THE WAY To Life and Death LAID Down in a SERMON 1629. before the Lord Major of London then being By N. Waker M. A. late Minister of Jesus Christ at Lawndon in Buckinghamshire Now published for the reasonablenesse of the advice therein given touching the five Controverted points viz. Predestination general Redemption Freewill Conversion and Perseverance of the Saints Directing a safe way for the Practice of private Christians as confessed by the disputants on both sides The text Rom. 8.13 For if ye live after the flesh ye shall dye c. LONDON Printed by J. L. for Phil. Stephens at the gilded Lyon in St. Pauls Church-yard 1655. TO The Reader WHat entertainment this sermon will find in the World I can easily foresee Some I hope it will both profit and delight If it displeaseth some others I have what I looked for To the pious charitable and ingenious it cannot I think be unacceptable sure I am unseasonable 't will never be so long as the world is so full of walkers after the flesh the sharpest reproof comes not amisse Of the Authour my near relation forbids me to expresse what I might justly make known to the world In the eyes of some he will be in dislike as being in their opinion too mild and moderate in the Controversies about Predestination General Redemption Perseverance c. Touching which Points he layeth down the Rules for Christian practice according to Godlinesse which are confessed to be so by the Disputants on both sides Live here we must as if infallibly chosen to life eternall and yet never cease to give all diligence to make our calling and election sure implore the speciall ayd and assistance of his holy Spirit who worketh in us both to will and do even all our works in us and for us not forgetting in the meantime to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling Further we have here a portraiture of LIFE and DEATH the life of the spiritual with the death of the carnal both of them pictured and set forth in most lively colours upon which is grounded a pious and patheticall Exhortation to fasting and mourning a duty as well now as then yea now if ever needful A Plat-form we have drawn to our hands by the Learned and most eminently holy Bishop HALL In a Book entituled The Holy Order and Fraternity of Mourners in Sion Let none be ashamed to follow so worthy a guide and have we not just cause our sins and Gods Judgments the confusion of our Land the ruines of a fair and flourishing Church will not all this open the flood gates of our teares yea let it at last till then there is no hope of mercy wring from us bitter cryes and lamentations Let us all with holy David set our faces unto the Lord God to seek by prayer and supplications with fasting and sackcloth and ashes nor let us ever cease till our God at length overcome with our importunity shew mercy unto us bind up the wounds of this bleeding Island hear the prayers of those that stand in the Gap and be favourable unto us All which that he would for his Sons sake hear and grant is the uncessant prayer of him who professeth himself one of that Holy Fraternity of Spirituall Mourners Even yours in the Common Saviour John Waker THE Way to Life and Death Rom. 8.13 For if ye live after the flesh ye shall dye but if ye through the Spirit do mortifie the deeds of the body ye shall live THis whole Universe may not unfitly be divided into three principall Kingdomes The Preface or introduction the first in Heaven where God reigneth the second in hell where Beelzebub domineereth and the third on Earth which God hath given to the children of men In the first is nothing but holinesse and happinesse in the second nothing but sin and misery in the third a mixture of all in the first is light without darknesse in the second darknesse without light in the third both light and darknesse In the first are Angels and the spirits of just men made perfect in glory and blisse in the second the Devil and his angels tormented in flames and here are men of a middle condition placed on earth for the tryal of their obedience and accordingly as they shall demean themselves in this world so shall their doom be hereafter either to live with God who is the fountain of life or dye that second death with the damned spirits Here then we are in a center from hence are drawen two long lines the one reaching to heaven the other to hell in this world God hath shewed us the way of both the one that we might avoid it the other that we might walk in it nay he hath given us a taste of both of hell in the miseries of the world of heaven in the comforts of it of this that we might long for the fruition of the harvest of that that so we might ever take heed how we come into that place of torment So then there are but two conditions after this life the one of joy the other of torment the one of life the other of death and there are but two estates of life in this world as meanes tending thereunto one evil another good some live after the flesh and some after the Spirit and they that live after the flesh shall dye but they that by the Spirit do mortifie the deeds of the body shall live So that here the Apostle describes two contrary waies and two contrary ends unto which they lead the first is the broad way that leadeth to destruction a way of pleasure but it endeth in woe The voluptuous man now fares deliciously anon cannot get a drop of water now cloathed in fcarlet anon tormented in flames now accompanied with Nobles anon haled by devils the other sowes in teares but reaps in joy now full of sores with Lazarus anon with him full of pleasures now among the dogs anon among Angels now on the dung-hill anon in Abrahams bosome verè stupendae vices the former of these wayes is through the fairest street in the City but it leads to the place of execution the other through a narrow dirty Lane but it brings to the Kings Palace where is prepared a costly banquet the first is a way pleasing to flesh and blood strewed with Roses over flowery meadows having all the delights that nature or art can afford but it leads at last to the dead Sea it tends to the chambers of death the other is beset with briars and thornes haunted with wild beasts theeves and robbers over craggy Rocks and steep Mountaines where if a man cannot find a way for few tread that path he must make it as he did over the Alpes but this way leads to the new Jerusalem to the Celestial Paradise Non quà sed quò must be the wise mans quaery not which way we go but whither so that here you have our Saviours
him obtained it may be but never to its worth valued and esteemed And elsewhere Facilius possumus dicere quid ibi non sit quam quid sit non est ibi mors non est luctus c. We can more easily say what there is not there then what there is there is no death no mourning c. Let us labour to walke in the way then we shall experimentally feel it and then even laugh at our scanty expressions when the soule being filled with admiration shall cry out How full of glory art thou O Lord and this heavenly Paradise of thine I have heard of thee by thy Prophets and Apostles but the one halfe hath not been resolved Oh blessed is the man that heareth thy wisdome seeth and enjoyeth thy glory But by the way note here that life is referred to mortification not as the proper cause He that lives after the flesh shall dye by his own merit but he that lives after the Spirit shall live by Gods mercy and the merit of Christ for he that lives after the flesh acts by a principle of his own but he that by the Spirit from an hgher principle and that imperfectly So Rom. 6. ult the Apostle sheweth death is an effect of sin life a consequent of righteousnesse in a different manner death followeth sin as a just reward of it as a debt The wages of sin is death but righteousnesse produceth life as a consequent not of debt but of grace The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord that as he attributes nothing to man in the latter so he wholly cleareth God in the former But ever remember what the good Father saith Acquiri potest aestimari non potest It may be gotten but cannot be valued It 's possible for to attaine it but it will cost thee deare thou must enter in through many tribulations Vnicus qui introivit sine peccato non exivit sine flagello thou must deny the world and be crucified to that hate father mother life thine own life but that is not all thou must mortifie the deeds of the body Now if any desire to enter into life I must first aske him whether he can drinke of this cup and be baptized with this Baptisme he must mortifie this body this old man corruption is strong for it 's a man politique for an old man a man that is naturalized in us and pleads prescription The old man with all his members pull out the right eye cut off the right hand teare and reâ—t the heart asunder crowne the head with thornes pierce the hands feet with nailes and the side with a speare the face must be spit upon buffetted The body and all the deeds of it Put off the old man with his deeds Col. 3. and here mortifie the deeds of the body and the deeds of the body are manifest Never tell me of a good heart if the actions are naught as the understanding blind the will obstinate the affections disordered the life dissolute this man is out of the way to life What! a good Christian and a drunkard a swearer a scoffer at the good wayes of God It 's impossible Is the tree good that is fruitlesse Do you call that a good ground that bears nothing but briars and brambles The body with the deeds all the deeds must be mortified Away then with that sweet morsel under the tongue if thou willingly entertaine but one sin constantly suppose contemplative adultery thou art an unmortified man Againe these must be mortified not trifle or deale more gently with them pull up these weeds by the very roots therefore it must be with paine and shame and constant for it is an act of the whole life prescribed here to the Romans so to the Colossians It may be their acquaintance will reproach thee and thy best friends forsake thee And all this we must do in our persons not buy it out or do it by our deputies we by the Spirit and there is no other way but this to life Nor do I make the way straiter or the gate narrower then Christ and his Apostles have done Nor do I here dishearten any but require them sedulously to set about the worke better know it now then hereafter when it is too late Eternall life is the gift of God that the Scripture shews and reason manifests that it is in the power of the donor to prescribe what conditions he will to the receiver but the wretchednesse of the world is such they desire the blessing without the condition like Ruths kinsman that would have the land without the woman like that man in the Gospel would have eternal life but the condition is too strict therefore go a way sorrowful Thus how contrary are we to our selves how unreasonable to God In the former we would do the work but not have wages live after the flesh but not die and in the latter we will not do the labour yet hope for the reward as Balaam will follow the wages of iniquity yet die the death of the righteous But if we do the one the other will follow And surely had we made our own termes how could we in modesty have made them more easie God could do no lesse then demonstrate his purity love of vertue hatred of sin God delights not to make us sad without cause Certainly he cannot require any thing lesse then mortification without the impeachment of his honour therefore we cannot perform lesse without the endangering of our happinesse So then I must tell our debauched sinners Vse For Repr that suffer all manner of abominations to raign not to be named among Christians and are so far from crucifying them that they harbour and keep them close extenuate defend them are careful to satisfy their lusts and blow them up to a greater flame that will be ready to give the stab to those that crosse and contradict them in their waies there is a thing in Religion called Mortifying the deeds of the body which they were never acquainted withal without which there is no life I must tell our plausible Atheists that are enemies to the power of godlinesse that have no grace and vertue but what was born and bred with them it is not their plausible carriage will do it there is a mortifying crucifying watching fasting striving denying thy self or no entrance into life I must tell our carelesse procrastinators of repentance It 's not enough to dislike sin and so let it alone in time to dye it self and therefore they will not task themselves with such an unpleasing torment but you must mortifie it The filthy adulterer resolves when he hath no more marrow in his bones nor vigour in his body to leave his adultery the drunkard his company when his patrimony is spent the oppressour his extortion when his covetousnesse is satiated Sinne though it be left in regard of the outward act yet in this case it is not mortified
some say that either know not what they speak or will not know But howsoever it is in the Theory unlesse I much mistake both sides meet in the Practice If any man should aske me concerning the decree of election and reprobation Predestination here is a counterpane of it in my text I will not say this is Gods whole decree I dare say no secret decree contradicts it We need not climbe up into heaven then to see whether God smile or frowne nor wrest open his Cabinet to see what secrets are there Things revealed belong to us if our names be written here then infallibly are they there If we finde them not here certainely they are not there I say then leave disputing about election and labour to make your calling and election sure Begin at the bottome of the ladder and adde to your faith vertue and to vertue knowledge and to knowledge temperance c. Thus our Saviour stifles such a controversie Master shall many be saved Strive to enter in at the strait gate But what shall this man do Follow thou me Let no man comfort himselfe with any illusion or affright himselfe with any fatall destiny If ye live after c. This is Gods Word and by this we must be judged at the last day For the second Controversie Whether Redemption be universal I say to that man Though Christ died for all men as one side affirm yet if thou live after the flesh thou shalt dye notwithstanding the purchase of so precious a redemption sufficient in it self though not effectual unto thee through thine own perversenesse or if but for some few as the other side affirm if thou mortify the deeds of the body thou art one that shall surely live For the third and fourth The manner of receiving grace the manner of receiving grace One side say it doth infallibly and necessarily work at such a time and not before the other that through our perversenesse we may turn the grace of God into wantonnesse Both agree in this that a man may be saved grace must be received and improved The Spirit is the principal cause but we must co-operate We are not able of our selves to think a good thought our sufficiency is from him Hence St. Paul I live yet that he might not seem to usurp any of the honour checks himself yet not I. So we say We must mortify yet not we but the Spirit not we as the principal cause but the Spirit not the Spirit as the solitary cause but we by the Spirit let us look to it that the work be done and then we shall not miscarry For the last which is perseverance one side saith we shall infalliblly stand Perseverance and as possible for Christ to fall out of heaven as a Saint from Christ the other side that God will not forsake us unlesse we forsake him and gives us grace sufficient that we may not fall but doth not so infallibly hold us up but we may fall Both sides affirm perseverance to be necessary unto life and the conscionable use of means to perseverance Take heed then that there be not in any of you at any time an evil heart of unbelief to depart from the living God and that this may never befal thee put on the whole armour of God that thou mayest stand in the evil day Thus the Prophet Ezek. 18. justifies God in his proceedings and makes the people wary So the Apostle writing here to Saints and if any of you whom in charity I judge to be converted would hear any thing from me concerning perseverance I will answer you in the words of my text If ye live after c. Thus if a man in a modest humility receive the known truth in the love of it and so love it as to practise it his end shall certainly be blessed And now behold Deut. 30.15 The Conclusion this day I have set before you life and death good and evil blessing and cursing There are but two estates in this life and two after proportionably Some here walk after the flesh but they shall dye the delight is present but momentany the pain is future but eternal some here by the Spirit mortify the deeds of the body and they shall live hereaftes The task here is sharp and present but momentany the reward future but glorious and eternal Were it not for that which followes Ye shall dye it were a brave thing to live after the flesh were it not for that which followes Ye shall live nothing more tedious then to mortify the deeds of the body Wisdome now will soon deride the controversie and pitch upon her choice and inheritance so glorious so durable though it be future and the entrance so difficult is to be preferred to a life of sinne though it had in it never so much pleasure or profit being momentany and seconded with eternal wo. It 's the fools voice 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Give me to day take to morrow to thy self But if notwithstanding what hath been said he shall still walk in the waies of his own heart all the curses in Gods book shall fall on him God will blot out his name from under heaven and in heaven out of the book of life so that in no place he shall be found but in hell But every man here seems to choose life in that he comes to hear that Gospel which is the Word of life Oh they make it not the savor of death to death Labour then by the Spirit to mortify the deeds of the body so shall you live many Halcion daies here upon earth and when you dye the Angels shall carry your soules into Paradise while your bodies repose themselves in their graves as a bed of down till the Lord of Glory shall return to judg both quick and dead where the body being raised and reunited to the soul both soul and body shall live in the perpetual vision and fruition of God To which glory he for his mercy bring us who hath so dearly bought us even Jesus Christ the Author and finisher of our faith To whom with the Father and the blessed Spirit be ascribed all honour glory praise thanksgiving and obedience from this time forth and for evermore FINIS
year to shed a tear the debt in time would be discharged And though this be an unconceivable time yet it would comfort a little if then there might be an end or a mitigation of the torment but here the worm dieth not the fire never goes out here death ever lives want knows not how to be desective the end ever beginneth and death which we now so fear as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the most fearful of all other fearful things for it is indeed the king of fears will they then desire as a Paradise but it will fly from them and that second death will feed on them as grasse which suffers a continual death being cropt by the cattel and yet still lives in the root If God preserve the three children in the flames that they be not burnt if mount Aetna sends forth flashes continually and it is not consumed It s St. Aug. argument If the Salamander live perpetually in the fire why cannot he by his power support their nature to live for ever that they may ever dye Oh how much better were it for them that they had never been or as they had lived like beasts so they might die like beasts to be no more So we see the consolations of the flesh are the desolations of the soul Carnis consolationes sunt animi desolationes Hell never restores those whom it once receives Infernus quos semel recipit nunquam restituit saith Cassiod So Aug. sins are bound and loosed here in the world to come is nothing but remuneration and condemnation Hic ligantur solvuntur peccata in futuro seculo nihil est nisi remuneratio condemnatio no end no ease no intermission And thus you have heard the reward of the wicked and the fearful doome o them that live after the flesh This is the cause why the man is deprived of comfort and filled with sorrow in this world why the soul is deprived of God in spiritual death and the body of the soul in corporal this is the reason why the soul is deprived both of God and the world from the natural death to the resurrection and why both soul and body are deprived of the vision and fruition of God to all eternity Nor must you think this to be a meer fable or Poetical fiction or that we make the matter worse then indeed it is the singular purity of God cannot abide sin therefore it must be purged by blood or fire God will have his justice magnified therefore will not spare an onely Son he will have truth maintained who often hath declared this in his Word it s an irrevocable decree that they who live after the flesh shall dye In the first decree he said to Adam Moriemini but his goodnesse reversed it to Nineveh Ye shall be destroyed but yet upon their repentance spared and so may these else know this is a branch of the second Covenant which shall not be abrogated For what can God give better then his Son on his part or upon what easier termes can he capitulate with us His wisdome hath thought meet that there should be som bounds to his mercy else he should seem prodigal of it and be thought to have absolute need of his creature and therefore notwithstanding Christ his satisfaction to declare his justice against contemners of his grace and haters of purity he hath said and sworn that unbelievers shall not enter into his rest and hath peremptorily decreed without hope of repeal or mitigation of the censure that If ye live after the flesh ye shall dye It 's not finis operantis but operis for they would live after the flesh and not dye they would live like Devils and dye like Saints the life of Balaam but the death of the righteous But he that sins voluntarily must suffer involuntarily there is a connexion of these ab ordine justitiae divinae He that soweth to the flesh shall of the flesh reape corruption Let not man then separate what God hath joyned and though he assay it he shall never be able to do it If they will live after the flesh they shall dye But as St. Gregory upon the Parable of the rich man Recordatione magis eget versus iste quam expositione so I may say of this therefore we will draw hence some Corollaries which may be for our Spiritual direction First then will sin cousen us thus The Use for Information who would have suspected that such beginings that promised such delight would have ended thus that so glorious a Sun-shine morning would have closed with such gloomy blasts with such thunder and lightning stormes and tempests then let no child of God envy the wicked their delight in sin not grudge at his delicious fare Silkes and Sattins Much good may do Nabal with his good chear and Haman with his preferment I envy not the whole world to Alexander upon such hard terms there is poyson in their delicates and clothes are fafcinated their advancement prefers them to the gibbet their very life is but a continual death and how bitter shall be the death of these men Rather let me have Jacobs pillow and Canopy so I may have his dream let me have John Baptists hair-cloth so I may have his conscience No I admire those worthies of old that would choose to do or suffer any thing rather then split themselves upon these rocks Oh happy confessors and thrice blessed Martyrs that passed thorow fire and water and refused no torment no death that they might be delivered from the second death Let me passe under Esayes saw and endure Jeremies showres of stormes let me not refuse Zacharies sword nor the Lyons den with Daniel let me be beheaded with St. Paul or crucified with Andrew and Peter let me be flayed with Bartholomew or my braines dasht out with St. James let me be put into a vessel of scalding liquor with St. John or broyled on the Gridiron with Laurence let me suffer abstinence affliction persecution exile imprisonment with those holy Fathers of old Chrysostome Athanasius Ambrose Hierom let me be given to the wilde beasts with Polycarpus and Ignatius yea if it were possible let all these meet and the tormentots prompted by the Devil himself see if they can invent any torment more exquisite let me suffer in this world what humane nature is capable of rather then be forsaken by God and dye ever Oh blessed Christians that would offer your selves rather to your persecutors in the dayes of Tertullian Ego sum Christianus Christianus et ego I shall ever subscribe to that of holy St. Aug. Domine hic ure hic seca ut in aeternum parcas and again Do de me poenas ut ille parcat I had rather suffer Gods chastisement then his punishment And I would to God this might be an advertisement to us all how we live after the flesh though it be pleasing and profitable for a while yet the event should deter wise men
Philosophers knew of So Aristotle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 3. de an c. 5. this being concreated with the soul cannot be taken away but by annihilating of it The soul considered spiritually may be dead while it thus lives if it be separated from God in regard of holinesse and happinesse We will briefly see what this includes Ye shall live that is ye shall not dye and how happy would the damned spirits think themselves if they might not dye though they might not live that indeed they might not be at all rather then so miserable Ye shall live That is a happy life here Natural a natural life full of joy and comfort Godlinesse which includes mortification hath the promise of this life our cloathes shall warm us our food nonrish us Though men out of Covenant have a right to these if they come by them lawfully yet a sanctified use they have not but by vertue of the Covenant as our cloaths receive heat from us and then warm us You shall live when you die and death shall be as the port after all the tossings and tumults of this life the Physician that cures all diseases the point that puts a period to all our labours it 's the reward of piety at the least an entrance into that reward and the birth-day of eternity the end of our sorrow the way to our Countrey the beginning of glory a general antidote for all aggrievances God is their God while they live in the grave and hath engaged his Word to restore them at the last day Joh. 11. He that believeth in me shall live though he dye and he that liveth and believeth in me shall never dye Vitam non eripit sed intermittit But the spiritual life of a Christian is that which is most excellent Spiritual of grace and that flowes from the union of God with the soul distinguished into degrees the first from conversion to the time of death when God by his Spirit breathes on the dead lump of sin and clay and makes it a glorious creature after his own Image Joh. 5.24 This is called the life of God Eph. 4.18 because it comes from God as the fountain insomuch that he doth live in them and if God be at all the life and soul of the world as the Platonists say it is meant of Christians principally The entrance into this life is through the gate of regeneration this parallells that vitam plantae and that first degree of natural life in the womb Ye shall live That is the life of grace Secondly Ye shall live Of glory the life of glory in the first degree from the death of the body to the resurrection of it When the body sleepeth in the grave sweetned by Christs burial the soul shall be carried by the ministery of Angels into Abrahams bosome Luk. 16.22 Though there be not in this estate a plenary consummation of happinesse 1 Tim. 4.8 Apcc. 6.9 yet the Spirit returnes to God Eccles 12.7 to Christ Phil. 1.23 it rests from labour is in comfort so it was said of Lazarus Luk. 16.25 to Paradise so to the thief Matth. 24.32 Luk. 23.43 Without doubt with great solemnity and joy do the holy Saints and Angels receive the soul into heaven into this degree we enter by the gate of death and it parallels the life of an animal and the second degree of natural life in men from the birth till they come to the use of reason In the second degree you shall live the life of glory in regard of the consummation of it from the day of the resurrection to all eternity enjoying the full vision and fruition of God where you shall see God sitting on his throne in inaccessible light and Jesus Christ sitting on his right hand with an innumerable company of Saints and Angels attending on him all shining as the Sun in the Firmament where all sorrow ceaseth for ever and a confluence of all desirable happinesse It may be some will enquire what our conversation shall be there for your meat and drinke there is Angels food a tree of life for your apparel long white robes of righteousnesse for your musicke a quire of Angels riches and glory are in this place the house is made of gold and the pavements of precious stones As for honour every man shall be a king and reigne in blisse and for delight at his right hand there are pleasures for evermore for knowledge we shall see face to face and for liberty the body shall be made spiritual Siquidem ubi volet spiritus ibi erit corpus In a word they shall enjoy God in whom is eminently contained all persection and glory If a little earthly glory amaze as it did Herod what will that above do If there be such glory in Gods footstoole what is there in his throne Si tanta nobis tribuis in carcere quid dabis in patria Si tanta tribuis inimicis quid amicis If O Lord thou givest us so much in the land of our pilgrimage what wilt thou give us in our own countrey if so much to thine enemies what wilt thou give to thy friends The Hebrews report how truely I know not that when Joseph had gathered much corne in Aegypt he threw the chaffe into the river Nilus that so floating to the neighbour-Cities and Nations they might know what abundance was laid up not for themselves alone but for their neighbours also so God to make us know what glory is in heaven hath thrown some huskes to us here that so tasting the sweetnesse of these things we might asspire to his bounty above And surely if the outward pavement of the base Court doth so glitter with stars what is there within Though we cannot measure the content of the soule by the outside of the house no more then you can measure the comforts of a Christian by the gay outside of a Church If I should undertake a full relation of this my muddy expressions would cloud it from you more then declare it therefore I leave it to your apprehension as a thing beyond expression yea beyond conceit while we dwell in these houses of clay If Moses his face did shine with conversing with God if the Disciples were so ravished in the transfiguratiou if S. Paul that saw not all saw more then he could utter and if the soules of Gods people are filled with unspeakable joy and satisfied as with marrow and fatnesse that see and enjoy God but in part here obscurely there is somthing transcendent in the perfect vision and fruition of God These little baites serve to stay our stomacks till we come to that glorious repast Aug. l. 4. de civil Dâ—â— Aug. Quod Deus praepara vit diligentibus fide non accipitur spe non attingitur charitate non comprehenditur acquiri potest aestimari non potest Faith cannot comprehend hope cannot reach charity cannot fathome what God hath prepared for those that love
for denying thy Lord. Make a bath of tears with Mary for entertaining so many Devils in thine heart for get a while to eate thy bread by fasting and abstinence be revenged on thy selfe for sin past and keep under thy body for time to come It 's one of the nailes that crucifies the flesh and a meanes to take down the ranknesse of this fertile field singulare putatis aratrum But if thou canst not weep and command tears at least get that dolorem appretiativum Value your sins at such a rate that they deserve tears of blood Wish that thy head were a fountaine and thine eyes as Conduit-pipes Intreat God to accept the desire for the deed and the blood and tears of Christ for all But men now adayes can mortifie without renting the heart fasting a day shedding a tear But withall remember to mortifie too else thy tears will be no better then Esaus thy fasting like Ahabs Purge not that thou mayest surfeit repent not that thou mayest sin returne not like the dog to the vomit if thou do thy latter end will be worse then thy beginning But blessed is the man that sorrows after a godly manner for this works repentance never to be repented of Blessed are they that mourne now that sowe in teares for they shall reape in joy they shall finde triumph in torment joy in tribulation refreshing in fasting life in death Bern. Filii hujus seculi vident cruces nostras non consolationes The sons of this world see our crosses but not our comforts If any thing were better then life God would not deny it you he accounts you Martyrs in manner Mortificare opera carnis genus Martyrii est horrore quidem mitius sed diuturnitate molestius To mortifie the deeds of the body is a kinde of martyrdome milder indeed in its horrour but more troublesome in its long continuance Certainly they that keep such a Lent shall have a glorious Easter at the day of their resurrection when all teares shall be wiped from their eyes and they shall remaine and raigne with God in blisse for ever And thus I have travelled through these Propositions in their absolute consideration We considered these words in their opposition Here are two contrary wayes that tend to two contrary ends They cousin themselves that think to fare as well as the best The word considered in their opposition and yet sin as bad as the worst and they fill themselves with unnecessary fears that live strictly and carefully and yet comfort not themselves in Gods promises 1. It doth no whit prejudice the godly in their comfort that God is so severe against the wicked Cains profanenesse doth not hurt Abel he is accepted Though Judas be a devil the rest fare not the worse So at the last day while the wicked wish the hils and mountains to cover them the godly lift up their heads Abraham and Moses make use of their interest with God even when he is provoked against Sodom and Jasrel 2. The wicked are not priviledged by Gods mercies on the godly as we see in the Wise and Foolish Virgins Gods mercies Christs merits the precious promises and priviledges of the Gospel availe them nothing Gods mercies are limited to certaine conditions therefore let not wicked men boulster up themselves in these heed not lying vanities We consider them in their coherence Therefore we should mortifie sin 3 And in their coherence because if we live after the flesh we shall die It 's not absurd to propound life and death as Motives to obedience God did so to Adam in Paradise Yea to men already converted our Saviour doth so Feare not him that can kill the body c. So the Father at banquets would talke of hell to keep men from security So the Apostle here to men already converted If ye live c. The meditation of death is not unprofitable for them They are not out of danger of Gun-shot though they are in a Cittadel or strong Tower yet they have some flesh and are subject to spiritual security presumption or prophanenesse The Tower cannot be demolished but they may looke out at the windowes and battlements and be wounded Hence we may conclude that a Christian may take comfort in an holy life Here is an Antidote against Presumption and Despaire None can presume but they that mortifie and that is not presumption but hope none can despaire but such as live after the flesh and that is a feare upon good grounds And now to draw to a conclusion The agreement 'twixt Armin. and their adversaries in the rules of practise How happily might these two Propositions put an end to our unhappy controversies were men of peaceable spirits The Areopagites in Athens in a doubtful case wherein they were loath to passe sentence differred it in diem longissimum it may be for an hundred years I would to God we could do so in these that I am sure are doubtful but this is to suspend men in a Neutrality to beleeve nothing S. Augustine answers some well that would not beleeve unlesse all objections were cleared Sunt innumerabiles objectiones quae non sunt finiendae ante fidem ne finiatur vita sine fide There are innumerable objections which must not be dispatched and answered before faith c. Moderation in these mysteries is to be shewen if any where Neutram partem affirmantes sive destrueren tes sed tantummodo ab audaci affirmandi praesumptione revocantes Affirming or denying neither of the two but onely restraining us from bold presumption in taking either part But now every novice can determine in these things when the wisest men demurre and can as exactly chalke out Gods secret wayes as if with S. Paul they had been rapt up into the third heaven and taken a transcript of the book of life Either side is confident and it may be in conclusion it will prove neither so nor so and so it comes to passe that religion is turned into nicities and disputation bearing things certaine and fastening upon uncertaine like Zeuxes that pictured an old woman so to the life that he laughed to death at the veiw of her So I thinke our gracious Soveraigne hath taken a Religious and Wise course to silence these controversies more fit for Schooles then Pulpits or rather fitter for heavens perfection then for earthly frailty to determine Et Elias quum venerit solvet haec dubia If I should enter upon the controversies I should contradict authority or if I might I would not so far presume upon mine own weaknesse or if I had ability and liberty I durst not so far abuse your patience Onely let me advise all especially the unlearned which with much study cannot so much as attaine the stating of the questions to turne their cavilling about the Theory into Practice Surely there is no such vast difference in the points as they are handled by moderate men on both sides whatsoever
Titius his liver devoured by vultures of the continual turning of Ixions wheel and the rolling of Sisiphus his stone or of those infernal Furies ready to torment those whom Charon should waft over and Ridentem dicere verum quis vetat even these mythological expressions hold some proportion with the truth But I will draw my water out of a purer fountain surely it must needs be an ill-favoured brat that is born of two such hideous Monsters the Devil the father and corrupt nature the mother it must needs be terrible that is the wages for such work so contrary to God and goodnesse Death is nothing but a privation of life and a subjecting the creature to those miseries which are contrary to the comforts of life And by life we do not onely understand the conjunction of soul and body but all that perfection and blisse which was either actually conferred unto man or to be communicated to him so that in this monosyllable is contained the whole world hell with all the torments of that earth with all the miseries therein But is there any death in heaven Surely it is a death to lose heaven and it contains that also so that look how variously sin reflects on God so do his judgments on us that we may read our sin in the judgment But that I may proceed orderly I will borrow a distinction of Philo Lib. leg alleg 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There is a death of the man and a death of the soul the first is a separation of soul and body the second a deserting of vertue and assuming of sin But all misery is called by the name of death because of all death is most unavoidable most bitter Death in regard of the kind is either corporal or spiritual Death Corporal Sen. which kinds are to be considered in degrees inchoation In regard of inchoation and perfection both which kinds are to be considered in regard of losse and pain You shall dye that is a corporal death in regard of inchoation for in this we are mistaken that we look forward upon death whereas a great part of it is already past in hoc enim fallimur quod mortem prospicimus magna pars ejus jam praeteriit Death is behind us a great part of it the life of to day is the death of yesterday We dye daily Every little publick or personal crosse is a petty death and a harbenger sent by that insatiable enemy of humane nature to take possession of his right Thus you shall lose the good temperature of body inwardly and outwardly all those comforts of nature whereby life is maintained in a word true dominion over the creatures that in regard of losse Either you shall lose the world or have it with a curse your table shall become a snare and so some even dye with laughing with a pleasant gale of wind are carried upon rocks and sands pampered in fat pastures for destruction and carried down the pleasant River Jordan into the Dead Sea In regard of sense inwardly ye shall be perplexed with grief and sorrow and wearinesse outwardly with famine pestilence sword both wayes with ten thousand calamities as waves of the Sea coming in the neck one of another which as they be vexatious in themselves so certainly shall they be unto you insomuch that your life shall be an hard apprentiship groaning daily under the iron yoke of bondage Ye shall dye And Consummation that is a natural death in regard of consummation This inexorable Sergeant that rides on the pale horse will ere long knock at your door and by violence pull your soul out of that Tabernacle of clay when the soul shall be kept in chaines of darknesse till the judgment of that great day and the body in the grave as in a loathsome dung-hill till that general Assize In regard of losse here is a deprivation of life and all that supports it meat drink apparel society and all the comforts of nature and though there be no poena sensûs in the body which is kept in that hideous prison yet there is in the soul Luk. 16.25 for the glutton cryes Crucior in hac flamma nay and it may be this accursed corporal death will take you away in the acting of your sin with Zimri and Cosbi so that you shall not live out half your dayes but be haled to execution as soon as your crimes are committed and it may be before you go feel the very flames of hell in your soules as Cain and Judas did But this natural death of the body though horrid unto nature Death spiritual in regard of inchoation yet it 's nothing to the spiritual death of the soul that being a more excellent creature and having a more eminent life To proceed then that is spiritually in regard of inchoation God shall be separated from your soul the light of his countenance shall not shine upon you the understanding being full of darknesse the heart of uncleannesse the conscience void of serenity the whole soul out of order full of confusion destitute of true comfort In regard of sense a servitude and subjection of the soul to your spiritual enemies and the powers of darknesse made a vassal unto Satan who worketh effectually in such a slave to the world which is the devils slave yea unto sin which is worse then the world or the devil In which regard it comes to passe though a man retain that natural liberty of his will which is essential to it and cannot be lost yet that liberty which pertaineth to the perfection of humane nature to exercise acts spiritually good and so savingly acceptable unto God this is utterly lost man being dead in sins and trespasses and the uncircumcision of his heart But all these are but the beginnings of sorrowes And of consummation or eternall death that which is here principally meant is the consummation of spiritual death And now had I but the keyes of hell and death to shew unto your bodily eyes a glimpse of that infernal fire and those hideous monsters that dwell in those horrid vaults I should either lose my auditory or it may be so prevail with some that they would beware how they came into that place of torment But I desire that my speech may work in you such fear of those paines that you never feel them and that you may be terrified so now that hereafter you may be secure consider what Abraham saito to the rich glutton Son remember We likely remember it not till it be too late and therefore smart for it because we do not remember it You shall dye then that is first immediately when your soul and body are parted your soules shall be haled by the Devil into that place of torment St. August speaking of the rich glutton saith The soul likewise grieves when separate from the body for verily the rich man grieved in hell when he said I am tormented in this