Pet. 3.21 We little know or can conceive as yet the several orders and distinctions of the Celestial Inhabitants and their great and illustrious Princes and Potentates Thrones Dominions c. that all pay him a dutiful and a joyful subjection and obedience But do we not know God hath given him a Name above every Name and that in his Name or at it as it may be read i. e. in acknowledgment of his Sovereign Power every knee must bow of things in Heaven on Earth and under Earth and all confess that he is Lord to the Praise and Glory of God the Father And who art thou perishing wretch that dar'st dispute his Title or that when all the Creation must be subject to him wilt except thy self And when it cost him so dear that his vast power might be subservient to a design of â—race and thou must at last be saved by him or lost for ever What can tempt thee to stand out against such Power and such Grace If thou wert to gratifie thy ambition how glorious a thing is it to be a Christian a Subject a Devoted Homager to so mighty a Prince If to provide against thy necessity and distress what course can be so sure and successful as to fly for refuge to so Compassionate a Saviour And dost thou not know there must be to this purpose an express transaction between him and thee Wonder he will condescend to it To capitulate with Dust and Ashes To Article with his own Creature with whom he may do what he will But his merciful condescension herein is declared and known If there shall be a special Relation settled betwen him and thee he hath told thee in what way it must be i. e. by way of Covenant-transaction and agreement as he puts his People of old in mind his way was with them I entred into Covenant with thee and thou becamest mine Ezek. 16.8 This I insist upon and press as a thing of the greatest importance imaginable and the least thought of Nor the strange incongruity animadverted on viz. That we have the seals of such a Covenant among us but the Covenant it self slips through our hands Our Baptism soon after we were born with some foederal words then is thought enough as if we were a Nation of always Minors Who ever therefore thou art that hearest these words or readest these Lines know that the Great Lord is express towards thee in his Gospel proposal Wilt thou accept me for thine and resign thy self as mine He now expects and requires thy express Answer Take his Gospel as from the Cross or take it as from the Throne or as from both 't is the same Gospel interwoven of Grace and Authority the richest Grace and the highest Authority at once inviting and requiring thee to commit and submit thy self unto him Take heed lest his Key turn before thou have given thy complying answer importing at once both thy Trust and thy Subjection Give not over pleading with thy self with thy wayward stupid heart till it can say to him Lord I â—ield thou hast overcome Till with tender relentings thou hast thrown thy self at his feet told him Lord I am ashamed I am confounded within my self that thou shouldst Die upon a Cross to obtain thy high Power and that thou art now ready to use it for the saving so vile a miscreant as I That when thou hast so vast an unknown World so numberless myriads of excellent Creatures in thy obedience thou shouldst yet think it worth thy while to look after me and that I should so long have withstood thy kind and gracious overtures and intendments O forgive my wicked aversion I now accept and resign And now this being sincerely done with fulness of consent with deep humility with yearning bowels with unfeigned thankfulness and an inward complacency and gladness of Heart 6. Let your following course in this World be ordered agreeably hereto in continued dependence and subjection As we have received Christ Jesus the Lord so we are to walk in him Col. 2.6 Take him according to the Titles here given him as Christ a Person anointed authorized qualified to be both Jesus a Saviour so we are to walk according to our first reception of him in continual dependence on his Saving Mercy and and to be a Lord or as 't is here exprest with eminency the Lord so we are to walk in continual subjection to his Governing Power Otherwise our receiving him at first under these notions hath nothing in it but mockery and collusion But if his obtaining these Keys upon the terms here exprest as having been dead and now living and having overcome Death as 't is also Rom. 14.9 did signifie his having them for saving purposes as it must since for other purposes he had them sufficiently before and if we reckon'd this a reasonable inducement to receive him and commit and intrust our selves to him as a Saviour that he dy'd and overcame Death for his Grace in yielding to Die had not rendred him a competent object of trust otherwise than in conjunction with his Power in overcoming Death and so gaining into his hands these Keys Then the same reason still remaining how constant an encouragement have we to continue accordingly walking in him all our days How potent an argument should it be to us to live that life which we live in the Flesh by Faith in the Son of God who loved us and gave himself for us Gal. 2.20 i. e. inasmuch as having been crucify'd with him which is also there exprest we feel our selves to live nevertheless yet so as that 't is not so much we that live as Christ that liveth in us who could not live in us or be to us a spring of Life if he were not a perpetual spring of Life in himself And consider how darest thou live otherwise in this Flesh in this Earthly House whereof he keeps the Keys and can fetch thee out at his pleasure When he hath warned thee to abide in him that when he shall appear thou mayest have confidence and not be ashamed at his coming 1 Joh. 2.28 He will certainly then appear when he comes to open the Door and dislodge thee from this flesh though there be here a further and final reference to another appearance and coming of his and if he then find thee severed and disjoyned from him thy first closure with him not having been sincere truly unitive and vital how terribly will he look how confoundedly wilt thou look in that hour Neither hast thou less reason to live in continual subjection to him considering that as he dy'd and overcame Death that he might have these Keys so he now hath them and thou art under his governing Power The more thou consider'st his right to Govern the less thou wilt dispute it When he was spoken of as a Child to us born that he might become a Man of sorrows be sorrowful unto the Death and have all
former inferiour good things about which because they are but mutably and not always good there may be a doubt whether now and in present Circumstances they will be good for us or no. And now it belongs to him as he is to do the part of a God to us to judg and determine for us for which he alonâ— is competent as being God only wise and otherwise he were not God all-sufficient And not to leave that to us who are so apt to be partial and mistaken in our judgment But when he makes his Demand from us of what we on our part are to be and do he demands our all absolutely that we surrender our selves and ours whatsoever we are and have to his pleasure and dispose without other exception or restriction than by his Promise he hath laid upon himself Nor are we to think it strange there should be this difference in the tenour of his Covenant between his part and ours For we are to remember The Covenant between him and us is not as of Equals He Covenants as God we as Creatures He according to the universal infinite perfection and all sufficiency of a God we according to the insufficiency imperfection and indigency of Creatures These things were I doubt not all foreknown and I hope considered by you when you so solâ—mnly transacted with God concerning this your Son wherein you could not but then take him for your God as well as his God It needs now only to be apply'd to the present Case and it manifestly admits this Application viz. That this his disposal of him in taking him now up to himself to be glorify'd by him and to glorify him in the Heavenly state was a thing then agreed upon by solemn Covenant between God and you It was done by your own vertual and unretracted consent The substance of the thing was agreed to expresly that God should be his God and finally make him happy and blessed in himself But if you say you would only have had his compleat Blessedness yet a while defer'd I will only say could you agree with that God whose he was and whose you are about the substance of so great a Transaction and now differ with him about a Circumstance And besides all Circumstances must be comprehended in your Agreement For taking him to be your God you take him to be Supream Disposer in all things and his Will to be in every thing the Rule and measure of yours Which you have expresly consented to as often as you have pray'd either in the words or after the tenour of that Prayer wherein our Lord hath taught us to sum up our Desires and represent the sense of our Hearts But besides the Duty that is both by his Law and by Covenant-agreement owing to God it is also to be considered as an high Dignity put upon you to be the Covenanted-Parents of a glorified Son a matter of greater boast than if you could say our Son to repeat what I formerly ly wrote is one of the greatest Princes on Earth How far should Paganism be out-done by Christianity which exhibits to our view Death abolish'd Life and Immortality brought to light by Jesus Christ in the Gospel 2 Tim. 1.10 Which sets before us all the Glories of the other World in a bright representation Which if we believe That Faith will be to us the substance of what we hope for and the evidence of what we see not Thus tho you saw not the kind reception and abundant entrance of this Son of your Delights into the everlasting Kingdom it will yet be a thing evident to you and your Faith will render it a great and a most substantial Reality Pagans had but obscure glimmerings of such things and in such afflicting Cases when they have occurr'd comparatively lank and slender Supports yet such as were not to be despis'd Should I transcribe what I find written in way of Consolation by Plutarch to Apollonius upon the loss of a Son you would see what would give both Instruction and Admiration I shall mention some Passages He praises the young Person deceased for his Comliness Sobriety Piety dutifulness towards Parents obligingness towards Friends acknowledges that Sorrow in the case of losing such a Son hath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a principle in Nature and is of the things that are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not in our Power or which we cannot help That to be destitute of it is neither possible nor fit That an Apathy or insensibleness in such a Case is no more desireable than that we should endure to have a Limb a part of our selves cut or torn off from us without feeling it But yet affirms that immoderate Sorrow upon such an occasion is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 preternatural and hath a pravity in it and proceeds from a misinform'd mind That we ought in any such Case to be neither 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unaffected nor ill affected He tells his Friend a Story The meaning whereof is more considerable to us than the Credit of it as perhaps it was to him concerning two Graecian Youths Cleobis and Biton whose Mother having a Duty to perform in the Temple of Juno and the Mules not being at hand in the instant when she expected them to draw â—er Chariot thither they most officiously drew it themselves with which act of Piety their Mother was so transported that she made her Request to Juno on their behalf that if there were any thing more desirable unto Mortals than other she would therewith reward her Sons who thereupon threw them into a Sleep out of which they awak'd no more Thereby signifying that Death was the best gifâ— that could be bestow'd upon Peâ—sons of such supposed Piety as they To which purpose is what he relates concerning the Death of Euthynous an Italian referr'd to towards the close of the following Discourse Son and Heir to the ample Estate of Elysius a Person of principal Dignity among the Terinaeans To whom anxiously enquiring of Diviners concerning the cause of this Calamity the Spectre of his Son introduced by the Father of the latter appear'd in his Sleep shewing him certain Greek Verses the sum whereof was Thy Enquiry was Foolish The Minds of Men are vain Euthynous rests by a kindly decreed Death Because his living longer had neither been-good for him nor his Parents He afterwards adds A good Man when he dies is worthy not so much of Lamentations as of Hymns and Praises He animadverts upon the aptnesâ— of Parents to quarrel with any circumstancâ—s of a Son's death be thâ—y what they will If he die abroad then the aggravation is that neither the Father nor the Mother had Opportunity to close his Eyes If at home then how is he pluck'd away even out of our Hands He gives divers memorable instances of sundry great Persons bearing with strange composure of Mind the same kind of Affliction I omit what he wrote to his Wife
out of our sight And as the word of which it is compounded signifies also to know as well as to see it may further signifie that state of things which lies without the compass of our knowledge even out of the reach of our mental sight or concerning which tho' we are to believe what is revealed we cannot immediately or distinctly know it and in reference whereto therefore we are to walk by Faith not by sight 2 Cor. 5.7 And the common use of the word hath been very agreeable hereto with Writers of all sorts i e. to signifie indefinitely the unseen World or the state of the deceased out of our World who are consequently gone out of our sight whether they were good or bad so as not peculiarly to signifie Hell or any place or state of Torment only It were easie to abound in Quotations to this purpose if it were either needful or proper in a Discourse of this nature What I intend in this kind I shall only set down on the by in the Margin upon which they that will may cast their Eye that the Discourse be not interrupted as to others that either have no need to be informed in this matter having known as much before as can be now told them or no inclination to be diverted from their present purpose in reading apprehending that what is generally told them only concerning the usual signification of a word is not said without some ground And let Texts of Scripture be consulted about that how Hades and the correspondent word in the O. T. Shee l are used there If we take the Help of Interpreters the impartial Reader is to judge of their Fidelity and Ability who go our way Upon the whole it being most evident that Hell is but a small and mean part of what is signified by Hades it will be very unreasonable to represent or conceive of the Power here ascribed to our Lord according to that narrow notion of it And would be a like incongruity as if to magnifie the Person of highest Dignity in the Court of a mighty Prince one should say He is the Keeper of the Dungeon Thâ— word it self indeed properly taken and according to its just extent mightily greatens him i.e. 't is as much as to say his Dominion is of unknown limits such as no Eye can measure We think with a sort of veneration of what is represented as too big for our knowledge We have a natural awe and reverence for unsearchable darkness But in the mean time we herein suffer a just diminution of our selves that when our enquiry stops and can proceed no further it being but a very little part of the Universe that lies within our compass having tir'd our enquiring Eye and Mind upon all the rest we write Hades call it unseen or unknown And because we call it so in reference to us God himself calls it so too It being his way as is observed by that noted Jew speaking to men to use the tongue of the children of men to speak to them in their own language and allow them to coin their own words Which at first they often do very occasionally nor as to this could they have a fairer or a more urgent occasion or that is more self-justifying than in one word to say of that other World that it is Hades or invisible when that is truly all that they have to say or can have any immediate notice of about it It hath therefore its rise from our selves and the penury of our knowledge of things And is at once both an ingenuous confession with some sort of modest cover and excuse of our own ignorance As with Geographers all that part of this Globe which they cannot describe is Terra incognita and with Philosophers such Phaenomena in nature as they can give no account of they resolve shortly and in the most compendious way into some or other occult quality or somewhat else as occult How happy were it if in all matters that concern Religion and in this as it doth so they would shut up in a sacred venerable Darkness what they cannot distinctly perceive it being once by the undeceiving Word expresly asserted that it is without therefore denying its reality because they clearly apprehend not what it is With too many their Religion is so little and their pride and self-conceit so great that they think themselves fit to be Standards That their Eye or Mind is of a size large enough to measure the Creation yea and the Creator too And by how much they have the less left them of Mind or the more it is sunk into Earth and Carnality the more capable it is of being the measure of all reality of taking the compass of all being created and uncreated And so that of the Philosopher takes place in the worst sense can be put upon it to see Darkness is to see nothing All is nullity that their sense reaches not Hades is with such indeed empty imaginary Darkness or in plainer English there is neither Heaven nor Hell because they see them not But we ought to have the greater thoughts of it not the less for its being too big too great too glorious for our present view And that it must as yet rest as to us and so let it rest a while under the name of Hades The unknown Dominion of our great Lord. According to that most express account he at his Ascension gave of the Existence of both parts together that less known to us and that more known Matt. 28.18 All power is given to me both in Heaven and Earth That Death is added as contained also within the limits of our Lord's Dominion doth expresly signifie his custody of the passage from this Visible World to the Invisible viz. as he commands the entrance into each distinct part of Hades the Invisible World consisting of both Heaven and Hell so he hath power over Death too which is the common out-let from this VVorld and the passage unto both But it withall plainly implies His very absolute Power over this Visible VVorld of ours also For it signifies he hath the power of measuring every ones time here and how long each Inhabitant of this World shall live in it If it belong to him to determine when any one shall die it must by consequence belong to him to assign the portion and dimensum of time that every one shall live Nor is there any conceivable moment in the time of any ones life whâ—rein he hath not this power of putting a period by death thereunto at his own pleasure He is therefore signified to have the power of every man's life and death at once And the Power of Life and Death is very high and great Power He therefore herein implicitly claims what is elsewhere expresly ascribed to him Rom. 14.78 9. None lives to himself i.e. de jure no man should or dies to himself For whether we live we live unto
the Lord or whether we die we die to the Lord whether we live therefore or die we are the Lords For to this end Christ both died and rose again and revived that he might be Lord both of the dead and living In summ here is asserted to him a Dominion over both Worlds this in which we live and that into which we die whether the one or the other part of it And so in reference to Men who once have inhabited this World the sense of this â—ext and that we are insisting on is the same Tho' Hades is of vastly larger extent than only to be the receptacle of such as have liv'd here it having also in both the parts of it innumerable Inhabitants who never had a dwelling assigned them in this World of ours at all But thus far we have the vast extent of our Lord Christ's Dominion competently cleared to be the proper intendment of this Text. And that it never meant so faint and minute a representation of it as only to make him Keeper of the bottomless Pit Tho' of that also he hath the Key as we shall further take notice But are now to enquire of what will tak up less time 3. The Kind of that Power over so vast a Realm or manifold Realms signified by this emblematical expression of having the Keys â— Every one knows that the Keys are Insignia some of the tokens of Power and according to the peculiarity of the Object may be of Divine Power The Jews as some Writers of their Affairs say appropriate the Keys of three others of four things to God only Of Life or the entrance into this World Of the Rain or the Treasures of the Clouds Of the Earth say some as of the Granary of Corn. And of the Grave Of which says one of their own The Holy Blessed one hath the Keys of the Sepulchres in his hand c. And as we may be sure he admits thither so he emits from thence and as he says in the future Age the H. B. one will unlock the Treasures of Souls and will open the Graves and bring every Soul back into its own body c. Nor is this Key of the vast Hades when it is in the hand of our Redeemer the less in the hand of the Holy Blessed One for so is he too But it is in his hand as belonging to his Office of Mediator between God and Man as was before said And properly the phrase signifies Ministerial Power being a manifest allusion to the common usage in the Courts of Princes of entrusting to some great Minister the Power of the Keys as it was foretold of Eliakim Isa. 22. that he should be placed in the same high station in Hezekiahs Court wherein Shebna was of whom so severe things are there said and that the Key of the House of David should be laid upon his shoulder c. ver 20 21 22. And the House of David being a known Type of the House or Church of God and he himself of Christ who as the Son hath power over the whole house according to this typical way of speaking our Lord is said Rev 3.7 to have the Key of David to open so as none can shut to shut so as none can open i. e. to have a final decisive power in all he doth from which there is no appeal Nor could any thing be more congruous than that having the Keys of the Celestial House of God the Heavenly Palace of the Great King the Habitation of his Holiness and Glory in which are the Everlasting Habitations the many Mansions the Places prepared for his Redeemed he should also have the Keys of the Terrestrial Bethel which is but a sort of Portal or Vestibulum to the other The House of God and the Gate of Heaven And as he is implied to have the Keys of this introductive preparatory Kingdom of Heaven as the Keys of the Kings Palace where is the Throne or Seat of Government and the Keys of the Kingdom must mean the same thing when he is said to give them to the Apostle Peter and the other Apostles This was but a Prelude and a minute Instance of his Power of those Keys of Hades and of the glorious Heavenly Kingdom it self contained therein which he was not to delegate but to manage himself immediately in his own Person If moreover he were signified by the Anâ—el Rev. 20.1 who was said to have the Key of the bottomless Pit That also must import a Power tho' great in it self yet very little in comparison of the immense Hades of which he is here sâ—id to have the Keâ—s So remote is it that the Power ascribed to him there should be the measure of what he here assets to himself And the difference must be vastly greater than it is possible for us to conceive or parallel by the difference between having Power over the Palace all the most delightful most spacious Territories in the vastest Empire of the greatest Prince and only having Power over a Dungeon in some obscure corner of it Which for the great purposes whereto all this is it be applied we can can scarcely too much inculcate And to such application let us now with all possible seriousness and intention of spirit address our selves Which will consist in sundry Inferences or Deductions laying before us some suitable matter Partly of our Meditation Practice The former whereof are to prepare and lay a ground for the latter 1. Divers things we may collect that will be very proper for our deep Meditation which I shall propose not as things that we can be suppos'd not to have known before but which are too commonly not enough thought on or considered And here we shall somewhat invert the order wherein things lye in the Text beginning with what is there latter and lower and thence arising with more advantage to what is higher and of greater concernment As 1. That Men do not die at random or by some uncertain acciaccidental by stroak that as by a slip of the hand cuts off the thred of Life but by an act of Divine Determination and Judgment that passes in reference to each ones Death For as the Key signifies Authority and Power the turning this Key of Death that gives a Man his Exit out of this World is an Authoritative Act. And do we consider in what hand this Power is lodg'd we cannot but apprehend every such act is the effect of Counsel and Judgment What Philosophers are wont to discourse of fortuitous Events in reference to Rational Agents or Casual in reference to Natural must be understood but with relation to our selves and signifies only our own ignorance of futurities but can have no place in the all-comprehending Mind as if any thing were a contingency unto that For them that live as if they thought they came into this World by chance 't is very natural to them to think they shall die and go out
place to place might be directed by him in the VVorld Have you never said if thou go not with me carry me not hence How safely and fearlesly may you follow him blindfold or in the dark any whither not only from place to place in this World but from world to world how lightsome soever the one and gloomy and dark the other may seem to you Darkness and light are to him alike To him Hades is no Hades nor is the dark way that leads into it to him an untrodden path Shrink not at the thoughts of this translation though it be not by escaping Death but even through the jaws of it VVe commonly excuse our aversion to Die by alledging that Nature regrets it But we do not enough consider that in such a compounded sort of creature as we are the word Nature must be ambiguous There is in us a sensitive Nature that regrets it but taking the case as it is now stated can we think it tolerable that it should be regretted by the reasonable Nature unto which if we appeal can we suppose it so untrue to its self as not to assert its own Superiority or to judge it fit that an intelligent immortal Spirit capable of so great things in another World should be content with a long abode here Only to keep a well-figured piece of Flesh from putrifying or give it the satisfaction of tasting meats and drinks that are grateful to it for a few years And if for a few why not for many and when those many were expired why not for as many more And the same reason always remaining why not for alwaies The case is thus put because the common meaning of this allegation that Nature regâ—ets or abhors this dissolution is not that they are concerned for their Souls how it may fare with them in another World which the most little mind or trouble themselves about but that they are to have what is grateful to them in this World And was this the end a reasonable Spirit was made for when without reason sense were alike capable of the same sort of gratifications VVhat Law what Equity what rule of Decency can oblige the Soul of a Man capable of the Society and Enjoyments of Angels to this piece of Self-denial for the sake of his incomparably baser Body Or can make it fit that the nobler and more excellent Nature should be eternally subservient to the meaner and more ignoble Especially considering that if according to the case supposed the two last foregoing directions be complyed with there is a sort of Divine Nature superadded to the whole Humane Nature that cannot but prompt the Soul ennobled by it to aspire to suitable even to the highest operations and enjoyments whereof it is capable and which are not attainable in this present bodily state And if there were still a dispute between Nature and Nature it s enough that the great Lord of Hades and of this present sensible World too will determine it In a far lower instance when the General of an Army commands it upon an enterprize wherein life is to be hazarded it would be an ill excuse of a cowardly declining to say their Nature regrets and dreads the adventure The thing is necessary Against what is so unavoidable as Death that is an abject mind that reluctates Come then let us imbolden our selves and when he brings the Key dare to die It is to obey and enjoy him who is our life and our all Say we chearfully each of us Lord Jesus receive my Spirit into thy hands I commit it who hast Redeemed it 8. Let us quietly submit to Divine Disposal when our dear Friends and Relatives are by Death taken away from us For consider into what hands this affair is put of ordering every ones decease and removal out of this into the other World and who hath these Keys 'T is such a one whose right if we use our thoughts we will not allow our selves to dispute or to censure his administration His Original Right is that of a Creator and a God For all things were Created for him and by him Col. 1.16 And without him was nothing made that was made Joh. 1.2 â—he First and the Last to all things v. 17. His supervening Right was that of a Redeemer as hath been already noted from this context and as such he had it by acquisition dying to obtain it overcoming Death I am he that liveth and was dead And then as he elsewhere declares by constitution All Power is given me both in Heaven and on Earth Mat. 28.19 The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 imports rightful Power And who are we or any Relatives of ours whom all the Power of Heaven and Earth hath no right to touch What exempt jurisdiction can we pretend our selves to belong unto Or will we adventure to say not denying his right he did not use it well in this case who is more fitly qualifyed to Judge than he that hath these Keys And let this matter be yet more throughly discuss't What is it that we find fault with in the removal of this or that person that was near and delightful to us Is it that he was to Die at all or that he Dy'd so soon If we say the former Do we blame the constitution appointing all Men once to Die by which this World is made a portal to another for all Men and whence it was necessary none should stay long in this but only pass thorough into that World wherein every one is to have is everlasting abode Or is it that when we think it not unfit this should be the general and common course there should yet have been a particular dispensation for this Friend or Relation of mine Let the former be supposâ—â— the thing we quarrel at and consider the intolerable consequences of the matters being otherwise as the case is with this Apostate Sinful World Such as upon second better-weighed thoughts we would abhor to admit into our minds even as the matter of a wish What would we wish to Mankind a sinning immortality on this Earth before which a wise Heathen profest to prefer one Day vertuously spent Would we wish this World to be the everlasting Stage of indignities and affronts to him that made it Would we wish there should never be a judgment Day and that all the wise righteous Councels of Heaven should be ranverst overturned only to comport with our terrene sensual inclinations Is this our dutifulness and loyal affection to our Blessed Lord the Author of our Beings and the God of our â—ives whose rights and honours should be infinitely dearer to us than our selves Is it our kindness to our selves and all others of our kind and order that are all naturally capable and many by gracious vouchsafement sitly qualified to enjoy a perfect felicity in another World that we would have all together confined for ever to this Region of darkness impurity and
A DISCOURSE Concerning the Redeemer's Dominion over the Invisible World AND THE Entrance thereinto by Death Some part whereof was preached on occasion of the Death of JOHN HOGHTON Esq eldest Son of Sir Charles Hoghton of Hoghton-Tower in the County of Lancaster Baronet By JOHN HOWE Minister of the Gospel LONDON Printed for Tho. Parkhurst at the Bible and three Crowns in Cheapside near Mercers-Hall 1699. TO THE Most deservedly Honoured AND Truly Honourable Sir CHARLES HOGHTON AND THE Lady MARY HOGHTON Of Hoghton-Tower Grace Mercy and Peace c. YOU will I know count it no indecency that when God hath so nearly many Years ago join'd you in Relation in Affection and now so lately in the Affliction equally common to you both I do also join your Names on the same paper and make this solemn Address to you together It is by the inestimable favour of Heaven that the mutual Interest God hath given you in each other as it obliges doth also as I have great reason to hope effectually dispose and enable you so not only to partake in the Comforts but in the Sorrows that are common to you both as that the former shall be greatly increased and the latter proportionably allay'd and mitigated thereby Thus is the Advantage of your Conjugal State both represented in God's Designation and apprehended in your own Experience And you are to consider the Blessing of God herein as having a peculiarity in it not being extended to all so related neither to all that were great in this World nor to all that were Pious and Good Great worldly Felicity hath been rendered insipid and spiritless Great Calamities much the more bitter by the want of a meet mutual helpfulness between such Relations A Great and a Good Man in his time A Prince as he is thought to have been in his Country a Man that was perfect and upright one that feared God and eschewed Evil when he lost not one not the eldest only of his numerous Offspring as you have but all at once seven Sons and three Daughters with such concomitant Circumstances of accumulated Afflictions as blessed be God are not in your Case and might now expect some relief from his other self the nearest and most inward Companion of his Life and partaker of his Joys and Sorrows All the Succour he hath from her was â—n impious endeavour to provoke and irritate his Spirit that taunting Scoff Dost thou still retain thy Integrity and that horrid Advice Curse God and Die Whereas that rational religious Soul-composing Thought shall we receive good things at the hand of God and not also evil things was deeply fixed in the mind of the one how much more effectually relieving had it been if it had circulated between both the Relatives and they had alternately propounded and enlarged upon it to one another With you I cannot doubt it hath been so and that you have made it your Business to improve your mutual Interest not to aggravate but to alleviate your Affliction each to other You have both of you great occasion and obligation to revolve and recount to each other the many good things you have received at the hand of God to mitigate what there is of Evil in this dispensation Both of you have sprung of Religious and Honourable Families favoured of God valued and beloved in the Countries where he had planted them They have been both seats of Religion and of the Worship of God The Resorts of his Servants Houses of Mercy to the Indigent Of Justice to the vitious Of Patronage to the sober and vertuous Of good Example to all about them You were both dedicated to God early and he gave early Testimony of his accepting the Dedication He began with you both betimes blessing your Education and owning you for his by disposing and forming your Spirits to own betimes the God of your Fathers He hath blessed you indeed adding the spiritual Blessings in heavenly things to your many earthly Comforts Which Jabez mighâ— mean not content with a common Blessing and the more probably from the acceptance he found 1 Chron. 4.9 10. God granted his Request as Solomon's 1 Kings 2.10 When his Request was as little vulgaâ— You both concurred in the Dedication of this your Son as in the rest of yours and I doubt not with great seriousness you Covenanted with God in Christ to be his God And if he enabled you to be in good earnest herein even that was of special Grace and Favour and ought to come into the account of the many good things you â—ave received of God's hand as offering to God willingly did in the estimate of David when the Oblation was of a meaner kind 1 Chron. 29.14 But then you ought to consider what the import and meaning was of that your Covenant wherein you accepted God in Christ to be the God of your Son and dedicated him to God through Christ to be his Was it not absolute and without limitation that God should be a God to him entirely and without reserve and that he should be his absolutely and be dispos'd of by him at his Pleasure Otherwise there was a repugnancy and contradiction in the very terms of your Covenant To be a God to him Is not God the name of a Being incapable of limitation Doth it not signify infinite unlimited Power and Goodness To be a God to any one therefore under restriction is to be a God to him and no God And so to Covenant with God can neither have sincerity in it nor good sense He can be under no restraint in the exercises of his Power and Goodness towards any to whom he vouchsafes to be their God in Covenant but what he is pleased to lay upon himself which must be from his own Wisdom and good Pleasure to which in covenanting we refer our selves with particular Faith in reference to what he hath expresly promis'd and with general that all shall be well where his Promise is not express But from our selves nothing can be prescribed to him He must be our all or nothing in point of Enjoyment as our Sovereign all-comprehending Good in point of Government as our Sovereign all-disposing Lord. So we take him in Covenanting with him for our selves and ours For he so propounds and offers himself to us If we accept and take him accordingly there is a Covenant between him and us otherwise we refuse him and there is no Covenant When he promises as to his part he promises his all to be God all-sufficient to us to be ours in all his Fulness according to our measure and capacity we are not straitned in him but in our selves He undertakes to be to us and do for us all that it belongs to him as a God to be and do To give us Grace and Glory about which there can be no dispute or doubt they are always and immutably good And to withhold from us no good thing Here are comprehended with the
nullifie the great Hades pull down the spacious Fabrick of Heaven or undermine the profound Abyss of Hell by a profane scoff They will in time discern the difference between the evanid passion of a sudden fright that takes its rise from imagination and the fixed dread which is founded in the Reason of things As one may between a fright in a dream and the dread of a condemned Criminal with whom sleeping and waking the real state of his case is still the same Nor are the things themselves remote or unconnected God's right to punish a reasonable Creature that hath liv'd in contempt of him and his own reasonable apprehension hereof or his Conscience both of the fact and desert They answer as face to face as the stamp on the Seal and the impression on the Wax They would sain make their Reason a protection against their fear but â—hâ—t cannot serve both ways The Reason of the thing lies against them already and there cannot be an eternal War between the Faculty and the Object One way or other the latter will over-power the former and draw it into consent with it self Either by letting it see there is a just true cause of fear or assisted by Divine Grace prevail for the change of the sinners course Whereupon that troublesome fear and its cause will both upon the best terms cease together And that what hath been proposed to consideration under this Head may be the more effectually considered to this blessed purpose I add that 7. The Discovery of the Invisible World and the disposal of affairs there have a most encourageing Aspect upon this World For both the Discovery and the Disposal are by our Blessed Redeemer in whom Mercy and Might are met in highest perfection How fragrant breathings of Grace how glorious a display of Power are there in what he here says Fear not I am the first and the last I am he that liveth and was dead and I am alive for evermore Amen And I have the Keys of Hades and of Death He hath opened the Celestial Hades to our view that it might be also open to our safe entrance and blissful inhabitation He who was Dead but Liveth and had made his victorious triumphant entrance before us and for us He who had overcome him that had the Power of Dâ—ath Conquer'd the Gigantick Monster at the Gate gain'd the Keys and designed herein their deliverance from the fear of Death who were thereby Subject to Bondage Heb. 2.14 15. He who hath abolished Death and brought Life and Immortality to light in the Gospel 2 Tim. 1.10 'T is he who bids us lift up our Eyes and behold the Heavens opened and himself standing at the right hand of God The horrid infernal Hades he hath discovered too only that we might fear and shun it But yet more distinctly consider why doth he here represent himself under this Character He that liveth and was dead But that he might put us in mind of that most convictive Argument of his Love his submitting to Die for us Greater love hath no Man And that he might at once put us out of doubt concerning his Power that he yet survives and is sprung up alive out of that Death victorious over it How amiable is the representation of such Power in conjunction with such Love The same person having an heart so replenish't with Love an hand so armed with Power neither capable of unkind design or unable to effect the most kind Behold him in this representation who would not now fall at his foot and adore Who would hesitate at resigning to him or be appalled at his disclosure of this unknown World Do but consider him who makes the Discovery and who would not expect from him the utmost efforts of Love and Goodness From him who is the Brightness of his Fathers Glory and the express Image of his Person His Essential Image who is Love From him who came into this wretched World of ours full of Grace and Truth And who could not have come but by the inducement of Compassion to our Miseries From him who knows all things and whose â—ye penetrates into every recess of the vast Hades All his own Empire in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge Put who only knows not to deceive Who hath told us in his Fathers House are many Mansions and if it were not so would have told us that Joh. 14.2 From him into whose mouth guile never entred but into whose Lips Grace was poured and is poured out by them so that the Ear that hath heard him hath born him witness and filled with wonder those that heard the Gracicious words which came out of his Mouth Who hath told us all concerning that unseen world that in this our present state it was fit for us to know and enough in telling all that will be his followers that where he is there he will have them be Joh. 17.24 And consider the manifest tendency of the Discovery it self What doth it mean or tend to but to undeceive miserable mortals whom he beholds from his high Throne mock'd with shadows beguiled with most delusive impostures and easily apt to be imposed upon Foolish deceived serving divers lusts and pleasures feeding upon ashes and wearying themselves for very vanity sporting themselves in the dust of this minute spot of Earth wasting their little inch of time wherein they should prepare for translation into the Regions of unseen Glory To these he declares he hath formed a Kingdom for all that cover to mend their states and that his Kingdom is not of this World that for such as will be of this Kingdom he will provide better having other Worlds the many Heavens above all which he is ascended at his dispose Ephes. 4.10 But they must seek this Kingdom and the Righteousness of it in the first place and desist from their care about other things He Counsels and Warns them not to lay up their Treasure on Earth but in Heaven and to let their hearts be there with their treasure And what can withstand his power who having been dead liveth victorious over him that had the power of Death and is alive for evermore possest of an Eternal state of Life And have we not reason to expect the most equal and most benign disposal of things in that unseen World When he also declares I have the Keys Rightful Authority as well as Mighty Power to reward and punish None but who have a very ill mind can fear from him an ill management He first became capable of dying and then yielded himself to die that he might obtain these Keys for gracious purposes He had them before to execute just vengeance as he was originally in the â—orm of God and without robbery equal with God an equal sharer in sustaining the wrong that had been done by Apostate Rebels and an equal sharer in the right of vindicating it But that he might have these Keys to open the Heavenly
correspondent things to be practised and done which must also suppose dispositions and frames of Heart and Spirit agreeable thereto 1. Let us Live expecting a period to be ere long put to our Life on Earth For remember there are Keys put into a great hand for this very purpose that holds them not in vain His Power is of equal extent with the Law he is to proceed by And by that it is appointed for all once to Die Therefore as in the Execution he cannot exceed so he will not come short of this appointment When that once shall be it belongs to him to determine And from the course we may observe him to hold as it is uncertain to all it can be very remote to none How short is the measure of a Span 'T is an absurd vanity â—o promise our selves that which is in the power of another How Wise and Prudent a thing to accommodate our selves composedly to his pleasure in whose power we are And to live as Men continually expecting to die There are bands of Death out of which when they once take hold we cannot free our selves But there are also bands of Life not less troublesome or dangerous 'T is our great concern to be daily by degrees loosening and disentangling our selves from these bands and for preventing the necessity of a violent Rupture To be daily disingaging our Hearts from an ensnaring World and the too close embraces of an over indulged Body Tell them resolutely I must leave them whensoever my great Lord turns the Key for me and I know not how soon that may be It is equally unhappy and foolish to be ingaged in the pursuit of an impossibility or in a War with necessity the former whereof cannot be obtained the latter cannot but overcome We owe so much to our selves and to the ease and quiet of our own Minds to be reconciled at all times to that which may befal us at any time How confounding a thing is surprizal by that which our selves regret and dread How unaccountable and ignominious must it be to pretend to be surprized with what we have so great reason always to expect And whereof we are so oft forewarned Is it no part of Christian watchfulness to wait for such an hour Tho' that waiting all the days of our appointed time mentioned John 14.14 refers to another change than that of Death viz. as the foregoing and following verses shew That of the Resurrection yet it cannot but be equally requisite upon a no less important reason And the requests that the Lord would make us know our end and the measure of our Days that we may know how frail we are Psal. 39.4 And that he would teach us so to number our Days that we may apply our hearts to wisdom Psal 90.12 are equally monitory to the same purpose as the most express Precepts As also the many Directions we have to watch and wait for our Lords appearance and coming are as applicable to this purpose For whensoever his Key opens our passage out of this World and These Bodies Hades opens too and he particularly appears to us in as decisive a judgment of our case as his universal appearance and judgment will at last give for all The placid agreement of our Minds and Spirits with Divine determination both as to the thing and time of our departure hence will prevent the trouble and ungratefulness of being surpriz'd and our continual expectation of it will prevent any surprizal at all Let this then be an agreed resolution with us to endeavour being in such a posture as that we may be capable of saying Lord whensoever thou shalt move thy Key and tell me this night or this hour I 'll require thy Soul thou shalt not O Lord prevent mine expectation or ever find me counting upon many years injoyment of any thing this world can entertain me with In further pursuance hereof 2. Be not over-intent on designs for this present World which would suppose you to count upon long abode in it Let them be always laid with a supposition you may this way even by one turn of this Key be prevented of bringing them about and let them be pursued with indifferency so as that disappointment even this way may not be a grievance A thing made up of thought and design as our Mind and Spirit naturally is will be designing one way or other nor ought we to attempt that violence upon our own Natures as to endeavour the stupifying of the intelligent designing Mind which the Author of Nature hath put into us Only let us so lay our designs as that how many soever we form that may be liable to this sort of disappointment we may still have one greater and more important so regularly and surely laid that no turn of this Key shall be in any possibility to frustrate but promote it rather The design for the Kingdom of God to be first sought with his Righteousness Mat. 6.33 or which is puâ—sued by seeking Glory Honour and Immortality to the actual attainment of Eternal Life Rom. 2.7 may if prescribed methods be duly observed have this felicity always attending it to be â—ucessfully pursued while we live and effected when we Die But this is an unaccountable vanity under the Sun that Men too generally form such projects that they are disappointed both when they do not compass them and when they do If they do not they have lost their labour if they do they are not worth it They dream they are Eating and injoying the fruit of their labour but they awake and their Soul is empty And if at length they think of laying wiser and more valuable designs the Key turns and not having fixed their resolution and begun aright they and all their thoughts foolish or more wise perish together Because there is a fit season for every fit undertaking a time and judgment for every purpose or a critical time such as is by Judgment affixt to every such purpose Eccles. 8.6 and because also Men know not their time c. 9.12 therefore their Misery is great upon the Earth and as Birds caught in a snare they are snared in an evil time that falleth suddenly upon them O miserable miserable Mortals So are your immortal Spirits misimployed and lost Their most valuable design for another World is seldom thought on in season their little designs for this World they contrive and pâ—osecute with that confidence as if they thought the World to be theirs and themselves their own and they had no â—ord over them This rude insolence that holy Apostle animadverts upon of such as say To Day or to Morrow we will goe to such a City and continue there a â—ear and Buy and Sell and get Gain whereas they know not what shall be on the morrow And What is their Life a Vapour c. So much of Duty and becoming Behaviour is in the mean time forgotten as to say If the Lord will we shall live
c. This is to bear themselves as absolute Masters of their own Lives How bold an affront to their Soveraign Lord They feel themselves well in Health Strength and Vigour and seem resolved it shall be a Trial of Skill who hath the Power or to whom the Keys belong till it come to the last irrefragable demonstration that he changes their Countenance and sends them away Joh. 14.20 and then they go driven pluckt and torn away from their dwelling-place rooted out of the Land of the living Psal. 2.55 But if any premonitory decays make them doubt the perpetuity of their own abode here they some what ease their minds by the pleasure they take in thinking when they have filled their own Bellies Psal. 17.14 What they shall leave of their substance to their Babes and to them that shall come after And their inward thought is that their Houses shall continue for ever and their Dwelling places to all Generations and they call their Lands after their own Names and their Posterity approve their sayings think and act as wisely as they Psal 49.11 12. Thus they take upon them and reckon they for their time and theirs after them shall still dwell in their own A wise thought They are the Owners when another keeps the Keys Several other things of like import I shall more lightly touch that may be collected from what hath been already more largely said and leave to be further enlarged upon in your own thoughts and shall dilate more upon some other as they are either more material or less thought on by the most 3. Be not prodigal of your time on Earth which is so little in your Power Because you are not to expect much make the best use you can of your little 'T is so precious a thing that it is to be redeemed 't is therefore too precious to be embezelled and trifled away The connexion of those two precepts Ephes. 5.15 16. of walking circumspectly not as Fools but as Wise and that of Redeeming the time more than intimates that to squander time is a foolish thing Of the several sorts of things that we make our selves their shape and frame shews their use and end Are we to make a less judicious estimate of the Works of God If we therefore contemplate our selves and consider what a sort of Production Man is Can we allow our selves to think God made him a reasonable Creature on purpose to play the Fool Or can we live as if we thought so without reproaching our Maker But whereas he who hath been the Author to us of such a Nature capable of improving a lifes time in this World unto most valuable purposes hath also been the Authoâ— of such a Law requiring us to redâ—em time The reproach will be wholly turned off from him upon our selves and our consequent ruine be upon our own guilty Heads And he will find some among our selves who by the advantage only of the reasonable Nature common to us and them that are instructors to us not to waste our days in vanity and will be witnesses against us if we so foolishly consume what we cannot command Some such have unanswerably reprehended the common folly of those that dread the thought of throwing away their whole Life at once that yet have no regret at throwing it all away by parcels and piece-meal And have told us a wise Man can find nothing of that value for which to barter away his time And we are to consider that as we are reasonable Creatures we are accountable That we are shut up in these Bodies as in Work-houses That when he that keeps the Keys lets us out we are to receive the things done in the Body according to what we have done whether good or evil 2 Cor. 5.10 That it belongs to him that measures our time to Censure it too and the use we have made of it 4. Let him be at once both great and amiable in our Eyes who hath so absolute power over us and so gracious propensions towards us i. e. Who hath these Keys and who acquired them with so merciful intentions even upon such terms as could not but signifie the greatest compassion and good will towards such as we Reconsider what hath been offered as matter of Meditation to both these purposes And now hereupon let us endeavour to have a correspondent sense inwrought into our Hearts and to bear our selves towards him accordingly The power and efficacy of whole Christianity depends upon this and doth very principally consist in it What a faint impotent languishing thing is our Religion how doth it dwindle into spritless dead form without it Either the form of knowledge is nothing else but insipid dead notion and our forms of Worship only fruitless unpleasant formality if we have not a vivid sense in our Hearts both of his glorious greatness and of his excellent loving kindness As much as words can signifie towards the impressing such a sense into our Hearts we have in these words uttered from his own Mouth so that he may say as that memorable type of him once did you may plainly perceive it is my Mouth that speaketh to you I am the first and the last I am he that liveth and was dead and behold I am alive for evermore And hereto he now sets his solemn ratifying Seal Amen Wherewith he leaves us to pause and collect that thus it was brought about that he could add and I have the Keys of the vast Hades the whole unseen World and of Death And God forbid that now these words should be with us an empty sound or a dead Letter Let us cast in our minds what manner of Salutaâ—ion this should be Doth the Son of God thus vouchsafe to bespeak miserable abjects perishing lost wretches How can we hereupon but bow our Heads and Worship What agitations of affection should we feel within How should all our internal Powers be moved and our whole Souls made as the Chariots of Amminadib What can we now be unwilling of that he would have us be or do And as that whereof we may be assured he is most willing 5. Let us entirely receive him and absolutely resign our selves to him as our Prince and Saviour Who would not covet to be in special Relation to so mighty and so kind a Lord And can you think to be related to him upon other terms And do you not know that upon these you may when in his Gospel he offers himself and demands you What can that mean but that you are to receive him and resign your selves The case is now brought to this state that you must either comply or rebel And what Rebel against him who hath these Keys who is in so high Authority over the whole unseen World Who is the head of all Principality and Power who is gone into the Heavens the glorious upper Hades and is at the right hand of God Angels Authorities Powers being made Subject to him 1
the sorrows of Death come upon him he is at the same time said to be the mighty God it was declared the Government should be upon his Shoulders As he was the first begotten from the Dead viz. both submitting to Death and conquering it so he was the Prince of the Kings of the Earth a small part of his Kingdom too his Throne being founded on his Cross his Governing Power in his Sacrifice i. e. The Power whereby he so governs as that he may also save making these two things the salving the Rights of the Godhead injured by Sin and the delivering of the Sinner from an Eternal ruine to agree and consist with one another What an endearing obligation is this to obey That he will be the Author of Eternal Salvation to them that obey him Inasmuch as while our obedience cannot merit the least thing from him yet his vouchsafing to govern us doth most highly merit from us For he Governs by writing his Law in the heart which makes our heart agree with the Law and by implanting Divine Love in us which vanquishes enmity and disaffection and vertually contains in its self our obedience or keeping his Commandments Joh. 14.15 and 23. 1 Joh. 5.3 Therefore this Government of his over us is naturally necessary to our Salvation and blessedness and is the inchoation and beginning of it as our perfected Love to God and conformity to his Nature and will do involve and contain in themselves our compleat and perfect blessedness with which a continued enmity or a rebellious mutinous disposition against God is naturally inconsistent and would be to us and in us a perpetual everlasting Hell There can therefore be no inthralling servitude in such obedience but the truest liberty that by which the Son makes us free indeed Joh. 8.36 Yea a true sort of royalty For hereby we come in the most allowable sense to live as we will our will being conformed to the will of God Whereupon that was no high extravagant rant but a sober expression We are born in a Kingdom to serve God is to reign And we know this to be the will of God that all should honour the Son as they honour the Father Herewith will the Evangelically Obedient comport with high complacency accounting him most highly worthy that it should be so Wherein therefore the Christian Law seems strictest and most rigorous in the enjoyned observance of our Lord Christ herein we shall discern an unexceptionable reasonableness and comply with a complacential approbation And let us put our own hearts to it and see that without regret or obmurmuration they can readily consent to the equity of the precept 'T is enjoyned us constructively at least that because Christ Dy'd for us when we were Dead quite lost in Death we that live hereupon should settle this which our selves as a sixed judgment and upon that intervening judgment yield to the constraint of his Love so as henceforth no more to live to our selves q. d. God forbid we should henceforth be so profane we must now for ever have done with that impious unlawful way of living What after this that we have so fully understood the state of our case that we should be so assuming as ever again to offer at such a thing as living to our selves to make our selves Deities to our selves Or to live otherwise than unto him who Dyed for us and Rose again 2 Cor. 5.14 15. This is high and great and may seem strict and severe What to havâ— the whole stream of all the actions and aims the strength and vigour of our Lives to be carried in one entire undivided current unto him and as it must be understood Gal. 2.19 to God in him so as never more to live to our selves a divided separate life apart from him or wherein we shall not finally and more principally design for him How high is his claim but how equal and grateful to a right mind with what a plenitude of consent is every Divine Command taking this into the Account esteemed to be right in all things So as that whatsoever is opposite is hated as a false way Psal. 119.128 And as the precept carries its own visible reason the keeping of it carries its own reward in it self Psal 19.11 And is it too much for him who bears these Keys and obtained them on such terms and for such ends to be thus affected towards him We are required without exception without limitation or reserve whatsoever we do whether in word or work to do all in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ Col. 3.17 Enquire we Do our Hearts repine at this Law Do not we Doth not this World owe so much to him Why are we allowed a place and a time here Why is not this World a flaming Theatre Is it not fit every one should know under whose Government they live by whose Beneficence under whose Protection and in whose name they may act so or so and by whose Authority Either obliging or not restraining them requiring or licensing them to do this or that Doth this World owe less to him that bears these Keys than Egypt did to Joseph when thus the Royal word went forth in reference to him I am Pharaoh and without thee shall no Man lift up his hand or foot in all the Land of Egypt How pleasant should it be to our Souls often to remember and think on that Name of his which we bear Isa. 26.8 Mal. 3.18 and draw in as vital breath the sweet odours of it Cant. 1.3 How glorious a thing should we count it because he is the Lord our God to walk in his Name for ever and ever as all People will walk every one in the Name of their God Mic. 4.5 And then we shall account it no hard Law whatever we do to do all in the Name of our Lord Jesus giving thanks to God the Father by him and for him blessing God every Day that we are put by him under the mild and merciful Government of a Redeemer Then we shall rejocyingly avow as the Apostle doth 1 Cor. 9.21 That we are not without Law to God but under Law to Christ. VVhereupon when you find your special Relation is thus settled and fixed unto the great Lord both of this present visible World and of Hades or the invisible World also by your Solemn Covenant with him and evidenc't by the continued correspondency of your heart and Life your Dispositions and actions thereunto 7. Do not regret or dread to pass out of the one World into the other at his call and under his conduct though through the dark passage of Death remembring the Keys are in so great and so kind a hand And that his good pleasure herein is no more to be distrusted than to be disputed or withstood Let it be enough to you that what you cannot see your self he sees for you You have oft desired your ways your motions your removals from
continue the later in Duties in the Evening saying we ought not to make that Day shorter than other Days Though he was very intent on his Studies yet on Saturdays he always broke them off at Noon and spent the Afternoon in reading Divinity and preparing himself for the Lords Day He was always constant in his secret Duties and suffered nothing to hinder him from the performing of them Before he expired he spoke with great assurance of his Future happiness and hopes of meeting his Relations in Glory Thus far goes that Account His Sickness was short When hearing of it I went to visit him I was met in an Ante-chamber by his ingenious dear Brother to whom it is no reproach to be second to him and who it is to be hoped will be at least truly so making him though a fair Example yet not a Standard who hath for divers years been most intimately conjunct and conversant with him known his way his Spirit his manner of Life his purity And may be led on and excited thereby wherein he hath observed him to excel others to endeavour not to come short but if it were possible to excel him remembring he is to be the next solace of his Parents hope of his Family and resort of his Country if God shall vouchsafe to continue him in succeeding time From him I had little expectation of finding his Sick Brother in a conversable condition the malignity of his Feaver having before seized his head and very much disordered his intellectuals but going in I was much surprized to find it so far otherwise He presently knew me his understanding that served him for little else faiâ—ed him not in the concernments of Religion and of his Soul There was not an improper or misplac't word tho' the case could not admit of interchanging many that came from him Concerning the substance of the Gospel of Christ as it could be shortly summed up to him he said he had no doubt and his transactions with Christ himself accepting him resigning and entrusting himself absolutely and entirely to him and God in him were so explicite distinct clear as could leave no place of doubt concerning him He profest his concurrence to such requests as were put up to God concerning him and the next Morning slept quietly in the Lord. Nor now will it be unfit to shut up the Discourse with some few suitable Reflections upon this double Subject The Text and This Providence taken together 1. How happy is it when this Power of our Great Redeemer and Lord mention'd in the Text and a preparation with chearful willingness dutifully to comport with it concur and meet together as they have done in this instance Our Lord hath shewn his Power He asserted it in the Text. In this Instance he used it giving an open Testimony that he takes it to belong to him to make such translations from one World to another whensoever he judges it a fit season Nor is solicitous whether men acknowledge his right so to do or no or what Censures they will pass upon what he hath done He doth his own work and leaves men to their own talk or mutterings or wonder or amusement at it as they will So it becomes Sovereign Power to do establish't upon the most unquestionable foundations exercis'd according to the wisest and most righteous Measures He hath used his own right and satisfied himself in the use of it He thought not himself concern'd to advise with any of us about it who as his Counsellor should instruct him Isa. 40.13 Rom. 11. v. 34. He owes so much to himself to act as unaccountable to no one nor liable to any ones controll Here is most rightful resistless Power justly and kindly us'd on the one hand And on the other how placid how calm a resignation Here was no striving no crying no reluctant motion no querulous repining voice Nothing but peaceful filial submission a willingness to obey the Summons given This was an happy accord the willingness of this departing Soul proceeding not from stupidity but trust in him who kept these Keys and such preparedness for removal as the Gospel requir'd O happy Souls that finding the Key is turning and opening the door for them are willing to go forth upon such terms as knowing whom they have believed c. And that neither principalities or powers life or death c. can ever separate them from the Love of God in Christ Jesus their Lord. Life they find hath not separated whereof was the greater danger and Death is so far from making this separation that it shall compleat their Vnion with the blessed God in Christ and lay them infolded in the everlasting Embraces of Divine Love Happy they that can hereupon welcome Death and say Now Lord lettest thou thy Servant depart in peace that before only desired leave to die and have now obtained it that are with certainty of the Issue at the point of becoming compleat Victors over the last Enemy and are ready to enter upon their Triumph and take up their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Death is swallowed up in Victory O Death where is thy sting O Grave where is thy Victory Thanks be to God who giveth us the Victory through Jesus Christ our Lord. Happy Soul here will be a speedy end of all thy griefs and sorrows they will be presently swallow'd up in an absolute plenitude and fulness of Joy There is already an end put to thy tormenting cares and fears for what Object can remain to thee of a rational fear when once upon grounds such as shake not under thee thou art reconcil'd to Death This is the most glorious sort of Victory viz. by reconciliation For so thou hast conquered not the Enemy only but the Enmity it self by which he was so Death is become thy Friend and so no longer to be feared nor is there any thing else from whence thou art to fear hurt For Death was thy last Enemy even this bodily Death The whole Region beyond it is to one in thy case clear and serene when to others is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever There are no terrible 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 no formidable consequences no reserves of misery no treasures of wrath to be feared by thee To one in thy condition may that without hesitation be apply'd nihil metuit qui optat mori He fears nothing who desires to die What is the product of some mens infidelity is the genuine product of their faith From so contrary Causes may proceed the same Effect The Effect a willingness to die or a bold adventure upon Death is the same but only in respect of the general kind with great differences in the special kind according to the difference and contrariety of the Causes whereof they discernibly tast and savour With Infidels it is a negative dead stupid partial willingness or but a non-aversion and in a lower and much diminished degree Or if some present
intolerable disgraceful calamity urge them a rash obstinate presumptuous rushing upon Death because they do not consider consequences With Believers such as in reference to the concernments of the other World do walk by faith while as yet they cannot walk by sight in reference to those things 2 Cor. 5.7 it is a positive vital courage v. 8. We are confident and a preponderating inclination of will We are willing rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord because as is manifest they do consider consequences and how blessed a state will certainly ensue How vast are these special differences of the same thing in the general willingness to die O the transports of Joy that do now most rationally result from this state of the Case when there is nothing left lying between the dislodging Soul and the glorious unseen World but only the dark passage of Death and that so little formidable considering who hath the Keys of the one and the other How reasonable is it upon the account of somewhat common herein to the Redeemer and the Redeemed altho' every thing be not to take up the following words that so plainly belong to this very case Therefore my heart is glad and my glory rejoyceth my flesh also shall rest in hope For thou wilt not leave my Soul in Sheol or Hades thou wilt not forsake or abandon it in that wide World neither wilt thou suffer thine holy one to see corruption Thou wilt shew me the path of Life the path that leads unto that presence of thine where is fulness of Joy and to those pleasures which are at thy right hand or in thy power and which are for evermore and shall never admit either of end or diminution Psal. 16.9 10 11. Now what do we mean to let our Souls hang in doubt why do we not drive things for them to an issue Put them into those same safe hands that holds these Keys absolutely resign devote entrust and subject them to him get them bound up in the bundle of Life so adjoyn and unite them to him not doubting but as we give them up he will and doth in that instant take hold of them and receive them into union with himself as that we may assure our hearts that because he lives we shall live also Thus the ground of our hope becomes sure and of that joy which springs from such an hope Our Life we may now say is hid with Christ in God even tho' we are in our selves dead or dying Creatures Col. 3.3 Yea Christ is our Life and when he who is our Life shall appear we shall appear with him in glory verse 4. He hath assured us that because he is the Resurrection and the Life he that believeth in him tho' he were dead shall yet live And that whosoever lives and believes in him hath thereby a life already begun in him in respect whereof he shall never die Joh. 11.25 26. What now can be surer than this so far we are at a certainty upon the included supposition i. e. that we believe in him And what now remains to be ascertain'd what Only our own intervening death we must 't is true be absent from these bodies or we cannot as we would be present with the Lord. And is that all can any thing now be more certain than that O happy state of our Case How should our hearts spring and leap for our joy that our affairs are brought into this posture that in order to our perfect Blessedness nothing is farther wanting but to die And that the certainty of death compleats our assurance of it What should now hinder our breaking forth into the most joyful thanksgivings that it is so little doubtful we shall die that we are in no danger of a terrestrial Immortality and that the only thing that it remain'd we should be assured of is so very sure That we are sure it is not in the power of all this World to keep us always in it That the most spiteful Enemy we have in all the World cannot do us that spite to keep us from dying How gloriously may good Men triumph over the impotent malice of their most mischievous enemies viz. that the greatest mischief even in their own Account that it can ever be in their power to do them is to put it out of their own power ever to hurt them more for they now go quite out of their reach They can being permitted kill the body and after that Luke 12.4 have no more that they can do What a remarkable significant after that is this what a defiance doth it import of the utmost Effort of humane power and Spite that here it terminates 't is now come to its ne plus ultra And so we are to look upon all our other Trials and Afflictions that in any providential way may befall us we may be sick in pain in poverty in disgrace but we shall not be alwaies in mortal flesh which is the subtratum and the root of all the rest Can we be upon better terms having but two things to be concerned about as necessary to our Compleat Felicity union with Christ and disunion from these bodies God is graciously ready to assist us in reference to the former tho' therein he requires our care subserviently hereto in reference to the latter he will take care himself in his own fit season without any care or concern of ours in the matter And only expects us to wait with patience till that sit season Come And come it will perhaps sooner than we may think He doth not alwaies go by our measures in judging of the fit season as this present instance shews 2. From the text taken in conjunction with this act of providence we may observe the great advantage of a pious Education Tho' the best means of such Education do not always prove Effectual yet this being much the more probable course upon which to expect Gods blessing than the Parents prophane negligence of the souls of their Children such an example wherein God by his blessing testified his approbation of Parental care and diligence should greatly quicken the endeavours of Parents herein as hoping hereby to serve his great and merciful and most principal design who hath these Keys and whose office it is to transmit Souls when they are prepared and ready out of this World of ours into that Blessed glorious World above And though they may think themselves disappointed when thorough Gods blessing upon their endeavours they have educated one to such a pitch as this young Gentleman was raised and brought up unto with a Prospect and Hope of his having a long course of service to run thro' here on the Earth Yet let Parents hence learn to correct what was amiss or what was wrong not what was right and well Their Action and Endeavour was what ought to be Their Error or Mistake if there was any was more principally as
vertuous Life It signifies not nothing with the many to be remembred when they are gone Therefore is this Trust wont to be committed to Marbles and Monumental Stones Some have been so wise to prefer a remembrance among them that were so from their having liv'd to some valuable purpose When Rome abounded with Statues and Memorative Oblisks Cato forbad any to be set up for him because he said he had rather it should be askt why had he not one than why he had What a balmy Memory will one Generation leave to another when the savour of the Knowledge of Christ shall be diffused in every place 2 Cor. 2.14 and every thing be counted as dross and dung that is in any competition with the excellency of that Knowledge when that shall overflow the World and one Age praise his Mighty Works and proclaim his Power and Greatness to the next And the Branches of Religious Families whether sooner or later transplanted shall leave an odour when they are cut off that shall demonstrate their nearer Vnion with the true Vine or speak their relation to the Tree of Life whose Leaves are for the healing of the Nations even those that were deciduous and have dropt off may without straining a borrow'd expression signifie somewhat towards this purpose 4. From both the mention'd Subjects Good Parents may learn to do God and their Redeemer all the service they can and have opportunity for in their own time without reckoning too much upon what shall be done by a well-educated hopeful Son after they are gone unless the like dispensation could be pleaded unto that which God gave to David to reserve the Building of the Temple to his Son Solomon which without as express a revelation no Man can pretend The Great Keeper of these Keys may cross such purposes and without excusing the Father dismiss the Son first But his Judgments are a great deep too deep for our Line And his Mercy is in the Heavens Psal. 36. extending from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him and his Righteousness unto Childrens Children Psal. 103. FINIS BOOKS Printed for Thomas Parkhurst at the Bible and Three Crowns the lower End of Cheapside near Mercers-Chapel Books Written by the Reverend Mr. J. Howe OF Thoughtfulness for the Morrow With an Appendix concerning the immoderate Desire of foreknowing things to come Of Charity in reference to other Mens sins The Redeemer's Tears wept over lost Soulâ— in a Treatise on Luke 19.41 42. With an Appendix wherein somewhat is occasionally discoursed concerning the Sin against the Holy Ghost and how God is said to will the Salvation of them that perish A Sermon directing what we are to do after a strict Enquiry Whether or no we truly love God A Funeral Sermon for Mrs. Esther Sampson the late Wife of Hen. Sampson Dr. of Physick who died Nov. 24. 1689. The Carnality of Religious Contention In two Sermons preach'd at the Merchants Lecture in Broadstreet A Calm and Sober Enquiry concerning the possibility of a Trinity in the Godhead A Letter to a Friend concerning a Postscript to the Defence of Dr. Sherlock's Notion of the Trinity in Unity relating to the Calm and Sober Enquiry upon the same Subject A View oâ— that Part of the late Considerations addrest to H. H. about the Trinity Which concerns the Sober Enquiry on that Subject A Sermon preach'd on the late Day of Thanksgiving Decemb. 2. 1697. To which is prefix'd Dr. Bates's Congratulatory Speech to the King A Sermon for Reformation of Manners Books Written by J. Flavel THE Fountain of Life opened or a Display of Christ in his Essential and Mediatorial Glory Containing Forty Two Sermons on various Texts Wherein the Impetration of our Redemption by Jesus Christ is orderly unfolded as it was begun carried on and finished by his Covenant Transaction Mysterious Incarnation Solemn Call and Dedication Blessed Offices Deep Abasement and Supereminent Advancement A Treatise of the Soul of Man wherein the Divine Original Excellent and Immortal Nature of the Soul are opened its Love and Inclination to the Body with the Necessity of its Separation from it considered and improved The Existence Operations and States of separated Souls both in Heaven and Hell immâ—diately after Death assâ—rted discussed and variously applied Diverse knotty and difficult Questions about departed Souls both Philosophical and Theological stated and determined The Method of Grace in bringing Home the Eternal Redemption contriv'd by the Father and accomplish'd by the Son through the Effectual Application of the Spirit unto God's Elect being the second Part of Gospel Redemption The Divine Conduct or Mystery of Providence its Being and Efficacy asserted and vindicated All the Methods of Providence in our Course of Life open'd with Directions how to apply and improve them Navigation spiritualiz'd Oâ— A New Compass for Seamen Consisting of Thirty Two Points of pleasant Observations profiâ—able Applications serious Reflections all concluded with so many spiritual Poems c. Two Treatises the first of Fear the second the Righteous Man's Refuge in the evil Day A Saint indeed The great Work of a Christian A Touchstone of Sincerity Or Signs of Grace and Symptoms of Hypocrisie being the second Part of the Saint indeed A Token for Mourners Or Boundaries for Sorrow for the Death of Friends Husbandry spiritualiz'd Or The Heavenly Use of Earthly Things FINIS Job 1.1 Psal. 84.11 Hierom. Job 29.1 2 3 4 5. †Ostendunt terris hunc tantùm fata nec ultra esse siâ—unt †And here it may suffice to take notice that Greek Writers Poets Philosophers Historians and other Writers that have made only occasional mention of this word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or of the words next akin to it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Lexicographers that have purposely given an account of it from Greek Authors that must be supposed best to understand the use of words in their own Tongue generally such as have not been engaged in a Controversie that obliges men usually to torture words to their own sense or to serve the Hypothesis which they had espoused have been remote from confining this or the cognate words to that narrow sense as only to signifie a place or state of torment for bad men but understood it as comprehending also a state of Felicity for the pious and good For such as have been concern'd in interpreting this or other like words with reference to the known and famous Controversie which I need not mention their Judgments must weigh according to the reputation they are of with the Reader The Greeks no doubt best understood their own Language And among them can we think that Homer in the beginning of his 1. Il. when he speaks of the many brave Souls of his Hero's those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the Wâ—r he is describing sent into the invisible Regions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he ever dreamt they were all promiscuously dispatcht away to