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
though the Tempter would aggravate his sins and weakness and dulness to his discouragement yet he may he must with confidence recommend his Spirit to Christ to be Received by him O learn this Doctrine Christians that you may use it in the hour of your last distress The hour is near the distress will be the greatest that ever you were in As well as we seem now while we are hearing this our turn is nigh The Midwife is not so neccssary to the life of the Child that Receiveth it into the world as Christs Receiving will be then to our everlasting life To say over heartlesly these words Lord Jesus receive my Spirit will be no more than a dead hearted Hypocrite may do such formal lip-service in life or at death doth profit nothing to salvation Now make such necessary preparation that at Death you may have well-grounded confidence that Jesus Christ will receive your Spirits 1. And first let me bring this to the carnal unprepared sinner Poor sinner What thoughts hast thou of thy dying hour and of thy departing Soul I wonder at thee what thoughts thou hast of them that thou canst sin so boldly and live so carelesly and talk or hear of the life to come so senselesly as thou dost Thou mightest well think I wronged thee if I took thee to be such a brute as not to know that thou must die Thy Soul that brought thy body hither that causeth it now to hear and understand that carryeth it up and down the world must very shortly be required of thee and must seek another habitation What thoughts hast thou of thy departing Soul Will Christ receive it Hast thou made sure of that Or hast thou made it thy principal care and business to make sure O what doth intoxicate the brains of sensual worldly men that they drown themselves in the Cares of this Life and ride and run for transitory Riches and live upon the Smoak of Honour and Applause and never soberly and seriously bethink them whether Christ will receive their departed Souls That they can fill their minds with other thoughts and fill their mouthes with other talk and consume their time in other inconsiderable employments and take no more care and spend no more thoughts and words and time about the entertainment of their departing Souls When they are even ready to be gone and stand as it were on tip-toes when Fevers and Consumptions and many hundred Diseases are all abroad so busily distributing their Summons and when the Gates of Death have so many Passengers crowding in and Souls are making such haste away will you not consider what shall become of yours Will you say that you hope well and you must venture If God had appointed you nothing to do to prepare for your safe passage and entertainment with Christ you might then take up with such an Answer But it 's a mad adventure to leave all undone that is necessary to your salvation and then to say You must put it to the venture If you die in and unrenewed and unjustified state it is past all ventures for it is certain that Christ will not receive you You may talk of hoping dut it is not a matter to be hoped for Hope that God will make good every word of his Promise and spare not But there is no more Hope that Christ will Receive the souls of any but of his members than there is that he will prove a lyar He never promised to save any others and that is not all but he hath declared and professed frequently that he will not And you are no Believers if you will not believe him And if you believe him you must believe that the unbelievers the unregenerate the unholy and the workers of iniquity shall not be received into the Kingdom of Heaven For he hath professed it John 3. 3 36. Heb. 12. 14. Matth. 7. 23. If Christ would Receive the souls of all your venture then had reason for it Or if he had left it as a thing that depended only on his unrevealed will and not on any preparations of our own we might then have quit our selves of the care and cast it all on him as being his part and none of ours But it is not so I hope I need not tell you that it is not so Believe it the Question must be Now resolved and resolved by your selves whether Christ shall Receive your departed souls or cast them off as firebrands for Hell He hath made the Law and set down the terms already to which he will unalterably stand and which we must trust to It is now that you must labour to be accepted of him For we must all appear before the Judgment seat of Christ that every one may receive the things done in his body according to that he hath done whether it be good or bad 2 Cor. 5. 9 10. O Sirs this is the reason of our importunity with you Knowing the terrors of the Lord we persuade men saith the Apostle in the next words vers 11. We know that the sentence will be just and that it is now in your own hands what judgment then shall pass upon you And if just now your souls were passing hence before you went from the place you sit in would you think any care could be too great to make sure that they should go to happiness O that you would consider how much it is your own work and how much it resteth on your selves what Christ shall then do with you Then you will cry to him for mercy O cast not away a miserable soul Lord receive me into thy Kingdom But now he must intreat you to be saved and to be the people that he may then Receive and you will not hear him And if you will not hear him when he calleth on you and beseecheth you to Repent and to prepare as sure as Christ is Christ he will not hear you when you cry and call for mercy too late in your extremity Read Prov. 1. and you will see this is true It is you that are to be entreated that Christ may receive you for the unwillingness and backwardness is on your part You are now poysoning your souls by sin and when we cannot intreat you either to forbear or to take the Vomit of Repentance yet when you are gasping and dying of your own willful self-murder you will then cry to Christ and think he must receive you upon terms inconsistent with his justice holiness and truth But flatter not your selves it will not be This is the accepted time behold now is the day of salvation refuse it now and it is lost for ever O Sirs if this were the hour and you were presently to be received or refused would you blame me to cry and call to you with all the fervour of my soul if I knew that it were in your own choice whether you would go to Heaven or Hell Why now it is in your choice Life and
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
THE Last Work OF A BELIEVER His Passing-Prayer recommending his departing Spirit to Christ to be Received by him Prepared for the Funerals of Mary the Widow first of Francis Charlton Esq and after of Thomas Hanmer Esq And partly Preached at St. Mary Magdalens Church in Milk-street London And now at the desire of her Daughter before her Death reprinted By Richard Baxter Joh. 12. 26. If any man serve me let him follow me and where I am there shall also my Servant be and If any man serve me him will my Father Honour LONDON Printed by B. Griffin for B. Simmons at the three Golden Cocks at the West-end of St. Pauls 1682. The Contents of the last work of a Believer THE Occasion of this Discourse pag. 1. The opening of the Text p. 3. Doct. 1. and 2 d passed by that Christ is exalted in glory and is to be prayed to p. 5. Doct. 3. Man hath a spirit as well as a body And what the soul is p. 6. Doct. 4. The spirit of man doth survive the body It dyeth not nor is annihilated nor sleepeth p. 11. Doct. 5. Christ doth receive the spirits of his Saints when they leave the flesh What his Receiving them is p. 14. Doct. 6. A dying Christian may confidently and comfortably commend his spirit to Christ to be Received by him p. 19. The Doctrine applyed to the unregenerate unprepared soul p. 20. Whom Christ will Receive and whom he will not refuse p. 26. Considerations to move them to prepare so as to be Received p. 30. Applyed to Believers p. 37. Encouraging proofs os Christs receiving their departed soul p. 39. Other Vses of the Doctrine p. 57. For the abatement of sorrow for the Death of our departed friend p. 61. The evidences of her happiness in the Graces in which she was eminent and exemplary p. 63. The use of her example to them that survive p. 70. Doct 7. Prayer in General and this prayer in particular That Christ will receive our departing souls is a most suitable conclusion of all the action of a Christians life p. 72. TO THE READER Reader THE person whose Death did occasion this Discourse was one that about five years ago removed from her antient habitation at Appley in Shropshire to Kederminster where she lived under my Pastoral care till I was come up to London and before she had lived there a twelve-month for thither she removed she died of the Fever then very common in the City She lived among us an example of Prudence Gravity Sobriety Righteousness Piety Charity and Self-denyal and was truly what I have described her to be and much more For I use not to flatter the living much less the dead And though I had personal acquaintance with her for no longer a time than I have mentioned yet I think it worthy the mentioning which I understand by comparing her last years with what is said of her former time by those that were then nearest to her and so were at her Death that whereas as I have said sudden Passion was the sin that she was wont much to complain of she had not contented her self with meer complainings but so effectually resisted them and applyed Gods remedies for the healing of her nature that the success was very much observed by those about her and the change and cure so great herein as was a comfort to her nearest Relations that had the benefit of her converse Which I mention as a thing that shews us 1. That even the Infirmities that are founded in nature and temperature of body are curable so far as they fall under the dominion of a sanctified will 2. That even in age when such Passions usually get ground and infirmities of mind increase with infirmities of body yet Grace can effectually do its work 3. That to attend God in his Means for the subduing any corruption is not in vain 4. That as God hath promised growth of Grace and flourishing in old age so in his way we may expect the fulfilling of his promise 5. That as Grace increaseth infirmities and corruptions of the Soul will vanislh This makes me call to mind that she was once so much taken with a Sermon which I preached at the Funerals of a holy aged woman and so sensibly oft recited the Text it self as much affecting her 2 Cor 4. 16 17. For which cause we faint not but tho our outward man perish yet the inward man is re-renewed day by day c. that I am perswaded both the Text it self and the example opened and well known to her did her much good Her work is done Her enemies are conquered except the remaining fruits of Death upon a corrupting Body which the Resurrection must conquer Her danger and temptations and troubles and fears are at an end She shall no more be discomfited with evil tidings nor no more partake with a militant Church in the sorrows of her diseases or distresses We are left within the reach of Satans assaults and malice and of the rage and violence which pride and faction and Cainish envy and enmity to serious holiness do ordinarily raise against Christs followers in the world We are left among the lying tongues of slanderous malicious men and dwell in a Wilderness among Scorpions where the Sons of Belial like Nabal are such that a man cannot speak to them 1 Sam 25. 17. The best of them is as a briar the most upright sharper than a thorn hedge Mic. 7. 4. But the Sons of Belial shall be all of them as thorns thrust away because they cannot be taken with hands but the man that shall touch them must be fenced with iron and the staff of a spear and they shall be utterly burnt with fire in the place 2 Sam. 23. 6 7. We are left among our weak distempered sinful afflicted lamenting friends the sight of whose calamities and participation of their sufferings maketh us feel the stroaks that fall upon so great a number that we are never like to be free from pain But she is entred into the Land of Peace where Pride and Faction are shut out where Serpentine enmity malice and fury never come where there is no Cain to envy and destroy us no Sodomtes to rage against us and in their blindness to assault our doors No Ahitophels to plot our ruin No Judas to betray us No false-witnesses to accuse us No Tertullus to paint us out as pestilent fellows and movers of sedition among the people No Rehum Shimshai or their society to perswade the Rulers that the servants of the God of heaven are hurtful unto Kings and against their interest and honour Ezra 4. 9 12 13 14 22. and 5. 11. No rabble to cry away with them it is not fit that they should live No Demas that will forsake us for the love of present things No such contentious censorious friends as Jobs to afflict us by adding to our affliction No cursed Cham to dishonour parents No
enjoyment of the real sure delight Take heed of being too much pleased in the creature Have you houses and lands and offices and honours and friends that are very pleasing to you Take heed for that is the killing snare Shut your eyes and wink them all into nothing and cast by your contrivances and cares and fears and remember you have another work to do 2. Live in Communion with a suffering Christ study well the whole life and nature of his sufferings and the reason of them and think how desirable it is to be conformed to him Thus look to Jesus that for the joy that was set before him despised the shame and endured the Cross and the contradiction of sinners against himself Dwell upon this example that the image of a humbled suffering Christ being deeply imprinted on thy mind may draw thy heart into a juster relish of a mortified state Sure he is no good Christian that thinks it not better to live as Christ did in holy poverty and sufferings in the world then as Croesus or Caesar or any such worldling and self-pleasure lived Die daily by following Jesus with your Cross and when you have a while suffered with him he will make you perfect and receive your spirits and you shall reign with him It wonderfully prepareth for a comfortable Death to live in the fellowship of the sufferings of Christ He is most likely to die quietly patiently and joyfully that can first be poor be neglected be scorned be wronged be slandered be imprisoned quietly patiently and joyfully If you were but at Hierusalem you would with some love and pleasure go up Mount Olivet and think Christ went this very way You would Love to see the place where he was born the way which he went when he carryed his Cross the holy grave where he was buried where there in a Temple which Pilgrims use to visit from whence they use to bring the mark as a pleasing badge of honour But how much More of Christ is there in our suffering for his Cause and Truth and in following him in a mortified self-denying life then in following him in the path that he hath trodden upon earth His enemies saw his Cross his Grave his Mother his person This did not heal their sinful Souls and make them happy But the Cross that he calleth us to bear is a life of suffeing for Righteousness sake in which he commandeth us to rejoyce and be exceeding glad because our Reward is great in Heaven though all manner of evil be spoken of us falsly by men on earth Mat. 5. 11 12. This is called a being pertakers of Christs sufferings in which we are commanded to rejoyce that when this glory shall be revealed we may be glad with exceeding joy 1 Pet. 4. 13. And as the sufferings of Christ abound towards us so will our Consolation abound by Christ 1 Cor. 1. 5. Till we come up to a life of willing mortification and pleased contented suffering with Christ we are in the lower form of his School and as Children shall tremble at that which should not cause our terrour and through misapprehensions of the case of a departing soul shall be afraid of that which should be our joy I am not such an enemy to the esteem of relicks but if one could shew me the very stock that Paul and Silas sate in when they sung Psalms in their imprisonment Acts 16. I could be contented to be put for the like cause into the same stocks with a special willingness and pleasure How much more should we be willing to be conformed to our suffering Lord in a Spirit and life of true mortification 3. Hold Communion also with his suffering Members Desire not to dwell in the tents of wickedness nor to be planted among them that flourish for a time that they may be destroyed for ever Psal 92. 6 7. I had rather have Bradford's heart and faggot than Bonners Bishoprick It was holy Stephen and not those that stoned him that saw Heaven opened and the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of God Acts 7. 56. and that could joyfully say Lord Jesus Receive my Spirit He liveth not by Faith though he may be a hanger on that keepeth up some profession for fear of being damned who chooseth not rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season and esteemeth not the very reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of the world as having respect to the recompence of reward Heb. 11. 25. 26. 4. Live as if Heaven were open to your sight and then dote upon the delights of worldlings if you can Then love a life of fleshly case and honour better than to be with Christ if yon can But of this I have spoken at large in other writings Christian make it the study and business of thy Life to learn to do thy Last Work well that Work which must be done but once that so Death which transmits unholy Souls into utter darkness and despair may deliver thy Spirit into thy Redeemers deemers hands to be Received to his Glory according to that blessed promise John 12. 26. And while I am in the flesh beg the same mercy for Thy Brother and Companion in tribulation and in the Kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ Richard Baxter London Jan. 31. 1661â—â—… A BELIEVERS Last Work ACTS 7. 59. Lord Jesus receive my Spirit THE Birth of Nature and the New Birth of Grace in their measure resemble the Death of Saints which is the Birth of Glory It is a bitter-sweet day a day that is mixt of sorrow and joy when Nature must quit its familiar Guest and yield to any of these Changes Our Natural Birth is not without the throws and pain and groanings of the Mother though it transmit the Child into a more large and lightsom and desirable Habitation Our Spiritual Birth is not without its humbling and heart-piercing sorrows and when we are brought out of darkness into the marvellous light we leave our old Companions in displeasure whom we forsake and our Flesh repining at the loss of its sensual delights And our passage into Glory is not without those pangs and fears which must needs be the attendants of a pained Body ready to be dissolved and a Soul that is going through so strait a door into a strange though a most blessed place And it leaveth our lamenting Friends behind that feel their loss and would longer have enjoyed our Company and see not though they believe the Glory of the departed Soul And this is our case that are brought hither this day by an act of Providence sad to us though joyous to our departed Friend by a Voice that hath called her into Glory and called us into this Mourning plight Even us that rejoyce in the thoughts of her Felicity and are not so cruel as to wish her again into this corruptible Flesh and calamitous World from the glorious
but God himself that is called a Spirit And though the Name be fetch'd from lower things that is because that as we have no adequate positive conception of God or Spirits so we can have no adequate proper names for them but must take up with borrowed Names as answerable to our Notions Sometime the Word Spirit as Heb. 4. 12. c. is distinguished from the Soul And then it either signifieth the superior Faculties in the same Soul or the same Soul as elevated by Grace Do you ask What the Soul is You may also ask What a Man is And it is pity that a Man should not know what a Man is It is our Intellectual Nature containing also the Sensitive and Vegetative The Principle or first Act by which we live and feel and understand and freely will The Acts tell you what the Faculties or Powers are and so what the Soul is If you know what Intellection or Reason and Free-will are you may know what it is to have a spiritual Nature essentially containing the Power of Reasoning and Willing It is thy Soul by which thou art thinking and asking What a Soul is And as he that reasoneth to prove that Man hath no Reason doth prove that he hath Reason by reasoning against it so he that reasoneth to prove that he hath no Soul doth thereby prove that he hath a Reasonable though abused Soul Yet there are some so blind as so question Whether they have Souls because they see them not Whereas if they could see them with Eyes of Flesh they were no Souls For Spirits are invisible They see not the Air or Wind and yet they know that Air or Wind there is They see not God or Angels and yet they are Fools indeed if they doubt whether there be a God and Angels If they see not their Eyes yet they know that they have Eyes because with those Eyes they see other things And if they know not directly and intuitively that they have Rational Souls they might know it by their knowing other things which without such Souls cannot be known It is just with God that those that live as carnally and brutishly and neglegently as if they had no Souls to use or care for should at last be given up to question whether they have Souls or no. O woful Fall depraved Nature O miserable Men that have so far departed from God as to deny both themselves and God! or to question Whether God be God and Man be Man Return to God and thou wilt come to thy self Forget not Man thy Noble Nature thy chiefest Part Think not that thou art only Shell because thou seest not through the Shell It is Souls that converse by the Bodies while they are in Flesh It is thy Soul that I am speaking to and thy Soul that understandeth me When thy Soul is gone I will speak to thee no more It is thy Soul that is the Workmanship of God by an immediate or special way of Fabrication Isa 57. 16. The souls that I have made Gen. 2. 7. He breathed into man the breath of life and he became a living soul It is thy Soul that is said to be made after God's Image in that thou art ennobled with a capacious Vnderstanding and Free-will And it is thy Soul that is the immediate subject of his Moral Image even spiritual Wisdom Righteousness and Holiness God hath not Hands and Feet and other Members as thy Body hath How noble a Nature is that which is capable of knowing not only all things in the World in its measure but God himself and the things of the world that is to come and capable of loving and enjoying God and of seeking and serving him in order to that Enjoyment Christ thought not basely of a Soul that redeemed Souls at such a price when he made his soul an offering for sin Isa 53. 10. Were it not for our immortal Souls would God ever honour us with such Relations to him as to be his Children For he is first the Father of Spirits Heb. 12. 9. and then the Father of Saints Should we be called the Spouse and the Members of Christ Would he be at so much cost upon us Should Angels attend us as ministring Spirits if we had not Spirits fit to minister to God Would the Spirit of God himself dwell in us and quicken and beautifie us with his Grace Should a world of Creatures whose Corporeal Substance seems as excellent as ours attend and serve us if we were but an ingenuous sort of Brutes and had not rational immortal Souls Should such store of Mercies be provided for us Should Ministers be appointed to preach and pray and labour for us if we had not Souls to save or lose They watch for your souls as those that must give account Heb. 13. 17. Why should they preach in season and out of season and suffer so much to perform their Work but that they know that He that winneth souls is wise Prov. 11. 30. and that he which converteth a sinner from the errour of his way doth save a soul from death and hide a multitude of sins Jam. 6. 20. The Devil himself may tell you the worth of Souls when he compasseth the earth Job 1. 7. and goeth about night and day to deceive them and devour them 1 Pet. 5. 8. And yet can he make you believe that they are so worthless as to be abused to the basest drudgery to be poysoned with sin and Sensuality to be ventured for a thing of naught O Sirs have you such immortal Souls and will you sell them for a Lust for a beastly Pleasure for liberty to glut your Flesh or for the Price that Judas sold his Lord for Is thy Soul no more worth than Honour or Wealth or foolish Mirth Is thy Soul so base as not to be worth the care and labour of a Holy Life Is the World worth all thy Care and Labour and shall less be called too much ado when it is for thy precious Soul Alas one would think by the careless felshly Lives of many that they remember not that they have Souls Have they not need in the depth of their Security in the height of their Ambition and in the heat of Fleshly Lusts to have a Monitor to call to them Remember that thou art a man and that thou hast a Soul to save or lose What thinkest thou of thy negligence and carnal Life when thou readest that so holy a Man as Paul must keep under his body and bring it into subjection lest he should be a cast-away after all his Labours 1 Cor. 9. 25. 26 27. O live not as if the Flesh were the Man and its Pleasure your Felicity but live as those that have Spirits to take care for DOCT. 4 THe spirit of man doth survive the Body It dyeth not with it It is not annihilated It is not resolved into the essence of some common element of souls where it loseth its specifick form
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
not be in vain 1 Cor. 15. 58. Now give the full and final answer unto all my Prayers Now that I have done the fight and finished my course let me find the Crown of righteousness which thy mercy hath laid up 2 Tim. 4. 8. O Crown thy graces and with thy greatest mercies recompence and perfect thy preparatory mercies and let me be Received to thy glory who have been guided by thy counsel Psalm 73. 24. 13. Consider That Christ hath already received millions of Souls and never was unfaithful unto any There are now with him the spirits of the just made perfect that in this life were imperfect as well as you Why then should you not comfortably trust him with your Souls and say Lord thou art the Common Salvation and refuge of thy Saints Both strong and weak even all that are given thee by the Father shall come to thee and those that come thou wilt in no wise cast out Thousands have been entertained by thee that were unworthy in themselves as well as I It is few of thy members that are now on earth in comparison of those that are with thee in Heaven Admit me Lord into the new Jerusalem Thou wilt have thy house to be filled O take my Spirit into the number of those belssed ones that shall come from East West North and South and sit down with Abraham Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom that we may together with eternal joyes give thanks and praise to thee that hast redeemed us to God by thy blood 14. Consider That it is the will of the Father himself that we should be glorified He therefore gave us to his Son and gave his Son for us to be our Saviour that whoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life All our Salvation is the product of his Love Joh. 3. 16 17. Eph. 2. 4. Joh. 6. 37. Joh. 16. 26 27. I say not that I will pray the Father for you for the Father himself loveth you because ye have loved me c. John 14. He that loveth me shall be loved of my Father and I will love him and will manifest my self to him Say therefore with our dying Lord Father into thy hands I commend my Spirit By thy Son who is the way the truth and the life I come to thee Joh. 14. 6. Fulness of joy is in thy presence and everlasting pleasures at thy right hand Psalm 16. 11. Thy love redeemed me renewed and preserved me O now receive me to the fulness of thy Love This was thy will in sending thy Son that of all that thou gavest him he should lose nothing but should raise it up at the last day O let not now this Soul be lost that is passing to thee through the straits of death I had never come unto thy Son if thou hadst not drawn me and if I had not heard and learnt of thee John 6 44 45. I thank thee O Father Lord of Heaven and Earth that thou hast revealed to me a babe an ideot the blessed mysteries of thy Kingdom Luk. 10. 21. Acts 4 13. O now as the vail of flesh must be withdrawn and my soul be parted from this body withdraw the vail of thy displeasure and shew thy servant the glory of thy presence that he that hath seen thee but as in a glass may see thee now with open face and when my earthly house of this Tabernacle is dissolved let me inhabit thy building not made with hands eternal in the heavens 2 Cor. 5. 1. 15. Lastly consider That God hath designed the everlasting glory of his name and the pleasing of his blessed will in our salvation And the Son must triumph in the perfection of his conquest of Sin and Satan and in the perfecting of our Redemption And doubtless he will not lose his Fathers glory and his own Say then with confidence I resign my soul to thee O Lord who hast called and chosen me that thou mightest make known the riches of thy glory on me as a vessel of mercy prepared unto glory Rom. 9. 23. Thou hast predestinated me to the adoption of thy child by Christ unto thy self to the praise of the glory of thy grace wherein thou hast made me accepted in thy beloved Eph. 1. 5 6 11 12 Receive me now to the glory which thou hast prepared for us Mat. 25. 34. The hour is at hand Lord glorifie thy poor adopted child that he may for ever glorify thee Joh. 17. 1. It is thy Promise to glorify those whom thou dost justify Rom. 8. 30. As therere is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Rom. 8. 1. so now let him present me faultless before the presence of the glory with exceeding joy And to thee the only wise God our Saviour be the glory Majesty Dominion and Power for evermore Amen Jude v. 23 24. WHat now remaineth but that we all set our selves to learn this sweet and necessary task that we may joyfully perform it in the hour of our extremity even to recommend our departing Souls to Christ with confidence that he will receive them It is a lesson not easie to be learnt For Faith is weak and doubts and fears will easily arise and nature will be loth to think of dying and we that have so much offended Christ and lived so strangely to him and been entangled in too much familiarity with the World shall be apt to shrink when we should joyfully trust him with our departing Souls O therefore now set your selves to overcome these difficulties in time You know we are all ready to depart It is time this last important work were throughly learned that our death may be both safe and comfortable There are divers other Uses of this Doctrine that I should have urged upon you had there been time As 1. If Christ will Receive your departing Souls then fear not death but long for this Heavenly entertainment 2. Then do not sin for fear of them that can but kill the body and send the Soul to Christ 3. Then think not the righteous unhappy because they are cast off by the world neither be too much troubled at it your selves when it comes to be your case but remember that Christ will not forsake you and that none can hinder him from the Receiving of your Souls No malice nor slanders can follow you so far as by defamation to make your justifyer condemn you 4. If you may trust him with your Souls then trust him with your friends your Children that you must leave behind with all your concernments and affairs and trust him with his Gospel and his Church for they are all his own and he will prevail to the accomplishment of his blessed pleasure But 5. I shall only add that Use which the sad occasion of our meeting doth bespeak What cause have we now to mix our sorrows for our deceased friend with the joyes of faith for her felicity we have left the body to the earth and