after a continuance in this Baca of teares and not desire rather to enter into our Rest Shew me a man that ever truly knew what life was and was loath to leave it and I le in him shew thee a prisoner that blesles himself in his fetters a slave that likes his chains and gally 2. There is all that in a Believers death that may tempt and inflame his desires 'T is that to a Believer which a night of rest is to the weary Labourer 2 port to the weather-beaten Mariner freedom to the fetter-gal'd Prisoner the marriage-day to the loving Spouse the day of coronation to the king Why then should not a Saint conclude with Vid Bressius Oh that my soul had the wings of a Dove to fly and make hast to that mountain of God and Paradice of eternal pleasures Or with that aged Father in Austin who when his friends endeavouring to comfort him on his bed of sickness told him they hoped he should recover answered If I shall not die at all well but if ever why not now Oh then Believers pant after an holy and an happy dismission never cease tutoring and screwing up your souls till in Gods strength you can resolve that if you might die to day you would not choose to live till to morrow Never think your souls in an hail condition so long as you are 10th to think of dying Take this only comfort from the prolonging of your dayes not that you live long but that you are in a sphear of doing your own and others souls more good and bringing your God more glory And because the quelling of the slavish fear of death and rendring of a Believer willing to depart is a business of such grand concernment give me leave to prescribe a direction or two viz. 1. If ever you desire that death should not be your fear but gain and so desirable be sure to make Christ your life This was Pauls method Phil. 1.21 23. He that would sleep in Jesus must live to him Labour to be acted by the Spirit of Christ and the immediate fruits thereof viz. faith love filial fear as thy principle Rom. 8.14 Gal. 2.20 steer by Christs word as your Compass your Rule Canon Gal. 6.16 Level at Christs glory as your highest end 1 Cor. 10.31 Our life as it gives way to death so it must make way for it As the tree falls so it still lies and as it stands so usually it falls If ever we hope to sleep sweetly in death we must walk fruitfully in life 'T is the sleep of a labouring man that is sweet Eccles 5.12 To live holily is the only way to die happily Mark the upright man and behold the just for the end of that man is peace Psal 37.37 2. Fix your eyes on the death of Christ Christ by his death hath wholly routed yea conquered death Christ precious body lying in the grave hath sweetly perfumed that house of corruption Christ by his death hath cut off all deaths succors Whereas death borrowed its sting from sin its strength from the law and curle of God Christ hath disarm'd them all of their destroying killing power 1 Cor. 15.56 So that now as he falsly thou mayst say truly the bitterness of death is past 3. Act and exert Faith to the uttermost Quartan Agues are not so much the shame of physick as the fear of death is of all natural skill and valour This is Faiths proper evil Faith alone professes this cure undertakes it and performs it throughly Faith is that that can turn fears into hopes sighs into songs tremblings into exultings Faith singles out this Giant as her chief prize and grapples with him not as a match but as a vanquisht underling sets her foot on the neck of this King of Terrors Faith concludes that a Christ hath taken all the poyson out of the cup of death and made it an wholsom potion of immortality to his people so that now their death is nothing else but the funeral of all their sins cares and sorrows and the Resurrection of their true joys and comforts 3. Is a Believers death a sleep Be exhorted to that high and Honourable duty of serving your generation before you fall asleep So did holy David Acts 13.36 write after his Copy 4. Is a Believers death no more then a sleep Adore and bless the infinite mercy and goodness of the Lord Jesus who by his death hath quite pluckt out the sting of death and soaltered both its name and nature That which was once a grim death is now to you nothing more then a sweet sleep 5. Is a Believers death a sleep Oh then prepare for death Sleep steals and creeps upon us unawares so does death To day therefore while it is called to day Boast not thy self of to morrow for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth Prov. 27.1 Thou wilt repent to morrow But what if this night thy soul should be taken from thee Luk. 12.20 Hast thou not heard of fishes taken in an evil net and of birds that are caught in a snare so are the sons of man snared in an evil time when it falleth suddenly upon them Eccles 9.12 To this end 1. Live in a constant and serious [z] Gaena Damitiani sunebris Et AEgytiorum Sceletus inter pocula meditation of approaching death This was that which Meses so earnestly plies the Throne of Grace for Psal 90.12 So teach us to number our dayes that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom Plato's Philosophy in this was true Divinity The whole sum of a wise mans life is the commentation on his death Not every sleet and stitting flash but a frequent deep and sixed Contemplation This was that which saved the soul of the young Prodigal who for several dayes an hour together sixt his eyes and thoughts on the ring with a deaths-head given him by a friend on that condition Ortelius reports of some people that they thought this duty so necessary that they used the bones of dead men instead of money that death might be continually in their eye Those sunera Pacuri are of remark in story He was used every night to be carried to his chamber as to his [a] Sie ordinandus est dies omnis tanqua vitam consum met Seu. grave and the word at the close of the solemnity was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2. Look not on death at a distance as that that shall come certainly but as that that may comesuddenly Look on every day as thy last Do not as those that have set dayes of truce and peace in which they hang up their Armes a rusting and do not watch their beacons But rather as those that live in perpetual hazard of war and of the enemies inroad Have all things in daily readiness for service at half an hours warning on the least alarm Stand as it were centinel with musket loaded match lighted piece cockt ready to discharge Live not one hour
yet is it their trouble to conflict yea but now death puts the Saints into such a condition that they are not only without a foyle but without fighting too Thus in respect of its concomitant Rest the death of Saints may well be resembled to sleep 3. In its Consequents which are two Excitationis facilitas Virium reparatio 1. Excitationis facilitas Awaking or rising from sleep Natural sleep is not perpetual we sleep and awake again Psal 3.5 I laid me down and slept I awaked So that though the body lies for a time in the grave yet it shall awake and rise again Many i. e. all of them that sleep in the dust shall awake Dan. 12.2 Psal 17.15 Isai 26.19 John 5.28 Job 19.26 27. Hos 13.14 Rev. 10.13 A time coming when the loud Trump shall awaken the sleeping ashes and those old friends soul and body meet and embrace and never part more 2. Virium reparatio renovatio restitutio The body that was sown in weakness shall be raised in power It was sown a natural body it shall be raised a spiritual body endowed with impassibility subtilty agility clarity It is sown in dishonour it shall be raised in glory 1 Cor. 15.42 43 44. It shall be like unto Christs glorious body Phil. 3.21 shining forth and sparkling like the Sun in its midday-glory Matth. 13.43 And thus we have dispatcht the parallel betwixt a Believers death and sleep The third thing promised was the Application and Improvement of the whole to which we now address our selves 3. Application Applica ∣ tion 3 By way of Information Exhortation Dehortation Consolation Informa ∣ tion 1 1. For the Information of our Judgements in four Corollaries 1. If a Believers death be a sleep then that Aphorisme of the wise Man appears to be a great truth Eccles 7.1 The day of death is better then the day of ones birth Man is born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward Job 7.5 Sparks have a principle in themselves by which they ascend they need no directing they fly upward naturally So 't is a natural course for man as soon as he is born to verge to sorrow Our birth is nothing else but a lanching forth into a deep Ocean of sin and sorrow an intrat to act our parts in a Scene of iniquity and misery Yea but now a Believers death is his happy Exit and Epilogue his calm [r] Rev. 14.13 Port and safe Harbour after all his tollings and tempests Of this truth that Mirrour of her Sex the Lady Jane Grey discovers a clear conviction who being requested by the Lieutenant of the Tower to write her Symbol in his book before her beheading wrote thus Let the glassy condition of this life never deceive thee there is a time to be born and a time to die but the day of death is better then the day of birth 2. If a Believers death c. Hence learn The infinite power wisdom and goodness of God in that he is able and willing to turn the worst of evils into so great a good out of the deadliest poyson to make the most soveraign Antidote to turn a Moses Serpent into a Rod and with that Rod to work wonders to fetch honey and sweetness out of the carcass of a Lion nay to turn the Eater into meat Death into sleep to make that which in it self is the greatest loss to become so great a Gain Phil. 1.23 to render the King of Terrors Job 18.14 most amiable yea most useful to make that so sweet a blessing which was threatned as the saddest curse to turn an Esau's malice into courtesie and salutes his intended stabs into tears and kisses Verily this is the Lords doing and it ought to be marvellous in our eyes 3. If a Believers death c. Hence see the vast difference between an Vnbeliever and a Believer in their death Death to an unbeliever is Poena peccati so threatned Gen. 2.17 so inflicted Rom. 5.12 Their end is destruction Phil. 3.19 Death comes fiercely to them pulls them by the threat like a grim Serjeant arrests and summons them to hell where after ten hundred thousand years scorching and yelling in flames their pain is never the nearer to its period No time gives them hope of abating yea time hath nothing to do with this eternity where they shall be ever dying but never die where Divels who were here ready to tempt them when graceless to sin are as ready to pursue them now damned with torments 'T is true their bodies sleep indeed for a while but 't is as Sampson in Dalilahs lap ready to be given up as a prey to the Philistins as Sisera in Jaels Tent the hammer and nail ready to be set to the Temples or as Peter slept between his cruell Keepers bound they are and lockt up in their graves as in a strait and loathsom prison a doleful disconsolate dungeon where they lie reserved in the chains of darkness until the judgement of the great day Jud. 6.7 But now the death of a Believer is quite another thing To them 't is instar dulcis somni Death comes mildly and sweetly to the m like an humble Page with a courteous invitation to a feast of glory and proffers its service to lead and conduct them to it Be not afraid saith death though my countenance be stern my hand is soft though my pangs seem grievous yet the rest I bring is sweet To others I am death to you only a sleep and such a sleep as God gives his Beloved Psal 127.2 That which is a Grave to others is a Bed to you Isai 57.2 where your bodies shall lie as Christ did in his grave with a guard of Angels John 20.12 Believers are delivered from the sting though not from the stroke of death If death be a Serpent to Saints 't is a Serpent without a sting it has left its sting and teeth and all in the sides of Christ Hence it is that we hear the Apostle sounding out his Io triumphe and find him treading on the neck of his vanquisht enemy playing on the hole of this Aspe and with an holy kind of Sarcasm flouting at it Oh death where is thy sting 1 Cor. 15.55 56 57. Thus we see a vast difference the unbeliever dies howling the Believer singing the one takes death for a gulf of sorrow the other for a port of safety The one sighs because stript for a scourging the other sings because he layes off his cloaths to go to bed and sleep after his toyle 4. If a Believers death be a sleep in Jesus Hence conclude That even death it self dissolves not the strict union that is between Christ and a Believer [t] Aug. de Civ Dei All the faithful though dead are yet the living members of Christ Jesus As in Christs death his soul and body though severed each from other remained united to the Deity so in death Believers souls and bodies still remain united unto
dormit itn etiam anima post mortem somnus sensus tantùm excteriores occupat non animam discourses then To say nothing of divine Raptures and Extasies when the body is as it were laid by as useless and uninstrumental to the soul as appears in paul 2 Cor. 12.2 3 4. when Paul's soul had an ear to hear such words as his body could not find a tongue to express And in John Rev. 1.16 In a word in sickness yea in death it self when the soul walks in the very valley and shadow of death in the very act and article of its dissolution what a fresh vigour does the soul many times put on How does this divine flame blaze in the very socket How does it crect and rouse it self and plainly tells us that it means not to fall with the body but only to leave it as an Inhabitant a ruinous house till it be repaired as a Musitian to lay aside his Lute whose strings are crackt till it be new strung 4. By the Light of Scripture The souls which were under the Altar were not asleep though their bodies were for they cryed with a loud voice c. Rev 6.9 10. In death the body that handsome Pile of dust returns to the carth as it was but the spirit the soul Ista Divinae aurae particula returns unto God who gave it Eccles 12.7 and to the spirits of just men made perfect Heb. 12.23 Had the soul of the penitent Thief slept how could it have been truly said to have been with Christ in Paradice Luke 23.43 With Christ in Paradice i. e in the highest Empyrean Heavens Acts 3.21 beholding his face in light and glory John 17.24 Had Paul but dreamt of the souls sleep he would never have groaned so earnestly to be cloathed upon with his house from heaven 2 Cor. 5.1 4. Nor to have had the union of his soul and body dissolved and the communion with God which he then enjoy'd interrupted at least if not broken off had he not been sure that immediately on that dissolution he should be with Christ Phil. 1.21 23. Thus Negatively The soul sleeps not 2. Affirmatively The body sleeps Matth. 27.52 Or if you will the state of a Believers death much resembles that of sleep which leads me to the second thing I promised viz. 2. Confirmation Now I shall prove this point generally and particularly 1. More generally Sleep is the image of death and death is more then the image of sleep Lighten mine eyes least I sleep the sleep of death 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. Least I sleep Death i. e. least I die Psal 13.3 Our friend Lazarus sleepeth John 11.11 Our Saviour interprets his own words Lazarus is dead v. 14. Many are sickly among you and many sleep i. e. are dead 1 Cor. 11.30 An usual phrase among the Hebrews for being dead was this They slept with their Fathers 1 King 11.43 2 King 20.21 Luke retains the Hebrew form and tells us that Stephen and David gave up the ghost and fell asleep Acts 7.60 and 3.36 And hence it is that the Saints graves are call'd their beds They shall rest in their beds Isai 57.2 When a Believer dies he is but gone to bed gone down from a bed of ivory to a bed of earth from a pillow of down to a pillow of dust Hence also both the Greeks and Latines stile the places where the dead are laid up and buried [i] i 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Dormitoria sleeping places Thus more generally But 2. More particularly By spreading before you the Analogy proportion resemblance paralel that is between sleep and death A Believers death runs paralel to sleep in its Antecedent Concomitant Consequents 1. In its Antecedet or that which usually goes before sleep and that is Vestium Depositio When a man goes to sleep he usually [k] Somnum capiens vestes exuit 1 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 uncloaths dismantles disrobes himself In like manner Peter calls his death 1 a putting off of his tabernacle 2 Pet. 1.14 Paul stiles it a dissolution of our earthly house of this tabernacle 2 Cor. 5.1 An uncloathing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 v. 4. When a Believer dies he laies aside not only the garment spotted with but even that which is made of flesh Thus Jubentius and Maximinus We are ready to lay off the last garment the flesh 2. In its Concomitant Or that which accompanies and attends on sleep and that is Quictis tranquilitas Sweet [m] 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Orph. de somn Tuque O domitor somne malorun requies c◠nimi Sen. Her sur Rest and Repose When a man goes to his sleep we say he goes to his rest So Job 3.13 Now should I have lien still and been quiet Now should I have slept I should have been at rest 'T is true rest is more then sleep Sometimes a man sleeps when he doth not rest but is troubled in his sleep But when rest is joyn'd with sleep this is perfect sleep In death a Believer enjoys a perfect rest A state wherein Believers lie quietly in their beds of earth and have not so much as one waking moment or distracting dream Here indeed those Doves find no rest for the soles of their feet but no sooner are they lodged in the Ark of death but they are at rest They shall [n] Isa 57.2 rest in their beds Now there is a five-fold rest which a Believer enjoyes in and by his temporal death From labour from trouble from infirmities from sin and from temptations 1. From labour and toil No working in the Grave There the servant is free from his master The poor Israelite from his Egyptian Task-master No tale of bricks demanded there There the weary with labour is at rest Job 3.17 19. This life is the day of the Saints working They as well as their Master must work while 't is day Death is the night of the Saints resting When the Sun of our Life ariseth we go forth to our labour until the evening of death Psal 104.23 and no longer for then they that die in the Lord rest from their labours Rev. 14.13 This life is a continual motion death a perpetual rest Our life is a stormy passage a tempestuous Sea-voyage death brings us to a peaceable Port. 2. From troubles miseries calamities And these either publick or private 1. Publick and National No warrs famine pestilence no bloody battels no garments rould in blood no sodding of the Babe to satisfie the hunger of the Mother in the Grave If a Cloud of blood hover over a Nation If an Angel on a red Horse be ready to mount and march through a Kingdome If commission be given to the Sword to eat flesh and to drink blood the death of a Believer houses him before the storm Josiah dies in peace and sees not all the evil which God will bring on Jerusalem 2 King 22.20 The Righteous man is taken from the evil to
Christ Rom. 8.38 39. Though Abraham Isaeac Jacob die yet God is still their God Matth. 21.31 32. The Relation of God to them is as strong when dead as when living Though dead to men yet they were not dead to God Sleep though it chains up the senses for a time yet it dissolves not the union between soul and body Nor does the sleep of the Spouse break the marriage knot between her and her Bridegroom the union that is betwixt Christ and Believers out-lives death Death indeed may and doth triumph over the naturall union betwixt body and soul but cannot in the least either dissolve or weaken the mysticall union betwixt the soul and Christ Let Believers live and they live from for and in Christ and let them die they do but sleep in him Thus for Information Exhor ∣ tation 2 2. Exhortation Is a Believers death no more then a sleep Then Believers 1. Be not afraid of death Your death Believers is a sleep a sweet sleep Eccles 5.12 and should the labouring man be afraid of a sweet sleep No but rather resolve with David though you walk in the valley of the shaddow of death yet there to fear no evil Psal 27.3 I disswade not from a naturall or from a spiritual fear of death The one is allowed the other necessary He is no man that doth not fear death Beside the pain Nature must needs shrink at the thought of parting and he acts not the Christian that doth not so fear death as to mind and prepare for its certain and yet most uncertain On-set I only disswade from that base cold cowardly carnal fear of death which makes the whole life nothing else but a living death which [v] Furer est ne moriare mori kills men daily because they must once die and keeps them under perpetual slavery and bondage Heb. 2.15 To drive this Naile home I would only offer these few Considerations 1. Such a slavish fear better becomes a Pharaoh and his Magicians then Israclites and Believers 'T is no wonder to see their courage fall when once the cry of death is in their Houses Exod. 12.29 30. This Basilisk may well affright those Enchanters and Mountebanks But a Moses an Israelite indeed may take it by the tayle handle it and turn it into an harmless wand yea into a rod budding with glory and immortality 'T is true the [w] Dar. 5.15 6. Caldean Tyrants face may look pale and grisly stam'd with the colour and fear of death Those hands which not long since lifted up his massie Goblets in scorn and desiance of the God of Israel may well hang down when death writes him a letter of summons to appear that night before a most strict and supreme Tribunal I do not wonder at Lewis the eleventh his strait charge to his servants when once they saw him sick never once to name that bitter word Death in his eare Well may these fear Death that know him but as a Pursuivant sent from Hell But that is not your case Believers 2. Consider How cheerfully have Gods people your fellow souldiers lookt death in the face Paul so farre from fearing that he earnestly pants and longs after a dissolution Phil. 1.28 How sweetly doth good old Simeon chant out his Swan-like song his Dom ns nunc dimittis Luke 2.29 How familiarly doth holy Moses hear of his end 't is no more betwixt God and Moses but go up to Mount Nebo and die Deut. 32.50 Had he been invited to a feast it could not have been in a more sweet compellation No otherwise then to other Prophets Go up and eat or sleep It has been no harsh news to Gods Children to hear of their departure To them death hath lost its horrour through Acquaintance That face which at first seemed ill-favoured by often viewing is grown out of dislike Saints that have had such intire conversation with God are not afraid to go to him Hence that of Ambrose I have not so lived that I am ashamed to live longer nor yet fear I death because I have a good Lord And that of Hilarion to his soul Egredere Anima egredere Get thee out my soul away thou hast seventy years served Christ and art thou now afraid of death 3. Whilst there lurks in the breast this slavish fear of death the least piece of this leaven is enough to soure the whole lump of all our joyes and comforts The least dram of this Coloquintida will marr the rellish of all our sweets and make us cry out there is death death death in the pot This little fly will soon taint our whole box of Ointment On these and such like Acceunts Believers may be strongly armed against the uncomely slavish fear of death But that is not all This truth calls yet for a more raysed and noble temper screws up Believers to an higher Cue Viz. 2. Is your death Believers a sleep so sweet a sleep 't is not enough for you not to fear it becomes you to be willing to die to desire to be dissolved Phil. 1.23 To groan earnestly to be uncloathed that you may go to rest 2 Cor. 5.1 4. Let it not be said of you that you are dragg'd and haled to your graves as of the foolish rich man Luke 12.20 x ' 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vehementius ab invito flagito Causab This night thy soul shall be taken from thee Go not as a Swine but as a Lamb to the slaughter Resign thy soul without a forcible entry Be a Voluntier in death Be not prest to it Death which is the Atheists fear should be the Christians desire Yet here observe this desire of death must not spring from a pet or passion meerly out of a taedium of living as a sick man desires to change his bed meerly out of weariness of and discontentment with his present condition Death may not must not be desired out of impatience under or distrust of Gods Providence Job 3.3.7.15 Jer. 20.74 Jon. 4.3 No nor yet to avoid the labour and duty of our callings To be weary of living on such accounts argues not Christianity or a more raised frame but pride peevishness cowardliness slug gishness of spirit But this grand condition alwayes understood viz. with submission to the will of God it hugely becomes a Christian considering the weight of his sins here and of his glory hereafter that death delivers from the one and ushers into the other with [y] Phil. 1.23 Paul to desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ And that on a double account 1. There is nothing here that can invite or deferre our stay Alas what is there here but darkness of ignorance distempers of passions complaints of estates fears and sense of evil hopes and doubts of good ambitious rackings covetous toylings envious underminings restless desires all vanity and vexation of spirit Eccles 1.1 many worlds of discontent in one Why then should we linger and han ker
in insidelity or impenitency Dare not to sleep a minute who can tell but then the Bridegroom may come and take thee as he did the foolish Virgins napping Matth. 25.5 6 13. Thy Lord comes not only in a day but in an hour thou thinkest not of therefore watch alway Matth. 24.44 50. Dehorta ∣ tion 3 3. By way of Dehortation Is a Believers death only a sleep Then mourn not immoderately for them that are fallen asleep in Jesus Remember I beseech you you neer Relations of our now deceased Friend mourn not immoderately she is fallen asleep in Jesus This is our Aposiles great drist in the Text to disswade his Thessalonians from immoderate grief for their dead Relations and that on this account because they were only fallen asleep in Christ It is indeed an indispensable duty to be really affected with and afflicted for the death of holy men who knows no what lamentations were taken up for good old Jacob Gen. 50.16 for holy Hezekiah 2 Chron. 32.33 for precious hopeful Josiah 2 Chron. 35.24 25. Who hath not heard of Elisha's Epitaph my father my father the Horsemen of Israel and the Chariots thereof 2 King 13.14 Nurse Deborah buried under Allon-Bacuth an oak of weeping Gen. 35.8 and charitable Dorcas covered with tears as she covered others with cloaths Act. 9.39 Tears for the dead are their just [b] 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dofunelorum justa dues If ever grief be seasonable it becomes a funeral Grieve then we may and must but not immoderately our sorrow must have its just check and due temper and that on these accounts 1. Such an immoderate grief would give too great an occasion to the Gentiles to traduce us When they see us bewayle those as utterly lost whom we profess to live with God Spei nostra ac fidei prevaricatores sumus Simulata ficta fucata videnter esse quae dicimus Cypr. 2. Such an immoderate grief is contrary to the example of our holy predecessours Saints that have gone before us have set us bounds to their sorrows So did Abraham for his dearest Sarah * Intimated by a small Caph in Libcothah Geu 23.2 4. So did Josoph and his brethren for their father Jacob. True they mourned with a great and very sore lamentation but then it lasted but ten dayes Gen. 50.10 Though the Egyptians indeed mourned for him seventy dayes v. 3. Not that the Israelites were lesse kind but more Christian-like in their sorrows And David too though a man as it were made up of strong affections sets limits to his griefs 2 Sam. 12.23 24. Though in Absolom's case he forgat himself Which yet [c] Non orbarium doluit sed quia noverat in quas panas impia adultero parricidalis anima raperetur Aug. Austin endeavours to excuse 3. Such an immoderate grief is direclly contrary to Gods Revealed-will The Israelites might not cut themselves not make any baldness between their eyes for the dead Both testimonies of the Heathens immoderate sorrow Deut. 14.1 and our Saviour intimates his dislike of the Jewish Minstrels which were used for the increase of sorrow at funerals Matt. 9.23 24. as knowing that in that case our affections needed not so much a spur as a bridle 4. Such an immoderate grief is thwart and contrary to the blessed estate and condition of Saints departed Is it fit to grieve immoderately for those that are preferred hence to heaven Suppose them whilst here as well as earth could make them what is earth to heaven gold to glory the enjoyment of the whole creation to the fruition of a Creator Why then should we blubber our cheeks and say of them as Jacob of Joseph They are devoured when as they are gone to be Lords in Egypt Non Lugendus qui moritur sed desiderandus Tert. Saints departed are fitter objects for our desires to be with them then of our sorrows for being for a while deprived of them Too deep a [d] Non accipiendoe sunt hic airae vestes quando illi ibi instrumenta alba jam sumpserum Cypr. black becomes not us below while we consider that they walk in whites above If it was our joy to see them sanctified it should be our triumph to know them saved Consola ∣ tion 4 Lastly by way of Consolation How does this Doctrine drop like the dew or rather like an Honey-comb You hear Believers that your death is a sleep Nothing more Hold up therefore your hands that hang down strengthen the feeble knees Remember 1. Your death is a sleep Whilst here you are very apt to complain of many a vexing day of many a restless night O know there is a time shortly coming when you shall lie down quietly in your beds of earth and not be disturbed in the least either with one waking moment or distracting dream When once the curtains of darkness are drawn about you you shall never open your eyes more till the morning of Eternity dawn and break forth in lustre on you Behold to your everlasting comfott death it self is even embalmed to you and clothed in such soft language that you may scent a perfume and discover a beauty in it and 't is no more a death but a sleep only to you 2. 'T is a sleep that is accompanied with rest and quietness An undisturbed Rest A port an haven of Rest and how welcom should that be to a sea-sick weather-beaten Seaman How dessrable how acceptable should death be to a soul long tost in the waves of this world sick of its own sinful imaginations and tired with external temptations Here alas there is no Palace so high or Tower so strong that can keep diseases and infirmities from your bodies cares fears temptations from your souls yea but your death puts you into such a Cittadel whose walls are so many cubits high that no Senacherib can shoot an arrow into it its strong gates and bars exclude all enemies all annoyances None from without can storm it none from within can betray it 'T is such a Castle as affords a perfect tranquility to all within it Rev. 14.13 3. 'T is a sleep in Jesus To whom departed Saints are still united and whilst Christ your Head is above water you need not fear a drowning When you depart hence from your Friends Armes you do but ascend to your Saviours more close embraces No sooner shall your souls lay down the clay of your body but they shall be seated under his Altar Rev. 6.9 Under his special protection which is such a perfect Sanctuary as no Avenger of blood can there either arrest or disturb you 4. 'T is a sleep and that in Jesus and therefore you shall and must rise again If Christ the head be risen the body shall not alwayes sleep 'T is the Apostles grand comfort in the Text and his Argument 1 Cor. 15.20 These bodies of yours in death are not lost but laid up only Job 19.26 27. and as man lies down in weakness sleeps and riseth up in strength like a Giant refresht with wine So a Believer like a grain of corn dies indeed but 't is that he may spring up in more lustre beauty fruitfulness John 12.24 As by sleep our bodies are refresht so by death our bodies shall be resin'd These bodies of yours which are laid down in corruption shall be raised in glory That skin which is now wrinkled shall one day shine this dust shall be glorious this base and vile body shall be transformed and made conformable to that glorious Standard viz. Christs Body These course materials this lump of red earth shall be laid to mellow in the earth till it be fit to be made more then a China-dish even a vessel fit for the great Masters use a Cabinet fit to receive a glorified soul Think not therefore much to loose a little vermilion red a mixture only of flegm and sanguine for this you shall gain a radiant and resplendent luster in comparison whereof the most accomplisht beauty on earth would look but like a meer deformity Death will not so much consume as calcine your bodies sever the dross from the silver the ore from the gold 1 Cor. 15.42 43. when you fall it shall not be said of you as of him Died Abner as a fool or as a Beast No but as a [e] Combustus senex tumule procedit adultus consumens dat membera rogus Phenix out of whose very ashes there springs another more lively and vigorous Wherefore comfort one another with these words And be not ignorant brethren concerning them which are asleep c. FINIS