of any necessity of death As God made us living Creatures so his power was able to sustain us immortal creatures we had bodily life by our soul in our body and spiritual life by Gods Image in both but sin brought on us death of all sorts Death spiritual in the loss of Gods Image death bodily in the begun corruption of our body and death eternal in the endless ruine of both And whom would not this single thought afflict with dread and sorrow to see what a change sin hath made in the condition of man If Adam would have lived without sin he might have lived without end But now by his credulous receiving the Serpents Poyson Death is glued to our nature necessity of evil to the freedom of our will and all misery to our selves Another dark and posing thought did arise from the progress of death which keeps no order or method It thrusts its sickle not only into the ripe corn but the green blade it nips the blossom as well as gathers the fruit it dissolves the knot that was but new made between the soul and the body as well as that which age and years had conâ—â—rmed There were I observed skulls of all Sizes There were some who had never seen the Sun to pass from one Tropick to the other Others there were whose life could not be reckoned by daies or hours but by minutes they dropt only from the Womb to the Grave And is not this amongst the secrets of God that thousands should thus pass through the world and be determined to different Estates for Eternity What can I say But that the waies of God are unsearchable and his Judgements past finding out As it now shews his Soveraignty thus to deal with his Creatures as it pleaseth him so the Great Day will manifest the Wisdom and Justice of God that is wrapt up in these mysterious providences He that is the Judge of all will be found to be righteous towards all A third sad thought The consuming power of the grave did stir up within me so that I was ready to say Can these dry bones live Can these mingled dusts be distinguished Can the dusts that are scattered into distances be ever united Doth not the Noble and the Base the Saint and the Sinner lye equally under the power of corruption Who then would not dread to descend into the Grave and make Hemans question Will God shew wonders to the dead shall the dead arise and praise him But when I consider that Believers in their ascending into heaven do only let fall their bodies to the earth as Elijah dropt his Mantle when he was taken up and that their Spirits return to God that gave them That Death striketh not on the New man but on the Tabernacle which is a common Lodging both to Flesh and Spirit my fears are greatly Alleviated for who is much solicitous for the Cabinet when the Jewel is safe Yea when I think that death which separates our persons from the world our soul from the body and every part of our body from another cannot dissolve our Union with Christ but that then we sleep in him and shall be raised by him and conformed to him as the pattern of our glory O how do these most radiant thoughts dispell both the black fears of death and the lightsome comforts of the world as the rising Sun makes the bright stars of heaven to vanish as well as the dark shades of the night How little then doth the love of this life or the difficulties of death abate the desires of a Believer to be dissolved and to be with Christ which is far better Who can wonder at old Simeons importunity to depart in peace when his eyes had seen the Salvation of God and his arms embraced it Who would not be of the same mind that hath once tasted of the Clusters of the heavenly Canaan to long after the full Vintage How pathetical is that of Austin upon Gods answer to Moses Thou canst not see my face for no man can see me and live Who replies with great confidence Lord is that all that I cannot see thy face and live Eja Domine moriar ut te videam videam ut hic moriar nolo vivere volo mori dissolvi cupic essecum Christo I pray thee Lord then let me dye that I may see thy face Or let me see thee that I may dye in this place I would not live I would dye I desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ Thus also have other Saints been affected who have had death in desire and life in patience O what a strange change then hath Christ made in death and the grave and his grace in the heart and affections of Believers Death which sin brought into the world is now become the only means to destroy and kill sin Death which is only contrary unto life is now turned into a Port and passage into life So that when we pass out of this life we lose neither life nor being but are admitted to a more glorious life and being than ever we had Death that before was an armed Enemy is now made a reconciled and firm friend a Physician to cure all our diseases and an Harbinger to make way for glory The Grave also by Christs lying in it is become a bed of rest in which his Saints fetch a short slumber untill he awaken them to a glorious Resurrection It is the Chamber into which he invites his beloved ones to hide themselves untill his indignation be past the Arke into which he shuts his Noahs whilest he destroyes the world with an overflowing deluge of his wrath and displeasure And therefore it is that by his grace they are not afraid to meet Death which others would shun and make it as a voluntary offering unto God which others pay only as a necessary debt Yea they esteem it as one of the choicest Jewels in that exact Inventory that Paul hath made of the riches of Believers and next unto Jesus Christ bless God for it as the greatest mercy O holy Saviour do thou then who art the Lord both of the dead and of the living unto whom all ought to live and all ought to dye enable me thy servant to love thee above life which of all blessings is the sweetest and to hate sin above death which of all evils is the bitterest to nature that so I may have this testimony of the power of thy grace in the change of my heart that for the enjoyment of perfect Communion with thee I can gladly lose my life and be separated from sin can willingly undergo death which is of all evidences the Clearest Meditation XLIX Vpon a Spring in an high ground THe additional blessing which Achsah sought of Caleb her Father was Springs of water for her south or dry land who gave her the upper and the nether Springs If the distinct recording of this particular in Scripture carry any thing of
themselves a continuance for many yeares In what a differing frame and figure doth it appear to the one and to the other The one behold it as a Bridg lying under their feet to pass them over the Jordan of this life into the Canaan of eternall Blessedness and the other as a Torrent roaring and frighting them with its hasty downfall Gladly therefore would I counsell Christians who enter into the Church Militant by a mysticall death being buried with Christ by Baptisme and cannot pass into the Triumphant but by a Natural death to bear dayly in their Mindes the Cogitations of their inevitable end as the best meanes to allay the fear of death in what dress soever it comes and to make it an inlet into happiness whensoever it comes As Joseph of Arimathea made his Sepulcre in his Garden that in the midst of his delights he might think of death So let us in our Chambers make such Schemes and Representations of Death to our selves as may make it familiar to us in the Emblemes of it and then it will be less gastly when we behold its true visage When we strip our selves of our Garments think That shortly as St. Peter saith we must put off this our Tabernacle I and think again what a likeness there is between our Night-Clothes and our Grave-Clothes between the Bed and the Tombe What a little distance there is between life and death the one being as an Eye open and the other as an Eye shut in the twinkling of an eye we may be living and dead Men. O what ardors of lusâ—s would such thoughts chill and damp what sorrowes for sins past what diligence for time to come to watch against the first stirrings of sin would such thoughts beget It being the property of sin to divert us rather from looking upon our end then embolden us to defie it Lord then make me to know my end and the measure of my dayes that I may in my own Generation serve the will of God and then fall asleep as David did and not as others who fall asleep before they have done their work and put off their Bodies before they have put off their sins Meditation LX. Vpon the Natural Heat and the Radical Moisture THere is a Regiment of Health in the Soul as well as in the Body in the inward Man as well as in the outward Man they being both subjects incident to distempers and that from a defect or excess in those qualities which when duely regulated are the Principle and Basis of life and strength What preserves and maintaines the Natural life but the just temperament of the Radicall Moisture and the innate heat and what again endangers and destroyes it but the heat devouring the moisture or the moisture impairing the heat When either of these prevail against each other diseases do suddenly follow And is it not thus in the Soul and Inward Man In it those two signal Graces of Faith and Repentance do keep up and cherish the Spiritual life of a Christian Faith being like Calor innatus the Natural heat and Repentance like Humidum Radicale the Radical moisture If then any by believing should exercise Repentance less or in Repenting should lessen their Believing they would soon fall into one of those most dangerous extreams either to be swallowed up of Sorrow and despair or else to be puffed up with security and presumption Is it not then matter of Complaint that these two Evangelicall Duties as some Divines have called them which in the practise of Christians should never be separated should be lookt upon by many to oppose rather then to promote each other in their operations Some out of weakness cannot apprehend what consistency there can be between Faith and Repentance whose effects seem to be contrary the one working Peace and Joy the other trouble and sorrow the one Confidence the other fear the one Shame the other boldness Now such as these when touched with the sense of their sin judge it their duty rather to mourn then to believe and to feel the bitterness of sin then to taste the sweetness of a Promise and put away comfort from them least it should check and abate the over-flowings of their sorrow Others again whether out of heedlessness or wilfullness I will not determine when they behold the fullness of Grace in the blotting out of sin the freeness of Grace in the healing of Backslidings they see so little necessity of Repentance as they think it below as they so speak a Gospel Spirit to be troubled for that which Christ hath satisfied for It is not Repentance that they should now exercise but Faith Sorrow seems interpretatively to be a jealousie of the truth of Gods Promise in forgiving and of the sufficiency of Christs Discharge who was the surety who hath not left one single Mite of the Debt for believers to Pay Sorrow therefore seems to them as unseasonable as it would be for a Prisoner to mourn when the Prison door is opened and himself set free from debt and bondage Thus this pair of Graces and duties concerning which I may say as God did of Adam it is not good that either of them should be alone are yet divided often times in the practise though indissolubly linked together in the Precept Fain would I therefore evidence to the weak the concord of these two graces in respect of Comfort and to the wilfull the necessity of them both in order unto Pardon Unto the weak therefore I say That the Agreement between Faith and Repentance doth not lie in the immediate impressions which they make upon the Soul which are in some respects opposite to each other but in the Principle from which they arise which is the same the Grace of Christ and in the end which is the same the salvation of Man and in habitude and subordination that they have one to another for Repentance is never more kindly then when it disposeth us to the exercise and actings of Faith whose comforts of joy Peace and Serenity of heart are as Gold which is best laid upon sad and dark colours or as the Polished Diamond that receiveth an addition of lustre from the watering of it Gods Promise is that the Believing Jewes who look upon Christ by an eye of Faith shall be also great Mourners They shall mourn for him as one mourneth for his onely son and shall be in bitterness for him as one that is in bitterness for his first borne Unto the careless or wilfull I also say That God never forgiveth sin but where also he giveth a Penitent and Relenting Heart So that though Faith hath a peculiar nature in the receiving of pardon applying it by way of Instrument which no other grace doth yet Repentance is the express formal qualification that fits for pardon not by way of causality or merit but by way of means as well as of command which ariseth from a Condecency both to God himself who is an holy God and to the nature of the Mercy which is the taking and removing of Sin away Never dream then of such free grace or Gospel mercy as doth supercede a broken and a contrite heart or take off the necessity of sorrowing for sin For Christ did never undertake to satisfie Gods wrath in an absolute and illimited manner but in a well ordered and meet way viz. the way of Faith and Repentance How else should we ever come to taste the bitterness of sin or the sweetness of grace How to prize and esteem the Physician if not sensible of our disease How to adore the love of Christ who redeemed us from the Curse of the Law by being made a Curse for us if not burdened with the weight of our Iniquities Yea how should we ever give God the glory of his Justice in acknowledging our selves worthy of death if we do not in a way of repentance judge our selves as the Apostle bids us Was not this that David did in that solemn Confession of his In which he cries out Against thee thee only have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight that thou mightst be justified when thou speakest and clear when thou judgest Can I therefore wish a better wish to such who are unsensible of their sins than Bernard did to him whom he thought not heedful enough about the judgments of God who writing to him instead of the common Salutation wishing him Salutem plurimam much health said Timorem plurimum much fear that so their confidence may have an allay of trembling Sure I am that it is a mercy that I had need to pray for on my own behalf and I do Lord make it my request that my faith for the pardon of sin may be accompanied with my sorrow for sin and that I may have a weeping eye as well as a believing heart that I may mourn for the evils that I have done against my Saviour as well as rejoyce in the fulness of mercy that he hath shewed to me in a glorious Salvation FINIS
wickedness Is it not solly to refuse the warm breast and to suck the Milk from the bottle when it is dispirited and hath lost both its warmth and lively taste and what less difference is there between a Sermon in the Pulpit and in the Prâ—ss Is it not also wickedness to offer Sacriledge for Sacrifice and to rob God of one Duty to pay him another to withhold the greater and to seem Conscientious in the less Are they not in thus doing fures de se thieves to their own Soules depriving themselves of the profit of both while they are willfull neglecters of each Be wise therefore O Christians in keeping up an high esteem of the Word Preached and be alwayes as Babes for hunger and desire after it though not for knowledg and understanding in it And remember that there is no way so dangerous to lessen your desires as to keep your selves fasting from it For the Word of God still creates new appetites as it satisfies the old and enlargeth the capacities of the Soul as it fills it Use good Books as Apothecaries do their Succedanea one simple to supply the want of another when the Preacher cannot be had then make use of them but let it rather be to stay the stomach in the absence of an Ordinance then to satisfie it And when you enjoy both say as Aristotle sometimes did of the Rhodian and Lesbian Wine when he had tasted of both that the Rhodian was good too but the Lesbian was the pleasanter Holy Books are good and relish well but the Word Preached is more sweet the one is as the Wine the Bridegroom provided at the Marriage Feast and the other as that which Christ made which was easily discerned by the Governour who knew not whence it was to be by far the better Meditation XLII Vpon Mixtures THe wise God hath so tempered the whole Estate of Man in this life as that it consisteth altogether of Mixtures There is no sweet without sower nor sower without sweetness All simples in any kinde would prove dangerous and be as uncorrected drugs which administered unto the Patient would not recover him but destroy him Constant Sorrow without any Joy would swallow us up and simple Joy without any Grief would puff us up both extreames would agree alike in our ruine he being in as dangerous a case who is swolne with Pride as he who is overwhelmed with Sorrow This Mixture then though it seem penall and prejudicial to our comfort is yet Medicinall and is by God as a wise Physician ordered as a Diet most sutable to our Condition and if we did but look into the grounds of it we shall find cause to acknowledge Gods wise Providence and to frame our hearts to a submission of his will without murmuring at what he doth For have we not two Natures in us the Spirit and Flesh the New and Old Man have we not twins in our Womb our Counter-lustings and our Counterwillings Are we not as Plants that are seated between the two different Soiles of Earth and Heaven Is there not then a necessity of a mixed Diet that is made up of two contraries The Physician is not less loyal to his Prince if he give to him an unpleasing Vomit and to a poor Man a cheering Cordiall because his Applications are not according to the dignity of the Person but to the quality of the Disease neither is God the less kind when he puts into our hand the bitter Cup of asfliction to drink of then when he makes us to caste of the Flaggons of his sweetest wine Paul his Thorn in the Flesh what ever the meaning of it be was usefull to keep down that tumor of pride which the abundance of Revelations might have exposed him unto and so joyned together they were like the rod and the Honey which enlightned Jonathans eyes when he had tasted the sweetness of the one God would have him feel the smart of the other At the same time also when God blessed Jacob he Crippled him that he might not think above what was meet of his own strength or ascribe his prevailing to the vehemency of his Wrâ—stling rather then to Gods gracious condescention Yea who is it that hath not experienced such Mixtures to be the constant Methods which he useth towards his dearest Children what are the lives of the best Christians but as a Rainbow which consists half of the moisture of a Cloud and half of the light and beames of the Sun Weeping saith David may endure for a Night but Joy cometh in the Morning And what other thing doth the Apostle speak of himself when he gives the Corinthians an account of his Condition As dying and behold we live as chastened and not killed as sorrowfull and yet alwayes rejoycing as poore yet making many rich as having nothing but yet possessing all things Blessed then is he who doth without repining yield himself to the dispose of Divine Providence rather then accuse it and looks not so much to what at present is gratefull to the sense as to what for the future will be profitable to the whole For in these Mixtures Magna latent beneficia 〈◊〉 non fulgeant great advantages do lye hid though not shine forth Hereby we are put upon the exercise of all those Graces which are accommodated to our imperfect state here below whose acts shall not be compleated in Heaven but shall all cease as being not capacitated for a Fruition and yet are of great use while we are on this side Heaven How necessary is Patience to bear up the Soul under trials that it fret not against God who inflicts them How greatly doth Hope temper any present souer by its expectation of some happy change that may and will follow and so worketh joy in the midst of sadness How even to wonder doth Faith manifest its power in all distresses when it apprehends that there are no degrees of extremity unrelieveable by the Arm of God or inconsistent with his compassions and friendship Again such Mixtures serve to work in us a greater hatred of sin and an earnest longing after Glory in which our life light joyes are all pure and everlasting Our life is without any seed of death our light without any shadow of darkness and our joyes endless Hallelujahs without the interruption of one sigh Therefore are we burdened in our Earthly Tabernacle that we should the more groan to be clothed upon with our house which is from Heaven Therefore yet have we the remainders of sin by which we are unlike God and the first-fruits onely of the spirit by which we resemble him that we might long and wait for the Adoption and Redemption wherein what ever is blended and imperfect shall be done away When not to sin which is here onely our Duty shall be the top branch of our reward and blessedness O holy Lord I complain not of my present lot for though it be not free from mixture yet it is
sometimes by the Root sometimes by the Taste when the likeness of the Leaf is perfectly the same The Cautious Receiver that he be not couzened by adulterated Coyne for true makes an Artificial Touchstone of his Senses he bends it he rings it he rubs it and smells to it that thereby he may finde out what it is The circumspect Merchant contents not himself with the seeing and feeling of his Cloth as it lies made up but he puts it upon the Perch and setting it between the light and himself drawes it leasurely over and so discovers not onely the rents and holes that are in it but the inequality of the threads the unevenness of its spinning the spots and staines that are in it and what not that may make it either to be rejected for its defects or approved for its goodness O how impartial a Judge is light which neither flatters friends nor wrongs enemies which manifests the good as well as the evil to what ever it is applyed This kinde of triall hints to me the best manner of doing that work which every Christian ought to perform with the greatest care the searching and examining of his own wayes I may learn from what is done to the Cloth to do the same Spiritually to my self by setting my actions between the light of the Word and the Discerning power of Conscience that so the one may discover and the other may judge what their rectitude or pravity is and this is best done when every parcel of the Conversation is looked into and scanned as the Cloth that is drawn over the Perch then it is that I find the unevenness of my Duties the distractions of my Thoughts and the unbelief of my Heart which runs as a continued Thread from one end of the Duty unto the other Then it is that I espy those secret staines of Hypocrisie which discolour my services and blemish them to God when they seem fair to the eye of Man Then it is that convinced of my filthiness I cry out My Person wants a Priest which is deformed with infinite guilt that without him cannot be covered My nature wants a Priest which is over-run with an universal leprosie that without him cannot be cured My Sins want a Priest which are for their number as the sands and for their greatness as the Mountains that without him can never be pardoned My holy things want a Priest which are defiled with the daily Eruptions of sin and folly that without him can never be accepted And who is it that thus vieweth himself by this perfect Law of Liberty that is not thus affected What faith Paul of himself I was alive withcut the Law once but when the Commandment came sin revived and I died who was once more full of conceired abilities to perform the Righteousness of the Law without blame Who was more presumptuous in self-Justifications and elated thoughts of his Perfection than the Apostle while he was without the Law that is not without the Letter but without the Spirituall sense and penetrative power of it but when the Commandment came in its Vigour and Life how suddenly did all those misperswasions of his own Righteousness vanish into nothing He then lost his confidence of being Saved by his obedience to the Law and by the light of it discovered those inward Lustings and desires to be sinfull and such as subjected him unto Death which before were wholly neglected and unseen As I would therefore incite Christians to an Exâ—ct discussion of their wayes so would I also direct them to look upon them through no other medium then the Light of the Word Wherewith saith David shall a young Man cleanse his wayes or as the Original imports make clear as Christal by taking heed thereto according to thy Word The Heathen were not altogether Aliens to this Duty of Self-Examination it was Sextius his custome as Seneca reports it when he betook himself to his Nights Rest to question his Soul Quod hodie malum tuum sanasti cui vitio obstetisti What Malady hast thou this day cured What vice hast thou withstood It was also Pythagoras his counsel to his Scholars that each Man should demand of himself Wherein have I offended What good have I done But alâ—ss how confused and in-distinct was that light by which they made this search How little can the Candle-light of Nature discover of the evil of Sin whose Rules and Principles do so much fall in and sute with the wills of the Flesh What Camell Sins did the very best of them swallow down without the least straining at them What swarmes are there of sins which Christians complain of that the Natural Man is totally ignorant of and can no more discover without the aid of the Word than the Eye can discern its own Blood-shed without the help of a Glass We have Pauls own confession in this particular I had not known lust except the Law had said thou shalt not covet Before he onely saw some sins that were as beames for their magnitude but now he is sensible of the smallest motes To the Law then and to the Testimony do you betake your selves O ye sincere and upright ones when you go about this Work fear not its Purity but love it shrink not at its Searching Power but yield up your selves to a free and voluntary admission of its light yea rejoyce and be exceeding glad that by the Light of the Word ye can trace sin home unto its receptacle and can both judge it and mortifie it in the seed and root of it which is the surest and best Way of destroying it He is amongst the First-borne of Christians who communes most with his own heart and looks oftenest into the Books of Conscience which Writes Journalls and not Annalls and is most likely to obtain a double Portion both of Peace and Grace but when he hath done all let him make Davids Prayer the close Search me O Lord and know my heart try me and know my thoughts and see if there be any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting Meditation XLVIII Vpon the sight of a Grave newly made IT is happily no pleasing sight but questionless very profitable to look sometimes into the house appointed for all living as holy Job calls the Grave Though nothing less than beauty can be seen which may delight the Eye yet much may be beheld that may passionately affect the heart The thoughts which it sugested to me were like unto the Cloud that was between the Camp of the Egyptians and the Camp of Israel which had both a dark and bright side The one casts down and the other raiseth up but both are useful My dark and sad thoughts sprang from the consideration of the entry of death which came into the world by sin it is sin that hath made all the Funerals that ever have been In our Creation death had neither matter in us nor right over us Our Innocency was free