us the desire of Food and that drives away those diseases that would lessen and abate our Appetite And it is in the sense of his Providence that we ask his Blessing before we eat and return him thanks afterwards For were it not for his Gracious Influences our Faculties would quickly lose their proper Vertues and we should notwithstanding all our Care quickly dye All Sicknesses are at his disposal for it is he that kills and that makes alive he bringeth down to the grave and bringeth up 1 Sam. 2. 6. When he pleases to withdraw his most Common Blessings we droop and Languish and pine away Thousands of Diseases stand in a readiness waiting for his Command and when our sins make him to give the word they fall upon us with a mighty Violence and in a few restless dayes and nights change our Countenances break off our purposes and stain all our Pride and glory Fools because of their transgression and because of their iniquities are afflicted Their soul abhorreth all manner of meat and they draw nigh unto the gates of death Psal. 107. 17 18. God has fixed the bounds of our habitations and the very time of our stay and when it shall be that they must know us no more We are but Dust and Ashes and how soon can the mighty power of our great Creator blow away the most strong and healthful with more ease than we can our breath scatter a little dust All things in this lower World have their Rise their Progress and Decay by the Decree of God and so have the Lives of men There is a time wherein to be born and a time wherein to dye and both known to him though upon wise Reasons hid from our knowledge God does with great Wisdom cast a Veil of thick night upon all future Events that so we may without needless and diverting Curiosity perform our present duty He shews this Dominion that he hath over the Lives of Men in these two things First In the large difference which his Providence makes amongst those persons whose outward Circumstances seem to be much alike One sick man by the use of some mixtures or applications immediately recovers and another that with the most exact observance takes the same Physick consumes his days in tedious Sorrows and in the flouds of his own Tears is carried Mourning to the Grave Secondly He shews his Soveraign disposal of the Lives of Men in ordering the different Seasons and times of their Death One is cut down in his early Spring and in his blooming greener Youth and his Sun is covered with darkness almost as soon as it begins to rise whilest another weathers out the Storms and grows to a mature and full Age. One does but peep as it were into the World takes a short view of it and is commanded out again and is at his Journeys end in the morning of his Life and another is allow'd to travel till the shadows of the Evening are stretched out according to their most regular advances and till the Threescore and Ten that is the usual date of Long Life is expired One is quickly summoned to the Great Tribunal and judged whilest another has a longer space wherein to prepare for his Tryal and his Final doom 'T is the Divine Providence that sees and orders not onely the larger portions of the lives of Men such as Infancy and Childhood and Youth and Manhood but as God numbers the Hairs of our Heads so known to him are all the minutes and hours and days and particularities of our Life and every moment of our Time He has set us our bounds that we cannot pass and with respect to his Appointment no man dyes before his Time Though a man that dyes by an acute Disease or a violent Death dyes before that time which he might have reach'd in an ordinary Course and before old Age which we reckon to be the most seasonable time wherein to dye Bloody and deceitful men are said not to live out half their dayes that is according to the General Limit and Order of Providence as to the Age of Man viz. Seventy or Eighty years And indeed every Wicked Man in some sense dyes before his time because he is not sit to dye like Fruit that is gather'd before it be fully ripe I now proceed to some Application And from this Doctrine we may Infer First If God be the Soveraign disposer of Life and Death then the Friends of the Sick do them the greatest kindness when they recommend their Case to him And to this they are obliged by the Communion which they have with them in the same Humane Nature they are also in the body in such a body as is liable to as many pains as they see in others They may be plunged into the same distresses and need the same favour to be shewed to them Regard I beseech you your afflicted Friends with great tenderness and pity for whatsover their Case is your sins may bring you as Low and you have no assurance that what has happen'd to them may not be your own Lot before you come to the period of this miserable Life It is also the duty of the Sick themselves in the first assaults of Pain with great Humility and Contrition of Spirit to betake themselves to God as their onely helper and with a fervour suitable to the sadness of their Case to request of him Faith and Patience Repentance and Mortification and the pardon of sin and earnestly to pray that if it may be their sickness may not be very long nor very sharp For long and sore afflictions are so great Tryals of Humane Nature that they may very well be prayed against and I suppose no man thinks himself obliged to desire an heavy Cross. As to what concerns the Sick Man himself he is to put his Affairs into the best order he can upon the first warning the first beginning of his Illness for indeed in most Distempers those increasing pains that attend them will not allow him to do it afterwards Thus Job advises Chap. 33. 26. that When a man is chastened with pain upon his bed he shall pray unto God and he will be favourable to him and he shall see his face with joy But he that never begins to pray till he be almost at the last Gasp will not be able to make such a strong and fervent Prayer as is like to reach to Heaven As for them that try the Physitian till he gives them over and never till then seek the Prayers of the Church they have but little Reason to hope for help from God to whom they have no recourse till they are driven by the last extremity For they shew that if they could have had Relief without him they cared not to be beholden to him for it In which Case it is just with God to suffer the Sickness to be mortal which perhaps had not been so if Applications had been made to him
with the first by calling for the Elders by confessing their Sins by promising Repentance and by Prayers for good things requisite as well for the body as for the Soul Discourse of Extream Unction pag. 48. It is also the duty of those that are acquainted with the sick instead of vain and frivolous discourses of Common Affairs which have no relish with those that are in great pain to Minister as far as they are able to their Spiritual Wants to direct instruct and any other way to help them to set their Souls in order and to trim their Lamp See what Care the Holy Prophet used to his Enemies Psal. 35. 13 14. When they were sick my clothing was sackcloth I humbled my soul with fasting and my prayer returned into my own bosom I behaved my self as though he had been my friend or brother I bowed down heavily as one that mourneth for his Mother Those means which he used for their Recovery were an argument of the sincerity of his own Religion as well as of his most affectionate Sympathy and tenderness to them When you visit the sick you see in them the prospect of your own Mortal Estate You see how soon their Complexion their Temper their Sociableness and all that agreeableness of Humour which was pleasing to you is gone and changed In their broken feeble expressions in their wan and pale looks and in their fallen Countenances you behold that man in his best Estate is altogether vanity Psal. 39. 5. and how when God with rebukes does correct man for Iniquity he makes his beauty to consume away like a moth ver II. then you see that all flesh is grass and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field Isa. 40. 6. How many times do you see those whom you love strugling with pains strong and bitter even as death it self and you cannot though you never so earnestly desire it afford to them the least Relief not a moments ease nor the smallest interval of rest but when your hearts have sunk within you with the doleful and unintermitted accents of their Groans and Sighs how often have you prayed to God and he has appear'd to your help and theirs There may be many Cases wherein much speaking may do your afflicted Friends no good at all but there is no Case wherein your prayers may not be of great advantage either to preserve them with you or to obtain for them some Gracious discoveries of the Love of God or a more easie passage both which are very great Mercies What wonders have been wrought in all Ages by the power of the United Intercession of Believers when they have carried their sick to Christ. What numbers are there of perfect Souls in Heaven that can Witness to the Truth of this and how many deliver'd Captives are on Earth that can now with joy set their Seal to it and say with Transport truly God is a God hearing prayers The continued prayers of the Church for Peter did procure his Enlargement and an Angel was dispatcht to break his Chains and to send him to carry the welcom news to the then praying Church that their prayers were heard and he was deliver'd Many there are now alive that owe their Lives to this whereof I am one The Mercy of God which alone could help me and that was implored and sought by your prayers has brought me from the very Grave In all future occasions try this method for you know it is available and successful Is any afflicted let him pray himself is any so overwhelm'd that he cannot well perform it Let him call for the Elders of the Church and let them pray over him and the prayer of Faith shall save the sick Jam. 5. 14 15. He is to use this course as a means for the recovery of his Health for though we cannot with any Modesty pretend to the prayer of Faith here mentioned that is of a certain perswasion that the person for whom we pray shall be raised up yet we ought to pray in this Faith that it is pleasing to God when we express our dependance upon him by asking those things which we need that every good thing comes from him and therefore health and deliverance from death that though he does not alwayes give that particular thing which we ask yet 't is sometimes denied because we do not ask and that as he never gives the greatest Blessings of all which are those of a good mind but in answer to prayers So sometimes he does not send bodily good things because he is not prayed to for them And there is no less Reason for Prayer when God raiseth up the sick by Blessing ordinary means than when it was done by a supernatural Gift Discourse of Extream Unction pag 46. Inf. 2. There is great Reason to Fear and Reverence God For as he presides over all the Revolutions of Empires and Nations their Original their Growth their Prosperities and Decayes so he does likewise over particular persons in their Life and Death His knowledge and his Government reaches to all things for their Existence depends upon his Will It is in his power to destroy or to save He is the God in whose hand our Life is We lye at his Mercy and according as he Wills we must either be Healthful or Sick Live or Dye His are our times on his pleasure our present happiness and our future welfare depends He sits upon the flouds and orders with a steady and uniform design All that appears most uncertain and changeable to us He can either make the Waters of Affliction to drown us or say unto them as unto the waves of the Sea hitherto shall you go and no further even then when their swelling Pride threatens us with total desolation He has appointed his Sun to measure out our time and knows when shall be the last concluding day When those that are now living shall dye and by what sort of death and where after that they shall be placed whether in Happiness or Wo. He knows when the last Trumpet shall sound and when the dead shall be rais'd Of him therefore should we stand in Awe as having that voice continually in our ears Deut. 32. 39 40. See now that I even I am he and there is no God with me I kill and I make alive I wound and I heal neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand for I lift up my hand to heaven and say I live for ever What an abundance of diseases are at his beck what abundance of Arrows are in his Quiver what abundance of sins do we commit which cause him to bend his bow and provoke him to set us up as marks of his displeasure He can strike the most consident and secure sinners dead in a moment or with long abiding pains fill them with so great anguish and vexation that they shall chuse strangling and death rather than Life Alass what are we to this Great
God but as Chaffe before the Wind but as Thorns and Briars before a Consuming Fire but by a reverential awe of him we may lay hold of his Strength and be at Peace Look up to his Heavens and that vastly extended Firmament that is above and then reflect and think how great is he that made all this Creation with a Word Look to his Law and consider how holy he is in his Precepts and Threatnings and then look to your selves and consider how Sinful and how Vile you are Look upon the strange punishments and miseries under which many of your Fellow-creatures groan and be not high-minded but fear because the God that afflicts them may perhaps very shortly do the same to you and let it fill you with the most awful thoughts when you consider how great is his power how severe his Justice and how unspotted is his Holiness How easie is it for him to bring you to the Grave if he do but withdraw sleep from your eyes so that you have no rest for three or four nights or for one Week Then there is a stop put to all your present projects and then all the Comfort of the World is gone For all Affairs depend upon Activity and Vigour and this will cease when sleep does no longer refresh your Spirits as it us'd to do All your apprehensions will change when you have lost this support of weak nature this onely prop of Comfortable Life God can make the strongest and most healthful persons quickly to feel Sickness and Diseases He can quickly turn a pleasant fruitful Land into barrenness and the most beautiful Habitations into Dust and Ashes We should greatly beware of provoking him of whose Mercy we stand in need and whose Wrath we cannot bear He can quickly change all our Joy into Mourning and our Day into Night and our Light into the shadow of Death When he frowns all the stateliness of Buildings all the Glory of Nations all the Pomp and Splendour of the World is gone How soon can he lay waste a flourishing Countrey with War or Plague or Famine he can quickly turn the house of Joy into an house of Mourning and deprive us of what is most pleasant in our Eyes and blast all our hopes You have seen that by letting loose an unruly Element of Fire he turn'd this City in two or three dayes into an heap of Ruins and by filling the Air with contagious Vapors sent many thousands in a very little time into the Grave and he can by letting loose any one Humour in your bodies make you a burden to your selves and to be weary of a World in which you can no longer live as you us'd to do Inf. 3. There is great Reason that under any Sickness or Distress that befalls us we should submit our selves to this God that brings even to death and back again If you be plagued all the day long and chasten'd every morning Psal. 73. 14. whilest others are in no trouble and if you feel your strength decay whilest theirs is firm let no murmuring thoughts fill your Minds because you are the Creatures of God and he may do with you what he will Keep a remembrance of his absolute Soveraignty alwayes imprinted on your Hearts Job 33. 12 13. God is greater than man why dost thou strive against him for he giveth not account of any of his matters Whatever he doth is therefore good and holy because he does it And when he chastens us very sore we should lay our Mouthes in the dust and bear with Patience his Indignation because we have sinned against him We must not yield our selves to our Miseries but to him that sends them and that you may submit in Great and Heavy Trials you must have recourse to the Promises of the Gospel the Mercy of God and the Righteousness of Christ the Merit of his Sufferings and the Efficacy of his Intercession and if you believe you will be established for without Faith in Christ there is no Hope and without Hope no Submission How can this be done if a man have no prospect of advantage by it either in this or the next World for no man can possibly submit to be for ever Miserable It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the Salvation of the Lord Lam. 3. 26. Inveigh not therefore against the Rod though it smart very much but look to the hand in which it is to that Wisdom that has the disposal of it and to those sins that have deserv'd it Look not upon your Evils as the product of Chance or Fortune but as the effect of an Holy Providence which though it is many times very severe yet is alwayes very just Adore this Providence with an humble Silence and Veneration You do not know which is better for you Health or Sickness Affliction or Deliverance he onely knows that knows all things and it will be very grateful to him if you give a chearful entertainment to his Order and Decree If he please who is your Gratious Creator and your Father he can therefore afflict you that he himself may be your Cordial and revive your fainting spirits from the very Grave but if not your Religion should teach you to approve of all the messages he sends you and by a quiet Resignation to put your Souls into his hands when he signifies by the Progress and Increase of your Distemper that your Race is finisht and that it is now your time to die And in order to this you must lay up a good store against that Evil day For you may be warned from the World with long Chronical Diseases that by their Acuteness and Violence may be as so many several Deaths complicated together And then when you have no hope of bodily ease any more then will be the great Tryal of your Faith Several Men will with great hardiness and resolution bear very great pains so long as there is the least hope of Life but to be patient and submissive in the deepest Sorrows and in the view of certain death this is what none can rightly attain to but those that Believe and not all those neither but such whose Faith is deeply rooted has for a long time flourisht and Conquer'd overwhelming doubts and so is of more than an ordinary growth This is that which rendred the Patience of our Blessed Redeemer so very remarkable that when he was lead to the slaughter where he knew he was to suffer violent and great pain from barbarous and cruel men yet even then he opened not his mouth and when he knew there was unspeakable bitterness in that Cup which he was going to drink yet notwithstanding all the Wormwood and the Gall that was in it and though his Innocent Nature did recoil a little yet he drank it off saying with an entire freedom of Choice and a full Acquiescence Father not my Will but thine be done And this was the fruit of a mighty trust
as not to leave us the use or enjoyment of some good or at least of our selves Death extinguisheth our Life and by this means overthrowing the very Foundations of our Enjoyments doth at the same time despoil as of all other good things altogether Daille sur Coloss. 2. 13. Life is the most excellent Gift of God but Death is an Enemy to Nature and cannot be lov'd for it self 't is the fruit of Sin Rom. 5. 12. 'T is the wages thereof Rom. 6. 23. For if Adam had persever'd in his Innocent Condition he had enjoyed a Glorious Immortality without those pains and that Death which is now our Lot The Philosophers indeed thought that death was natural to Man and all the discourses they grounded upon this false principle are so vain and empty that they onely serve to shew in the General how weak Man is seeing the greatest productions of the wisest Men are so mean and Childish Pascal pensees S. 30. Death is the matter of the Threat and therefore a punishment though Believers whose Faith is in exercise may quietly submit to it as a passage to Eternal Glory We give it indeed many soft names and seem to make nothing of it in our ordinary discourse we speak of nothing with more unconcernedness and with less Fear but it ceases not to be an Enemy though we give it never so many fair Characters Men at a distance from it can make a sleight matter of it but its nearer approaches if attended with the due sense of Futurity will make the boldest and the stoutest Man to tremble it will strike a damp into his Spirits mingle Gall and Wormwood with his Wine and Bitterness with his sweetest Joys Death is not the less formidable for being unavoidable but rather more so as a certain Evil is more an Evil than that which is only probable and which may never happen but do we consider what it is for the Union that is between the body and the Soul to be dissolv'd what it is to see Corruption what it is to have this Body turn'd into a Carkass without Life and Motion what it is to have this Body which we have tended with so long a Care which we have maintain'd at so vast a Charge of Meat and Drink and Time to have this Body in which we have slept and liv'd at Ease laid into the cold Grave and there in a loathsome manner to putrifie and consume away it cannot but occasion very great Commotions when the day is come that the two Friends who have been so long acquainted and so dear to one another must part Death is an evil to be prayed against for as such it cannot be the Object of desire And the old saying of Augustin is not unworthy of our Observation That if there were no bitterness in Death the Constancy of Martyrs would not be so remarkable Therefore says the Apostle 2 Cor. 5. 4. We would not be uncloathed but clothed upon It is promised as a favour to Ebedmelech that though he sustained many other losses yet he should have his life for a prey Jer. 39. 18. and Paul then whom none had a greater desire and esteem of Glory yet reckons it a Blessing for a good Man to be kept alive For he sayes of Epaphroditus Phil. 2. 27. He was sick nigh unto death but God had mercy on him And we find the Holy Men of Old very earnest for their Lives Return O Lord deliver my soul O save me for thy mercies sake For in death there is no remembrance of thee in the Grave who shall give thee thanks Psal. 6. 4. 5. Psal. 39. 13. Oh spare me that I may recover strength before I go hence and be no more Psal. 102. 24. I said O my God take me not away in the midst of my dayes And what doleful Expressions did Hezekiah use upon the news of his approaching death Isa. 38. 10. I said in the cutting off of my dayes I shall go to the gates of the Grave I am deprived of the residue of my years I said I shall not see the Lord even the Lord in the land of the living I shall behold man no more with the inhabitants of the Earth Reason 2. When a Man dyes 't is to him as an end of all the World He is no more considered as a Member of that Community to which he did once belong When his Eyes are once clos'd by Death he is no more to behold the Sun Moon and Stars which he now sees nor his Fields and Gardens his Shops and Houses his Estate and Lands As the waters fail from the Sea and the flood decayeth and drieth up So man lieth down and riseth not till the heavens be no more Job 14. 11 12. He quits for ever all those Earthly things on which he once set his Heart and when he is asleep in his Bed of dust he will not awake to pursue secular Affairs and Business which took up so much of his time and labour He must no more frequent his Exchange not read Books nor discourse with his Relations and Friends as he us'd to do among the Living here The first sound that he will he will hear will be the Voice of the Last Trumpet Arise ye dead and come to judgment The first sight that he will see will be the Mighty Judge in the Clouds and the Heavens and the Earth all in one flame All that little share of the World which he called his own will be undiscern'd and buryed in the vast ruins and desolations of the Great Day When a Man dyes 't is with him as an End of the World all the Affairs of Peace and War of Trade and Commerce and Gain and Riches all his projects and designs his large reaches his forecast his â—â—â—ughtfulness about News or about providing for his own Name or for posterity all these things are at an end with him for ever It would put a mighty Change upon the Face of things and the Circumstances of particular persons if they knew certainly the World would be at an end in four or five years or in so many Moneths and no man knows but it may be so as to him because before or at that time Death may cut him off and then he has no more to do with this Earth or with the Sons of Men. As the cloud is consumed and vanisheth away so he that goeth down to the grave shall come up no more He shall return no more to his house neither shall his place know him any more Job 7. 9 10. Reason 3. Because when we dye our Everlasting state is to be determin'd l After Death the Judgment The moment of our departure hence will pass us over to the Righteous Tribunal of God It will make us either to shine with the Angels above or to set with the Devils It will either fix us in a joyful Paradise or in an intolerable state of Wo. So that we may say with Nieremberg how
longing Soul It is then upon the Mount and sees his smiling Face and would fain always see it it is loth to come down to the meaner Employments of this World and when the necessary Affairs of the present Life call it away it comes from the pleasant Work shining with brighter Grace and Holiness It is a thing of more Honour to You than a thousand honourable Titles that You keep up constantly the worshipping of God and reading the Scriptures in your Families Morning and Evening and indeed it is an Arrogance in those to call themselves Christians who neglect so sacred and so considerable a part of our holy Religion And your good Example in the due practice of these excellent Things will have a powerful Influence upon your Children and what you now do they will also do if they live to have Families and the sight of Religion in you will convey to them a greater Approbation and a more easy practice of it God has bless'd you with a numerous and an hopeful Offspring whose present and future Welfare I do with an undissembled Affection most heartily desire By their Seriousness their Ingenuity and their good Inclinations they give us cause to expect that though they are now as Olive-plants round about your Tables yet that they will hereafter refresh the Hearts of many more besides your own Families And that as it is expressed in Psal. 144. 12. Your Sons may be as Plants grown up in their Youth that your Daughters may be as Corner-Stones polished after the Similitude of a Palace I question not but the Prayers that you send up to Heaven for them will procure the Blessing of the Divine Providence which is the richest and the best Inheritance It is a Blessing of God that you have so many living Images of your selves in whom you see your own Life renewed And you are so happy as to have your Quivers full of them May they all live to be your Comfort and to maintain Religion in the World God has been pleas'd to give You several Instances of the Vanity of this World by the Deaths of several of your Relations some of which died in their most hopeful Youth and in the Flower of their Age whilst their Friends promised themselves a long Comfort and Delight in their Conversation who had they lived might have been of great use to their Country and to the Church of God And one Relation you lost by a way that was very afflicting to you but advantagious to him He died unseasonably as to us for we needed his Prayers and his good Example but his Death was seasonable as to himself for I do not doubt but he was prepared for it He died much beloved and greatly bewailed Those that knew him could not but esteem and value him for the Assableness and Civility of his Temper the Conscientiousness of his Dealings the Sincerity and Heartiness of his Expressions the good Order that he kept in his Family and for that Uprightness and unaffected Religion that appeared to all that observed his Conversation I may without any shew of Flattery say he was one of those good Men for whom many would have died could they have exchanged their meaner Lives for his more serviceable Life He died by a may somewhat terrible to Flesh and Blood but which by Faith he overcame His Zeal for the Liberties of this City and which he shewed whilst he was in an honour able Station rendred him obnoxious to those Persons then in Authority who gave liberty to their Revenge to fall upon those who knew not how to flatter or commend or promote their Arbitrary Designs It was a thing below him to use such sneaking and such unchristian Arts for Honour or for Safety There is nothing can satisfy his Friends for the loss of so excellent a Citizen so good a Man and so sincere a Friend but the consideraon of that Providence which tho it be mysterious and severe for the present yet will hereafter appear to have been very wise and very good to all those that love God Tho the Loss his Friends sustained by his removal from them be great yet it cannot but be a Satisfaction to them to consider that he was happy in his Death He is gone to that God that as he said himself knew his Innocence and to a Place where there are no false Accusations and where he and his holy Friends shall never part again This and much more than what I have said is due to the Memory of so great and so good a Man whom it is impossible for a true Lover of his Country ever to forget My Zeal to the remembrance of those Persons which I have mentioned and whom I honoured and esteemed together with the Respect that I ought to express to them has drawn me to a much greater Length than what I at first intended and tho when I consider the multitude of your Affairs both publick and domestick I am afraid I have too much presum'd upon your Time in this Dedication yet the Experience that I have often had of your Candour makes me to believe that you will forgive even so criminal a Presumption God has given you plentiful Estates and which is as great a Mercy Hearts to use them You have often been Eyes to the Blind and Feet to the Lame There are many hundreds whom your Charities have refresh'd the Blessing of those that were ready to perish has often come upon you And you have made the Hearts of the Desolate to sing for Joy And it is no small support of your Prosperities to have many praying for you to God and who are the more earnest as having been greatly obliged by you I do now thank you for all the many Kindnesses that I have received from you both in my former Health and in my late sore Affliction I thank you for Visiting me in my low Estate tho the greatness of my Pain and the anguish of my Thoughts allowed me not to take such notice of so great an Honour as otherwise I should have done I have often said when I was greatly afflicted That I should neither see you nor any others of my Friends till the great Day and till the Heavens were no more And God alone by his Soveraign Goodness hath brought me from the lowest Pit It was to manifest my Thankfulness to my great Deliverer that I preached the following Sermons in a Place where were many of my Friends many that had prayed for me many that had continued their Kindnesses to me when I could no way be serviceable to them and to whom I can make no other Requital than by praying for them and endeavouring to live to the Glory of that God for whose sake both you and they so kindly remembred me In these Discourses you will find a Relation of some part of my Affliction It is impossible to relate the whole of it for my Sorrows were beyond expression I have not here
many things are to pass in that Moment In the same is our Life to finish our Works to be examined and we are then to know how it will go with us for ever and ever In that Moment I shall cease to Live in that Moment I shall behold my Judge in that moment I must answer for all my publick and my secret Actions for all that I have ever thought or spoke or done for all the Talents the Time the Mercies the Health the Strength the Opportunities and the Seasons and Dayes of Grace that I have ever had for all the Evil that I might have avoided for all the good I might have done and did not and all this before that Judge who has beheld my wayes from my Birth to the Grave before that Judge who cannot be deceiv'd and who will not be impos'd upon Little can he that has not been brought near to Death and Judgement know what Thoughts the diseased have when they are so Little very little does a Soul in Flesh know what it is to appear before the Great God This is so great and so strange a thing that they onely know it who have receiv'd their final Sentence but they are not suffer'd to return to tell us how it is or what passes then and God sees it fit it should be concealed from us who are yet on this side the Grave But who does not tremble to think of this mighty Change and of this Moment that is the last of Time and the beginning of Eternity that includes Heaven and Hell and all the Effects of the Mercy and Justice of God See Moral Essayes Vol. 4. Lib. 1. Chap. 9. Who does not tremble when he Considers that Infinite and Holy Majesty before whom the Angels cover their Faces that Considers his Omniscience and his Greatness and the mighty Consequences of that Sentence how sudden it is and how irresistible and that it is an irrevocable Decree and by a Word of this Mighty Judge we live or dye for ever It is no wonder if the thoughts of it make us shrink and quiver It is a greater wonder that when some or other whom we know are almost every week going to such a place and state as this we who are not yet cited to the Bar are no more concerned and use no more endeavors to be ready for it 't is a wonder that we put no higher a value on that Gospel that teaches us how we may avoid Condemnation 't is a wonder that we prize no more that Gracious Redeemer who alone can plead our Cause and that we labour and strive no more to be partakers of his Righteousness by which we may be Justify'd It is no wonder if this prospect throw men into strange Agonies as it frequently does those who are dying Many people will say when they hear the Complaints of the Sick and their Long Continued Groans It were well if God would take their souls away from their pained Languishing Bodies it were well indeed if that could put an end to their present and their future pain But do they not know that they must go into Eternity and be judged after death Oh my Friends when you come to the Borders of the Grave when you are within an Hour or two's distance from your Final Judgment and your unalterable state what a mighty Change will it cause in your thoughts and your apprehensions You will then know and feel it Then when the Perspective is turn'd and the other World begins to appear very great and this very little This that I have represented to you is a part of that which we call dying Death is that which the Philosophers have talk't of with great Contempt and with lofty Speeches but I believe they commonly talk't so confidently when they thought themselves far from it and I am sure they did so because they had not a distinct knowledge of Futurity For had they consider'd their own sins and the nature of their last Trial with the Consequents of it this would have lower'd all their Pride and Glory they would have changed their Language had they look't upon Death as the Conclusion of Time and the beginning of Eternity and not onely as a going out of this but as an entrance into a state that would never Change It is a great Mercy and greatly to be acknowledg'd that God allows us so much time wherein to prepare our selves for this final and irrevocable doom It is an instance of his Patience that is truly Divine that notwithstanding our many repeated Sins he has not cut us off It is his great Mercy that gives us leave to appear in his Courts before we appear at his Tribunal and that he affords us such large notice and warning that so we may be ready for our Last Tryal whereon so very much depends The Conclusion I May say to you this Evening as Christ to the People concerning John Mat. 11. 7. What came you out to see As for those who came hither out of a Curiosity onely to see one of whom they have it may be heard much discourse Let them know that though by reason of my long and sore Affliction I have been a wonder unto many yet now I can say with some hope that God is my strong Refuge As for those that came with an expectation of hearing something new and diverting that might please their Fancies or gratifie their Ears onely they find themselves by this time mightily disappointed But Those of you that came with a more serious Intention know that you see a Person that has by his own Sins and the Righteous Displeasure of God been for a long Season as in the very Grave and yet by the Power and Goodness of God brought from thence again You see a poor Reed that has been shaken indeed by the Wind but which the Grace of God has kept from being broken to pieces 'T is to you to whom I would principally direct my Speech 't is your Prayers which I would beg that so you would desire of God that the Deliverance which he has so far advanced may be compleated by the same Hand and Mercy that has hitherto reviv'd me You that have Health have cause to praise him for his Mercy and I that have been long sick have cause to praise him who has been my Physitian and my Helper O magnifie the Lord with me and let us exalt his name together Psal. 34. 3. Let us as we join our Prayers so unite our Praises to this mighty Lord. Do you praise him for keeping you from violent overwhelming pains and I will Praise him for mitigating those that I laboured under and though he chastened me sore yet he has not deliver'd me over to death And so by this means we shall bring an acceptable Sacrifice to his Altar and it may be that through Jesus Christ he will receive as an odour of a sweet smell this our Evening Sacrifice The End of the First Sermon Practical
DISCOURSES OF Sickness and Recovery SERMON II. PSAL. 30. ver 3 4. O Lord thou hast brought up my Soul from the grave thou hast kept me alive that I should not go down to the pit Sing unto the Lord O ye Saints of his and give thanks at the remembrance of his holiness Reason 4. DEliverance from the Grave is a great Mercy and greatly to be acknowledged because by that means a man has a longer time in which to prepare for another World And this is more a Mercy because it must go with us for ever according to what we have done in these bodies whether good or evil This Life is our onely state of Tryal and so shall it fare with us hereafter as we now behave our selves There is no knowledge nor invention in the Grave whither we are going None of those things can be performed there which to perform now is our most seasonable and necessary Duty If a man were to have a Tryal for his Estate or Life he would take it for a favour to have leisure given him wherein to make ready for it and to put his Affairs into the best posture that he could it ought to be reckoned a much greater kindness to have notice and time afforded us wherein to prepare for the Last determination of the State of our Souls which is vastly more weighty and Considerable It is a Mercy to have Sickness or some tollerable Affliction sent to summon us before the Arrival of the King of Terrours and to bid us put our Houses and our Minds in Order lest by sensual Enjoyments or the pleasing Enjoyments of the Flesh that Day come upon us unawares and left we be in a slumber when the Voice shall say Behold the Bridegroom eomes go ye out to meet him There is no question at all but that 't is very Lawful with submission to pray against Sudden Death for though it be a Mercy to those whose Grace is eminently strong and who are alwayes ready to dye without Lingring Pains and a Complication of acute and violent Diseases which make Death much more a Death than it would be without them yet to the most the danger of Surprisal is so very great and of being hurried to the Bar and judg'd to an Eternal Condition before we have done what we ought to do in time that we may esteem it none of the least Mercies of God that he does by some shaking blowes warn us before he give the last stroak and cut us down It is not onely the practise of an Holy Life and an Habitual Readiness which Believers have by Faith and the renewing Operations of the Spirit by the uprightness of their Carriage and the Constancy of their Prayers but a more particular preparation that they need 'T is necessary for them not onely to have Oyl in their Lamps but their Lamps burning not onely the Graces of the Spirit but those Graces in the fullest brightness and strength to which they can attain in this Mortal State The best can never be so much prepar'd for Death but they may be more so They never have proceeded so far in their Mortification but they are sensible that they have still more sins to mortifie they have never so much warmed their Hearts with the love of God but that they may still glow with a purer and an hotter Flame It is very desireable to the best to have their Faith more strong their submission more calm and their hope more lively 'T is very desireable to have more Acquaintance and Familiarity with God before they appear at his Tribunal to receive their final Sentence They know well that it is a great Work impartially seriously and constantly to search their own Hearts and to judge themselves aright that they may not be judged of the Lord. As also to discharge all the duties that they owe to God to themselves to their Neighbours and their Countrey and they cannot but be very thankful that they are allow'd more time to do it in That they may purifie their Consciences raise their Affections and review their Lives with exactness and Care when they are shortly to be lookt into by an Omniscient and unerring Eye They know it is a Mercy to be able to loosen their Hearts from the World which they are too much apt to love and in a weanedness from what is sensible to dye before they dye The most Religious have the clearest Apprehension that to appear before Christ is no sleight or Common thing that they must be such in whom he may take delight and be as a Bride adorned for her Husband They know that the Celebration of the Lords Supper and the hearing of the Word and Fast-dayes and extraordinary Seasons of Prayer are such duties as require the preparations of Humbling Sorrows lively Desires awful Reverence Meekness and Self-denial because God will be sanctisied of all that draw nigh unto him They dare scarcely go to the Lords Table without Fear and Trembling much less dare they go to the Lord himself without a most solemn Preparation What Care do men use if they are but about to Transplant themselves into some Foreign Countrey what Inquiries do they make about it What laying in of all necessary Stores that they may not be destitute of suitable accommodations when they come to the new place where they design to fix And 't is not to be wondred at that such as are to be removed into another World are very solicitous about it and very thankful that their season and their day of Grace is lengthned out Whoever Considers the many duties which the Scripture requires of those that believe what obligations they are under to their Saviour what to their Fellow-Christians and to those who are yet strangers to the Faith How many Omissions and Commissions they are guilty of and what need there is of running watching and striving with all their might that they may not loose Heaven and Glory whoso thinks of this must account it a Mercy that they have opportunity wherein to do what is so great and so indispensable And as the Apostle speaking of the new Heavens and new Earth inferrs What manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy Conversation and Godliness 2 Pet. 3. 11. So in this Case we may say what manner of persons ought they to be who must quickly go into Eternity How should they labour to increase with all the increase of God to have suitable Promises laid up in their Hearts from which in the sorest Distresses they may fetch Relief What need have they of manifold Expersences and of the Compleat Armour of Righteousness which may enable them to wrestle with and to subdue the various and unknown difficulties and Tentations of a dying Hour to have their Evidences for Salvation clear and unquestionable to know that they are in a state of Grace and that they have finished the work of their Generation Indeed the Careless part of Men think that the
immortality to light and with that Saviour who is the great Prophet and Teacher of the Church who came from Heaven and is now gone thither and we may fully rest and Acquiesce in the discoveries that he has given us of that Countrey for he knew it very well was very faithful in the discharging of his office and does not impose upon us any thing that is either false or incredible by our Holy Prayers we are to maintain a Commerce with him and with that World and by our frequent going thither in our Meditations we may gain a clearer knowledge of it Though there are no bounds on which our thoughts can terminate but onely the Revelations which God has been pleas'd to make in his own Word What is above those Heavens and that Firmament that we see there 's none can tell us but God and our Saviour who are there For when Men have abstracted their Thoughts with as much industry as they can from All that is material and sensible when they have refin'd their Understandings to the greatest spirituality and pored never so long upon the state of separation they will still remain in the dark about it And he is the most happy Man who in the sincere performance of the Duties of Religion can resign his Soul to Christ in Death and trust him though he is to be removed to a strange and a new World For immediately after he is loos'd from the Body he will understand more in an instant then all the most Learned in this World have ever understood by the labour and diligence of many years Secondly That which renders the continuance of Time to us wherein to prepare for Death a great Mercy is because we are to dye but Once and upon the well or ill doing of it depends our future Happiness or Misery It is a great Mercy that we have time wherein to make ready for our last Combat for if we lose the Battle once we are overthrown for ever it must not be fought over again It is a Mercy that we have leisure to compleat our journey well for we must never travel over the same Road again There will be no second Edition wherein to Correct our former Errors when a period is once put to the last Line of Life Oh what Faith what Courage what Strength is necessary to Conquer the Fears of Death and Death it self If men fail in their Trades they may by the kindness of their Friends be set up again if they have suffer'd Losses by Shipwrack by Fire or by Plunder they may be repaired but a Soul once lost will remain so for ever 'T is a long long Eternity that succeeds our Time if we should live on Earth as many Hundred years as the most Aged live Months it would bear no proportion with that vast and endless duration Whoever compares the shortness of our present state with the continuance of that into which we enter when we are to dye cannot but esteem the being brought back from the Grave to be a great Mercy If you have been careless of hearing at one season you may hear the Word again at another if you have heretofore been cold in your Prayers you may now excite your Hearts and pray with more fervour but if you once dye ill you must never mend so concluding a Miscarriage All the Tears we shed cannot give Life to the Body from which the Soul is fled All the Anguish of Miserable Souls cannot procure for them another Tryal They that are once cut down must never be planted by the Rivers side any more There is hope of a tree if it be cut down that it will sprout again and that the tender branch thereof will not cease though the root thereof wax old in the earth and the stock thereof die in the ground yet through the scent of Water it will bud and bring forth boughs like a plant But man dieth and wasteth away yea man giveth up the ghost and where is he Job 14. 7 8 9 10. Reason 5. Those who are brought up from the grave have cause to be thankful because by that means they have more opportunity to be serviceable to the Glory of God and to be useful in the World Meerly to live is not a thing very desireable considering how many Miserie 's there are in Life to what Evils and Inconveniences our Bodies are obnoxious and that the pains which they may suffer may be both very long and so secret that none can understand either what they are or how to remove them But it is a most desirable thing to Live when we can thereby obtain the Ends that are truly Great and Noble For First Hereby a man may do good to others He may teach the Ignorant reduce the wandring and by the sincerity of his Counsel by the zeal of his Prayers and the Lustre and Holiness of a good Example advance the power of Religion Our Lives are not our own they are Gods by a double title both of Creation and Redemption they are to be us'd for him who preserves or takes them away as he will Not onely Ministers but every private Christian is obliged by the Name he bears and by the Relation that he has to the holy Society of Believers and to the Kingdom of Christ whereof he is a Subject to enlarge it by all good ways that he can and every man is the more obliged to this when God has bestow'd a new Life upon him When we are near to the Gates of the Grave and look back and see with how little Zeal and Diligence we had spent our time and how little we had done for him who blest us all our dayes then we are enclined most earnestly to beseech him that he would grant us another Tryal and that then we would improve it much better than we did our former time and when he does grant us what we have askt then it should be our great indeavour not to frustrate and disappoint the designs of his Goodness and Mercy Then must we teach transgressors his way telling them how dreadful thing it is to fall into the hands of the living God Then we may tell the Healthful what Sickness is what we have found it to be by our own Experience then we may tell them how it makes very uneasie and troublesome Companions of our now beloved Bodies How it deprive us of all our Pleasures and Recreations in the day and of our rest at night That all their Friendships Conversations and Merryments without true Religion are altogether vain and not onely so but they leave a sting of guilt behind when the sweetness that once allur'd is gone away We may warn them to provide for the dayes of darkness and for the many Miseries of Life that will sooner or latter overtake them When we are Recover'd we can tell the Diseased of the Goodness and the Power of God that they can never be so distressed but that it is still
in his power to help them and a Word of his Mouth can heal them when other Physitians are of no value We can then by what we felt our selves tell them something of the Evil effects and bitterness of Sin Though what we feel in some Cases is far more then what we can express We can after our Sickness excite all our Acquaintance to Fear and to love God to fear him who can in a few dayes bring them very low and to love him who can quickly raise the lowest up again A Man has much more to do on Earth than to secure his own Salvation The World the Church the Nation to which he belongs do all claim a part in him The Converted and the Unconverted his Relations and Friends the good and the bad do all need and require his help and it is a Mercy greatly to be acknowledged that God renewes our strength and opportunity that we may do some service for him before we dye There are many Duties to be performed here which cannot be done in another World Psal. 88. 11. His loving kindness cannot be declared in the Grave nor his Faithfulness in destruction Psal. 6. 5. In death there is no remembrance of thee in the grave who shall give thee thanks Psal. 115. 17. The dead praise not the Lord neither any that go down into silence Now it is a blessed and a glorious priviledge to praise him here on Earth for though he be praised among the glorify'd it is without any propogation of praise to the name of God for that is the Priviledge of the Saints on Earth where they make known his name to those that knew it not before or make it more known to those that knew it As also to advance the Kingdom of Christ in the World to which the dead contribute nothing at all and to give good Examples by the sincerity and inoffensiveness of their Carriage for in heaven there is no need of good Examples There is no Evil Person to be reduced and all there are possest of their Happiness Vid. Hook 's Priviledge of the Saints on Earth beyond those in Heaven in regard of many duties pag. 12. Here it is that we may feed the Hungry cloath the Naked visit the Sick lodge the poor that have no dwelling place Here it is by our Sympathy that we may weep with those that weep and in some respect imitate the kind Incarnation of our Saviour by putting on the Wants and Miseries of others But in Heaven there is no Miserable person to relieve no opportunity to shew our Mercy and Compassion to the afflicted and yet this Grace is one of the fairest Lineaments of the new Creature and which causes in us a near resemblance of our Heavenly Father Here we may pray for the Sick the Tempted and the Persecuted but there is an happy freedom from Sickness and Temptation While we live we may by Intercession and Prayers for our Friends do them good but in that World for ought we know such an Intercession ceases and we are sure there is neither Command Example or Promise in all the Scripture to encourage us to make our Application to the Saints departed for the Relief of our wants that Homage is alone due to Christ the Great and onely Mediatour whose Mediation is founded on the excellency of his Person and the Ransom that he gave to God 'T is here on Earth that the strong in Faith may assist the weak 't is here they may speak words of Comfort and Refreshment to the weary soul whereas above they all rest from their Labours 'T is here they must strengthen the weak hands and Confirm the feeble knees and say to them that are of a fearful heart be strong fear not Isa. 35. 3 4. 'T is here that the fathers to their children must make known his truth Isa. 38. 19. and endeavour that his name may be celebrated from Generation to Generation and that the people which shall be created may praise the Lord. Psal. 102 18. 'T is here that in the midst of sore Tryals we must exercise our Faith for there it will be turned into sight and full Assurance 'T is here that we must wait in hope for there the good which we expect will be possest 'T is here that we must love our Enemies and bless them that Curse us And this Faith and Hope and love are greatly serviceable to the Propagation of the Gospel 'T is here on Earth that we must acquire and use these Graces and exercise the Gifts which God hath given us for the common good For whether there be prophesies they shall fail whether there be tongues they shall cease whether there be knowledge it shall vanish away 1. Cor. 13. 8. What a Mercy is it to have Life and time wherein to perform so many good Works for the advantage of our Neighbours What a Mercy is it for a Magistrate to live that he may shine with more brightness and fill his higher Orb with clearer Light That he may by his own good Example and by his discouraging of Prophaneness and Irreligion promote the Kingdom of Christ as well as contrive for the Honour of his own Dominions What a Mercy is it to a Minister that he may live to speak in the name of God to bring the glad tidings of Salvation and to be long employed in bringing home poor wandring sinners to Jesus Christ To unfold the Mysteries of the Gospel and the unsearchable riches of Grace and Mercy that are therein and to use the Talents that are given him for his Masters Glory How much more desireable is it to such an one to be speaking in the Pulpit than to be silent in the Grave and to have all his knowledge that he acquired with painful Labour and waking Thoughts to be as it were buried with him or at least not to be of any further use to the World What a Mercy is it to a Parent that he may Live to educate his his children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord that he may instruct and Antidote them against the Contagions of this World where Evil Examples are so numerous and good ones so very rare to give them warning of the dangers which he himself narrowly escap'd and to acquaint them betimes with the wayes of God and by his conduct and prudent advice and frequent Exhortations and constant prayers to recommend them frequently to the blessing of Providence and to fortifie them against the rashness and haste and folly of their Careless Age. 'T is easie indeed for those that are faithful in their several stations to desire Death as a Traveller desires the shadow of a Rock in a weary land and as a Labourer after a days hard labour is glad of the approaching Night that he may go to bed 'T is a piece of self-denial for very Holy Men to be content to Live and to stay on Earth when they have a well-grounded hope of Heaven To stay in
live an Example of dying well which is the most difficult thing in the World What a mercy is it when a man after many long and weary steps on Earth is going stored with Experiences and a well-grown Faith to his Journeys end When a man arrives at Heaven like a vessel well fraighted and richly Laden that after a long and dangerous Voyage is coming home To shine all his Life with the beauties of Holiness and when he dies to set like the Sun in beams to rise again Oh what a pleasant thing is it to a Believer to have the sweet foretastes of heaven here and hereafter to enter into the joy of his Lord To be blown along with a full gale of assured and undaunted Hope To be able to say I know whom I have believed I have fought the good fight of faith I am going to that God whose I am and whom I serve to that God who has loved me and whom I have loved who will be my own God for ever and ever What a glorious thing is it when a Christian by the assistance of the blessed Spirit has mortified all inordinate desires after any thing in this life when he can say Let me arise and go hence to a better place when the Affections and all the powers of the Soul are on the wing to meet its Saviour on the way when it is in an actual readiness and as soon as ever it hears the voice saying Come up hither will freely go and with such holy haste as if it would prevent Christ in his coming to fetch it It is a thing greatly to be desired and prayed for that when our last hour comes we may not onely in the General be prepared to dye but that we may be in a dying Frame and a man is so when he is very submissive to God and his blessed Will when he is pleas'd with that order of his Providence that calls him hence When by Faith he is intirely loosen'd from the World and Worldly things and in assurance of Salvation can yield up his Life with this Lord Jesus receive my Spirit Inf. 1. If being brought from the Grave be so great a mercy and for which we ought to be thankful then what cause have those to be thankful who are delivered so as never to be in danger of dying any more Happy are they who are deliver'd so as ever to be deliver'd never to feel the same bitterness which they once felt nor to groan under the same Miseries and Calamities We praise God here on Earth but alass how low and how weak are our Praises to what he deserves for his own Excellencies and for his Mercy to us How cold are our warmest praises to theirs above who are all in admiration Extasie and Love And well may they praise him in the most elevated manner that certainly know that all their diseases are heal'd and their Iniquities forgiven That by their nearness to God see his Face and how well-pleas'd he is with all they do they praise the riches of his Grace in pardoning so many sins and so great they praise his power and his Wisdom that guided their poor trembling Souls to his own Glory their hearts are full of Love and 't is that which produces Praise and Joy Oh what a chearful Society is above in Heaven where so many Milions of Angels and so many Saints joyn together in the same blessed work and all their several Anthems meet in one loud and pleasant Hallelujah how vastly different is their Assembly from such an one as this Here we are with our unbelief with our fears with our strong Corruptions and with our many sins whereas they are all perfect and compleat in Holiness Here are we liable to manifold Calamities the very thoughts of which may be justly afflicting to us but in their World they have no change nor variation They have one continued and unalterable Felicity after a long and doleful sickness it is a pleasant thing to behold this World again it looks as a new World to me who have dwelt for so many Months on the very borders of the Grave But alass what is this World that at the best is a Region and a state of death to that above which is a Region and a state of pure and undisturbed Life The deliverance which God has been pleased to give to Me is in many respects as a Resurrection but it is such an one as that of Lazarus after which I must be sick again and dye for Recovery is but a delay of certain death And indeed our praises for our escape from death are very much damp'd and allayed by this thought that we must for all the deliverances we have at present yet in a little while go into the Grave The remembrance of those fore and dreadful Calamities that surrounded me and this Consideration that I am whilest in this body obnoxious to many thousand more distresses makes me to rejoyce with trembling It is a very sad Consideration when a man looks upon such a number of people as is here this Evening to think how many several sorts of miseries may be our Lot before we dye All of us are born to trouble as the sparks fly upward We can no more avoid affliction then we can run away from our selves What vexations may you Parents meet withal in disobedient Children that may send you mourning to the dust What Curses may come to you who have careless Parents that suffer you to wander in the way of death What disappointments and losses and decayes may you that are Tradesmen meet withal or if you avoid all these yet that which is worse may come upon you I mean sharp and violent diseases and these I call worse because a man will better bear any inconvenience without him then that which fills his body with uneasieness and pain and his Soul by its sympathy with its dear Companion with Anguish and Vexation In how little a while will all who are now alive be dead In how little a time may the most strong and healthful person here be taken off by sickness from all Employment and business How does it trouble us many times to see the Tears and Sorrows of our nearest Friends and we cannot mitigate them with what earnest looks do they move our pity when they are in great pain but we cannot help them their shrill Cryes and their doleful groans may pierce our hearts but we know not how to remove them We stand by their Bed-sides and see their Agonies but by being sorrowful we do but for the most part add new grief to theirs We see their Countenances change and how at length they pass away and that shortly in such a case shall we our selves be But oh what a welcom and glorious day will that be when we shall see those very friends alive again whom we once saw in the most dreadful Agonies of death When though we parted with Tears yet we shall
their Hands thrived very much The Tears and Prayers of their Hearers and their Friends that would have had them to flourish with perpetual Youth and that were very sorrowful to see Men that filled them with such great hopes taken away could not stay them here any longer nor would God have them to stay longer from their happiness It is indeed a Mercy to those that are good fit for Heaven to have an early Deliverance from such an evil World as this where there is so much Sorrow and Disorder and Temptations and Sins to be taken away from the Evil to come and from many sad Objects that such as live longer may be troubled to see to be fully assured that God is their God and Heaven their Home Jesus Christ did leave the World as one says and ascend to Glory about the 33 d or 34 th year of his Age to teach us in the prime of our Years to despise this World when we are best able to enjoy it and to reserve our full Vigour for Heaven and for his Love Yet though this be a way to promote a Man's own Happiness yet it must be received as a Mercy from God when any one lives not only to promote his own Salvation but the Good of others also Some will say What need we to pray for long Life what need we sollicite God to no purpose or tire him with our Prayers for we shall not live a day beyond our time nor die a moment sooner Do you not think your selves concern'd to eat and to drink and to procure to your selves other Gratifications of Life notwithstanding this And why should you not think your selves under an equal Obligation to use those other Means that are necessary to preserve Life as Prayer to God for his Blessing seeing Man lives not by Bread alone Mat. 4. 4. You find that Hezekiah by his Prayers to God obtained fifteen years more after he had received the first Summons of Death And Paul by the Prayer of the Corinthians was delivered after he had received the Sentence of Death 2 Cor. 1. 9 10 11. And whatsoever may be in the Decrees of God yet I am sure he may justly deny us what we will not take the pains to beg tho the longest Life that we can hope to live will be some hundreds of years shorter than the Lives of Men before the Flood for their long Lives are rather to be ascribed to some extraordinary Priviledg than to the ordinary Course of Nature The World was then to be replenished with Inhabitants which could not be so speedily done but by an extraordinary multiplication of Mankind neither could that be done but by the long Lives of Men. Again Arts and Sciences were then to be planted for the better effecting whereof it was requisite that the same Men should have the Experience and Observation of many Ages As also the Food wherewith they were nourished before the Flood may well be thought to be more medicinal and haply the Influence of the Heavens was at that time in that Climate where the Patriarchs lived more favourable and gracious Hakewell Apol. p. 38. If Deliverance from the Grave be a great Mercy and greatly to be acknowledged then it is a very evil thing in haste and passion to wish for Death There are several People when any thing falls out that crosses their Inclinations or Designs will presently say I wish I were dead I wish I were in the Grave and out of such a troublesom World as this But do you know what it is to die it is to appear before the eternal God and to render an Account of all that you have thought or spoke or done it is to be judg'd to Heaven or Hell and that for ever I cannot forget here that sad Story that is mentioned by Bellarmine and quoted from him He speaks of a Man notoriously worldly-minded whom he went to visit on his Death-bed and when he did him duly to provide for another World answer'd him Sir I have much desired to speak with you but it is not for my self but in behalf of my Wife and Children for my self I am going to Hell neither is there any thing that I would desire in my own behalf And this he spake saith he with such Composedness as if he had been but going to the next Town or Village The Ignorance of this miserable Person suffer'd him to be in no Commotion nor Horror at all but what a doleful Change did he feel in his Thoughts and Apprehensions when he came to that real Hell and to those Flames of which he spake in so cold a manner People make very little of dying and those that are poor usually die with the least concern for they imagine that having suffer'd so many Miseries in this World they shall be very happy in the next Life is a very dear Enjoyment and it is a wonder any should desire in haste to be deprived of it but it is usually then when they are in very great and almost insupportable Pain or under the fear of Evils that seem to be greater than what they are able to bear Thus the Children of Israel being in great straits wish'd they had died in Egypt Exod. 16. 3. Thus the meekest of all other Men press'd by the Calamities that he had in view says Numb 11. 14 15. I am not able to bear all this People alone because it is too heavy for me and if thou deal thus with me kill me I pray thee out of hand if I have found favour in thy sight and let me not see my Wretchedness Thus Elijah 1 King 19. 4. and Job chap. 6. 8 9. and Jonah the Sun beat upon his Head and he fainted and he wished in himself to die and said It is better for me to die than to live chap. 4. 8. but by a Mercy of God not inferiour to his former Deliverance he was reserv'd to another Repentance and to more peaceable Days Thus even good Men have sinned through the pressure of some very great Affliction and Calamity In this they followed the Motions of their sensitive Nature and not those of Grace the tediousness of their Trouble and the weight of the Cross that they groaned under made them with too much eagerness and haste to pray for Death which is always reckoned to be the last Refuge of the Miserable But God is not used to grant these fretful and passionate Desires he will make them to know their own Folly and the Justice of his Soveraign Authority he will have them not only to serve him but to wait till he dismiss them from their Service and all their Haste shall not make their Sun decline till he see it is their time to die And it is indeed a piece of Arrogance unsuitable to the Condition of a Creature to desire it just at such a particular Season as if we knew the most convenient time to depart and were not in this as
in all our other Actions to be regulated by the Will of God and not by our own But indeed when a Man that has been very faithful and laborious in his Generation is by Pain rendred altogether unfit for Service when the Strength and Vigour which he laid out for God is wasted and decayed by old Age or a tedious Distemper when his Candle that has long burnt to enlighten others burns with a feeble and almost undiscerned Light he may then desire to die as a poor weary Man to go to Bed But the Saints of God do even then desire it with Calmness and Deliberation if they be not in a raging Disease for then it is impossible they have much ado to bring their Hearts to be sincerely and freely willing to depart Their Fears and Temptations and remaining Inclinations to the Body and their Friends on Earth render it a Work of Difficulty There are great Strugglings in that Moment between Nature and Grace between Faith and Sense though at last their Grace gets the Victory and so they long to be with Christ. If Deliverance from the Grave be so great a Mercy then Self-murther is a very great Sin The Law that forbids us to kill does extend to this as well as to the Murder of another Man this is a violating of that Soveraign Power that is in God and a taking upon us to dispose of our Life which is not our own but his 'T is an usurping upon his Providence which has determined when and after what manner we are to die and though 't is very likely there are several Accidents of Life that are worse than Death it self yet it is that Eternity that comes after Death that is most formidable and into which no Man ought to throw himself and when we are reduced to such a condition that to live seems to be far worse than to die yet even then the Unalterableness of our State afterwards should be a most powerful Restraint especially if we are uncertain where we are then to go It is against that Patience and Trust which we ought to repose in God It is a woful sort of dying to die in the doing of such a thing as this which he has most severely prohibited to tear our Souls from our Bodies with our own hands in such an ignominious and shameful manner and because of our Distress to pass Sentence upon our selves as not fit to live and then to be our own Executioners A Soul at Death should be in the Exercise of Grace and in a quiet and humble Resignation but in this case 't is in Fear and Horror and Discontent and what the Romans magnifi'd so much for Gallantry and an Heroick Spirit was the real Effect of Weakness and Cowardise as it is much more Heroical to sustain and meet a coming Danger than to retreat and fly from it It was from a Meanness of Spirit that Cato chose to kill himself because he could not see the Empire flourish under Cesar whom he did not love and however such Acts may be extoll'd by Heathen Historians they are not so by that Scripture which is the Rule of our Faith and the Guide of our Actions and which furnishes us with no Examples of those that did this Samson only excepted whose case had several things in it very singular but such as were very bad Men as Saul and Achitophel and Judas and as we would not have our portion with them in the other World so it is to be wish'd and endeavoured that our end may not be like to them in this But so great is the Love of Life and so strong the fear of Death in the most so dark the Knowledg of Futurity and so great our Unwillingness to go from a World with which we are well acquainted to that which we never saw that few Men are in danger of Self-murther till some great Affliction and overwhelming Pain and by the means of that some great Perplexity seize their Spirits I think few are in danger of it till their Griefs are unspoakably great or their Minds in that Anguish that is as the sad Foretaste of Hell till all their Thoughts are in hurry and Confusion and as then they are no way capable of being bettered by those Advices that seem proper to restrain them so it concerns you that are at ease and are able to pursue the Business and Affairs of Life and of Religion to pray earnestly to God that he withdraw not his Protection and the Guard of his Providence from you that he do not leave you to thick and gross Darkness nor to the Power of Satan who will push you forward to things that are most sinful and unwarrantable Pray hard that violent Tentations and overwhelming raging Pains may never overtake your for how evil soever Self-murther seem to you now you know not what you may be then prest to do pray earnestly that you may never be without the sense or hope of the Divine Favour for if which God forbid you once lose that woe unto you then you will be like a Ship without Sails or Rudder in a Storm you may be swallowed up or driven on the Rocks and broken to pieces It is Distress and violent Sorrow that exposes Men to the Commission of this Sin Saul fell not upon his Sword and killed himself till God had forsaken him and till he knew not what to do though it was his own Sin that brought him so low Cicero tells us indeed of one Cleombrotus who reading the Discourse of Plato concerning another more happy Life after this which could not be attained but by Death did thereupon kill himself to attain that Happiness but if that be true it is a thing that most rarely happens that any that have either hope of Heaven or Assurance of going thither are so impatient of being absent from it as to kill themselves to go thither And it may be you will be ready to ask me If they have no hope of being better when they die why do they long for Death or attempt to kill themselves They should rather strive to live that they may be better prepared for another World It is a Question that has been ask'd me by some People and seeing it is perhaps what you seldom have met withal I will give you an Answer to it and if it do not appear very rational yet I am sure it will contain that which has been the real Apprehensions of People under those Temptations I say then Men may desire to destroy themselves though they have no well grounded Expectation of Happiness after Death 1. Because of that Pain of Body and that Anguish of Soul which is intolerable to them they have no natural nor spiritual Rest nor Prospect of either and this fills them with Amazement and Horror and in that Amazement there is nothing which they will not dare to do 2. Because they may reckon that they are already as in Hell and that if they
consider how they give you notice of the haste of Time and to this purpose your Clocks may be of excellent use if as one says you design them not only as Civil Servants but as Militant Sentinels to advertise you every hour that your Enemy is advanced a step nearer to you for as every toling Bell may be said to be the Clock of Death so every Clock may not unfitly be called the Passing Bell of Time Thirdly Our Sickness should also teach us to be moderate in all those Pleasures that relate only to the Body Such we may use indeed as are necessary to divert our Minds when we are wearied with Study or the Duties of our Calling Such as are â—east expensive and take up the least me such as are no way scandalous and such as are both lawful and â—onvenient but we must especialâ—y avoid all those things that minister to Temptation to Sensuality to Covetousness to rash Anger 's and whatsoever else it is that indisposes us for Prayer for Self-Examination and all the other serious Acts of Religion for which we must be in a constant readiness We must enrich our Souls with nobler and higher Joys in communion with God in meditating on his Works and Attributes the Wonders of his Grace in Christ the mighty Preparations that he has made for our Happyness and Glory and these will be a good improvement of our Sickness and Recovery Nor will they be followed with such gloomy sorrows that eclipse all that which the World calls a brisk and a merry Life After this manner should our Sickness teach us to regard our Bodies not to be over-fond of them not to glory in our Strength in our Health in our Riches or any thing that is but of a short Continuance For wherein are all these things or wherein is Man himself whose Breath is in his Nostrils to be accounted of Jer. 9. 23 24. Secondly Do not provoke God to cut off your Life Your Life is an excellent Gift which those of us that have recovered have but newly received let us not by any means abuse it lest it be taken from us again which God will do if we make no suitable returns to the Kindness of him our Benefactor Eccl. 7. 17. Be not over-much wicked neither be thou foolish why shouldst thou dy before the time i. e. If we continue in a course of sin the Divine Vengeance will overtake us and make us to feel the sharp Effects of his just Severity and of our own Transgression To this end we must First Beware of all gluttonous Excesses in what we eat and drink For though by going beyond the bounds of what is lawful we discern no great hurt for the present yet we shall lay the foundation of manyfold Diseases which may break out afterwards and vitiate our Blood and waste our Spirits and when the pleasure of our Appetites is past we shall have a remaining Bitterness and Wounds and Sorrow Many wise and observing Men believe that of those that outlive their Childhood there is scarce one of twenty yea or of an hundred that dyeth but Gluttony is the principal Cause tho not the most immediate There is nothing that makes a Disease more insupportable than the thought of having brought it upon our selves by our own Carelesness and Security How many by this Method are withered in the Flower of their Age when they thought their Evening and Decay at a mighty distance What Havock and Murder and Desolation is made in the World by the force of the Sword and the violence of unjust Wars and yet more perish by their own Intemperance and all Diseases even those that are Epidemical Natural or Casual are by this and other Vices that attend it rendred far more sharp lasting malignant and incurable by that stock of corrupted Matter that they lodge in the Body to feed those Diseases and that Impotency that these Vices bring upon Nature to resist them Hale's Letter to his Son p. 17. Tho it be very true That let a Man be never so Religious he must both be sick and dye yet the prevailing sense of a Deity will sweeten these Evils when they come and also keep them longer off As t is said of Wisdom Length of Days are in her right Hand Prov. 3. 16. And 't is said by the Fear of the Lord Prov. 3. 11. By me thy days shall be multipled and the years of thy Life shall be increased And Chap. 10. 27. The Fear of the Lord prolongeth days but the years of the wicked shall be shortned But if our Belly be our God our end will be destruction even in this World Phil. 3. 19. When Men are gratifying their Appetites in all that they desire they are undermining their own Prosperity and giving fire to that Train which will certainly blow them up and at the rate they live they may well say Come let us eat and drink for to morrow we dye For indeed their Excess to day may cause their Death to morrow How many are now in their Graves over whom it may be truly writ This Man killed himself with drinking And how odious must the Memory of such an one be that so made himself away But let us remember Life is so great a Blessing that it is not for the sake of a few merry Companions or to gratify their humor to be parted with There are a sort of People that through the Power of their Ignorance are very apt to quarrel with the Providence of God for making their Lives so short and yet they will make them shorter than otherwise they might be and truly such sort of men have the least reason because their chief happiness lies in this World and not in that which is to come and their action is as foolish as if one would make haste to pull down the House he lives in and yet when he has done it knows not where to get another Secondly We must avoid all anxious Fears all inward fretting and discontent all foolish Anger Envy and the like passions for these are great enemies to Life As also all uncommunicated sadness and lasting griefs for any of those troublesome Accidents will unavoidably molest our present state And no less prejudicial are all uncertain hopes all immoderate cares and over-eager Studies for the mind by too vehement an intention will communicate its trouble to the Body and this will pine and languish by its sympathy and nearness to that and the Body cannot conceal the displeasure that arises to it from the more inward and spiritual troubles of the Soul There will be a Cloud of Sorrow in the Forehead when there is an abiding sadness in the heart whereas the Right Government of our Affections will spread a chearfulness both over the Body and the Mind 'T is said of Moses Deut. 34. 7. That he was an hundred and twenty years old when he dyed his Eyes were not dim nor his natural Force abated and to this
have good hope that they will be so but if you are immoderate in your Recreations your Eating Drinking or your Apparel 't is very likely they will be so and what flames will it add to your misery to think that you were the Cause of their Everlasting destruction And how will you bear it to hear their Cries and bitter Expressions when they shall Curse you for not having given to them good Instructions and seasonable Warnings and an holy Example by which they might have been enabled to fly from the Wrath to come You may now do much more good by practising one Command than by causing to learn all the Ten And though you be so poor that you have no Riches or Estate to leave them yet you may leave your Prayers and your good Example to the next Generation We commonly say of a rich covetous Miser That he will never do any good whilst he lives and we may say of him and all others that are not true Christians That they will never do any good when they are dead for when they dye they are like Nero they leave abundance of poison behind them they infected the Air with their Oaths and Blasphemies when they lived and when they are gone the Contagion spreads and their ill President meeting with corrupt Nature which inclines all Men to what is bad does convey its Venome to several others that they left behind What an Impression many times does an unbecoming Word leave upon the Hearer for many years after Much more does the Remembrance of an ill Example Thus their evil Works prove Factors for the Devil and inlarge his Kingdom when they are rotting in the Grave Whereas if you be zealous for God the remaining Flames of your Zeal may awaken some luke-warm and slothful Christian to do what you have done For he may thus argue If that holy Man prayed so hard and strove so much what cause have I to pray and strive for I have a Soul to save as well as he And as the Gate was strait to him so will it be to me and as 't is impossible to handle Perfumes without bearing away part of the scent so it should be to converse with you without savouring of your Goodness You should so live that others may reap the benefit of your holy Life when you are gone As the Earth does not lose the Vertue of its Beams when the Sun is set that Heat and Warmth and Vegetation which it has given to Herbs and Plants does remain and its Influence is felt when it is no longer to be seen thus you will be as Herbs and Flowers which when they are gathered are medicinal and yield juices healthful and necessary to the Body or as the Corn which when it is cut down is serviceable for Food and Nourishment Thus every Man may so contrive it that he may be serviceable to the World when he does not live in it any more Thus the Apostles spread a most diffusive Light by their Holiness and Doctrin which all the Malice of Hell and all the Rage of Tyrants has not been able to extinguish but though they shone with an extraordinary Brightness yet every Believer is a Child of Light every Believer is a Star of great use and benefit tho one Star differeth from another Star in Glory tho he be never so obscure yet he may be beneficial as a Pearl or a Diamond tho it be set in Lead does not cease to be of great Value Thus your Name will be as sweet Ointment delightful and dear to others Whereas if we be wicked we shall have the same Fate with Jehoram who died without being desired 2 Chron. 21. 20. Thus I say our Examples will do more good than many bare Instructions As Souldiers will be more animated and forward when they see one Example of couragious Fighting before their Eyes than by a thousand Rules that teach them the Policies and Designs of War Thus I have shewed you what Improvement those that are recovered and brought from the Grave ought to make of it and what mischief will ensue if they do it not and indeed it is a Mercy to the World that the Lives of ill Men are so short for as one hath lately observed the World is very bad as it is so bad that good Men scarce know how to spend fifty or sixty years in it but how bad would it probably be were the Life of Man extended to six seven or eight hundred years If so near a prospect of the other World as forty or fifty years cannot restrain Men from the greatest Villanies what would they do if they could as reasonably suppose Death to be at three or four hundred years off If Men make such Improvements in Wickedness in twenty or thirty years what would they do in hundreds and then what a blessed place would this World be And to excite you to be the more careful in the improving of your Sickness Let me add these three following Considerations Cons. 1. How many are dead since you were first ill How many excellent Ministers whom you must never hear again How many of your dearest Friends are now in the cold Grave with whom you cannot now discourse and whose Faces you shall never see till the Great Day Many have sunk in a Calm and several among us have outliv'd a Storm Many have perished with less pain and less violent diseases than those which some of us have had This should engage us to make suitable returns to that God who has spared us when he hath taken them away Cons. 2. This Improvement of our Sickness and Recovery will exempt us from the Number of those hateful People that are not only no better but a great deal worse when they are brought out of Distress than they were before and 't is generally thought that of a thousand People that make large Promises in their Sickness there are scarce fifty that keep their Word and perform their Vows when they are recovered Those good Purposes which they had were the Product of their Fears and when those are over their intended Goodness does also vanish away Cons. 3. This good Improvement of your new Life may ingage God to prolong your time to an honourable old Age. For though we can merit nothing at his Hands yet if we labour hard in his Service it may be he will not cause our Sun to go down at Noon but continue us in his Vineyard till the Evening of the Day I now proceed briefly to consider the fourth Verse Ver. 4. Sing unto the Lord O ye Saints of his and give thanks at the Remembrance of his Holiness From these Words I shall insist on this Proposition That Person that has received wonderful Deliverance from Death ought not only to praise God himself but to excite and call upon others to praise God with him And all the Servants of God should be most willing to joyn in the return of thanks for any Mercy
which we are now living under and to have the Bread of Life and their Ministers and their Gospel in the same manner they once had them Those poor Churches are not yet delivered their Beauty and their Glory is departed and their Sion is mourning in the dust but they send their Sighs over to us we have heard their Groans the Language of which is Come and help us with your Prayers Let us pray for them as we would for our selves in the like case who knows but God will hear our Prayers for them also And when England Scotland France and Ireland and Piedmont and all other places that have been in distress shall lift up their heads with joy and congratulate one another for the Salvations and Deliverances which God hath wrought for them what a glorious time will that be Happy shall be the day and the year that shall accomplish so great a Work happy shall the Messenger be that brings us such welcome tidings happy will be the Ears that hear so delightful a thing as this and happy the Eyes that see it and happy will those Countries be that shall flourish with Prosperity and Peace when these present Commotions and Wars that disturb the World are past and gone and happy yet again will be those Instruments whom God will honour to bring about so excellent a State of things Then shall it be said as in Isa. 66. 10 11. Rejoyce ye with Jerusalem and be glad with her all ye that love her rejoyce for joy with her all ye that mourn for her That ye may suck and be satisfied with the Breasts of her Consolations that ye may milk out and be delighted with the abundance of her Glory May we not hope that so pleasant a day as this hath begun to dawn may we not hope and have we not encouragement to beg of God that the Light which is broken out in so wonderful a manner may shine more and more to a perfect day That we may still say with the delivered Israelites Who is like unto thee O Lord amongst the gods who is like unto thee glorious in Holyness fearful in Praises doing Wonders Exod. 15. 11. It will greatly heighten the Mercy of our being brought from the Grave if we should live to see such a sight as this But however it be the Mercies we have already receiv'd in our deliverance from Sickness contain Motives powerful enough to perswade us to love and praise God and the doing of this may procure us many more Mercies There are two things which after our Recovery we have cause always to remember First That we must live as those that know though we have escaped the Grave hitherto yet we must one day take up our dwelling there Tho we are repriev'd for a while yet the sentence of death that is past upon all Mankind will one day be executed upon us and we must die as well as others and if we improve this Consideration tho death it self be not past yet the bitterness of it will be so Secondly That we ought most earnestly to pray that if God please so to order it we may not have very long nor very sharp pains before we die and that when he calls us from the World he would give us an humble and a quiet Resignation to his Will that we may be found of him in peace and in a temper suitable to the greatness of our Change and that before he warn us to appear before him we may have all that work on Earth finished which he gave us to do and so being assured that the Mediator is our Friend we may every one of us say with Stephen Lord Jesus receive my Spirit The Song of HEZEKIAH Paraphrased by Dr. Woodford I. REVOLVING the sharp Sentence past And how an end e're thought was on me come How soon said I have I approacht my last And unawares reatcht Natures farthest Home Ah! now I to the Grave must go No more or Life or Pleasure know But a long doleful Night in darkness deep below II. No more my God shall I see Thee Nor the great Works of Thy Almighty Hand No more a Votary at Thy Altar be Nor in the crouds of them who praise Thee stand Mankind no more shall I behold Nor tell nor of Thy Love be told Eve'n mine to Thee shall like my ashes Lord be cold III. Lo as a Tent am I remov'd And my life's thread which I thought wondrous strong Too weak to bear the Looms extension prov'd i th' the midst broke off too sleasie to run long With Sickness I am pin'd away And feel each moment some decay All Night in Terrors and in Grief die all the Day IV. For as a Lion hasts to ' his Prey And having grip'd it breaks the yielding Bones So on me came th' Almighty whilst I lay In vain expecting help but from my Groans O take said I Thy Hand away See how I feel my Loins decay All Night in Terrors and in Grief die all the Day V. Then like a Swallow or a Crane I chatt'red o're my Fears his Heart to move The widow'd Turtle does not more complain When in the Woods sh 'as lost her faithful Love My Eyes O God with waiting fail Why shouldst Thou thus a Worm assail I 'm Thine O let for once th' Almighty not prevail VI. Yet do Thy Will I must confess Worse Plagues than these my Sins deserve from Thee The Sentence past is than my Crimes far less And only Hell a sit Reward can be Ah! let my Prayers that Doom prevent My age in Mournings shall be spent And all the Years Thou giv'st shall be but to repent VII On Thy great Pleasure all depend During which only I and Mandkind live To teach us this Thou dost Diseases send And daily claim'st the Life which Thou didst give Yet such is Thy resistless Power That when our age is quite past o're What Thou at first didst give Thou canst our Life restore VIII And thus with me Lord hast thou dealt Tho I for peace had only bitterness Th' effects of mighty Goodness thus have felt Beyond what words or numbers can express For from the Pit Thou drew'st me back And that I might no pleasures lack Upon Thy self the burden of my Sins didst take IX Triumphant Saviour the still Grave For so great Love Thy Name can never praise Nor in the Pit canst Thou Memorial have Thy Truth or hop'd for or ador'd Thy Ways The Living Lord the Living are The Men who must Thy Power declare And of them chiefly such whom Thou like me shalt spare X. They to their Children shall make known As I do now the Wonders of Thy Hand How when we ev'n to Hell did head-long run To stop our passage Thou i' th' way didst stand Lord since Thou hast thus delivr'd me Thus made me Thy Salvation see My Life and Harp and Song I 'll consecrate to Thee FINIS Books printed for and are to be sold by
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Rogers's Sermon Preached upon the Death of a young Gentleman Entituled Early Religion or the way for a young Man to remember his Creator Mr. Shower's Sermon at Madam Anne Barnadistons Funeral Mr. Lee's Joy of Truth The Character of a Williamite Written by a Divine Dr. Robert's Key to the whole Bible In Folio A Continuation of Morning Exercises Questions and Cases of Conscience practically resolved by sundry Divines in the City of London in October 1682. Casuistical Morning Exercises the 4th Volumn by several Ministers in and about London Preached in October 1689. The Vanity and Impiety of Judicial Astrology whereby Men undertake to foretel future Contingencies especially the particular Fates of Mankind by the Knowledge of the Stars by Francis Crow M. A. A New Martrology Or The Bloody Assizes now exactly methodiz'd in one Volume comprehending a compleat History of the Lives Actions Tryals Sufferings Dying Speeches Letters and Prayers of all those eminent Protestants who fell in the West of England and else where from the year 1678 to 1689. the Third Edition with large Additions Early Piety exemplified in the Life and Death of Mr. Nathaniel Mather who having become at the age of 19. an instance of more than common Learning and Vertue changed Earth for Heaven October 17. 1688. The second Edition with a prefatory Epistle by Mr. Mathew Mead. Mr. Oake's Funeral Sermon Mr. Kent's Funeral Sermon both Preached by Mr. Samuel Slater An Antidote against Lust Or A a Discourse of Uncleaness shewing its various kinds great Evil the temptations to it and most effectual cure by Robert Carr Minister of the Gospel Poetical Fragments by Richard Baxter Published for the use of the Afflicted The Second Edition Reformed Religion Or Right Christianity described in ' its Excellency and Usefulness in the whole Life of Man written by M. Barker Minister of the Gospel Daniel in the Den by Stephen Jay Rector of Chinner in Oxfordshire The Trajedies of Sin together with Remarks upon the Life of the Great Abraham by the same Author * Mr. Joseph and Mr. Benjamin Ashurst †Alderman Cornish I. Obs. Inf. 1. Inf. 3. Inf. 4. Obs. 2. Rea. 1. Rea. 2. Rea. 3. Rea. 4. 1. * Vide M. Amyraut Disc. de Lestat des Fideles Apres La Mort. pag. 15. c. 2. Rea. 5. 1. * Vide Chrys. in Loc. * Fuller 's Life out of Death p. 4. 2. Rea. 6. Iâ—â— Infer 2. Infer 3. Object Answ. Infer 4. Infer 5. Infer 6. I. II. III. IV. V. VI. VII VIII IX 1. 2. II. 2. 3. III. Obs. 1. II. III. IV. V. Mr. Thomas Kentish