ambitious rebellious Absolom to molest us or to lament No sinful scandalous or impatient friends to be our grief And which is more than all no earthly sinful inclinations in our selves no passions or infirmities no languishings of soul no deadness dulness hard heartedness or we aknesses of grace no backwardness to God or estrangedness from him nor fears or doubtings of his love nor frowns of his displeasure None of these do enter into that serene and holy region nor ever interrupt the joy of Saints The great work is yet upon our hands to fight out the good fight to finish our course to run with patience the remainder of the race that is before us And as we must look to Jesus the Author and Finisher of our faith as our great exemplar so must we look to his Saints and Martyrs as our encouraging examples under him Put the case you were now dying and O how near is it and how sure What would you need most if the day were come That is it that you need most now Look after it speedily while you have time Look after it seriously if you have the hearts of men and sin have not turned you into Ideots or blocks What a disgrace is it to mankind to hear men commonly at death cry out O for a little more time and O for the opportunities of grace again and O how shall I enter upon eternity thus unprepared As if they had never heard or known that they must die till now Had you not a lifes time to put these questions and should you not long ago have got them satisfactorily resolved And justly doth God give over some to that greater shame of humane nature as not to be called to their wits even by the approach of death it self but as they contemned everlasting Life in their health God justly leaveth them to be so sottish as to venture presumptuously with unrenewed souls upon death and the conceit that they are of the right Church or party or opinion or that the Priest hath absolved them doth pass with them for the necessary preparation and well were it for them if these would pass them currantly into heaven But O what heart can now conceive how terrible it is for a new departed soul to find it self remedilesly disappointed and to be shut up in flames and desperation before they would believe that they were in danger of it Reader I beseech thee as ever thou believest that thou must shortly die retire from the crowd and noise of worldly vanity and vexation O bethink thee how little a while thou must be here and have use for honour and favour and wealth and what it is for a soul to pass into heaven or hell and to dwell among Angels or Devils for ever And how men should live and watch and pray that are near to such a change as this Should I care what men call me by tongue or pen Should I care whether I Live at liberty or in prison when I am ready to die and have matters of infinite moment before me to take me up Honour or dishonour liberty or prison are words of no sound or signification scarce to be heard or taken notice of to one of us that are just passing to God and to everlasting life The Lord have mercy upon the distracted world how strangely doth the Devil befool them in the day-light and make them needlesly trouble themselves about many things when one thing is needful and Heaven is talk'd of and that but heartlesly and seldom while fleshly provision only is the prize the pleasure the business of their lives Some are diverted from their serious preparation for death by the leastly avocations of lust and gâ—wdiness and meats and drinks and childish sports and some by the businesses of ambition and covetousness contriving how to feather their nests and exercise their Wills over others in the world and some that will seem to be doing the work are diverted as dangerously as others by contending about formalities and Ceremonies and destroying Charity and Peace rending the Church and strengthening factions and carrying on Interests hypocritically under the name of Religion till the Zeal that Saint James describeth Jam. 3. 13 14 c. having consumed all that was tike to the Zeal of Love and Holiness in themselves proceed to consume the Servants and interest of Christ about them and to bite and devoure till their Lord come and find them in a day that they locked not for him smiting their fellow-servants and eating and drinking with the drunken and cut them asunder and appoint them their portion with the hypocrites where shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth Matth 24. 49 50 51. O study and preach and hear and pray and live and use your brethren that differ from you in some opinions as you would do if you were going to receive your doom and as will then be most acceptable to your Lord The guilt of sensuality worldiness ambition of uncharitableness cruelty and injustice of losing time and betraying your souls by negligence or perfidiousness and wilful sin will lie heavyer upon a departing Soul then now in the drunkenness of prosperity you can think Christ will never receive such Souls in their extremity unless upon repentance by faith in his blood they are washed from this pollution It is unspeakably terrible to die without a confidence that Christ will receive us And little knows the graceless world what sincerity and simplicity in holiness is necessary to the soundness of such a confidence Let those that know not that they must die or know of no life hereafter hold on their chase of a feather till they find what they lost their lives and Souls and labour for But if thou be a Christian remember what is thy work Thou wilt net need the favour of man nor worldly wealth to prevail with Christ to Receive thy spirit O learn thy Last Work before thou art put upon the doing of it The world of spirits to which we are passing doth better know than this world of fleshly darkened sinners the great difference between the Death of a Heavenly Believer and of an earthly sensualist Believe it is a thing possible to get that apprehension of the Love of Christ that confidence of his Receiving us and such familiar pleasant thoughts of our entertainment by him as shall much overcome the fears of Death and make it a welcome day to us when we shall be admitted into the Celestial society And the difference between one mans Death and anothers dependeth on the difference between Heart and Heart Life and Life Preparation and Vnpreparedness It you ask me How may so happy a Preparation be made I have told you in this following Discourse and more fully else where formerly I shall add now these few Directions following 1. Follow the flattering world no further Come off from all expectation of felicity below Enjoy nothing under the Sun but only use it in order to your
reached to assurance or not she had confident apprehensions of the Love of God and quietly reposed her soul upon his grace Yet not secure through presumption or self esteem but comforting her self in the Lord her God By this means she spent those hours in a chearful performance of her duty which many spend in fruitless self-vexation for the failings of their duty or in meer enquiries Whether they have Grace or not and others spend in wrangling perplexed Controversies about the manner or circumstances of duty And I believe that she had more comfort from God by way of reward upon her sincere obedience while she referred her soul to him and rested on him than many have that more anxiously perplexed themselves about the discerning of their holiness when they should be studying to be more holy that it might discover it self And by this means she was sit for praises and thanksgiving and spent not her life in lamentations and complaints and made not Religion seem terrible to the ignorant that judge of it by the faces and carriage of professors She did not represent it to the world as a morose and melancholy temper but as the rational creatures cheerful obedience to his maker actuated by the sense of the wonderful Love that is manifested in the Redeemer and by the hopes of the purchased and promised felicity in the blessed sight and fruition of God And I conjecture that her forementioned dispositiou to think well of God and of his providences together with her long and manifold experience the great advantage of antient tryed Christians did much conduce to free her from doubtings and disquieting fears about her own sincerity and Salvation And I confess if her life had not been answerable to her peace and confidence I should not have thought the better but the worse of her condition nothing being more lamentable than to make hast to Hell through a wilful confidence that the danger is past and that they are in the way to Heaven as well as the most sanctified 10. Lastly I esteemed it the height of her attainment that she never discovered any inordinate fears of death but a chearful readiness willingness and desire to be dissolved and be with Christ This was her constant temper both in health and sickness as far as I was able to observe She would be frequently expressing how little reason she had to be desirous of longer life and how much reason to be willing to depart Divers times in dangerous sicknesses I have been with her and never discerned any considerable aversness dejectedness or fear Many a time I have thought how great a mercy I should esteem it if I had attained that measure of fearless willingness to lay down this flesh as she had attained Many a one that can make light of wants or threats or scorns or any ordinary troubles cannot submit so quietly and willingly to death Many a one that can go through the labours of Religion and contemn opposition and easily give all they have to the poor and bear imprisonments banishment or contempt can never overcome the fears of Death so far even the Father of lies spake truth Joh. 2. 4. Skin for Skin yea all that a man hath will he give for his Life I took it therefore for a high attainment and extraordinary mercy to our deceased friend that the King of Terrours was not terrible to her Though I doubt not but somewhat of aversness and fear is so radicated in natures self-preserving principle as that it is almost inseparable yet in her I never discerned any troublesome appearances of it When I first came to her in the beginning of her last sickness she suddenly passed the sentence of death upon her self without any shew of fear or trouble when to us the disease appeared not to be great But when the disease encreased her pains were so little and the effect of the Fever was so much in her head that after this she seemed not to esteem it mortal being not sensible of her case and danger And so as she lived without the fears of death she seemed to us to die without them God by the nature of her disease removing death as out of her sight when fhe came to that weakness in which else the encounter was like to have been sharper than ever it was before And thus in one of the weaker sex God hath shewed us that it is possible to live in holy confidence and peace and quietness of mind without distressing griefs or fears even in the midst of a troublesom world and of vexatious businesses and with the afflictions of her dearest Relations almost continually before her And that our quiet or disquiet our peace or trouble dependeth more upon our inward strength and temper then upon our outward state occasions or provocations And that it is more in our hands than of any or all our friends and enemies whether we shall have a comfortable or uncomfortable life What remaineth now but that all we that furvive especially you that are her Children do follow her as she followed Christ Though the Word of God be your sufficient Rule and the Example of Christ be your perfect pattern yet as the Instructions so the Example of a parent must be a weighty motive to quicken and engage you to your duty and will else be a great aggravation of your sin A holy Child of unholy parents doth no more than his necessary duty because whatever parents are he hath an holy God But an unholy Child of holy parents is unexcusable in sin and deplorably miserable as forsaking the Doctrine and pattern both of their Creator and their Progenitors whom Nature engageth them to observe And it will be an aggravation of their deserved misery to have their Parents witness against them that they taught them and they would not learn and went before them in a holy life but they would not follow them Prov. 1. 8. My Son hear the instruction of thy Father and forsake not the law of thy Mother for they shall be an Ornament of Grace unto thy head and chains about thy neck Read and consider Prov. 30. 17. and 15. 20. and 23. 22 25. sins against Parents have a special curse affixed to them in this life as the case of Cham sheweth And the due obsevrance and honouring of Parents hath a special Promise of Temporal Blessings as the fifth Commandment sheweth Ephes 6. 1 2 3. Children obey your Parents in the Lord for it is right Honour thy Father and Mother which is the first Commandment with promise that it may be well with thee and thou mayest live long on the earth The Histories of all Ages are so full of the instances of Gods judgements in this life upon five sorts of sinners as may do much to convince an Atheist of the Government and special Providence of God that is upon Persecutors Murderers Sacrilegious False-witnesses especially by Perjury and Abusers and Dishonourers of Parents And the great
and name It was still the Spirit of Stephen that was received by Christ It sleepeth not To confute the dream of those that talk of the sleeping of Souls or any Lethargich unintelligent or unactive state of so excellent capacious and active a nature were but to dispute with sleeping men When we say it is Immortal we mean not that it or any creature hath in it self a self-supporting or self-preserving sufficiency or that they are Necessary Beings and not Contingent or Primitive Beings and not Derived from another by Creation We know that all the world would turn to nothing in a moment if God did but withdraw his preserving and upholding influence and but suspend that Will that doth continue them He need not exert any Positive Will or Act for their destruction or annihilation Though ejusdem est annihilare cujus est creare none can annihilate but God yet it is by a Positive efficient act of Will that he createth and by a meer cessation of the act of his preserving Will he can annihilate I mean not by any change in him but by willing the continuance of the creature but till such a period But yet he that will perpetuate the Spirit of Man hath given it a nature as he hath done the Angels fit to be perpetuated A Nature not guilty of composition and elementary materiallity which might subject it to corruption so that as there is an Aptitude in Iron or Silver or Gold to continue longer than Grass or Flowers or Flesh and a reason of its duration may be given a natura rei from that aptitude in subordination to the Will of God so there is such an Aptitude in the Nature of the Soul to be Immortal which God maketh use of to the accomplishment of his will for its actual perpetuity The Heathenish Socinians that deny the Immortality of the Soul yea worse than Heathenish for most Heathens do maintain it must deny it to Christ himself as well as to his Members For he used the like recommendation of his Soul to his Father when he was on the Cross as Stephen doth here to him If Lord Jesus receive my Spirit be words that prove not the surviving of the Spirit of Stephen then Father into thay hands I commend my Spirit will not prove the surviving of the Spirit of Christ And then what do these infidels make of Christ who also deny his Deity and consequently make him nothing but a Corpse when his body was in the grave How then did he make good his promise to the penitent malefactor This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise But he that said Because I live ye shall live also John 14. 19. did live in the Spirit while he was put to death in the flesh 1 Pet. 3. 18. and receiveth the Spirits of his Servants unto life eternal while their flesh is rotting in the grave This very Text is so clear for this if there were no other it might end the controversie with all that believe the Holy Scriptures I confess these is a sleep of Souls A Metaphorical sleep in sin and in security Or else the drowsie opinions of these Infidels had never found entertainment in the world A sleep so deep that the voice of God in the threatnings of his Word and the alarm of his Judgments and the thunder of his warnings by his most serious Ministers prevail not to awaken the most So dead a sleep possesseth the most of the ungodly world that they can quietly sin in the sight of God at the entrance upon eternity at the doors of Hell and the calls of God do not awaken them So dead a sleep that Scripture justly calls them dead Eph. 2. 1. 5. And Ministers may well call them dead For alas it is not our voice that can awake them They are as dead to us we draw back the curtains to let in the light and shew them that Judgment is at hand and use those true but terrible arguments from wrath and hell which we are afraid should too much frighten many tender hearers and yet they sleep on and our loudest calls our tears and our intreaties cannot awaken them We cry to them in the name of the Lord Awake thou that sleepest arise from the dead and Christ shall give thee light Eph. 5. 14. This Moral sleep and death of Souls which is the fore-runner of everlasting death in misery we cannot deny But after Death even this sleep shall cease and God will awaken them with his vengeance that would not be awaked by his Grace Then sinner sleep under the thoughts of sin and Gods displeasure if thou canst There is no sleeping Soul in Hell There are none that are past feeling The mortal stroke that layeth thy flesh to sleep in the dust le ts out the guilty Soul into a World where there is no sleeping where there is a Light irresistible and a Terrour and Torment that will keep them waking If God bid thee awake by the flames of Justice he will have no nay The first sight and feeling which will surprize thee when thou hast left this Flesh will awake thee to Eternity and do more than we could do in Time and convince thee that there is no sleeping state for separated Souls DOCT. 5. CHrist doth receive the Spirits of his Saints when they leave the Flesh Here we shall first tell you what Christs receiving of the Spirit is The Word signifieth to take it as acceptable to himself and it comprehendeth these Particulars 1. That Christ will not leave the new-departed Soul to the will of Satan its malicious Enemy How ready is he to receive us to perdition if Christ refuse us and receive us not to Salvation He that now seeketh as a roaring Lion night and day as our adversary to devour us by deceit will then seek to devour us by execution How glad was he when God gave him leave but to touch the goods and children and body of Job And how much more would it please his enmity to have power to torment our Souls But the Soul that fled to the arms of Christ by Faith in the day of tryal shall then find it self in the arms of Christ in the moment of its entrance upon Eternity O Christian whether thou now feel it to thy comfort or not thou shalt then feel it to the ravishing of thy Soul that thou didst not fly to Christ in vain nor trust him in vain to be thy Saviour Satan shall be for ever disappointed of his desired Prey Long wast thou combating with him frequently and strongly wast thou tempted by him Thou oft thoughtest it was a doubtful Question who should win the day and whether ever thou shouldest hold out and be saved But when thou passest from the Flesh in thy last Extremity in the end of thy greatest and most shaking Fears when Satan is ready if he might to carry thy Soul to Hell then even then shalt thou find that thou hast won the
this part of my application having to do with Souls that are ready to depart and are in so sad an unprepared state as is not to be thought on but with great compassion I am next to come to that part of the application which I chiefly intended to those that are the Heirs of Life II. O You that are members of Jesus Christ receive this Cordial which may corroborate your hearts against all inordinate fears of Death Let it come when it will you may boldly recommend your departing Souls into the hands of Christ Let it be by a lingring disease or by an acute by a natural or a violent death at the fulness of your age or in the flower of your youth death can but separate the Soul from Flesh but not from Christ Whether you die poor or rich at liberty or in prison in your native Country or a forein Land whether you be buried in the Earth or cast into the Sea death shall but send your Souls to Christ Though you die under the reproach and slanders of the world and your names be cast out among men as evil doers yet Christ will take your Spirits to himself Though your Souls depart in fear and trembling though they want the sense of the Love of God and doubt of pardon and peace with him yet Christ will receive them I know thou wilt be ready to say that thou art unworthy Will he receive so unworthy a Soul as mine But if thou be a member of Christ thou art worthy in him to be accepted Thou hast a worthiness of Aptitude and Christ hath a worthiness of merit The day that cometh upon such at unawares that have their hearts over-charged with surfeiting drunkenness and the cares of this life and as a snare surprizeth the inhabitants of the earth shall be the day of thy great deliverance Watch therefore and pray alwayes that you way be accounted worthy to escape all those things that shall come to pass and to stand before the son of man Luke 21. 34 35 36. They that are accounted worthy to obtain that world can die no more for they are equal to the Angels and are the children of God Luke 20. 35 36. Object O but my sins are great and many and will Christ ever receive so ignorant so earthly and impure a Soul as mine Answ If he have freed thee from the reign of sin by giving thee a Will that would fain be fully delivered from it and given thee a desire to be perfectly holy he will finish the work that he hath begun and will not bring thee defiled into Heaven but will wash thee in his Blood and separate all the remnant of corruption from thy Soul when he separateth thy Soul from flesh There needs no purgatory but his blood and Spirit in the instant of death shall deliver thee that he may present thee spotless to the Father O fear not then to trust thy Soul with him that will Receive it And fear not death that can do thee no more harm And when once thou hast overcome the fears of death thou wilt be the more resolute in thy duty and faithful to Christ and above the power of most temptations and wilt not fear the face of man when Death is the worst that man can bring thee to It is true Death is dreadful but it is as true that the arms of Christ are joyful It is an unpleasing thing to leave the Bodies of our friends in the earth but it is unspeakable pleasure to their Souls to be Received into the Heavenly society by Christ And how confidently quietly and comfortably you may commend your departing Spirits to be received by Christ be informed by these considerations following 1 Your Spirits are Christs own And may you not trust him with his own As they are his by the title of creation All Souls are mine saith the Lord Ezek. 18. 4. So also by the title of redemption We are not our own we are bought with a price 1 Cor. 6. 19. Say therefore to him Lord I am thine much more than my own Receive thine own Take care of thine own Thou drewest me to consent to thy gracious Covenant and I resigned my self and all I had to thee and thou swarest to me and I became thine Ezek. 16. 8. and I stand to the Covenant that I made though I have offended thee I am sinful but I am thine and would not forsake thee and change my Lord and Master for a world O know thine own and own my Soul that hath owned thee though it hath sinned against thee Thy sheep know thy voice and follow not a stranger Now know thy poor sheep and leave them not to the devourer Thy Lambs have been preserved by thee among Wolves in the world Preserve me now from the enemy of souls I am thine O save me Psalm 119. 94. and lose not that which is thine own 2. Consider that thou art his upon so dear a purchace as that he is the more engaged to receive thee Hath he bought thee by the price of his most precious blood and will he cast thee off Hath he come down on earth to seek and save thee and will he now forsake thee Hath he lived in flesh a life of poverty and suffered reproach and scorn and buffetings and been nailed to the Cross and put to cry out My God My God why hast thou forsaken me And will he now forget his love and sufferings and himself forsake thee after this Did he himself on the Cross commend his spirit into his Father's hands and will he not receive thy spirit when thou at death commendest it to him He hath known himself what it is to have a humane soul separated from the body and the body buried in a grave and there lamented by surviving friends And why did he this but that he might be fit to receive and relieve thee in the like condition O who would not be encouraged to encounter death and lie down in a grave that believeth that Christ did so before him and considereth why he went that way and what a Conquest he hath made I know an Argument from the Death of Christ will not prove his love to the souls of the ungodly so as to infer that he wil receive them but it will prove his Reception of Believers souls He that spared not his own Son but gave him up for us all how shall he not with him also freely give us all things Rom. 8. 32. is an infallible argument as to Believers but not as to those that do reject him Say therefore to him O my Lord Can it be that thou couldst come down in flesh and be abused and spit upon and slandred and crucified that thou couldst bleed and die and be buried for me and now be unwilling to receive me that thou shoulds pay so dear for souls and now refuse to entertain them that thou shouldst die to save them from the devil and now wilt leave
them to his cruelty that thou hast conquered him and yet wilt suffer him at last to have the prey To whom can a departing soul fly for refuge and for entertainment if not to thee that diedst for souls and sufferedst thine to be separated from the flesh that we might have all assurance of thy compassion unto ours Thou didst openly declare upon the Cross that the reason of thy dying was to Receive departed souls when thou didst thus encourage the soul of a penitent Malefactor by telling him This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise O give the same encouragement or entertainment to this sinful soul that flyeth unto thee and trusteth in thy death and merits and is coming to receive thy doom 3. Consider that Jesus Christ is full of Love and tender compassion to souls What his tears over Lazarus compelled the Jews to say John 11. 36. Behold how he loved him the same his incarnation life and death should much more stir us up to say with greater admiration Behold how he loved us The foregoing words though the shortest verse in all the Bible vers 35. Jesus wept are long enough to prove his love to Lazarus and the Holy Ghost would not have the tears of Christ to be unknown to us that his love may be the better known But we have a far larger demonstration of his love He loved us and gave himself for us Gal. 2. 20. And by what gift could he better testifie his love He loved us and washed us in his blood Rev. 1. 5. He loveth us as the Father loveth him John 15. 9. And may we not comfortably go to him that loveth us will Love refuse us when we fly unto him Say then to Christ O thou that hast loved my soul Receive it I commend it not unto an enemy Can that Love reject me and cast me into hell that so oft embraced me on earth and hath declared it self by such ample testimonies O had we but more love to Christ we should be more sensible of his love to us and then we should trust him and love would make us hasten to him and with confidence cast our selves upon him 4. Consider that it is the Office of Christ to save souls and to receive them and therefore we may boldly recommend them to his hands The Father sent him to be the Saviour of the world 1 John 4. 14. And he is effectively the Saviour of his body Eph. 5. 23. And may we not trust him in his undertaken office that would trust a Physician or any other in his office if we judge him faithful Yea he is engaged by Covenant to Receive us When we gave up our selves to him he also became ours and we did it on this condition that he should receive and save us And it was the condition of his own undertaking He drew the Covenant himself and tendred it first to us and assumed his own Conditions as he imposed ours Say then to him My Lord I expect but the performance of thy Covenants and the discharge of thine undertaken Ofâ—â—ce As thou hast caused me to believe in thee and â—â—â—…e and serve thee and perform the conditions which â—â—…ou laidst on me though with many sinful failings which thou hast pardoned so now let my soul that hath trusted on thee have the full experience of thy fidelity and take me to thy self according to thy Covenant O now remember the word unto thy servant upon which thou hast caused him to hope Psalm 119. 49. How many precious promises hast thou left us that we shall not be forsaken by thee but that we shall be with thee where thou art that we may behold thy glory For this cause art thou the Mediator of the New Covenant that by means of death for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first Testament they which are called might receive the promise of eternal Inheritance Heb. 9. 15. According to thy Covenant Godliness hath the promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come 1 Tim. 4. 8. and when we have done thy will notwithstanding our lamentable imperfections we are to receive the promise Heb. 10. 36. O now receive me into the Kingdom which thou hast promised to them that love thee James 1. 12. 5. Consider how able Christ is to answer thine expectations All power is given him in Heaven and Earth Matth. 28. 19. and All things are given by the Father into his hands John 13. 3. All Judgment is committed to him John 5. 22. It is fully in his power to receive and save thee And Satan cannot touch thee but by his consent Fear not then he is the First and Last that liveth and was dead and behold he liveth for evermore Amen and hath the Keys of Hell and Death Rev. 1. 17 18. Say then If thou wilt Lord thou canst save this departing soul O say but the word and I shall live Lay but thy rebuke upon the destroyer and he shall be restrained When my Lord and dearest Saviour hath the Keys how can I be kept out of thy Kingdom or cast into the burning lake Were it a matter of Difficulty unto thee my soul might fear lest Heaven would not be opened to it But thy Love hath overcome the hindrances and it is as easie to receive me as to Love me 6. Consider how perfectly thy Saviour is acquainted with the place that thou art going to and the company and employment which thou must there have and therefore as there is nothing strange to him so the ignorance and strangeness in thy self should therefore make thee fly to him and trust him and recommend thy soul to him and say Lord it would be terrible to my departing soul to go into a world that I never saw and into a place so strange and unto company so far above me but that I know there is nothing strange to thee and thou knowest it for me and I may better trust thy knowledg than mine own when I was a child I knew not my own inheritance nor what was necessary to the daily provisions for my life but my parents knew it that cared for me The eyes must see for all the body and not every member see for it self O cause me as quietly and believingly to commit my Soul to thee to be possessed of the Glory which thou seest and possessest as if I had seen and possessed it my self ad let thy knowledg be my trust 7. Consider That Christ hath provided a glorious receptacle for faithful Souls and it cannot be imagined that he will lose his preparations or be frustrate of his end All that he did and suffered on earth was for this end He therefore became the Captain of our salvation and was made perfect through sufferings that he might bring many sons to glory Heb. 2. 10. He hath taken possession in our Nature and is himself interceding for us in the Heavens Heb. 7. 25. And for whom doth
he provide this Heavenly Building not made with hands but for Believers If therefore any inordinate fear surprize thee remember what he hath said John 14. 1 2 3. Let not your hearts be troubled ye believe in God believe also in me In my Fathers house are many mansions if it were nor so I would have told you I go to prepare a place for you And if I go and prepare a place for you I will come again and receive you unto my self that where I am there ye may be also Say therefore Lord when thou hadst made this lower narrow world thou wouldst not leave it uninhabited for Man thou madest it and Man thou placedst in it And when thou hast prepared that more capacious glorious World for thy redeemed flock it cannot be that thou wilt shut them out O therefore receive my fearful Soul and help me to obey thine own command Luke 12. 32. Fear not little flock for it is your Fathers good pleasure to give you the kingdom O let me hear that joyful Sentence Matth. 25. 34. Come ye blessed of my Father inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world 8. Consider That Christ hath received thy Soul unto Grace and therefore he will receive it unto Glory He hath quickned us who were dead in trespasses and sins wherein in time past we walked c. But God who is rich in mercy for his great love wherewith he loved us even when we were dead in sins and trespasses quickned us together with Christ and raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus Ephes 2. 1 2 3 4 5 6. The State of Grace is the kingdom of heaven as well as the State of Glory Matth. 3. 2. 10. 7. 13. 11 24 31 33 44 45 47. By Grace thou hast the heavenly birth and nature We are first born to trouble and sorow in the World but we are new born to everlasting joy and pleasure Grace maketh us Heirs and giveth us Title and therefore at death we shall have possession The Father of our Lord Jesus Christ according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that fadeth not away reserved in Heaven for us 1 Peter 1. 3 4. The great work was done in the day of thy Renovation Then thou wast entred into the houshold of God and made a fellow Citizen with the Sants and receivedst the Spirit of adoption Eph. 2. 19. Gal. 4. 6. He gave thee life eternal when he gave the knowledge of himself and of his Son John 17. 3. And will he now take from thee the Kingdom which he hath given thee Thou wast once his Enemy and he hath Received thee already into his favour and reconciled thee to himself and will he not then receive thee to his Glory Rom. 5. 8 9 10 11. God commendeth his Love towards us in that while we were yet sinners Christ dyed for us Much more then being now justified by his blood we shall be saved from wrath through him For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son much more being reconciled we shall be saved by his life And not only so but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ by whom we have now received the attonement And when we have peace with God being justifiied by faith Rom. 5. 1. why should we doubt whether he will receive us The great impediments and cause of fear are now removed Unpardoned sin is taken away Our debt is discharged We have a sufficient Answer against all that can be alledged to the prejudice of our Souls yea it is Christ himself that answereth for us It is he that justifieth Who then shall condemn us Will he not justifie those at last whom he hath here justified Or will he justifie us and yet not receive us That were both to justifie and condemn us Depart then in peace O fearful Soul Thou fallest into his hands that hath justified thee by his Blood will he deny thee the Inheritance of which he himself hath made thee Heir yea a Joynt-heir with himself Rom. 8. 17. Will he deprive thee of thy Birth-right who himself begot thee of the incorruptible Seed If he would not have received thee to Glory he would not have drawn thee to himself and have blotted out thine Iniquities and received thee by reconciling Grace Many a time he hath received the secret Petitions Complaints and Groans which thou hast poured out before him and hath given thee access with boldness to his Throne of Grace when thou couldst not have access to Man and he hath taken thee up when Man hath cast thee off Surely he that received thee so readily in thy distress will not now at last repent him of his love As Manoah's Wife said Judges 13. 23. If the Lord were pleased to kill us he would not have received a burnt-offering and a meat-offering at our hands neither would he have shewed us all these things He hath received thee into his Church and entertained thee with the delights and fatness of his House Psalm 36. 8. and bid thee welcome to his Table and feasted thee with his Body and his Blood and communicated in these his quickning Spirit And will he then disown thee and refuse thee when thou drawest nearer him and art cast upon him for thy final doom After so many receptions in the way of Grace dost thou yet doubt of his Receiving thee 9 Consider How nearly thou art related to him in this state of Grace Thou art his Child and hath he not the bowels of a Father when thou didst ask bread he was not used to give thee a stone and will he give thee Hell when thou askest but the entertainment in Heaven which he hath promised thee Thou art his friend John 15. 14. 15. and will he not receive his friends Thou art his Spouse betrothed to him the very day when thou consentedst to his Covenant and where then shouldst thou live but with him Thou art a member of his body of his flesh and bone Eph. 5. 30. and no man ever yet hated his own flesh but nourisheth and cherisheth it even as the Lord the Church ver 29. As he came down in flesh to be a Suitor to thee so he caused thee to let go all for him and will he now forsake thee Suspect it not but quietly resign thy soul into his hands and say Lord take this Soul that pleads Relation to thee It is the voice of thy Child that cryeth to thee The name of a Father which thou hast assumed towards me is my encouragement When thou didst call us 〈◊〉 out of the world unto thee thou saidst I will receive you and I will be a Father to you and ye shall be my Sons and Daughters 2 Cor. 6. 17 18 O our
Honour that is due to Parents when they are dead is to give just honour to their Names and to obey their Precepts and imitate their good examples It is the high commendation of the Rechabites that they strictly kept the â—recepts of their Father even in a thing indifferent a mode of living not to drink wine or build houses but dwell in tents an God annexeth this notable blessing Thus saith the Lord of hosts the God of Israel because ye have obeyed the commandemtent of Jonadab your Father and kept all his Precepts and done according to all that he hath commanded you Therefore thus siath the Lord of Hosts the God of Israel Jonadab the Son of Rechab shall not mant to stand before me for ever Jer. 36. 6 7. 18. 19. But especially in the great duties of Religion where Parents do but deliver the mind of God and use their authority to procure obedience to Divine authority and where the matter it self is necessary to our Salvation the obligation to obedience and imitation is most indispensable and disobedience is an aggravated iniquity and the notorious brand of infelicity and Prognostick of ensuiing woe The ungodly Children of godly Parents being the most deplorable unhappy unexcusable persons in the World if they hold on There is yet another Doctrine that I should speak to Doct. 7. PRayer in general and this prayer in particular that Christ will Receive our depâ—rting souls is a most suitable conclusion of all the action of Christians life Prayer is the breath of a Christians life it is his work and highest converse and therefore fittest to be the concluding action of his life that it may reach the end at which he aimed We have need of Prayer all our lives because we have need of God and need of his manifold and continued Grace But in our last extreamity we have a special need Though sloath is apt to seize upon us while prosperity hindreth the sense of our necessities and health perswadeth us that Time is not near its journies end yet it is high time to pray with doubled fervour and importunity when we see that we are near our last when we find that we have no more time to pray but must now speak our last for our immortal Souls and must at once say all that we have to say and shall never have a hearing more O then to be unable to pray or to be faithless and heartless and hopeless in our prayers would be a calamity beyond expression Yet I know for ordinary observation tells it us that many truly gracious persons may accidentally be undisposed and disabled to pray when they are near to death If the Disease be such as doth disturb the Brain or take them up with violence of pain or overwhelm the mind by perturbation of the passions or abuse the imagination or notably waste and debilitate the spirits it cannot be expected that a body thus disabled should serve the Soul in this or any other duty But still the praying Habit doth remain though a distempered body do forbid the exercise The Habitual desires of the Soul are there and it is those that are the soul of Prayer But this should move us to pray while we have time and while our Bodies have strength and our spirits have vigour and alacrity to serve us seeing we are so uncertain of bodily disposition and capacity so near our end O pray and pray with all your hearts before any Fever or Deliration overthrow your understandings or your memories before your thoughts are all commanded to attend your pains and before your decayed spirits fail you and deny their necessary service to your suits and before the apprehensions of your speedy approach to the presence of the most Holy God and your entrance upon an endless state do amaze confound and overwhelm your Souls with fear and perturbation O Christians what folly what sin and shame is it to us that now while we have time to pray and leave to pray and helps to pray and have no such disturbing hindrances we should yet want hearts and have no mind no life and fervour for so great a work O pray now lest you are unable to pray then And if you are then hindred but by such bodily undisposedness God will understand your habitual desires and your groans and take it as if you had actually prayed Pray now that so you may be acquainted with the God that then you must fly unto for mercy and may not be strangers to him or unto Prayer and that he may not find then that your prayers are but the expressions of your fears and not of your Love and are constrained and not voluntary motions unto God Pray now in preparation to your dying prayers O what a terrible thing it is to be to learn to pray in that hour of extreamity and to have then no principle to pray by but natural self-love which every Thief hath at the gallows To be then without the Spirit of prayer when without it there cannot an acceptable word or groan be uttered and when the rejection of our suits and person will be the prologue to the final judicial rejection and will be a distress so grievous as presumptuous Souls will not believe till sad experience become their Tutor Can you imagine that you shall then at last be taught the art of acceptable Prayer meerly by horrour and the natural sense of pain and danger as Sea-men in a storm or a Malefactor by the rack when in your health and leasure you will not be perswaded to the daily use of serious Prayer but number your selves with the families that are under the wrath of the Almighty being such as call not on his name Jer. 10. 25. Psalm 79. 6. Indeed there are many prayers must go before or else this Prayer Lord Jesus receive my spirit will be in vain when you would be loth to find it so You must first pray for renewing Sanctifying grace for the death of sin and the Pardon of sin for a holy life and a Heavenly mind for obedience patience and perseverance and if you obtain not these there is no hope that Jesus Christ should receive your Spirits that never received his sanctifying spirit How sad is it to observe that those that have most need of Prayer have least mind to Pray as being least sensible of their needs Yea that those that are the next step to the state of Devils and have as much need of Prayer as any miserable souls on earth do yet deride it and hate those that seriously and fervently perform it a man of prayer being the most common objct of their malicious reproach and scorn O miserable Cainites that hate their brethren for offering more acceptable sacrifice then their own little do they know how much of the very Satanical nature is in that malice and in those reproachful scorns and little do they know how near they are to the curse and desparation of Cain and
with what horrour they shall cry out My punishment is greater then I can bear Gen. 4. 11 13. If God and Good men condemn you for your lip-service and heartless devotions and ungodly lives will you therefore hate the holy nature and better lives of those that judge you when you should hate your own ungodliness and hypocrisie Hear what God said to the leader of your sect Gen 4. 6. Why art thou wroth and why is thy countenance faln If thou do well shalt thou not be accepted and if thou dost not well sin lyeth at the door Have you not as much need to pray as those that you hate and reproach for praying Have you not as much need to be oft and earnest in prayer as they Must Christ himself spend whole nights in prayer Luke 6. 12. and shall an ignorant sensual hardened sinner think he hath no need of it though he be unconverted unjustified unready to die and almost past the opportunity of praying O miserable men that shortly would cry and roar in the anguish of their Souls and yet will not pray while there is time and room for prayer Their judge is willing now to hear them and now they have nothing but hypocritical lifeless words to speak Praying is now a wearisom tedions and unpleasant thing to them that shortly would be glad if the most heart-tearing lamentations could prevail for the crums and drops of that mercy which they thus despise Luke 16. 24. Of all men in the world it ill becomes one in so deep necessities and dangers to be prayerless But for you Christians that are daily exercised in this holy converse with your Maker hold on and grow not strange to heaven and let not your holy desires be extinguished for want of excitation Prayer is your ascent to heaven your departure from a vexatious world to treat with God for your Salvation your retirement from a World of dangers into the impregnable fortress where you are safe and from vanity unto felicity and from troubles unto Rest Which though you cannot come so near nor enjoy so fully and delightfully as hereafter you shall do yet thus do you make your approaches to it and thus do you secure your future full fruition of it And let them all scoff at hearty fervent Prayer as long as they will yet Prayer shall do that with God for you which health and wealth and dignity and honor and carnal pleasures and all the World shall never do for one of them And though they neglect and villifie it now yet the hour is near when they will be fain to scamble and bungle at it themselves and the face of death will better teach them the use of prayer than our doctrine and example now can do A departing Soul will not easily be prayerless nor easily be content with sleepy prayers But alas it is not every Prayer that hath some fervency from the power of fear that shall succeed Many a thousand may perish for ever that have prayed Lord Jesus receive my Spirit But the Soul that breatheth after Christ and is weary of sinning and hath long been pressing toward the mark may receive incouragement for his last petitions from the bent and success of all the foregoing prayers of his life Believe it Christians your cannot be so ready to beg of Christ to Receive your souls as he is ready and willing to receive them As you came praying therefore into the world of Grace go praying out of it into the world of Glory It is not a work that you were never used to though you have had lamented backwarness and coldness and omissions It is not to a God that you were never with before As you know whom you have believed so you may know to whom you pray It is indeed a most important suit to beg for the Receiving of a departing soul but it is put up to him to whom it properly doth belong and to him that hath encouraged you by answering many a former prayer with that mercy which was the earnest of this and it is to him that loveth souls much better than any soul can love it self O live in prayer and die in prayer And do not as the graceless witless world despise prayer while they live and then think a Lord have mercy on me shall prove enough to pass them into heaven Mark their Statutes and Monuments in the Churches whether they be not made kneeling and lifting up the hands to tell you that all will be forced to pray or to approve of prayer at their death whatever they say against it in their life O pray and wait but a little longer and all your danger will be past and you are safe for ever Keep up your hands a litte longer till you shall end your conflict with the last enemy and shall pass from Prayer to everlasting Praise FINIS * Good old Mris. Doughty sometime of Shrewsbury who had long walked with God and longed to be with him and was among us an excellent example of holiness blamelesness contempt of the world constancy patience humility and which makes it strange a great and constant desire to die though she was still complaining of doubtings and weakness of assurance