continual readiness that which may furnish us abundantly with meditations in this kind It was a custome in former times for men to make their Sepulchres in their Gardens to mind them of death in the midst of the pleasures of this life This present Work may not unfitly be termed a Garden wherein whosoever takes a dayly walk may gather in the several beds thereof those wholsome flowers and hearbs which being distilled by serious meditation will prove water of life to a fainting spirit in some he shall find instruction in some incitation in others consolalion in all profit Here thou shalt find that Lethall Gourd sprung up by Adam his trausgression that makes all his posterity cry out There is Death in the Pot. There thou mayst gather Hearbs of Grace as a counterpoyson against the malignity of death in a third there is the spiritual Heliotropium opening with joy to the Son of Righteousness the hope of a blessed Resurrection Do the glittering shews of outward things make thee begin to over-fancy them here thou shalt find how little they will avail in death the consideration whereof will make them like that precious stone which being put into the mouth of a dead man loseth its vertue art thou over-burthened with afflictions here thou art supported in the expectation of a far more exceeding weight of glory art thou ready to faint under thy labours here thou shalt find a time of rest and of reaping doth the time seem over-long that thy patience begins to flag here thou hast a promise of thy Saviours speedy coming In a word be thy estate and condition what it will be here thou mayst have both directions to guide thee and comforts to support thee in thy journey on earth till thou arrive at thy Country in Heaven Certainly there is no man can sleight and undervalue so deserving a Work but he shall discover himself either to be ignorant or idle or ill affected especially when so judicious and learned men have thought it a fit concomitant for their several Labours which they have added for the accomplishment of it Therefore take it in good worth improve it for the good of thy Soul that being armed and prepared for death when it shall approach thou mayst have no more to do but to die and mayst end thy dayes in a stedfast assurance That thy sins shall be blotted out when the time of Refreshing shall come from the presence of the LORD Thine in Him who is the Resurrection and the Life H. W. THE TABLE THE Stewards Summons Page 1. TEXT LUKE 16.2 Give an Account of thy Stewardship for thou mayst be no longer Steward The Praise of Mourning Page 17. ECCLESIASTES 7.2 It is better to go to the House of Mourning then to the House of Feasting for that is the end of all men and the living will lay it to his heart Deliverance from the King of Fears Page 33. HEBREWS 2.14 15. 14. For as much then as the Children are partakers of flesh and blood he also himself likewise took part of the same that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death that is the Devil 15. And deliver them who through the fear of death were all their life time subject to bondage The Perfection of Patience Page 47. JAMES 1.4 But let patience have her perfect work that you may be perfect and entire wanting nothing A Restraint of exorbitant Passion Page 61. 2 SAM 12.22 23. 22. And he said while the Child was yet alive I fasted and wept for I said who can tell whether God will be gracious to me that the Child may live 23. But now he is dead wherefore should I fast Can I bring him back again I shall go to him but he shall not return to me The Sting of Death c. Page 73. 1 COR. 15.56 The sting of Death is Sin and the strength of Sin is the Law The Destruction of the Destroyer c. Page 81. 1 COR. 15.16 The last Enemy that shall be destroyed is Death The Worlds Losse and the Righteous Mans Gain Page 91. ISAIAH 57.1 And merciful men are taken away none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come The Good-Mans Epitaph c. Page 107. REVEL 14.13 I heard a voice from Heaven saying unto me Write Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth yea saith the Spirit that they may rest from their labours and their Works do follow them The Christians Center c. Page 117. ROM 14.7 8. 7. For none of us liveth to himself and no man dieth to himself 8. For whether we live we live to the Lord and whether we die we die unto the Lord whether we live therefore or die we are the Lords The Improvement of Time c. Page 129. 1 COR. 7.29 30 31. 29. But this I say Brethren the time is short it remaineth that both they that have wives be as though they had none 30. And they that weep as though they wept not and they that rejoyce as if they rejoiced not and they that buy as though they possessed not 31. And they that use this world as not abusing it for the fashion of this world passeth away Security Surprized c. Page 143. 1 THESSAL 5.3 For when they shall say peace and safety then sudden destruction cometh upon them as travail upon a woman with child and they shall not escape A Christians Victory or Conquest over Deaths Enmity Page 159. 1 COR. 15.26 The last Enemy that shall be destroyed is Death The great Tribunal or Gods Scrutiny of Mans Secrets Page 171. ECCLES 12.14 For God will bring every work into Jungement with every secret thing whether it be good or whether it be evill A Tryall of Sincerity c. Page 181. ISAIAH 26.8 9. 8. Yea in the way of thy judgments O Lord have we waited for thee the desire of our soul is to thy name and to the remembrance of thee 9. With my soul have I desired thee in the night yea with my spirit within me will I seek thee early for when thy judgments are in the earth the Inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness The Expectation of Christs Coming c. Page 195. PHIL. 3.20 21. 20. For our conversation is in Heaven from whence we look for the Saviour the Lord Jesus Christ 21. Who shall change our vile body that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body according to the working whereby he is able to subdue all things unto himself Christs Precept and Promise or Security against Death Page 211. JOHN 8.51 Verily verily I say unto you if a man keep my saying he shall never see Death The Young-mans Liberty and Limits c. Page 223. ECCLESIAST 11.9 Rejoyce O young man in thy youth and let thy heart chear thee in the dayes of thy youth and walk in the wayes of thine heart and in the sight of thine eyes but know thou that for all these
conscience hath so wrought on thee that it hath stung thee for such a sin thou yet approvest thy self in it and thou wilt go on in thy pride still in such and such sins stil thou wilt do so do but know this that stand thou never so much upon thy resolution Death will certainly come and if he find thee in such a sin against thy conscience thou hast reserved in thy self a sting for Death Secondly a man shall know if Death come with a sting by this trial that Solomon giveth us in Ec. 11.9 Rejoyce oh young man in thy youth and let thy heart chear thee in the dayes of thy youth and walk in the wayes of thy heart and sight of thine eyes but know that for all these things God will bring thee to judgment If thou live a voluptuous life Death will certainly come with a sting Dives he lived a voluptuous life had he not a sting for it So others in Scripture did not their plentiful tables and voluptuous courses bring a sting on them A voluptuous life makes a sting for Death When a poor wretch is a dying and shall begin to reflect back on his life what have I done how have I lived so much time I have spent or mispent in apparel in vanity in eating in drinking in swaggering What comfort is this to his soul how can he answer this before God this is the very thing that will sting him at such a day when he can read nothing in his life but barrenness and unfruitfulness nothing that hath honoured God in all his life Certainly my brethren if there be an Epicurious voluptuous life this life will provide a sting for Death Alas you will say Is it so then we may fear that Death will seize on us thus for we confess we have gone on in a voluptuous life gone on in sin that our conscience hath condemned us for how shall we do to pull out this sting I would to God you were thus affected that you were convicted what a fearful thing it will will be if sin remain But wouldest thou have the sting of death pulled out before death come I. How shall I disarme it that I may look death in the face with comfort I. shall give you some wayes and means remember them and practise them First get but a part in Christ and the sting of death is gone thanks be to God saith the Apostle here that hath given us victory through our Lord Jesus Christ It is he that in the Revelation is said to have the keyes of Hell and of death they are under his command and subjection he is victorious over them he hath vanquished them so that if a man have Christ he hath victory and power over Hell and Death I told you in the beginning that that which giveth a sting to Death is the guilt of sin It is so and it is a fearful sting Now that which takes away the guilt of sin is Christ If Christ be mine I have enough to answer the guilt of sin Therefore the Apostle saith Death cannot separate from the love of God in Christ What shall then Indeed nothing it is not the guilt of his sins Christ hath satisfied from them So that if thou wilt have the sting of death out get faith in Christ if thou be not hidden in the clefts of that Rock in the blood of Christ if Christ be not thy Justification and thy righteousness what hast thou to answer the Justice of God you must die and stand before God and how can you stand before God in your sins you cannot without Christ why do you not then study more for Christ Why do you not labour for faith in him It will be your wisdom to labour earnestly to make sure of him if you have him the sting of death is gone Death cannot hurt a person that hath Chriâ—… Get faith in Christ therefore that is the first Secondly 〈…〉 would not have Death terrible and fearful to you labour for sincerity 〈◊〉 â—â—ethren it is a marvellous thing and yet the truth uprightness and sincerity 〈…〉 is an enabling grace All the particular things that we account particulaâ—â—â—â—â—â—wise they have not an inabling vertue in them Some persons have a great dâ—â—â— of learning and wit and many friends much riches and the like yet there cometh an occasion sometimes that puzzleth all these there cometh an occasion sometimes that a mans learning is of no use and natural parts and wit cannot help and riches cannot inable him What time is that The time of death the heart of a man is put to it at such a time and now these shrink nothing can inable a man agaiâ—â— fear so much as sincerity and uprightness When the Prophet Isaiah told 〈◊〉 from God that he must die he flieth to this Lord remember how I have 〈◊〉 fore thee with an upright heart and done that which was good in thy sight When Death cometh to a wicked voluptuous person and telleth him I am here come for thee thou must appear before God what can this man say Lord I have lived before thee a voluptuous proud wretched life I was a scorner of thy Word a contenâ—…er and persecutor of thy people a swearer c. What though perhaps he can say Lord I have heard so many Sermons I have been so much in conference and the like will this inable a man against the fear of Death No nothing but this that he hath a sincere heart that his heart is unmixed that sin is not affected in his soul that there is no sin that he would live in no duty that he wonld not do Lord remember I have walked before thee uprightly I say nothing will inable a man more against fear then sincerity and nothing disgraceth perplexeth the soul in an exigent more then 〈◊〉 It is sincerity that takes away the sting of Death The Apostle in Râ—…m 14. saith he No man liveth to himself but if he live he liveth to the Lord and if he die he dieth to the Lord whether we live or die we are the Lords Here is the comfort we are the Lords saith he How proveth he that We live unto him That is the work of a sincere heart A true Christian liveth not to himself but to Christ Now if thy conscience give thee this testimony I have lived unto Christ then whether I live or die I am the Lords the Apostle concludeth it So right is that of Solomon Riches availeth not in the day of wrath but righteousness delivereth from death Thy righteousness and sincerity delivereth thee not from dying but from death It takes away the sting and power of Death Death shall not be death to thee it is only a passage to thee Therefore remember as to get a part in Christ so to get a perfect and sincere heart and then the sting of death is gone But a hypocritical divided heart a heart and a heart that will
to dispaire Where is it It may be in thy heart of all thy complaining and thou maist have it for all these exclaymings against thy self Tell me when thou findest those corruptions whereof and for which thou speakest against thy self Dost thou allow them or not dost thou confesse them and lament them or not I confesse them indeed but with such a finall deal of sorrow Is it such a sorrow as draws thee to God and drives thee out of thy self such as makes thee to fall before him and judge thy self worthy to be damned and submit to his Justice Is it such a sorrow as makes thee confesse and then purpose amendment Such as makes thee cry to him for power and strength such as makes thee rest on him for ability Dost thou determine still still to amend that that still troubleth thee Dost thou still continue to fight with the lusts of thy flesh by the spiritual weapons that God hath ordained for thee I say to thee thy Repentance thy Faith thy New Obedience may be true though it be weak When a man hath a shaking Palsey hand it is a hand A sick weake man that lies crying oh oh that can scarse turn himself between the sheets is a man a living man A poor child that is new born and hath nothing that discovereth reason almost but the shape of a man that poor child is a reasonable creature Faith beginneth with weake apprehensions and faint leanings on Christ Deep godly sorrow and other parts of Repentance may begin many times with little And amendment of life begins sometimes at a low soundation at small sins If it be true and sincere and constant if thou go on and continue in a course of daily renewing thy Repentance and Obedience and Faith and stirring by Gods means to get the increase of these graces and to be upright and sincere in them thou art blessed in them notwithstaading thy weaknesse take comfort in a little and be thankful for it God will give more and the only way to get more is to take comfort in a good measure in what thou hast and the way to take comfort is to labour to increase these graces Let not the weak troubled seebled Christian be troubled in mind as if he had no grace because he hath but a little as if he did not at all keep Christs sayings because he keepeth them but a little He is a scholler in the School that beginneth at Christ-Crosse-row as we call it And he is entred into the Colledge that beginneth but in a low book with the first rudiments of Logick And he is a member of the Family that began to be an Apprentise but yesterday and comes not to a deep knowledge of his Art and Mistery but is glad to do sorry work Beleeve it brethren there may be great conceits of Repentance and beleeving and obeying that may make a man good in his own eyes and be altogether false There may be a small measure of Repentance but if one be humbled in the smalness of that measure and labour and desire and pray and begg for the increase of that measure and take pains to edisie himself in it by the means of God then it is true and upright and shall save him Therefore rejoyce It is not with the Covenant of Grace as it was with that of Works The Covenant of Works the Law required perfection of Obedience to all the things prescribed a man must not only love God but love God perfectly But the Gospel satisfieth it self with accepting truch of endeavour to the thing required If there be Repentance though it be not in the full perfection if thou beleeve though not with the fullest measure of beleeving If thou Obey though not in the highest degree of obedience this Gospel this sweet this favourable gracious Doctrine giveth thee consolation enough Go home therefore comforted in the beginnings and resolved to proceed and know that thou shalt enjoy that which Christ hath promised freedome from damnation thou shalt never see Death THE YOUNG MANS LIBERTY AND LIMITS OR GODS JUDGMENT ON MANS CARRIAGE SERMON XVIII ECCLESIASTES 11.9 Rejoyce oh young man in thy youth and let thy heart chear thee in the dayes of thy youth and walk in the wayes of thine heart and in the sight of thine eyes but know thou that for all these things God will bring thee into Judgement SOlomon in the conclusion of this Chapter is exhorting the sons of men to true Religion and the better to mould and frame them to the same he mindeth them of Death and Judgement without which there cannot be planted in us a right care and fear of God From the seventh verse to the latter end he hath to do with two forts of men First with those that were glued to this life and to the delights and pleasures thereof and he bringeth them in speaking thus Truly the light is sweet and it is a pleasant thing to behold the Sun verse 7. By light there we are to understand the light of the Sun shining on us while we enjoy this mortal life This many men suppose to be a very pleasant thing and they overmuch content themselves in the same These Solomon verse 8. refuteth by three Arguments The first is this that though a man live many yeares yet let him remember the dayes of darkness that is that a time of Death will come a time when our Sun will set and our light wil turn to darkness though we live never so long never so sweetly never so pleasantly though we enjoy the light of the Sun yet we should carefully remember that darkness abideth us Secondly faith Solomon those dayes are many His Argument is thus much Let a man consider with himself though he live many yeares yet notwithstanding the dayes and years of his life cannot be compared with the dayes and years of his Death a man is many more years under the ground in the Grave then above ground walking on the face of the earth Thirdly faith Solomon all that cometh 〈◊〉 vanity That is if a man may enjoy the light of the Sun and the pleasures of this life that makes his heartâ—…ight â—…ome yet all this is vanity there is no full contentment in these things but an emptiness in them all and no man knows how soon he may be bereaved of them Now in the words we have read Solomon hath to deal with the young man and he is altogether given to jollity and merriment he forgetteth God and the dayes of darkness and his latter end Well Solomon giveth him the bridle as it were and suffereth him to follow his own way by an Ironical concession or figurative speech declaring not what young men ought to doe but what their course is and what commonly they do Reâ—…ce 〈◊〉 young man in thy youth and let thy heart chear thee in the dayes of thy youth and walk in the wayes of thine heart and in the sight of thine eyes but
heart and sorrow for sin If earnest and constant prayer unto God If lamenting of youthful miscarriages and the not answering of time and means and opportunities and religious education and that godly care that was exercised in order to his spiritnal welfare and building of him up in the knowledge of God and of Christ If I say the lamenting of the neglect of opportunities of this kind If so be the desire of the prayers of others for him and that out of a sense of his own disability to plead his own cause If so be a gracious communication of God unto him in wayes of comfort in the time of his sickness supporting him under divers pressures and many sore and grievous temptations that lay upon him If so be his setled resolution concerning his spiritual estate and the satisfying of others in many doubts and disquiets of spirit that rose within him If so be the due respect to the Lords day the desire of promoting the sanctifying of it both by himself and others with a continual grief proceeding from a sense of his own disability to answer to the occasion and duties of the day If there be any thing to be concluded of concerning Religion from such passages as these then brethren I have all these as so many materials put into my hand to build withall and so to reare up a testimony before you concerning this disceased And thus in brief have I testified of him and to you all he though dead now speaks but in a more special manner to you that are young men his death and that example we have in him of mortality is as a loud Sermon preached unto you concerning the care you ought to have to bethink your selves in your younger years of the things that concern your spiritual and eternal welfare and how much it concerns you now to give all dilligence to make your calling and election sure Your thoughts it may be are too much upon your patrimony and inheritances your houses and possessions your great estates and your matches that thereby you may as you use to say raise your fortunes too too apt you are to be taken up with these considerations and to pursue thoughts of this nature but you see by this example how God may come and prevent the accomplishment of all these and in that day in that very day all these thoughts will perish death may come marry you to the dust and call you not to your fathers mansions but to the common house appointed for all living where you must say to corruption thou art my father and to the worme thou art my mother and my sister this was his condition and so may yours be too Therefore you young men remember you your Creatour in the dayes of your youth and know you that God hath provided instructions and counsels in his Word that are directed to young men that they may know how to cleanse their way and to flie the lusts of youth and betimes to begin with God that so whether they live to old age or be cut off in youth they may be gathered to their Fathers in a good and a full age like a Shock of Corn and so receive the blessing of the promise SPIRITUAL HEARTS-EASE OR The VVay to Tranquility SERMON XXXI JOHN 14.1 2 3. 1 Let not your hearts be troubled you beleeve in God beleeve also in me 2 In my Fathers house are many Mansions if it were not so I would have told you I go to prepare a place for you 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you I will come again and receive you unto my self that where I am there ye may be also IN the 33. verse of the former Chapter our Saviour Christ told his Disciples that he must now go away from them Little children yet a little while I am with you and you shall seek me and as I said to the Jews whether I go you cannot come so say I now to you This message of the departure of Christ from the earth of his being took from them did exceedingly sad their hearts and very much perplex and disquiet their spirits they knew what a comfort they had in the presence of Christ they knew what a faithful Teacher he was what a mighty Protector he had been how gracious and full of Heavenly comfort he had manifested himself to them at all times in his being with them and they could not now think of parting with him without much perplexity and disquiet and trouble of spirit Therefore the words that I have now read are the speech of our blessed Saviour to comfort them strengthening their hearts against those disquiets under which they were exercised In which words you may briefly observe these three things for time will not suffer me to stand much upon them First a duty whereunto they are exhorted Secondly the means whereby it may be performed Thirdly the lets that were to be removed that hindered them in the performance of the duty in the use of these means The duty that is to be performed is in the beginning of the first verse Let not your hearts be troubled The means whereby to perform it in the words following You beleeve in God beleeve also in me The lets and impediments of the performance of it in the use of these means are so many objections and doubts as are wisely prevented by the wisdome of God in the two verses following I shall take them as I come to them in order and but give a brief touch upon every one of them First the duty that is to be performed it is this to stablish comfort their hearts Let not your hearts be troubled The word that is here translated trouble it signifieth such a trouble as is in water when the mud is stirred up or when the waves and surges are raised by some tempest or storm It signifieth such a trouble as is in an Army when the Souldiers are disranked and routed when they are disordered and it shewes thus much that those distempers that are in the hearts of men in the affections of men do exceedingly hinder their judgments that they can see no more nor discern things no better then a man can do in a muddy water All the affections are as so many Souldiers in an Army disordered that keep not their due subordination to their leader and guide by reason that the understanding that should guide the will and affections is now made a servant to them And this distemper of spirit ariseth from the inordinacy of the affections the inordinate motion and agitation of them This is called trouble Let not your hearts be troubled Be not disturbed thus and disquieted and disordered So that no faculty of the soul can perform its own work So as that it is disabled to judge of things according to truth but that you are misled and deluded by mists and appearances It is with the mind in sorrow as it
ΘΡΗÎΟΙΚΟΣ THE House of Mourning FURNISHED With DIRECTIONS for PREPARATIONS to MEDITATIONS of CONSOLATIONS at the Hour of Death DELIVERED IN LIII SERMONS Preached at the FUNERALS of divers faithfull SERVANTS of CHRIST By Daniel Featly Martin Day John Preston Doctors in Divinity Ri. Houldsworth Richard Sibbs Thomas Taylor Thomas Fuller And other Reverend Divines ECCLES 7.4 The heart of the wise is in the house of Mourning but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth Ambr. de obit frat Non amitti sed praemitti videntur quos sed non absumptura mors sed aeternitatas receptura est Seneca Ep. 77. Iter imperfectum est si in media parte aut citra petitum locum steterit vita non est imperfecta si honesta ubicunqque desieris si benè desieres tota est Newly Corrected and Amended with several ADDITIONS LONDON Printed by G. Dawson and are to be sold by John Williams at the Sign of the Crown in St. Pauls-Chruch-Yard 1660. TO THE CHRISTIAN READER THere is no man that can plead Ignorance to the universal Decree of God concerning the necessity of Mans Mortality It is appointed for all men once to die and every man can say as that wise Woman of Tekoaeh we are all as water spilt upon the ground There is no Age Estate Condition or rank of Men but have been foyled with that invincible Champion Death who riding up and down the World upon his pale Horse above these five thousand years hath with an impartial stroke laid all flat before him some in there Infancy have proved what it is to die before they knew what it was to live others in the strength of Youth some in their old Age rich and poor high and low of all sorts young men may die old men must die even those that are stiled Gods and that by no fawning Sycophant but by God himself their Mortality proves them to be men to themselves though they be as Gods to others and as Epictetus once told the Emperour That to be born and to die was common both to Prince and Beggar The sicknesses and miseries of this World have made the proudest Painims to confess with St. Peter to Cornelius Even I my self also am a mortal man So that experience as well as Scripture concludes what man is he that liveth and shall not see death There are no ingredients in the shop of Nature that are sufficiently cordial to fortifie the heart against this King of terrors or his harbingers the velvet slipper cannot sence the foot from the gout nor the gold ring the finger from a fellon the richest Diadem cannot quit the head-ach nor the purple Robe prevent a Fever Beauty strength riches honour friends nor any nor all can repeal that sentence Dust thou art and to dust thou shalt return Every fit of an Ague and every distemper of this frail constitution being as a light skirmish before the main battel of Death wherein weak man being vanquished is led captive to his long home and when once the lines of Mortality are drawn upon the face of the fairest mortal he becomes a ghastly spectacle how lovely soever before and the conclusion is Bury my dead out of my sight This inevitable necessity however it be confessed and acknowledged of all yet lamentable experience teacheth that in the Christian world most men so live as though they should never die and at length they so die as though they should never live again and when the time of their dissolution cometh their souls are rather chased out by violence then yielded to God in obedience Indeed to a wicked man Death is the beginning of sorrows it is a trap-door to let him down to the everlasting dungeon of Hell but the children of God though they cannot scape the stroke yet they are freed from the sting of death they can play upon the hole of this Aspe without danger and welcome the grimmest approach of this Gyant with a smile being freed from the hurt of him by Him that is the Captain of the Lords Host who hath abolished death and brought life and immortality to light so that the sting of it being plucked out and the suffering sanctified by Christ death is become to every Believer but a dark entry to the glorious Pallace of Heaven Now as it is Gods tender mercy to his Children that their conflict and misery should be temporary but their perfect happiness eternal so it should be their care in this little space of time alotted them whereupon their everlasting condition depends so to provide that they may live happily where they shall live eternally and since we cannot escape death to prepare for it that we may get the sight of this Basilisk before it approach and so avoid the danger of it Wretched is the estate of that man who when these spiritual Philistims the terrors of death make war upon him shall have just cause to say The Lord is departed from me the death of such a one will be like the sleep of a frantick man who when the malignant humor is concocted awakes in a greater rage than he lay down whereas to him that is wise to consider his latter end death is no way dreadful death may kill him but it cannot hurt him it doth free him from temporary misery but cannot hinder him from eternal felicity and as that noble Captain of Thebes who having gotten the victory over his enemies but withal received his mortal wound he made this his grand enquiry whether his weapons were safe or not whether his buckler was not in his enemies hands and when it was replied all was safe he died with a great deal of chearfulness and fortitude So when a Christian is to grapple with death his main care is that his Buckler of Faith and the Helmet of his Salvation his Hope that they be safe to guard his Soul and then he passeth not much what becomes of his outward man he dies in peace and confidence Now that we may be fitted to encounter with this last enemy besides the manifold helps which God hath reached to us in his Word in the passages of his providence in the frequent examples of mortality before us continually and in our own sensible approaches to the gates of death I say besides these and infinite more this ensuing Volumn with so much care and pains compiled by Gods blessing and our endeavours may prove no small furtherance in our Pilgrimage Each Sermon therein being as a several Legasie bequeathed by those upon the occasion of whose deaths they were Preached as by so many Testators who themselves have made a reall experiment of Mortality and left these for our instruction that survive them It is true the dayly examples of Mortality are so many real Lectures that by a kind of dumb Oratory perswade us to expect our end but as they are transient so our thoughts of them vanish therefore it can be no small advantage to have in
dispense Faithfully Wisely Who saith the Lord in that 12 Luke 42. is a faithful and wise Steward whom his Lord shall make ruler over his houshold c. Gods Stewards ye see must in their dispensations be faithful and wise First they must be faithful Fidelity appears in this when they have a right End and a right Rule to walk by What is the End and Rule of a faithful Steward in all his dispensations in the house of his Master His Masters credit and his Masters will His Masters honour and his Masters command So it must be in the house of God If we would be faithful in our places let Gods glory be our end and his Word our rule That is let a man consider what God in his Word commands him in such a place in such a qualification having such endowments such parts such abilities and let him dispense these by that Rule according to that Command to the glory of God that gave them him Thus was Moses a faithful Steward faithful as a servant in all the house of God so the Apostle saith of him Heb. 3.5 His Masters glory was his end and therefore when once he saw his Master dishonoured by Idolatry he could not then contain himself but his Anger waxed hot though he was the meekest man upon earth And his Masters Will was his Rule therefore he came down from the Mountain with the Tables in his hand that it might appear what he made his guide and direction in all his carriage amongst the people and we shall find that in all the doubts of the people either in matter of Command or punishment he alwayes sought direction from God He is no faithful Servant that doth not do this Secondly As he must be a faithful Steward in dispensing so he must be wise in his dispensing too What is the wisdom of Gods Stewards Not the wisdom drawn from the writings of Machivile or the wisdome of the World or of the flesh for that is enmity against God not drawn from the rules that politicians walk by But that wisdome that is drawn out of the Scriptures the Word of God The Word of God saith the Apostle is able to make the man of God wise to salvation this is the wisdom that Gods servants must express and manifest in dispensing of their gifts they must be made wise by the Word they must seek wisdom from the Word the rule of Wisdom from the Examples in the Word of those that were guided by the Spirit of Wisdom if they would be wise Stewards They must compare the precepts of the Word and the practise of the Saints together see what God commandeth in such a place in such a condition see what Gods servants that are gone before have done in such a condition Mark how Abraham and Job and others of Gods Saints have imployed their wealth and authority it was for the relieving of the poor for the furtherance of Gods glory for the ease of those that were opprest Mark how Nehemiah bestirred himself for the sanctifying of the Sabbath for the furtherance of Gods worship Mark again how St. Paul as a Minister watched against the Wolves and how he spends himself to the uttermost for the Church of God Mark how Abraham as a Master of a Family governed his Family teaching and commanding his children and his houshold to walk in the way of the Lord Mark how other of Gods servants have imployed their gifts As Sampson all his strength for the Church and so Solomon all his wisdom and whatsoever gift any of them had they acknowledged that the Talents that were committed to them were for God and for the service of his Church for the furtherance of his glory in the particular places that he had set them in I say if men would be wise Stewards they must doe thus But I cannot stand upon this lest I be prevented in that which I most intend in that that followeth Ye have heard who is the Steward It is every one that hath received any ability from God to do him service God expects that he should employ that ability in his service We come now in the second place to consider the reckoning which every Man must make the account that every man must give of his Stewardship And that as ye have heard in the second point of Doctrine that offers it self to us out of the first part of the Text viz. That all Gods Stewards must give a reckoning one time or other unto God As every Man in the world is Gods Steward so every Steward must give an account In opening of this I will shew ye two things First I will shew ye what time of Reckoning God hath with his Stewards Secondly I will shew ye why God judiciously proceedeth in this manner called a Reckoning or an Account For the first There are two times of Reckoning that God will have with his Stewards The first in this Life The second after death First he calleth them to account in this life while they live on the Earth and that two ways By his Word By his Rodd First by his Word hastning every man to an Account by the Gospel and the Doctrine of Repentance This course God himself took with Adam called him to account for his carriage in the Garden Adam saith he where art thou who told thee that thou were naked hast thou eaten of the tree whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat Afterwards when God sent his Prophets into the World they took the same course so Elijah when he came to Ahab hast thou killed and also taken possession as if he should have said know that God hath found out thy sin and now calleth thee to a reckoning So John Baptist when he came to the Pharisees and those hard-hearted sinners he calleth them to a reckoning Oh Generation of vipers who hath warned ye to flee from the wrath to come So Peter called those three thousand souls in Acts 2. to a Reckoning for crucifying of Christ him saith he who is the Lord of life ye have taken and with wicked hands have crucified and slain And because there are many that like the Adder stop their ears at the voice of the Charmer and if God speak but in his Word they pass it by as Elihu in job saith God speaks once yea twice yet man perceiveth it not therefore when the Word doth not prevail God calleth them to a reckoning by his Rodd Mic. 6.9 Hear the rodd and him that appointeth it that is God hath appointed scourges and afflictions for men to awake them to hearken to the voice that calleth them to a Reckoning Now afflictions are outward or inward corporal or spiritual God sometimes calleth men to an account by corporal afflictions He smiteth man as he saith with paines upon his bed and the multitude of his bones with strong pains What
therefore goe about it now Reckon with others also for works of mercy what thou hast been wanting in to thy brethren thou hast lived thus long in a plentifull estate what hast thou done wich thy estate Josephus reckons up three several tenths that were expected and exacted of the Jews Wouldest thou be less liberal now in the time of the Gospel then they were under the law Is God lesse merciful or hath he less interest in thy estate Thou hast so many thousands What hast thou done out of this to releeve the poor or to set up those in a course of traffique and trade that want a stock Beloved you cannot if you look about you want objects of mercy and means to further your reckoning at the day of the Lord. And if you would be faithful stewards to God say thus I have been thus much behind-hand in paying the due I owe to the poor to the Church c. I will pay it while I live and if that be not enough when I die I will pay it But I hasten That is the second thing Let every man reckon thus with his own heart The third thing is the daily exercise of repentance upon the sight of your former evils God now saith the Apostle calleth all men every where to repentance because he hath appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness Let this then stir us up to repentance God expects that men should judge themselves now Fourthly If you would stand at that great day of Judgement when there shall be such an exact reckoning Interest now your selves in Christ There is no way to escape the Judgement to come but by making peace with the Judge now There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Iesus This was prefigured in the Mercy-seate that was to be compassed about with the wings of the Cherubins all covering the two tables of the Testament one Cherubin to look toward another shewing us thus much that there is no covering of our transgressions committed against the commandements of God the tables of the Testimony but by the great Mercy-seat the Lord Jesus Christ upon whome the Fathers of the times before Christ and Beleevers since look expecting the covering of the guilt of their sins from the wrath of God by no other means but by this propitiator or Mercy-seat that covereth the Arke of the Testimony Lastly it serveth also for instruction in another point that is To teach us to lead a holy conversation This use the Apostle Peter made of the Doctrin of the day of Judgement Seeing saith he that we locke for these things what manner of persons ought we to be in all holy conversation and godlidesse Alas beloved little do you know whether this be the last Sermon that many of you may heare whether this be the last day wherein God will ever call upon you to repent and amend your lives There shall be a fearful dissolution and destruction of all things that you see There shall be a naked appearance made before the Judge at that day of reckoning let every man therefore say within himself How shall I stand at that time at that Judgement All our care should be that of the Apostle Pauls Whether we be absent from the body or present in the body we labour that we may be accepted of the Lord Whether we live a day longer or die this day before the morrow that we may be found acceptable before the Lord. And for this cause saith he in another place because there shall be a resurrection from the dead both of the just and unjust I exercise my self to have alwayes a conscience void of offence toward God and toward men Look to it in your places and in your hearts that you may have a good conscience void of offence toward God and men for the time shall come that nothing in the world shall stand you in stead but a good conscience and if then when the books are opened it be found that your reckonings are even and the accounts clear between you and your Master by obedience and repentance by works and by faith happy shall that servant be whome his Master at that day shall find so doing The last Use is a use of comfort to all the servants of God Let them quietly and cheerfully suffer that portion of miserie and affliction that the Lord dealeth out unto them Let them not grudge at the prosperity of ungodly men or at the variety of changes that themselves are exposed unto because there is a day of reckoning and account when all things shall be made even The Apostle Saint James exhorteth Christians to patience upon this very ground because the day of the Lord draweth nigh If therefore you see wicked men prosper and bring their enterprises to passe be not troubled at the matter A man doth not much envy an enemy that is now in prison though he have some good chear there though he have some friends that come and see him there because he knows he is but a Prisoner and he shall be brought out at the Assizes and then he shall be righted The world is the common Jayle whereinto Adam was cast after he had sinned and we are all prisoners in this prison-house the enemies of Gods glory and of his Church and people they cannot escape out of this prison here they are tied Gods chains are upon them and he will bring them to an account before his Judgement seate and that before all men and Angels With these things let us comfort and support our selves A word concerning the present occasion Yee have heard that all men are Gods Stewards yee have heard that God hath a time wherein he will call all his Stewards to an account the fore-runners of this great account shall be in this life and after death when God strikes men down by death it is that they may be brought into his presence and there receive the sentence either of absolution or condemnation as I shewed you before concerning the soul o man in that intelectual manner receiving the sentence It is appointed to all men once to die and after that the Judgement You have now a spectacle of mortality before you one of Gods stewards took away and called by death to give up his account Concerning whom it cannot be expected that I should say much or any thing at all specially by those that know both the condition of his living and of his dying For his living It was not in the Citie but for the most part it was from us in the Country For his dying He was here but a day or two before he was taken hence Hee came to the Citie in the extremity of his weaknesse and it took him with some violence as the nature of that disease the stone is There was much expression expected from him but it pleased God to make a sudden change more then we looked
the rule remain firm I say it may be so But secondly we answer They had that that was in stead of Death to them some change though they did not die after the manner of other men So at the end of the world it is said that those that are alive shall be caught up and changed in the twinckling of an eye there shall be a sudden and almost undiscernable unperceivable change which shall be to them instead of death But it will be objected further There is a promise made in Joh. 11. That those that believe shall never die To this I answer with that common distinction There is a twofold death which the Scripture calleth the first and the second death The first death is the death of the body that ariseth from a dis-junction and separation of the body from the soule And there ie a second death that ariseth from the dis-junction and separation of the soule from God The first death is no death properly the second death is that which is truly Death and so they shall not die A man may have a body separated from the soule and yet not his soul separated from God nor himselfe from Christ Who shall separate us from the love of God in Christ neither life nor death nor principalities nor powers c. Death you see shall not be able to separate us from God it cannot separate the soule Nay it doth not separate the body from Christ the body remaineth a member of Christ as well while it is still in the grave as before God is not the God of the dead but of the living saith Christ Mat. 22. And therefore he proveth that even Abraham was not dead in that sense that they then took it but he remaineth yet alive in as much as God was his God Abraham whole Abraham was Gods by vertue of Covenant so are all his posterity the children of Abraham by faith in a spiritual sense they remain with Christ and they are united to him as members to the head even when their bodies are in the grave So that I say they die not in that sense so as to have their soule separated from God though they die in the first sense that is to have their bodies separated from the soule But our Saviour in that place of John speaks of the second of that death which is an everlasting separation of the soul from God As we say of wicked men that while they are alive they are dead so the Apostle speaks of the widdow that lived in pleasures while she lived she was dead and the Church of Sardis had a name to live but she was dead This is true death indeed when that the soul of a man is separated and dis-joyned from God and from Christ And it is the state of every man by nature of every man under sin though they walk up and down and do the actions of the living yet they are but dead men And as truly as they are said to be dead while they live so truly it may be said of the children of God that while they are dead they live as it said of Abraham so it may be said of all Gods servants they die not properly but remain still in union with God and with Christ with God through Christ they are Christs and therefore Gods in him and therefore they die not Look what the soule is to the body that is God to the soul the soul is the life of the body and God is the life of the soul they are still living men that have God the soul is alive even when the body lieth down in the grave This shall serve for the opening of that they are not dead but alive they do die in the first sense and in the common acceptation in respect of the separation of the body from the soul but they do not die in the second sense in respect of the separation of the soul from God they do not die eternally they do not die properly Now briefly to make some use of this and to hasten to that I most intend to stand upon Is it so then that Death is the end of all men Let us make account of it for our selves This seemeth but a plain point and so indeed it is but I know there is nothing more useful and I know there is nothing lesse regarded and lesse considered of seriously then this that we must die It is true we all acknowledge it in the general and every man the very worst the most ignorant and most prophane in the world will yeeld to this in the general that all men must die and let a man come and tell them that they themselves must die they will grant it too but this is that that undoes us all we rest in generals and do not seriously insist upon a serious application of it to a mans own particular case and bring it home to a mans self to conclude thus I must die I may die soon this may be the last day of my life upon earth this may be the last time I may breath this may be the last word that I shall speak the last action that I shall do I know I must die and it may be I may die now This is that we should principally intend and labour most after that when we read the stories of the Scripture and see that Death is the end of all men that all must die and their houses must be houses of mourning to conclude the same for our selves All those worthies spoken of in Heb. 11. it is said they all died in faith I read such a man was a King but he died such a man was a Prophet but he died such a man was Noble but he died such a one died in his youth such a one in his strength these died and I must die the same thing must be said of me that is said of them I say let us not only say it but resolve and conclude upon it conclude for our selves that the same thing must be said of us that is said of all men All men must die we must die The benefit that floweth from it will be this First when a man bringeth it to his own particular case it will make sin more odious to him What is it that brought Death into the world what bringeth death upon us Sin By one man sin entered into the world and death by sin and so death passed upon all men for that all have finned This I say is it that will make sin odious to a man it will make a man look upon sin as a deadly evil A man will avoid an infections disease that is mortall and deadly and pestilential and the like Why because it is deadly it is as much as his life is worth The same is sin it is that that brought death upon all man-kind and will bring it upon thee When doth the creature forfeit his beeing to the Creator
of doing holy duties Would you be found praying pefunctorily and carelesly Would you be found coming to the Sacrament unprepared What though you do holy actions that are good for the matter would you be found doing of them with unfit and unprepared hearts You see what the Apostle saith 1. Cor. 11. For this cause many are sick and weak and many sleep they slept they were dead for this even because they came unworthily to receive the Sacrament of the Lords Supper Would you therefore be found doing of holy duties and not in a right manner The serious consideration of this that Death is the end of all men with the particular application of it to a mans selfe that as it is the state of all men so it is mine in particular I must die and I may die now it hath an influence into all the actions of a mans life To conclude In the last place This point is of use to us also in the death of others First to moderate the mourning of Christians for the death of others Why It is the end of all men it is that that is the common condition of all men it should not be too grievous not too doleful to any man We would not have our freinds to be in another condition in their birth then others we would not have them have more fingers or more members then a man and would we have them have more dayes Let this serve as a brief touch upon that Secondly it teacheth us to make good use of our fellowship while we are together Not only we may die but those that are useful to us may die also let us make good use of one another while we live therefore This will make the death of others bitter and will be worse than the death and losse of our freinds the guilt upon a mans conscience that he hath not made that use of them while they were alive that he might have done let us therefore make the death of our freinds easie by making good use of them while they live It did smite the heart of those Ephesians that they should see the face of Paul no more specially above the rest it grieved them that they should see him no more how would it have grieved them think you if they had alwayes hardned themselves against his ministry before Think with your selves seriously here is such a Minister such a Christian freind that husband and wife that parent and child a time of parting will come let us make it easie now by making good use of one another while we live that when freinds are took away we may have cause to thank God that we have had communion and confort of their fellowship and society the benefit of their graces the fruit of their lives and not sorrow for the want of them by death So much for that I come now to the second and principal reason why it is better to go to the house of mourning then to the house of feasting it is this because the living shall lay it to his heart What shall he lay to his heart That that is the end of all mèn he shall lay the death of all men to heart The point I observe from hence is thus much It is the dutie of those that live to lay to heart the death of others That is seriously ro consider and make use for themselves of the death of others You see the Text is clear for the point And there is good reason why it should be so First in respect of the glory that cometh to God Secondly in respect of the good that cometh to our selves by it First God is glorified by this when we lay to heart the death of others there is a dishonour to God to slight any of his actions this is one of Gods works in the world the death of men this is a thing wherein Gods hand is seen he saith to the sons of Adam Return The spirit returneth to God that gave it It is he that hath the power of life and death If a sparrow fall not to the ground without the providence of God much lesse the servants of God the precious ones upon the earth the excellent ones as David calleth them I say God is seen much in these works and it is a great dishonour to God when men do not consider the works of his hands David by the spirit of prophesie in Psal 28.5 wisheth a curse upon ungodly men and for this reason among the rest because they consider not the operation of his hands this is that that puts men into a curst estate and exposeth them to the wrath of God when they regard not the works of the Lord. The actions of Princes and great men upon earth every man considereth of them and weigheth them It is that wherein we give God the glory of his wisdome and of his truth of his power of his justice of his mercy of his soveraignty and dominion and Lordship over the whole earth when we labour to draw to a particular use to our selves the works of God in the world specially the death of men of all men good and bad for we must give it the same latitude and extent and scope that the Text doth here he speaks here of the death of men in general and he saith of all men that their death shall be laid to heart by the living Secondly as their is reason that we should take to heart the death of others in respect of the glory that cometh to God thereby so in respect of our selves also much benefit cometh to our selves by laying to heart the death of other men There be three special things considerable in the death of any one that is matter of profit and benefit to those that live and survive after them Therein we see the Certainty of Death Therein we see the Nature of Death Therein we see the Cause End of Death First therein we see the certainty of death For now we have not only the word of God that tels us that we shall die but the works of God taking others before us that as the Sacraments are called visible instructions because they teach by the eye and the outward senses so the death of others are visible instructions to the living it teacheth by the eye a man is guided by the eye to see his own condition and as it were in a glasse there is represented to him his own state what we are they were once the time was that they converst with men as we do that they spake for Gods glory upon earth as we do and what they are now we shall be there will come a time when our works shall cease as theirs do when we shall be in the place of silence as they are I say it confirmeth to us the former certainty and assurance of our death when we see others fall before us And there is great profit and benefit that
ever Lot was got up to Zoar presently the Lord rained down fire and brimstone upon Sodom and Gomorrah Assoon as ever the mourners are marked presently cometh the destroying Angel upon the rest Beloved when we see those that are mourners for the evils of the times and places where they live look away we should lay it to heart and consider it as a sign of Gods displeasure as a sign that he is a going and departing when he takes away his jewels as a sign that he is a coming to judge the world when he beginneth to separate to take to himself his own Certainly as soon as ever that number of the elect shall be accomplished when the company of those that God hath determined to eternal life shall be fulfilled when the sheep of Christ that are yet to be brought into his fold are gathered together when the fulnesse of the Gentiles is come in and the nation of the Jewes added then the world shall he burnt with fire and the day of Judgement shall come nothing shall hinder that general destruction that shall be the end of all things here below As it is with the general Judgement of the world so with particular Judgements upon Nations when God takes away his people when the Saints go out of Jerusalem to Pila then cometh the sword of the enemie upon Jerusalem when God drawes out his own people presently cometh judgement upon the rest It is good to observe Gods method and order that he takes in governing of the world at this day that in the death of the servants of God we may consider our own time that we may prepare for those evils that are a coming and for those greater judgments that are hastning Thus you see what use may be made of laying to heart the death of others God is much glorified thereby For all his attributes are seen in all his works and the glorifying of God is a declaring of God to be as glorious as he hath revealed himself to be in his attributes which is by shewing of them forth in his works When men can see the wisedome the justice the power the mercy the truth the soveraignty of God and all in the death of others then they glorifie God in taking to heart the death of others You see likewise what good cometh to a mans self by laying to heart the death of others He sees thereby the certainty of his own death He sees the nature of death and what the proper work of it is viz. to separate between him and all those outward comforts all those props and staies whereupon his heart rested too much on earth in the dayes of his vanity And lastly he sees the end and cause why God sendeth Death into the world sometime in judgement that men should take heed of sin sometimes in mercy in mercy to the men themselves and in mercy also to those that live that they seeing the servants of God lodged up before the tempest may learn to fear and to hide and secure themselves under Gods special providence who can either hide them amongst the living or the dead in the worst times Now let us conclude with some application to our selves In the first place it serveth for the just reproof of that great neglect that is in the world at this day that men lay not to heart the death of others I wish that this were only the sin of worldly men I know to a worldly man it is of all things the most unpleasant thought that can be to think of death he cannot indure to hear this they shall fetch thy soul from thee It is as unpleasant to him as it is to a Bankrupt to hear of a Sergeant coming to arrest him as unpleasant as it is to a Malefactor to hear of being brought before the Judge And that is the reason why men in the time of feasting cannot endure such discourses at their Tables as might put sad thoughts of death into them oh these are too melancholly thoughts Yea but in the mean time it is thy folly thy want of wisedome He that was guided by the spirit of wisedome and had now bought some wisdome at a deare rate by woeful experience of his former follies he now seeth that it was farre better to go to the house of mourning that is seriously to consider of that which men account the most ordinary cause of mourning that is the death of others and of themselves then to go to the house of feasting that is to sport a mans selfe in the pleasures of the world and to give liberty to a mans selfe to all manner of delights But I say I wish that this were their fault onely and that it may die with them But it is too much the fault of Gods own people Moses is fain to pray for Israel in the Wildernesse where they saw so many die before them that God would give them wisdom to number their dayes And Ministers have still the same cause to pray for the people and Christians to pray one for another that God would give them wisdome to lay to heart the death of other men Have you well considered of Death when you can only discourse that such a one that was profitable in his instruction is dead such a one by whom we have had good in conversing with is dead such a one that was young and likely to live many years longer is dead What of all this this is but idle and empty discourse What use makest thou of this to thy self dost thou gather from thence the certainty of thy own death Dost thou consider what death will do to thee when it cometh how that it will separate between thee and all things in the world as it hath done them Dost thou consider for what cause God sendeth Death abroad into the world Dost thou consider this with thy selfe as thou oughtest to do This is an act of wisdome This is that we call due consideration when the soul reflects upon it self it is their case now and it will be mine and mine in the same manner therefore it is good for me to set my accounts strait with God When thou accompaniest another to the grave dost thou conclude thus with thy self the very next time that any death is spoken of it may be mine or as Saint Peter speaks to Saphirah after the death of Annanias the feet of those that have buried thy husband are at the door and shall carry thee out also This is reason of all that worldly-mindednesse of all that earnestnesse and invention to gain the favour of men by indirect means this is the reason of all that immoderate care about our businesse with the neglect of our souls this is the reason of all that carnal security of all that forgetfulnesse of God and the account that shall be made at the day of Judgment this is the reason of the unfruitfulnesse of our lives of our unprofitable spending of our times or
of whatsoever else it be this is even the very reason of all because even those that professe themselves to be the people of God and to give God the glory of his attributes in all his works yet they lay not to heart the death of those that are before them Men durst not they could not passe away their time in such unprofitablenesse and unfruitfulnesse as they do if they did seriously consider and lay to heart the death of others before them Again secondly As it condemnes the general neglect that is amongst men of this duty so it serves to reprove that sinful laying to heart of the death of others that is too frequent and common in the world That is first when men with too much fondnesse and with too great excesse and distemper of affection look upon their dead friends as if God could never repair the losse nor make amends for that he hath done in taking of them away Rachel mourneth and will not be comforted David mourneth and will scarce be comforted Oh Absalom my son my son would God I had died for thee What is all this but to look on freinds rather as Gods then men as if all sufficiency were included in them only Men look on their freinds as Micah did upon his Idol when they had bereaved him of it they took away all his comfort and quiet You have taken away my Gods saith he and what have I more or as Laban that when his Idols were stoln away his heart was dead he could not stay in his house he could not enjoy himselfe wherefore have you stollen away my Gods saith he So I say men look on their dead freinds as they should look upon the Creatour and not as upon the creature they take their death to heart but not in a right manner This is the very reason why God many times makes your Christian freinds so unprofitable to you when they live because you idolize them you advance them above God This is the reason also why you are so unable to bear the losse of them when they die God beating you now with your own rod and making you feel the fruit and effect of your own folly This now is an ill taking to heart the death of freinds to mourn as men without hope Secondly there is a taking to heart and considering of the death of men but it is an unrighteous considering an unrighteous judging of the death of others If men see one die it may be a violent death then they conclude certainly there is some apparent token of Gods judgment on such a one If they see another die with some extremity of torment and vehement pains certainly there is some apparent evidence of Gods wrath upon this man If they see another in some great and violent tentation strugling against many tentations they conclude presently certainly such are in a worser case then others I may say to all these as Christ said once to those that told him of the eighteen men upon whom the Tower in Siloe fell think you that they were sinners above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem Or rather as Solomon saith All things come alike unto all there is one event to the righteous and to the wicked to the clean and to the unclean to him that sacrificeth and to him that sacrificeth not as is the good so is the sinner and he that sweareth as he that feareth an oath Learn to judge righteous judgment to judge wisely of the death of others take heed of condemning the generation of the just But rather in the last place Make this use of the death of every one Doth such a man die by an ordinary sicknesse having his understanding and memory continued to the end Doth such a man die in inward peace and comfort with cleare and evident apprehensions of Gods love so that he can with Simeon say Lord now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace What use shouldest thou that livest make of this now Certainly let the sweetnesse of their death make thee in love with the goodnesse of their lives That is the only way to a happy death to a comfortable end indeed the leading of a fruitful and profitable life Again dost thou see the Children of God full of temptations full of fears and disquietnesse of spirit in their death Sometimes so overcome with the violence of the disease as that it may be they speak impertinently and idely it may be sinfully What use shouldest thou make of this now Certainly let the terribleness of the example of such a mans death let it be a terrour to thee and a means to stir thee up to more carefulnesse of making good use of thy time in this life Nabal dieth and his heart is in him as a stone If ever God quicken thee if ever God breath upon thy soule or enliven thee by the inward motions of his Spirit embrace those opportunities and seasons of grace lest God smite thee with an everlasting deadnesse Again hath God caused the light of his countenance to shine upon thy heart Doth he offer a gracious message of peace to thy soule Doth he speak peace at any time by the ministery of his Word Imbrace those offers yeeld to those conditions of peace lest thou be deprived of peace at the end Againe hath GOD given thee any strength over temptations Hast thou prevailed over the assaults of Sathan and other of thy enemies Hath he made thee a conquerour take heed how thou insnarest thy selfe againe how thou inthrallest thy self in yeelding to Sathans yoke lest he buffet thee by him in a worse manner at thy end Thus I say thou canst see nothing befal any of Gods servants in their death or in the manner of their death whether in be more pleasing or more sorrowful more calm and quiet or more tempestuous and full of trouble whether it be more comfortable or more lamentable but it may be useful unto thee If it be good it may be it shall be so with thee if it be bad it may be it shall be so with thee too The main businesse that a man hath to do is to make sure of himself in this life It was the question that Saint Austin made to those that told him of a violent death that seized upon one But how did he live saith he He made no matter how he went out but how he carried himself in the world And truly this is the great Question that every man should put to his soule I must out of the world how have I lived when I was in the world had GOD any glory by me had men any good by me have I furthered my account against the day of reckoning that I may give it up with joy it makes no matter how I go out of the world I am sure if my life have been serviceable to God and beneficial to men my departure shall be for gain and advantage it is
Death and therefore when by faith he looks upon Christ and through him upon Death he looks upon that as a thing made instead of poison a medicine instead of a destroyer a Saviour and deliverer as a means to free him from the bondage of sin and misery and afflictions c. Thirdly Doth God do this that he may make men more holy and watchful in their course then certainly the more thou canst purge out thy sin in the course of thy life the less thou shalt fear death The sting of Death is sin then if thou wilt have Death comfortable let thy life be conformable to Gods rule and word or else every sin will present it selfe in death before thee specially those sins thou allowest thy self in will make Death as bitter as Hell Fourthly Doth God do it for this end that he may make thee better prepared for death Then the more thou art prepared for Death beforehand the less thou shalt fear it when it cometh upon thee it will not come as a stranger but thou wilt be ready to receive it as one with whom thou art acquainted already It is a great matter if men could learn this wisdome to die daily that is be every day imployed as dying daily I mean for the manner of your carriage not for the matter for the substance of the duty If a man were sure to die this day he would lay aside all business and set himself to be prepared for judgment and would lay aside the use of any other comforts and delights But this is not the meaning but this that we carry our selves in business every day as if death should seize upon us in that business that we might be found well-doing that is when a man followeth his earthly business with a heavenly mind when he keepeth to the rule of righteousness and truth in his ordinary calling when he is doing or receiving good in his company when he useth his pleasures and recreations as the whet-stone to the Sithe to make him fitter for God I say when thus we do things to a right end and in a right manner if Death now should seize upon us in such an action it should find us well-doing And this is that we perswade you to if you would have death comfortable and not tertible be so imployed as that your actions may be good both for matter and forme that you are now about because Death may stricke you in such an action But I cannot stand on these particulars Again for the causes in our selves If you would be freed from the terrours of Death then rectifie your apprehensions and opinions of Death think of it as it is as it is I say to beleevers to those that are in Christ It is not the destruction of nature and so a natural Ill as you account it It is rather a cure of nature for assoon as ever we live we are dying and all our life it is but a living death a continual decaying and dying Now when death cometh it putteth an end to all the decayes of nature and setteth all right again It is but a sleep and sleep it is not a destruction but a help of the body and that which inableth to vigour and strength and fitnesse to action Again it is not the distruction of any part of a man the body it self is not destroyed indeed it is in the Grave but it is in the grave as in a bed of peace They shall come and rest in their beds saith the Prophet The grave is but as a bed wherein the body lies asleep and no man you know is troubled with fear that he goeth to bed The grave is but as Gods chest to keep in all his Treasure whereof the bodies of his servants are a part precious to him even in the grave in death Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his Saints and God will open this Cabinet and the Chest of the Grave in the great day of the Resurrection and bring the body out again and then it shall be as good as ever it was nay I say not only as good but much better too for our vile bodies shall be made like the glorious body of Christ Phil 3. No man when he goeth to bed thinks much to have his old cloathes taken off that they may be mended and made better against morning When we sleep in the Grave it is no more but this the garment of the soul the body the old apparel that is taken off that it may be made better and a more glorious body this is all we lose nothing by it but our estates even our bodily estate is bettered by it And for the Soul Death doth not destroy that neither for know this the soul liveth for ever the bodie indeed returneth to the Earth as it was but the soul returneth to God that gave it The soul I say liveth that is the thing that Christ himself proveth in 22. Mat. Abraham is alive why so for God is not the God of the dead but of the living for God said I am the God of Abraham c. How can this be that God is the God of Abraham and yet he is dead Indeed he is dead if we looke to the separation of the soul and body in the cessation of bodily actions but if we looke to the better part of Abraham his soul that continueth the everliving God hath made an everlasting Covenant with him and therefore he dieth not Again it is not only not the destruction of nature but not of your actions neither Death doth not destroy them neither Indeed there is a cessation of bodily actions but it is that the body may have better strength and be the fitter instrument of holiness after But for those actions of the soul that depend not upon the body they are as perfectly done when we are dead as when we are alive and better too When a man liveth upon the earth you see his soul is much hindered by the body A distempered sick crazie body or a full well-fed body is a hinderance to the soul because of that tie that is between the body and the soul and the spirit so there is a simpathy the soul is affected somewhat in this sense But it is not so then the soul shall be loosed from the body and so freer for spiritual actions then now it is The souls under the Altar they crie How long Lord holy and just wilt thou not revenge our bloud upon them that are upon the earth The souls of Gods servants you see then are glorified when they are out of the body and therefore shall glorifie God more prefectly and enjoy God more freely and fully then now while their souls are in these mortal bodies And at that very instant when the soul of Cods servant is carried out of the body to heaven it more perfectly injoyeth Christ and is more sensible and more fit to answer the love
a man to wait upon God it is but a short time and resolve in the time of thy waiting upon this that when thou art fittest for mercy it shall come and when it cometh it shall come with an abundant weight and sweetness such as shall countervail all thy expectation and waiting Thus I have told you how men should exercise patience by exercising their faith and how they should strengthen patience by hope and how they should perfect patience by selfe-denyal The reason why I took this Text for the present occasion is that there might be a concurrence between the rule and the example Here is the rule Let patience have her perfect work that you may be perfect and intire wanting nothing One reason among others was this because we know not what changes and tryals God hath reserved any of us to therefore we had need of patience Our Sister here is the example a pattern to others of those tryals of life whereto a Christan may be exposed even to extremity Howsoever it pleased God to give many other mercies to her yet nevertheless she had a continual exercise of patience in extream anguish of body in a vexing tormenting pain that a long time for many years together held her under such extremity of torture that a man on the rack or in any other extremity could hardly have greater torments then she sometime felt in the time of that extremity upon her God laid this affliction upon her to perfect her patience and that she might be a pattern of patience to you that you might study and pray for Patience and endeavour after it that when afflictions fall upon any of you you may not be found wanting and destitute of patience So much for this time A RESTRAINT OF EXORBITANT PASSION OR GROUNDS AGAINST Unseasonable Mourning SERMON V. 2 SAM 12.22 23. And he said while the child was yet alive I fasted and wept for I said who can tell whether God will be gracious to me that the child may live But now he is dead wherefore should I fast can I bring him back again I shall go to him but he shall not return to me THese Words contain Davids answer to a question that was put to him in the Verse going before the Text by some of his servants The question was grounded upon their observation of his divers carriage when the child was sick and when the child was dead When the child was sick he fasted and wept and lay upon the ground and prayed When the child was dead he forbeareth weeping washeth himself calleth for bread c. And now they ask him the reason for they thought rather that he would have exprest a greater sorrow then he had done before as it may be discerned in the consultation among themselves every man was loth to tell David of the great losse that was beâ—…llen him that his child was dead When he heard of it and altereth his carriage and sheweth himself more chearful contrary to their expectation they plainly put the question to him What should be the reason of this The words I have read to ye 〈◊〉 an Answer to that question He telleth them the reason both of his fasting and weeping in the time of the sicknesse of the child and of his calling for meat and forbearing to weep now at the death of the child The reason of his former carriage he giveth in the 22. verse While the child was yet alive I fasted and wept for I said who knoweth whether the Lord may be gracious to me that the child may live The reason of the alteration of his carriage why he exprest himselfe in another manner upon the death of the child he giveth in the 23. verse But now he is dead wherefore should I fast 〈◊〉 shall return to him he shall not return to me In the former part the reason of his sad and mournful carriage during the time of the sicknesse of the child then saith he I did fast Yea have first the declaration of his action and behaviour and carriage at that time While the child was yet alive I fasted and wept And the reason of this action and carriage for I said Whoâ—… aâ—… tell whether the Lord will be gracious to me that the child may live I shall be brief in speaking of this part only First for his carriage I fasted and wept These are â—…ut external actions fasting of it self is not a worship of God but as it helpeth and furtheâ—… another 〈◊〉 as it helpâ—…th a man in prayer as it fuâ—…eretâ—… the work of humination and declareth that For neither if we eat are we the better nor if we eat not are we the worse as the Apostle speaks And the kingdom of God consisteth not in meat and drink There is a fast inforced by necessity that which either is by sicknesse or want and is meerly civil and outward without any respect to God And there is a fast too which hath a pretence of respect to God which is not acceptable as that of the Pharisees that rested only in the external action There is a fast that is religious and accepted of God and that is that which is both a testimony of the inward humiliation of the soul as also a help and furtherance of it Such a fast was this that David speaks of here A fast that did arise from a sense of his unworthinesse of the creature and did expresse the sorrow of his heart for sin A Fast which he did set upon only for this end that he might be more free and more fit for prayer And so likewise for the mourning and weeping he speaks of It was not such a weeping as ariseth meerly from the temper of the body as in some that are more apt for tears are such as the tears of Esau to his father he lift up his voice and wept hast thou not one blessing more blesse me even me also oh my father But they were tears that did arise from a holy affection from a gracious disposition of heart from inward contrition and sorrow like the tears that Peter shed when he went out and wept bitterly They were tears that discovered the inward vehemency of his spirit in prayer like those tears of Jacob when he wrestled with the Angel the Prophet Hosea telleth how he wrestled he prayed and wept Such tears were these as did expresse the fervency of his spirit in prayer the earnestnesse of his desire in putting up this request he had now to God like those of Hezekiah I have heard thy prayers and seen thy tears saith God such tears as God putteth iâ—…to his bottle such tears as he takes special notice of There are no tears that are shed for sin our of an inward sorrow of heart that are shed in prayer to exprese a holy desire that proceed from an inward inflamed affection and fervency of spirit but they are very precious with God as far I say as
why is thy conntenance fallen Or as that great King said to Nehemiah Why is thy countenance sad So if men would put the question to themselves concerning their affections as concerning love why do I set my heart upon such and such things and so likewise concerning their sorrow and anger and every thing Why is it thus As Rebecca said when the children did strive in her womb so when there is a conflict of passion in the soul against reason since it is so why am I thus Who art thou that fearest mortal man saith Isaiah to the Church If men I say did thus they would not break out into such exorbitancy of passions as commonly they do The way then to order any affection aright is to reduce it to the principles of sanctified and rectified reason and judgement Let reason be guided by the Word of GOD and let the affections be ordered by that reason so rectified Thus it was with man in the state of innocency and experience telleth us that in the state of corruption all disorder cometh from the want of this subordination of the affections to reason in their several actions and motions When a man goes hood-wink'd up and down he is in danger of stumbling and falling into one hole or other this is for a man to walk in darknesse then a man-walketh in darknesse when he is not guided in all his actions and affections by the light of truth shining in his understanding A man should therefore strive to check himself and to suffer others to check him Why is it thus If a man cannot give a cause and a reason it is a passion to be rejected a distemper o be repented of This is the first thing He saw no reason therefore he would not do it The second is this It was altogether bootlesse Why should I fast I cannot bring him back again He meaneth bring him back again to live on the earth So Job meaneth when he speaks in the same manner If a man die shall he live again he cannot be brought again to live and converse among men The point I note hence is this That all the actions and opportunities of this life cease in death There is no calling of them back again No bringing of a man back to take new opportunities to enioy the comforts he hath lost and to make use of the means he hath neglected and to redeem the time he hath slackly let passe When the request was put to Abraham by Dives that some might come from the dead to tell his brethren upon earth where he was No faith he that request shall never be granted that a man should come from the dead to give warning to the living much lesse that a man himself should return from thence to begin upon a new score a new reckoning to have a new time appointed when that time is past over They have Moses and the Prophetes let them hear them God hath appointed the means and a time to use the means Now they have Moses and the Prophets After this life they shall have none of these means no time of using them The child shall not come back again nor the man shall not come back again Death is a strict door-keeper all that passe out that way the door is shut on them they shall never return back We read of many several Ages that have gone to the place of silence we never read of any that came thence to tell what is done there we never heard of any yet that came back again to reform his course A friend with all his prayers and tears cannot bring back a friend that is dead It teacheth us a point of wisdom to make good use of our time the time of grace we have We draw neerer death every day then other and when once we are dead we shall never be brought back again upon the earth If a man had all the world and would give it to obtain an hours time upon earth to do what he neglected before he cannot have it therefore while it is called to day harden not your hearts yet a little while and you shall have the light saith Christ while ye have the light walk in the light Make use of the means of grace the time may come when ye may wish as Dives is described to wish that some body much more that you your selves might come from the dead Certainly if those in Hell were to come from the dead again though it were to live a hundred years on earth a holy strict and concionable life to watch over all their wayes to keep a good conscience towards God and men they would not omit a duty nor slight a duty they would not omit an opportunity a minute but spend their whole life in working out their salvations with fear and trembling they would sleep and awake with fear lest they should sin they would be careful that they had no sinful thought they would be patterns of the strangest expressions of conformity to the rule that can be imagined if it were possible to be granted You may easily be perswaded of this do you that now which they wish for and wish in vain make use of the time of grace now there is no coming back again afterward Thirdly A third reason is this I shall go to him As if he should have said I have another business in hand now the child is dead it is not for me to stand blubbering and spending my time for a dead Child I am going to him The word here is I shall return to him Return signifieth to go back to a place where one was before So David shall return to his Child for he was there before there in respect of his body the principles of that is in the earth where the Child is and in heaven in respect of his soul where the Child is The Body returneth to dust whence it was taken and the soul to God that gave it The body is of the dust and returneth to dust the soul cometh from God and returns to God again Therefore he saith here I shall return to him because I came from him When things are reduced to their principles the body to the earth and the soul to God they are said to return Ye see the phrase then The point briefly is this That the greatest care of a mans life the greatest business he hath to do on earth is to prepare for death His business is not to care for his children that are dead and to spend unprofitable sorrow for them the main business of my life is how I shall make my peace with God and be fitted for death for I am going thither We should observe the death of others to stir us up to a serious preparation for our own death the Father should be stirred up by seeing his Child dead before him the elder by seeing the younger die before them we see how death hath shot his arrowes
beyond and short and above and below us in those that are elder and younger and richer and poorer all forts he will strike us at last this thing I say should stirr us up to prepare for our own dissolution A man would think that there were no need of such a thing the very bare sight of a Corse or a Hearse the bare sight of a deed corpse the bare ringing of a bell or a Funeral Sermon should be warning enough to the living to tell him of death When a man sees a company carrying a dead body to the grave he should say to himself It may be the feet of these may carry me next But how cometh it to pass hat it is not thus Certainly there is not power in all examples to work this it is the work of Gods spirit Though a man observe the death of never so many before him yet his cannot work in him a serious care to make preparation for his own death except God adde a further work to it We may see this in the expression of Moses when so many died in the Wilderness Lord teach us to number our dayes that we may apply our hearts to wisdom As if he should have said Though so many thousands died in the Wilderness and that by so many several kinds of death yet we shall never apply our hearts to wisdom by those examples except God teach us that wisdom Therefore we should pray to God to teach us by his Spirit to make use of Examples Men must give account for examples as well as for rules men must give account for examples of mortality as well as for Sermons of mortality therefore let the example of others mortality stir you up to prepare for your own and that you may do so be much in calling upon God Lastly He shall not return to me that is in this sense to converse on earth as he had done before I shall return to him but he shall not return to me He doth but reitterate and repeat what he had said before in effect This is the thing then that Parents must make account of both for themselves and their children For their children It should make them moderate therefore in their sorrow for them God now hath shewed his purpose and declared his will therefore we should rest in that will of God This is the thing that David aymed at Gods will was not only to take away his child but so to take him away as never to return to him again in that manner Now God had declared his will and therefore Why should I fast saith he as if he should say I will now rest in the will of God In all the things which we account crosses and losses in children and friends c. The main business of a christian is not to expresse sorrow but submission and subiection to God to exercise and inure his heart to patience and to rest in Gods good pleasure and will As Eli though he failed in his carriage to his sons yet he shewed a dutiful respect to God his heavenly father When Samuel told him the judgement of God that should come upon his house It is the Lord saith he let him do what seemeth him good in his own eyes though it were a heavy judgement such as whosoever should hear of it both his eares should tingle yet it is the Lord let him do what seemeth him goad As if he should say I have nothing to do in this business but to subject my self with patient submission and contentedness to his will it is the Lord it becometh not me to contend with him and to reason with God concerning his work I confess he is righteous let him do what see meth him good in his own eyes And so Aaron There was a heavy judgement befallen him his sons were consumed with fire yet the text saith Aaron held his peace When God manifested so great wrath to his house in wasting and consuming and burning his sons for offering of strange fire yet Aaron held his peace that is he did only mind how to glorifie God by a contented submission to his will So Job he heard not only of the losse of his children but that he lost them in such a manner by a violent death by a house falling on their heads yet the Lord hath given and the Lord hath taken away blessed be the name of the Lord. Whereas a carnal worldly man would have fallen to strugling and contending and quarrelling against God and so trouble and perplex his own spirit We do exceedingly imbitter Gods cup by mingling with it ingredients of our own passions and so make the affliction more heavy and grievous then God intends it Here is the reason we possess not our souls with Patience When we are sensible of the losse of friends and children c. let us learn to make it our business to think I have a greater work to do to prepare for my own death God in the death of this man speaks to me to prepare for my own And then to glorifie God by submission to his will make it appear that thou acknowledgest a power in God to dispose of thy house to do every thing by patiently resting in his will And yet this comfort is added though children be took away that they shall not return in an earthly manner yet they shall in a better manner Parents are contented to part with their children for a time for their preferment Children though they are very young that are commended by the prayers of the godly Parents into the hands of God these whose hearts God hath inlarged and quickned fervently and faithfully to pray in the besalf of their children they may rest in this assured that they shall meet at the Resurrection in a better manner their children shall be better preferred then if they were on earth and shall be raised up to perfection Here you see there is not a tooth bred in a child without a great deal of pain and every tooth cost some pain but this mortal body shall put on immortality and this corruption shall put on incorruption This weak body shall be made strong weak children strong without pain Death endeth these things and the Resurrection shall present him in a perfect measure of strength in a glorified estate So much for this text and for this time THE STING OF DEATH OR THE STRENGTH OF SINNE SERMON VI. 1 COR. 15.56 The Sting of Death is Sin and the Strength of Sin is the Law SOlomon telleth thus that there is a season for every thing there is a time to be born and a time to die These two are the two great seasons of all men we are as sure to die as we are sure we have lived and every degree of our life is but a step to our death Every man of us hath but a part to act here in the world when we have done that that God hath appointed us we are drawn off from
me shall never see death He meaneth to hurt himselfe Again This is the message that God hath given us life and this life is in his Son And He that hath the Son hath life Our Saviour Jesus Christ came into the world as the Apostle telleth us that he might destroy him that had the power of death and so set them at liberty that all their life-time were in bondage under the fear of death And Saint John saith He came into the world to destroy the works of the devil which are sin and death So that now Death hath lost his sting because Christ overcame it in dying he slue Death and was the death of Death this man Christ God and Man he offered himself to his Father as a Sacrifice for the sins of the world and dying a cursed death upon the Cross so satisfied the justice of God on the behalf of all those that are in him that death can do them no harm It is nothnig else but a passage to eternal blessedness Oh blessed be the name of God that hath been pleased to provide so perfect a remedy against so mortal an enemy and to lay it open so clearly and plainly in the Gospel Ye have heard of those things that I thought to put you in mind of concerning Death and so I have done with the first point The second is That Death is an enemy Therefore the Apostle Paul telleth us of a certain sting it hath Oh death where is thy sting It is an armed enemy it cometh as a Serpent with a sting that entreth into a mans soul putteth it to exream perplexity if he taks not order to disarm this enemy An enemy ye know is a person that setteth himself wilfully to hurt a man may hurt his neighbour either through indiscretion or unadvisedness against his will or he may lay wait to do him hurt intending misceif and seeking to peforme somewhat that shall be injurious to him We call not him an enemy that we receive a little hurt from against his will contrary to his purpose and intention but he that studieth and before-hand desireth to be an enemy Now Death as we may say studieth our hurt in all extremity before-hand There is but two sorts of hurt that can come to a man One is to deprive him of that which is beneficial and comfortable to rob him of all that is contentful to him in this life As when a company of Foes break into a Nation they burn their goods and spoyle their houses and rob and take away all that is comfortable to them so much as they can Death is such an enemy It desireth to bereave a man of that necessary contentment he hath When it meeteth with a learned man it takes away all his learning at one blow assoon as he is dead he ceaseth to be a great scholler It cometh to a rich man and robs him of all his goods at one blow too though he have millions Death causeth all to be another mans When it cometh to a King it pulleth him beside his Throne takes his Crown off his head and casteth both him and it into the dust he is King no longer when he is dead And so in all the benefits of this life it takes away the pleasure and contentments of a man it takes away the husband from the wife and the wife from the husband it devideth children from Parents and Parents from children all the benefits that this life afford Death strippeth a man of them all and turnes him naked out of the world just as he came he must goe and carry nothing in his hand Death will not admit him to take one farthing or any thing else with him So he is an enemy for he spoileth us of whatsoever is desirable in this life But he is an enemy also in inflicting a great deal of ill upon men So death bringeth torment for the present It is a terrible thing to wrestle with it makes a man bleed and sweat as it were No man can incounter with death but he feeleth anxiety and vexation of body and mind unless he have comfort from above to enable him to wrestle with it but in his own proper nature it is so furious an enemy that it doth not cease till it hath dragged the soul into the presence of God and after from his Tribunal to the torment of eternal fire in Hell That succeedeth death for naturally of its own nature it tendeth to the destruction of man because it is a fruit of sin and therefore must needs he the perdition and overthrow of the soul For sin bringeth destruction in regard it makes God angry with us and separateth from him and by consequence from all manner of comfort and in regard it separateth from him it bringeth all manner of ill his wrath his hatred and ill will the greatest of all Death I say properly and of it selfe intendeth and seeks to draw all those that it layes hold on to a state of everlasting unhappiness therefore it is an enemy So you see the second point opened The third is that Death is the last enemy after which there shall be no more But I must tell you to whom it is the last not to all For there are a generation of men that shall feel death to be the last of enemies and in a manner the first But to the Saints and those that are prepared for death and those that will use the remedy to these and these alone death is the last enemy after once they have grappled and fought and encountred with this enemy they are at peace and rest as he saith Happy are they that die in the Lord for they rest from their labours There is no more toyl and misery to a good man after death And why Because death separateth sin from his soul as well as the soul from the body and so taking away the cause of unrest it must needs take away misery and unhappinesse it self Indeed properly Death doth it not but the Lord Jesus Christ by death For it pleaseth him when his servants leave this world then they are fit to enter into a place of happiness in another world which they could not be except they were freed from sin Death is the daughter of sin and with a happy patricide as it were at once it destroyeth it self and sin and therefore it takes away all misery because it takes away all sin Therefore it is the last enemy because it killeth the worst of our enemtes for when we are dead there shall be no more enmity between God and us and so no more enemy This is the third point The last is that this enemy shall be destroyed A thing is destroyed abolished when its self ceaseth to be and it took out of the way and when all the ill effects that it would produce and effect or hath are removed So the Lord Jesus Christ abolisheth Death he destroyeth it that it
sins the ilness of thy nature and carriage rehearse thy wayes as much as thou canst condemn thy self before God mightily crie for pardon in the meditation of his Son and never leave sobbing and mourning till he hath given thee some answer that he is reconciled And then strive to get faith in Christ call to mind the perfection of his redemption the excellency of his person and merits that thou maist repose thy soul on him that thou maist say though my sins be as the Stars and exceed them yet the merit of my Saviour and his satisfaction to the justice of God it is full in him he is well pleased and reconciled I will stay on him Lord Chiist thou hast done and suffered enough to redeem me and Man-kind thou hast suffered for the propitiation of the world though my sins deserve a thousand damnations yet I trust upon thy mercy according to the Covenent made in thy Word Thus when a man laboureth to cast himself on Christ to lay the burthen of his salvation and to venter his soul on him now he hath beleeved this Breast-plate Death is not able to thrust through And then labour that this faith may work so strongly that it may breed Hope a constant and firm expectation grounded on the promises of the Word that thou shalt be saved and go to Heaven and be admitted into the presence of God when thou shalt be separated from this lower world He that is armed with this hope hath a Helmet Death shall never hurt his head it shall never be able to take away his comfort and peace He shall smile at the approach of death because it can do nothing but help him to his kingdome And then labour for Charity to inflame thee to him again that hath shewed himself so truly loving to men as to seek them when they were lost to redeem them when they were captives and to restore them from that unhappiness that they had cast themselves into Oh that I could love thee and thy people for thy sake thou diddest die for them shall not I be at a little cost and pains to help them out of misery Thus if ye labour to be furnished with these graces then you are armed against Death those will do you more good then if you had gotten millions of millons of gold and silver As you have understanding for the outward man as you have care to provide for that top reserve and comfort life while you are here so have a care for the future world and that boundless continuance of eternity If a man live miserable here death will end it if he be prepared for death he shall live happily for ever but if a man live happily as we account it and die miserably that misery is endless Ye mistake beloved ye account men happy that abound in wealth and honour that have great estates I say ye mistake in accounting men happy that enjoy the good things of this life that can live in prosperity to the last time of their age possessing what they have gotten If such a man be not prepared for death Death makes way for a greater unhappiness after death For the more sin he hath committed the more misery shall betide him his life being nothing but a continued chain of wickedness one link upon another till he settle upon a preparation for Death And in the last place here is a great deal of comfort to those that have laboured to prepare for death though to them Death is an enemy yet it is an enemy that is utterly destroyed The Philosopher said that Death is the terriblest of all terrible things so it is to nature because it doth that that no other evil can do it separateth from all comfort and carrieth us we know not whether Death is terrible to a man that is unarmed for death but to the poor Saints that have bestowed their time in humiliation and supplication and confession that have daily endeavoured to renew their faith and hope and repentance Death hath no manner of terribleness in the world if it be terrible to a Christian at the first it is onely because he hath forgot himself a little he doth not bethink how he is armed If God have fitted his servants for death he hath done most for them if they have not riches yet they are fit for death if they have not an estate amongst men it mattereth not a whit if they be fit for Death if they be miserable here in torments and sickness when others have health it is no matter all these increase their repentance makes them labour for Faith and Hope and Charity whereby they are armed against Death Nothing can save us from the hurt of Death but the Lord Jesus Christ put on by Faith and that furnished with Hope and Charity If God give a man other things and not these graces Death is not destroyed to him But if he deny him other things and give him these graces he doth enough for him Death is destroyed to him His body indeed falleth under the stroke of Death as other mens but his soul is not hurt Death layeth him a rotting as the common sort but the soul goeth to the possession of glory and remaineth with Christ When he is absent from the body he is present with the Lord. Nay when the last day shall come Death shall be utterly swallowed up then the poor and frail and weak body that sleepeth in corruption and mortality shall be raised in honour and in immortal beauty and glory a spiritual body free from all corporal weaknesses that accompany the natural body it shall be made most glorious blessed even as if it were a spirit all the weaknesses that accompany the natural being of the body shall be baken away and it shall enjoy as much perfection as a body can and therefore it is called spiritual Therefore I beseech you rejoyce in the Lord if your souls tell you that you are armed against this death THE WORLDS LOSSE AND THE RIGHTEOUS MANS GAINE SERMON VIII ISAIAH 57.1 And merciful men are taken away none considering that the Righteous is taken away from the evil to come WHen I first began this Verse I did never think that all things would have been so sutable to the finishing of it as now I find they are For there is no circumstance that can be required to make a correspondency between a former and a latter handling but is to be found in the two surveyes I took upon this Text. The occasion of handling it now is the same that was before I began it at a Funeral and now at another Funeral I shall end it The place of handling the same as it was before I began the former part of the Verse in this very street at the other end of it Now I shall finish it at this And the time it is the same and every way answerable to that it was before It was begun in a time of Mortality seared
yet Abel was the first that died Adam committed the transgrestion the elder son was Cain the second Abel in the course of nature the eldest should have gone first but Abel righteous Abel that was the moyty the half of his comfort and the greater half though the younger Adam sinneth first and yet righteous Abel dieth first He gives the reason to be this because God would let us see in the Portal of death the table of the Resurrection he would shew us the linnaments of the Resurrection in the first man that dieth that righteous Abel is took away that we should be assured that he was but translated there was hope of the Resurrection confirmed even in his death But yet that is not all the reason I conceive that is more proper to this is righteous Abal dieth first to shew that even righteous and merciful men must not expect immunity from death and from suffering tribulation in this world it is the condition that befalleth Abel the righteous as well as Cain the Pharisee It belongeth to faithful Abraham as well as to Apostatizing Gemas to beloved Jacob as well as to rejected Esau to meek Moses as well as to cursing Shemei to Deborah the Prophetess as well as to usurping Athaliah to devout Josiah as well as to impious Ahab to tender-hearted David as well as to churlish Nabal to the humble Publican as well as to the vaunting Pharisee It is the law and rule that is set to all there is no exemption righteousness piety and works of mercy then do not exempt Eor if they could exempt how should piety have the reward when should godliness come to the full recompence It is death that makes way to the hope of reward And if it be so that righteousness excuseth not then neither honour nor strength nor beauty nor riches can excuse in the world for these are of far less prevalency with God then piety So the Argument standeth strongly If Job died that was a merciful man if Abel was taken away that was a righteous man look to other conditions then Casar that is the Princes of the world shall be cut off their state and pompe shall not keep them then Cressus that is the rich men of the world shall die their purse and plenty shall not excuse them then Socrates that is the prudent and learned men of the world their wisdom shall not prevent it then Helena that is the Minnions of the world the decking of their bodies and their beauty and painting shall be setched off they will expose them to death they shall not free them then Sampson that is the strong men of the world those that are healthy of able parts likely to out-live nature their strength shall not excuse them that no man should glory in any thing without Neither the strong man in his strength nor the wise man in his wisdom or the rich man in his wealth but if he glory in any thing to glory in the Lord. Though we must not boast our selves of piety yet as the A postle saith yea have compelled me If a man may boast of any thing it is of piety that is rejoyce in this If God have made a man a vessel of mercy and an instrument of doing any good but otherwise to boast of it even that shall be the stain and further disgrace of it for righteousness it self excuses not from death all are subject to the same law that is the first observation Mercifull men are taken away as well as others Secondly there is a difference in the manner though they be subject to death yet it is a subjection under another subjection Death is made subject to them they conquer Death So both stand together they die and not die because their death is but a translation but a removing There are two persons two men in every penitent and godly man there is somewhat of a righteous man and somewhat of a sinner somewhat of the flesh and somewhat of the spirit so according to these two both laws are kept the Law of commination that is kept thou shall die the death there is the reward of sin the law of promise that is kept thou shall live for ever there is the reward of righteousness Mortality giveth the reward to sin immortality to piety Though they die they are but taken away The word implies these two things First it implies that their death is but a temporary death Taking away is not a final translation it doth not implie a nullity Death though it cut the knot of nature yet not grace It is true there is the sharp Axe of death there is no knot so Gordian but it will cut it a funder It is a great knot that was first knit between the body and the soul it cutteth that asunder It is a sure knot which is the Conjugal knot between man and wife it cutteth that asunder There is a natural bond and union between Parents and children it cuts that asunder There is a civil union between friend and friend it cuts that knot asunder it takes one friend from another But there is the mystical union between the head and the members between Christ and the Church it cannot cut that knot asunder But look as Christs body in the Grave it was not deprived of the Hypostatical union so likewise the body of a Saint when it lies in the grave in corruption it is mellowing for immoratlity and eternity yea then it enjoyeth the benefit of the mistical Union there is somewhat of a member of Christ that lies in the grave that dust that the body of a Saint is resolved into it is holy Dust because that mistical Union is not cut asunder Death cutteth not that knot It perfecteth the misticall Union in respect of the soul and it is but an interruption of the manifestation of the union in respect of the body it is never severed As the Husbandman hath some corne in his ground and some in his Barn the Corn in his ground is of no less value and account then that in his house and Barn Nay it is of more for that that is in his Barn shall not multiply so many bushels he putteth up and so many he receiveth but that which is in the ground multipiles therefore it is in as great account So it is with God There are many bodies of the Saints walking on the earth and those that are laid in the grave that are sowen as the Apostle faith for immortality The bodies of the Saints in the grave are of no lesse account with God then those which walk up and down in the world and glorisie him with works of piety why the body is sown to immortality there is still somewhat of Christ That is the first thing it implies They are taken away it argues that their death is temporary Secondly it sheweth it is deliberate that their death is not sudden For there is a difference between these two to be snatched away
avoids the corruptions that are in the world through lusts But this looking for the second coming of Christ This Argument John the Baptist used to press upon his hearers the Doctrin of repentance because the king dome of God was at hand This is that upon which Saint Peter groundeth his exhortatoin unto the people Acts 3.18 Repent saith he and be converted that your sins may be blotted out when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord Therefore repent and return unto God do away your sins because there will a time of refreshing come and you had need then to be found in another hue in another state then in your old rotten withered condition and sinful lusts This is the Argument that the Aposte used to the Athenians to bring them from Idolatry to serve the living God because God hath appointed a time to judg the world in righteousness by that man whom ho hath ordained Even for that reason because God hath appointed a time to judg the world in righteousness therefore they should turne from their Idols to serve the living God There is nothing that doth so unbottome the heart nothing so shakes and looseneth a mans hold of sin and unrighteousness as the consideration of Christs coming to Judgment What will it boot me will the soul reason to keep my sins when Christ will come to judg me for my sins What shall I get by going on in a course of sin when I can look for nothing then but a sentence of wrath to be denounced against me This then is that that doth settle a man in a holy conversation in that respect Nay fourthly this is that also which quickneth a man to the practise of all holy duties in his place both in his general and particular Calling It is the very argument which the Apostle Saint Peter useth to stir us up to holiness of conversation Seeing saith he that all these things shall be dissolved what manner of persons ought we to be in all holy conversation and godliness looking for the coming of the day of God wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved and the elements shall melt with fervent heat As if he should have said Look now about the whole world and see what it is that now can comfort you if you be such as go on in a course of sin It may be you will say I fear not much for I have many friends Yea but all these shall die It may be thou hast store of lands but all that shall be burnt with fire It may be thou hast many pleasures but then there shall be nothing but Judgment The coming of the Lord that shall then put an end to all these and turn the course of things the expectation thereof is a special means to take us off from a course of sin and put us on to a course of obedience to make us walk in another kind of fashion while we are in the world Therefore the Apostle Saint Paul when he would â—…ir up Timothy to the work of the Ministry what is the Argument that he useth I charge thee before Christ who shall judg the quick and the dead As if he should say there shall be an appearing before the Lord and therefore if thou wilt give thy account up with joy at that day I charge thee to look to thy Ministry So may I say to every man in his place I charge thee that art a Master of a Family look to the business of thy family to the salvation of the souls of thy people I charge thee that art a father or a mother to look to the salvation of the souls of thy children I charge thee that art a Christian to look to the salvation of thy own soul And how is the charge I charge thee before the Lord Jesus Christ who shall judg the quick and the dead Because there shall come a time when both thou and they shall be present before Christ at his appearing therefore if thou wilt have comfort in them and in thy self and in Christ be careful to do the duty that concerns thy place Looking for the coming of the Lord Jesus So then you see in this respect also there is nothing so forcible an Argument to settle a man in a holy conversation in a heavenly course as this for a man alwayes to look for the second coming of Christ Lastly there is nothing fixeth a man so constantly in a holy course as this Our conversation faith the Apostle is alwayes in heaven We alwayes walk on earth as those that aspire to heaven because we alwayes look for the coming of Christ Wert thou carefnl to serve God yesterday do it to day also it may be Christ may come now and take thee away by death to day and there is no preparation for judgment afterward Little children saith Saint John now abide in him that when he shall appear we may have confidence and not be ashamed before him at his coming What is it that giveth a man boldness and takes away shame from him at the coming of Christ What is the reason that a man hath not that spirit of fear and trembling upon him that shall be upon the hearts of all those that go on in sin when they shall cry to the mountains to fall upon them but this that he hath continued in a holy conversation and constantly walked before the Lord with an upright heart I have finished my course saith the Apostle I have fought a good fight I have kept the faith hence-forth is layd up for me a crown of righteousness which Christ the righteous Judg shall give to me and to all them that love his appearing Still the servants of God have incouraged themselves to persevere in a holy course from the expectation of the coming of Christ that will give them a reward for their constancy in his service It is the Argument that the holy Ghost useth to the Church of Philadelphia Rev. 3.11 Hold fast that thou hast and let no man take thy crown As if he should say There is a time coming when Crowns shall be given but to whome to those that hold out that persevere in a godly course Be thou faithful to the death and thou shalt receive a crown of glory This is that I say that will make a man go on will make him that is good in youth be good in age also because whensoever he dieth he shall receive his Crown This will make a man that he shall not begin in the spirit and end in the flesh this will make him that having put his hand to the plough he will not look back because he no further looks for comfort in the appearance of Christ then he hath had care to walk on constantly in a good course Thus you see the point proved to you that a Christian soul hath a main benefit by his looking for the second coming of Christ
before Christ so in judgment If not repent of thy guilt in this kind that thy sins may be done away when the time of refreshing shall come from the presence of Christ And in the mean time set thy self in a contrary course to that thou hast been do as one that would have Death find thee in a good course for as death leaves thee judgment shall find thee If Death find the in a state of repentance in a course of reformation of thy evil wayes judgment shall find thee so too Let Death therefore find thee as a man interest in Christ as a man humbling thy soul abhoring thy self for thy former sins let Death find thee as a man reforming all those evils that are condemned in the Word and in thy conscience Now when I say let Death find the so I mean set about it presently for how soon Death may set upon thee thou knowest not whether to night or no and if this be not now done if thou set not about it now it may be too late thou shalt have no more time therefore do that now and go on constantly after knowing that Death may find thee every moment Therefore it is that God keeps from us upon purpose as it were the certain knowledge of the time of Death that we may be alwayes prepared for Death SINNES STIPEND AND GODS MUNIFICENCE SERMON XXIX ROM 6.23 For the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. THe latter part of this Chapter from the 12 Verse to the end is spent in a grave and powerful dehortation of the faithful from security in sin against which the Apostle useth sundry arguments That which he presseth most is drawn from the several ends to which sin and righteousness doth lead men The end of sin is death verse 21. therefore that is not to be served The end of righteonsness is life everlasting verse 22. therefore that is to be imbraced Because there is now difference in the manner of the proceeding of these two ends Death coming from sin as from the meritorious cause but life from Righteousness another manner of way therefore the Apostle adds this Epilogue and Conclusion in the last Verse plainly shewing and more clearly expressing the manner of them both For the wages saith he of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. In which words we have a description of a twofold service Of sin in the former clause And of God or righteousness in the latter And how both these are rewarded The one with death it payes us well And the other with life which is bestowed by the free gift of God through Christ These are the two parts the two general points that we are to consider First the wages of sin is death saith the Apostle Of sin That is of the depravation and corruption of our nature and so consequently of every sin that being not only it self sin but the matter and mother of all sin when sin hath conceived it bringeth forth death when sin is put forth whereby he signifieth the general depravation and corruption of our nature from whence all sin flowes So it is here The wages The word in the original signifieth properly victuals because victuals was that that the Roman Emperours gave their souldiers as wages in recompence of their service but thence the word extends to signifie any other wages or Salary whatsoever The wages of sin is death by death here is signified and meant both temporal and eternal death especially eternal death for it is opposed to eternal life in the next clause of the sentence therefore that is that that is principally meant The wages of sin is death that is eternal death This for the exposition of the terms The point to be observed from this first part of the Text is this that Death is due to sin as wages to one that earns it To such a one wages is due in strict justice if a man have a hired servant he may bestow a free gift on him if he will if he will not he may choose but his stipend or his wages he must pay him unless he will be unjust for it is the price of his work and so is due to him that he cannot without injustice with-hold it After such a manner is death due to sin the very demerit of the work of sin requires it as being eraned God is as just in inflicting death upon sinners for their sins as any man is in paying his labourer or hired servant their wages for this is the general plain scope of the Apostles words here So in the beginning God appointed Gen. 2.17 where he told Adam concerning the forbidden fruit in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shallt die the death As if he should have said when thou sinnest death must be thy wages The same is repeated Ezck. 18.20 where it is said the soul that sinneth shall die expressing the wages of sin it is death that is the recompence of sin if sin have his due then death must follow So the Apostle had shewed before in this Epistle Rom. 5.12 that by one man sin entred into the world and death by sin so death went over all men for as much as all men had sinned All had sinned therefore all are payed with death And Saint James shews the consequence and connexion between these two the work and the wages he tels us Jam. 1.15 that when sin hath conceived it bringeth forth death All these places are evidences that death by Gods ordinance by his appointment is the due of sin as due to it even as wages is to a hired servant or one that hath earned it What death is it that is due to sin Both temporal and eternal death I say both deaths concerning both which the truth is to be cleared from some doubts It was the Pelagians errour to think that man should have died a natural death though he had never sinned so they thought that the natural temporal bodily death was not the wages of sin Contrary to the Apostle in the place I speak of Rom. 5. where he makes that death that goes over all men which must needs be natural death to enter by sin sin brought in death no sin no death at all But it may be objected when God told Adam in the day that he eat the forbidden fruit he should die the death he meant not temporal death there as the event shewes for such a death was not inflicted upon Adam in the day that he sinned for after he sinned he lived still in the world naturally he continued living many years after I answer not withstanding all this Adam may be said to die a natural death as soon as he sinned because by the guilt of his sin he then presently became subject to it and God straight-way denounced upon him the sentence of death therefore it may
be said he straight-way dyed As a condemned person is called a dead man though he be respited for a time Besides the Messengers and Sergeants of death presently took hold of him and arrested him for sin as hunger and thirst and cold and diseases daily wasting of the natural moysture to the quenching of life Indeed God suffered him that the sentence was not presently executed so to commend his own patience and to give to Adam occasion of salvation the promise of Christ being after made and he called to repentance by that means to attain a better life by Christ then he lost by sin It is objected again Christ redeemed us from all sin and all the punishment thereof but he did not redeem us from bodily death from temporal death for the faithful we see die still even as others do therefore it is concluded by some that temporal death is not the wages of sin for then when we were free from sin by Christ we should be freed from that Our answer to this is that Christ hath freed all his elect not only from eternal but even from temporal death though not from both in the same manner From temporal death first in hope of which the Apostle speaking 1 Cor. 15. saith The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death meaning temporal death at last then it shall be destroyed mortal shall put on immortality as the Apostle speaks but in the mean time it is destroyed in hope though it remain indeed and must be undergone even of the faithful in this life Howbeit to them Christ hath changed the nature of it and now they no longer undergo it as the wages of sin but for other causes As first the exercise of their graces their faith and hope and patience and the rest all these are exercised as in other afflictions so even in the death of Gods Children Secondly the total removal and riddance of the reliques of sin from which they are not freed in this life but when they die then all sin is taken away for as at the first sin brought death into the world so to the faithful now death carries it out again Thirdly their entrance into heaven and to be at home with the Lord from whom we are absent as long as we are at home in these bodies Fourthly to prepare their bodies for renuing at the last day that is done by death for as a decayed Image or statue must first be broken that it may be new cast so these bodies of ours must be broken by death that they may be cast into a new mould of immortality at the general resurrection But here as some sin remains so death remains though we be in Christ yet we are still in that estate wherein it is appointed to all men once to die Thus even temporal death is left to the Children of God to be undergone before they come to heaven It is left to them I say and that justly in respect of the remnants of sin yet they undergo it no other way but for their own good and benefit However temporal death in its own nature to an unbeleever is the wages of sin And as temporal so eternal death for when God told man that in the day he finned he should die the death he meant not only temporal but eternal death he meant that principally as I shewed before in that the Apostle opposeth it to eternal life in the next clause of the sentence Now Christ hath freed all beleevers actually from eternal death But how eternal death should be the wages of sin may be doubted because between the work and the wages there must be some proportion that seems not to be between sin and eternal death for sin is a finite a temporal thing committed in a short time and that death is eternal Now to punisha temporal fault with an eternal punishment it seems that it is to make the punishment to exceed the fault and that is against justice But for an answer to this doubt we must know that however sin considered in the act and as it is a transcient action it is finite yet in other respects it is infinite and that in a threefold consideration First in respect of the object against whom it is committed for being the offence of an infinite Majesty it deserves an infinite punishment for we know oftences are reckoned of for their greatness according as the greatness of the person is against whom they are committed If he that clips the Kings coyn or deface the Kings Arms or counterfeit the broad Seal of England or the Princes privie Seal ought to die as a traytor because this disgrace tends to the person of the Prince much more ought he that violates the law of God die the first and second death too because it tends to the defacing of the Image and the disgracing of the person of God himself who is contemned and dishonoured in every sin Secondly sin is infinite in respect of the subject wherein it is the soul of man Seeing the soul is immortal and of an everlasting substance and that the guilt of sin and the blot together stain the soul as a crimson and skarlet die upon wooll and can no more be severed from the soul then the spots from the Leopard it remains as the soul is eternal and as that is everlasting so sin is infinite in durance and continuance and deserves an infinite wages and punishment which is eternal death Thirdly it is infinite also in respect of the tie between the desire and endeavour of an impenitent sinner for his desire is to walk on still in sin and except God cut off the line of life never to give over sinning but he would run on infinitely committing sin even with greediness And it is reason that as God accepts the will for the deed in godliness so he should punish the will for the deed in wickedness if we sin according to our eternity in our will and purpose to sin God will punish us according to his eternity it is just that they that would never be without sin if they might have their own will should never be without punishment Thus we see eternal death is the wages of sin though sin be committed in a moment though it be a transcient action in it self yet it is just with God to give it the wages of eternal death So you see Death both temporal and eternal is the wages of sin We come to the Use of the point being thus declared First it teacheth us contrary to the Doctrine of the Church of Rome that original lust and concupiscence in the regenerate is a sin for how else should God be just in inflicting temporal death upon infants that are regenerate actual sins they have none and if they have no original sin neither then God should inflict the wages of sin where there were no sin which connot be because there is no
iniquity with God Therefore certain it is that after regeneration this original lust though the guilt of it be taken away yet as sin it remains the substance of it still remains and will as long as we live in this world For it is in us as it is well compared as the Ivy is in the wall which having taken root so twines and incorporates it self that it can never be quite rooted out till the wall be taken down so till body and soul be taken a sunder by death there will be no total riddance of Original corruption and the depravation of our nature it is still in us as appears by the temporal death even of the best Saints of those that are most sanctified in this life it shews there is remainders of corruption in them still for if there were not sin there would not be the wages of sin there would not be death if there were not sin Secondly the Use of it is to take away a fond Popish distinction of mortal and venial sin they teach some sins to be venial that is such sins as in their own nature deserve not death whereas the Apostle here speaking of all sin in general he saith the wages thereof is death And how can it be otherwise when all sin is the transgression of the Law and Saint John defines it and all transgression of the Law deserves and is worthy of the curse which is both the first and second death for Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things that are witten in the book of the Law to do them There is no sin then but it is worthy of death therefore there is no such venial sin as they dream of We deny not but that some sins are venial and some mortal in another sence not in respect of the nature of the sin but of the estate of the person in whom the sins are so we say all the sins of the Elect are venial because they either are or shall be pardoned And all the sins of reprobate persons are mortal because they shall never be pardoned It is the mercy of God and not from the nature of the sins that makes them venial for otherwise every sin in it self considered be it never so small is mortal for if it work according to its own nature it works death of body and soul It is a foolish exception that they bring against it that thus we make all sins equal and that we bring in with the Stoicks a parity of sin because we say all are mortal It is a foolish cavil for it is as if one should argue because the Mouse and the Elephant are both living creatures that therefore they are both of equal bigness Though all sins be mortal they are not all equal some are greater and some are lesser according as they are extended and aggravated by time and place and person and sundry other circumstances Suppose one should be drowned in the middest of the Sea and another in a shallow pond in respect of death all were one both are drowned but yet there is great difference in respect of the place for depth and danger So there is great difference in this though the least sin in its own nature be mortal as the Apostle saith here the wages of it is death Thirdly seeing the wages of sin is death it should teach us what Use to make of death being presented before our eyes at such times as this hereby we should call to remembrance the grievousness of sin that brought it into the world by the woful wages we should be put in mind of the unhappy service Had there not been sin there would have been no death upon the death of the soul came in the death of the body first the soul died in forsaking God and then the body died being forsaken of the soul the soul forsook God willingly therefore it was compelled unwillingly to forsake the body This is the manner how death came into the world by sin therefore death must put out sin That housholder when he saw tares grow among his wheat he said to his servants the envious man hath done this So whensoever thou feest Death seize upon any say to thy self sin hath done this this is the wages of sin and if man had never sinned we should have seen no such thing Fourthly this must deter us from sin since it gives such wages Indeed the manner of sin is for the most part if not alwayes to promise better but it is deceitful and this is the wages it payes thee The wages of sin is death The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 translated wages some take it quasi 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the evening because wages are paid in the evening So the morning of sin may be fair but the evening will be foul when the wages come At the first sin may be pleasing but remember the end the end of it is death Like to a fresh River that runs into the salt Sea the stream is sweet but it ends in brackishness and bitterness Or like to Nebuchadnezzars Image the head was gold but the feet were of clay Or sin may be compared to that Feast that Absalom made for Amnon there was great chear and jollity and mirth for a while but all closed in Death in bloudshed and murther It deales with men as Laban dealt with Jacob he entertains him at the first with great complements but used him hardly at the last Or as the Governour of the feast said Joh. 2. All men in the beginning set forth good wine and then that which is worse so sin gives the best at the first but the worst it reserves for the last This should keep us from every sin though it seems never so pleasing and never so sweet to us remembring that the worst is still to come We read that when the people saw that Saul forbad them to eat though they were exceeding hungry yet not one of them durst touch the honey for the curse though they saw it so the pleasures of sin may drop as honey before our eyes but we must not adventure to taste of them because they are cursed fruit and because of the wages that will follow Never take sin by the head by the beginnings as the greatest part do but take it as Jacob took Esau by the heel look to the extream part of it Consider thy end and thou shalt not do amiss Jezabel might have allured a man when having painted her face she looked out of the window but to look upon her after she was cast out eaten of doggs and nothing remaining but her extream parts her scull and the palms of her hands and her feet it could not be but with horrour so sin may allure a man looking only on the painted face in the beginning but if a man cast his eye upon the extream parts it would then affright and deter him for the wages the end of
in the subject too not only a certainty that those that are in Christ shall live but it is certain to you make account of this make this conclusion for your selves build on it know it for your selves as he said to Job it is certain if you be in Christ you are dead with Christ and you shall live with Christ make account of this Lastly the efficient cause of this great change exprest in these terms it is Jesus Christ our Lord make account of this if you be in Christ there comes a vertue from Christ an effectual working of Christ by his spirit in your hearts such a powerful work as will conforme you to Christ dead and to Christ risen that you shall be dead to sin and alive to God not by any sttength in your selves or any excellent endowment in your own natures not by any natural inclination and ability but through the vertue and power of Jesus Christ our Lord working in you Thus you have the Text opened We will speak first of the Analogy and proportion the agreement between the metaphors here used and the things exprest by them That which the Apostle would express is that there is a marvellous spiritual real change in all those that are in Christ from what they were before Now let us see how sitly it is exprest in these words that he saith you are dead to sin and alive to Ged that he chuseth to express it by life and death Had it not been fit to have said thus much you are changed in your dispositions in your inclinations in your intentions in your actions you are changed in your conversations you are other kind of men in the inclination of your hearts you bring forth other fruit you lead other lives then you were wont to do But he expresseth it here yet more fully that is by that that includes all these and if there be any thing more may be added it includes that too ye are dead and alive Then we will consider First generally how death and life express the state of them that are in Christ Secondly consider them in their particular application how death expresseth the first part of a mans change in sanctification and life the second part First we take them in general and let this be the point that A man that is indeed effectually changed by vertue of his union with Christ he hath such a change wrought in him as in a dead and living man as in life or in death Now first take it in general you know life and death they imply first a general change when a man is alive or when a man is dead there is not a change in some part only but in the whole So it is here when a man is effectually changed from what he was by vertue of his union with Christ A member may be dead and yet nevertheless the man alive but if the man be dead there is a general change that goes throughout it possesseth every part every member so that now there is no member of him but death rules in it then he is a dead man So it is in this when a man is dead spiritually there is not a change in some particular actions only in some particular opinions only there is not an alteration of some of his old customs only but it is a general change so it goes through the whole man It is a change in the understanding he judgeth things otherwise then he was wont to do And there is a change in the will the inclination of it is to other objects then he was wont to be inclined to And thence there is a change in his intentions he propounds other ends to himself then he was wont So there is a change in respect of the whole the Word is the rule of all a mans actions There is a change from particular evils from one as well as another that when any thing is discovered to him to be a sin to be a transgression of the rule he is turned from it So likewise when any thing is discovered to him to be a duty agreeable to the rule according to the will of God revealed in his Word he is a vessel of honour prepared for it and that is it the Apostle especially means when he compares them to vessels and he describes them thus they are vessels of honour fit for the service of their Master prepared for every good work So that now as the Apostle saith there remaineth no more conscience of sin That is there remains not now any sin to cleave to the conscience to defile it to cleave to the conscience so as a ruling enemy would do that would take away all true and perfect peace all boldness and access to the throne of Grace there is no such conscience of sin This making conscience of every sin is that that frees conscience from being defiled in that sence with any sin so much for the first Well secondly it is expressed by death and life to shew the orderliness in the proceeding of this change When a man is changed by the efficacy and working of Christ to whom he is united it proceeds in such a manner as the change in death or life You know death or life begin within first it begins in the inward man in the heart first And as in natural death or natural life there is a dying first of the root and a quickning first at the root So likewise in spiritual death or life it is an orderly proceeding it begins first within Our Saviour Christ gives this direction First make the inside clean and then all will be clean against the hppocrisie of the Scribes and Pharisees that looked more to outward actions So this change it is not only a meer civilizing of a man a conforming of him to that society he converseth with in outward actions but renewing of a man in the spirit of his mind Rom. 12.2 So the change begins from within Hence it is that first he is good and then he doth good according to the speech of Christ make the tree good and then the fruit will be good we will not stand upon it you see the Analogie and agreement holds between these two in general Now we come to take them apart more specially First how this being dead to sin agrees with that change that is in a man that is in Christ from sin Reckon this saith the Apostle make account of this that you are dead to sin that is now there is such a change and turning from your evil courses from whatsoever it is that is truly and properly called sin in Scripture you are changed from it Now in whatsoever sence a man may be said to be dead in that sence a man in Christ is changed from sin there is somewhat in his change expressing that death Now there is a threefold death A Civil Death A Judicial Death A Natural Death We begin with the judicial first
and yet there is none of his coming Wilt thou still retain thine integrity right Jobs Wife as she speaks to him wilt thou still retain thy trust to what purpose is it It is in vain to serve the Lord as those wicked ones speak in Malachy Now if Hope will come in and say notwithstanding all these things yet pass by bad report and good report be of Davids mind I will yet be more vile before the Lord that chose me before thee and thy fathers house and I will stand it out notwithstanding all the mockings of men Here is a manifest sign that there is Hope Thus you may seek to find this grace in your selves and you shall find it by many such kind of assaults as these which Faith meeteth withall Now as you are to find it so you are to fight against the hindrances of this Hope And the hindrances of a mans hope are sometimes slavish fear sometimes an impatient spirit and sometimes even Death it self and that is a tedious affront indeed that Hope meeteth withall First Fear a kind of passion and perturbation of the spirit of a man that makes his grief begin before his affliction comes upon him this same Fear hath a great deal of painfulness in it Where the fearful are they are shut our with the unfaithful and without shall be dogs with those that are subject to this fearfulness Now Hope cometh to a man and faith Though I sometime be afraid yet put I my trust in God and therefore I will not fear what man can do unto me I will not be danted with any kind of slavish terrour Hold out thou that faist thou hast faith and be not afraid of the Arrow that flies by day nor of the terrour by night Here is the hindrance of this hope taken away Then there is an impatient spirit that many times possesseth men An impatient spirit and a hopeful heart they are both as contrary as can be You shall have many a man so touchy that he cannot endure any delay he must have things come according to his own mind or he loseth his patience presently Oh but I will patiently wait for the Lord saith hope And here is the opposition that must be made for the maintenance of this hope against all kind of impatiency In patience possesse your souls The last hindrance is death The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death We have many enemies in this world our very life is a warfare but amongst all the fightings and combates we meet with in the world there is none comparable to this last single combate we must undergo with death it self this is a terrible assault that betideth the hopeful faithful man to know that notwithstanding all his faith and all his hope and all his love and all his patience what grace or vertue soever he hath else yet not withstanding he must go down to the grave make his bed in the darkness and lie down in the dust and when he hath fought all that he can yet not withstanding he must down he must yeeld he must take the foyl the fall in the body howsoever the soul escapeth Now here is a kind of dismaidment of hope But I will tell you how it is spoken of the faithful and so of the hopeful The faithful are said to endure as seeing him that is invisible how do they endure by the supply of hope for this hope is it that makes the faithful against all hindrances to fight it out so as that they would not be delivered as it is spoken in the Epistle to the Hebrews And shall death separate us from that we hope for No faith the hopeful man it shall not Yea so far he is from being unwilling to submit himself to this way as knowing it to be the way whereby he cometh to that he hopeth for as that he is very ready and greedy of death it is the way to that I hope for saith he therefore it is sweely spoken of an Ancient and you will acknowledge it to be a sweet sentence of that Father Saint Austin He that desireth to be dissolved according to that of the Apostle and to be with Christ Non patienter moritur He doth not die patiently See here is a faithful a hopeful man and yet doth not die patiently what would the Father say He liveth saith he patiently the very life he liveth putteth him to his patience when he cometh to die he dyeth pleasantly he goeth away with his hope and his hope is full of immortality And no more for that point The next thing I observe is concerning the Object of this hope and this is it that Christ is Object of the Christians hope We have hope in Christ Hear it in the general hear it in the speciall In the general 1. Tim. 1.1 Saint Paul he beginneth his Epistle with Christ our hope Col. 1.27 The riches of the mystery of Gods grace to the Gentiles is Christ in you the hope of glory Here is Christ our hope and Christ your hope in the general In the special hear it in Saint Paul hear it in the prophets and others Saint Paul to me to live is Christ to die is gain Christ is to me in life and death advantage living or dying I am Christs I have hoped in the Lord faith the Prophet David And God is my hope and hath been my help even from my youth This is the general song of the whole Church God is our hope and therefore the Prophet Jacob made an excellent Ejaculation in those blessings he gave his sons when he said Oh Lord I have waited for thy salvation Here was his waiting his hope for the salvation of God from the God of his salvation And so let him slay me if he will saith holy Job yet not withstanding I will still trust in him Thus the faithful have hope and their hope is in Christ No more of it for the enlargement of it It sheweth to us in the first place this Note that A Christians wings do mount him above all means What are his wings his hope Whither slyeth his hope It takes its flight up to heaven to God to the right hand of God to Christ there is his hope So then he that hath this hope being poor he flyeth not to riches for they make themselves wings and fly away from him Being weak he flyeth not to the arm of flesh for in man there is no hope nor no confidence to be put in Princes in the Ballance they are lighter then vanity it self faith the Psalmist Being sick he flyeth not to the Physitian he fleeth to these as the means not to rest in them to make it the main of his aim the scope of his hope he doth not fly thus to them but he goeth to God that commandeth all that worketh above all against all and without all
God had allotted allowed and decreed There are two propositions which naturally issue from the words and comprehend the juyce and marrow of the Text. First that there is a change which will befall the sons of men Secondly we should alwayes wait till it come I begin with the first that There is a change which will befall the sons of men Be we poor or be we rich be we noble or be we ignoble be we prosperous or be we afflicted be we strong or be we weak be we old or be we young be we good or be we bad be we male or be we female whatsoever our natures be whatsoever our parrs be whatsoever our places be whatsoever our ages be whatsoever our courses be whatsoever our wayes be how fair and how durable our estates may appear yet at length there is a change which will befall us That which Jacob spake in a pathetical way Joseph is not and Simeon is not may truly be said of all the sons of men once they were now they are not though once we reckoned them upon our account yet at length they are shut out and stand aside as cyphers But that you may the better understand what change it is that is here meant you are to know that there is a fourfold change First a change of the condition this I call a temporal change wherein some or more or all of our outward comforts are shrivelled and seared up by some present misery When poverty breaks in upon us as the hunter doth upon his game and causeth our riches as so many birds to which Solomon compares them to take to themselves wings and flie away When sickness stayeth our health in the bed and imprisoneth us to the chamber When our friends glide away from us like a river through their Apostacy or start aside like a broken bow through their falshood or treachery When the neer relation of Husband and Wife Parents and Children is cut asunder and the many sad tears for their loss imbitter all our former comforts But this is not the change intended in the Text. Secondly there is a change of the Body and this I call a corporal change for even these vild bodies of ours shall be changed Look as the spring is a refreshing change to the season of the year so shall the Resurrection be an exceeding change to our bodies or as the morning is a change to the night so at the Resurrection shall our bodies awake and their corruption shall put on incorruption neither is this the change which Job here intends immediatly though some expound his aim to be at this from whom I cannot absolutely dissent yet I think they hit not the right scope Thirdly there is a change of the Soul that I call a Spiritual change wrought in the soul by the spirit of God nothing makes in this life such a change as true grace We all with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord are changed into the same image from glory to glory even as by the spirit of the Lord 2 Cor. 3.18 This change is like the turning of a disordered instrument or like the refining of corrupt mettal or like the clearing of the dark air or like the quickening of a dead Lazarus but neither is this change that the text intends Fourthly there is a change of the life and this I call a mortal change we shall all be changed faith the Apostle 1 Cor. 15.5 life hath the first course but death will have the second As in a Comedy several persons have several parts to act which when they have dispatched they all draw off of the stage so though in life we all present our selves on the stage of this world and act several Scenes and parts yet at length we must all retire and pass away through one and the same door of mortality This is the change which Job speaks of to wit a change of this life by Death Here then are two things to be demonstrated and proved for the making good of the point in hand viz. 1. That death is a change 2. That this change of death will befall all the sons of men First that Death is a change not an anihilation A change is a different and a divers order or manner of being Anihilation is one thing and mutation is another thing there the thing ceaseth utterly to be here the thing only ceaseth to be as once it was so it is with Death it doth not reduce us to nothing but alter our former something it changes our manner or order of being not our being absoluteâ—…y Now observe Death is a change in five respects First it changes that neer union of the Soul and the body and makes of one two severals they that were as the hands mutually clasped or as two persons conjugally tyed together when Death comes it plucks them asunder and divides one from the other as far as heaven is from the earth Secondly it changes our actions or work Whiles life remained here in our bodies while our day lasted we might have sed the hungry clothed the naked visited the sick relieved the distressed frequented the ordinances bewailed our sins but when death once enters the night is come in which no man can work thou art then turned changed into an insensible rotten and loathsome carkass Thirdly it changes our country Whiles we live here we are as children put abroad to school in a strange place hence it is we are so often in the Scripture called Pilgrims and strangers This earth this lower world is not the proper home of the Soul But when Death comes we change our country we go home to our own place to our own City the wicked shall go to their own place as it is said of Judas and the godly to their own Mountain to their own Kingdome Fourthly it changes our company In this life we converse with sinful men empty creatures infinite miseries innumerable conflicts but when Death comes all this shall be changed we shall go to our God and Father to our Christ and Saviour and to the innumerable company of blessed Angels and Saints and the spirits of just men made perfect Fifthly it changes our outward condition When Death comes thou shalt never see the wedge of gold again thou shalt never find thy delights in sin any more all the excellency of the creature and the contentments of them and the sensual rejoycing in them shall go out with life Death shall shut and close them up in an eternal night which shall never rise to another day So much for the first thing that Death is a change I come now to speak briefly of the second that this change of Death will besal all the sons of men Psal 89.48 What man is he that liveth and shall not see death shall be deliveâ—… his soul from the hand of the grave We love to see most things the eye is never satisfied with seeing and yet
Apostle Rom. 8.15 a man is then said to wait for death when he is looking for it at every turn as a Steward waits for his Master when he continually expects his return when upon every voyce he hears or upon every knock at the door he saith oh my Master is come this is he that knocks So a man is said to wait for death when in every action of his life in every motion of his estate in every passage of his courses saith well I must die when though his bones are full of marrow yet I must die when though riches come in like a flood yet I must die when changes appear upon himself or others yet I must die I have no abiding here I am but a sojourner and a stranger as all my fathers were I must not enjoy my Wife for ever Children for ever Friends for ever Lands for ever these comforts for ever my life for ever it is but a lease which may soon expire I am but a steward and I must be called to an account such a one is gone before and I must follow after the writ of Habeas Corpus hath seized on him and for ought I know the next may be for me so when death comes I am ready to answer it as Abraham did his Son Isaac here I am it comes not upon me as a thief in the night when I am asleep and think not of him but as Jonathans arrow to David who stayed in the field and expected when it should be shot and then he rose up and embraced him Yee brethren faith Paul in 1 Thes 5.4 are not in darkness that that day should overtake you as a theif ye are all the children of the light therefore let us not sleep as do others but let us watch and be sober This is the first thing that waiting imports Another thing it imports is a serious preparation for the day of our change for it is not a naked expectation of a change arising from the certainty of death but it is also a religious preparation improving the intrim of time for the best advantage for a mans soul before the day of change doth come which is here implyed in waiting Solomon calls it a remembring Eccles 12.1 Remember thy Creator in the dayes of thy youth whiles the evil dayes come not and the years draw nigh when thou shalt say I have no pleasure in them what is this remembring of the Creator but a care to know him a fear to offend him a study to obey him and when is that to be done Now now remember there must be a present acting of this Moses calls it a numbring of our dayes Psal 90.12 and more then that such a numbring as is joyned with an applying of our hearts to wisedome and the reason is because wisedome it directs to the choyce of such particular actions and works as tend to happiness so should a man after his serious consideration of death apply himself to such wayes and such actions by which he may comfortably close up his life with death it is a great point of wisdome to sute actions with their ends to sit and square the wood before we build the house to learn and discipline a troop before they go to battel to rig and trim and furnish the ship before we launch to sea this is preparation indeed Now this preparation for death consists in two things First in an undoing of that which unsits us to die Brethren he who is not fit to live he is not yet fit to die and that which ever masters the life will be of greatest force in death The Father spake it boldly on good grounds I am not ashamed to live nor afraid to die now that which unfits a man to die is sin it makes him find a bitter enemy of death Oh when this Kng of terrours shall present himself by thy bed side with his arrows in his hands I mean thy sins he will wound thee with infinite amazement and horrour the sting of death is sin faith the Apostle 1 Cor. 15. Thou dost not prepare thy self for death if thou dost not undo thy sins which thou hast done in thy life the which consists First in a narrow search of thy sinfulness both of nature and practice Secondly in a secret humbling of thy soul for them Thirdly in an unfeigned repentance and forsaking of them Fourthly in a constant imploring and obtaining of mercy for them in the blood of Christ If thy soul doth give sin its discharge now death shall give thy soul a discharge hereafter Secondly in the qualifying our persons for the conquest of death there are three things by which we shall be able chearfully to meet and assuredly to conquer death First by having interest in the Lord Jesus the sting of death is sin and the strength of sin is the Law but thanks be to God who hath given us victory through our Lord Jesus Christ If thou hast gotten Christ into thy arms by faith thou carriest thy peace strength and advantage both through life and death For we are â—…ove then conquerors through him that loved us saith the Apostle Rom. 8.37 And to me to live is Christ and to die is gain faith the same Apostle Phil. 11 21. If thou hast a good Christ thou maist be consident of a good death Secondly renewedness of our nature What Saint John spake of he Martyes as some conjecture Blessed and happy is he that hath part in the first 〈◊〉 on such the second death hath no power that say I of a person renewed by the sanctifying quality of Gods Spirit I happy is he he shall have power even over the first death The Spirit and the Bride saith come if a man hath gotten the heavenly Spirit which beautifies the soul with the ornaments of Grace as the Bride is with her ornaments he is a fitted person he may well say to Death come and to Christ come Lord Jesus come quickly Thirdly uprightness of conversation Righteousness delivers form death saith Solomon and the righteous hath hope in his death if a mans work be Christs service if he have a heart enclined to keep a good conscience in all things to keep himself exact to the rule and to walk with God Blessed is that servant which his Master when be cometh shall find so doing that man that hath looked to Gods Word to guide his life may confidently look up to Gods mercy to comfort him in death Remember O Lord saith Hezekiah Isa 39. how I have walked before thee intruâ—…h and with a perfect bea rt Now all this doth the waiting for our change import in the Text to wit a serious expectation of it first by undoing those sins of ours which else for eyer will undo us and by interesting our persons into Christ from whom we must likewise receive the Spirit to change our hearts and uprightness to form a new our conversation But then you will say
up all the sons of Adam shall be swallowed up it self into victory Till then we shall all go 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in our several rank and order take our last walk the way of all flesh and it is happy if we go it as Abraham did here in peace and a special blessing if we be gathered as he was to his Fathers in the Autumne of a good old age In which words we have two Acts of a Tragedy the former acted upon his Stage thou shalt go to thy Fathers the latter under the scaffold and be buried in a good old age None die better then they who have life in their hope and none live better than they who have death in their mind and thought especially if it be in the time of their health and bloom of their beauty and pride of their youth and top of their earthly happiness For this cause Joseph of Arimathes is supposed by many to have set his Sepulchre in his Garden as it were to sawce his sweetest pleasures with the sad thoughts of his Funeral and John surnamed the Almoner began his Sepulchre on the day he was Consecrated Patriark of Alexandria and it was the manner of the ancient Emperours at their Coronation feast to have several sorts of Marble shewed them to the end that they might choose one of them for their Tomb-stone and agreeable hereunto the interlineary gloss yeeldeth a reason why God commanded that the oyle wherewith the Kings were annoynted should be compounded with Cinnamon and other spices quod sit cinericii coloris because it is of the colour of Ashes or rather such mould as is digged out of Graves to put them in mind that very day in which they were made Gods upon earth that they should die like men In which regard we have great cause to Bless the providence of our heavenly Father who in the midst of our Marriage feasts and many occasions of mirth and joy presents us with such sad spectacles as here we see to the end we should not exceed in our mirth or too far set our heart upon the pleasures and comforts of this life which like sticks under a pot after a blaze fall suddenly into ashes Let us learn from all the changes and chances of this mortal life not to sing a requiem to our souls here with the fool in the Gospel because we have wealth laid up for us for many years for if our riches take not their wings and fly away from us we shall be taken away from them we shall be arrested by Gods Bayliff Death and then we must go But thou shalt go Our observations from this Scripture ariseth from two springs 1. The manner 2. The matter The former divides it self into two Rivelets the latter into three In the former to wit the manner I observe 1. That these words were spoken to Abraham in a Dream when the Sun was going down a heavy sleep fell upon him 2. That they were spoken by way of Gracious promise In the latter to wit the matter I observe three blessings bestowed upon Abraham 1. A comfortable death Thou shalt go in peace 2. An honourable burial and be buried with thy Fathers 3. A seasonable time for both in a good old age First of the manner When the Sun was setting a deep sleep and dreadful darkness fell upon Abraham and God shewed him in a dream the misery and thraldome of his postetity in Egypt Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs and shall serve them and they shall afflict them 400. years vers 13. and lest at the sight hereof his heart should utterly have failed him and his bowels dryed up within him like a pot-sheard God cleareth the skie which was clouded with a smoak of a fiery furnass vers 17. and cheareth his heart reviving him with a promise of safety and peace for himself and of deliverance of his posterity also out of their grievous servitude after a certain period of years allotted for the promise of the growth and ripeness of the Amorites sins For dreams in general the great Secretary of Nature discovereth unto us that the Dreams of good men are better than the Dreams of bad and he will have his foelix or happy man to have a singular priviledge above other men even in his sleep And doubtless as a good conscience is a full feast in the day so it is a light banquet in the night for better thoughts and phantesies in the day beget better dreams in the night as the brighter colours in the Window when the Sun shineth cast clearer species intentionales or reflections from them on the Wall God is with his children as well in the night as in the day and he imparts his counsels and discloseth his secrets as well by dreams in the one as by visions in the other That prophesie of Joel I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh and your young men shall see visions and your old men shall dream dreams though it were fulfilled in the day of Penticost as Saint Peter instructeth us yet ought it not to be restrained to that day or the Apostles time only For it hath been verified in all after-ages and holdeth still for profitable and comfortable irradiations of Gods Spirit upon the soul by day and night though not for supernatural and prophetical revelations or not so frequent Dreams therefore as they are not with the Eastern people supertitiously to be observed so neither are they utterly to be neglected as idle and vain nocturnal phantasies The Poet could say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Jupiter sends Dreams and Ariflotle dreamed not when he wrote his exact discourse of Divination by dreams nor Artemidorus when he published his curious tract intituled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 judgment of Dreams for the experience of all times proveth that the Dreams of many men especially a little before their death have been very considerable When the window of the senses are shut the soul hath best leisure to look into her self and after sickness hath battered down the walls of the dark prison of the body in which she was close kept more light breaks in upon her and she seeth farther off then she could before and this is the meaning of the Platonicks in that their Apophthegme anima promonet in morte the soul looks out as it were neer death For this particular in my Text God is gracious to many of his children now adayes by Dreams or otherwayes to give them notice of their departure hence To some he maketh known the year to some the moneth to some the very day and hour when they shall go the way of all flesh And as here he fore-shewed Abraham his departure from hence per viam lecteum by the milky way as it were that is by a sweet and pleasant passage of a natural death in the autumn of his life so also in a Dream he
I was thirsty and you gave me drink I was naked and you clothed me I was sick and in prison and you visited me or an Allegory as Where the body is there the Eagles will be gathered or an Apostrophe as Hear O heavens and hearken O earth or an Exclamation Oh that they were wise then they would understand this Oh that my people would have hearkned io my voyce and that Israel would have walked in my wayes In other passages a conjunction and combination of many figures and ornaments of speech as in that Text of the Prophet Jeremy Is there no balm in Gilead no Physitian there Why then is not the health of my people restored In which one verse you may note four figures First an interrogation for more emphatical conviction Secondly a communication for more familiar instruction Thirdly an Allegory for more lively expression Fourthly an Aposiopesis for safer reprehension and the like we observe in our Saviours exprobration O that thou knewest in this thy day the things that belong to thy peace O Jerusalem Jerusalem which killest the Prophets and stonest those that are sent unto thee how often would I have gathered thy children as a hen doth her chickens and thou wouldst not Here is a posie of rhetorical flowers an Exclamation O si câ—…gnovisses a reticentia at least in this thy day saltem in hoc die tuo A repetition Jerusalem Jerusalem an interrogation how oft would I quoties volui And lastly an Icon or lively expression to the eye sicut galina congregat pullos suos As the hen gathereth her chickens under her wings Where are now our Anabaptists and plain pack-staff methodists who esteem of all flowers of Rhetorick in Sermons no better then stinking weeds and of all elegancies of speech then of prophane spells For against their wills at unawares they censure the holy Oracles of God in the first place which excell all other writings as well in eloquence as in Science doubtless as the breath of a man hath more force in a Trunk and the wind a lowder and sweeter sound in the Organ-pipe then in the open ayr so the matter of our speech and the theam of our discourse which is conveyed through figures and forms of Art both sound sweeter to the ear and pierce deeper into the heart there is in them plus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 more evidence and more efficacie they make a fuller expression and take a deeper impression secondly where are our prophane criticks who delight in the flesh-pots of Egypt and loath Manna admire carnal eloquence in Poets and heathen Oratours and task the Scriptures for rude simplicity and want of all Art and eloquence It is true the Scripture is written in a style peculiar to it self the elocution in it is such as Lactantius observeth that it befitted no other books as neither doth that we find in other books befit it As the matter in Scripture so the form is divine nec vox heminum sonat which consisteth not in the words of mans wisdome but in the evidence of the Spirit Yet is there admirable eloquence in it and far surpassing which we find in all other writings Wherefore Politian the Grammarian who pretended he durst not touch any lease in the Bible for fear of defiling the purity of his language or slurring the gloss of his style is condemned as well by learned humanists as Divines And Theopompus who went about to cloath Gods word with gay and trim phrases of heathen Orators and Poets was punished by God with loss of his wits Thus have we viewed the form let us now have an eye to the matter our Lords conquest over Death and the Grave There are two things most dreadful to the nature of man Death and the Grave the one severeth the soul the other consumeth the body and resolveth it into dust the valiantest conquerours that with their bloody flags and coulors have struck a terrour unto all Nations yet have been afrighted themselves at the displaying of the pale and wan coulours of Death the most retired Philosophers and Monks who have lived in Cells and Caves under the ground yet have been startled at the sight of their Grave How much then are we indebted to our Christian saith that not only overcometh the world but also conquereth the fear of Death and the grave and dareth both in the words of my Text O death sting me if thou canst O grave conquer me if thou be able O death where is thy sting O grave where is thy victory In which words the Apostle like a Cryer calleth Death and the Grave into the Court and examineth them upon two Articles first concerning the sting of the one secondly concerning the victory of the other Will it please you then to fix the eye of your observation upon the parts of this Text as they are laid before you in terms of Law 1 A Citation 2 An Examination In the Citation upon 1 the manner of it 2 the parties cited 1 Death 2 Grave In the Examination 1 Upon the first Interrogatory put to Death touching the ledging of his sting 2 Upon the second Interrogatory put to the Grave touching the field of his victory First for the manner of Citing it is by an Apostrophe a figure often accurring in holy Scripture as in the book of Kings O Altar Altar O ye mount ains of Gilboa and of the Psalmes lift up ye gates and be ye lift up you everlasting doors and of the Canticles Arise O North and blow O South and in the Prophets O earth earth earth In imitation of which strings of rhetorick the Auncient Fathers in their funeral Orations many times turned to the dead and used such compellations as these audi Constantine vale Paula hear O Constantine farewel O Paula From which passages our advesaries very weakly if not ridiculously infers the invocation of Saints departed making weapons of plumes of feathers and arguments of ornaments and which is far worse Divinity of rhetorick and articles of faith of tropes of sentences By a like consequence they might conclude that hills and trees and the earth and gates and death and hell have eyes to look upon us or ears to hear us or that we ought to invocate them because the holy Ghost maketh such Apostrophes to them as the Fathers do to the souls of Saints newly departed out of their bodies Secondly for the parties here cited and called in their order first Death and then the Grave Death goes before the Grave because men die before they are buryed and the Grave is properly no Grave till it be possessed by a dead body before it is but a hole or pit O Death In Hebrew Maveth from Muth whence mutus in Latine is derived and mute in English because Death bereaveth us of speech and for a like reason the Grave is termed Domus silentii a house of silence In Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 either
quasi 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or quasi 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 supple 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 either from a word signifying to stretch because death stretcheth out the body or from words signifying to tend upwards because by death the soul is carried upwards returning to God that gave it In Latine Mors either quasi 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 our fatal portion or as Saint Austin will have it a morsu because the biting of the Serpent caused it The letter or word is but like the bark or rind the sence is the juyce yet here we may suck some sweetness from the bark or rind From the hebrew Muth we learn that our tongues must be bound to their good behaviour concerning the dead we must not make them our ordinary table talk or break jeasts upon them much less vent our spleen or wreak our malice on them we must never speak of them but in a serious and regardful manner de mortuis nil nisi bene From the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as it is derived from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 mutando 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 tenuem in 〈◊〉 aspiratam we must learn to extend our hands to the poor especially near death which stretcheth out our bodies and to send our thoughts 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to the things that are above whether if we die well the Angels shall immediately carry our souls From the Latin mors so termed quasi 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 divido we are to learn to be contented with our lot and bear it patiently considering first that we brought it upon our selves secondly that we gain this singular benefit by it that our misery shall not be immortal O Death to which Death speaketh the Apostle for the Scripture maketh mention of the first and second death and Saint Ambrose also of a third The first Death with him is the death of nature of which it is said they shall seek death and not find it The second of sin of which it is said the soul that sinneth shall die the death The third of grace which sets a period not to nature but to sin The Death here meant is the first death or the Death of nature which the Philosophers diversly define according to their divers opinions of the soul Aristoxemis who held the soul to be an harmony consequently defined Death to be a discord Galen who held the soul to be Crasis or a temper Death to be a distemper Zeno who held the soul to be a fire Death to be an extinction Those Philosophers who held the soul to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is as Tully interpreteth it continuam motionem Death to be a cessation The vulgar of the Heathen who held the soul to be a breath Death to be an expiration Lastly the Platonicks who held the soul to be an immortal spirit Death to be a dissolution or separation of the soul from the body and this is two-fold 1 Natural 2 Violent 1 Natural when of it self the natural heat is extinguished or radical moisture consumed for our life in Scripture is compared and in sculpture resembled to a burning lamp the fire which kindleth the flame in this light is natural heat and the oyle which feedeth it is radical moisture Without flame there is no light without oyle to maintaine it no flame in like manner if either natural heat or radical moisture fail life cannot last 2 Violent when the soul is forced untimely out of the body of this Death there are so many shapes that no Painter could ever yet draw them We come but one way into the World but we go a thousand out of it as we see in a Garden-pot the the water is poured in but at one place to wit the narrow mouth but it runneth out at 100 holes Die Some 1 By fire as the Sodomites 2 By water as the old World 3 By the infection of the Ayre as threescore and ten thousand in Davids time 4 By the opening of the earth as Corah Dathan and Abiram Amphiraus and two Cities Buris and Helice Some meet with Death IN 1 Their Coach as Anteochus 2 Their chamber as Domitian 3 Their bed as John the Twelf 4 The Theater as Caligula 5 The Senate us Caesar 6 The Temple as Zenacherib 7 Their Table as Claudius 8 At the Lords-Table as Pope Victor and Henry of Luxenburge Death woundeth and striketh some With 1 A pen-knife as Seneca 2 A stilletto as Henry the Fourth 3 A sword as Paul 4 A Fullers beam as James the Lords Brother 5 A Saw as Isaiah 6 A stone as Pyrrhus 7 A thunderbolt as Anustatius What should I speak of Felones de se such as have thrown away their souls Sardanapalus made a great fire and leaped into it Lucretia stabbed her self Cleopatra put an Aspe to her breast and stung therewith died presently Saul fell upon his own sword Judas hanged himself Peronius cut his own veines Heremius beat out his own brains Licinius choaked himself with a napkin Portia died by swallowing hot burning coals Hannibal sucked poyson out of his ring Demosthenes out of his Pen c. What seemeth so loose as the soul and the body which is plucked out with a hair driven out with a smell fraied out with a phancy verily that seemeth to be but a breath in the nostrils which is taken away with a scent a shadow which is driven away with a scare-crow a dream which is frayed away with a phansie a vapour which is driven away with a puffe a conceit which goes away with a passion a toy that leaves us with a laughter yet grief kild Homer laughter Philemon a hair in his milk Fabius a flie in his throat Adrian a smell of lime in his nostrils Jovian the snuff of a candle a Child in Pliny a kernil of a Raison Anacyeon and a Icesickle one in Martial which causeth the Poet to melt into tears saying O ubi mors non est si jugulatis aquae what cannot make an end of us if a small drop of water congealed can do it In these regards we may turn the affirmative in my Text into a negative and say truly though not in the Apostles sence O Death where is not thy sting for we see it thrust out in our meats in our drinks in our apparel in our breath in the Court in the Country in the City in the Field in the Land in the Sea in the chamber in the Church and in the Church-yard where we meet with the second party to be examined to wit the Grave O Grave 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In the language of Ashdod it signfied one thing but in the language of Canaan another The Heathen writers understand by it First the first matter out of which all things are drawn and into which they are last of all resolved So Hippocrates taketh the word in
his Aph. Secondly the rule of the Region of darkness or prince of Hell so Hesiod taketh it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hes op dies Thirdly the state and condition of the dead or death it self so Homer taketh it Il. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In the Language of Canaan it is either taken for the place of torment of the damned And in hell he lift his eyes being in torments and seeth Abraham afar off and Lazarus in his bosome Secondly for the Grave and that most frequently in the Seventy Interpreters as namely I will go down into Hades to my son that is the Grave and let not his hoary head go down into Hades that is the grave in peace and in death there is no remembrance of thee and who will give thee thanks in Hades that is the Grave and what man is he that liveth and shall not see death and shall he deliver his soul from the hands of Hades that is the Grave and Hades that is the Grave cannot praise thee Death cannot celebrate thee and so it must be here taken For though Hell in regard of the Elect be conquered yet it eternally possesseth the reprobate men and Devils neither shall it be destroyed at the day of judgment or emptied but inlarged rather and replenished with the bodies of all the damned whose fouls are there already But Hades that is the Grave shall lose all her captives and prisoners for the earth and sea shall cast up all their dead We have the parties to be examined let us now hear the Articles upon which they are to be examined First Death is to answer to this Interrogatory where is thy sting these words may be understood two manner of wayes 1 Actively 2 Passively 1 Passively where is thy sting that is the sting thrust out by Death in which sence the sting of Death is no other then the present sence of the desert of death and guilt of conscience and a dreadful expectation of damnation and hell to ensue upon it take away this sting from the death of the body that it is a punishment for sin and an earnest as it were of eternal death and it can hurt no man This sting Christ hath plucked out of the death of all his Saints and of a curse made it a blessing of a torment an ease of a punishment of sin a remedy against all sin of a short and fearful cut to eternal death a fair and safe draw-bridge to eternal life 2 Actively where is thy sting that is the sting which causeth and bringeth Death In this sence the sting of death is sin non quem mors fecit sed quo mors facta est peccato enim morimur non morte peccamus as Saint Austin most accutely and eloquently Sin is said to be the sting of Death as a cup of poison is said to be a potion of death that is a potion bringing death for we die by sin we sin not by death sin is not the off-spring of death but death the off-spring of sin or as the Apostle termeth it the wages of sin And it is just with God to pay the sinner this wages by rendring death to sin and punishing sin with death because sin severeth the soul from God and not only grieveth and despightfully entreateth but without repentance in the end thrusteth the spirit out of doors And what more agreeable to Divine justice then that the soul which willingly severeth her self from God should be unwillingly severed from the body and that the spirit should be expelled of his residence in the flesh which expelleth Gods grace and excludeth his Spirit from a residence in the soul This sting of death is like the Adders two forked or double for it is either original or actual sin original sin is the sting of death in the day thon eatest of the Tree of knowledge thou shalt surely die and as by one man sin came into the World and death by sin and so death passeth upon all men for that all had sinned Secondly actual sin is the sting of death the soul that sinneth it shall die the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father nor the father the iniquity of the son the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him Howbeit if we speak properly original sin as it is a proness to all sin so it maketh us rather obnoxious to death then dead men but actual sin without repentance slayes out-right Adam did not die the day he eat the fruit but that day became mortalis or morti obnoxius guilty of death or liable to it original sin alone maketh us mortes but actual mortuos dead men The Devil like to a Hornet sometimes pricks us onely but leaveth not his sting in us sometime he leaveth his sting in us and that 's far the more dangerous He is pricked only with this sting who sinneth suddenly and presently repenteth but he who the Devil bringeth to a habit or custome in sin in him he leaveth his sting Now we know what the sting is let us enquire where it is The answer is if we speak of the reprobate men or Devils it remaineth in their consciences if we speak of the Elect it is plucked out of their souls and it was put in our Saviours body and there deaded and lost for he that knew no sin was made sin for us to wit by imputing our sin to him and inflicting the punishment thereof upon him That we might be made the righteousness of God in him for the chastisement of our peace was upon him and by his stripes were we healed who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree Athanasius representeth the manner of it by the similitude of a Wasp losing her sting in a Rock Vespa acculeo fodiens petram c. as an angry Wasp thrusteth her sting into a rock cannot pierce or enter far into it but either breaketh her sting or loseth it all so Death assaulting the Lord of life and striving with all her might to sting him hurt not him but disarmed her self of her sting for ever The first interrogatory is answered we know where Deaths sting is let us now consider of the second interrogatory concerning the victory of the Grave O grave where is thy victory If the Grave as she openeth her mouth wide so she could speak she would answer My victories are to be seen in Macpelah Golgotha in all the gulphs of the Sea and Caves and pits of the Earth where the dead have been bestowed since the beginning of the world My victory is in the fire in the water in the earth in all Churnels and Caemitaties or dormitories in the bellies of fish in the maws of beasts in holy shrines Tombs and sepulchers wheresoever corpses have been put and are yet reserved Of all that ever Death arrested and they by order of divine Justice have been
the sum agreed upon for his ransome and the person in whose power the captive is and who accepteth of the ransome Which of these is the Redeemer you will all say he that is at the cost of all so it is in our redemption from spiritual thraldome the holy Spirit draweth the condition sealeth the Bonds the Father receiveth the ransome the Son both mediateth for the ransoming and layeth down the sum For we were not redeemed with corruptible things as silver and gold but the precious blood of Christ as of a Lamb withouâ— blemish he took part of our nature that through death he might destroy him that had tthe power of death that is the devil and deliver them who through the fear of death were all there life-time subject to bondage Hence we gather that he that destroyed death must die but to affirm that the immortal and eternal Spirit of God expired is blasphemy and to say that the Father suffered is heresie long ago condemned in the Patro-passions we conclude therefore with the Apostle that the second person Christ Jesus hath abolished death and hath brought life and immortality to light by the Gospel And so I fall upon my last Observation the judgment here mentioned Davorica 3. Thy plagues there is no tittle or iota in holy Scripture superfluous some mystery therefore lyeth in the number plagues in the plural not plague in the singular which I conceive to be this that Christ put Death to many deaths and foyled and conquered it many wayes first in himself secondly in his members First in himself by destroying sin the sting of Death Secondly by breaking the bonds thereof in his powerful Resurrection wherewith it was impossible that he should be held Secondly in his members by changing the nature of it to them and making it of a curse a blessing of a loss a gain of a punishment either a great honour or a special favour or a singular advantage a great honour as to the Martyrs who thereby acquired so many Rubies to their crown of glory as they shed drops of blood for their Saviour A special favour as to Abraham Josiah and Saint Austin who were taken away that they might not see and feel the misery that after their death fell on the posterity of the one the subjects of the other and the diocess of the third A singular advantage to all the faithful who thereby are discharged from all cares fears sorrows and temptations and presently enter into their Masters joy For blessed are the dead that die in the Lord for they rest from their labours and their works follow them Now the means whereby Christ conquered death utterly destroyed it are diversly set down by the learned some argue a contrariis contraries say they are to be destroyed by their contraries as heat by cold moysture by drought sickness by health Death therefore must needs be destroyed by life as the contrary but Christ is the resurrection and the life in him was life and life was the light of men Saint Austin declareth it after this manner Life dying contended with Death living and got a glorious and signal victory Nysscen thus the Devil catching at the flesh of Christs humane nature as a bate was cought by the hook of his divine Saint Leo and Chrysologus thus if a Bayliff or Sergeant arrest the Kings son or a priviledged person and lay him up in a close prison without commission he deserveth to be turned out of his place for it So Death Gods Serjeant seizing upon his Son in whom there was no fault without warrant or commission was justly discharged of his office Is Death thus discharged hath Christ changed the nature of Death and freed all his Members from the sting of the temporal and fear of eternal death hath he of a postern made it a street-door of an out-let of mortal life an in-let of immortality why then are we so much afraid of death which can no more hurt us then a hornet or wasp after her sting is plucked out Christ fought with a living death we with a dead death which doth not so much sever our souls from our bodies as joyn them to Christ not so much end our life as our mortality not so much exclude us out of the Militant as render us to the Triumphant Church Nothing is more dreadful I confess to the natural man then Death which dissolveth the soul and body and the Grave which resolveth the body into dust and ashes To cure this malady of the mind there is no vertue in any Drug of nature the Philosophers in this case are Physitians of no value they tell us that sickness and death are tributa vivendi and the Grave the common house of the dead But what of this what comfort is here doth this speculation discharge us from the tribute or make the payment thereof the easier doth it inlighten the darkness of these prisons of nature or take away the stench from these under-ground houses no whit Yet God be thanked there is a magazine in Scripture to pay these tributes there is light in Goshen to enlighten these houses there is Specknard to perfume these dankish rooms there are Cordials in holy Scripture to strengthen the heart not only against deadly maladies but also against death it self for there we hear of a voyce from heaven not only affirming the happiness of the dead but confirming it with a strong reason for they rest from their labours and their works follow them we hear of Tabernacles not made with hands but eternal in the Heavens we hear that when we are absent from the body we are present with the Lord we hear the Lord of life opening the ears and chearing the heart of the dead and saying I am the resurrection and the life whosoevor believeth in me though he were dead yet shall he live There we hear death not only disarmed of his sting but also slain down right O death I will be thy death O grave I will be thy destruction Secondly hath Christ destroyed Death and hath he both the keyes of Death and of Hell then beloved when we lie on our death-bed let us not have recourse after the Popish manner to any Saint or Angel no not to the blessed Virgin her self but to her Son who is the Lord of life who satisfying for our sins at his death thereby plucked out the sting of death and after his resurrection quite destroyed this serpent In which regard he is stiled stella matutina the Morning star because he ushereth in the day of eternity and primitiae dormientum the first fruis of them that slept because in him the whole lump is sanctifyed When therefore the fiery Serpent hovereth over us to sting us to eternal death let us look upon the Brazen Serpent and the other shall not hurt us Lastly hath Christ conquered Death and Hell and that for us let us then
wounded afresh with some gross act of sin this made David afraid yea to roar out and to make a noyse through the disquietness of his spirit Psal 38.8 Psal 55.2 and under that state of soul to begg earnestly to be spared that he might recover strength in Gods favour before he went hence and was no more Psal 39.13 or else when the Lord shall for divers ends and reasons surcharge the soul and conscience with the sins of youth for which perhaps men have not as became them been sufficiently humbled thus dealt he even with his servant Job writing bitter things against him Job 13.26 see also Job 16.4 But out of those cases it is proprium quarto medo onely the Saints love it all such love it and alwayes and no marvaile sith by this second coming and appearance of Christ in the day of the last Judement they receive very great and inestimable benefits such as are final Redemption of the Body from corruption Rom. 8.23 Freedom from the society of the wicked which here afflict the godly by their violation of Gods Law and Precepts Deliverance not onely from the raign and dominion but even from the inhabitation and being of sin which here they find as a clogg and a burthen too heavy for them and so long to be rid of it Rom. 7.24 and lastly the beatifical vision and perfect fruition of the ever-blessed and all-glorious Trinity in the Heavenly Hieru salem among the innumerable company of Angels being admitted to the general Assembly and Church of the first-borne which are enrolled and written in Heaven and to God the Judge of all and to the spirits of just men made perfect and to Jesus the Mediator of the New Covenant in whose presence there is fulness of joy and at whose right hand are pleasures for evermore And thus my brethren after my measure as I could upon so short notice of about a day though not so full after my desires as I would in so great so learned and serious an Auditory have I dispatched my discourse upon the Scripture your candour will I hope connive at the want of polishing and entertain it as it is according to the weight and importance off the matter of it And may the God of grace reap the Total glory Amen FINIS The coherence Devision of the words Prospos Every man in the world is Gods Steward Proved 1. By what every one receiveth from God 2. By what God expects from every one Psal 24 1. Men do not waste his goods 2. That they do not abuse them to ill ends Luke 19 27. James 4 3. 3 To do him Homage Acts 10 33. 4 To return him fruit Matt. 21.33 Vse Two things required of a Steward 1. Dispensation Rom 13 4. Rom 1 14.1 Tim 5 8. 2. Right ordering of his dispensations Luk. 12.42 1. Faithfully Heb. 3.5 Exod. 32.19 2. VVisely Rom. 3.7 1 Tim. 3.17 Gen 18.19 Propos 2. All Gods stewards must give an account Two dayes of reckoning 1. In this life By the VVord Gen 3.11 1 King 19. Matt 3. Acts 2. By the rod. Job 33.14 Mic 6.9 Job 33.19 1 Cor 11.30 Psal 31.5 2 After this life A necessitie of a day of judgement 1. In respect of God his decree Acts. 17.31 Isa 46.10 His honour Eccles 3.16 2. In respect of the Saints 2 Thes 1.5 For the manifestation of their innocency For the reward of their works Mal. 3.17.18 3. In respect of the wicked For the manifestation of Gods righteous proceeding against them Rom. 2.5 For the perfecting of their punishment Why God is said to call all men to an account 1. Because he will proceed in particular Job 27.18 Jam. 5.1.2 James 4.3 Mat. 16. Mat. 5 22. Mat. 15.19 2. Because he will proceed by me hod and order Psal 50. Psal 51. Rom. 7. A direction in the exercise of repentance 3. Because he will proceed by books Dan. 10. Rev. 20. John 12.48 Jer. 17.1 4. Because God will exact of every one according to what he hath been trusted with Luke 12.48 Vse 1. For confutation Atheists in the Church 2 Pet. 3. Vse 2. For instruction 2. Not to judge others Rom. 14.10 1 Cor. 4.5 2. To judge our selves here A two sold reckoning to be made here 1. Reckon with out selves Jer. 8.6 Lam. 3.39 Psal 4. 2. Reckon with others 2. Sam. 12.3 Acts 20.26 Iames. 5.3 3. To Exercise daily repentance Acts 17.31 4. To get an interest in Christ Rom 8.1 Exod. 25.21 5. To lead a holy conversation 1 Pet. 3.11 2 Cor. 5.9 Acts 26.15 16. Vse 3. For Comfort James 5. Heb. 9.27 The Coherence The meaning of the words The devision of the words Observat 1. The death of others is a just occasion of Mourning Gen. 23.2 Gen. 27.41 Gen. 50.10 2. Sam. 25.1 Zach. 12.10 John 11. Act. 20.38 Reas 1. Reas 2. Ier. 5.3 Vse Object Answ A twofold distempe In mens affections 1.2 1 These 4.13 Deut. 14. Observat 2. Death the end of all men Iob 3.14 Zach. 1.5 Reas 1. In regard of Gods decree Reas 2. In regard of the matter whereof men are made Iob 13 12. Reas 3. In regard every man in him hath the cause of death Object Heb 11.5 2 King 2.11 Answ Object Answer Rom. 8.28 Matt. 22. Vse 1. Make account of it for our selves The benefit of the particular application of death to a mans selfe 1. Sin will be made more odious Rom. 5.11 2. The truth and justice of God will bee the more acknowledged 3. Death will be the b 〈◊〉 prepared for Job 14.14.5 Three things wherein here is oâ—… a particular application of â—…h to a man 1. In matter of sinning Acts 5. 2. In redeeming of the time of life 1 Cor. 10.35 Heb. 3 13. Gal. 6.10 3. In the manner of our conversation Vse 1 In respect of the death of others 1. To moderate our mourning for the death of others 2. To improve he life of others Observat 3. It is the duty of the living to lay to heart the death of others Reas 1.1 God is glorified hy it Psal 28.5 Reas 2. Our selves are benefited by it 1. Thereby we come to see the certainty of death 2. Thereby we come to see the nature of death The proper worke of death 1. To separate the body from the soule 2. To separate a man from his estate 3. To separate a man from his friends Gen. 23. 2 Sam. 1. â—… 1 Cor. 7.19 3. Thereby we come tosee the end and cause of death 1 Kings 14.13 2 Chro. 34.18 Isa 57.1 Ezek. 9.4 5. Vse 1 For reproof of the generall neglect of this duty Vse 2. For reproof 1. Of the excess of sorrow for dead freinds Judg. 8.24 Gen 31.30 2. Of the rash censuring of the manner of others death Luke 13.4 Eccles 9.2 Vse 3. For Instruction Luke 2.29 Observat Gods children are subject to the fear of death The outward causes of the fear of death 1. God