is God himself the Alpha and Omega the Beginning and the End and he is all good and perfectly perpetually endlesly and eternally Good and he is their Portion and their Exceeding Great reward Whence this happy state Psal 16.5 6. and 73.26 Gen. 17.1 The strength of their hearts here and their PORTION FOR EVER But Quest why or whence is it that the Death and End of the Righteous is such and so good as is said and above all that can be said Ans Negatively 1. Not from themselves nor from the desert of their righteousness they being in themselves earthly frail and sinful creatures could not possibly do or act any such goodness or righteousness much less of our selves as should deserve or render them worthy of such an end and recompence nor could a finite obedience of a finite creature be commensurate with an infinite reward in its worth and vertue and therefore neither shall they make themselves the burthen of their endless rejoycings and everlasting songs but rather shall say Not unto us Not unto us give we glory It is true that righteousness is better in it self than wickedness and God is just to difference them in his retributions but neither is their righteousness that he rewards of themselves or their owne righteousness but their righteousness is of the Lord Isa 54.17 Nor is that righteousness so perfectly embraced and walked in by them but that in many things they offend and sin so as should God enter into jugdment with them and be strict to observe what they do amiss they could not stand or be justified in his sight as themselves have acknowledged Psal 130.3 4. and 143.2 they could have no salvation or deliverance from wrath and the portion of the ungodly much less reward and much less yet such a reward for their works but through the forgiveness of their sins Luc. 1.77 and therefore also when God promises his people what he will do for them in the last days in their restauration the great substance of which is the glory to be injoyed in the Kingdom of Christ he puts in such a Caution against ascribing it to themselves Not for your sakes do I do these things Not for your sakes be it known to you oh house of Israel be ashamed and confounded saith the Lord Ezek. 36.22 32. even as Moses did before upon their first entring the Land of Canaan the type and figure of this promised inheritance Speak not in thime heart after that the Lord thy God hath cast out these nations saying for my righteousness the Lord hath brought me in to possess this land not for thy righteousness nor for the uprightness of thine heart dost thou go to possess this Land c. Deut. 9.5 6. and yet it is the reward of righteousness that God will give and that wherein he will testifie his great love to righteousness and to the righteous As it is said Come ye blessed of my Father inherit the Kingdom for I was hungry and ye fed me naked and ye clothed me c. Math. 25.35 36. rendring that as the reason of their receiving that reward As also the Apostle saith God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love c. Heb. 6.10 11. It is true therefore that God doth and will reward the righteous and with respect to their righteousness and not the unrighteous otherwise it would be no motive or incouragement to righteousness But true it is also that neither is that righteousness of themselves nor deserves it those rewards as it is in and from them But positively 2. It is from God himself He is as the End Ans Affirmatively so also the beginning of their welfare as the Last end of their desires and injoyment so the First cause spring and original whence it all had its rise and issue He is the Alpha as well as the Omega of all their felicity Isa 41.4 and 44.6 and 48.12 and to him they must acknowledge it and will sing Hallelujahs or praise ye the Lord To thy Name be the glory Rev. 19.1 4 6. Psal 155.1 For 1. It springs from his good pleasure this love and good will to man whom as he created in his own image and likeness at first by and for his only begotten Son the express character of his own Majesty so he so loved him as both to prepare an infinite reward for him being righteous or for such or so many of them as should be found righteous before him for the manifestation of the riches of his grace and glorious bounty and goodness to him and also when he fell from his primitive and created righteousness in which he made him he made his Son the increated image of his person and of his essential righteousness to be in the image and likeness of the fallen man in the likeness of sinful flesh and under sin and curse and condemnation only without sin in him that he being clothed as it were with mans unrighteousness as imputed to him and swallowing up the sin and curse might himself become his perfect righteousness and conforming him to himself in holiness and righteousness might make him also the subject in and with himself of that infinite reward prepared for the righteous even that infinite glory and inconceivable happiness which he had before the world prepared for them as it is said Come ye blessed of my Father inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from before the foundations of the world Math. 25.35 and Fear not little Flock it is my Fathers good pleasure to give you the Kingdom Luc. 12.32 Thence the Praedestination to the adoption of children and to the obtaining of the inheritance is said to be according to the good pleasure of his will and according to his good purpose Ephes 1.5 11. 2. It springs from his love to righteousness even to the righteousness of faith or to his only blessed Son made in the vertues of his abasement obedience and sufferings righteousness to them as his love and pitty to man led him to give his Son to ransom him from his unrighteousness and to be his righteousness so his love to righteousness even to his Son made mans righteousness leads him so to love man as found therein as to think nothing too good or great for him even himself and all his fulness of grace and glory to be his portion in life and death but most fully and manifestly in the life to come Thence the care of the Apostle to be found in Christ in order to his apprehending that for which he was apprehended of Christ and to his obtaining the price of Gods high calling in him Philip. 3.8 9 12 14. God loving them that love Christ because they love Christ with this manner of loving of them whence he so rewards them Joh 16.27 28. whence also their election though before the foundation of the world is said to be in Christ and their praedestination to the adoption of children to be
far better portion and happiness than either what we may have in this life and world or might have had in and from Adam considering also that he hath appointed a Day of Death for us and after that a Judgment by him that died for us and rose again whereof also he hath given assurance * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or faith to all men that he hath raised him from the dead Act. 17.31 we may set our selves to seek him the knowledge of him and of his will which we may find in his revelations of them to us by Jesus Christ that so knowing and yeilding up our selves to him to the obeying and doing his will wherein we shall be reputed righteous we may be well mercifully and comfortably disposed of by him in the after-state avoiding and abandoning all those things that might withdraw us from him and from the obedience of his will and following after or yeilding up our selves to what may further us therein But the further opening and improvement of this Use will better fall in after and upon our consideration of the second point viz. Point 2. The excellency of the Death and end of the righteous That there is a very desirable excellency in the Death of the Righteous and in his latter end above that of other men especially of such as are wicked So as even the wicked that care not to live their life and to have their beginning and progress yet understanding it desire to be like them therein Tartus est pietatis â—ructus tanta justitiae merces ut ne ab ipsis â— quid â—nin desâ—rari quâ—at impiis injustis It is in a manner St. Bernaca's observation upon the words For saith he such or so great is the fruit of piety and such the reward of righteousness that it cannot but he desired of the wicked and unrighteous Bern. in Ps 91. Ser. 7. This doth suppose and imply the second Branch of what we noted in our entrance to discourse of the former Proposition viz. That the Death and end of the righteous Hâ—â—e the Scriptures mâ—â—n 〈◊〉 the woâ—d wicked are very different from those of the wicked c. of any that are not righteous which I only distinguish from the wicked as the Scriptures usually by the wicked understand men not only ignorant of and out of Christ unjustified persons but also evilly affected towards and opposite to Christ and the truth of God and his grace in the discoveries and teachings of it so as to act contrary and in opposition to it against light and knowledge and that with stubbornness and wilfulness and often to the endevouring the mischief of the righteous and suppression of the truth of God Now that the righteous mans Death and after-end or part differs from that of the unrighteous and wicked so as to be far better we shall make evident through Gods help and assistance in what we shall speak thereof 1. Positively as considered in themselves and then also a little 2. Comparatively as comparing them with the sinners and wickeds 1. In speaking positively of them we shall consider 1. Who are the Righteous whose Death and latter end are so commendably excellent and how they come to be so or wherein their righteousness standeth 2. What is the Death of the Righteous that is so desireable And 3. Wherein or upon what accounts it is desirable 4. What the after-part or latter end of the Righteous and the desirableness thereof VVhâ—â—e the Righteouâ— 1. Who be these righteous ones and upon what account or wherein any is so To which let us mind 1. That the righteous are denominated from righteousness so as they are righteous in whom righteousness is found or they in it and by whom it is practised Now righteousness is in it self an exact and perfect straightness or rightness so as to be without blame fault or crookedness in every thing or respect and so it s absolutely in God in the first place and he both Father Word and Holy Spirit is called the Just God or the righteous Lord Psal 119.137 Jer. 12.1 Job 17.27 Zeph. 3.5 Deut. 32.4 yea the most just or upright Job 34.17 Isa 26.7 because righteousness is essential to him and he and his will the most perfect rule of righteousness but he liveth and dieth not nor of him can we understand the words who is eternal and without beginning end or reward 2. That we have to speak of righteous men and righteousness as found in or upon man and so we may say generally that Righteousness is a conformity in man to the wiil and minde of God and they are righteous that are so and so are right and straight according to Gods minde 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And such is the signification of the word here translated Righteous Vpright or Right And so 1. God made man Jashir upright suitable to his minde not crooked or perverse bending from him or faulty before him Eccles 7.29 And that was mans primitive original created state called also His likeness or similitude but according to this righteousness or uprightness there is no man found while here living upright in himself man having found out many inventions Eccles 7.29 For all have sinned and swerved from that first creered uprightness and integrity and have failed of the glory of God Rom. 3 23. But God still abides just and righteous though man be fallen from him and that rightness and uprightness that he gave or made us in his acts doings ways words and works are all righteous and there is no iniquity in him And 2. He gave a righteous just and holy Law as a perfect Rule of righteousness according to which he that should do should live and enjoy his favor and blessing but he that swerves therefrom and continues not in all things contained therein is crooked and unjust unrighteous and condemned by it to die yea accursed and blasted of God in his most holy and righteous Sentence But this coming in upon fallen man and being proposed to him as a Rule to measure himself by and square his heart and actions after findes him so desperately crooked and distorred by his fall that it altogether pronounces against man and condemns him And while man would set himself to conform himself to it in heart and way he is thereby convinced that he is wrong and unrighteous For by the Law is the knowledge of sin yea sin taking occasion by it it is more awakened and stirred up to exert and act forth it self when it findes the Law its enemy to forbid restrain and curb it and strives to bear it down before it or else secretly to elude it And so man in stead of being made just and righteous by it is discovered to be more vile and sinful yea occasionally is made so as the Apostle saith Rom. 5.20 the Law entred that sin might abound And in Chap. 7.5 8 9. The motions or passions of sin that were
Garden such as God at first planted and put Adam and Evah into Gen. 2. and so it signifies that it is in a state of exceeding pleasure and delight yea it is mentioned I think as equivolent to the third heavens 2 Cor. 12.2.4 and why not seeing it is expresly said to be with Christ Luc. 23.43 Philip. 1.23 which is said to be far better than to be here in the flesh though in Christ and under the favour of God here also Again it s said to be when absent from the body at home with the Lord 2 Cor. 5.8 so as a child at home with his Father or a Wife with her Husband now as the condition of the child is more safe comfortable and desirable when at home with a loving tender vigilant rich and careful Father than when its absent and abroad from him though provided for by him and supplyed in its wants and much more the state a wife with her husband loving tender and every way able to maintaine her to be at home with him and in his bosome is more sweet and contentful then to be though the same mans wife at distance from him in a travel or pilgrimage yea though therein cared for too and provided for by him so also is the state of the soul or Spirit returned to God and at home with Christ A blessed state and so it s said They are comforted Luc. 16.25 such the happy state of the soul then Yea its happiness herein is more then we can in mortal bodies comprehend for when this earthy house of this Tabernacle is dissolved it hath then and is in possession of a house not made with hands eternal in the heavens so the Apostle implies when he saith not we shall have but we have an house not made with hands c. 2 Cor. 5.1 And yet this is not all the after-state desirable it s yet incompleat while thus and in a state of desire and patient waiting still in respect of its having the fellowship of its body in its happiness and full victory over and revenge of all enemies and fruition of the Kingdom promised as is implyed in that cry under the Altar and the answer to it Rev. 6.10 11. There is therefore besides all this a further state 2. The after-state in respect of the Reunion of soul and body 2. Branch In the Resurrection or Resurrection from the dead for they shall be raised againe and so shall the unjust and wicked as we see before Christ having dyed and given himself a ransome for all and thereby abolished the death that upon our first Fathers transgression came upon all so as to have obtained the keyes of hell and death into his hand for the raising up all from death and grave and out of the hell in which they are detained till the time of the Resurrection and their appearing before him to be finally judged by him but yet the righteous shall differ from others in the Resurrection as well as in the glory that shall follow for they the righteous shall be more excellent than their neighbour then more apparently Prov. 12.26 For 1. They the righteous the dead in Christ shall be first raised 1 Thess 4.16 they shall have the praeheminence therein as to the order and time of their being raised for Christ who is risen already before his members and people and is become the first fruits of them that sleep is the first therein then afterward they that are Christs at his coming that is they that are his in a peculiar sense 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dein ceps postea his people flock members his in union with him they shall rise first at his coming and then afterwards shall the end come when he shall have delivered up the Kingdom to God even his Father 1 Cor. 15.23 24. for he shall reign namely at his coming 2 Tim. 4.1 till he have put down all authority and power even the last enemy too which is Death but the righteous shall be raised up to the injoyment of the Kingdom and reigning with him in his manhood and Mediatorian capacity before he deliver it up for they live and reign with Christ a thousand yeares saith Rev. 20.4.6 and that before the rest of the dead be raised Ver. 5. which namely the raising of the rest will be at the end when the thousand yeares are ended when or somewhat before he shall deliver up the Kingdom for he must reign till he have put down all authority and power the last enemy that shall be destroyed is Death which he shall destroy in the raising up all the dead even those not raised till the thousand yeares be ended and in his casting death and hell into the lake that burnes with fire and brimstone in the great and last Judgment as in Rev. 20.11 14. for good and bad first and last shall be raised and judged by him Joh. 5.28 29. but the good the dead in Christ shall be raised first and then in the same moment in the twinkling of an eye the living surviving believers shall be suddenly changed and all of them both the raised and the changed shall be caught up to meet the Lord in the ayr 1 Thess 4.16 2. They the righteous in the Resurrection also shall have a glorious and joyful manner of rising (a) Ingenti Angelorum jubilo acclamatione Aret. both as it shall be accompanied with a mighty shout probably and as some think of the Angels greatly rejoycing or also of the Spirits of the just coming with Christ as triumphing that that time is come or of Christ by the voice of the Archangel and trump of God (b) Vox Domini hortantis ut experrecti properent Eâ—as in 1 Thes 4.15 exhorting the dead Saints awaking to make haste to meet him and by that voice inabling and exciting them thereto as when raising Lazarus he said Lazarus come forth Job 11.43 and as coming down in their spirit with Christ those that sleep in Jesus shall Christ bring with him 1 Thes 4.14 And the Lord my God shall come and all the Saints with thee Zech. 14.5 and so on a sudden enlivening their bodies when in a wonderful joyful and glorious state being caught up to meet the Lord they shall come down to the earth together and be ever with him as noted before 1 Thes 4.16 3. They the righteous shall be raised up as in Christ as members of Christ in union with him and so by the Spirit of God and Christ as the Spirit that now dwelleth in them as Rom. 8.11 If the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodyes by the Spirit which dwelleth in you And therefore also 4. To a more excellent state even fellowship with Christ their Head Lord and Husband briefly called the Resurrection of life Joh. 5.29 which leads us to the third Their
for him and shall then say with shouting Lo this is our God we have waited for him and he will save This is the Lord whom we have tarryed for we will rejoyce and be glad in his salvation Isa 25.9 And on the contrary the sad end of those that have not waited for him but hasted from him and turned aside to crooked paths they shall have sorrows multiplyed upon them then being led forth with the workers of iniquity Psal 16.4 and 125.5.6 whose doleful end we have before mentioned Let these things be considered and they may be useful through Gods blessing to perswade us to cleave to Christ and persevere to the end with him Vse 3 Disswades from envying the wicked A third use is to discover the causlesness that the righteous have to envy and fret at the prosperity and portion of the wicked surely they have no cause so to do if they consider either the happiness of their own estate as to the end or after-part thereof especially or the misery and wretchedness of the state and condition of the wicked especially as to their end that hastes apace See to that purpose Psalmes 33. and 73. throughout as also Prov. 3.31 and 23.17 18. Let not thine heart envy sinners but be thou in the fear of the Lord all the day long for there is an end Consider that both thine own and the goodness of it the end that death will put to thine afflictions and sufferings and the reward and recompence that will be after which is thine expectation that shall not be cut off as also the sad and calamitous end of the wicked thine enemies See also Prov. 24.1 2 19 20. Vse 4 Reproof to our feares of death It may also reprove and check any fearfulness of Death or loathness to die found and given way to in and by believers Why should we fear death seeing Christ hath abolished Death for us and made it to all in him without doubt better than the day in which they were born Eccles 7.1 2 Tim. 1.10 the out-let to sorrows and miseries and in-let to all happiness a passage to rest and peace and freedom from all evils and to the nearer and fuller injoyment of Christ and of the happiness given us in him The Apostle was not afraid but desirous to be dissolved and to be with Christ and sure if we knew and loved Christ as well as he and loved the world as little we should be so too and though David had some risings of fear in the veiw of it yet see how he checks them in Psal 49.5 Why should I fear in the days of adversity when the iniquities of my heels do compass me about seeing none can escape it and the Lord will redeem my soul from the power of the grave or of hell and will receive me saith he Vers 15. The consideration of the end or reward of the righteous which we have in some measure been veiwing as it should provoke us to diligence in seeking to be found in Christ as our righteousness so being so to incourage us to lay down our lives when he calls for them from us and especially in a way of suffering for him with as much readiness as a childe to leave some poor cottage where he did sojourn to go to his Fathers full and stately house or a wife to leave some place of pilgrimage and hardship to go to live with her loving rich and tender husband But how much do we generally both live and die more by or according to sense than by or according to faith and yet as it is a mercy to live out our days to be serviceable in them to God and men that fulfilling our work we may receive the fuller reward or having through wandring weakned our selves to live to recover strength and not be taken away in the midst of our days in wrath and Judgment so the Saints have been and we may be loath to die and submissively desire to be spared of God so as we may come to our graves as a Rick of Corn fully ripe Psal 39.13 and 102.24 Job 5.26 Phil. 1.24 Isa 38.3 4. It may also incite and provoke wicked men to consider with themselves the sad and doleful state and way they are in Vse 5 Exciting wicked man to repâ—â— and to awaken betimes while yet they may and there is yet a day of grace and mercy afforded them to repentance that so they may not know what the death of the wicked is and the after-part that will follow but that that sad and endess misery may be prevented from them it speakes aloud to all such in the language of the holy Ghost in Isa 55.7 not only to wish and desire and pray as Balaam here did Oh let me die the Death of the righteous and let my latter end be like his but to forsake their ways and let go their vain and evil thoughts and turn to the Lord who is gracious and to our God who will multiply to pardon and who hath said and sworn as he lives he hath no pleasure in the death of the wicked but rather that he turn and live and therefore calls Turn ye turn ye why will ye die Ezek. 33.11 There is all the reason in the world that a wicked man should turn from his wickedness and not go on in it for if he go on there is a gulf before him into which he will fall and wherein he will certainly perish for ever all the word of God stands against him yea all the love and mercy of God and the sufferings blood and purchase of Christ thereby will come in and plead against him and ly upon him and aggravate his misery if he turn not in time his peace prosperity and comforts will all flee away and vanish ere long as smoke in the wind and his miseries and sorrows will come thick and threefold upon him and crush him in peices for ever And on the other side if he repent and turn the word and promise and oath of God the sufferings blood sacrifice and mediation of Christ and the holy Spirit in and with all are for him and assure him of a gracious intertainment with God of washing cleansing forgiveness and healing by Christ and of an everlasting happy portion his death than will be good and his resurrection better and his after-state best of all He shall have what Balaam here wisht to have his soul shall die the death of the righteous and his latter end shall be like his Vse 6 Reproof to the wicked not turning and to such as backslide It proclaims the desperate folly and madness of wicked men that will yet persist in their wickedness notwithstanding such a discovery of the end of those that so do but much more the desperate madness of such as having been through the grace of God brought into the way of righteousness do for any occasion or upon any account either of discontent with their owne way
and portion or coveting after the way and portion or injoyments of any other turn from the way of righteousness these do as those who being brought safely out of the dangers of the seas and of perishing there by some storm and being set safely on a rock on the shore should because the wind blows cold upon them or because they see some little fishes play or rather some perishing men float on the waves throw themselves headlong thereinto to their destruction but indeed far worse If I say to a righteous man saith God thou shalt surely live if that righteous man trusting in his righteousness commit iniquity he shall surely die Ezek. 33.13 If we turn from God we must needs go after vain things and things that profit not 1 Sam. 12.21 but that 's but an easie and soft expression in comparison of what the holy Ghost hath elsewhere as when he saith Thou wilt destroy all those that go a whoring from thee Psal 73.27 And they shall be destroyed with an everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power that obey not the Gospel 2 Thes 1.7 8. and they are said not to obey the truth that abide not in it Gal. 3.1 Vse 7 Instruction to moderation in mourning for deceased believers But lastly it may instruct us to moderation in our mourning for the death of such as are righteous and die in the Lord that we should not mourn for them as those that are without hope either of or for them or of our enjoyment again of them there is no cause of so mourning for them nay but as our Saviour said to his Non est lugendus qui ante cedit sed plane desiderandus profectio est quam putas mortem Ter. de patien 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 apud Gâ—aec est mori Disciples mourning at their hearing of his leaving them If ye had loved me ye would have rejoiced because I said I go to my Father for my Father is greater then I Joh. 14.28 So in respect of such persons when taken away by death we have rather cause of joy and gladness than of lamentation and sadness for they are gone to a better place and state as to their spirits which is the main of them and their bodies too are more at ease than they were before they dying in the Lord as we have seen are blessed at the present and they shall come again in their personal and bodily capacities after a while with Christ to the enjoyment of his Kingdom yea so as the living Saints shall not prevent them as is said 1 Thess 4.13 14 15 16 17 which words we have to comfort one another with in this case left on record for our instruction indeed some cause of mourning and in some regard of great lamentation we may have sometime as Abraham is said to have sorrowed for Sarah Jacobs sons for him and the people of Israel for Moses and divers others but the Jews write the middle letter of the word used of Abrahams weeping very small to signifie they say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his moderation in respect of his belief of the resurrection but it s said Act. 8.2 That devout men carried Stephen to his burial and to have made great lamentation for him When persons are very useful among people and a great blow breach or loss comes to the Survivers by their removal then there is ground for great lamentation in respect thereof and especially upon those that it falls so heavy upon as for the loss of our society with them and their useful company or the loss others have of them but in regard of themselves there is cause of rejoycing singing and making merry for that theiâ— race is run their dangers past their cares and labours are at an end their goal obtained and their reward ascertained And it seems the Jews did apprehend the same truth as Balaam here that the death of the righteous was a desireable thing and matter of gladness for when they who accounted themselves the righteous nation died they had musick and melody upon their departing as appears by that passage of our Saviours finding Minstrils at the house of Jairus when his daughter was dead Math. 9.23 and sure by how much the more the grace of God is unfolded by the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus and his Spirit opening the grounds ends and vertues of it in and by the Gospel to us so much the more gladness when righteous persons die in their righteousness It 's that that good men have desired before they attained it as the Apostle Paul Phil. 1.23 I desire to be dissolved and be with Christ which is â—etter And it 's that that bad men have wished they might have the happiness of obtaining as appears in the Text Let me die the death of the righteous and let my latter end c. Now when any attain that which is desireable on all hands and especially when they have lived to a good old age and have filled up the number of their days and served their generation by the will of God should we mourn for them without rejoycing or should we mourn so in respect of our own losses as not to qualifie and take up our selves with the consideration of their gain If a heathen man could comfort himself over the death of his deceased daughter Non a nissa sed praemissâ— Cic. with the consideration that she was not lost but only gone or sent away before how much more may we Christians when we may say it with this addition that they are gone before to heavenly and happy mansions to the bosome of Abraham nay to the presence and enjoyment of the Lord Jesus in their spirits and that they shall come again with him and though their bodies now lie covered up in earth and ashes or dust yet they also shall be raised up again in honour when Christ appears and then both body and soul shall appear in glory with him and enjoy so happy a portion as exceeds all expression And now I have finished what I had to say to my Text but yet not my discourse without a word of Application of it upon this last account to that which occasioned my thoughts of it which was the death and interment of a good and vertuous Gentlewoman Mrs. Barbara Whitefoote of Hapton in the County of Norfolke A woman well known in the Country not so much for her outward greatness as to estate in the world though God gave her a good sufficiency there too as for the good she did in the world and especially to the places and people near her Her profession and practice proclaimed her a Christian more then in name only a follower after righteousness and a seeker of the Lord one that we judge to have sought first Gods Kingdome and his righteousness and therefore we question not but she hath now obtained A woman of a good report
temptation sorrow fear He was thy Righteousness He is thy Rest For ever may his holy Name be blest An Acrostick Bless Soul adieu enjoy that rest And peace whereof thou art possest Rejoyce in thy behalfe we may Because thou went'st to heaven the way And there we trust with Christ thou art Receiving that most joyful part Among the Saints which can't decay Who can that happiness conceive Heaven gives to those that here believe In Jesus Christ who in his grace Trust to the end they see his face Eternally whence issues forth Fulness of joys of boundless worth Oh happy state who can but wish it Oh folly to neglect and miss it Thanks to rich grace which doth us grant Endless enjoyments without want Barbara Whitefoote ANAGRAM Bar Bar a Whitefoote OR O what if a robber eat or O what if a robber eat We need not here the Letters to displace To find an Anagram the voice of grace With gentle pausings we may orderly I' th' letters and i' th' Syllables espy Bar Bar out every plea of evil spirits Who because she had sin would its demerits Against her plead as if she therefore must Out of the Catalogue of Saints be thrust From th' upright ones whose death and after-state Is happy boundlesly beyond times date For she a Whitefoote was and had her ways Affection trust meant by the Foote were praise Worthy through grace washt White in his pure blood Who as a Sacrifice in her place stood And answered for her blacks bathing therein Her Foote was made White cleansed from dust of sin And dirt of worldly filth that might defile her Bar Bar out therefore all that would beguile her Of what the supreme Judg hath made the right Of all that walk here with a Foote that 's White Or Thus Who with a Whitefoote a pure walk do come To seek admittance into Christs Kingdome All evil Angels he from them will fray And will command Bar Bar those foes away He 'll count them meet to walk with him in White Whose ways are cleansed and whose heart 's made right But O what if a robber eat He must Out of this heavenly Company be thrust Into Christs sheeps-fold who will come and o're The wall would climb not entring by the door Who of Saints priviledges would partake And yet Christ of his claims the ground don't make Or walks not with a Whitefoote would he eat Bar Bar him He 's a robber must be beat But O what if a robber eat his bite I feare will rob me of my heavenly right For in me many faults he may espy To fasten on feare not thou shalt not dy Feare not thou Whitefoote he but gnaws a bone That fastens on a Foote Or thy sins all coverâ— c. where flesh there 's none Being in Christ His perfect righteousness Thy sinfull flesh removes procures thee bless Eccho the last word then of thy sad mone In Latine Eat and t 's let him be gone Bar bar the robber out he boldly cries That lives a Whitefoote and a Whitefoote dies EPITAPHIVM MOrtua quae jacet hic terra tumbaque sepulta Cum Christo aetherea parte beare maneâ— Barbara nomine erat non Barbara moribus autem Nomine Pes Albus moribus atque fuit Quae quia dum vixit pede gressa est cautior albo Mortua nunc albo est digna reperta loco Coelesti vestita â—â—tens jam luce quod albis Nil commune nigris candida conveniunt Pes iter finis pars ultima prosperus albus Et purus Foelix finis iterque piis In English thus WHo lies here dead in earth and tomb inter'd Her heavenly part 's to Christ in bless perfer'd Barbara her name Her ways not Barbarous were Her name and manners both Whitefoote did beare Who since sh'alive wisely with White steps went Vnto a place that 's White being dead shee 's sent Where now she shineth cloth'd with heavenly light For White with black agrees not but with White Foote way and end White happy and cleane portend The clean in way are happy way and End Sic lusit in amicam vita in fide defunctam juvenilius ingenium hominis jam senescentis Johannis Horne FINIS