only sigh and groan when you are with others speak of his excellent Goodness and when you are alone delight to meditate upon it let nothing no Tentations no Diversions or Business draw you to forget so merciful a God and so gracious a Benefactor If you have any remaining Pains left let these make you thankful that you have no more and that you are not as you once were 'T is much easier to think of our Wounds when they are in some measure healed than to bear their Smart when they are upon us and when you see others seized with Sickness and with manifold Calamities of this vain Life then bless God that you have a shining Sun whilst they are overtaken with a rainy Day I speak to those of you that have been sick having been so my self with what care and Compassion did this good God remember us He remembers his tender Mercies and his loving-kindnesses for they have been ever of old Psal. 25. 6. If we any way help the meanest of his Servants in their Distress he forgets not our Work and Labour of Love which we have shewed to his Name Heb. 6. 10. He remembers the Service we have done him so as to reward it he remembers the Sincerity of our Endeavours and Desires so as to encourage us and we should keep in our Minds his Bounties and his Love to us that we may serve him more and especially those that come to revive us after a long Misery and to bring us out of a State that seemed altogether helpless and unrelievable There is not a Moment of our time wherein he does not load us with his Benefits and there should scarce a Moment go from us without some Ejaculation or Breathing after him He has not been as a barren Wilderness to us and we should give him Thanks whilst as with the Joy of Harvest we reap the Fruits of his Bonignity There is not any the greatest or the least Deliverance that we obtain but 't is first produced and then carried on by his alone care Let us that are recovered remember
his Family as a Little Church when he is at home and that by an unintermitting Diligence and Watchfulness antidotes himself against the Contagions of bad Examples and vain Company and the Temptations of an evil World when he is abroad Who is it that walks so circumspectly as to be unblameable and without Offence Who is it that is so couragious in his Reproofs so zealous of good Works so tender of his own Salvation and of the Salvation of others as he ought to be Our neglect of many thousand Duties calls for long and severe Punishments at the Hands of God And it is a Subject of great Wonder that he will be gracious even to any of the Sons of Men. And what reason has every one that is delivered from Sickness and Pain and Death to bless his holy Name and to say What am I O Lord God that thou shouldst visit and uphold and refresh so great so inexcusable so wilful a Sinner as I have been What am I a poor Worm of the Earth that thou shouldst so mercifully regard me What am I that I should live by thy Goodness when I have so often deserved to die by thy Justice What am I that when I had spent so much of my Time to little purpose thou shouldst give me still more time that he should again put me into his Vineyard when I had loiter'd in it for so long a space and when I had misimproved many thousand Talents and knew not what to answer for them he should pass by and remit my former Debts and put into my Hands a new Stock What am I that his Dew should remain upon my Branches when he might have said of me as of the barren Fig-tree Cut it down why cumbreth it the ground any longer O what Grace is this that a God whom I had so frequently and so heinously provoked should spare me to recover Strength That when I had mock'd him with so many cold and lazy Prayers he should give me opportunity to pray again when I had so often misimproved his Sabbaths and his Gospel and the Offers of his Son that he should continue to me the Blessings of his holy Day the Invitations of his Word and the Calls of Christ that so I may repent of my careless Hearing my Lukewarmness and my Unbelief In the humble sense of our own Unworthiness let us contemplate and admire that God that brings us from the Grave Many People will say If we were humbled and if we did repent God would soon help us This is very true but if God should never be merciful to us till we are prepar'd for Mercy his Mercy and his Help I am afraid would come very late For as we may say It is of the Lord's Mercies that we are not consumed because his Compassions fail not so 't is of the Lord's Mercy that we are delivered and he is gracious because he will be so 2. When we are delivered from Sickness and from the Grave we must remember that Deliverance so as to excite our selves to more Fervour and Affection Before all our Duties we should stir up our selves and that is to be done by an intense and serious application of our Minds to that particular thing which we go about by considering aright the Nature and Consequence of a well-performed Duty Thus when we are going to pray we should say Remember O my Soul to what a glorious God thou dost approach and with what humble Self-abhorrence thou shouldst look unto his Majestick Throne Remember thy own Vileness thy Sins thy Miseries and thy Wants and what need thou hast of a Mediator to make thy poor and thy mean Oblation to be an acceptable Sacrifice what need thou hast of wrestling and striving that thou mayst obtain a Blessing Thus when we give Thanks we may say Remember O my Soul the excellent Perfections of God and the Benefits which thou hast received their Seasonableness their Worth and all the wonderful Particulars they are attended with This excitation of our selves is not acquirable by a few cold and transient Thoughts 't is not one Sally of Religious Meditations now and then but a continuance of these Acts arguing and pleading the Case with our own Souls till the Fire of our Love and Thankfulness begin to burn We should think of the Mercies of God till our Hearts under the sense of his Goodness begin to melt and warm till all that is within us move and stir with holy Elevations towards him Then will the Holy Spirit cherish our Endeavours And when we are with all the Skill we can tuning our Harps he will come in to our Assistance and make the Musick more harmonious and our Praise more sweet and by his vital Influences banish all that Coldness that does usually damp and clog our Hearts in the Duties of Religion There is a great advantage in Soliloquies and a Man may in this Work talk to himself without the reproach of folly This is a means to quiet and appease a rising Storm Psal. 42. 5. and this is the way to make us look upon it with Delight and Thankfulness when 't is past and gone We know that those Sermons which do but explain Truths to us and present them only in their native Excellency and Reasonableness do not equally affect us as those do that are pressed with a fervent and lively Application Nor do those Mercies which we only remember make so much impression as those which we often call to mind and as often urge upon our Hearts When we come before God we must make his Altar smoak with burning Frankincense we must cover it with our chearful Praises and a flaming Love Our knowledg of his Persections is obscure and weak but our Sense causes us very distinctly to feel his Benefits and therefore all our Affections should ascend towards him When his Sun shines full upon us our Hearts should open at his Coming smell with a sweeter Savour upon the being visited with his comfortable Beams As upon our being brought from the Grave and restor'd to Health there is a new Strength in our Bodies so there must be a new Vigour in our Souls and as we discover a very great Earnestness in our Petitions when we want a Mercy so there ought to be as much Fervor in Acknowledgment and return of Thanks when we have received it 3. After we are delivered from the Grave we ought to remember such a Mercy with very great Sincerity i. e. there ought to be a Correspondence between our outward Expressions and the more undiscernable Motions of our Hearts There must be in our Understandings an high Esteem of him who is the Author of all our Good a most deliberate and free choice of him as our Happiness and this Esteem and this Choice is the genuine Product of a real Admiration There is nothing indeed more common than for People on the smallest occasions to say I thank God for this or that but the manner in which
again the first Visit they make is to their old Good-fellows as they call them and they are welcomed into the jolly Company with full Bowls and with loud Huzzaes but let us go to such as will entertain us with Praises to God for our deliverance and not drink our healths but seriously pray for them Eightly When God has brought us from the Grave let us by all means see that so sore an Affliction and so great a Deliverance may be sanctified to us And we may know that they are so when they produce these following effects First When they take off our hearts from the World and the Creatures and drive us more to God Secondly When they make us more frequent and fervent in our Prayers Thirdly When they produce those holy ends for which they were sent upon us Fourthly When they make us to acknowledge God and to see his disposal and his hand in all that is come upon us Ruth 1. 20. The Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me Ver. 21. The Lord hath testified against me and the Allmighty hath afflicted me Fifthly When they make us to humble our selves and to lay our Mouths in the dust knowing that tho our troubles were very severe yet they were very just Ezek. 16. 63. That thou mayest remember and be confounded and never open thy mouth any more because of thy shame when I am pacified towards thee for all that thou hast done saith the Lord God And Job 42. 5. When they fill our Hearts with Admiration and our Mouths with his Praise Seventhly When the Mercies we receive carry our Affections with more flame towards the Benefactor from whence they came As the warmth of the shining Sun causes a new fragancy and a sweeter smell among all the Flowers of the Garden Eighthly When they bring us to more knowledge of God and to more true calmness and joy in him These are glorious Effects of a sanctified affliction and of a sanctified escape from it and a sign that they came not by a common but by a special Providence and by a right of the Covenant of Grace by which all things are ours I might add in the ninth place when we taste his Fatherly Goodness and Love in all that we enjoy if we find these things within us 't is a sign we have both heard the Rod and him that did appoint it Mich. 6. 9. Oh how happy are we if God by taking away our health has given us himself and if by sending sharp sickness and pain upon us he has prepared us for a sweeter relish of his Love Happy are we if our Temporary Sickness tend to an Eternal Health and our short Sorrows to an Everlasting Joy Happy yet again are we if he have not only Commanded us to take up our beds and walk but also said unto us that our Sins are forgiven if we can say with Hezekiah Isa. 38. 17. Behold for Peace I had great Bitterness but thou hast in Love to my Soul delivered it from the Pit of Corruption for thou hast cast all my Sins behind thy Back It must be our great endeavour that after we have been tryed we may come forth like Gold and that we do not as the three Children in another case come out with our old Garments and with the same Sins upon us Let us earnestly beg of God that we may have a compleat Salvation and a total Recovery That as our Bodies are supplied with new strength so our Souls may prosper also For to be diseased in our Souls whilst our Bodies thrive is as if the House in which one lives were very well repaired and adorned to all advantage and the Man that dwells in so fair an Habitation were forced to go in raggs so fine a dwelling and so ordinary an Inhabitant would not agree well together Oh let us take care that whilst God has healed our Diseases we be not inwardly distempered with the Plague of our own Hearts That Man is not to be called healthful that let him look never so well has a Disease in his Vitals that by slow Degrees preys upon his Life Neither can that Man be truly said to be recovered whose Soul is either void of Grace or that having had it in some measure languishes and decays He is composed of Contradictions of Life and Death at the same time he is alive and well as to his Body but his Soul is dead in Trepasses and Sins The most excellent and valuable part of himself does remain under the power of Death and whilst it is so is an Object more unpleasing to God than a dissolving Carcass in the Grave would be to us The Welfare and Recovery of our Souls is what we ought more to seek than the Welfare of our Bodies Both indeed are Mercies but the former is much the greater of the two What is Purple and fine Linnen and soft Raiment that sets off a Man to the Eyes of others to that Faith and Love and Patience and Hope and those other Graces of the Spirit that beautifie the Soul and render it amiable in the Eye of God What is all the Meat and Drink that refresh our Bodies to that Heavenly Manna that Celestial Nourishment that an healthful holy Soul feeds upon The prosperity of our Bodies their ease and capacity of performing their several Actions is one of the greatest Ternporal Mercies but alas this will signifie nothing at all if we do not prosper in our Souls There is a way indeed whereby we may gather Grapes of Thorns and Figs of Thistles i. e. Refreshment and Comfort from those Afflictions that peirct us to the quick and that Sorrow which was at first unwelcom to us may prove an Angel of Light and strike off our Chains if we can say with David It is good for me that I have been afflicted that I might learn thy Statutes Psal. 119. 71. Ver. 67. Before I was afflicted I went astray but now have I kept thy Word His was a very blessed Cross that flourisht into such fruit as this I think I should not say amiss should I say that God has as it were brought every person here from the Grave and saved him from going down into the Pit from a Grave and a Pit which has been often digged for us by the Plots and Designs of our Enemies and into which we had long ago fallen had not God mercifully saved and helped us God has very lately done great things for our Brethren in Ireland whereof I do believe your Hearts are glad for as you mourn'd with them in their Sorrows so t is fit you participate with them in the Joys that they now have by the quick advances of their increasing Deliverance and from the dangers that so nearly threatned them And God has not after the mighty wonders of his Providence left us here in England when destruction has been coming towards us with hasty paces when it has from the proud Fleet of our Enemies threatned
consider how they give you notice of the haste of Time and to this purpose your Clocks may be of excellent use if as one says you design them not only as Civil Servants but as Militant Sentinels to advertise you every hour that your Enemy is advanced a step nearer to you for as every toling Bell may be said to be the Clock of Death so every Clock may not unfitly be called the Passing Bell of Time Thirdly Our Sickness should also teach us to be moderate in all those Pleasures that relate only to the Body Such we may use indeed as are necessary to divert our Minds when we are wearied with Study or the Duties of our Calling Such as are â—east expensive and take up the least me such as are no way scandalous and such as are both lawful and â—onvenient but we must especialâ—y avoid all those things that minister to Temptation to Sensuality to Covetousness to rash Anger 's and whatsoever else it is that indisposes us for Prayer for Self-Examination and all the other serious Acts of Religion for which we must be in a constant readiness We must enrich our Souls with nobler and higher Joys in communion with God in meditating on his Works and Attributes the Wonders of his Grace in Christ the mighty Preparations that he has made for our Happyness and Glory and these will be a good improvement of our Sickness and Recovery Nor will they be followed with such gloomy sorrows that eclipse all that which the World calls a brisk and a merry Life After this manner should our Sickness teach us to regard our Bodies not to be over-fond of them not to glory in our Strength in our Health in our Riches or any thing that is but of a short Continuance For wherein are all these things or wherein is Man himself whose Breath is in his Nostrils to be accounted of Jer. 9. 23 24. Secondly Do not provoke God to cut off your Life Your Life is an excellent Gift which those of us that have recovered have but newly received let us not by any means abuse it lest it be taken from us again which God will do if we make no suitable returns to the Kindness of him our Benefactor Eccl. 7. 17. Be not over-much wicked neither be thou foolish why shouldst thou dy before the time i. e. If we continue in a course of sin the Divine Vengeance will overtake us and make us to feel the sharp Effects of his just Severity and of our own Transgression To this end we must First Beware of all gluttonous Excesses in what we eat and drink For though by going beyond the bounds of what is lawful we discern no great hurt for the present yet we shall lay the foundation of manyfold Diseases which may break out afterwards and vitiate our Blood and waste our Spirits and when the pleasure of our Appetites is past we shall have a remaining Bitterness and Wounds and Sorrow Many wise and observing Men believe that of those that outlive their Childhood there is scarce one of twenty yea or of an hundred that dyeth but Gluttony is the principal Cause tho not the most immediate There is nothing that makes a Disease more insupportable than the thought of having brought it upon our selves by our own Carelesness and Security How many by this Method are withered in the Flower of their Age when they thought their Evening and Decay at a mighty distance What Havock and Murder and Desolation is made in the World by the force of the Sword and the violence of unjust Wars and yet more perish by their own Intemperance and all Diseases even those that are Epidemical Natural or Casual are by this and other Vices that attend it rendred far more sharp lasting malignant and incurable by that stock of corrupted Matter that they lodge in the Body to feed those Diseases and that Impotency that these Vices bring upon Nature to resist them Hale's Letter to his Son p. 17. Tho it be very true That let a Man be never so Religious he must both be sick and dye yet the prevailing sense of a Deity will sweeten these Evils when they come and also keep them longer off As t is said of Wisdom Length of Days are in her right Hand Prov. 3. 16. And 't is said by the Fear of the Lord Prov. 3. 11. By me thy days shall be multipled and the years of thy Life shall be increased And Chap. 10. 27. The Fear of the Lord prolongeth days but the years of the wicked shall be shortned But if our Belly be our God our end will be destruction even in this World Phil. 3. 19. When Men are gratifying their Appetites in all that they desire they are undermining their own Prosperity and giving fire to that Train which will certainly blow them up and at the rate they live they may well say Come let us eat and drink for to morrow we dye For indeed their Excess to day may cause their Death to morrow How many are now in their Graves over whom it may be truly writ This Man killed himself with drinking And how odious must the Memory of such an one be that so made himself away But let us remember Life is so great a Blessing that it is not for the sake of a few merry Companions or to gratify their humor to be parted with There are a sort of People that through the Power of their Ignorance are very apt to quarrel with the Providence of God for making their Lives so short and yet they will make them shorter than otherwise they might be and truly such sort of men have the least reason because their chief happiness lies in this World and not in that which is to come and their action is as foolish as if one would make haste to pull down the House he lives in and yet when he has done it knows not where to get another Secondly We must avoid all anxious Fears all inward fretting and discontent all foolish Anger Envy and the like passions for these are great enemies to Life As also all uncommunicated sadness and lasting griefs for any of those troublesome Accidents will unavoidably molest our present state And no less prejudicial are all uncertain hopes all immoderate cares and over-eager Studies for the mind by too vehement an intention will communicate its trouble to the Body and this will pine and languish by its sympathy and nearness to that and the Body cannot conceal the displeasure that arises to it from the more inward and spiritual troubles of the Soul There will be a Cloud of Sorrow in the Forehead when there is an abiding sadness in the heart whereas the Right Government of our Affections will spread a chearfulness both over the Body and the Mind 'T is said of Moses Deut. 34. 7. That he was an hundred and twenty years old when he dyed his Eyes were not dim nor his natural Force abated and to this
the constant meekness and quietness of his Spirit contributed very much It was Mr. Burroughs his Opinion that Mr. Dod was the meekest Man upon the Earth in his time and speaking of him as then alive he says He is about fourscore and ten years old and lately preached twice every Lords-day and the constant health of his Body was such that he was able to continue heavenly discourse till midnight from day to day and to Preach all the day long his Spirit not failing at all And thus by keeping the constant frame of his Spirit he was hardly known to be in any Distemper of Spirit See Burroughs Serm. on Matth. xi l. 2. p. 358. Thirdly That we may not provoke God to cut us off our Lives must be laid out for his Glory If we live to our selves he may well throw us aside as a broken Vessel wherein he has no pleasure Which of us would suffer a barren and unfruitful Tree to Cumber the Ground for many years And do we think that his Patience will always let us alone and not after it has been the witness of our Idleness turn to Fury and cut us down If we do nothing for him and his Glory how can we expect that his Creatures should give us nourishment and strength that his Earth should bear us and his Sun shine upon us How can we ask our daily Bread from our most gracious Master if we lay not out the refreshment we receive from it in his own Service Which of you would keep a Servant in your Family and give him all necessary Accommodations and yet be content to see none of your Work done Would you not with Anger turn him off And do we deserve better usage at the hands of God Would we have him to spread our Table and to fill our Cup that we may sin against him What Prince is there that would give money from his Treasures to carry on a War against his own Crown or to support a Rebel If we oppose our Creator or forget him 't is no wonder if he throw us out of the câ—re of his Providence 't is no wonder if his Justice deprive us of a Life which we so vainly spend And indeed when we consider how little we do for that God who has done so much for us every one of us may lay his hand upon his breast and say Lord be merciful to me a sinner for I deserve to dye Whatever care and temperance we use in our Dyet our Exercises or our Recreations yet if we be unprofitable Servants he may be provoked to give us our last Summons and say Give an account of thy Stewardship for thou shalt be no longer Steward With what face can we pray to God to keep us from sudden Death and to prolong our Lives when the Language of our former Actions will declare this to be the sense of our prayers Lord give me a longer Life and I will sin against thee more And is that a frame that becomes a Creature and a Sinner to his great Creator and final Judge It may cause God to say It repent's me that I have made such a man whole and that I have brought him from the Grave Thirdly Live much in a little time 'T is no great matter if we arrive safe to Heaven tho we do not live so many years in the Body as others may attain to tho we lose the sight of the Sun Moon and Stars yet the first sight of the Face of God will make amends for that and all our other losses Let us therefore rouze up our selves let us cast off all our former sloath let us contend and strive with all our force with all the powers of our Souls that we may enter in at the strait gate and lay hold on Eternal Lise It is for Heaven and Salvation and methinks the very name of such a place and state should set our Souls on fire it should enflame our desires and quicken our diligence and raise our hopes Let us run with as hasty a pace as ever we can let us not stay to listen to the charms or pleasures of the World Let no Frowns discourage us no Difficulties startle us no Dangers keep us back 't is for a Crown of Glory Let us keep that in our Eye and let us consider who are the Spectators of our Race God looks on to help us here and to reward us at the last Angels applaud us the Saints on Earth pray for us and the World will admire us though our Diligence will condemn their Sloth How busie and how unwearied is the Devil for our Ruin and shall we shrink at any Labor when we have the advantage of that evil Spirit What he does is with Envy against us and with rage against God But we have hope and tho we toil to the very Evening and Conclusion of our Day we have a Master that will reward us very well How solicitous and how careful are Men for the Affairs of this present Life and shall not we be as much solicitous for those of the Life to come How will they rise early and sit up late for a good Bargain or a little Profit and shall not we do as much to save our Souls for ever Oh let us suffer no day to go over our Heads wherein we are not more watchful and circumspect in our Actions more fervent in our Prayers more concern'd for the Welfare of our Neighbour and our own than we were the day before Let us now do as much in a Week as we did before in a Month and as much in a Day as we have done in a Week before Let us indeavour to have more Light in our Understandings more Love in our Wills and a greater and more universal Warmth in our Affections Let us that have been sick consider what an interruption that Sickness has made in our Life When our sorrowful Months were upon the account of those Sorrows to us Months of Vanity wherein we were not able to pursue the true ends and business of Life Let us fill up the vacant space with an after Diligence And seeing our great Work in the World has had so long a stand Let us now fall upon it with a fresh Vigor and we may by running faster and by the Grace of God overtake some of our Fellow Christians that are at present a great way before us and who are many Paces before us on the way to Glory We have it may be formerly done some small service for Christ but now we must do more than we ever did When we have obtained so many Blessings at his Hands it would be inexcusable if we had not a Mouth to acknowledge his Goodness and an Heart to love him a Mouth to speak for him and for his Glory upon all occasions and an Heart to admire and depend upon his Promise We have done too little for him that has done so much for us Let the consideration of this
humble us for our former Sins and direct us what to do for the time to come that our Speech our Conversation may be more profitable than it has been 1 Cor. 15. 58. Eccl. 9. 10. Fourthly Let us live so that our Examples may do good whilst we live and when we are dead For every Man that has the Spirit of Christianity i. e. a generous and a publick Spirit will not only be concerned for himself but for others and not only for the present but for the future Generation And as in this luxurious and most wicked Age of ours there is like to be transmitted to Posterity a great number of very bad Examples so it should be the Care and Endeavour of every good Man to prevent their mischievous influence by doing what in him lies to mend the World We live indeed in a time wherein the most part of People can talk very well but never was there any time in which there was less Practice It is a most easie thing to discourse well but none but a true Believer can live as he ought to do according to the Gospel which requires an universal and a shining Holiness Our Actions and Examples will have a more powerful efficacy than our Words and whilst the one does but touch the Ear the other will penetrate into the very Souls of those that observe us and render themselves Masters of their Approbation even almost whether they will or not We are obliged to have a great regard to the Salvation of our Neighbours and there is no course more likely to succeed than this They will easily follow us when we take them by the hand and advise them to go in no other way but in that where we go our selves When we are fervent in our Prayers it will shame their Coldness when we are serious in our attending on the Word the sight of our seriousness will make them more attentive and our Heat of Affection may kindle some Sparks of Love to God in their colder Hearts and the necessity of a good Example seems to be greater in Cities than in other places for as one observes Du-bose Serm. p. 495. It is certain that great Towns are ordinarily great Theaters of Vices as the Multitude is more numerous so wicked Examples are more frequent Sin hardens it self by the number and authorizes it self by the quantity of Accomplices And as the Fire burns more by a great heap of wood or coals put together so the Ardour of Sin warms and inflames it self by a great Throng of Persons that communicate to one another their criminal Affections Besides in vast and populous Cities they have more Liberty to sin because it is less observed and taken notice of as a Serpent conceals it self among a multitude of Bushes Whereas in little Villages the least faults are soon minded many times in greater places very great Enormities are not discern'd and it concerns us also whom God has raised from the Grave to be more exact in our Course for People will look with a more curious Eye upon us that are recovered to see what we do when they will not it may be look so much to the hand that heal'd us As the People câ—me more to see Lazarus that was risen than Jesus that reviv'd him from the Grave much people of the Jews came not for Jesus sake only but that they might see Lazarus also whom he had raised from the dead Joh. 12. 9. Wicked men are punish'd in Hell for all the Evil they have done 〈◊〉 the World and for all that they have been the cause of it is a new addition to their torments to think how many are going to the same miserable place whose damnation will lye at their door As 't is commonly said that Dives requested of Abraham that some messenger might be sent to warn his Brethren lest they came to the same place not from any Love to their Souls for there is no such Charity in Hell but from a fear that if they came to the same torment his own misery would be the greater for having been in a great measure the cause of theirs by his bad Example And on the contrary 't is a great pleasure to those in Heaven to think that they have been any way instrumental to the Glory of their great Lord and that the Seeds that by good Instructions and holy Example they threw upon the World flourish into Fruit when they are dead Thus they blossom in the dust and their Actions as 't is fabulously reported of some of the Bodies of the Popish Saints send forth a sweet perfume after Death to all the places round about The Saints of God do good indeed to the World when they are gone not by Intercession as Mediators for us but by the good Works which they performed here below and tho their Works follow them to increase their reward yet the remembrance of them stays behind It is hardly to be imagined how far the power of a good Example does diffuse its self when the person that gave it is removed from the World It does encourage others to Religion and to a perseverance in it seeing it has no new difficulties but only those which others have conquered who are now at rest with God Therefore are we commanded to be followers of them who through Faith and Patience have inherited the Promises Heb. 6. 6. We are to follow their Faith considering the end of their Conversation Heb. 13. 7. Those of us that have been so happy as to have had a Religious Education tho we are depriv'd of our Parents yet we full well remember their serious pathetical Exhortations how they did earnestly intreat us to fear God and keep his Commandments We can remember how they set some portion of their time apart every day for Reading the Word and secret Prayer and the other Duties of Religion and when we are gone if we have been truly sincere others cannot but remember our Example Your Children and Servants will greatly mind what you do that are the Master of the Family and you either very much promote or hinder their Salvation for which you must be answerable to God in the approaching day of Judgment Is it not a Credit to your Reputation when your Servant and Apprentice shall thus remember your Example and say Oh how Conscientious was my Master in his Buying and Selling how afraid was he of imposing upon others or of cheating them with many good words whilst he had deceitful intentions in his heart How afraid was he lest the business of his Trade should Justle out Religion or the Shop be an hindrance to the Duties of his Closet or of Family Prayer How careful was he to set aside some of his Gains for the Charitable Relieving of the Poor As to you that are Parents your Children will certainly mind more what you do than what you say If you Sanctifie the Sabbath and are serious in your Service to God you may
himself who in the night that he was betrayed was providing a Feast of Comfort for his poor Followers Fourthly T is very delightful to God when his Servants after the receipt of Mercies joyn their praises together If we had no experiences of his Goodness to us yet so excellent are the Perfections of his Nature that we ought even then to praise him much more when he is so kind to us who have deserved nothing He is pleased with with that homage which we give him by our Prayers and our hearing of the Word and when two or three are gathered together he is there It will also please him to see our Hearts and our Mouths full of Thanks for to this very purpose he gives his Blessings to us and it is grateful to him to see that they are not lost upon us As it is pleasant to an Husband-man to see a seasonable Harvest and that his Labour and Pains have not been in vain When there is a Consort of Musick there is the greatest Harmony and when a whole Assembly of sincere Christians joyn their Voices and their Hearts together with what a delightful sound do they go up before the Throne of God For as one observes the blessing and acceptance that Religion receives from the Divine Majesty is much greater for the publickness of it even in this sense two are better than one for they have a good reward for their labour In this sense their complicated services are more forcible their threefold Cord is not easily broken Not that God is prevailed upon to any change in himself or his Government by the services of his Creatures though in a multitude but he is pleased to found the occasions and opportunities of his most bountiful recompences in the drawing near of their greater numbers For as when God was pleased to communicate himself more freely he did it to a multitude of Creatures so he delights in receiving back the glory of having thus communicated himself from a multitude also and as there is more of himself in more of his Creatures whether of several sorts or of the same so there is more of his blessing in their approaches to him Whole Duty of Nations p. 9. What does the Great God obtain by all his Acts of Bounty to his Creatures but a Revenue of praise what other end does he design in all his Mercies therefore we should be most willing to pay him this easie Tribute Oh how pleasant is it to come into the house of God with the voice of joy and praise and with a multitude that keep holy day Psal. 42. 4. Private prayer does not honour him so much as publick this therefore as the now mentioned person expresses it it was the Policy of Nineveh's natural Religion to unite their Force in Humiliation Fasting and Prayer and to take advantage of joyning the mute desires of the Beasts that have a voice in the Ears of God Abraham's Servant made the Camels kneel down while he prayed to God And it was as he further observes Davids Art to gather up all the Praises even of the lowest of the Creatures that could so meanly give them and inspiring them with his own Reason made them as it were to follow his Harp and to unite in his own Halleluiahs Thus he served himself of them that making by them a greater Present of glory to God he might receive the greater Blessing from him We ought to be as eloquent in the numbring of our Mercies as we are in the compution of our Sorrows and our Praises ought to be as loud or rather louder than our Groans And yet alass how rare a thing is this mutual praise And it may be as a sign of it that so many desire Funeral Sermons to be preached for their departed Friends and few desire any Sermons for their own Recovery from Sickness and Death or for their Friends upon the like occasions 'T is strange that we should be more ready to mourn than to rejoyce and that our Sorrows should be more passionate and fluent than our joys that we are more enclined to bewail our Losses than to be glad for our Mercies especially when one has the advantage of pleasure on its side which the other has not we always meet and mingle our Tears together when our Friends are to be laid into the Grave and we should as solemnly meet when any of our Friends have been nigh unto Death and have escaped it that for so great a Mercy we may return to God our Common Praise Fifthly This mutual praising of God is a resemblance of Heaven In doing this we are beginning that blessed Work which we hope to be employed in for ever We poor Sinners here below are then something like to those Holy Souls that are above Will it not be a great part of Heaven to admire and adore and praise God for all his Deliverances granted to us to his Church and our fellow Saints There will be a common Joy and an Union of Praises for all his Mercies from the beginning to the conclusion of the World And then all the Myriads of his Elect being safely gathered into his own Kingdom shall keep a Thanksgiving-day and that Day shall be for ever It is to that pleasant and chearful Country that we at length hope to go Let us use our selves now to the Language of the Place and learn betimes to Sing the Songs of Sion Let us raise our Voices as high as ever we can in the Praises of our God and then knowing how unsuitable our highest Elevations are to his Excellent and Glorious Majesty let us long to joyn with Glorified Spirits in their louder and sweeter Hymns and being sensible of our own Weakness we may call to the blessed Angels to all Beings that are in Heaven or on the Earth in the Air or in the Seas to help us to praise the Lord. As we have the Example of David in sevèral Psalms and in the 103. 20 21 22. Bless the Lord ye his Angels that excel in strength that do his Commandments hearkening unto the voice of his word Bless ye the Lord all ye his Hosts ye Ministers of his that do his pleasure Bless the Lord all his Works in all places of his Dominions bless the Lord O my Soul The Conclusion of the Whole AND now to finish what I design to say from these Words Having been delivered from a long and severe Sickness I would most earnestly beg of you all to help me to praise the Lord for his great Goodness and Mercy to me Long I was upon the very brink of the Grave and nothing in this World could ease my Pain or mitigate my Sorrows God himself hath wrought Salvation for me And 't is for your sakes as well as mine own that you may see an instance of his mighty Power and Goodness who as he hath delivered me can also deliver you when you come to Straits and Difficulties I heartily wish that seeing my