dependance on God nothing gives a more signal demonstration of a divine Power or Vengeance or Protection nothing is a greater blessing to Families or Kingdoms or a greater punishment to them than the life or death of a Parent of a Child of a Prince and therefore it is as necessary to reserve this Power to God as to assert a Providence There are two or three places of Scripture which are urged in favour of the contrary opinion 14 Job 5. Seeing his days are determined the number of his months are with thee thou hast appointed his bounds that he cannot pass 7 Job 1. Is there not an appointed time to man upon earth are not his days also like the days of an hireling Which refer not to the particular period of every Man's life but as I observed before to the general period of humane Life which is fixt and determined which is therefore called the days or the years of Man because God has appointed this the ordinary time of Man's life as when God threatens that the Wicked shall not live out half their days that is half that time which is allotted for men to live on Earth for they have no other interest in these days but that they are the days of a man and therefore might be their days too From what I have now discoursed there are two things very plainly to be observed 1. That men may contribute very much to the lengthening or shortning their own lives 2. That the Providence of God does peculiarly over-rule and determine this matter 1. As for the first there is no need to prove it for we see men destroy their own lives every day either by intemperance and lust or more open violence by forfeiting their lives to publick Justice or by provoking the Divine Vengeance and therefore who ever desires a long life to fill up the number of his days which God has allotted us in this World must keep himself from such destructive Vices must practise the most healthful Vertues must make God his Friend and engage his Providence for his defence Can any thing be more absurd than to hear men promise themselves long life and reckon upon forty or fifty years to come when they run into those Excesses which will make a quick and speedy end of them which will either inflame and corrupt their Bloud and let a Feavour or a Dropsy into their Veins or bring Rottenness into their Bones or engage them in some fatal Quarrel or ruine their Estates and send them to seek their fortune upon the Road which commonly brings them to the Gallows What a fatal Cheat is this which men put upon themselves especially when they sin in hope of time to repent and commit such sins as will give them no time to repent in The advice of the Psalmist is much better What man is he that desireth life and loveth many days that he may see good Keep thy tongue from evil and thy lips from speaking guile depart from evil and do good seek peace and persue it These are natural and moral causes of a long life but that is not all For the eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous and his ears are open unto their cry the face of the Lord is against them that do evil to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth That is God will prolong the lives of good Men and cut off the Wicked not that this is a general rule without exception but it is the ordinary method of Providence 34 Psal. 12 13 c. 2. For though God has not determined how long every man shall live by an absolute and unconditional Decree yet if a Sparrow does not fall to the ground without our Father much less does Man No man can go out of this World no more than he can come into it but by a special Providence no man can destroy himself but by God's leave no Disease can kill but when God pleases no mortal Accident can befal us but by God's appointment who is therefore said to deliver the Man into the hands of his Neighbour who is killed by any evil Accident 19 Deut. 4 5. Those wasting Judgments of Plague and Pestilence Famine and Sword are appointed by God and have their particular Commissions where to strike as we may see 26 Lev. 47. Ier. 6. 7. 65 Isai. 12. 15 Ierem. 2. 91 Psal. and several other places All the rage and fury of Men cannot take away our lives but by God's particular permission 10 Matth. 28 29 30 31. And this lays as great an obligation on us as the love of life can which is the dearest thing in this World to serve and please God this will make us secure from all fears and dangers My times saith David are in thy hand deliver me from the hand of mine enemies and from them that persecute me 31 Psal. 15. This encourages us to pray to God for ourselves or our Friends whatever danger our lives are in either from sickness or from men There is no case wherein he can't help us when he sees fit he can rectify the disorders of Nature and correct an ill habit of Body and rebuke the most raging Distempers which mock at all the Arts of Physick and powers of Drugs and many times does so by insensible methods To conclude this is a great satisfaction to good men that our lives are in the hands of God that though there be not such a fixt and immoveable Period set to them yet Death cannot come but by God's appointment SECT VI. The particular Time when we are to Die is unknown and uncertain to us III. THe particular time when any of us are to Die is unknown and uncertain to us and this is that which we properly call the uncertainty of our lives that we know not when we shall Die whether this night or to morrow or twenty years hence There is no need to prove this but only to mind you of it and to acquaint you what wise use you are to make of it 1. This shews how unreasonable it is to flatter ourselves with the hope of long life I mean of prolonging our lives near the utmost term and period of humane life which though it be but short in itself is yet the longest that any man can hope to live No wise man will promise himself that which he can have no reason to expect but what has very often failed others for let us seriously consider what reason any of us have to expect a long life is it because we are young and healthful and vigorous And do we not daily see young men die can youth or beauty or strength secure us from the arrests of Death is it because we see some men live to a great age But this was no security to those who died young and left a great many men behind them who had lived twice or thrice their age and therefore we also may see a great many old men and die young
the objects only of a subordinate fear or hope when the fear of man comes in competition with the fear of God it is wise counsel which the Prophet Isaiah gives Say ye not A confederacy to all them to whom this people shall say A confederacy neither fear ye their fear nor be afraid Sanctifie the Lord God of Hosts himself and let him be your fear and let him be your dread and he shall be for a sanctuary 8 Isai. 12 13 14. There is a vast difference between the power of God and men which is our Saviour's reason why we should fear God more than men Be not afraid of them who can kill the body and after that have no more that they can do but I will forewarn ye whom ye shall fear Fear him which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell yea I say unto you fear him 12 Luke 4 5. But whatever power men may have to hurt while they live they can do us no hurt when they are dead and their lives are so very uncertain that we may be quickly eased of those fears The same may be said with respect to hope and confidence in men though their word and promise were always sacred yet their lives are uncertain Their breath goeth forth they return to the earth in that very day their thoughts perish all the good and all the evil they intended to do But happy is he that hath the God of Iacob for his help whose hope is in the Lord his God which made heaven and earth the sea and all that therein is who keepeth truth for ever 146 Psal. 5. 6. 6. For a conclusion of this Argument I shall briefly vindicate the wisdom and goodness of God in concealing from us the time of our Death This we are very apt to complain of that our lives are so very uncertain that we know not to day but that we may die to morrow and we would be mighty glad to meet with any one who could certainly inform us in this matter how long we are to live but if we think a little better of it we shall be of another mind For 1. though I presume many of you would be glad to know that you shall certainly live twenty or thirty or forty years longer yet would it be any comfort to know that you must die to morrow or some few months or a year or two hence which may be your case for ought you know and this I believe you are not very desirous to know for how would this chill your blood and spirits how would it overcast all the pleasures and comforts of life You would spend your days like men under the sentence of Death while the execution is suspended Did all men who must die young certainly know it it would destroy the industry and improvements of half Mankind which would half destroy the World or be an insupportable mischief to Humane Societies For what man who knows that he must die at twenty or five and twenty a little sooner or later would trouble himself with ingenious or gainful Arts or concern himself any more with this World than just to live so long in it and yet how necessary is the service of such men in the World what great things do they many times do and what great improvements do they make how pleasant and diverting is their conversation while it is innocent how do they enjoy themselves and give life and spirit to the graver Age how thin would our Schools our Shops our Universities and all places of Education be did they know how little time many of them were to live in the World for would such men concern themselves to learn the Arts of living who must die as soon as they have learnt them Would any Father be at a great expence in educating his Child only that he might die with a little Latine and Greek Logick and Philosophy No half the World must be divided into Cloysters and Nunneries and Nurseries for the Grave Well you 'll say suppose that and is not this an advantage above all the inconveniencies you can think of to secure the salvation of so many thousands who are now eternally ruined by youthful Lusts and Vanities but would spend their days in Piety and Devotion and make the next World their only care if they knew how little while they were to live here Right I grant this might be a good way to correct the heat and extravagancies of Youth and so it would be to shew them Heaven and Hell but God does not think fit to do either because it offers too much force and violence to mens minds it is no trial of their vertue of their reverence for God of their conquests and victory over this World by the power of Faith but makes Religion a matter of necessity not of choice now God will force and drive no man to Heaven the Gospel-Dispensation is the trial and discipline of ingenuous Spirits and if the certain hopes and fears of another World and the uncertainty of our living here will not conquer these flattering temptations and make men seriously religious as those who must certainly die and go into another World and they know not how soon God will not try whether the certain knowledge of the time of their death will make them religious That they may die young and that thousands do so is reason enough to engage young men to expect death and prepare for it if they will venture they must take their chance and not say they had no warning of dying young if they eternally miscarry by their wilful delays And besides this God expects our youthful service and obedience though we were to live on till old Age that we may die young is not the proper much less the only reason why we should remember our Creator in the days of our youth but because God has a right to our youthful strength and vigour and if this will not oblige us to an early Piety we must not expect that God will set death in our view to fright and terrifie us as if the only design God had in requiring our obedience was not that we might live like reasonable Creatures to the glory of their Maker and Redeemer but that we might repent of our sins time enough to escape Hell. God is so merciful as to accept of returning Prodigals but does not think fit to encourage us in Sin by giving us notice when we shall die and when it is time to think of repentance 2dly Though I doubt not but that it would be a great pleasure to you to know that you shall live till old Age yet consider a little with yourselves and then tell me whether you yourselves can judge it wise and fitting for God to let you know this I observed to you before what danger there is in flattering ourselves with the hopes of long life that it is apt to make us too fond of this World when we expect to live
have no reason to think this any great hurt Nay indeed if we consider things aright the Divine Goodness has improved the Fall of Adam to the raising of Mankind to a more happy and perfect state for though Paradise where God placed Adam in Innocence was a happier state of life than this World freed from all the disorders of a mortal Body and from all the necessary cares and troubles of this Life yet you 'll all grant that Heaven is a happier place than an earthly Paradise and therefore it is more for our happiness to be translated from Earth to Heaven than to have lived always in an earthly Paradise You will all grant that the state of good men when they go out of these Bodies before the Resurrection is a happier life than Paradise was for it is to be with Christ as St. Paul tells us which is far better 1. Phil. 23. And when our Bodies rise again from the Dead you will grant they will be more glorious Bodies than Adam's was in Innocence For the first man was of the earth earthy but the second man is the Lord from heaven 1 Cor. 15. 47. Adam had an earthly mortal Body tho' it should have been immortal by Grace but at the Resurrection our Bodies shall be fashioned like unto Christ's most glorious Body The righteous shall shine forth like the sun in the kingdom of the Father that as we have born the image of the earthy we shall also bear the image of the heavenly 1 Cor. 15 49. So that our Redemption by Christ has infinitely the advantage of Adam's Fall and we have no reason to complain That by man came death since by man also came the resurrection of the dead That St. Paul might well magnifie the Grace of God in our Redemption by Christ above his Justice and Severity in punshing Adam's Sin with Death 5. Rom. 15 16 17. But not as the offence so also is the free gift For if through the offence of one many be dead much more the grace of God and the gift by grace which is by one man Iesus Christ hath abounded unto many And not as it was by one that sinned so is the gift for the judgment was by one to condemnation but the free gift is of many offences unto justification For if by one man's offence death reigned by one much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one Iesus Christ. Where the Apostle magnifies the Grace of God upon a fourfold account 1. That Death was the just Reward of Sin it came by the offence of one and was an act of Justice in God whereas our Redemption by Christ is the Gift of Grace the free Gift which we had no just claim to 2. That by Christ we are not only delivered from the effects of Adam's Sin but from the guilt of our own For though the judgement was by one to condemnation the free gift is of many offences unto justification 3. That though we die in Adam we are not barely made alive again in Christ but shall reign in life by one Iesus Christ which is a much happier Life than what we lost in Adam 4. That as we die by one man's offence so we live by one too By the righteousness of one the free gift comes upon all men unto justification of life We have no reason to complain that the Sin of Adam is imputed to us to Death if the Righteousness of Christ purchase for us eternal Life The first was a necessary consequence of Adam's losing Paradise the second is wholly owing to the Grace of God. Thus we see what it is that makes us mortal God did not make Death he created us in a happy and immortal state but by man sin entred into the world and death by sin What ever aversion then we have to Death should beget in us a greater horrour of Sin which did not only at first make us mortal but is to this day both the cause of Death and the Sting of it No degree indeed of Vertue now can preserve us from dying but yet Vertue may prolong our lives and make them happy while sin very often hastens us to the Grave and cuts us off in the very midst of our days An intemperate and lustful man destroys the most vigorous constitution of Body dies of a Feavour or a Dropsie of Rottenness and Consumptions others fall a Sacrifice to private Revenge or publick Justice or a Divine Vengeance for the wicked shall not live out half their days However setting aside some little natural aversions which are more easily conquered and Death were a very innocent harmless nay desirable thing did not Sin give a sting to it and terrifie us with the thoughts of that Judgment which is to follow quarrel not then at the Divine Justice in appointing Death God is very good as well as just in it but vent all your indignation against Sin pull out this sting of Death and then you will see nothing but smiles and charms in it then it is nothing but putting off these mortal Bodies to reassume them again with all the advantages of an immortal Youth It is certain indeed we must die this is appointed for us and the very certainty of our death will teach us that Wisdom which may help us to regain a better Immortality then we have lost SECT II. How to improve this Consideration that we must certainly Die. FOr 1. if it be certain that we must Die this should teach us frequently to think of Death to keep it always in our eye and view For why should we cast off the thoughts of that which will certainly come especially when it is so necessary to the good government of our lives to remember that we must die If we must die I think it concerns us to take care that we may die happily and that depends upon our living well and nothing has such a powerful influence upon the good government of our lives as the thoughts of Death I have already shewed you what Wisdom Death will teach us but no man will learn this who does not consider what it is to die and no man will practise it who does not often remember that he must die but he that lives under a constant sence of Death has a perpetual Antidote against the Follies and Vanities of this World and a perpetual Spur to Vertue When such a man finds his desires after this World enlarge beyond not onely the wants but the conveniencies of Nature Thou Fool says he to himself what is the meaning of all this what kindles this insatiable thirst of Riches why must there be no end of adding House to House and Field to Field is this World thy home is this thy abiding City dost thou hope to take up an eternal Rest here Vain man thou must shortly remove thy dwelling and then whose shall all these things be Death will shortly close thy eyes
Reason and by that time he has got a little Knowledge and is earnestly seeking after more by that time he knows what it is to be a Man and to what purpose he ought to live what God is and how much he is bound to Love and Worship him while he is ennobling his Soul with all Heavenly Qualities and Vertues and Coppying out the Divine Image when the Glories of Humane Nature begin to appear and to shine in him that is when he is most fit to live to serve God and Men then I say either this mortal Nature decays and dust returns to its dust again or some violent distemper or evil accident cuts him off in a vigorous age and when with great labour and industry he is become fit to live he must live no longer How is it possible to reconcile this with the Wisdom of God if man perishes when he dies if he ceases to be as soon as he comes to be a man. And therefore we have reason to believe that death only translates us into another World where the beginnings of Wisdom and Vertue here grow up into perfection and if that be a more happy place than this World as you have already heard we have no reason to quarrel that we live so little a while here For seting aside the Miseries and Calamities the troubles and inconveniencies of this Life which the happiest men are exposed to for our experience tells us that there is no complete and unmixt happiness here setting aside that this World is little else than a Scene of Misery to a great part of Mankind who struggle with want and poverty labour under the oppressions of Men or the pains and sicknesses of diseased Bodies yet if we were as happy as this World could make us we should have no reason to complain that we must exchange it for a much greater happiness We now call it death to leave this World but were we once out of it and enstated in the happiness of the next we should think it were dying indeed to come into it again We read of none of the Apostles who did so passionately desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ as St. Paul and there was some reason for it because he had had a tast of that happiness being snatched up into the third Heavens Indeed could we see the Glories of that place it would make us impatient of living here and possibly that is one reason why they are concealed from us but yet reason tells us that if death translate us to a better place the shortness of our lives here is an advantage to us if we take care to spend them well for we shall be the sooner possest of a much happier Life III. From this Notion of Death that it is our leaving this World I observe farther what this life is only a state of growth and improvement of trial and probation for the next There can be no doubt of this if we consider what the Scripture tells us of it that we shall be rewarded in the next World as we have behaved our selves in this That we shall receive according to what we have done in the Body whether good or evil Which proves that this life is only in order to the next that our eternal happiness or misery shall bare proportion to the good or evil which we have done here And when we only consider that after a short continuance here man must be removed out of this World if we believe that he does not utterly perish when he dies but subsists still in another state we have reason to believe that this life is only a preparation for the next For why should a man come into this World and afterwards be removed into another if this World had no relation nor subordination to the next Indeed it is evident that man is an improvable Creature not created at first in the utmost perfection of his Nature nor put into the happiest state he is capable of but trained up to perfection and happiness by degrees Adam himself in a state of innocence was but upon his good behaviour was but a probationer for Immortality which he forfeited by his sin and as I observed before it is most probable that had he continued innocent and refined and exalted his nature by the practise of Divine Vertues he should not have lived always in this World but have been translated into Heaven And I cannot see how it is inconsistent with the Wisdom of God to make some Creatures in a state of Probation that as the Angelical Nature was created so pure at first as to be fit to live in Heaven so Man though an earthly yet a reasonable Creature might be in a capacity by the improvement of his natural powers of advancing himself thither As it became the manifold Wisdom of God to create the Earth as well as the Heavens so it became his Wisdom to make Man to inhabitate this Earth for it was not fitting that any part of the World should be destitute of reasonable Beings to know and adore their Maker and to ascribe to him the glory of his Works but then since a reasonable Nature is capable of greater improvements than to live always in this World it became the Divine Goodness to make this World only a state of Probation and Discipline for the next that those who by a long and constant practice of Vertue had spiritualized their Natures into a Divine Purity might ascend into Heaven which is the true Center of all intelligent Beings This seems to be the original intention of God in making man and then this earthly life was from the beginning but a state of growth and improvement to make us fit for Heaven though without dying But to be sure the Scene is much alter'd now for Adam by his sin made himself mortal and corrupted his own nature and propagated a mortal and corrupt nature to his Posterity and therefore we have no natural right to Immortality nor can we refine our Souls into such a divine Purity as is fit for Heaven by the weakned and corrupted powers of Nature but what we cannot do Christ has done for us he has purchast Immortality for us by his Death and quickens and raises us into a new Life by his Spirit but since still we must die before we are immortal it is more plain than ever that this life is only in order to the next that the great business we have to do in this World is to prepare ourselves for Immortality and Glory Now if our life in this World be onely in order to another life we ought not to expect our complete Happiness here for we are only in the way to it we must finish the Work God has given us to do in this World and expect our reward in the next And if our reward cannot be had in this World we may conclude that there is something much better in the next World than any thing here If
benefit and the pleasures of them Do you think there are no pleasures proper to the Soul have we Souls that are good for nothing of no use to us but only to relish the pleasures of the Body Ask those who have tried what the pleasures of Wisdom and Knowledge are which does as much excel the pleasures of seeing as Truth is more beautiful and glorious than the Sun ask them what a pleasure it is to know God the greatest and best Being and the brightest Object of our minds to contemplate his Wisdom and Goodness and Power in the Works of Creation and Providence to be swallowed up in that stupendious Mystery of Love the Redemption of Sinners by the Incarnation and Sufferings of the Son of God ask them what the pleasures of Innocence and Vertue are what the Feast of a good Conscience means which is the greatest Happiness to give or to receive what the Joys even of Sufferings and Persecutions of Want and Poverty and Reproach are for the sake of Christ ask a devout Soul what transports and ravishments of Spirit he feels when he is upon his knees when with St. Paul he is even snatched up into the third Heavens filled with God overflowing with praises and divine joys And does it not then become a man who has a reasonable Soul to seek after these rational these manly these divine Pleasures the pleasures of the Mind and Spirit which are proper and peculiar to a reasonable Creature Let him do this and then let him enjoy the pleasures of the Body as much as he can which will be very insipid and tastless when his Soul is ravished with more noble delights In a word if we are so careful to preserve the life of our Bodies which we know must die and rot and putrifie in the Grave methinks we should not be less careful to preserve the life of our Souls which is the only immortal part of us for though our Souls cannot die as our Bodies do yet they may be miserable and that is called eternal Death where the Worm never dieth and the Fire never goeth out For to be always miserable is infinitely worse than not to be at all and therefore is the most formidable Death And if we are so unwilling to part with these mortal Bodies we ought in reason to be much more afraid to lose our Souls II. That Death is our putting off these Bodies teaches us That the Soul is the only principle of Life and Sensation The Body cannot live without the Soul but as soon as it is parted from it it loses all sence and motion and returns to its original Dust but the Soul can and does live without the Body and therefore there is the principle of Life This may be thought a very common and obvious Observation and indeed so it is but the consequences of this are not so commonly observed and yet are of great use and moment For 1. this shews us that the Soul is the best part of us that the Soul indeed is the Man because it is the only seat of Life and Knowledge and all Sensations for a Man is a living reasonable and understanding Being and therefore a living reasonable Soul not an earthly Body which has no life or sense but what it derives from the Soul must be the Man Hence in Scripture Soul so frequently signifies the Man thus we read of the Souls that were born to Iacob and the Souls that came with him into Aegypt 46. Gen. that is his Sons and Soul signifies our selves a Friend which is as thy own Soul that is as dear to us as our selves 13. Deut. 6. And Ionathan loved David as his own Soul that is as himself 1 Sam. 18. 3. For in propriety of Speech the Body has no sense at all but the Soul lives in the Body and feels all the motions and impressions of it so that it is the Soul only that is capable of Happiness or Misery of Pain or Pleasure and therefore it is the only concernment of a wise man to take care of his Soul as our Saviour tells us What shall it profit a man though he gain the whole world and lose his own soul or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul 16. Matth. 26. The reason of which is easily apprehended when we remember that the Soul only is capable of Happiness or Misery that it is the Soul which must enjoy every thing else And what can the whole World then signifie to him who has no Soul to enjoy it whose Soul is condemned to endless and eternal Miseries Such a miserable Soul is as uncapable of enjoying the World or any thing in it as if it had lost its being 2ly Hence we learn the true notion of bodily Pleasures that they are such pleasures as the Soul feels by its union to the Body for it is not the Body that feels the pleasures but the Soul though the Body be the instrument of them and therefore how fond soever we are of them we may certainly conclude that bodily pleasures are the meanest pleasures of humane nature because the union to these earthly Bodies is the meanest and most despicable state of reasonable Souls These are not its proper and genuine pleasures which must result from its own nature and powers but are only external impressions the light and superficial touches of matter and it would be very absurd to conceive that the Soul which is the onely subject of pleasure should have no pleasures of its own but borrow its whole Happiness from its affinity and alliance to Matter or that its greatest pleasures should be owing to external impressions not to the actings of its own natural faculties and powers Which may convince us as I observed before that the pleasures of the mind are much the greatest and noblest pleasures of the Man and he who would be truly happy must seek for it not in Bodily entertainments but in the improvements and exercise of Reason and Religion 3ly Hence we learn also that the Body was made for the Soul not the Soul for the Body as that which in it self has no Life and Sense is made for the use of that which has The Body is only a convenient habitation for the Soul in this World an Instrument of Action and a Tryal and Exercise of Vertue but the Soul is to use the Body and to govern it to tast its pleasures and to set bounds to them to make the Body serviceable to the ends and purposes of Reason and Vertue not to subject Reason to Passion and Sense If the Body was made for the use of the Soul it was never intended the Soul should wholly consorm it self to it and by its sympathy with corporeal Passions transform it self into a sensual and brutish nature Such degenerate Creatures are those who live only to serve the Body who value nothing else and seek for nothing else but how to gratifie their Appetites and Lusts which is to invert
and preserved a perpetual Youth but in this state we are now the Tree of Life could not preserve us immortal if a Sword or Poison can kill which shews us how impossible it was but that Sin and Death must come into the World together Man might have been immortal had he never sinned but brutish and ungovern'd passions will destroy us without a Miracle And therefore we have no reason now to quarrel at the Divine Providence that we are mortal for in the ordinary course of Providence it is impossible it should be otherwise III. Considering what the state of this World necessarily is since the Fall of Man an immortal Life here is not desireable No state ought to be immortal if it be designed as an act of favour and kindness but what is completely happy but this World is far enough from being such a state Some few years give wise men enough of it tho' they are not oppressed with any great Calamities and there are a great many Miseries which nothing but Death can give relief to This puts an end to the sorrows of the Poor of the Oppressed of the Persecuted it is a Haven of Rest after all the Tempests of a troublesome World it knocks off the Prisoners Shackles and sets him at liberty it dries up the Tears of the Widdows and Fatherless it cases the complaints of a hungry Belly and naked Back it tames the proudest Tyrants and restores Peace to the World it puts an end to all our Labours and supports men under their present Adversities especially when they have a prospect of a better life after this The labour and the misery of Man under the Sun is very great but it would be intolerable were it endless and therefore since Sin is entred into the World and so many necessary miseries and calamities attend it it is an act of Goodness as well as Justice in God to shorten this miserable life and transplant good men into a more happy as well as immortal State. IV. Since the Fall of Man Mortality and Death is necessary to the good Government of the World nothing else can give check to some mens Wickedness but either the fear of Death or the execution of it some men are so outragiously wicked that nothing can put a stop to them and prevent that mischief they do in the World but to cut them off This is the reason of capital punishments among men to remove those out of the World who will be a plague to Mankind while they live in it For this reason God destroyed the whole Race of Mankind by a Deluge of Water excepting Noah and his Family because they were incurably wicked For this reason he sends Plagues and Famines and Sword to correct the exorbitant growth of Wickedness to lessen the numbers of Sinners and to lay restraints on them And if the World be such a Bedlam as it is under all these restraints what would it be were it filled with immortal Sinners Ever since the Fall of Adam there always was and ever will be a mixture of good and bad men in the World and Justice requires that God should reward the Good and punish the Wicked But that cannot be done in this World for these present external Enjoyments are not the proper Rewards of Vertue There is no complete Happiness here man was never turned into this World till he sinned and was flung out of Paradise which is an argument that God never intended this World for a place of Reward and perfect Happiness nor is this World a proper place for the final punishment of bad Men because good Men live among them and without a Miracle bad Men cannot be greatly punished but good Men must share with them and were all bad Men punisht to their deserts it would make this World the very Image and Picture of Hell which would be a very unfit place for good Men to live and to be happy in As much as good Men suffer from the Wicked in this World it is much more tolerable then to have their ears filled with the perpetual cries of such miserable Sinners and their eyes terrified with such perpetual and amazing executions Good and bad Men must be separated before the one can be finally rewarded or the other punished and such a separation as this cannot be made in this World but must be reserved for the next So that considering the fallen State of Man it was not fitting it was not for the good of Mankind that they should be immortal here Both the Wisdom and Goodness and Justice of God required that Man should die which is an abundant Justification of this divine Decree That it is appointed for men once to die V. As a farther Justification of the Divine Goodness in this we may observe that before God pronounced that Sentence on Adam Dust thou art and to dust thou shalt return he expresly promised that the seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head 3. Gen. 15. In his Curse upon the Serpent who beguiled Eve I will put enmity between thee and the woman and between thy seed and her seed it shall bruise thy head and thou shalt bruise his heel Which contains the promise of sending Christ into the World who by death should destroy him who had the power of death that is the Devil and deliver them who through fear of death were all their life time subject to bondage i. e. before he denounces the Sentence of Death against Man he promises a Saviour and Deliverer who should triumph over Death and raise our dead Bodies out of the dust immortal and glorious Here is a most admirable mixture of Mercy and Judgment Man had forfeited an earthly Immortality and must die but before God would denounce the Sentence of Death against him he promises to raise up his dead Body again to a new and endless Life And have we any reason to complain then that God has dealt hardly with us in involving us in the sad consequences of Adam's Sin and exposing us to a temporal Death when he has promised to raise us from the Dead again and to bestow a more glorious Immortality on us which we shall never lose When Man had sinned it was necessary that he should die because he could never be completely and perfectly happy in this World as you have already heard and the only possible way to make him happy was to translate him into another World and to bestow a better Immortality on him This God has done and that in a very stupendious way by giving his own Son to die for us and now we have little reason to complain that we all die in Adam since we are made alive in Christ to have died in Adam never to have lived more had indeed been very severe upon Mankind but when death signifies only a necessity of going out of these Bodies and living without them for some time in order to re-assume them again immortal and glorious we
and then thou shalt not so much as see the God thou worshippest the Earth shall shortly cover thee and then thou shalt have thy mouth and belly full of clay and dust Such thoughts as these will cool our desires to this present World will make us contented when we have enough and very charitable and liberal of what we can spare For what should we do with more in this World than will carry us thorough it What better and wiser use can we make of such Riches as we cannot carry with us into the other World than to return them thither before hand in acts of Piety and Charity that we may receive the rewards and recompences of them in a better life that we may make to our selves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness that when we fail they may receive us into everlasting habitations When he finds his mind begin to swell and to encrease as his fortune and honours do Lord thinks he what a bubble is this which every breath of Air can blow away How vain a thing is Man in his greatest glory who appears gay and beautiful like a Flower in the Spring and is as soon cut down and withered Though we should meet with no change in our fortune here yet we shall suddenly be removed out of this World the scene of this life will change and there is an end of earthly Greatness And what a contemptible mind is that which is swelled with dying Honours which looks big indeed as a body does which is swelled out of all proportion with a Dropsy or Timpany but that is its Disease not a natural Beauty What am I better than the poorest Man who beggs an Alms unless I be wiser and more vertuous than he Can Lands and Houses great Places and Titles things which are not ours and which we cannot keep make such a mighty difference between one man and another are these the Riches are these the Beauties and Glories of a Spirit are we not all made of the same mould is not God the Father of us all must we not all die alike and lie down in the dust together and can the different parts we act in this World which are not so long as the Scene of a Play compared to an eternal Duration make such a vast difference between men This will make men humble and modest in the highest fortune as minding them that when they are got to the top-round of Honour if they keep from falling yet they must be carried down again and laid as low as the dust Thus when he finds the Body growing upon the Mind and intoxicating it with the love of sensual Pleasures he remembers that his Body must die and all these Pleasures must die with it that they are indeed killing Pleasures which kill a mortal Body before its time that it does not become a man who is but a Traveller in this World but a Pilgrim and a Stranger here to study Ease and Softness and Luxury that a Soul which must live for ever should seek after more lasting Pleasures which may survive the Funeral of the Body and be a spring of ravishing Joys when he is stript of Flesh and Blood. These are the thoughts which the consideration of Death will suggest to us as I have already shewed you And it is impossible for a man who has always these thoughts at hand to be much imposed on by the Pageantry of this World by the transient Honours and Pleasures of it It is indeed I think a very impracticable Rule which some men give To live always as if we were to die the next moment Our lives should always be as innocent as if we were immediately to give up our accounts to God but it is impossible to have always those sensible apprehensions of Death about us which we have when we see it approaching but though we cannot live as if we were immediately to die which would put an end not only to all innocent Mirth but to all the necessary Business of the World which I believe no dying man would concern himself for yet we may and we ought to live as those who must certainly die and ought to have these thoughts continually about us as a guard upon our actions For whatever is of such mighty consequence to us as Death is if it be certain ought always to give Laws to our Behaviour and Conversation 2ly If it be certain we must die the very first thing we ought to do in this World after we come to years of understanding should be to prepare for Death that whenever Death comes we may be ready for it This I confess is not according to the way of this World for dying is usually the last thing they take care of This is thought a little unseasonable while men are young and healthful and vigorous but besides the uncertainty of our lives and that it is possible while we delay Death may seize on us before we are provided for it and then we must be miserable for ever which I shall speak to under the next Head. I doubt not but to convince every considering man that an early Preparation for Death is the very best means to make our lives happy in this World while we do continue here Nor shall I urge here how a life of Holiness and Vertue which is the best and only Preparation for Death tends to make us happy in this World delivers us from all those Mischiefs which the wildness and giddiness of Youth and the more confirmed debaucheries of riper Years expose Men too for this is properly the commendation of Vertue not of an early Preparation for Death And yet this is really a great engagement and motive to prepare betimes for Death since such a Preparation for Death will put us to no greater hardships and inconveniencies than the practice of such Vertues as will prolong our lives preserve or increase our fortunes give us honour and reputation in the World and makes us beloved both by God and men But setting aside these things there are two advantages of an early Preparation for Death which contribute more to our Happiness than all the World besides 1. That it betimes delivers us from the fears of Death and consequently from most other fears 2ly That it supports us under all the troubles and calamities of this life 1. It betimes delivers us from the sears of Death and indeed it is then only a man begins to live when he is got above the fears of Death Were men thoughtful and considerate Death would hang over them in all their Mirth and Jollity like a fatal Sword by a single Hair it would sowre all their Enjoyments and strike terror into their hearts and looks But the security of most men is that they put off the thoughts of Death as they do their preparation for it they live secure and free from danger onely because they will not open their eyes to see it But these are such examples as no
wise man will propose to himself because they are not safe and there are so many occasions to put these men in mind of Death that it is a very hard thing not to think of it and when ever they do it chills their Blood and Spirits and draws a black and melancholly Veil over all the Glories in the World. How are such men surprized when any danger approaches when Death comes within view and shews his Sithe and only some few sands at the bottom of the Glass This is a very frightful sight to men who are not prepared to die and yet should they give themselves liberty to think in what danger they live every minute how many thousand accidents may cut them off which they can neither foresee nor prevent fear and horror and consternation would be their constant entertainment till they could think of Death without fear till they were reconciled to the thoughts of dying by great and certain hopes of a better life after death So that no man can live happily if he lives like a man with his thoughts and reason and consideration about him but he who takes care betimes to prepare for Death and another World Till this be done a wise man will see himself always in danger and then he must always fear but he is a happy man who knows and considers himself to be mortal and is not afraid to die his pleasures and enjoyments are sincere and unmixt never disturbed with a Hand writing upon the Wall nor with some secret qualms and misgivings of mind he is not terrified with present dangers at least not amazed and distracted with them A man who is delivered from the fears of Death fears nothing else in excess but God and fear is so troublesome a passion that nothing is more for the happiness of our lives than to be delivered from it 2. As a consequent of this an early Preparation for Death will support men under all the troubles and calamities of this life There are so many troubles that Mankind are exposed to in this World that no man must expect to escape them all nay there are a great many troubles which are unsupportable to humane Nature which there can be no releif for in this World The hopes and expectations of a better life are in most cases the safest retreat a man may bear his present sufferings with some courage when he knows that he shall quickly see an end of them that Death will put an end to them and place him out of their reach For there the wicked cease from troubling and there the weary be at rest there the prisoners rest together they hear not the voice of the oppressor the small and great are there and the servant is free from his master 3. Job 17 18 19. So that in many cases the thoughts and expectations of Death is the only thing that can support us under present sufferings but while the thoughts of Death itself are terrible to us this will be a poor comfort Men who are under the sence of guilt are more afraid of Death than they are of all the Evils of this World Whatever their present sufferings are they are not so terrible as lakes of fire and brimstone the worm that never dieth and the fire that never goeth out So that such men while they are under the fears and terrors of Death have nothing to support them under present miseries The next World which Death puts us into the possession of is a very delightful prospect to good men there they see the rewards of their labour and sufferings of their faith and patience They can suffer shame and reproach and take joyfully the spoiling of their goods since these light afflictions which are but for a season will work for them a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory But men who are not prepared to die while they are afraid of Death can find no relief in the thoughts of it and therefore want the greatest support that we can have in this life against the sufferings of it The sooner we prepare to die the sooner we are delivered from the fears of Death and then the hope of a better life will carry us chearfully through this World whatever storms we meet with 3ly Since we must certainly die it makes it extreamly reasonable to sacrifice our lives to God whenever he calls for them that is rather to chuse to die a little before our time then to renounce God or to give his Worship to Idols or any created Beings or to corrupt the Faith and Religion of Christ There are arguments indeed enough to encourage Christians to Martyrdom when God calls them to suffer for his sake the love of Christ in dying for us is a sufficient reason why we should chearfully die for him and the great rewards of Martyrdom that glorious Crown which is reserved for such Conquerors made the Primitive Christians ambitious of it It is certain there is no hurt in it nay that it is a peculiar favour to die for Christ because those persons who were most dear to him were crowned with Martyrdom but our present argument shews us at what an easie rate we may purchase so glorious a Crown for we part with nothing for it We die for God and we must die whether we die Martyrs or not and what man then who knows he must die and believes the rewards of Martyrdom can think it so terrible to die a Martyr No good Christian can think that he loses any thing by the bargain to exchange this life for a better for as many years as he goes sooner out of this World then he should have done by the course of Nature so many years he gets sooner to Heaven and I suppose that is no great loss It is indeed a noble expression of our love to God and our entire obedience and subjection to him and of a perfect trust in him to part with our lives for his sake but what can a man who knows he must die do less for God then this to part with a life which he cannot keep willingly to lay down a life for God which would shortly be taken from him whether he will or not 4ly This shews us also what little reason we have to be afraid of the power of Men the utmost they can do is to kill the Body a mortal Body which will die whether they kill it or not which is no mighty argument of power no more than it is to break a brittle Glass nor any great hurt to us no more than it is to die which we are all born to and which is no injury to a good man and therefore our Saviour's counsel is very reasonable 12. Luke 4 5. Be not afraid of them who kill the body and after that have no more that they can do but I will forewarn you whom you shall fear Fear him which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell yea I say unto you fear
him This is very reasonable when the fear of God and men is opposed to each other which is the only case our Saviour supposes No man ought foolishly to fling away his life nor to provoke and affront Princes who have the power of Life and Death this is not to die like a Martyr but like a Fool or a Rebel But when a Prince threatens Death and God threatens Damnation then our Saviour's counsel takes place not to fear men but God for indeed God's power in this is equal to mens at least men can kill for men are mortal and may be killed and this is only for a mortal Creature to die a little out of order but God can kill too and thus far the case is the same It is true most men are of the mind in such a case rather to trust God then men because he does not always punish in this World nor execute a speedy vengeance And yet when our Saviour takes notice that God kills as well as men it seems to intimate to us that such Apostates who rather chuse to provoke God then men may meet with their deserts in this World for no man is secure that God will not punish him in this World and Apostates of all others have least reason to expect it Those who renounce God for fear of men are the fittest persons to be examples of a sudden Vengeance But then when men have killed they can do no more they cannot kill the Soul and here the power of God and men is very unequal for when he has killed he can cast both Body and Soul into Hell fire This is a very formidable power indeed and we have reason to fear him but the power of men who can only kill a mortal Body is not very terrible it ought not to fright us into any sin which will make us obnoxious to that more terrible Power which can destroy the Soul. CHAP. III. Concerning the Time of our Death and the proper Improvement of it LEt us now consider the time of our Death which is once but when uncertain Now when I say the time of our Death is uncertain I need not tell you that I mean only it is uncertain to us that is that no man knows when he shall die for God certainly knows when we shall die because he knows all things and therefore with respect to the foreknowledge of God the time of our Death is certain Thus much is certain as to Death that we must all die and it is certain also that Death is not far off because we know our lives are very short before the Flood men lived many hundred years but it is a great while now since the Psalmist observed that the ordinary term of humane life had very narrow bounds set to it The days of our years are threescore years and ten and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years yet is their strength labour and sorrow for it is soon cut off and we flie away 90. Psal. 10. There are some exceptions from this general Rule but this is the ordinary period of humane life when it is spun out to the greatest length and therefore within this term we may reasonably expect it for in the ordinary course of Nature our Bodies are not made to last much longer Thus far we are certain but then how much of this time we shall run out how soon or how late we shall die we know not for we see no age exempted from Death some expire in the Cradle and at their Mother's Breasts others in the heat and vigour of youth others survive to a decrepit age and it may be follow their whole Family to their Graves Death very often surprizeth us when we least think of it without giving us any warning of its approach and that is proof enough that the time of our Death is unknown and uncertain to us But these things deserve to be particularly discoursed and therefore with reference to the time of our Death I shall observe these four things not so much to explain them for most of them are plain enough of themselves as to improve them for the government of our lives I. That the general Period of Humane Life which is the same thing with the Time of our Death is fixt and determin'd by God. II. That the particular time of every Man's Death though it be foreknown by God who foreknows all things yet it does not appear that it is peremtorily decreed and determined by God. III. That the particular time when any of us shall die is unknown and uncertain to us IV. That we must die but once It is appointed for all men once to die SECT I. That the general Period of Humane Life is fixt and determin'd by GOD and that it is but very short I. THat the general Period of Humane Life which is the same thing with the Time of our Death is fixt and determin'd by God That is there is a time set to humane Life beyond which no man shall live as Iob speaks 14 Job 5. His days are determined the number of his months are with thee thou hast appointed his bounds that he cannot pass Which does not refer to the period of every particular man's life but is spoken of Man in general that there are fixt bounds set to humane Life which no man can exceed What these bounds are God has not expresly declared but that must be learnt from Observation Such a time as most commonly puts a period to mens lives who live longest may generally pass for the common measure of humane Life though there may be some few exceptions Before the Flood no man lived a thousand years and therefore we may conclude that the longest term of humane Life after the Sentence of Death was passed on man was confined within a thousand years Methusalah who was the longest liver lived but nine hundred sixty nine years and he died so that no man ever lived a thousand years And comparing this Observation with that Promise of a thousand years reign with Christ which is called the first Resurrection and is the portion only of Martyrs and Confessors and pure and sincere Christians 20 Revel I have been apt to conclude that to live a thousand years is the priviledge only of immortal Creatures that if Adam had continued innocent he should have lived no longer on Earth but have been translated to Heaven without dying for this thousand 's years reign of the Saints with Christ whatever that signifies seems to be intended as a reparation of that Death which they fell under by Adam's sin but then these thousand years do not put an end to the happiness of these glorious Saints but they are immortal Creatures and though this reign with Christ continues but a thousand years their happiness shall have no end though the Scene may change and vary for over such men the second death hath no power Or else this thousand years reign with Christ must
signifie an eternal and unchangable Kingdom a thousand years being a certain earnest of Immortality but there is an unreasonable Objection against that because we read of the expiring of these thousand years and what shall come after them even the final Judgment of all the World. But this is a great Mystery which we must not hope perfectly to understand till we see the blessed accomplishment of it But though before the Flood some persons lived very near the thousand years yet after the Flood the term of life was much shortned Some think this was done by God when he pronounced that Sentence 6 Gen. 3. And the Lord said My spirit shall not always strive with man for that he also is flesh yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years As if God had then decreed that the life of man should not exceed an hundred and twenty years but this does not agree with that account we have of mens lives after the Flood for not only Noah and his Sons who were with him in the Ark lived much longer than this after the Flood but Arphazad lived five hundred and thirty years Salah four hundred and three years Eber four hundred and thirty years and Abraham himself a hundred seventy five years and therefore this hundred and twenty years cannot refer to the ordinary term of man's life but to the continuance of God's patience with that wicked World before he would bring the Flood upon them to destroy that corrupt Generation of Men that is that he would bear with them a hundred and twenty years before he would send the Flood to destroy them But afterwards by degrees life was shortned insomuch that though Moses himself lived a great deal longer yet if the 90 Psalm were composed by him as the Title tells us it was the ordinary term of life in his days was but threescore and ten or fourscore years 10 v. The days of our years are threescore years and ten and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years yet is their strength labour and sorrow so soon passeth it away and it is gone And this has continued the ordinary measure of life ever since which is so very short that David might well say Behold thou hast made my days as an hand-breadth and mine age is as nothing before thee verily every man at his best estate is altogether vanity 39 Psal. 5. I shall not scrupulously inquire into the reason of this great change why our lives are reduced into so narrow a compass Some will not believe that it was so but think that there is a mistake in the manner of the account that when they are said to live eight or nine hundred years they computed their years by the Moon not by the Sun that is their years were months twelve of which make but one of our years and then indeed the longest livers of them did not live so long as many men do at this day for Methusalah himself who lived nine hundred sixty nine years according to this computation of months for years lived but fourscore years and five months But it is very absurd to imagine that Moses should use two such different accounts of time that sometimes by a year he should mean no more than a month and sometimes twelve months without giving the least notice of it which is unpardonable in any Historian And therefore others complain much that they were not born in those days when the life of man was prolonged for so many hundred years There had been some comfort in living then when they enjoyed all the vigour and gaiety of youth and could relish the pleasure of life for seven eight or nine hundred years A blessing which men would purchase at any rate in our days but now we can scarce turn ourselves about in the World but we are admonished by gray Hairs or the sensible decays of Nature to prepare for our Winding-sheet And therefore for the farther improvement of this argument I shall 1. shew you what little reason we have to complain of the Shortness of Life 2. What wise use we are to make of it SECT II. What little reason we have to complain of the Shortness of Humane Life 1. WHat little reason we have to complain of the Shortness of Life and the too hasty Approaches of Death to us For 1. such a long Life is not reconcileable with the present State of the World. And 2ly our Lives are long enough for all the wise purposes of living 1. Such a long Life is not reconcileable with the present state of the World. What the state of the World was before the Flood in what manner they lived and how they employed their time we cannot tell for Moses has given no account of it but taking the World as it is and as we find it I dare undertake to convince those men who are most apt to complain of the shortness of Life that it would not be for the general Happiness of Mankind to have it much longer For 1. the World is at present very unequally divided some have a large share and portion of it others have nothing but what they earn by very hard Labour or extort from other mens Charity by their restless Importunities or gain by more ungodly Arts Now though the Rich and Prosperous who have the World at command and live in ease and pleasure would be very well contented to spend some hundred years in this World yet I should think fifty or threescore years abundantly enough for Slaves and Beggars enough to spend in Hunger and Want in a Jaol and a Prison And those who are so foolish as not to think this enough owe a great deal to the wisdom and goodness of God that he does So that the greatest part of Mankind have great reason to be contented with the shortness of Life because they have no temptation to wish it longer 2ly The present state of this World requires a more quick Succession the World is pretty well peopled and is divided among its present Inhabitants and but very few in comparison as I observed before have any considerable share in the division Now let us but suppose that all our Ancestors who lived an hundred or two hundred years ago were alive still and possessed their old Estates and Honours what had become of this present Generation of Men who have now taken their places and make as great a show and busle in the World as they did And if you look back three or four or five hundred years the case is still so much the worse the World would be over-peopl'd and where there is one poor miserable man now there must have been five hundred or the World must have been common and all men reduced to the same level which I believe the rich and happy People who are so fond of long Life would not like very well This would utterly undo our young prodigal Heirs were their hopes of Succession three or four hundred
make up that defect and when we have done with the World to give up ourselves wholly to the service of God We should now be very importunate in our Prayers to God that for the Merits and Intercession of Christ he would freely pardon all the Sins and Frailties and Errors of our past life and give us such a comfortable hope and sence of his love to us as may support us in the hour of Death and sweeten the terrors and agonies of it We should meditate on the great love of God in sending Christ into the World to save Sinners and contemplate the height and depth and length and breadth of that love of God which passeth all humane Understanding We should represent to ourselves the wonderful condescension of the Son of God in becoming Man his amazing goodness in dying for Sinners the Just for the Unjust to reconcile us to God And when we have warmed our Souls with such thoughts as these we should break forth into raptures and extasies of Devotion in the praise of our Maker and Redeemer Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honour and glory and blessing Blessing and honour and glory and power be unto him that sitteth on the throne and to the Lamb for ever and ever 5 Revel 12 13. And besides other reasons which makes this a very proper Preparation for Death this accustoms us to the work and employment of the next World for Heaven is a life of Devotion and Praise there we shall see God and admire and adore him and sing eternal Halelujahs to him and therefore nothing can so dispose and prepare us for Heaven as to have our hearts ready tuned to the praises of God ravished with his love transported with his glory and perfections and swallowed up in the most profound and humble adorations of him 3. Thus when we are going into another World it becomes us most to have our thoughts there to consider what a blessed place that is where we shall be delivered from all the fears and sorrows and temptations of this World where we shall see God and the Blessed Jesus and converse with Angels and glorified Spirits and live an endless life without fear of dying where there is nothing but perfect love and peace no cross interests and factions to contend with no storms to ruffle or discompose our joy and rest to Eternity where there is no pain no sickness no labour no care to refresh the weariness or to repair the decays of a mortal Body not so much as the image of Death to interrupt our constant enjoyments where there is a perpetual day and an eternal calm where our Souls shall attain their utmost perfection of Knowledge and Vertue where we shall serve God not with dull and sleepy and unaffecting Devotion but with piercing thoughts with life and vigour with ravishment and transport in a word where there are such things as neither eye hath seen nor ear heard neither hath it entred into the heart of man to conceive These are proper thoughts for a man who is to compose himself for Death not to think of the pale and ghastly looks of Death when he shall be wrapt up in his Winding-sheet not to think of the dark and melancholly retirements of the Grave where his Body must rot and putrifie till it be raised up again immortal and glorious but to lift up his eyes to Heaven to view that lightsom and happy Country with Moses to ascend up into the Mount and take a prospect of the heavenly Canaan whither he is going This will conquer even the natural aversions to Death and make us with St. Paul desirous to be dissolved and to be with Christ which is best of all make it as easie to us to leave this World for Heaven as it is to remove into a more pleasant and wholesome Air or into a more convenient and beautiful House so easie so pleasant will it be to die with such thoughts as these about us This indeed ought to be the constant Exercise of the Christian Life it is fit for all times and for all persons and without some degree of it it is impossible to conquer the Temptations of the World or to live in the practice of divine and heavenly Vertues But this ought to be the constant business or entertainment rather of those happy men who have lived long enough in the World to take a fair leave of it who have run through all the Scenes and Stages of Humane Life and have now Death and another World in view and prospect And it is this makes a Retirement from the World so necessary or very useful not meerly to ease our bodily labours and to get a little rest from business to dissolve in sloth and idleness or to wander about to seek a Companion or to hear News or to talk Politicks or to find out some way to spend time which now lies upon their hands and is more uneasy and troublesom to them than business was This is a more dangerous state and does more indispose them for a happy Death than all the cares and troubles of an active Life but we must retire from this World to have more leisure and greater opportunities to prepare for the next to adorn and cultivate our Minds and dress our Souls like a Bride who is adorned to meet her Bridegroom When men converse much in this World and are distracted with the cares and business of it when they live in a crowd of Customers or Clients and are hurried from their Shops to the Exchange or Custom-house or from their Chambers to the Bar and when they have discharged one obligation are pressed hard by another that at night they have hardly Spirits left to say their Prayers nor any time for them in the morning and the Lord's Day itself is thought more proper for Rest and Refreshment than Devotion I say what dull cold apprehensions must such men have of another World And after all the care we can take how will this World insinuate itself into our affections when it imploys our time and thoughts when our whole business is buying and selling and driving good Bargains and making Conveyances and Settlements of Estates How will this disorder our Passions occasion Feuds and Quarrels give us a tincture of Pride Ambition Covetuousness that there is work enough after a busie life even for very good men to wash out these stains and pollutions and to get the tast and relish of this World out of their mouths and to revive and quicken the sence of GOD and of another World. This is a sufficient reason for such men as I observed before to think when it is time to leave off and if not wholly to withdraw from the World yet to contract their business and to have the command of it that they may have more leisure to take care of their Souls before they have so near a call and
lives wast and the other World grows near so we should recover a more lively sence of it yet we find it quite otherwise When men have been used to think the next World a great way off they will never think it near till it comes and when they have been used to think of the other World without any passion or concernment for it it is almost an impossible thing to give any quickness and passion to such thoughts for when any thoughts and the passion that properly belongs to such thoughts have been a great while separated it is a hard thing to unite them again to begin to think of that with passion and concern which we have been used for thirty or forty years to think of without any concernment 3. Another dangerous effect of flattering ourselves with long life is that it encourages men to sin with the vain hopes and resolutions of repenting before they die When men are convinced that if they live and die in sin they must be miserable for ever as I believe most profest Christians are as I am sure all must be who believe the Gospel of our Saviour there is no other possible way to ward off this blow and to sin securely under such Convictions but by resolving to repent and to make their peace with God before they die They flatter themselves they have a great while yet to live Judgment is a great way off and therefore they may indulge themselves a while and enjoy the sweets of sin and gratifie their youthful inclinations and learn the Vanity of the World by experience as their Forefathers have done before them and then they will grow as wise and grave and declaim against the Follies and Vanities of Youth and be as penitent and as devout and religious as any of them all Whoever considers the uncertainty of Humane Life if he should hear men talk at this rate would either conclude that they were mad or merrily disposed but could never guess that they were in their wits and in good earnest too but if he will allow men to be in their wits who can promise themselves long life when they see every day how uncertain life is and if we will not allow such men to be in their wits above two thirds of the World are mad this gives a plain account how men may resolve to sin while they are young and to repent when they are old for it is only the flattering hopes of long life that can encourage men in a course of sin Men indeed who do not promise themselves long life may commit a particular sin and resolve to repent of it as soon as they have done which are a more modest sort of Sinners of which more presently but I speak now of those and too many such there are who resolve to take their fill of this World while youth and strength and health last and to grow sober and religious when they grow old the consequent of which is that they resolve to be damned unless they live till they are old or till they grow weary of their sins and learn more wisdom by age and experience Now I shall not insist at present upon the hazard such men run of not living till the time comes which they have allotted for their repentance which belongs to another Argument but onely what a dangerous thing it is to be tempted to a custom and habit of sinning by the hope of long life and of time enough to repent in for there is not a greater Cheat in the World that men put upon themselves than to indulge themselves in all manner of Wickednesses to contract strong and powerful habits of Vice with a resolution to repent of their sins and to forsake them before they die The experience of the World sufficiently proves how vain this is for though some such men may live while they are old how seldom is it seen that they repent of their youthful Debaucheries when they grow old They still retain their love and affection for those sins which they can commit no longer and repent of nothing but that they are grown old and cannot be so wicked as they were when they were young And is there any reason in the World to expect it should be otherwise Do we not know what the power of habit and custom is how the love of sin increases with the repeated commission of it and is the spending our youthful strength and vigour in sin likely to dispose and prepare us to be sincere Penitents when we grow old Do we not see that a custom of sinning in some men destroys the modesty of humane Nature in others all sence of God and of Religion or of the natural differences of good and evil Some men sin on till they despise repentance others till they think repentance is too late so that though men were sure that they should live long enough to grow wiser and to repent and reform the sins and extravagances of youth yet no man who enters upon a wicked course of life has any reason to expect that he shall ever repent and therefore it is extreamly dangerous to flatter ourselves into a habit and custom of sinning with the hopes and expectations that we shall live to repent of our sins and if this be dangerous it must be very dangerous to flatter ourselves with the hopes of long life which is the great temptation to men to sin on and to delay their repentance till old age 2. Since the time of our Death is so unknown and uncertain to us we ought always to live in expectation of it to be so far from promising ourselves long life that we should not promise ourselves a day And the reason for it is plain and necessary because we are not sure of a day This you 'll say is hard indeed to live always in expectation of dying which is no better then dying every day or enduring the repeated fears and terrors of Death every day which is the most uncomfortable part of dying at this rate we never live but instead of dying once as God has appointed we are always a dying nay this indeed is a fine saying but signifies nothing for no man does it nor can do it though we may die every day we see that men live on forty fifty threescore years and therefore though we know that our lives are uncertain yet no man can think every day that he shall die to day This is very true and therefore to live always in expectation of dying does not signifie a belief that we shall die to day but only that we may which answers the objection against the uncomfortableness of it for such an expectation as this has nothing of dread and terror in it but only prudence and caution Men may live very comfortably and enjoy all the innocent pleasures of life with these thoughts about them to expect Death every day is like expecting Thieves every night which does not disturb our rest but
have a shorter period than our Lives and we may wander about in this World as the Israelites did in the Wilderness under an irreversible doom and sentence And the scope of the Apostle's argument seems to require this sence which is to engage them to a speedy repentance To day if you will hear his voice harden not your hearts But why to day is it because our Lives are uncertain and we may die before to morrow No but lest we provoke GOD to swear in his wrath that we shall not enter into his rest All Men know that if they die in a state of Sin they must be miserable for ever and this is a reason to repent before they die But the Apostle seems to argue farther that by their delays and repeated provocations they may tempt God to shorten their day of Grace and pronounce an irrevocable Sentence on them which leaves no place for Repentance which else where he inforces from the example of Esau who sold his Birth-right 12 Heb. 15 16 17. v. Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you and thereby many be desiled Lest there be any fornicator or prophane person as Esau who for one morsel of meat sold his birth-right For ye know how that afterward when he would have inherited the blessing he was rejected for he found no place of repentance though he sought it carefully with tears The stating of this matter may be thought a Digression from my present Design but indeed it is not for if by to day be meant the whole time of this Life that proves that Death puts a final period to our day of Grace and if any shorter period than this Life be meant by it it proves it much stronger for if our sentence be passed before we die it will not be revoked after death But the stating this Question is a matter of so great consequence to us that if it were a Digression it were very pardonable for many devout Minds when they are disturbed and clouded with melancholy are afflied with such thoughts as these That their day of Grace is past that God has sworn in his wrath that they shall not enter into his Rest and therefore their repentance and tears will be as fruitless as Esau's were which could not obtain the Blessing Now for the resolving this Question I shall say these three things 1. That the Day of Grace according to the terms of the Gospel is commensurate with our Lives 2. That notwithstanding this Men may shorten their own Day of Grace and God may in wrath and justice confirm the Sentence 3. That the reasons for lengthning the Day of Grace together with our Lives do not extend to the other World and therefore Death must put a final period to it 1. That the Day of Grace according to the Terms of the Gospel is commensurate with our Lives and there needs no other proof of this but that the promise of Pardon and Forgiveness is made to all true Penitents without any limitation of time Whoever believes in Christ and repents of his sins he shall be saved this is the Doctrine of the Gospel And if this be true then it is certain that at what time soever a Sinner sincerely repenteth of his sins he shall be saved for otherwise some true and sincere Penitents if they repent too late after the day of Grace is expired shall be damned and then it is not true that all sincere Penitents shall be saved I know but one Objection against this from the example of Esau who having sold his Birth-right when afterwards he would have inherited the blessing was rejected for he found no place for repentance though he sought it carefully with tears It seems then that Esau repented too late and so may we his repentance would not be accepted And if we are concerned in this example as the Apostle intimates we are then we may repent of our sins when it is too late and lose the Blessing as Esau did But this Objection is founded on a mistake of Esau's case the Repentance here mentioned is not Esau's Repentance but Isaac's that is when Isaac had blessed Iacob Esau with all his tears and importunity could not make him recal it i. e. Isaac would not repent of the blessing he had given to Iacob I have blessed him yea and he shall be blessed 27 Gen. 33. Esau's case then was not that his Repentance came too late to be accepted but that he could not obtain the Blessing after he had sold his Birth-right to which the Blessing was annexed Now to apply this to the state of Christians that which answers to Esau's Birth-right is their right and title to future Glory being made the Sons of God by baptismal Regeneration and Faith in Christ to sell this Birth-right is to part with our hopes of Heaven for the pleasures or riches or honours of this World as Esau sold his Birth-right for one morsel of Meat that is as the Apostle speaks to fail of the grace of God either through Unbelief which he calls the root of bitterness a renouncing the Faith of Christ and returning to Iudaism or Pagan Idolatries or by an impure and wicked Life Lest there be any fornicater or prophane person as Esau who for one morsel of meat sold his birth-right i. e. who despises the hopes of Heaven for the sinful pleasures and transient enjoyments of this World Men who thus fail of the grace of God and finally do so as Esau finally sold his Birth-right when our heavenly Father comes to give his Blessing those great rewards he has promised in his Gospel how importunate soever they shall then be for a Blessing as Esau was who sought it carefully with tears they shall find no place for repentance God will not alter his purposes and decrees for their sakes Our Saviour has given us a plain Comment on this 7 Mat. 21 22 23. Not every one that saith unto me Lord Lord shall enter into the kingdom of heaven but he that doth the will of my Father which is in heaven Many will say unto me at that day that is the Day of Judgment when the Blessing is to be given Lord Lord have we not prophesied in thy name and in thy name cast out devils and in thy name done many wonderful works Here is Esau's Importunity for the Blessing And then will I profess unto them I never knew you depart from me ye that work iniquity They were profane Esau's who had sold their Birth-right for a morsel of Meat and now they found no place for Repentance our Lord will not be perswaded by all their importunities to alter his Sentence But depart from me ye that work iniquity This example then of Esau does not concern our present case it does not prove that a wicked Man who hath spent the greatest part of his Life in sin and folly shall not be accepted and rewarded by
done but once for their whole lives especially if the happiness of their whole lives depends on it for no errour can be corrected in what is to be done but once and certainly we have much more reason to prepare to die once which translates us to an immutable state of Happiness or Misery This ought to be the work and business of our whole lives to prepare for Death which comes but once but that once is for Eternity What unpardonable folly is it for any Man to be surprized by Death to fall into the Grave without thinking of it To commit a mistake which may be retrieved again to be guilty of some neglect and inadvertency when the hurt we suffer by it may be repair'd by future diligence and caution is much more excusable because it is not so fatal and irreparable a folly In this case experience may teach wisdom and wisdom is a good purchase though we may pay dear for it but a wise Man will use great caution in making an experiment which if it fail will cost him his life because that can never be tried a second time and experience is of no use in such things as can be done but once And this is the case of dying we can die but once and if we miscarry that once we are undone for ever And what considering Man would make such dangerous experiments as Sinnres do every day when their Souls are the price of the experiment Who would try how long Death will delay its coming how long he may sin on safely without thinking of Death or Judgment whether Death will give him timely notice to repent or whether God will give him grace to repent if it does Who would venture the infinite hazards of a Death-bed-repentance whether after a long life of sin and wickedness a few distracted confused and almost despairing sighs and groans will carry him to Heaven If such bold Adventurers as these when they have discovered their mistake and folly could return back into this World and live over their lives again the hazard were not so great but this is an experiment not to be twice made If they sin on till they harden themselves in sin and are forsaken of the Grace of God if Death comes long before they expected and cut them off by surprize and without warning if their dying and despairing Agonies and Horrours should not prove a true godly Sorrow not that repentance to salvation never to be repented of they are lost to Eternity And what wise Man would expose his Soul to such a hazard as this Who would not take care to make his Calling and Election sure before Death comes and in a matter of such infinite concernment wherein one miscarriage is irreparable to prevent danger at a distance 2dly We hence learn how necessary it is for those who begin well to persevere unto the end It is the conclusion of our lives which determines our future state as God expresly tells us by his Prophet Ezekiel 18 Ezek. 21 24. If the wicked will turn from all his sins that he hath committed and keep my statutes and do that which is lawful and right he shall surely live he shall not die all his transgressions that he hath committed they shall not be mentioned unto him in his righteousness that he hath done he shall live But when the righteous turneth away from his righteousness and committeth iniquity and doth according to all the abominations that the wicked man doth shall he live all the righteousness that he hath done shall not be mentioned in his trespass that he hath trespassed and in his sin that he hath sinned in them shall he die And throughout the New Testament the reward is promised only to those who continue to the end And what I have now discoursed gives a plain account of this for our whole life is a state of trial and probation and if we leave off before our work be done if we stop or run backwards before we come to the end of our race we must lose our reward our crown the Christian Life is a state of Warfare and we know the last Battel gives the final Conquest and this cannot be otherwise because what comes last undoes what went before when a wicked Man turns from his wickedness and does good God in infinite Mercy thro' the Merits and Mediation of Christ will forgive his sins because he has put them away from him and undone them by repentance and a new life when a righteous Man turns from his righteousness and does wickedly his righteousness shall be forgotten because he has renounced it and parted with it and is a righteous Man no longer Now when God comes to judge the World he will judge Men as he then finds them he will not inquire what they have been but what they are he will not condemn a righteous Man because he has been wicked nor justifie a wicked Man because he has been righteous for this would be to punish the Righteous and to reward the Wicked Such as we are when we die such we shall continue for ever and therefore it is the last scene of our lives which determines our future state And should not this make us very jealous and watchful over ourselves To take heed lest there be in any of us an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living GOD. Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of GOD lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you and thereby many be defiled lest after we have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Iesus Christ we are again entangled therein and overcome and it happen to us according to the true proverb The dog is turned to his vomit again and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire This as the same Apostle tells us makes our latter end worse than the beginning for it had been better for us not to have known the way of righteousness than after we have known it to turn from the holy commandment delivered to us Let those consider this who have been blessed with a religious Education and trained up in the exercises of Piety and Vertue who have preserved themselves from the pollutions of youthful Lusts and spent their vigorous age in the service of God Can you be contented to lose all these hopeful beginnings to lose all your triumphs and victories over the World and the Flesh When you have out-rid all the storms and hurricanes of a tempting World for so many Years will you suffer yourselves to be shipwracked in the Haven When you are come within view of the promised Land will you suffer your hearts then to fail you will you then murmur and rebel against God and die in the Wilderness There has been a very warm Dispute about the Perseverance of Saints Whether those who are once in a state of Grace shall always continue so I will not undertake
a direct contradiction to justifying Faith nay if the justifying act of Faith were an actual reliance and recumbency on Christ for Salvation Despair must be very mortal because while Men are under these Agonies they do not they cannot rely on Christ for Salvation for they believe that Christ has cast them off and will not save them but if to believe in Christ that he is the Saviour of the World that he has made expiation for our Sins and intercedes for us at the right hand of God and is able to save to the uttermost all those that come unto God by him that he will save all true penitent Sinners and will save us if we be true Penitents I say if such a Faith as this when it brings forth the genuine fruits of Repentance and a holy Life be a true justifing Faith this is consistent with the blackest Despair and then Men may be in a justified state though they are never so strongly perswaded that they are Reprobates A very good Man may have his fancy disturbed and may pass a false judgment upon himself but this is no reason for God to condemn him no more than God will justifie a presuming and enthusiastick Hypocrite because he justifies himself 4. If Death put a final end to our Work and Labour and shuts up our Accounts then it concerns us to do all the good that we can while we live What ever our hand findeth to do we should do it with all our might seeing there is no wisdom nor knowledge nor working in the grave whither we are hasting Not that the next World is an idle and unactive State where we shall know nothing and have nothing to do but Death puts an end to our working for the other World nothing can be brought to our account at the Day of Judgment but the good we do while we live here for this onely we shall receive our reward proportionable to the encrease and wise improvement of our Talents And is not this a good reason why we should begin to serve God betimes and to take all opportunities of doing good since we have only a short life to work in for Eternity There are great and glorious rewards prepared for good Men but those shall have the brightest Crown who do the most good in the World who are rich in good works and lay up for themselves treasures in heaven Indeed the meanest place in Heaven is a happiness too great for us to conceive I 'm sure much greater than our greatest deserts but since our bountiful Lord will reward all the good service we do why should we neglect doing any good when such neglects will lessen our reward why should we be contented to lose any degrees of Glory This is a holy Ambition to be as good and to be as happy as God can make us This is never thought of by those Men who have no greater designs than to escape Hell but as for the Glories of Heaven they can be contented with the least share of them No Man will ever get to Heaven who so despises the Glories of it and if a late repentance should open our eyes not only to see our sins but to alter our opinions of this World and of the next yet we can never recal our past time and that little time that remains which is the very dregs and sediment of our lives the dead and unactive Scene will minister very few opportunities of doing good and if it did we are capable of doing very little and if we get to Heaven that will be all but the bright and triumphant Crowns shall be bestowed upon those who have improved their time and their talents better It is the good we do while we live that shall be rewarded and therefore we must take care to do good while we live It is well when Men who do no good while they live will remember to do some good when they die But if God should accept such presents as these yet it will make great abatements in the account that they kept their Riches themselves as long as they could and would part with nothing to God till they could keep it no longer it is not the Gift but the mind of the Giver that is accepted Under the Gospel God is pleased with a living Sacrifice but the Offerings of the Dead and such these Testimentary Charities are which are intended to have no effect as long as we live are no better than dead Sacrifices and it may be questioned whether they will be brought into the account of our lives if we did no good while we lived The case is different as to those who did all the good they could while they lived and when they saw they could live no longer took care to do good after death such surviving Charities as these prolong our lives and add daily to our account when such Men are removed into the other World they are doing good in this would still they have a Stock a going below the increase and improvements of which will follow them into the other World Men who have been charitable all their lives may prolong their Charity after death and this will be brought to the Account of their Lives but I cannot see how a Charity which commences after death can be called doing good while we live and then it cannot belong to the Account of our Lives all that can be said for it is this That they make their Wills whereby they bequeath these Charities while they live and therefore their bequeathing these Charities is an act of their Lives but they never intend they shall take place while they live but after their death and when they never intend their Charity to be an act of their Lives I know not why God should account it so These Death-bed Charities are too like a Death-bed Repentance Men seem to give their Estates to God and the Poor just as they part with their Sins when they can keep them no longer This is much such a Charity as it is Devotion to bequeath our dead Bodies to the Church or Chancel which we would never visit while we lived But yet as I have already intimated this is the only way to prolong our Lives and to have an increasing Account after death to lay the foundations of some great good to the World which shall out live us which like Seed sown in the Earth shall spring up and yeild a plentiful Harvest while we sleep sweetly in the dust such as the religious Education of our Children and Families which may propagate itself in the World and last many Ages after we are dead the Endowment of Publick Schools and Hospitals in a word whatever is for the Relief of the Necessities or for the Instruction and good Government of Mankind when we are gone To do good while we live and to lay designs of great good to future Generations will both come into our Account and this may extend the Account of our
a Martyr this Man also would go to Heaven without actual Holiness of Life as a baptized Penitent who dies immediately after his Baptism shall And this seems to me to give the best account of the case of the Penitent Thief upon the Cross which one example has encouraged so many Sinners to delay their Repentance to the last minute and has destroyed so many Souls by such delays His case seems to be this It is probable he had heard of Christ and the fame of his great Miracles before and that opinion some had of him that he was that Messias whom God had promised to send into the World for we can hardly think that any Man who lived in those days should never have heard of Christ whose fame went through the whole Nation but yet the course of life this Thief lead gave him no great curiosity to inquire into such matters till he was apprehended for Robbery and condemned to die at the same time with Christ this extraordinary accident made him more curiously inquire after him and learn all the circumstances of his apprehension and trial and usage and behaviour and answers especially when he saw him and was to die with him and in short he observed so much as convinced him that he was the true Messias though he saw him nailed in so shameful a manner to the Cross. Now if this was his case and we must suppose this or something like it unless we will say that he was miraculously inspired upon the Cross with the Faith of Christ without knowing any thing of him before which has no foundation in the Story and is without any president or example I say if this was his case according to the principles laid down we must grant that if this Thief had renounced his wicked course of Life and professed his Faith in Christ and been baptized in his Name though he had immediately suffered upon the Cross he must have gone directly to Heaven or Paradise as Christ promised him he should by vertue of the remission of all his sins in Baptism Nay we must grant farther that if instead of Baptism he had at that time died a Martyr for the profession of his Faith in Christ this would have supplied the place of Baptism and translated him to Paradise All then that we have to enquire is whether his Confession of Christ upon the Cross might not as well supply the want of Water-baptism as Martyrdom nay whether it were not equivalent to Martyrdom it self and might not reasonably be accepted by our Saviour as such Water-baptism he could not have a Martyr he could not die for he died a Malefactor but he confessed his Faith in Christ when he saw him hanging upon the Cross which was a more glorious Act of Faith than to have died upon the Cross for him He confessed Christ when his own Disciples fled from him and when Peter himself denied him and discovered his glory through the meanest disguise that ever it was concealed under even in this World And why should not this pass for the Faith and Confession of Martyrdom And then the Thief upon the Cross was saved as by Baptism which is No tthe putting away of the filth of the flesh but the answer of a good conscience towards GOD 1 Pet. 3. 21. Which description of Baptism gives us a plain reason why Martyrdom should supply the place of Baptism and is as good a reason why the Thief 's Confession of Christ upon the Cross should do so This example then of the Thief upon the Cross is no reasonable encouragement to any baptized Christian to live a wicked Life and delay his Repentance till the hour of Death in hopes of being saved at last as he was for he was saved as new repenting Converts are by Baptism not as baptized Sinners hope to be by a Death-bed Sorrow and Remorse of Concience And yet this is the only example which with any shew of reason is alledged to prove the sufficiency of a Death-bed Repentance for the Parable of the Labourers who were called to work in the Vineyard at different hours some early in the morning others at the third the sixth the eleventh hour of the day is nothing at all to this purpose The several hours of the day in that Parable do not signifie the several hours of Mens lives but the different ages of the World and therefore those Labourers who are called into the Vineyard about the eleventh hour of the World that is towards the end or in the last age of the World might be called at the beginning of their lives and work on to the end of them for the design of that Parable is to shew that the Gentiles who were called into the Vine-yard or received into the Church of Christ towards the conclusion of the World should be admitted to equal Priviledges and Rewards with the Iews who were God's ancient People and had been called into the Vine-yard early in the morning which occasioned their murmuring against the good Man of the House as we know the Iews murmured upon this account and nothing more prejudiced them against the Gospel of our Saviour than that the Gentiles were received into the Church without Circumcision The same thing our Saviour represents in the Parable of the Prodigal the return of the Prodigal to his Father's House is the Conversion of the Gentiles who were the younger Brother and had been a great Prodigal for many Ages the elder Brother who always lived at home with his Father was the Iewish Church but when this young Prodigal was received by his Father with Feasting and Musick and all the expressions of Joy the elder Brother grew jealous of it and thought himself much injured by his Father's fondness for the returning Prodigal and refused to come in and bear his part in the Solemnity as the Iews rejected the Gospel because the Gentiles were received into the Church And that this must be the true meaning of the Parable of the Labourers appears from this that those who were called into the Vine-yard at the eleventh hour received a reward equal to those who had born the heat and burden of the day which is agreeable enough if we expound it of different Ages of the Church for there is great reason why the Gentiles though they came later into the Vine-yard should be made at least equal with the Iews who were God's ancient People but if we expound this of entring into the Vine-yard at different ages of our life it seems very unequal that those who begin a life of Vertue just at the conclusion of their lives should be equally rewarded with those who have spent their whole lives in the service of God that is that these who do very little good shall receive as great a reward as those who do a hundred times as much which is a direct contradiction to the scope and design of our Saviour's Parables about the Pounds and Talents 25 Matt. 14
as the Iews did when they crucified him which is as much crucifying him again and exposing him to publick shame and infamy as they can possibly do But now this Description can relate only to total Apostates for whatever sins professed Christians are guilty of though thereby they reproach their Lord and Saviour yet they do not declare him to be an Impostor who justly suffered on the Cross and whom they would condemn to the same ignominious Death again if they could nay those who are conquered by some powerful and surprizing fears to deny Christ as Peter did or to offer Sacrifice to Idols as many Christians did under the Heathen Persecutions and recover themselves again by Repentance are not included in this severe Sentence for such Men do really believe in Christ still do not heartily renounce their Baptismal Faith and therefore do not lose their Baptism though in word and deed at present they deny Christ the case of such Men is very dangerous for our Saviour tells us Whosoever shall deny me before men him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven 10 Mat. 33. Those who through fear of Men persist in such a denial shall not be saved by a secret and dissembled Faith for we must not only believe in Christ but we must openly profess our Faith in him but such Men may be recovered by Repentance and by a bold Confession of Christ in new Dangers and Temptations these are lapsed Christians but not Apostates as Iulian was who hated the Name and Religion of Christ and therefore they were admitted to Repentance in the Christian Church as not having lost their Baptismal Faith though through fear they denied it 3. Of these total Apostates the Apostle tells us That it is impossible to renew them again unto repentance 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as St. Chrysostom renders it to make them new Creatures again by Baptismal Repentance for so he tells us that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that to be renewed is to be made new which can be done only by Baptism 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Baptism only can make us new Creatures The danger then of these Mens case as the Apostle represents it is this That they having totally Apostatized from the Faith of Christ together with their Faith have lost their Baptism and are become Iews and Pagans again now Iews and Pagans can never be made Christians without Baptism wherein they are regenerated and new made and by the same reason these Apostatized Christians who are become Iews and Pagans can never become Christians again unless they be rebaptized and that they cannot be because there is but one Baptism in the Christian Church and therefore though we could suppose that they should believe again and repent of their sins they could never recover a legal Right and Title to Mercy and the Promises of the Gospel-Covenant Faith and Repentance will not justifie a Heathen without Baptism for he that believes and is baptized shall be saved are the express terms of the Covenant and therefore the condition of Apostates is very hopeless who are relapsed into such a state that nothing but Baptismal Grace and Regeneration nothing but being new made and new born can save them and that they cannot have for they must not be baptized again A Christian must be but once born no more than a Man is which possibly is the reason why St. Peter tells us of such Apostates That their later end is worse with them than their beginning 2 Pet. 2. 20. for Iews and Heathens how wicked soever they were might wash away all their sins in Baptism but such Apostates are like a sow that was washed that returns again to her wallowing in the mire When they had washed away their Sins and Infidelity in Baptism they return to their forsaken Paganism again and lose the effect of their first Washing and there is no second Baptismal Washing to be had The Apostle does not say that it is impossible these Men should be saved but it is impossible they should be regenerated again by Baptism which is the only Gospel-state of Salvation If any such Men be saved they must be saved as I observed before by Uncovenanted Grace and Mercy they are in the state of Unbaptized Iews and Heathens not of Christians who have a Covenant-right to God's Promises and I would desire the baptized Atheists and Infidels of our Age to consider of this whose case is so very like this if it be not the same that it should make them afraid of setting up for Wits at such infinite peril of their Souls To apply this then to our present purpose What I have now discoursed plainly shews that a baptized Christian must not always expect to be saved by such Grace as saves and justifies in Baptism Baptismal Grace is inseparably annexed to Baptism and can be no more repeated than Baptism This makes the case of Apostates so desparate that Infidelity can be washed away only in Baptism and those who Apostatize after Baptism can never be rebaptized again and therefore can never have any Covenant-title to Pardon and Forgiveness And this proportionably holds good in our present case the Grace of Baptism washes away all the Sins of our past lives how many how great soever they have been only upon our profession of our Faith in Christ and Repentance of all our Sins and Vows of Obedience to the Laws of Christ for the future but whoever after Baptism lives a wicked and profligate life and hopes to be saved at last only by Faith in Christ and sorrow for his Sins and vows of living better when he is just a dying will be miserably mistaken for this is onely the Grace of Baptism which can never be repeated not the rule and measure whereby God will judge baptized Christians who have had time and opportunity of exercising those Christian Graces which they vowed at their Baptism A Man who retains the Faith of Christ though he lives wickedly does not forfeit his Baptism but shall be forgiven whenever he repents and forsakes his sins and lives a holy life but if he delays this so long that he has no time to amend his life that he can do nothing but be sorry for his sins and vow a new life I cannot promise him that this shall be accepted at the hour of death because the Gospel requires a Holy Life not meerly a Death-bed sorrow and remorse for Sin Sorrow for Sin and Vows of a new Life will be accepted at Baptism as the beginnings of a new Life but that is no reason why they should be accepted at our Death when they are only the forrowful conclusion of a wicked Life God will receive us to Grace and Mercy at Baptism upon our solemn Vows of living to him but he has no where promised to accept of our dying Vows instead of Holiness and Obedience as a recompence for a whole
Apostles this state of Penitence in some cases was continued many years in other cases such Sinners were never reconciled till the hour of death Now if they had thought as many among us now do that sorrow for Sin and the vows of Obedience do immediately obtain our Pardon from God for sins committed after Baptism it is not imaginable why they should have imposed such a long and severe Discipline on Penitents If they believed God had forgiven them why should not the Church forgive them and receive them them to her Communion again upon their promises of amendment without such a long trial of their reformation But it is evident they thought sins after Baptism not forgiven without actual reformation and therefore would not receive them to Communion again without a tried and visible reformation of their Lives We know what Disputes there were about this matter in the Primitive Church the ancient Discipline allowed but of one Repentance after Baptism and some would not allow of that in the case of Adultery Murder and Idolatry but denied the Authority of the Church to receive such Sinners to Communion again this was the pretence of Novatus's Schism and Tertullian after he turn'd Montanist said many bitter things against the Catholicks upon this argument which seemed to question the validity of Repentance it self after Baptism though it did reform Mens lives but though this was a great deal too much and did both lessen the Grace of the Gospel and the Authority which Christ had given to his Church yet it is evident that all this time they were very far from thinking that some dying Sorrows or dying Vows after a wicked Life would carry Men to Heaven and the Judgment of those first and purest Ages of the Church ought at least to make Men afraid of relying on such a Death-bed Repentance as they thought very ineffectual to save Sinners CHAP. IV. Concerning the Fear of Death and the Remedies against it DEath is commonly and very truly called the King of Terrors as being the most formidable thing to Humane Nature the love of Life and the natural principle of Self-preservation begets in all Men a natural Aversion against Death and this is the natural Fear of Dying this is very much encreased by a great fondness and passion for this World which makes such Men especially while they are happy and prosperous very unwilling to leave it and this is still encreased by a sence of Guilt and the fear of Punishment in the next World All these are of a distinct nature and require sutable Remedies and therefore I shall distinctly consider them I. The natural Fear of Death results from Self-preservation and the love of our own being for light is sweet and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun 11 Eccles. 7. All Men love Life and the necessary consequence of that is to fear Death though this is rather a natural Instinct than the effect of Reason and Discourse There are great and wise Reasons why God should imprint this Aversion to Death on Humane Nature because it obliges us to take care of ourselves and to avoid every thing which will destroy or shorten our lives this in many cases is a great principle of Vertue as it preserves us from all fatal and destructive Vices it is a great Instrument of Government and makes Men afraid of committing such Villanies as the Laws of their Country have made capital and therefore since the natural Fear of Death is of such great advantage to us we must be contented with it though it makes the thoughts of dying a little uneasie especially if we consider that when this natural Fear of Death is not encreased by other causes of which more presently it may be conquered or allayed by Reason and wise Consideration for this is not so strong an Aversion but it may be conquered the miseries and calamities of this Life very often reconcile Men to Death and make them passionately desire it Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery and life to the bitter in soul which long for death but it cometh not and digg for it more then for hid treasures which rejoyce exceedingly and are glad when they can find the grave 3 Job 20 21 22. My soul chuseth strangling and death rather than life I loath it I would not live alway let me alone for my days are vanity 7 Job 15 16. And if the sence of present Sufferings can conquer the fears of Death there is no doubt but the hope of immortal Life may do it also for the fear of Death is not an original and primitive Passion but results from the love of ourselves from the love of life and our own being and therefore when we can separate the fear of Death from Self-love it is easily conquered when Men are sensible that life is no kindness to them but only serves to prolong their misery they are so far from being afraid of Death that they court it and were they as thoroughly convinc'd that when they die Death will translate them to a more happy Life it would be as easie a thing to put off these Bodies as to change their Cloaths or to leave an old and ruinous House for a more beautiful and convenient Habitation If we set aside the natural Aversion and inquire into the reasons of this natural Fear of Death we can think of but these two Either Men are afraid that when they die they shall cease to be or at least they know not what they shall be and are unwilling to exchange this present life which they like very well for they know not what But now both these reasons of Fear are taken away by the Revelation of the Gospel which has brought Life and Immortality to light and when the reasons of our Fear are gone such an unaccountable Aversion and Reluctancy to Death signifies little more than to make us patient of living rather than unwilling to die for a Man who has such a new glorious World such a happy immortal Life in his view could not very contentedly delay his removal thither were not Death in the way which he naturally startles at and draws back from though his reason sees nothing frightful or terrible in it The plain and short account then of this matter is this We must not expect wholly to conquer our natural Aversion to Death St. Paul himself did not desire to be uncloathed but cloathed upon that mortality might be swallowed up of life 2 Cor. 3 4. Were there not some remaining aversions to Death mixed with our hopes and desires of Immortality Martyrdom itself excepting the patient enduring the shame and the torments of it would be no Vertue but though this natural aversion to Death cannot be wholly conquered it may be extreamly lessened and brought next to nothing by the certain belief and expectation of a glorious Immortality and therefore the only way to arm ourselves against these natural fears of
dying is to confirm our selves in this belief that Death does not put an end to us that our Souls shall survive in a state of Bliss and Happiness when our Bodies shall rot in their Graves and that these mortal Bodies themselves shall at the sound of the last Trump rise again out of the dust immortal and glorious A Man who believes and expects this can have no reason to be afraid of Death nay he has great reason not to fear Death and that will reconcile him to the thoughts of it though he trembles a little under the weaknesses and aversions of Nature II. Besides the natural Aversions to Death most Men have contracted a great fondness and passion for this World and that makes them so unwilling to leave it whatever glorious things they hear of another World they see what is to be had in this and they like it so well that they do not expect to mend themselves but if they were at their choice would stay where they are and this is a double death to them to be snatched away from their admired enjoyments and to leave whatever they love and delight in behind them and there is no remedy that I know of for these Men to cure their fears of Death but only to rectifie their mistaken opinions of things to open their eyes to see the Vanity of this World and the brighter and more dazling Glories of the next There are different degrees of this and therefore this remedy must be differently applied some Men are wholly sunk into flesh and sence and have no tast at all of rational and manly Pleasures much less of those which are purely intellectual and divine they are Slaves to their lusts lay no restraints on their bruitish appetites the World is their God and they dote on the riches and pleasures and honours of it as the only real and substantial goods Now these Men have great reason to be afraid of Death for when they go out of this World they will find nothing that belongs to this World in the next and thus their happiness and their lives must end together It is fitting they should fear Death for if the fear of Death will not cure their fondness for this World nothing else can you must not expect to perswade them that the next World is a happier place than this but the best way is to set before them the terrors of the next World those Lakes of Fire and Brimstone prepared for the Devil and his Angels to ask them our Saviour's question What shall it profit a man to gain the whole world and to lose his own soul or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul These Men ought to fear on till the fear of Death cures their vicious passion and fondness for this World and then the fear of Death will by degrees cure itself Others there are who have a true reverence for God and govern their inclinations and passions to the things of this World with regard to his Laws they will not raise an Estate by Injustice Oppression or Perjury they will not transgress the Rules of Sobriety and Modesty in the use of sensual Pleasures they will not purchase the honours and preferments of this World at the price of their Souls but yet they love this World very well and are extreamly delighted in the enjoyments of it they have a plentiful Fortune or a thriving Trade or the Favour of their Prince they live at ease and think this World a very pleasant place and are ready to cry It is good for us to be here Now it cannot be avoided but that in proportion to Mens love of this World though it be not an immoral and irregular passion they will be more afraid and more unwilling to leave it when we are in the full enjoyment of an earthly Felicity it is difficult for very good Men to have such a strong and vigorous sence of the next World as to make them willing and contented to leave this they desire to go to Heaven but they are not over-hasty in their desires they can be better pleased if God sees fit to stay here a little longer and when they find themselves a going are apt to cast back their eyes upon this World as those who are loth to part This makes it so necessary for God to exercise even good Men with afflictions and sufferings to wean them from this World which is a Scene of Misery and to raise their hearts to Heaven where true and unmixt Happiness dwells The only way then to cure this fear of Death is to mortifie all remains of love and affection for this World to withdraw ourselves as much as may be from the conversation of it to use it very sparingly and with great indifferency to supply the wants of Nature rather than to enjoy the pleasures of it to have our conversation in Heaven to meditate on the glories of that blessed Place to live in this World upon the hopes of unseen things to accustom our selves to the work and to the pleasures of Heaven to praise and adore the Great Maker and Redeemer of the World to mingle ourselves with the heavenly Quire and possess our very fancies and imaginations with the glory and happiness of seeing GOD and the Blessed JESUS of dwelling in his immediate Presence of conversing with Saints and Angels this is to live like Strangers in this World and like Citizens of Heaven and then it will be as easie to us to leave this World for Heaven as it is for a Traveller to leave a foreign Country to return home This is the height and perfection of Christian Vertue it is our mortifying the Flesh with its affections and lusts it is our dying to this World and living to God and when we are dead to this World the fear of dying and leaving this World is over For what should a Man do in this World who is dead to it When we are alive to God nothing can be so desirable as to go to him for here we live to God only by Faith and Hope but that is the proper place for this divine Life where God dwells So that in short a life of Faith as it is our Victory over this World so it is our Victory over Death too it disarms it of all its fears and terrors it raises our hearts so much above this World that we are very well pleased to get rid of these Bodies which keep us here and to leave them in the Grave in hopes of a blessed Resurrection III. The most tormenting Fears of Death are owing to a sence of Guilt which indeed are rather a fear of Judgement than of Death or a fear of Death as it sends us to Judgment and here we must distinguish between three sorts of Men whose Case is very different 1. Those who are very good Men who have made it the care of their lives to please GOD and to save their Souls 2. Those who have