the patient understand not how blood letting cureth the infected blood that is left behind must he therefore plead against his Physitian and say It will not be done because he knoweth not how it s done We feel that here we have our sinfull imperfections we have for all that a promise that we shall be with Christ when death hath made its separation and we are assured that no sin doth enter there And is not this enough for us to know But yet I see not why the difficulty of the Objection should trouble us at all Death doth remove us from this sinfull flesh and admits the soul into the sight of God And in the very instant of its remove it must needs be perfected even by that remove and by the first appearance of his blessed face If you bring a candle into a dark room the access of the light expelleth the darkness at the same instant And you cannot say that they consist together one moment of time So cold is expelled by the approach of heat And thus when death hath opened the door and let us into the immortal light neither before nor after but in that instant all the darkness sinful imperfections of our souls are dissipated Throw an empty Bottle into the Sea and the emptiness ceaseth by the filling of the water neither before nor after but in that instant If this should not satisfie any let it satisfie them that the Holy Ghost in the instant of death can perfect his work So that we need not assert a perfection on earth which on their grounds must be the case of all that will escape Hell and Purgatory nor yet any Purgatory torments after death for the deliverance of the soul from the relicts of sin seeing at the instant of death by the the spirit or by the deposition of the flesh or by the sight of God or by the sight of our glorified Redeemer or by all this work will be easily and infallibly accomplished 5. The last degree and perfect conquest will be at the Resurrection And this is the victory that is mentioned in my Text. All that is fore-mentioned doth abate the enmity and conquer death in some degree But the enmity and the enemy it self is conquered at the Resurrection and not till then And therefore Death is the last enemy to be destroyed The Body lieth under the penal effects of sin till the Resurrection And it is penal to the soul to be in a state of separation from the Body though it be a state of glory that its in with Christ For it is deprived of the fulness of glory which it shall attain at the Resurrection when the whole man shall be perfected and glorified together Then it is that the Mediators work will be accomplished and all things shall be restored All that are in the graves shall hear the voice of the Son of God and shall come forth John 5.28 For this is the Fathers will that sent him that of all that he hath given him he should lose nothing but should raise it up at the last day John 6.39 40. We have hope towards God that there shall be a Resurrection of the dead both of the just and unjust Acts 24.15 As by man came death so by man came also the Resurrection from the dead I Cor. 15.21 Then shall there be no more death nor sorrow nor crying nor pain Rev. 21.4 No more diseases or fears of death or grave or of corruption No terrible enemy shall stand betwixt us and our Lord to frighten our hearts from looking towards him O what a birth-day will that be when Graves shall bring forth so many millions of sons for Glory How joyfully will the soul body meet that were separated so long Then sin hath done its worst and can do no more Then Christ hath done all and hath no more to do as our Redeemer but to justifie us in judgement and give us possession of the joy that he is preparing And then he will deliver up the Kingdom to the Father If you expect now that I should give you Reasons why Death is the last Enemy to be destroyed though much might be said from the nature of the matter the Wisdom and Will of God shall be to me instead of all other Reasons being the fountain and the sum of all He knows best the Order that is agreeable to his Works and Ends to his honour and to our good and therefore to his Wisdom we submit in the patient expectance of the accomplishment of his promises SECT III. Vse 1. I Now come to shew you the Usefulness of this Doctrine for the further Information of our understandings the well ordering of our hearts and the reforming of our lives And first you may hence be easily resolved Whether Death be truly penal to the godly which some have been pleased to make â— Controversie of late though I am past doubt but the hearts of those men do apprehend it as a punishment whose tongues and pens do plead for the contrary Dust thou art and to dust shalt thou return was part of the sentence past on Adam and all his posterity which then proved it a punishment and it was not remitted to Adam that at the same time had the promise of a Redeemer nor is it remitted to any of us all Were it not for sin God would not inflict it who hath sworn that he takes no pleasure in the death of sinners And that he afflicts not willingly nor grieves the sons of men But my text it self decides the Controversie Sin and punishment are the evils that Christ removeth And if death were no punishment as it is no sin how could it be an Enemy and the last enemy to be destroyed by the Redeemer when we feel the Enmity before described against our souls and also know its Enmity to our bodies we cannot think that God would do all this were it not for sin espâ—cially when we read that death passeth upon all for that all have sinned Rom. 5.11 12. and that death is the wages of sin Rom. 6.23 Though Christ do us good by it that proveth it not to be no punishment For castigatory punishments are purposely to do good to the chastised Indeed we may say O Death where is thy sting because that the mortal evil to the Soul is taken out and because we foresee the Resurrection by faith when we shall have the victory by Christ But thence to conclude that Death hath no sting now to a believer is not only besides but against the text which telling us that the sting of death is sin and that the strength of sin is the Law doth inform us that Death could not kill us and be Death to us if sin gave it not a sting to do it with as sin could not oblige us to this punishment if the threatening of the Law were not its strength But Christ hath begun the conquest and will finish it SECT IV. Vse 2. FROM
all this Enmity in Death we may see what it is that sin hath done and consequently how vile and odious it is and how we should esteem and use it Sin hath not only forfeited our Happiness but laid those impediments in the way of our recovery which will find us work and cause our danger and sorrow while we live And Death is not the least of these impediments O foolish man that still will love such a mortal Enemy If another would rob them but of a groat or defame them or deprive them of any accommodation how easily can they hate them and how hardly are they reconciled to them But sin depriveth them of their lives and separates the soul and body asunder and forfeiteth their everlasting happiness and sets death betwixt them and the Glory that is purchased by Christ and yet they love it and will not leave it Though God have made them and do sustain them and provide for them and all their hope and help is in him they are not so easily drawn to love him And yet they can love the sin that would undo them Though Christ would deliver them and bring them to everlasting blessedness and hath assumed flesh and laid down his life to testifie his Love to them yet are they not easily brought to love him but the sin that made them enemies to God and hath brought them so near to everlasting misery this they can love that deserves no love A Minister or other friend that would draw them from their sin to God and help to save them they quarrell against as if he were their enemy but their foolish companions that can laugh and jest with them at the door of Hell and clap them on the back and drive away the care of their salvation and harden them against the fear of God these are the only acceptable men to them O Christians leave this folly to the world and do you judge of sin by its sad effects You feel if you have any feeling in you in some measure what it hath done against your Souls the weakness of your faith and love the distance of your hearts from God your doubts and troubles tell you that it is not your friend You must shortly know what it will do to your bodies As it keeps them in pain and weariness and weakness so it will ere long deliver them up to the jaws of death which will spare them no more then the beasts that perish Had it not been for sin we should have had no cause to fear a dissolution nor have had any use for a coffin or a winding-sheet nor been beholden to a grave to hide our carkesses from the sight and smell of the living But as Henoch and Elias were translated when they had walked with God even so should we as those shall that are alive and remain at the coming of Christ shall be caught up together in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air and so shall they ever be with the Lord 1 Thes 4.17 Use sin therefore as it will use you Spare it not for it will not spare you It is your murderer and the murderer of the world Use it therefore as a murderer should be used Kill it before it kills you and then though it kill your bodies it shall not be able to kill your souls and though it bring you to the grave as it did your Head it shall not be able to keep you there If the thoughts of death and the grave and rottenness be not pleasant to you let not the thoughts of sin be pleasant Hearken to every temptation to sin as you would hearken to a temptation to self-murder And as you would do if the Devill brought you a knife and tempted you to cut your throat with it so do when he offereth you the bait of sin You love not Death Love not the cause of Death Be ashamed to stand weeping over a buried friend and never to weep over a sinning or ungodly friend nor once to give them a compassionate earnest exhortation to save their Souls Is it nothing to be dead in sins and trespasses Ephes 2.1 5. Col. 2.13 Yea it is a worse Death then this that is the wages of sin and the fruit which it brings forth Rom. 6.21 23. 7.5 Surely God would never thus use mens bodies and forsake them soul and body for ever if sin were not a most odious thing what a poyson is this that kils so many millions and damneth so many millions and cannot be cured but by the blood of Christ that killed our Physitian that never casted it because he came so near to us 〈◊〉 O unbelieving stupid soâ—ls that smart and sin and groan and sin and weep and lament our bodily sufferings and yet sin still that fear a grave and fear not sin that have heard and seen and felt so much of the sad effects and yet sin still Psalm 78.32 Alas that murderers should be so common and that we should be no wiser when we have paid so dear a price for wisdom SECT V. Vse 3. FROM the Enmity of Death we may further learn that Man hath now a need of Grace for such exceeding difficulties which were not before him in his state of innocency Though Adam was able to have obeyed perfectly without sin and had Grace sufficient to have upheld him and conquered temptations if he had done his part which by that Grace he might have done yet whether that Grace was sufficient to the works that we are called to is a doubt that many have been much troubled with It is certain that he was able to have done any thing that was suitable to his present state if it were commanded him And it is certain thaâ— much that is now our duty would have been unsuitable to his state But whether it belonged to his perfection to be able and fit for such duties that were then unsuitable to him or supposition they had been suitable and duties this is the difficulty which some make use of to prove that such works cannot now be required of us without suitable help because we lost no such grace in Adam But this need not trouble us For 1. Though Adam was put on no such difficulty in particular as to encounter death yet the perfect obedience to the whole Law required a great degree of internall Habituall holiness and to determine the case whether our particular difficulties or his sinless perfect obâ—dience required greater sâ—rength and help is a matter of more difficulty then use For 2. It is but about the Degrees of Holiness in him and us and not about the Kind that the difficulty lieth For it is the same End that he was created for and disposed to by Nature and that we are redeemed for and disposed to supernaturally But yet it is worthy our observation what a difficulty sin hath cast before us in the way of life which Adam was unacquainted with that so we may see the nature
its best take such pleasure as may here be had and feed on that where a sensual mind hath less discouragement Whereas if Death did not stand in the way and darken Heaven to us and turn back our desires how easily should we get above thesâ— trifles and perceive the vanity of all below and how unworthy they are to be once regarded 8. Moreover it is much long of this last Enemy that God is so dishonoured by the Fears and droopings of believers They are but imperfectly yet freed from this bondage and accordingly they walk Whereas if the King of terrors were removed we should have less of Fear and more of Love as living more in the sight and sense of Love And then we should glorifie the God of Love and appear to the world as men of another world and shew them the faith and hope of Saints in the heavenly chearfulness of our lives and no more dishonour the Lord and our profession by our uncomfortable despondencies as we do 9. Moreover it is much long of this last Enemy that many true Christians cannot perceive their own sincerity but are overwhelmd with doubts and troublesome fears lest they have not the faith and hope of Saints and lest the Love of God abide not in them and lest their hearts are more on earth then Heaven When they find themselves afraid of dying and to have dark amazing thoughts about eternity and to think with less trouble and fear of earth then of the life to come this makes them think that they are yet but worldlings and have not placed their happiness with God when perhaps it is but the fear of death that causeth these unjust conclusions Christian I shall tell thee more anon that God may be truly loved and desired by thee and Heaven may be much more valued then Earth and yet the natural fears of death that standeth in thy way may much perplex thee make thee think that thou art averse from God when indeed thou art but averse from Death because yet this Enemy is not overcome 10. Lastly this Enemy is not the smallest cause of many of our particular sins and of the apostacie of many hypocritâ—s Indeeed it is one of the strongest of our temptations Before man sinned none could take away his life but God and God would not have done it for any thing but sin So that man had no temptation from the malice of enemies or the pride of Conquerours or the fury of the passionate or the power of Tyrants to be afraid of death and to use any unlawfull means to scape it An avoidable dâ—ath from the hand of God he was obliged moderately to fear that is to be afraid of sinning lest he die else God would not have threatened him if he would not have had him make use of a preventing fear But now we have an unavoidable death to fear and also an untimely death from the hand of man by Gods permission And the fear of these is a powerfull temptation Otherwise Abraham would not have distrustfully equivocated as he did to save his life Gen. 20.11 and Isaac after him do the same when he sojourned in the same place Gen. 26.7 If the fear of Death were not a strong temptation Peter would not have thrice denyed Christ and that after so late a warning and engagement nor would all his Disciples have forsaken him and fled Matth. 26.56 Nor would Martyrs have a special reward nor would Christ have been put to call upon his Disciples that they Fear not them that can kill the body Luke 12.4 and to declare to men the necessity of self-deniall in this point of Life and that none can be his Disciple that loves his Life before him Matth. 16.39 Luke 14.26 He is a Christian indeed that so Loveth God that he will not sin to save his Life But what is it that an hypocrite will not do to escape Death He will equivocate and forswear himself with the Jesuite and Familist He will forsake not only his dearest friend but Christ also and his Conscience What a multitude of the most haynous sins are daily committed through the fears of death Thousands where the Inquisition ruleth are kept in Popery by it And thousands are kept in Mahometanism by it Thousands are drawn by it to betray their Countries to deny the truth to betray the Church and cause of Christ and finally to betray their souls unto perdition some of them presume to deny Christ wilfully because that Peter had pardon that denyed him through surprize and through infirmity But they will not Repent with Peter and die for him after their repentance He that hath the power of an Hypocrites life may prescribe him what he shall bâ—lieve and do may write him down the Rule of his Religion and tell him what changes he shall make what oaths he shall take what party he shall side with and command hâ—m so many sins a day as you make your horse go so many miles Satan no doubt had much experience of the power of this temptation when he boasted so confidently of it against Job 2.4 Skin for skin and all that a man hath he will give for his life And its true no doubt of those that love nothing better then their lives Satan thought that the fear of Death would make a man do any thing And of too many he may boldly make this boast Let me but have power of their Lives and I will make them say any thing and swear any thing and be for any cause or party and do any thing against God or man When lessâ—r matters can do so much as common sad experience sheweth us no wonder if the fear of death can do it In brief you may see by what is said that Death is become an Enemy to our Souls by being first the Enemy of our Natures The Interest of our Bodies works much on our Souls much more the Interest of the whole man The principle of self-love was planted in Nature in order to self-preservation and the government of the world Nature doth necessarily abhor its own destruction And therefore this destruction standing in the way is become an exceeding great hindrance to our affections which takâ—s them off from the life to come 1. It is a very great hindrance to the Conversion of those that are yet carnal imprisoned in their unbelief It is hard to win their hearts to such a state of Hapâ—inâ—ss that cannot be obtained but by yielding unto death 2. And to the truly godly it is naturally an impediment and a great temptation in the points before expressed And though it prevail not against them it exceedingly hindereth them And thus I have shewed you that Death is an Enemy further then I doubt the most consider of If the unbeliever shall here tell me that Death is not the fruit of sin but natural to man though he had never sinned and therefore that I lay all this on God I answer him that
be foiled and non-plust if we must be found in no other righteousness but what we have received from the first Adam and have wrought by the strength received from him But being gathered under the wings of Christ as the chickens under the wings of the hen Mat. 23.37 and being found then in him having the righteousness which is through the faith of Christ the righteousness which is of God by faith we may boldly answer to all that can be charged on us to our terrour If we know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings and are made conformallâ— to his death Phil. 3.9 10. if â—e are dead with him to the world and risen with him to a holy life if we have believingly traced him in his sufferings and conquest and perceive by faith how we participate in his victories we shall then be able to grapple with the hands of death and though we know the grave must be for a while the prison of our flesh we can by faith foresee the opening of our prison doors and the loosing of our bonds and the day of our last and full Redemption It strengtheneth us exceedingly to look unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith who for the joy that was set before him endured the Cross despising the shame and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God When we consider what he endured against himself we shall not be weary nor faint in our minds Heb. 12.2 3. DIRECTION III. LIve also by faith on the Heavenly Glâ—ry As one eye of faith must be on an humbled crucified Christ so must the other be on heaven on a glorified Christ and on the glory and everlasting Love of God which we shall there enâ—oy This is it that conquereth the fears of death when we believe that we shall pass through it into everlasting life If a man for health will take the most ungratefull potion the bitterness being short and the benefit long and if he will suffer the Surgeon to let out his blood and in case of necessity to out off a member how light should we make of death that have the assured hopes of glory to encourage us what door so streight that we would not pass through if we could to our dearest friend What way so â—owl that we would not travail to our beloved home And shall death seem intolerable to us that letteth in our souls to Christ Well might Paul say To die is gain Phil. 1.21 When we gain deliverance from all those sins that did here beset us and all those sorrows that sin had bred We gain the accomplishment of our desires and the end of our faith the salvatiâ—n of our souls We gain the Crown that fadeth not away a place before the Throne of Christ in the Temple of God in the City of God the New Jerusalem to eat of the hidden Manna and of the Tree of life which is in the midst of the Paradise of God Rev. 2. 3. We gain the place prepared for us by Christ in his Fathers house John 14.1 2. For we shall be with him where he is that we may behold his glory John 17.24 We shall gain the sight of the glory of God and the feeling of his most precious love and the fulness of joy that is in his presence and the everlasting pleasures at his right hand Psal 16.11 And shall we think much to die for such a gain we will put off our cloaths and welcome sleep which is the Image of death that our bodies may have rest and refuse not thus to die every night that we may rise more refreshed for our employments in the morning And shall we stick at the uncloathing of our souls in order to their everlasting Rest Set but the eye of faith to the Prospective of the promise and take a serious frequent view of the promised Land and this if any thing will make death more welcome then Physick to the sick then uncloathing to a beggar that puts on new or better cloaths Shall a poor man cheerfully ply his labour all day in hope of a little wages at night and shall not a believer cheerfully yieâ—d to death in hope of everlasting glory so far as heaven is foundly beâ—ieved and our conversations and hearts are there the fears of Death will be asswaged and nothing else will well asswage them DIRECTION IV. MOreover if you will conquer the enmity of death do all that you can to encrease and exercise the love of God in you For love will so incline you to the blessed object of it that Death will not be able to keep down the flame Were God set as a seal upon our hearts we should find that Love is as strong as death and the coals thereof are coals of fire â—nd the flame is vehement many waters cannot quench it nor can the flâ—ods drown it Cant. 8.6 7. If carnal Love have made the amorous to choose death that they might passionately express it especially when they have heard of the death of their beloved and if naturall fortitude and love to their Countrey have made many valient men though Heathens to contemn death and readily lay down their lives and if the love of fame and vain glory in a surviving name have caused many to die through pride how much more will the powerfull love of God put on the soul to leave this flesh and pass through death that we may see his face and fully enjoy the object of our love So much as you love God so much will you be above the terrors of the grave and pass through death for the enjoyment of your beloved Perfâ—ct Love casteth out fear and hâ—â—hâ—t feareth is not made perfect in lâ—ve in death and judgement we shall have boldness if our love be perfect 1 John 4.17 18. This makeeth the Martyrs cheerfully lay down their lives for Christ and love is glad of so precious an opportunity for its exercise and manifestation Love is a restless working thing that will give you no rest till your desires are attained and you be with God Nothing is so valiant as Love It rejoyceth when it meeteth with difficulties which it may encounter for the sake of our beloved It contemneth dangers It glorieth in sufferings Though it be humble and layeth by all thoughts of merit yet it rejoyceth in sufferings for Christ and glorieth in the Cross and in the participation of his sufferings and in the honourable wounds and scars which we receive for him that died for us DIRECTION V. TO overcome the terrors and enmity of death it is necessary that we keep the Conscience clear from the guilt of wilfull sin and of impenitency If it may be see that you wound it not If you have wounded it presently seek a cure and live not in a wounded state The face of death will waken conscience and cause it to speak much lowder then it did in health and in
Catholick Church is One and containeth all that heartily and practically believe in God the Father Son and Holy Ghost the Creator Redeemer and Sanctifier and live a holy heavenly life Leave off your siding and keep this blessed simple Unity and you will then be wiser then in a passion to cast your selves into Hell because some fall out in the way to Heaven Nor will it serve your turn at the bar of God to talk of the miscarriages or scandalls of some that took on them to be godly no more then to run out of the Ark for the sake of Cham or out of Christs family for the sake of Judas What ever men are God is just and will do you no wrong and you are called to believe in God and to serve him and not to believe in men Nothing but wickedness could so far blind men as to make them think they may cast off their love and service to the Lord because some others have dishonoured him Or that they may cast away their souls by carelesness because some others have wounded their souls by particular sins Do you dislike the sins of the Professors af Godliness So much the better We desire you not to agree with them in sinning Joyn with them in a Holy life and imitate them so far as they obey the Lord and go as far beyond them in avoiding the sins that you are offended at as you can and this is it that we desire Suppose they were Covetous or Lyars or Schismaticall Imitate them in holy duties and fly as far from Covetousness Lying and Schism as you will You have had Learned and Godly Bishops of this City Search the writings of those of them that have left any of their labours to posterity and see whether they speak not for the same substantials of faith and godliness which are now preacht to you by those that you set so light by Bishop Latimer Parrey Babington c. while they were Bishops and Rob. Abbot Hall c. â—efore they were Bishops all Excellent Learned Godly â—en have here been Preachers â—o your Ancestors Read their â—ooks and you will find that â—hey call men to that strictness â—nd holiness of life which you cannot abide Read your Biâ—hop Babington on the Commandments and see there how zealously he condemneth the Prophaners of the Lords day and those that make it a day of idleness or sports And what if one man think that one Bishop should have hundreds of Churches under his sole jurisdiction and another man think that every full Parish Church should have a Bishop of their own and that one Parish will find him work enough be he what he will be which is the difference now among us is this so heinous a disagreement as should frighten you from a holy life which all agree for To conclude remember this is the day of your salvation Ministers are your Helpers Christ and Holiness are your way Scripture is your Rule the Godly must be your company and the Communion of Saints must be your desire If now any scandals divisions displeasures or any seducements of secret or open adversaries of the truth or temptations of Satan the world or flesh whatsoever shall prevail with you to lose your day to refuse your mercies and to neglect Christ and your immortal souls you are conquered and undone and your enemy hath his will and the more confidently and fearlesly you brave it out the more is your misery for the harder are your hearts and the harder is your cure and the sureâ— and sorer will be your damnation I have purposely avoided the enticing words of worldly wisdom and a stile that tends to claw your ears and gain applause with aery wits and have chosen these familiar words and dealt thus plainly and freely with you because the greatness of the cause perswaded me I could not be too serious Whether many of you will read it or how those that read it will take it and what success it shall have upon them I cannot tell but I know that I intended it for your good and that whether you will hear or whether you will forbear the Ministers of Christ must not forbear to do their duty nor be rebellious themselves but our Labours shall be acceptable with our Lord and you shall know that his Ministers were among you Ezek. 2.3 4 5 6 7 8. Yet a little while is the Light with you Walk while ye have the Light lest darkness come upon you for he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth John 12.35 O take this warning from Christ and from An earnest desirer of your everlasting Peace Rich. Baxter The Contents THE Introduction p. 1 What is meant by an Enemy and how death is an Enemy to Nature p. 6 7 How Death is an Enemy to Grace and to our salvation discovered in ten particulars p. 15 How Christ conquereth this Enemy p. 35 Four Antidotes given us against the Enmity of Death at our Conversion p. 39. How Death is made a destruction of it self p. 56 The full destruction at the Resurrection p. 60 The first Use to resolve the doubt Whether Death be a punisâ—ment to believers p. 63 Use 2. To shew us the malignity of sin and how we should esteem and use it p. 66 Use 3. To teach us that man hath now a need of Grace for difficulties which were not before him in his state of innocency p. 72 Use 4. To inform us of the Reasons of the sufferings and death of Christ p. 77 Use 5. To rectifie the mistakes of some true believers that think they have no saving grace because the fears of death deter them from desiring to be with Christ p. 83 â—se 6. To teach us to study and magnifiâ— our Redeemers conquering grace that overcometh death and makes it our advantage p. 96 Use 7. To direct us how to prepare for Death and overcome the enâ—ity and fear of it p. 110 Direct 1. Make sure that conversion be sound p. 115 Direct 2. Live by faith on Christ the Conquerour p. 116 Direct 3. Live also by faith on the Heavenly Glory p. 120 Direct 4. Labour to encrease and exercise Divine Love p. 124 Direct 5. Keep conscience clear or if it be wounded preseâ—tly seek the cure p. 127 Direct 6. Redeem and improve your pretious time p. 130 Direct 7. Crucifie the flesh and die to the world p. 132 Direct 8. A conformity to God in the hatred of sin and love of holiness and especially in the point of justice p. 134 Direct 9. The due consideration of the restlesness and troubles of this life and of the manifold â—vils that end at death p. 13 Direct 10. Resign your wills entirely to the will of God and acquiesce in it as your safety felicity and Rest p. 159 Use 8. Great comfort to believers that they have no enemy bâ—t what they are sure shall be conquered at last p. 165 Object But what comfort is all this to me that
know not whether I have part in Christ or no Answered to satisfie the doubts and further the assurance of the trâ—ubled Christian p. 173 Use 9. What a mercy the Resurrection of Christ was to the world and how we should use it to strengthen our faith p. 199 The Lords day honourable p. 201 Use 10. How earnestly we should pray for the second coming of Christ though Death be terrible p. 207 SOME imitable passages of the Life of Elizabeth late Wife of Mr. Joseph Baker whose Funerals occasioned this discourse p. 225 ERRATA 1 Cor. 15.26 The last enemy that shall be destroyed is Death DEATH is the occasion of this dayes meeting and Death must be the Subject of our present meditations I must speak of that which will shortly silence me and you must hear of that which speedily will stop your eares and we must spend this hour on that which waits to cut our thred and take down our glass and end our time and tell us we have spent our last But as it hath now done good by doing hurt so are we co consider of the accidental benefits as well as of the natural evil from which the heavenly wisdom doth extract them Death hath now bereaved a Body of its Soul but thereby it hath sent that Soul to Christ where it hath now experience how good it is to be absent from the body and present with the Lord 2 Cor. 5.8 It hath separated a faithful wife from a beloved husband but it hath sent her to a husband dearlyer beloved and taught her now by experience to say that to be with Christ is best of all Phil 1.23 It hath deprived a sorrowful husband of a wife and deprived us all of a faithful friend but it hath thereby brought us to the house of mourning which is better for us then the house of feasting a Paradox to the flesh but an undoubted truth for hâ—re we may see the end of all men and we that are yet living may lay it to our hearts Eccl. 7.2 3. Yea it hath brough us to the house of God and occasioned this serious address unto his Holiness that we may be instructed by his Word as we are warned by his works and that we may be wise to understand and to consider our latter end Deut. 32.29 It s like you 'l think that to tell men of the evil or enmity of Death is as needless a â—iscourse as any could be chosen For who is there that is not naturally too sensible of this and who doth not dread the name or at least the face of Death But there is accidentally a greater evil in it then that which nature teacheth men to fear And while it is the King of terrors to the world the most are ignorant of the greatâ—st hurt that it doth them or can do them or at least it is but little thought on which hath made me think it a needfull work to tell you yet of much more evil in that which you abhor as the greatest evil But so as withall to magnifie our Redeemer that overshooteth death in its own bow and causeth it when it hits the mark to miss it and that causeth health by loathsome medicines and by the dung of our bodily corruption manureth his Church to the greater felicity Such excellent skil of our wise Physician we find exprest and exercised in this Chapter where an unhappy error against the Resurrection hath happily occasioned an excellent discouâ—se on that weighty Subject which may stablish many a thousand souls and serve to shame and destroy such heresies â—ill the Resurrection come and prove it self The great Argument which the Apostle most insisteth on to prove the Resurrection is Christs own Resurrection where he entereth into a comparison between Christ and Adam shewing that as Adam first brought death upon himself and then upon his posterity so Christ that was made a quickening spirit did first Rise himself as the first-fruits and thâ—n at his coming will raise his own And as in Adam all die so in Christ shall all be made alive And this Christ will do as our victorious King and the Captain of our salvation who when he hath subdued every enemy will then deliver up the Kingdom to the Father And the last enemy which he will subdue is Death and therefore our Resurrection is his final conquest The terms of the Text have no difficulty in them The Dâ—ctrinâ— which they express must be thus unfolded 1. I must shew you that Death is an Enemy and what is meant by this Expression and wherein its Enemy doth consist 2. I shall shew you that it is an Enemy to be dâ—stroyed though lâ—st and how and by what degrees it is destroyed And then we shall make application of it to your further Instruction and Edification 1. That you may know what is meant by an Enâ—my here you must observe that man being fallen into sin and misery and Christ having undertaken the work of our Redemption the Scripture oft speaketh of our misery and recovery Metaphorically in military terms And so Satan is said to take us captive and we to be his slaves and Christ to be the Captain of our Salvation and to redeem us from our bondage And thus our sin and misery and all that hindereth the blessed Ends of his undertaking are called Enemies Death therefore is called an Enemy to be destrâ—yed that is a penal evil to be removed by the Redeemer in order to our recovery and the glory of his grace 1. It is an Evil. 2. A punishment procured by our sin and executed by Gods Justice 3. It is an evil that hindereth our felicity These three things are included in the Enmity That Death is an Enemy to Nature is a thing that all understand but all consider not how it is an Enemy to our Souls to the exercise of grace and consequently to the attainment of glory I shall therefore having first spoken briefly of the former insist a little longer upon the latter 1. How great an Enemy Death is unto Nature doth easily appear in that 1. It is the Dissolution of the Man It maketh a Man to become No man by separating the Soul from the Body and dissolving the Body into its principles It puls down in a moment a curious frame that Nature was long building and tenderly cherishing and preserving The mother long nourisheth it in her bowels and painfully brings it forth and carefully brings it up what labour doth it cost our Parents and our selves to make provision for this Life And death in a moment cuts it off How carefull are we to keep in these lamps and to maintain the oyl and Death extinguisheth thâ—m at a blast How noble a creature doth it destroy To day our parts are all in order and busie about their several tasks our Hearts are moving our Lungs are breathing our Stomacks are digesting our Blood and Spirits by assimilation making more and to morrow death takes off the
He that can recover his health by a pleasant medicine doth take it without any great reluctancy But if a leg or an arm must be cut off or a stone cut out by a painful dangerous Incision what a striving doth it cause between the contrary passions the love of life and the love of ease the fear of death and the fear of suffering Could we but come to Heaven as easily as innocent Adam might have done if he had conquered what wings would it add to our desires Might we be translated as Henoch or conveyed thither in the Chariot of Elias what Saint is there that would not long to see the face and glory of the Lord Were it but to go to the top of a Mountain and there see Christ with Moses and Elias in a glimpse of Glory as did the three Disciples who would not make haste and say It is good for us to be here Matth. 17.1 4. But to travell so chearfully with Abraham to the Mount of Mâ—riah to sacrifice an only Son or with a Martyr to the flames is a harder task This is the principal enmity of death it deterreth our desires and thoughts from heaven and maketh it a far harder matter to us to long after God then otherwise it would be Yea it causeth us to fly from him even when we truly love him And where Faith and Love do work so strongly as to overcome these fears yet do they meet with them as an enemy and must fight before they overcome 2. And as this Enemy dulleth our Desires so doth it consequently cool our Love as to the exercise and it hindereth our hope much abateth the complacency and Joy that we should have in the believing thoughts of Heaven when we should be rejoycing in hope of the glory of God Rom. 5.2 the face of death appearing to our thoughts is naturally an enemy to our joy When we think of the grave and of dissolution and corruption and of our long abode in the places of darkness of our contemned dust and scattered bones this damps our joyfull thoughts of heaven if supernatural grace do not make us Conquerors But if we might pass from earth to heaven as from one room to another what haste should we make in our desires How joyfully should we think and speak of Heaven Then we might live in the joy of the Holy Ghost and easily delight our selves in God and Comfort would be our daily food 3. Moreover as our Natural Enemy doth thus occasion the abatement of Desire and Love and Joy so also of our Thankfulness for the Glory that is promised us God would have more praise from us if we had more pleasing joyfull thoughts of our inheritance We should magnifie him from day to day when we remember how we shall magnifie him for ever Our hearts would be turned into thankfulness and our tongues would be extolling our dear Redeemer sounding forth his praise whom we must praise for ever if dreadful Death did not draw a veil to hide the heavenly glory from us 4. And thus the dismall face of Death doth hinder the heavenliness of our Conversation Our Thoughts will be diverted when our complacency and desire is abated Our minds will be willinger to grow strange to Heaven when Death still mingleth terror in our meditations Whereas if we could have come to God in the way that was first appointed us and could be cloathed with glory without being stript of our present cloathing by this terrible hand how familiarly should we then converse above How readily would our Thoughts run out to Christ meditation of that Glory would not be then so hard a work Our hearts would not be so backward to it as now they are 5. Faith is much hindered and Infidelity much advantaged by Death Look either to the state of soul or body and you will easily perceive the truth of this The state of a Soul incorporated we know by long experience what kind of apprehensions volitions and affections belong to a soul while it acteth in the Body we feel or understand But what manner of knowledg will or Love what Joy what sorrow belong to souls that are separated from the Bodies it is not possible for us now distinctly and formally to conceive And when men find themselves at a loss about the manner they are tempted to doubt of the thing it self The swarms of irreligious Infidels that have denied the Immortality and separated existence of the soul are too full a proof of this And good men have been haunted with this horrible temptation Had there been no death we had not been liable to this dangerous assault The opinion of the sleeping of the soul till the Resurrection is but a step to flat Infidelity and both of them hence receive their Life because a soul in flesh when it cannot conceive to its satisfaction of the being state or action of a separated soul is the easier drawn to question or deny it And in regard of the Body the difficulty and tryal is as great That a corps resolved into dust and perhaps first devoured by some other body and turned into its substance should be reunited to its soul and so become a glorified body is a point not easie for unsanctified nature to believe When Paul preached of the Resurrection to the learned Athenians some mocked and others turn'd off that Discourse Acts 17.32 It is no easier to believe the Resurrection of the Body then the Immortality or separated Existence of the Soul Most of the world even Heathens and Infidels do confess the later but few of them comparatively believe the former And if sin had not let in Death upon our Nature this perillous difficulty had been prevented Then we should not have bin puzzled with the thoughts of either a corrupted Body or a separated Soul 6. And consequently by all this already mentioned our Endeavors meet with a great impediment If Death weaken Faith Desire and Hope it must needs dull our Endeavors The deterred discouraged soul moves slowly in the way of life Whereas if Death were not in our way how chearfully should we run towards Heaven Our thoughts of it would be still sweet and these would be a powerfull Spring to action When the Will goes with full Sails the commanded faculty will the more easily follow We should long so earnestly to be in Heaven if Death were not in the way that nothing could easily stop us in our course How earnestly should we pray How seriously should we meditate and conser of Heaven and part with any thing to attain it But that whâ—ch dulls our Desires of the End must needs be an Enemy to holy Diligence and dull us in the use of means 7. This Enemy also doth dangerously tempt us to fall in love with present things and to take up the miserable Portion of the worldling when it hath weakened faith and cooled our desires to the life to come we shall be tempted to think that
Mortality as it signifyeth a posse mori a natural capacity of dying was naturall to us in our innocency or else Death could not be threatened as a penalty And if I grant as much of a naturall disposition in the Body to a dissolution if not prevented by a Glorifying change it will no whit advantage their impious cause But withall man was then so far Immortall as that he had a posse non mori a naturall capacity of not dying and the morietur vel non morietur the actuall event of Life or Death was laid by the Lord of Life and Death upon his obedience or disobedience And man having sinned Justice must be done and so we came under a non posse non mori an impossibility of escaping death ordinarily because of the peremptory sentence of our Judge But the day of our deliverance is at hand when we shall attain a non posse mori a certain consummate Immortality when the last Enemy Death shall be destroyed And how that is done I shall next enquire SECT II. YOU have seen the ugly face of Death you are next to see a little of the Love of our great Redeemer You have heard what sin hath done you are next to hear what Grace hath done and what it will do You have seen the strength of the Enemy you are now to take notice of the victory of the Redeemer and see how he conquereth all this strength 1. The Beginning of the conquest is in this world 2. The perfection will not be till the day of Resurrection when this Last Enemy shall be destroyed 1. Meritoriously Death is conquered by Death The Death of sinners by the Mediators Death Not that he intended in his Meritorious work to save us from the stroke of death by a prevention but to deliver us from it after by a Resurrection For since by man came death by man also came the Resurrection from the dead I Cor. 15.21 Forasmuch as the children were partakers of flesh and blood he also himsâ—lf likewise took part with them that he might destroy him through death that had the power of death that is the Devil and deliver them who through fear of death were all their life time subject unto bondage Heb. 2.14 15. Satan as Gods Executioner and as the prosperous tempter is said to have had the power of death The fears of this dreadfull Executioner are a continuall bondage which we are lyable to through all our lives till we perceive the deliverance Which the Death of the Lord of Life hath purchased us 1. By Death Christ hath satisfied the Justice that was armed by sin against us 2. By Death he hath shewed us that Death is a tolerable Evil and to be yielded to in hope of following life 2. Actually he conquered Death by his Resurrection This was the day of Grace's triumph This day he shewed to Heaven to Hell and to Earth that Death was conquerable yea that his personal Death was actually overcome The blessed souls beheld it to their Joy beholding in the Resurrection of their Head a virtual resurrection of their own Bodies The Devils saw it and therefore saw that they had no hopes of holding the Bodies of the Saints in the power of the grave The damned souls were acquainted with it and therefore knew that their sinfull bodies must be restored to bear their part in suffering The Believing Saints on earth perceive it and therefore see that their bonds are broken and that to the righteous there is hope in death and that our Head being actually risen assureth us that we shall also Rise For if we believe that Jesus dyed and Rose again even so them also which steep in Jesus will God bring with him 1 Thes 4.14 And as Christ being raised from the dead dyeth no more death hath no more dominion over him So shall we Rise and die no more This was the beginning of the Churches Triumph This is the day that the Lord hath made even the day which the Church on Earth must celebrate with joy and praise till the day of our Resurrection We will be glad and rejoyce therein Psam 118.24 The Resurrection of our Lord hath 1. Assured us of the consummation of his satisfaction 2. Of the truth of all his Word and so of his promises of our Resurrection 3. That Death is actually conquered and a Resurrection possible 4. That believers shall certainly Rise when their Head and Saviour is Risen to prepare them an everlasting Kingdom and to assure them that thus he will Raise them at the last A bare promise would not have been so strong a help to faith as the actual Rising of Christ as a pledge of the performance But now Christ is Risen and become the first fruits of them that sleep 1. Cor. 15.20 For because he Liveth we shall live also John 14.19 3. The next degree of destruction to this Enemy was by the gift of his Justifying and Sanctifying grace Four special benefits were then bestowed on us which are Antidotes against the Enmity of Death 1. One is the gift of Saving Faith by which we look beyond the grave as far as to eternity And this doth most powerfully disable Death to terrifie and discourage us and raiseth us above our Natural fears and sheweth us though but in a glass the exceeding eternal weight of glory which churlish Death shall help us to So that when the eye of the unbâ—liever looketh no further then the grave believing souls can enter into Heaven and see their glorified Lord and thence fetch Love and Hope and Joy notwithstanding the terrors of interposing death The eye of Faith foreseeth the salvation ready to be revealed in the last time and causeth us therein greatly to rejoyce though now for a season if need be we are in heaviness through manifold temptations And so vicâ—orious is this Faith against all the storms that do assault us that the tryal of it though with fire doth but discover that it is much more precious then Gold that perisheth and it shall be found unto praise and hoour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ whom having never seen in the flesh we Love and though now we see him not yet believing we rejoyce with unspeakable glorious joy 1 Pet. 1.5 6 7 8 9. and shall shortly receive the end of our Faith the salvation of our souls Thus Faith though it destroy not Death it self destroyeth the malignity and enmity of death while it seeth the things that are beyond it and the time when death shall be destroyed and the Life where death shall be no more Faith is like Davids three mighty men that brake through the host of the Philistines to fetch him the waters of Bethlehem for which he longed 2 Sam. 23.15 16. When the thirsty soul saith 0 that one would give me drink of the waters of Salvation Faith breaks through death which standeth in the way and fetcheth these living waters to the soul We may say
of death as it is said of the world 1. John 5.4 5. Whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world and this is the victory that overcometh the world even our Faith who is he that overcometh but he that believeth c. For greater is he that is in us then he that is in the world 1 John 4.4 The believing Soul foreseeing the day when Death shall be swallowed up in Victory may sing beforehand the triumphing song O Death where is thy sting O grave where is thy Victory 1 Cor. 15.54 55. For this cause we faint not though our outward man perish our inward man is renewed day by day For our light affliction though it reach to death which is but for a moment worketh for us a far more exceeding eternall weight of glory while we look not at the things that are seen but at the things which are not seen for the things which are seen are temporall and therefore not worthy to be looked at but the things that are not seen are eternal and therefore more prevalent with a believing Soul then either the enticing pleasures of sin for a season or the light and short afflictions or the death that standeth in our way 2 Cor. 5.16 17 18. Heb. 11.24 25 26. 2. A second Antidote against the Enmity of Death that is given us at the time of our Conversion is The Pardon of our sins and Justification of our persons by the blood and merits of Jesus Christ When once we are forgiven we are out of the reach of the greatest terror being saved from the second death Though we must feel the killing stroke we are delivered from the damning stroke Yea more then so it shall save us by dâ—stroying us It shall let us into the glorious presence of our Lord by taking us from the presence of our mortal friends It shall help us into Eternity by cutting off our Time For in the hour that we were justified and made the Adopted sâ—ns of God we were also made the Heirs of Heaven even Coheirs with Christ and shall be glorified with him when we have suffered with him Rom. 8.17 As Death was promoting the Life of the world when it was killing the Lord of Life himself So is it hastening the deliverance of believers when it seems to be undoing them No wonder if Death be that mans terror that must be conveyed by it into Hell or that imagineth that he shall perish as the beast But to him that knows it will be his passage into Rest and that Angels shall convey his Soul to Christ what an Antidote is there ready for his faith to use against the enmity and excess of fears Hence faith proceedeth in its triumph 1 Cor. 15.56 57. The sting of death is sin and the strength of sin is the Law But thanks be to God that giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ Let him inordinately fear death that is loth to be with Christ or that is yet the heir of death eternall Let him fear that is yet in the bondage of his sin and in the power of the prince of darkness and is not by Justification delivered from the curse But joy and holy triumph are more seemly for the Justified 3. A third Antidote against the Enmity of death is the Holiness of the soul By this the Power of sin is mortified and therefore the fears of death cannot actuate and use it as in others they may do By this the Interest of the flesh is cast aside as nothing and the flesh it self is crucified with Christ and therefore the destruction of the flesh will seem the more tolerable and the fears of it will be a less temptation to the Soul By this we are already crucified to the world and the world to us and therefore we can more easily leave the world We now live by another Life then we did before being dead in our selves our life is hid with Christ in God and being crucified with Christ we now so Live as that it is not we but Christ Liveth in us the life which we Live in the flesh is by the faith of the Son of God that hath loved us Gal. 2.20 The things that made this life too dear to us are now as it were annihilated to us and when we see they are Nothing they can do nothing with us Sanctification also maketh us so weary of sin as being our hated enemy that we are the more willing to die that it may die that causeth us to die And especially the Holy Ghost which we then receive is in us a Divine and heavenly Nature and so inclineth us to God and Heaven This Nature principally consisteth in the superlative Love of God And Love carryeth out the soul to the beloved As the Nature of a prisoner in a dungeon carryeth him to desire Liberty and light so the Nature of a holy Soul in flesh inclineth it to desire to be with Christ As Love maketh husband and wife and dearest friends to think the time long while they are asunder so doth the Love of the Soul to God How fain would the holy loving Soul behold the pleased face of God and be glorified in the beholding of his glory and live under the fullest influences of his Love This is our conquest over the Enmity of death As strong as Death is Love is stronger Eccles 8.6 7. Love is strong as death the coales thereof are coales of fire a most vehement flame which will not by the terrible face of death be hindered from ascending up to God Many waters cannot quench Love neither can the floods drown it if a man would give all the substance of his house for Love that is to bribe it and divert it from its object it would utterly be contemned If the Love of David could carry Jonathan to hazzard his life and deny a Kingdom for him and the Love of David to Absalom made him wish that he had dyed for him and the Love of friends yea lustfull love hath carryed many to cast away their lives no wonder if the Love of God in his Saints prevail against the fear of death The power of holy Love made Moses say Else let my name be blotted out of the book of life And it made Paul say that he could wish that he were accursed from Christ for his brethren and kindred according to the flesh Rom. 9.3 And doubtless he felt the fire burning in his breast when he broke out into that triumphant challenge Rom. 8.35 36. to the end Who shall separate us from the love of God Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword As it is written For thy sake we are killed all the day long we are counted as Sheep to the slaughter Nay in all this we are more then Conquerours through him that loved us For I am perswaded that neither death nor life nor Angels nor Principalities nor Powers nor things present nor things to
come nor height nor depth nor any other Creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Chrâ—st Jesus our Lord. You see here what it is that conquereth the enmity of death in our sanctification even that powerfull love of God that is then given us which will go to him through the most cruel death 4. A fourth Antidote that is given us by Christ against the Enmity of Death is the Holy Ghost as he is the Comforter of the Saints He made it his work to corroborate and confirm them As sin hath woven calamities into our lives and filled us with troubles and griefs and fears so Christ doth send his spirit to undo these works of Satan and to be a Comforter as well as a Sanctifier to his members As the Sanctifying Spirit striveth against the enticing sinfull flesh so the Comforting Spirit striveth against the troubling flesh as also against the persecuting as well as the tempting world and the vexing as well as the tempting Devil And greater is he that is in us then he that is in the world 1 John 4.4 The Spirit of Christ overcomes the disquieting as well as the tempting Spirit But with some difference because our comforts are not in this life so necessary to us as our Holiness Joy being part of our Reward is not to be expected certainly or constantly in any high degree till we come to the state of our Reward And therefore though the Holy Ghost will carry on the work of Sanctification universally constantly and certainly in the Elect yet in many of them his Comforting work is more obscure and interrupted And yet he is a Conquerour here For his works must be judged of in reference to their ends And our comfort on earth is given us for our encouragement in holy wayes that we be not stopt or diverted by the fear of enemies and also to help on ouâ— love to God and to quicken us in thanks and praise and draw up our hearts to the life to come and make us more serviceable to others And such a measure of comfort we shall have as conduceth to these ends and is suitable to our present state and the employment God hath for us in the world if we do not wilfully grieve our Comforter and quench our joyes So that when Death and the Grave appear before and our flesh is terrified with the sight of these Anakims and saith We are not able to overcome them and so brings up an evil report upon the promised Land and casts us sometime into murmuring lamentation and weakning-discouragements yet doth the Holy Ghost cause Faith and Hope as Caleb and Joshua to still the soul Numb 13. and causeth us to contemn these Gyants and say Let us go up and possess it for we are well able to overcome it Ver. 30. The Comforting Spirit sheweth us his death that conquered death Heb. 2.14 15. even the Cross on which he triumphed openly when he seemed to be conquered Col. 2.15 He sheweth us the glorious Resurrection of our Head and his promise of our own Resurrection He sheweth us our glorified Lord to whom we may boldly and confidently commend our departing souls Acts 7.59 And he sheweth us the Angels that are ready to be their Convoy And he maketh all these Considerations effectual and inwardly exciteth our Love and heavenly desires and giveth us a triumphing Courage and Consolation So that Death doth not encounter us alone and in our own strength but finds us armed and led on by the Lord of life who helps us by a sling and stone to conquer this Goliah If a draught of Wine or some spiritfull reviving liquor can take off fears and make men bold what then may the Spirit of Christ do by his powerfull encouragements and comforts on the soul Did we but see Christ or an Angel standing by our sick-beds and saying Fear not I will convey thy soul to God this day shalt thou be with me in Paradise What an unspeakable comfort would this be to a dying man Why the Spirit is Christs Agent here on earth and what the Spirit speaks Christ speaks And therefore we may take its comforting words as spoken to us by Christ himself who spoke the like to the penitent Thief to shew believers the virtue of his Cross and what they also may expect from him in their extremity And our Phisitian is most wise and keeps his Cordials for a fainting time The Spirit useth to sustain and comfort us most in our greatest necessities We need not comforts against death so much in the time of prosperity and health as when Death draws near In health we have ordinarily more need of quickning then of comforting and more need to be awakened from security to a due preparation for death then to be freed from the terrible fore-thoughts of it though inordinate fears of Death be hurtfull to us security and deadness hurt us more And therefore the spirit worketh according to our necessities And when Death is neerest and like to be most dreadfull he usually giveth the liveliest sense of the Joyes beyond it to abate the enmity and encourage the departing soul And if the comfort be but small it is precious because it is most pure as being then mixed with no carnal joyes and because it is most seasonable in so great a strait If we have no more but meer support it will be yet a pretious mercy And thus I have done with the third degree of the destruction of Deaths Enmity by these four Antidotes which we receive at our Conversion and the Consequents thereof 4. The fourth degree of this Enemies destruction is by it self or rather by Christ at the time and by the means of death which contrary to its nature shall advantage our felicity When Death hath done its worst it hath half killed it self in killing us It hath then dismissed our imprisoned souls and ended even our fears of death and our fears of all the evils of this life It hath ended our cares and griefs and groans It hath finished our work and ended all our weariness and trouble And more then this it ends our sinning and so destroyeth that which caused it and that which the inordinate fears of it self had caused in us It is the time when sin shall gasp its last and so far our Physitian will perfect the cure and our greatest enemy shall follow us no further It is the door by which the soul must pass to Christ in Paradise If any Papist shall hence plead that therefore all men must be perfect without sin before death or else go to Purgatory to be cleansed because as we die so Christ will find us or if they ask How death can perfect us I answer them It is Christ our Physitian that finisheth the cure and Death is the time in which he doth it And if he undertake then to do it it concerns not us to be too inquisitive how he doth it What if
of our works and the excellency of the Redeemers grace Adam was but to seek the continuance of his life and a translation to Glory without the terrors of interposing death He was never called to prepare to die nor to think of the state of a separated Soul nor to mind and love and seek a glory to which there is no ordinary passage but by death This is the difficulty that sin hath caused against which we have need of the special assistance of the example and doctrine and promise and Spirit of the Redeemer Adam was never put to study how to get over this dreadfull gulf The threatning of death was to raise such a fear in him as was necessary to prevent it But those fears did rather hold him closer to the way of life then stand between him and life to his discouragement But we have a death to fear that must be suffered that cannot be avoided The strange condition of a separated soul so unlike to its state while resident in the body doth require in us a special Faith to apprehend it and a special revelation to discover it To desire and love and long for and labour after such a time as this when one part of us must lie rotting in the grave and the separated Soul must be with Christ alone till the Resurrection and to believe and hope for that Resurrection and to deny our selves and forsake all the world and lay down our lives when Christ requireth it by the power of this faith and hope this is a work that innocent Adam never knew This is the high employment of a Christian To have our hearts and conversations in Heaven Matth. 6.21 Phil. 3.20 when Death must first dissolve us before we can possess it here is the noble work of faith SECT VI. Vse 4. MOreover this Enmity of Death may help us to understand the reaâ—on of the sufferings and Death of Christ That he gave his life a Ransome for us and a Sacrifice for sin and so to make satisfaction to the offended Majesty is a truth that every Christian doth believe But there was another reason of his death that all of us do not duely consider of and improve to the promoting of our Sanctification as we ought Death is so great an Enemy as you have heard and so powerfull to deter our hearts from God and dull our desires to the heavenly felicity that Christ was fain to go before us to embolden the hearts of believers to follow him He suffered Death with the rest of his afflictions to shew us that it is a tolerable evil Had he not gone before and overcome it it would have detained us its Captives Had he not meâ—ited and purchased us a blessed Resurrection and opened heaven to all belâ—evers and by Death overcome him that had the power of death as Gods executioner â—hat is the Devil we should all our life time have been still subjected unto bondage by the fears of Death Heb. 2.14 But when we see that Christ hath led the way as the victorious Captain of our Salvation and that he is made perfect by sufferings in his advancement unto glory and that for the sufferings of death which by the grace of God he tasted for every man he is crowned with glory ad honour Heb. 2.9 10. this puts a holy valour into the soul and causeth us cheerfully to follow him Had we gone first and the task of conquering Deaâ—h been ours we had been overcome But he that hath led us on hath hew'd down the enemy before him and first prepared us the way and then called us to follow him to pass the way that he hath first made safe and also shewed us by his example that it is now made passable For it was one in our Nature that calleth us his Brethren that took not the nature of Angels but of the seed of Abrahâ—m that is one with us as the Sanctifier and the sanctified are and to whom as children we are given Who hath passed through Death and the Grave before us and therefore we may the boldlier follow him Heb. 2.11 12 13.16 Being found in fashion as a man he humbled himself and became obedient unto death even the death of the Cross and therefore God hâ—th highly exalted him and given him a name above every name Phil. 2. 8 9. Hereby â—e hath shewed us that Death is not so dreadfull a thing but that voluntary obedience may and must submit unto it As Abrahams faith and obedience was tryed in the offering up his Son to death at Gods command so the children of Abraham and the heirs of the promise must follow him in offering up themselves if God require it and in submitting to our natural death for that he doth require of all Examples work more then bare precepts and the Experiments of others do take more with us then meer directions It satisfieth a sâ—ck man more to read a Book of Medicinal Observations where he meets with many that were in his own case and finds what cured them then to read the Praxis of medicinall receipts alone It encourageth the patient much when the Physitian tells him I have cured many of your disease by such a medicine nay I was cured thus of the same my sâ—lf So doth it embolden a believer to lay down his Life when he hath not only a promise of a better life but seeth that the promiser went that way to Heaven before him O therefore let us learn and use this choice remedy against the immoderate fear of Death Let Faith take a view of him that was dead and is alive that was buried and is risen that was humbled and is now exalted Think with your selves when you must think of dying that you are but following your Conquering Lord and going the way that he hath gone before you and suffering what he underwent and conquered And therefore though you walk through the valley of the shaddow of death resolve that you will fear no evil Psal 23.4 And if he call you after him follow him with a Christian boldness As Peter cast himself into the Sea and walkt on the waters when he saw Christ walk there and had his command so let us venture on the jawes of death while we trace his steps and hear his encouraging commands and promises John 21.7 Mat. 14.28 29. SECT VII Vse 5. MOreover from this Doctrine we may be informed of the mistakes of many Christians that think they have no saving grace because they are afraid of dying and because these fears deterr their soulâ— from desiring to be with Christ And hence they may perceive that there is another cause of these distempers even the Enmity of Death that standeth in the way You think that if you had any Love to Christ you should more desire to be with him and that if your treasure were in heaven your hearts wouâ—d be more there and that if you truly took it for your felicity you could not
to love his appearing 2 Tim. 4.8 and to look for the blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ Tit. 2.13 The Spirit and the Bride say Come Come Lord Jesus Come quickly is the voice of faith and hope and love Rev. 22.17 20. But I find not that his servants are thus Characterized by their desires to die It is therefore the presence of their Lord that they desire But it is Death that they abhor And therefore though they can submit to death it is the coming of Christ that they Love and long for and it is interposing death that causeth them to draw back Let not Christians be discouraged by mistakes and think that they love not God and glory because they love not this enemy in the way nor think that they are graceless or unbelieving worldlings because they are afraid of death as death But perhaps you will say that if grace prevail not against the fears of death then fear is predominant and we are not sincerâ— To which I answer that you must distinguish between such a prevailing as maintaineth our sincerity and such a prevailing as also procureth our fortitude and joy If grace prevail not to keep us upright in a holy life renouncing the world and crucifying the flesh and devoting our selves entirely to God though the fear of death would draw us from it then it is a sign that we are not sincere But if grace do this much and yet prevail not against all fears and unwillingness to die but leave us under uncomfortable hideous thoughts of death this proves us not to be unsound For the soul may savingly love God that is afraid of death And he may truly love the End that fears this dark and diâ—mall way Yet must there be so much to prove our uprightness as that in our deliberate choice we will rather voluntarily pass through death either naturall or violent then lose the happiness beyond it Though we love not death yet we love God and heaven so well that we will submit to it And though we fear it and abhor it yet not so much as we fear and abhor the loss of heaven Let not poor Christians therefore wrong themselves and deny the graces of the Spirit as if they had more mind of earth then heaven and of things temporal then of things eternal because they are afraid to die All suffering is grievous and not joyous to our nature Paul himself desired not to be unclothed but clothed upon with our house which is from heaven that mortality might be swallowed up of life 2 Cor. 5.2 4. it â—eing better to be absent from the body and present with the Lord. Even Christ himself had a will that desired that the Cup might have passed from him if it had been agreeable to his Fathers will and the ends of his undertaken Office Mathew 26.41 42. Raise therefore no unjust conclusions from these natural fears nor from the imperfection of our conquest but praise him that relieveth us and abateth the enmity of death and furnisheth us with his Antidotes and will destroy this enemy at last SECT VIII Vse 6. FRom the Enmity of Death we may further learn to study and magnifie the victorious grace of our Redeemer which overcometh the enemy and turneth our hurt into our benefit and maketh death a door of life Though death be the enemy that seemeth to conquer us and to destroy and utterly undo us yet being conquered it self by Christ it is used by him to our great advantage and sanctified to be a very great help to our salvation The suffering of Christ himself was in the hour of his enemies and the power of darkness Luke 22.53 which seemed to have prevailed against him when yet it was but a destroying of death by death and the purchasing of life and salvation for the world So also in our death though sin and Satan seem to conquer it is they that are conquered and not we who are supervictors through him that hath loved us Rom. 8.37 They destroy themselves when they seem to have destroyed us As the Serpent bruised but the heel of Christ who bruised his head so doth he bruise but our heel who in that conflict and by the means of his own execution through the strength of Christ do bruise his head Gen. 3.15 And this is upshot of all his enmity against the womans holy seed Though Death was unsuitable to innocent man and is still a natural enemy to us all yet unto sinners it is an evil that is suitable and fit to destroy the greater evil that did cause it and to prevent the everlasting evil The fore-knowledge of our certain death is a very great help to keep us humble and disgrace all the seducing pleasures of the flesh and all the profits and honours of the world and so to enervate all temptations It is a singular help to quicken a stupid careless sinner and to waken men to prepare for the life to come and to excite them to seek first the Kingdom of God and to give all diligence to make their calling and election sure to consider seeing all these things must be dissolved what manner of persons they ought to be in all holy conversation godliness looking for and hastening to the coming of the day of God 2 Pet. 3.11 12. When we drop asleep the remembrance of death may quickly awake us when we grow slack it is our spur to put us on to mend our pace Who is so mad as wilfully to sin with Death in his eye or who so dead as with death in hâ—s eye to refuse to live a godly life if he have any spiritual light and feeling Experience teâ—leth us that when health and folly cause us to promise our selves long life and think that death is a great way off it lamentably cools our zeal and strentheneth our temptations and duls our souls to holy operations and the approach of death puâ—s life into all our apprehensions and affections It is a wonderfull hard thing to maintain our lively apprehensions and strâ—ng affections and tenderness of conscience and self-denyal and easie contempt of earthly things when we put far from us the day of death We see what a stir men make for the profits and honours of this world and how fast they hold their fleshly pleasures while they are in health and how contemptuously they speak of all and bitterly complain of the vanity and vexation when they come to die And if our lives and the world be brought hereby into such disorders when men live so short a time on earth what monsters of ambition and covetousness and luxury would men be if they lived as long as before the flood even to eight hundred or nine hundred years of age Doubtless long life was so great a temptation then to man in his corrupted state that it is no wonder if his wickedness was great upon â—he earth and if it prepared
for that great destruction of the universal deluge Should men live now but to the age of three hundred or four hundred years I fear it would so tempt them to overvalue the world and so embolden them to delay repentance that one would be as Wolf to another and the weak but be a prey to the strong and wickedness would overwhelm the world despising the reins and bearing down Religious and civil opposition But when we stand over the grave and see our friends laid in the dust how mortified do we seem how do we even shake the head at the folly of ambitious and covetous worldlings and are ashamed to think of fleshly lusts So far are men from owning their vanities when that silent teacher standeth by It is Death that helps to humble the proud and abate the arroganâ—y and obstinacy of the wicked and make them regard the messengers of Christ that bâ—fore despised them and their message It is death that allayeth the ebullition of distracting thoughts and passions and helpeth to bring men to themselves and fixeth giddy discomposed minds and helps to settle the light and the unsettled and to restrain the worst As we are beholden to the Gallows for our purses and our lives so are we to the grave and hell for much of the order that is in the world and our peace and freedom procured thereby But it is a greater good that it procureth to believers If you ask How is all this to be ascribed to Christ I answer many wayes 1. It is he that hath now the Keyes or power of death and hell even he that liveth and was dead and that liveth for evermore Rev. 1.18 and therefore is to be feared by the world 2. It is he that hath by his Blood Covenant brought us the Hope of everlasting life which is it that gives the efficacy to death Without this men would be but desperate and think that it is better have a little pleasure then none at all and so would give up themselves to sin and desperately gratifie their flesh by all the wickedness they could devise 3. And it is Christ that teacheth men the right use of death by his holy doctrine having brought life and immortality to light by his Gospel 4. And it is Christ that sendeth forth the holy Spirit which only doth so illuminate the mind and quicken and dispose the heart that Death may be savingly improved The poyson is our own but it is his skill and love that hath made a Soveraign antidote of it And let our bodies die so our sin may die If the foresight of Death destroy our sin and further our sanctification and the hour of death doth end our fears and enter us into the state of glory though we will love death as death never the better for this much less the sin that caused it yet must we admire the love of our Redeemer And it is not only the Peril but also the Terrors of Death that we are in part delivered from Though Christ himself was in a bloody sweat in his agony before his death and cryed out on the Cross My God why hast thou forsaken me because he bore the sins of the world yet death is welcome to many of his followers that drink of his cup and are baptized with his baptism For they taste not of these dregs which he drunk up and they are strengthened by his supporting grace He that doth comfort them against sin and Hell doth also comfort them against Death So great is the glory that he hath promised them and so great is his comforting confirming grace that dreadfull â—eath is not great enough to prevail against them As it was too weak to conquer Christ so is it too weak to conquer his Spirit in his peoples souls Without Christ we could not live and we durst not die but through him we can do and suffer all things and can boldly pass through this dark and shady vale of death yea we can desire to depart and to be with Christ as best fâ—r us for to Live is Christ and to die is gain Phil. 1.21 23. For we know that if our earthly house of this Tabernacle were dissolved we hâ—ve a building of God an house not made with hâ—nds eternal in the heavens And therefore sometimes we can earnestly groan dâ—siring to be clothed upâ—n with our house which is from heaven And we are alwayes confident knowing that whilest we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord we are confident I say and willing rather to be absent from the body and present with the Lord and therefore labour that whether present or absent we may be accepted of him For we walk by faith and not by sight and it is God that hath wrought us for the self same thing who also hath given us the earnest of the Spirit 2 Cor. 5.1 to 10. Though we long not to die yet we long to see the face of God And though we lay down our bodâ—â—s with natural unwillingness yet we lay down our sin and sorrows with gladness and spiritual delight And though our hearts are ready to faint as Peters when he walked to Christ upon the waters yet Christ puts forth his hand of love and soon recovereth us from our fear and danger Melancholly and impatience may make men weary of their lives and rush upon death with a false conceit that it will end their sorrows But this is not to conquer death but to be conquered by a lesser evil and it is not an effect of fortitude but of an imbecillity impotency of mind And if a Brutus a Cato or a Seneca be his own Executioner thâ—â— do but choose a lesser evil in their conceits even a death which they accounted honourable before a more ignominious death or a life of shame and scorn and misery But the true believer is raised above the fears of death by the love of God and the hopes of Glory and Death though ungratefull in it self is welcome to him as the way to his felicity Leâ— Tyrants and Souldiers take it for their glory that they can take away mens liver that is they have the power of a Serpent or of Rats-bane as if it were their honour to be their Countreys pestilence and a Ruler and a Dose of poyson were things of equal strength and use But it is the Glory of Christ to enable hâ—s Disciples to conquer Death bear the fury of the most cruel persecutors The Martyrs have been more joyfull in their sufferings then the Judges that condemned them in their Pomp and glory When we are pressed above strength and despair of life and have the sentence of death in our selves we are then taught to trust in the living God that raiseth the dead 2 Cor. 1.8 9 10. The Saints by faith have been tortured not accepting deliverance that they might obtain a better resurrection they have had tryall of cruel mockings scourgings yea moreover of bonds
and imprisonment they were stoned they were sawn asunder were tempted were slain with the sword Heb. 11.35 36 37. Thanks be to God which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ 1 Cor. 15.57 They overcome by the blood of the Lamb and love not their lives unto the death Rev. 12.11 They fear not them that kill the body and after thâ—t have no more that they can do Luke 12.4 They trust upon his promise that haâ—h said I will ransome them from the power of the grave I will redeem them from death O death I will be thy plagues O grave I will be thy destruction Hos 13.14 Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his Saints Psal 116.15 Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth yea saith the spirit that they may rest from their labours and their works do follow them Rev. 14.13 SECT IX Vse 7. MOreover from the Enmity of Death we may be directed which way to bend our cares and seeing where our difficulty most lieth we may see which way our most diligent preparations must be turned Death cannot be prevented but the malignant influence of it on our souls may be much abated If you let it work without an Antidote it will make you live like unbelieving worldlings It will deter your hearts from heaven and dull your love to God himself and make your meditations of him and of your Everlasting Rest to be seldom and ungratefull to you And it will make you say It s good to be here and have sweeter thoughts of this present life then of your inheritance It will rob you of much of your heavenly delights and fill you with slavish fears of death and subject you unto bondage all your lives and make you die with agony and horror so that your lives and deaths will be dishonourable to your holy faith and to your Lord. If it were meerly our own suffering by fears and horrors or meerly our loss of spiritual delights the matter were great but not so great But it is more then this For when our joyes are overwhelmed with the fears of death and turned into sorrows our love to God will be abated and we shall deny him the thanks and cheerfull praises which should be much of the employment of our lives and we shall be much discomposed and unfitted for his service and shall much dishonour him in the world and shall strengthen our temptations to the overvaluing of earthly things Think it not therefore a small or an indifferent matter to fortifie your souls against these malignant fears of death Make this your daily care and work your peace your safety your innocency and usefulness and the honour of God do much lie on it And it is a work of such exceeding difficulty that it requireth the best of your skill and diligence and when all is done it must be the illuminating quickning beams of grace and the shining face of the Eternal Love that must do the work though yet your diligence is necessary to attend the spirit and use the means in subserviency to grace and in expectation of these celestiall rayes And above all take heed lest you should think that carnal mirth or meer security and casting away the thoughts of death will serve to overcome these fears or that it is enough that you resolve against them For it is your safety that must be lookt to as well as your present ease and peace and fear must be so overcome as that a greater misery may not follow Presumption and security will be of very short continuance To die without fear and pass into endless desperation which fear should have wakened you to prevent is no desirable kind of dying And besides resolving against the Terrors of death will not prevent them When Death draws neer it will amaze you in despight of all your resolutions if you are not furnished with a better Antidote The more jocund you have been in carnal mirth and the more you have presumptuously slighted death its likely your horror will be the greater when it comes And therefore see that you make a wise and safe preparation and that you groundedly and methodically cure these fears and not securely cast them away Though I have given you to this end some Directions in other writings in the Saints Rest and in the Treatise of Self-denyal and that of Crucifying the world yet I shall add here these following helps which faithfully observed and practised will much promote your victory over death which conquereth all the strength of flesh and glory of this world DIRECTION I. IF you would overcome the danger and the fears of Death Make sure of your Conversion that it is sound and see that you be absolutely devoted unto God without reserves Should you be deceived in your foundations your life and hopes and joyes would all be delusory things Till sin be mortified and your souls reconciled to God in Christ you are still in danger of worse then death and it is but the senslesness of your dead condition that keepeth you from the terrors of damnation But if you are sure that you are quickâ—ed by renewing grace and possessed by the sanctifying spirit and made partakers of the Divine nature you have then the earnest of your inheritance Eph. 1.14 2 Cor. 1.22 5.5 and the fire is kindled in your breast that in despight of Death will mount you up to God DIRECTION II. TO Conquer the Enmity of Death you must live by faith in Jesus Christ as men that are emptied of themselves and ransomed from his hands that had the power of death and as men that are redeemed from the curse and are now made heirs of the grace of life being made his members who is â—he Lord of life even the second Adam who is a quickning spirit The serious believing study of his design and office to destroy sin and death and to bring many sons to glory and also of his voluntary suffering and his obedience to the death of the Cross may raise us above the fears of death When we live by faith as branches of this blessed Vine are righteous with his righteousness justified by his blood and merits sanctified by his Word and Spirit and find that we are united to him we may then be sure that death cannot conquer us nothing can take us out of his hands For our life being hid with Christ in God we know that we shall live because he liveth Col. 3.3 John 14.19 and that when Christ who is our life appeareth we shall also appear with him in glory Col. 3.4 And that he will change our vile bodies and make them like to his glorious body by his mighty power by which he is able to subdue all things to himself Phil. 3.20 21. In our own strenâ—th we dare not stand the charge of death and with it the charge of the Law and of our Consciences How dreadfully should we then
prosperity And then sin will seem another thing and wrath more terrible then it did in your security Conscience will do much to make your burden light or heavy If Conscience groundedly speak peace and all be sound and well at home death will be less terrible the heart being fortified against its enmity But to have a pained body and a pained soul a dying body and a scorched Conscience that is afraid of everlasting death this is a terrible case indeed Speedily therefore get rid of sin and get your Consciences throughly cleansed by sound repentance and the blood of Christ For so much sin as you bring to your death-bed so much bitterness will there be in death Away then with that sin that Conscience tells you of and touch the forbidden fruit 〈◊〉 more and kindle not the sparâ—s of Hell in your souls to make the sting of death more venemous As it will quiet a believing soul through Chrâ—st when he can say with Hezekiah Isa 38.3 Remember now O Lord I beseech thee how I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart and have done that which is good in thy sight and it will be our rejoycing if we have the testimony of our Consciences that in simplicity and godly sincerity we have had our conversation in the world 2 Cor. 1.12 So will it be most terrible to die in the fears of unpardoned sin and to have Conscience scourging us with the remembrance of our folly when God is afflicting us and we have need of a well composed mind to bear the troubles of our flâ—sh A little from without is grievous when any thing is amiss within Get home therefore to Christ without delay and cease not till you have peace in him that death may find your consciences whole DIRECTION VI. REdeeming time is another means to prevent the hurtfull fears of death When we foreknow that it will shortly end our time let us make the best of time while we have it And then when we find that our work is done and that we did not loyter nor lose the time that God vouchsafed us the end of it will be less grievous to us A man that studieth his duty and spareth for no cost or pains and is as loath to lose an hours time as a covetous man is to lose an hundred pound will look back on his life and look before him to his death with greater peace and less perplexity then another man But the thoughts of death must needs be terrible to a man that hath trifled away his life and been an unthrift of his time To think when you must die that now you are at your last day or hour and withall to think how many hours you vainly lost and that you knew not the worth of time till it was gone will make death more bitter then now you can imagine What else is Death but the ending of our Time and what can be more necessary to a comfortable end then faithfully to use it while we have it DIRECTION VII ANother help against the Enmity of Death is the Crucifying of the flesh with its affections and lusts and the conquest of the world by the life of faith and crucifying it by the Cross of Christ and dying daily by the patient suffering of the Cross our selves When we are loose from all things under the Sun and there is nothing that entangleth our affections on earth a great part of the difficulty is then removed But death will tear the heart that is glued to any thing in this world Possess therefore as if you possessed not and rejoyce as if you rejoyced not and use the world as not abusing it for the fashion of this world doth pass away I Cor. 7.29 30 31. It is much for the sake of our flesh that must perish that death doth seem so bitter to us If therefore we can throughly sudue the flesh and live above its pleasure and desires we shall the more esily bear its dissolution Shut up your senses then a little more and let your hearts grow stranger to this world and if you have known any persons relations accomodations after the flesh from henceforth know them so no more How terrible is death to an earthly-minded man that had neglected his soul for a treasure here which must then be dissipated in a moment How easie is death to a heavenly-mind that is throughly weaned from this world and taketh it but for his pilgrimage or passage unto life and hath made it the business of his dayes to lay up for himself a treasure in heaven He that hath unfeignedly made heaven his end in the course of his life will most readily pass to it on the hardest terms For every man is willing to attain his end DIRECTION VIII IT will much help us against the Enmity of death to be duly conformed to the Image of God in the hatred of sin and love of holiness and in special in the point of Justice When we hate sin throughly and find it so incorporated into our flesh that they must live and die together it will make death the more easie to us because it will be the death of sin even of that sin which we most hate and that God hateth and that hath cost us so dear as it hath done When we are in love with holiness and know that we shall never be perfect in it till after death it will make death the more welcome as the passage to our desired life When the Justice even the castigatory and vindictive Justice of God is more amiable in our eyes and we are not blinded by self-love to judge of God and of his wayes according to the interest of our flesh we shall then consent to his dissolving stroke and see that the bitterness of death proceedeth from that which is good in God though from that which is evil in our selves Doubtless as Justice is one of the blessed Attributes of God so should it be amiable to man there being nothing in God but what is lovely It is the prevalency of self-love that makes men so insensible of the excellency of Divine Justice while they speak so respectfully of his mercy So far as men are carnall and selfish they cannot love that by which they smart or of which they are in danger But the soul that is got above it self and is united unto God in Christ and hath that Image of God which containeth the impress and effect of all his Attributes hath such an habit of impartial justice in himself and such a hatred of sin and such a desire that the honour of God should be vindicateed and maintained and such an approbation of the Justice of God that he can the more easily consent or submit to the dissolving stroke of death He hateth his own sin and loatheth himself for all his abominations and is possessed with that Justice that provoketh him to self-revenge in an ordinate sort and therefore doth love and honour
that Justice that inflicteth on him the penalty of death Especially since Mercy hath made it a usefull Castigation As some penitent malefactors have been so sensible of their crimes that they have not deprecated death but consented to it as a needfull work of Justice as it s written of the penitent Murderer lately hanged at London So Holiness doth contain such a hatred of our own sins and such impartial Justice on Gods behalf that it will cause us to subscribe to the righteousness of his sentence and the more quietly to yield to the stroke of death DIRECTION IX IT will somewhat abate the fears of Death to consider the Restlesness and troubles of this life and the manifold evills that end at death And because this Consideration is little available with men in prosperity it pleaseth God to exercise us with adversity that when we find there is no hope of Rest on earth we may look after it where it is and venture on death by the impulse of necessity Here we are continually burdened with our selves annoyed by our corruptions and pained by the diseases of our souls or endangered most when pained least And would we be thus still We live in the continual smart of the fruit of our own folly and the hurts that we catch by our careless or inconsiderate walking like children that often fall and cry and would we still live such a life as this The weakness of our faith the darkness of our minds the distance and strangeness of our souls to God are a continuall languishing and trouble to our hearts How grievous is it to us that we can love him no more nor be more assured of his love to us that we find continually so much of the creature and so little of God upon our hearts that carnal affections are so easily kindled in us and the Love of God will scarce be kept in any life by the richest mercies the most powerfull means and by our greatest diligence O what a death is it to our hearts that so many odious temptations should have such free access such ready entertainment such small resistance and so great success that such horrid thoughts of unbelief should look into our minds and stay so long and be so familiar with us that the blessed mysteries of the Gospel and the state of separated souls and the happiness of the life to come are known so slightly and believâ—d so weakly and imperfectly and meet with so many carnall questionings and doubts that when we should be solacing our souls in the fore-thoughts of heaven we look toward it with such strangeness and amazement as if we staggered at the promise of God through unbelief and there is so much Atheism in our Affections God being almost as no God to them sometime and Heaven almost as no Heaven to them that it shews there is too much in our understandings O what a death is it to our minds that when we should live in the Love of Infinite Goodness we find such a remnant of carnal enmity and God hath such resistance and so narrow so shâ—â—â— so cold so unkind entertainment in those hearts that were made to love him and that should know and own no love but his What a bondage is it that our souls are so entangled with the creatures and so detained from the love of God and that we draggle on this earth and can reach no higher and the delightfull Communion with God and a Conversation in Heaven are things that we have so small experience of Alas that we that are made for God and should live to him and be still upon his work and know no other should be so byased by tâ—e flesh and captivated by self-love and lost at home that our affections and intentions do hardly get above our selves but there we are too prone to terminate them all and lose our God even in a seeming Religiousness while we will be Gods to our selves How grievous is it that such wonders and glorious appearances of God as are contained in the incarnation life and death of Christ and in all the parts of the work of our Redemption should no more affect us then they do nor take up our souls in more thankfull admiration nor ravish us into higher joyes Alas that Heaven commands our souls no more from earth that such an infinite glory is so near us and we enjoy so little of it and have no more savour of it upon our souls That in the hands of God and before his face we do no more regard him That the great and wonderfull matters of our faith do so little affect us that we are tempted thereby to question the sincerity of our faith if not the reality of the things believed and that so little of these great and wondrous things appeareth in our lives that we tempt the world to think our faith is but a fancy Is not all this grievous to an honest heart and should we not be so far weary of such a life as this as to be willing to depart and be with Christ If it would so much rejoyce a gracious soul to have a stronger faith a more lively hope a more tender conscience a more humble self-abhorring heart to be more fervent in prayer more resolute against temptations and more successfully to fight against them with what desire and joy then should we look towards Heaven where we shall be above our strongest faith and hope and have no more need of the healing graces or the healing Ordinances nor be put upon self-afflicting work nor troubled with the temptations nor terrified by the face of any enemy Now if we will vigorously appear for God against a sinfull generation how many will appear against us how bitterly will they reproach us how falsly will they slander us and say all manner of evil against us and it is well if we scape the violence of their hands and what should be our joy in all these sufferings but that Great is our reward in heaven Mat. 11 12. Alas how we are continually here annoyed by the presence and the motions and the succâ—ss of sin in our selves and others It dwelleth in us night and day we cannot get it stay behind no not when we address our selves to God not in our publike worship or our secret prayers not for the space of one Lords Day or one Sermon or one Sacrament in ordinary or extraordinary duty O what a blessed day and duty would it be in which we could leave our sin behind us and converse with God in spotless innocency and worship and adore him without the darkness and strangeness and unbelief and dulness and doubtings and distractions that are now our daily miseries Can we have grace and not be weary of these corruptions Can we have life and not be pained with these diseases And can we live in daily pain and weariness and not be willing of release Is there a gracious soul that groaneth not under the burden of
these miseries yea in every prayer what do we else but confess them and lament them and groan for help and for deliverance And yet shall we fear our day of freedom and be loth that death should bring us news that our prayers are heard and our groans have reached up to heaven and that the bonds of flesh and sin shall be dissolved and we shall have need to watch and strive and fear and complain and sigh and weep no more Shall the face of death discourage us from desiring such a bessed day When we have so full assurance that at last this enemy also shall be destroyed The Lord heal and pardon the Hypocrisie of our complaints together with the unbelief and cowardliness of our souls Do we speak so much and hear so much and seem to do so much against sin and yet had we rather keep it still then be stript of it together with the rags of our mortality and yet had we rather dwell with sin in tempting troubling corruptible flesh then lay them by and dwell with Christ O Lord how lamentably have we lost our wisdom and drowned our minds in flesh and folly by forsaking thee our light and life How come our reasonable souls to be so bewitched as after all our convictions complaints and prayers to be still more willing of our sickness then of the remedy and more afraid of this bitter Cup then of the poyson that lodgeth in our bowels which it would expell and that after all the labour we have usâ—d we had yet rather dwell with our greatest enemy then by a less to be transmitted to our dearest friend and had rather continue in a troublesome weary restless life then by the sleep of death to pass to Rest And this sin in others also is our trouble though not so much as in our selves It maketh those our bitter enemies whose good we most desire and endeavour and causeth the unthankfull world to requite us with malicious usage for telling them the ungratefull truth and seeking their salvation it makes our friends to be but half-friends and some of them too like our enemies It puts a sting into the sweetest friendship and mixeth smart with all our pleasures It worketh us grief from precious mercies and abateth the comfort of our near Relations So that our smart by the pricks is often greater then our pleasure in the sweetness of the Rose No friend is so smoothed and squared to the temper and interest of another but that some in equality and unevenness doth remain which makes the closure to be less near and stedfast Even family relations are usually so imperfectly jointed and cemented that when the winds of tryal are any thing high they shake the frame and though they are but low they find an entrance and cause such a coldness of affections as is contrary to the nature and duty of the relations Either a contrariety of opinions or of natural temperature and humours or else of the dispositions of the mind Sometime cross interests and sometime passions and cross words do cause such discontents and sowrness such frowns or jealousies or distances that our nearest friends are but as sackloth on our skins and as a shoo too strait for us or as a garment that is unmeet which pinch and trouble us in their use and those that should be to us as the Apple of our eyes are as the dust or smoak to them that vex or blind them And the more we Love them the more it greiveth us to be crossed in our love There is scarce any friend so wise so good so suitable to us or so near that we can alwayes please And the displeasure of a friend is as gravell in our shoos or as Nettles in our bed oft-times more grievous then the malice of an enemy There is no such doing as this in heaven because there is no such guest as sin We shall love each other far more then we do here and yet that Love shall never be inordinate nor in the least divert our love from God but every Saint and Angel in the Society shall be loved with most chaste and pure affections in a perfect subordination to the love of God and so as that God himself in them shall be the chiefest object of that love It is there that our friends being freed from all their imperfections do neither tempt us to a carnal Love nor have any thing in them to discourage the love that is spirituall and pure We have here our passionate friends our self-conceited friends our unkind unthankfull selfish friends our mutable and unfaithfull friends our contentious friends that are like to enemies and who have used us more hardly then our friends But when we come to God we shall have friends that are like God that are wholly good and are participatively turned into Love and haveing left behind them all that was unclean and noysome and troublesome to themselves they have also cast off all that could be troublesome to us Our love will be there without suspicions without interruptions unkindnesses and discontents without disappointments frustrations and dissatisfactions For God himself will fully satisfie us and we shall love his goodness and glory in his Saints as well as immediately in himself Our friends are now lost at the turning of a straw the change of their interest their company their opinions the slanders of back-biters and mis-representations of malicious men can cool their Love and kill their friendship But Heaven is a place of constant Love The Love of Saints as all things else is there eternal And yet it declineâ—h not with age It is a world of Love that we are hasting to It is a life of love that we must there live and a work of love and perfect love that we must be there employed in for ever If here we have a pure a dear a faithful friend that is without false-heartedness and deceit that loveth us as his own soul how quickly is he snatcht away by death and leaves us melted into tears and mourning over his earthly relicts and looking upward with grieved hearts as the Disciples did after their ascending Lord Acts 1. 9 10 11. We are left almost as lifeless by such friends as the body is left by the departed soul We have nothing but grief to tell us that we live and that our souls are not departed with them we are left in greater lamentation then if we had never known a faithfull friend And alas how quickly are they gone when once God sees them ripe for heaven when Droans and Dullards live much longer If we see a Saint that 's clear of judgement and low in humility and naked-hearted in sincerity and that abounds in love to God and man that 's faithfull and constant to their friend and is above the pride and vanities of this world and doth converse by a life of faith above and is usefull and exemplary in their generation alas how soon are they
snacht away and we are left in our temptations repining and murmuring at God as Jonah when his gourd was withered as if the Lord had destinated this world to be the dwelling of unfaithfull worthless men and envied us the presence of one eminent Saint one faithfull friend and one that as Moses when he had talkt with God hath a face that shineth with the reflected raies of the heavenly glory when indeâ—d it is because this world is unworthy of them Heb. 11.38 not knowing their worth nor how to use them nor how to make use of them for their good and because when they are ripe and mellow for eternity it is fit that God be served before us and that Heaven have the best and that be left on earth that is earthly Must Heaven be deprived of its inhabitants Must a Saint that is ripe be kept from Christ and so long kept from his inheritance from the company of Angels and the face of God and all lest we should be displeased and grudge at God for glorifying those whom he destinated to glory before the foundations of the world and whom he purchased and prepared for Glory Must there a place be empty and a voice be wanting in the Heavenly Chore lest we should miss our friends on earth Are we not hasting after them at the heels and do we not hope to live with them for ever and shall we grudge that they are gone a day or week or year before us O foolish unbelieving souls We mourn for them that are past mourning and lament for our friends that are gone to Rest when we are left our selves in a vexatious restless howling wilderness as if it were better to be here we mourn and weep for the souls that are triumphing in their Masters joy And yet we say we believe and hope and labour and wait for the same felicity â— Shall the happiness of our friends be our sorrow and lamentation O did we but see these blessed souls and where they are and what they are enjoying and what they are doing we should be ashamed to mourn thus for their change Do you think they would wish themselves again on earth or would they take it kindly of you if you could bring them down again into this world though it were to reign in wealth and honour O how would they disdain or abhorr the motion unless the commanding will of God did make it a part of their obedience And shall we grieve that they are not here when to be here would be their grief But thus our lives are filled with griefs Thus smiles and frowns desires and denyals hopes and frustrations endeavours and disappointments do make a quotidian ague of our lives The persons and the things we love do contribute to our sorrows as well as those we hate If our friends are bad or prove unkind they gall and grieve us while they live If they excell in holiness fidelity and suitableness the dart that kills them deeply woundeth us and the sweeter they were to us in their lives the bitterer to us is their death We cannot keep a mercy but sin is ready to take it from us or else to marr it and turn it into Vinegar and Gall. And doth not Death accidentally befriend us that puts an end to all these troubles and lands us safe on the Celestiall shore and puts us into the bosome of perpetual Rest where all is calm and the storms and billows that tost us here shall fear or trouble us no more And thus Death shall make us some recompence at last for the wrong it did us and the mortal blow shall hurt us less then did the dreadfull apparition of it in our fore-thoughts Let not our fears then exceed the cause Though we fear the pangs throws of travel let us withall remember that we shall presently rejoyce and all the holy Angels with us that a soul is born into the world of glory And Death shall gain us much more then it deprived us of DIRECTION X. THE last Direction that I shall give you to conquer the enmity of Death is this Give up your wills entirely to the will of God as knowing that his will is your beginning and your end your safety your felicity and rest in which you should gladly acquiesce When you think of Death remember who it is that sends it It is our Fathers messenger and is sent but to execute his will And can there be any thing in the will of God that his servants should inordinately fear Doubtless his Will is much safer and better for us then our own And if in generall it were offered to our choice Whether all particulars of our lives should be disposed of by Gods will or by ours common reason might teach us to desire to be rather in Gods hands then our own The fulfilling of his will is the care and business of our lives and therefore it should be a support and satisfaction to us at our death that it is but the fulfilling of his will His Justice and punishing will is good though selfishness maketh it ungratefull to the offender But his children that are dear to him and taste no evil but that which worketh for their good have no cause to quarrell at his will Whatsoever our surest dearest friends would have us take or do or suffer we are ready to submit to as being confident they will do nothing for our hurt if they do but know what is for our good And shall we not more boldly trust the will of God then of our dearest friend He knows what he hath to do with us and how he will dispose of us and whether he will bring us and his interest in us is more then ours in our selves and shall we then distrust him as if we had to do with an enemy or one that were evil and not with love and infinite goodness It is the will of God that must be the everlasting Rest the Heaven the pleasure of our souls And shall we now so fear it and fly from it as if it were our ruine Look which way you will through all the world your souls will never find repose nor satisfying quietness and content but in the will of God Let us therefore commit our souls to him as to a faithfull Creator and desire unfeignedly the fulfilling of his will and believe that there is no ground of confidence more firm Abraham may boldly trust his Son his only Son on the will of God And Christ himself when he was to drink the bitter Cup submitteth his own naturall love of life to his Fathers will saying Not my will but thine be done It is a most unworthy abuse of God that we could be quiet and rejoyce if our own wills or our dearest friends might dispose of our lives and yet are distressâ—d when they are at the dispose of the will God But perhaps you will say It is the error of my own will that hath procured my Death
will he not have all his members with him Remember then Christian when thou lookest on thy grave that Christ was buried and hath made the grave a bed of rest that shall give up her trust when his Trumpet sounds And that his Resurrection is the pledge of ours Keep therefore thy rising and glorified Lord continually in the eye If Christ were not risen our preaching were vain and your faith were vain and all men were miserable but we most miserable that suffer so much for a life which we had no ground to hope for 1 Cor. 15.14 17 19. But now we have an Argument that infidelity it self is ashamed to encounter with that hath been the means of the conversion of the Nations unto Christ by which we may put even death it self to a defiance as knowing it is now a conquered thing If it could have held Christ captive it might also have held us But he being Risen we shall surely rise Write it therefore Christians upon your hearts mention it more in your conference for the encouragement of your faith Write it on the grave-stones of your friends that CHRIST IS RISEN and that BECAUSE HE LIVETH WE SHALL LIVE ALSO and that OUR LIFE IS HID WITH CHRIST IN GOD though we are dead and when he shall appear who is our Life we shall also appear with him in glory John 14.19 Col. 3.3 4. Though we must be sown in corruption in weakness and dishonour we shall be raised in incorruption strength and honour 1 Cor. 15.42 43. While our souls behold the Lord in glory we may bear with the winter that befalls our flesh till the spring of Resurrection come Knowing that he that raised up the Lord Jesus shall also raise us up by Jesus For which cause we faint not but though our outward man perish yet the inner man is renewed day by day while we look not at the things whic are seen but at the things which are not seen For the things which are seen are temporal but the things which are not seen are eternall 2 Cor 4.14 15 16 17 18. As we are risen with Christ to newness of life so well shall rise with him to glory Vse 10. LAstly if Death be the last enemy to be destroyed at the Resurrection we may learn hence how earnestly believers should long and pray for the second coming of Christ when this full and finall conquest shall be made Death shall do much for us but the Resurrection shall do more Death sends the separated soul to Christ but at his coming both soul and body shall be glorified There is somewhat in death that is penal even to believers but in the coming of Christ and their Resurrection there is nothing but glorifying grace Death is the effect of sin and of the first sentence passed upon sinners but the Resurrection of the just is the finall destruction of the effects of sin And therefore though the fears of Death may perplex us me thinks we should long for the coming of Christ there being nothing in that but what tends to the deliverance and glory of the Saints Whether he will come before the general Resurrection and reign on earth a thousand years which some expect I shall not presume to pass my determination But sure I am it is the work of faith and Character of his people to love his appearance 2 Tim. 4.8 and to wait for the Son of God from Heaven whom be raised from the dead even Jesus who delivered us from the wrath to come 1 Thes 1.10 and to wait for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ 1 Cor. 1.7 and tâ— wait for the adoption the redemption of our bodies with inward grâ—anings Rom. 8.23 O therefore let us pray more earnestly for the coming of our Lord and that the Lord would direct our hearts into the love of God and into the patient waiting for Christ 2 Thes 3.5 O blessed day when the glorious appearing of our Lord shall put away all his servants shame and shall communicate Glory to his members even to the bodies that had lain so long in dust that to the eye of flesh there seemed to be no hope Though the Majesty and glory will cause our Reverence yet it will not be our terror to the diminution of our joy It is his enemies that would not have him rule over them whom he cometh to destroy Luke 19.27 Behold the Lord cometh with ten thousand of his Saints to execute judgement upon all and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him as Henoch the seventh from Noah prophesied Jud. 14.15 But the precious faith of the Saints shall be found to praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ 1 Pet. 1.7 When the chief Shepherd shall appear we shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth â—ot away 1. Pet. 5.4 He that was once â—ffered to bear the sins of many and nâ—w appeareth for us in the presence of God shall unto them that look for him appear the second time without sin to salvation Heb. 9.24 28. And when Christ who is our life shall appear then shall we also appear with him in glory Col. 3.4 The Lord shall then come to be glorified in his Saints and admired in all them that believe in that day 2 Thes 1.10 This is the day that all believers should long and hope and wait for as being the accomplishment of all the work of their redemption and all the desires and endeavours of their souls It is the hope of this day that animateth the holy diligence of our lives and makes us turn from the carelesness and sensuality of the world For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared unto all men teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts we should live soberly righteously and godly in this present world looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of our great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ Tit. 2.11 12 13. The heavens and the earth that are now are kept in store by the word of God reserved unto fire against the day of judgement and perdition of ungodly men And though the Lord seem to delay he is not slack of his promise as some men count slackness for a day is with him as a thousand years and a thousand years but aâ— a day But the day of the Lord will come as a Thief in the night in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise and the elements shall melt wth fervent heat the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burnt up Seeing then all these things shall be dissâ—lved what manner of persons ought we to be in all holy conversation and godliness looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved and the elements melt with
particulars 1. Of the frame of her heart in every dayes duty in Meditation Prayer Hearing Reading c. whether lively or dull c. 2. Of those sins which she hâ—d especially to repent of and watch against 3. Of hâ—r Resolutions and Promises and how she kept them 4. Of all special Providences to her self Husband Brothers and others and the improvement of them As at the death of her Son who died with great sighs and groans she recorded her sense of the speciall necâ—ssity of holy armour and great preparation for that encounter when her turn should come to be so removed to the everlasting habitation 5. Of her returns of prayer what answers and grant of them she found 6. Of the state of her soul upon examination how she found it and what was the issue of each examination and in this it seems she was very exact and punctual In which though many times fears and doubtings did arise yet hath she frequent records of the discovery of evidences and comfortable assurance of sincerity Sometime when she hath heard Sermons in London that helped her in her search and sometime when she â—ad been reading writings that tended that way she recordeth what evidences she found and in what degree the discovery was If imperfect resolving to take it up and follow the search further And if she had much joy she received it with jealousie and expectation of some humbling consequent When any grace languished she presently turned to some apt remedy Aâ— for instance it s one of her Notes Novemb. 1658. I found thoughts of Eternity slight and strange and ordinary imployments very desirable at which I read Mr. Bs. Crucifixion and was awakened to Mortification and Humiliation c. The last time that she had opportunity for this work was two or tâ—ree dayes before her delivery in Child-bearing where she finally recorded the apprehensions she had both of her bodily and spiritual State in these words Drawing near the time of my delivery I am faln into such weakness that my life is in great hazzard I find some fears of death but not very great hoping through grace I die in the Lord. I only mention these hints to shew the Method she used in her daily Accounts To those Christians that have full leisure this course is good But I urge iâ— not all upon those that have so great dutieâ— to tâ—ke up that time that they cannot spare so mucâ— to record their ordinary passages Such must remember what others record and daily renew reâ—entance for their daily failings and record only the extraordinary observable and more remarkable and memorable passages of their lives lest they lose time from works of greater moment But this excâ—llent work of Watchfulness must be performed by all And I think it was a considerable expression of her true wisdom and care of her immortal soul that when any extraordinary necessity required it and she found such doubts as of her self she was not â—ble to deal with she would go to some able experienced Minister to open her case and seek assistance as she did more then onâ—e to my dear and ancient friend Mr. Cross who in a full age is since gone after her to Christ And therefore chose a Minister in Marriage that he might be a ready assistant in such cases of necessity as well as a continual help At last came that death to summon her soul away to Christ for which she had so seriously been preparing and which she oft called a dark entry to her Fathers Palace After the death of her children when she seemed to be some what repaired after her last delivery a violent Convulsion suddenly surprized her which in a few dayes brought her to her end Her understanding by the fits being at last debilitated she finding it somewhat hard to speak sensibly excused it and said I shall ere long speak another language Which were the last words which she spake with a tongue of flesh and lying speechless eighteen hours after she departed August 17. 1659. Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord from henceforth yea saith the spirit that they may rest from their labours and their works do follow them Our turn is coming Shortly we shall also lay by flesh this is our day of preparation There is no preparing time but this Did men but know the difference between the death of the holy and the unholy which doth not appear to fleshly eyes how speedily would they turn how seriously would they meditate how fervently would they pray how carefully would they live how constantly painfully and resolvedly wâ—uld they labour Did they well consider the difference between dying prepared and unprepared and of what difficulty and yet everlasting consequence it is to die well O then what manner of persons would men be in all manner of holy conversation and godliness and all their lives would then be a continued preparation for death as all their life is a hasting towards it And now I shall only desire you for the right understanding of all that I have here said and to prevent the cavils of blinded malice to observe these three or four pâ—rticulars 1. That though I knew so much â—f her as easily maketh me believe the rest upon so sure a testimony and saw her Diary yet the most of this History of her life is the collection and observation of such faithfull witness as had much better opportunity then I to know thâ— secrets of her soul and life 2. That it is no wonder if many that knew her perceived not all this by her that is here expressed For that knowledge of our outward carriage at a distance will not tell our Neighbours what we do in our Closets where God hath commanded us to shut our door upon us that our Father which seeth in secret may reward us openly And many of the most humble and sincere servants of the Lord are so afraid of hypocrisie and hate ostentation that their Justification and Glory is only to be expected from the searcher of hearts and a few of their more intimate acquaintance Though this was not the case before us the example described being more conspicuous 3. That I overpass the large expressions of her charity which you may hear from the poor and her intimate acquaintance as I have done that I may not grate upon the modesty of her surviving friends who must participate in the commendations 4. That it is the benefit of the living that is my principall end Scripture it self is written much in History that we may have matter of imitation before our eyes 5. If any say that here is no mâ—ntion of her faults I answer Though I had acquaintance with her I knew them not nor ever heard from any other so mâ—ch as might enable me to accuse her if I were her enemy Yet I doubt not but she was imperfect and had faults though unknown to me The example of holiâ—ess I have briefly proposed They that
and compassed with infirmities and racked by my own distempered passion so were the many Saints now glorified but the other day Elias was a man subject saith James to like passions as we are Jam. 5.17 Am I maliced by dissenting adversaries Do they privily lay snares for me and watch my halting and seek advantage against my name and liberty and life so did they by David and many other now with Christ But now these enemies are overcome Art thou under pains and consuming sicknesses are thine eyes held waking and doth trouble and sorrow waste thy spirit doth they flesh in thy heart fail thee and thy friends prove silly comforters to thee So was it with those thousands that are now in Heaven where the night of calamities is past and the just have dominion in the morning and glory hath banished all their griefs and joyes have made them forget their sorrows unless as the remembrance of them doth promote those joyes Are thy friends lamenting thee and grieved to see the signs of thy approaching death do they weep when they see thy pale face and consumed body and when they hear the sighs and groans Why thus it was once with the millions that are now triumphing with their Lord They lay in sickness and underwent the pains and were lamented by their friends as thou art now Even Christ himself was once in his agony and some shakt the head at him and other pittied him who should rather have wept for themselves then for him This is but the passage from the womb of mortality into the life of immortality which all the Saints have past before thee that are now with Christ Dost thou fear the dreadfull face of death Must thy tender flesh be turned tâ— rotness and dust and must thou lie in darkness till the Resurrection and thy body remain as the Common earth And is not this the case of all those millions whose souls now see face of Christ Did they not lie as thou dost and die as thou must and pass by death to the life which they have now attained O then commit thy soul to Christ and be quiet and comforted in his care and love Trust him as the Mid-wife of thy departing soul who will bring it safe into the light and life which thou art yet such a stranger to But it is not strange to him though it be strange to thee What was it that rejoyced thee all thy life in thy prayers and sufferings and labours was it not the hopes of heaven And was Heaven the spring and motive of thy obedience and the comfort of thy life and yet wilt thou pass into it with heaviness and shall thy approaches to it be thy sorrows Didst thou pray for that which thou wouldst not have Hast thou laboured for it and denyed thy self the pleasures of the world for it and now art thou afraid to enter in Fear not poor soul Thy Lord is there Thy husband and thy head and life is there Thou hast more there a thousand fold more then thou hast here Here thou must leave poor mourning friends that languish in their own infirmities and troubled thee as well as comforted thee while thou wast with them and that are hasting after thee and will shortly overtake thee But there thou shalt find the souls of all the blessed Saints that have lived since the Creation till this age that are all uncloathed of the rags of their mortality and have laid by their frailties with their flesh and are made up of holiness and prepared for joy and will be suitable companions for thee in thy joyes Wy shouldst thou be afraid to go the way that all the Saints have gone before thee Where there is one on earth how many are there in Heaven And one of them is worth many of us Art thou better then Noah and Abraham and David then Peter Paul and all the Saints Or dost thou not love their names and wouldst thou not be with them Art thou loath to leave thy friends on earth And hast thou not far better and more in heaven Why then art thou not as loth to stay from them Suppose that I and such as I were the friends that thou art loth to leave What if we had dyed long before thee If it be our company that thou lovest thou shouldst then be willing to die that thou maist be with us And if so why then shouldst thou not be more willing to die and be with Christ and all his holy ones that are so much more excellent then we Wouldst thou have our company Remove then willingly to that place where thou shalt have it to everlasting and be not so loth to go from hence where neither thou nor we can stay Hadst thou rather travail with us then dwell with us and rather here suffer with us then reign in heaven with Christ and us O what a brutish thing is flesh What an unreasonable thing is unbelief Shall we believe and fly from the end of our belief Shall we hope and be loth to enjoy our hopes Shall we desire and pray and be afraid of attaining our desires and lest our prayers should be heard Shall we spend our lives in labour and travail and be affraid of coming to our journeys end Do you love lâ—fe or do you not If not why are you afraid of death If you do why then are you loth to pass into everlasting life You know there is no hope of immortality on earth Hence you must pass whether you will or not as all your fathers have done before you It is therefore in heaven or nowhere that endless life is to be had If you can live here for ever do Hope for it if any have done so before you Go to some man of a thousand years old and ask him how he made shift to draw out his life so long But if you know that man walketh here in a vain shew and that his life is as a shadow a dream a post and that all these things shall be dâ—ssolved and the fashion of them passeth away is it not more reasonable that we should set our hearts on the place where there is hopes of our continuance then where there is none â—â— and where we must live for ever then where we must be but for so short a time Alas poor darkned troubled soul Is the presence of Christ less desirable in thy eyes then the presence of such sinfull worms as we whom thou art loth to part with Is it more grievous to thee to be absent from us then from thy Lord from earth then from heaven from sinners then from blessed Saints from trouble and frailty then from glory Hast thou any thing here that thou shalt want in Heaven Alas that we should thus draw back from Happiness and follow Christ so heavily and sadly into life But all this is long of the enemies that now molest our peace Indwelling sin and a flattering world and a brutish flesh and
interposing death are our discouragments that drive us back But all these enemies shall shortly be overcome Fear not death then let it do its worst It can give thee but one deadly gripe that shall kill it self and prove thy life as the Wasp that leaves its sting behind and can sting no more It shall but snuff the Candle of thy life and make it shine brighter when it seems to be put out It is but an undressing and a gentle Sleep That which thou couldst not here attain by all our preaching and all thy prayers and cares and pains thou shalt speedily attain by the help of death It is but the messenger of thy gracious Lord and calleth thee to him to the place that he hath prepared Hearken not now to the great deceiver that would draw thee to unbelief and cause thee to stagger at the promises of God when thou hast followed him so far and they are near to the full performance Believe it as sure as thou believest that the Sun doth shine upon thee that God cannot lie he is no deceiver it was his meer love and bounty that caused him to make the promises when he had no need for himself to make them and shall he be then unfaithfull and not fulfill the promises which he hath freely made Believe it faith is no delusion It may be folly to trust man but it is worse then folly not to trust God Believe it Heaven is not a shadow nor the life of faith and holiness a dream These sensible things have least reality These grosser substances are most drossy delusory and base God is a Spirit who is the prime being and the cause of all created beings And the Angels amd other celestiall inhabitants that are nearest to him are furthest from corporeity and are spirits likest unto God The further any thing is from spirituality the further from that excellency and perfection which the creatures nearest God partake of The earth is baser then the air and fire The drossy flesh is baser then the soul And this lumpish dirty visible world is incomparably below that Spiritual world which we believe and wait for And though thy conceptions of spirits and the spiritual world are low and dark and much unsatisfying remember still that thy head is there and it belongeth to him to know what thou shalt be till thou art fit to know it which will not be till thou art fit to enjoy it Be satisfied that thy Father is in Heaven and that thy Lord is there and that the Spirit that hath been so long at work within thee preparing thee for it dwelleth there And let it suffice thee that Christ knoweth what he will do with thee and how he wilt employ thee to all eternity And thou shalt very shortly see his face and in his light thou shalt bâ—hold that light that shall fully satisfie thee and shame all thy present doubts and fears and if there were shame in heaven would shame thee for them Vse 9. FROM the Enmity of Death and the necessity of a Conquest we may see what a wonderfull mercy the Resurrection of Christ himself was to the Church and what use we should make of it for the strengthening of our faith It was not only impossible to man to conquer death by his own strength and therefore it must be conquered by Christ but it was also beyond our power to believe it that ever the dead should rise to life if Christ had not risen as the first fruits and convinced man by eye-sight or certain testimony that the thing is possible and already done But now what a pillar is here for faith What a word of Hope and Joy is this that Christ is risen With this we will answer a thousand Cavils of the tempter and stop the mouth of the enemies of our faith and profligate our infidelity As unlikely as it seems to flesh and blood shall we ever doubt whether we shall rise again when the Lord came down in flesh among us that he might die and rise again himself to shew us as to our faces that we shall rise This is the very Gospel which we preach and by which we must be saved that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures and was buryed and that he rose again the third day according to the Scriptures and that he was seem of Cephas then of the twelve and after that he was seen of above five hundred Brethren at once of whâ—m the greater part remained alive when Paul wrote this who was the last that saw him 1 Cor. 15.1 2 3 4 5 6. Read over this Chapter again and again where our Resurection is proved by the Resurrection of Christ No wonder therefore that the Chruch in all ages ever since the very day of Christs Resurrection hath kept the first day of the week as a holy festivall in remembrance of it Wherein though they commemorated the whole work of our Redemption yet was it from the Resurrection as the most glorious part that the spirit of Christ did choose the day This hath been the joyfull day to the Church this 1625. years or thereabouts in which the ancicient Christians would assemble themselves together saluting one another with this joyfull word The Lord is risen And this is the day that the Lord hath blessed with the new birth and resurrection of millions of souls So that it is most probable that all the six dayes of the week have not begot half so many souls for heaven as this blessed day of the Lords Resurrection hath done Let Infidels then despise it that believe not Christs Resurrection but let it still be the Churches joyfull day This was the Lords doing and it is marvelous in our eyes This is the day which the Lord hath made we will be glad and rejoycâ— there in Psal 118.23 24. In it Let us sing unto the Lord let us make a joyfull noise to the Rock of our salvation Let us come before his presâ—nce with thanksgiving and make a joyfull noise to him with Psalms Psal 95.1 2. Every day let us remember the Lords Resurrection but on this day let the joyfull commemoration of it be our work We may see by the witness of the Apostles and their frequent preaching the Resurrection of Christ as if it were the sum of all the Gospell that this is a point that faith must especially build and feed upon and that we must make the matter of our most frequent meditations O what vigor it addeth to our faith when we are encountred by the sight of death and of a grave to remember seriously that Christ is risen Did he take flesh purposeâ—y that he might die and rise and shew us how he will raise his members and will he after all this break his promise and leave us in the dust for ever it cannot be Hath he conquered death for himself alone and not for us Hath he taken our Nature into Heaven to be there alone and