and swells highest in a joyfull imitation when she is in the Spring-tyde of her light either towards the heavens as in the change or towards the earth as in the full and as she doth wax or wain so doth he either flow into a Pleuresie or ebb into a Consumption of his waters And even thus is the World the Page of Fortune whose unconstant and ever changing motions do hurry about like spokes in a wheel the condition of all Mortalls We have it confirmed to us by a more then humane authority 1 Cor. 7.31 That the glory of this world passeth away An Hour-glasse doth change its posture every hour and that part which was even now above is now below that which was but now full is now empty nor can one side be filled but by emptying the other Such is the world every moment turn'd upside down and men are now full now empty Nor can they often fill themselves without the ruine and prejudice of others and although sometimes it be at the full of glory yet is it even then like her also mingled with the spots of adversity and subject to the change of every moment And therefore as 't is reported at the Consecration of the Popes the Master of the Ceremonies going before carries in one hand a burning Taper in the other a stick with some flax tied on the top thereof which he setting on fire cries with a loud voice Pater sancte Sic transit gloria mundi Holy Father so passeth away the glory of this world The plenty of Histories in this kinde exceeds our Arithmetick Every particular mans condition almost being a volumn of the worlds fraily and a constant witness of its inconstancy Adonibezek who had been the Triumphant Victor over 70. Kings and in his wanton cruelty had cut off their thumbs c. and made them pick up the crumbs under his table enforcing the Act and depriving them of thâ—â—â— power making them do that which hâ— had disenabled them to perform was ere long in full measure paid home for his cruel frolicks which made him cry out that he was justly requited Judges 1.7 Nabucadnezzars unparallel'd Metamorphosis who knoweth not who from a man and so great a King became a beast in nature now as he was in practice before to shew that when men sin against the light of nature they may sufferagainst the law of nature It is reported of Dimetrius one of Alexander the Great 's Captains that in the whole circle of his life being sixty four years after the measure of his age had stil'd him a man never continued three years in one condition Of Julius Caesar also that great awer of the world and victorious Martialist it is doubted whether in the whole course of his life fortune were an indifferent Arbitrer to him of good and evil success but in the sadness of his death no doubt all his lifes happinesse was exceedingly over-bâ—lanced who in the Zenith and highest erection of his glory with twenty three wounds the deepest whereof given him by his dearest Brutus in the Senate House yielded up his life a sacrifice to the peoples liberty The like unhappy change pursued the ever renowned and once highly advanc't General Bellizarius who after he had triumphed over the Persians and reduced to the Roman obedience all Africa and Italy so long possest by the Goths and Vandalls his wife that was given him for an help became the onely help to his destruction whose insolent behaviour against the Empresse like windes thrown upon the seas rais'd such billows of indignation in the Emperour that this mans fortune was put to utter shipwrack not onely to the loss of his goods but of the means by which he might get more his sight and forc't to beg his bread with a Da Obolo Bellizario Thus he that had made Armies fly Kingdoms quake and Kings his Captives is now an humble Petitioner to the meanest for a bit of bread 'T is storied of Dyonisius King of Syracusa that he represented the brittle felicity of his Kingdom to his Parasite Democles who had made his happiness to seem exceeding great through the multiplying-glass of his flattery by seating him in a Royal Throne at a sumptuous banquet with all the state and glory of the Kingdom about him but withal a naked sword hanging over his head onely held by a horse-hair which every minute threatned his destruction It was the custom of the ancient Romans in their triumphs for a slave to ride behinde in the Chariot with the Triumpher who did often whisper unto him to look behinde him there being likewise a Whip and a Bell tied to the Chariot to admonish him that notwithstanding the present exaltation his honour he might be brought to such a degree of calamity as to be scourged or put to death of which the Bell was the sign How hath the world frowned on those she sometimes smil'd and made them that seem'd the happiest most miserable Instance Pompey that famous Warrior for his eminency stil'd the Great who after all his victories and triumphs put to a violent death and that head taken off by the hands of a Traytour that had so oft been adorn'd with victorious Laurels and being dead denied a burying place Queen Cleopatra once so formidible as to be rather fear'd then contemn'd by her neighbour Princes she drank Jewels desolv'd a draught worth a Kingdom expir'd on a dunghill Guillemer King of the Goths who long reigned in so much prosperity but taken Prisoner by Bellizarius was reduc't to so much misery that he onely beg'd these things of the Conquerour Bread and Water the one to keep him from famishing the other from thirst a spunge to wipe his eyes and a harp to tune his sorrows to Andronicus Emperour of the East a man of such large and vast Dominions that his very name was terrible to all Neighbour-Kings all his glory is eclipst in one Battel and he delivered into the hands of those who think themselves happy in inventing and inflicting new tortures he is thrown into the common Goal where the best sents are the excrements of nature taken thence and derided and abus'd through the streets of the City put to open disgrace in the Market-place and to the further grief of so great a spirit the muddy brain'd Rabble are both his Judges and Executioners Alexander the Great who was said to conquer the World could not guard his own person from a violent and untimely death He that had vanquisht a world was himself overcome by an inferiour person in it poysoned to death and his corpse for thirty dayes denied a burying place his Conquests above ground gave him no title to a possession under ground So our William the Conquerour lay three dayes unburied he that had vanquisht Kingdoms living is denied six foot of ground being dead Coriolanus that famous Grecian who was once admir'd and fear'd of all murthered openly in the Market-place at Antium and none to pitty
past being dead the future unborn and onely the narrow compass of the present all that man can challenge We know not how soon death may overtake us when we are sent into the world the greatest part of our errand is to dye and the onely business of our life to prepare for death We are not certain to be Masters of one minute of time when we begin to breath the next moment may be our last How many have lien down to take a healthful sleep that have wak't in another world Death saith a learned man lies in wait for us in all places and there 's no escaping his tyranny Death borders upon our Births and our Cradles stand in our Graves How many have we seen carried from the Womb to the Tomb from the Birth to the Burial and what a short cut hath the longest liver from the Grave of the Womb to the Womb of the Grave Ever since the fall of our first Father death hath ranged through the world and made a general slaughter of mankinde sparing none The most eloquentest Orator that ever was could never charm him nor the potentest Monarch that ever breathed could never bribe him the greatest Warriour that ever was death hath civilized and made a green turf or weather-beaten stone cover that body that living a Lordship could not cloathe or the world contain the most famous persons that ever the world enjoyed hath death laid at his feet without regard either to Worth Dignity Majesty Youth or Age Sex or Condition he favours not the best nor spares the worst Samson with all his strength Absolon with all his beauty Josiah with all his zeal David with his conquests and Solomon with his glory Crasus with his wealth and Irus with his poverty Lazarus with his boyles and Dives with his bravery the Beggar with his rags and the Courtier with his robes all come under the rugged imbraces of this grim Sergeant He spared not Innocency it self but had the confidence to look the Son of the Highest in the face arrests him and keeps him three dayes his prisoner in the Grave The mortal Sythe is master of the Royal Scepter and it mows down the Lillies of the crown as well as the grass of the field death uses no civillity to Princes more then Pesants he findes them out in their Palaces and it may be in their most retired Closets and handles them no otherwise then the meanest person in the street Death saith a learned Divine suddainly snatcheth away Physicians as it were in scorn and contempt of Medicines when they are applying their preservatives and restoratives to others as it is storied of Caius Julius a Chyrurgeon who dressing a sore Eye as he drew the Instrument over it was struck by an Instrument of death in the act and place where he did it Besides diseases many by mischances are taken as a bird with a bolt while he gazeth at the bow Death is that King against whom there is no rising up which all men are sure to meet with whatever they miss of but when that 's unknown Of Dooms-day there are signs affirmative and negative not so of death every day we yield something to him our last day stands the rest run And how should this put us all in minde to prepare for death that he snatcheth us not away at unawares Whatsoever thou takest in hand therefore remember thine end saith the wise Man and thou shalt never do amiss No thoughts so wholsome as those of death and none so profitable as those of our end We read of Isaac that he brought his new Bride Rebecca into his Mother Sarahs Tent thereby to moderate those Nuptial pleasures with the thoughts of her Memory whose Corps but few dayes before were carried thence And King Saul was no sooner anointed but Samuel sends him by Rachels Sepulchre lest his new greatness of being a King might puff him up and make him to forget that he was a man We read of many heathens who did so much contemplate on their mortality as their discourses their houses and their tables should be constant Monitors of it The Aegyptians were wont to carry about their Tables a Deaths head at their greatest feasts and the Emperours of Constantinople on their Coronation day had a Mason appointed to present unto them certain Marble-stones using these words or to this purpose Choose mighty Sir under which of thesâ— Stones Your pleasure is ere long to lay your Bones And 't is storied of Philip King of Macedon that he caused a Lackey everâ— morning to awake him with that shâ— Memento of Sir remember that you arâ— a man Shall heathens be thus mindful 〈◊〉 their dissolution and shall we put thoâ—â— thoughts far from us surely no but â—â—ther cogitate of it and make every dâ—â— our last Certainly did we but considâ—â— that we are Men that all our actioâ—â— stand upon record and shall one day be impartially rewarded We should so demean our selves every day as men that endeavoured that no action of any day should be such as should stand against us at the last Young men remember this you that may promise your selves many dayes upon earth let not every day that is added to your life bring new sins with it but let grace be added to your dayes that so your last dayes may be better then your first and your burial day better then your birth as the wise Man speaks Make God the Alpha and Omega of all your actions and remember him in your work and he will remember you in the reward remember him as an Omniscient and Omnipotent God one that beholds all thy actions and will reward them remember him in thy youth and let him have thy best dayes as well as thy worst the blossoms of thy Youth as well as the leaves of thy Old age and be sure that thou spend the glory of thy years as well as the dregs of thy age in his service so shall thy life be prosperous thy death happy and thy resurrection glorious On the contrary if thou forget him now a day will come when he will not remember thee but strangely excommunicate thee with a depart from me for I know you not therefore ever bear this wholsome lesson in minde and forget it not Remember now thy Creator in the dayes of thy Youth It may be some may think that Old Men come not within the verge of this exhortation and that Solomon had nothing to say to them when he directed his speech to the Young Man I answer that Old Men are more concerned to take notice of this then the Young man and thus I prove it Young Men are but newly come into the world and they must have some time to look about them Old Men are ready to leave the World and 't is not long ere they must render an account to God for all their actions 'T is but the dawning of the day with the Young Man but night begins to shew it self
Egypt he goes and now another mischance befalls him The increase of his Flocks occasion a difference 'twixt himfelf and his kinsman Lot or rather 'twixt their Herdsmen but having wisely and happily made up this breach and Lot no sooner settled in the fertile plains of Sodom but is taken prisoner by the Kings of Elam Shinar Ellasar and Tidal King of Nations And now Abraham is as much perplext about his Cosins Rescue as he was before in composing the difference 'twixt their Herdsmen well having waded through this difficulty also and though a rich man and now at peace something is yet wanting to crown his wealth his Wife Sarah though fair is barren and he thinks God deals very hardly with him in denying him a Son to possess that after him which by Gods providence and his own dilligence he had brought together At last in part to gratifie his desires God gives him a Son but such a one as the Jews define him a Son and no Son an Ishmael not an Isaac not the promised Son not he in whom all the Nations of the World should be blessed At last he hath an Isaac but that he might not want a continual supply of crosses to try his faith and exercise his patience his Son Isaac so long promised and with such longing expectation desired must die and a violent and cruel death must put a period to his new life to the further aggravation of the circumstances Abrahams hands must execute him and shew himself not a Father but a Murderer and no sooner had God prepared a Ram for Isaacs rescue but Abraham must banish Hagar and his Son Ishmael and no sooner is this over and the tears wipt from his eyes but behold a greater mischance like Jobs messengers comes in the neck of it his beloved Sarah dyes in Hebron in the land of Canaan in the hundred and twenty seventh year of her age whereupon Abraham with his heart full of grief and his eyes full of tears makes his Apology to the Sons of Heth for a burying-place for Sarah and that he might the better speed in this his so reasonable and seasonable request he suits his expressions in the garb of the Text I am a stranger and a sojourner among you Give me a possession of a burying-place that I may bury my dead out of my sight I could take this Scripture by the four corners like that sheet that was let down to Saint Peter and present you with a four-fold discourse of Death of Tears of Pilgrimage and the Grave first of death and Sarah dyed Secondly of tears and Abraham wept for Sarah Thirdly of Pilgrimage here 's Abraham unfolding his condition Fourthly of the Grave here is Abraham purchasing a Grave for Sarah which is the Pilgrims Mansion or the house of Death but I shall single out one of these and onely keep to that viz. Abrahams Profession as being most sutable to my condition and all of yours the Readers I am a stranger and a Sojourner among you But was this language for Abraham when treating with Hittites for Sarahs Grave to discourse of his own mortality or what is this his profession of his own condition to the obtaining his request of them had it not been more proper for him to have set forth himself in the equipage of a Prince then in so low a form as that of a Pilgrim as being most sutable for so great a person Mean men seldome crave when they have money in their hands to buy and great men are apt to command how comes it then to pass that so eminent a person as Abraham shrouds himself under so low a stile as that of a Sojourner Is not this that Abraham that was the son of Terah the brother of Nahor the Father of the faithful and the friend of God that was famous for many excellent graces that shined in him he was famons for his Faith famous for his Hope and famous for his Charity First he was famous for his Faith in obeying the Commands of a God then strange to him and leaving his Fathers house to wander in a strange Land and expose himself to all the hazards and hardships as usually attend such Journeys and to go so far out of his own knowledge to a Country unknown both to himself and his Fathers Again he was famous for his Faith in not mistrusting Gods omnipotency in that he did stedfastly believe that God was able to quicken Sarahs dead Womb to bring him a Son in his old age and when God sent him that Son so long desired expected and prayed for to be the hope of Nations out of whose Loins according to the flesh the Saviour of the World was to proceed and when God commanded him to take this Son Abrahams Joy and Sarahs Jewel conceived beyond Nature and born to do great things and with his own hands to butcher him Here was the tryal of Abrahams Faith and an injunction above the grant of nature had it been but an ordinary private person whose birth had not been attended withso many remarkable Promises and Prophecies yet even in this to one that had both Promises and Prophecies of future happiness Abrahams obedience eccho's to Gods Commands though 't were to frustrate and make void those former predictions Abraham was confident that if God should take this from him he was able to raise him another out of his ashes Posterity may adinire his faithfulness but not parallel it Secondly he was famous for his Hope in that he was assuredly confident that not one Word from God should fall to the ground unaccomplisht but that he would make good all those gracions promises he had made that he should be Lord of that famous and flourishing Countrey the Land of Canaan and that his seed should possess it and that in them should all the Nations of the world be blessed Thirdly famous for his Charity first to his servants in general I know saith God that Abraham will instruct his servants c. Famous for his love to one in that he intented to make him Heir of his house famous for his love to Hagar in that he parted not with her without tears though he had Gods approbation for her banishment famous for his love to his Nephew Lot in that he would not admit of any discord 'twixt their herdsmen and hazarded his life to rescue him out of the hands of those Triumphant Kings that took him captive famous for his love to his Son Ishmael in praying so cordially for him Oh that Ishmael might live in thy sight famous for his love to his Sons by Keturah in giving them their portions when he sent them away famous for his love to his Son Isaac in making him Heir of all his wealth Lastly famous for his love to his Wife Sarah for his respect to her living and that living affection to her memory which out-lived her as appears by the Religious care he had to purchase her a Grave in that
Countrey which their posterity were after to be Lords of which as he would not without cost so he could not treat of it without tears Then Abraham stood up from before his dead where he had been weeping and requested the Sons of Heth to sell him a burying place that he might bury his dead out of his sight he was famous for his uprightness in that he would not take to the value of a shoe-latchet from those heathen Kings whose persons and all they had were at his disposal as the spoil of war Famous for his near and dear Communion with God in that he talkt familiarly with him as a man with his friend In a word he was a man so famous that before him the world had not his fellow nor hath it since scarce produc't his parallel yet in courting the Sons of Heth he sets forth himself in no other language then this I am a stranger and a sojourner among you Hence we are to observe that here the best of men are but Pilgrims the truth of which the Scriptures doth abundantly confirme witness old Jacob who being brought into King Pharaohs presence makes an ingenious confession Few and evil have been the dayes of thy servants Pilgrimage and have not attained to the dayes of my Fathers in their Pilgrimage so his Fathers were Pilgrims as well as he Job cries out that his dayes are swifter then the swiftest creatures either in the Earth Air or Sea then an Eagle Poste or ship and tells us that man that is born of a woman is of few dayes and full of trouble A life no less short then painful short enough for 't is measured out not by weeks moneths or years but dayes and miserable too for 't is as natural for frail mortalls to be sufferers as for sparks to fly upwards And David being ready to take his last farewel of this world saith I go the way of all the earth intimating that all men as well as he were to pass through the gates of death expressing the condition of his Fathers to be nothing different from his I am a stranger and a sojourner with thee as all my Fathers were Isaiah proclaims all flesh to be grass and their glory as fading as the flower of the field and this great Patriarck in the text I am a stranger and a sojourner among you Hence we may further observe that the Saints of God in all ages being throughly possest of their own mortality have ever entertained the meanest thoughts of themselves Abraham stiles himself dust and ashes Jacob tearms himself less then the least of Gods blessings David a worm and no man and the Son of David expresseth himself low enough or beneath himself as some think for many in these dayes deride and scorn the title I the preacher was King in Jerusalem Isaiah a man of polluted lips Jer. a child And the great Doctor of the Gentiles the least of the Apostles How hard a lesson is this to learn Humility is a grace contrary to most mens humors out of fashion or at least request in these times for now most men offer that violence to modesty as to make their tongues the trumpets of their own praises though they have none to brag of He is no body that cannot set forth himself without anothers help and on occasion smooth up others too with titles above their deservings When King Josiah past by the Grave of that Old Prophet he demanded what Inscription that was and may not we be as well startled at the inscribing and attributing high titles to popular greatness beyond the lines either of civility to tender or humility to accept which argues the givers folly and the receivers pride Young Elihu was of a better minde he would not give high titles to any lest his maker in fury should snatch him away Job 32.22 Thus having shewed what we are that we are all strangers and sojourners upon earth I now come to shew what we are to do and in order to the making our Pilgrimage happy and safely to arive at the blessed home as will make those eternally so that reach it be pleased to take notice of these five directions First to be mindeful of your home Secondly choose the best guides Thirdly set out betimes and hold out to the end Fourthly sort your selves with the best company Lastly I advise you as Joseph did his Brethren Take heed that ye fall not out by the way To the first Travellers use not to stand gazing or loitering on the way or to be drawn aside to behold Novelties they rise up early and come to their Inne late and travel hard to get home-wards nor are they satisfied till they reach it And shall not we that are Christians upon a better account be as mindeful of our home it being such a home that as far transcends the stateliest habitation here as the highest Heavens doth the lowest earth such a home as the quickest and sharpest eye would be dazied with beholding but a Glimpse of its glory and the eloquentest tongue or pen that ever was comes infinitely short to describe it The great Apostle who had once a view of that glory comes something near in describing it but 't is in the negative what 't is not not what 't is for saith he Eye hath seen nor ear heard or the capacity of man apprehend the splendor of it 'T is such a home as all the Patriarchs Prophets and Saints of God in all ages have left all to enquire after This was the City to come which they had ever in their eye and wandred about in Sheeps-skins and Goat-skins destitute afflicted and tormented to finde out 'T is such a home where you shall never be troubled with any loathed society and your beloved company shall never be taken from you No strugling of enemies there no David and Ishbesheth to contend for one Crown for none but Conquerors all heads shall be adorn'd with Crowns of glory such as never incircled the Temples of any earthly Monarch 'T is such a home where Satan nor any of his instruments shall be ever able to molest no siding or taking of parts there no Schisms or Divisions no room for Make-bates there What should such Salamanders do in Heaven there 's a fitter place prepared for such hot spirits and 't were well for them if one heat would extinguish another for fire and brimstone must be the portion of their cup. This place is onely for friends to dwell together in unity and none admitted here but those that live in peace here must be no spirit of Contradiction no dissenting Brethren no Non-conformists there but an unanimous conformity in all because that here is the God of Peace and the Peace of God which passeth all understanding 'T is such a home where you shall forthwith behold and enjoy the glorious beatifical Vision and be eternally unriddling that Mystery which Mortality could never reach to nor Reason apprehend the Tri-une-God the Trinity
is briefly this That sin is the cause of sorrow or that all the miseries that ever hapned unto mankinde came by sin which I shall clearly demonstrate both by Scripture Reason and Experience with such perspicuous clearness as none but a son of contention will contradict 'T was sin that excluded Adam out of Paradise Gen. 3.24 Brought a deluge on the old world Gen. 7.12 Fire and Brimstone upon Sodom Gen. 19 24. Plagues upon Egypt Exod. 7.20 Destruction upon Pharaoh Exod. 14.28 Ruine upon Jericho Josh 6.24 And so many miseries upon Eli and his family that to hear would make the ears of any Israelite to tingle 1 Sam. 3.12 'T was sin that made Saul lose two Crowns the one on earth the other in heaven That brings a catologue of plagues on the head of the sinner Deut. 28.16 Makes the whole creation groan Rom. 8.22 Made the Sun withdraw himself the pale-fac't Moon to hide her head the twinkling Stars to disappear the Rocks to rend the Graves to open the vail of the Temple to part a general darkness to take place over the whole world brought the whole fabrick of heaven and earth out of course the Lord of Glory to a shameful end and the Prince of Life to an infamous death Luke 23.46 In a word I may truly say of sin as Abner did of war Knowest thou not that it will bring bitterness in the latter end 2 Sam. 2.26 God is so severe against sin that he would not spare his own Son when he undertook for the sins of the world and is so just in his chastising of sinners that he gives plagues answerable to the offence that oftentimes the world may read the sin by the punishment Instance the Sodomites who burnt with unnatural lust man with man therefore Hell comes from Heaven Fire and Brimstone out of Heaven upon Sodom Gen. 19.24 Pharaoh orders all the Hebrew males to be drown'd and he and his host are serv'd so in the Red Sea Exod. 14.21 Adonibezek in his wanton cruelty cut off the fingers and toes of seventy Kings and made them scramble for the crumbs of his Table and in the manner did God requite him 't is his own acknowledgement Judg. 1.7 Abimelech kills his seventy brethren upon one stone and his own brains are dasht out with a stone from the Tower of Thebes thrown by a Woman Judg. 9.53 Sauls sword slue eighty five of the Lords Priests and does the like courtesie for him 1 Sam. 31.4 Ahab and Jezabel who conspired to fool Naboth at once both of his Life and Vineyard ere long the dogs lick their blood on the plat of ground they so bloodily purchast 1 Kings 22.38 c. Zimri conspir'd against his master King Elah and put him to death for his Crown reigned but seven dayes but is forc't to be his own executioner 1 Kings 16.15 Queen Athaliah slayes all the blood Royal and she her self is sent with violence into another world to answer for her cruelty in this 2 Kings 11.20 Haman makes a Gallows of fifty Cubits high for Mordecai and sues for a general Massacre of all the Jews himself meets with a violent and infamous death on the Gallows he had prepared for Mordecai Esth 7.10 Those Persian presidents that conspired against Daniel to have him thrown into the den of Lions are themselves cast in and tore in pieces ere they came to the ground Dan. 6.24 Nebuchadnezzars pride transported himself beyond himself therefore Gods Justice brings him lower then a man makes him a beast by name that before was one in nature Dan. 4.33 Herods pride made him forget he was a man and therefore an Angel from the Lord makes him know himself to be but a man or rather a worm and smites one worm with many till he dyes Acts 12.23 'T was Jerusalems sin to stone the Prophets and her punishment was answerable not to have one stone upon another Mat. 23.37 The Judge objects against those on the left hand I was a stranger and ye took me not in naked and ye cloathed me not sick and in prison and ye visited me not and therefore their punishment is to finde no mercy themselves that would afford none to others and are for ever excluded the Judges presence and all happiness at once Mat. 25.41 Thus just is God in making the punishments so suitable to the sins But here is one Objection ready to be thrown into my way which I must not pass by without answering Doth God so severely punish sin and he the authour of all The Prophet Amos asks the question Can there be evil in the city and God hath not done it Amos 3.6 And that word when 't is put as an Interogatory in the beginning either of a Verse or Sentence 't is the highest affirmation and confirmation of a following Negative turth Instance Can a man take fire in his bosom and his clothes not be burnt Can a man that is old return a second time into his mothers womb and be born again Can we bring a clean thing out of an unclean a pure Spring from a polluted Fountain surely no. Can there be evil in the city and God hath not done it there cannot And did God move David to commit the sin of numbering the People and doth he yet punish that sin of Davids with the death of no less then seventy thousand men Is he so severe against that sin of which himself is the authour I answer 'T is the greatest blasphemy imaginable to make God the Authour oâ— sin Let not any man when he is tempted say I am tempted of God for God cannot bâ— tempted of evil neither tempteth he any to evil James 1.13 You are to know that there are two sorts of evils the evil of Sin and the evil of Punishment the one proper to God the other incident to man We read of several in Scripture that did evil in the sight of the Lord there is the evil of Sin and then we read how God did inflict judgements upon them for those sins there was the evil of Punishment The guilt of the one requires the Justice of the other Again God is said to be the Authour of sin because he swayes all the actions of men and were he pleased he could take off the sinner in the heat and height of his sin and with a word as he made the World of nothing bring all that is therein to nothing no sin can be committed or cruelty acted without his permission And here by the way you are to take notice of a great Truth viz. That God permits many things to be done which he doth not approve of when they are done and to make this plain to the meanest capacities I could heap multitudes of Examples to confirm it I am not ignorant that many have measured the justness of a Cause by the success of it and because God for the sins of a Nation or other reasons best known to his Divine wisdom oftentimes suffer
were so amaz'd at the proposal of those terrors for it that he breaks out into the discontented expressions of the Text And David said unto Gad I am in a great strait Had it not been for Sin Death had never fetcht his circuits through the world Neither Adam or any of his sons had never come under his power 'T was Sin that brought in those terrible Harbengers of Death those various kindes of sicknesses to afflict mankinde For as the shadow follows the body so plagues attend Sin and had the cause been wanting which is Sin the effects had never been which is Misery There had been no sweeping away of mankinde by Sword or Famine Famine should never have conquered his thousands or the Sword his ten thousands There should have been no wasting Consumption no grievous Gout nor groaning Stone or tormenting Collick no burning Feaver or quaking Ague nor trembling Palsie or loathsome Jaundies nor a thousand other Infirmities and Casualties which now attend frail man to his Grave But this is not all for Death eternal also is the reward of Sin which is the second Death Rev. 20.14 and may well be term'd a death and no death being a privation from all that 's good or to a life desirable and a constancy in suffering that which is evil even intollerable torments that shall never know either end or measure impossible for life to suffer did not an infinite Justice keep the tortured from dying for there the best company shall be Devils and the best musick Blasphemy The ear shall be entertained with the grievous screeches of parties condemned and hideous howlings of woful Devils the eye with no better prospect then damned Ghosts the taste with no greater dainties then grievous hunger the smell with no choiser odours then sulphurous brimstone and the feeling with those terrible extreams of burning and gnashing of Teeth In a word 't is a death because they are excommunicated from such glory as the wit of man is not able to express and 't is a life too or rather a living death because they are alive to endure such hellish torments as the learnedst pen is not abâ—e to delineate nor the eloquentest tongue to describe the rarest wit to imagine or the knowingest mortal to define Ever to be dying yet never dye This this shall be the unrepentant sinners portion Matth. 25.41 Rev 20 10. To conclude since the effects of sin reach not onely to heap plagues upon the sinner here but also everlasting torments upon soul and body hereafter â—hat manner of persons ought we to he in all holy conversation My advice is that we shun thâ—t cause which brings such sad effects avoid sin that we never partake of those plagues as the rewards of it And in order hereunto that we set a narrow watch over our thoughts words and actions that we give not way to the least temptation but kills this cockatrice in the egge destroy sin in the birth get the mastery of every corruption and bid defiance to the destructive alurements of our immortal enemy And because all of us brought such a load of gilt with us into the world as without an infinite mercy would sink us into that place whence is no redemption and being not of our selves not able so much as to think a good thought let 's make our addresses to that all sufficient Saviour who for our sakes wrought glorious salvation conquered Death Sin and Satan foiled the powers of darkness and led the devils in Triumph as his Captives Hos 13.14 1 Cor. 15.57 Let 's endeavour to have an interest in him that his merits may be imputed unto us and we may be cloathed with the long white robes of his righteousness Rev. 4.4 That at the great day of Audit we may hold up our heads with joy before that bar whence the wicked shall be sentenc't and rejoyce that all straits are at an end and all our miseries out of date that our sins and death are laid in one grave ever to be forgotten and forgiven and are now ready to take livery and seizin of that glorious incorruptible and unfading Inheritance which the Lion of the Tribe of Judah the Captain of the Lords host and of our salvation hath purchast for us and be ever enjoying that glory which Moses so earnestly desired onely to behold and eternally chant forth Halle lujahs to the Trinity in Unity and Unity in Trinity to whom be ascrib'd by Men and by Angels here and hereafter all Honour and Glory Thanksgiving and Obedience World without End Balaams happy Wish ANDVnhappy End A Meditation on Numb 23.10 Let me dye the death of the Righteous and let my latter end be like hiâ— THese words were utter'd by Balaam the son of Beor of Mesopotamia the notedst Conjuror of those times whom Balak King of Moab sent for to curse Israel and being come for that purpose from the Mountains of the East to the high places of Baal beholds a glimpse of Heavens Glory and Israels happiness discovers better wages then Balak could give him greater preferment then Balak could exalt him to and infinitely more honour then was at Balaks disposal Balaam being in an extasie and as it were ravisht with the glory which he sees turns his prophesie into a prayer and his prayer is this Let me dye the death of the righteous and let my latter end be like his Were these the words of a Sorcerer a better mouth might have spoke it we may well admire that so sweet a saying should proceed from so foul a mouth that such a flower of Paradise should grow on such a Dunghil that a stranger and an enemy to the God of Israel and the People of Israel should so excellently set forth the glory of the one and the happiness of the other and that he should have so much of heaven in so short a prayer Let me dye c. 'T was our Saviours question Matth. 7.16 Do men gather Grapes of Thorns or Figs of Thistles Here 's a Thorn brings forth Grapes an Inchanter with the expressions of a Prophet How can we sufsiciently admire the wisdome and power of God in making wicked men to sound forth his praises even the Devil himself to set forth the glory of the Father and proclaim the divinity of the Son Hard hearted Pharaoh must confess his power the Magicians his works and Balaam shall be sensible of his glory witness his Petition Let me dye c. A foul breath may make a Trumpet sound sweetly a crackt Bell may toll in others to Church a stinking carcase may have a honey-comb in it and a Sorcerer may speak good Divinity I am sure Balaam did and a prayer as excellent Let me dye the death of the righteous and let my latter end be like his Hence observe that we are not to judge of any man by his words or pass our verdict by the out-side for many cry Templum Domini with their mouths that have the Devil in
their hearts and the Devil himself sometimes counterfeits an Angel of light Many make a fair profession of Christianity that speak well hear much and understand more upon examination you will finde by their actions that they have meerly a form of godliness but deny the power of it that at best will appear but like the Devil in Samuels Mantle We use to say that all is not gold that glisters and 't is as true that all are not holy that seem so all not Saints that have demure looks and specious pretences Our Saviour hath told us that the tree is known by his fruit and God that searches the reins knows the heart and judges of the outward actions by it Balaams words bespeak him both a Prophet and a Saint and he did as clearly prophesie of Christ as any Prophet of the Lord either before or after him and 't is thought by some that his Prophecy of a Star to rise out of Jacob c. drew those Persians King to attend the motion of that Star that appeared at our Saviours Incarnation 'T is most certain that Balaam spake so well that no man could speak better yet he could speak so bad that the Devil himself could not speak worse as when he advised the Moabites to send their Daughters to commit whoredom with the Israelites which occasioned the death of twenty four thousand Hebrews And so I pass from the Speakers description to the description of his Speech The speaker was Balaam and his speech or rather his prayer was Let me dye the death of the righteous and let my latter end be like his Balaam is so taken with the rayes of that Glory he beholds at a distance that he grows impatient No more of life nothing in it so desirable No more of this world he sees more glory in the next and therefore courts death to convey him to that glory which he so much longs for Let me dye c. What could he not dye without asking leave without much intreaty death was ready to attend him and for want of help he might have been his own executioner and as King Saul did a long time after made his own sword to have given him his Mittimus to the grave No Balaam as bad as he was would not lay violent hands on himself he knew that God would not entertain any runnagate or straggling sons that came without his call That God who infus'd a living Soul into our Bodies when we began to be will not have that soul come forth till he require it 'T is written Revel 3.21 To him that overcomes will I grant to sit with me in my Throne even as I also overcame and am set down with my Father in his Throne To him that overcomes not to him that runs away to him that conquers not him that flies from his colours We are now but on our way not yet in our countrey In this world we must do our work in that to come we must have our wages Here we must fight under the Banner there we must receive if we deserve it the Crown This world is a Sea of trouble that a Haven of rest and those who to avoid the troubles of this rush themselves out by laying violent hands on themselves shall never reach the happiness of that For how can God afford Mercy to those who have none for themselves Balaam would dye but how There are saith one three sorts of death the death of Nature the death of Sin and the death of Grace or rather a gracious death or the death of the Just 'T is onely the last that Balaam sues for Let me dye sayes he but no death will serve his turn but that of the Just Let me dye the death of the righteous and let my latter end be like his My latter end he is not altogether for himself he hath some care of his posterity after him he knew that God would be Abrahams exceeding great reward and that he would be the same to his seed that he was to him be the God of his seed and of his seeds seed and in them should all the Nations of the world be blessed So Balaam prayes in respect of his own particular end and for his posterity those that were come or were to come out of his loins Let my latter end be like his Now for the further amplifying of this Prayer of Balaams I shall draw these following Conclusions from it First That the Righteous dye c. Secondly That their death is happy and attended with glory Thirdly That none shall dye so but those that live so or that a holy Life is the onely prologue to a happy Death Lastly I shall present you with some short Directions how to lead such a life how to reach such a Death and this shall be my conclusion That Death is a debt of Nature to be paid by all the sons of men is so known a truth that it needs no further proof then common experience the decree hath long since gone forth that all men must once dye So sure as death sayes our common Proverb and that 's so sure that nothing more certain For of all the Priviledges that Christ purchast for the sons of men he never granted this for he himself tasted of death and so must all those do that breathe upon this earth except those onely that shall be found alive at the day of judgement which shall not dye but be chang'd None are exempted from deaths rage no honey without this gall no exaltation without this humiliation all must pass through his black Gates ere they can enter into glory And this brings me from the first conclusion to the second from the certainty of death to all mankinde to the Happiness of it to the righteous Let my latter end be like his I cannot blame Lalaam for making such wishes and it had been well for him if it had fallen so he had then been eternally happy as now miserable Indeed death to a righteous man is but a sleep for so our Saviour stiles it it puts an end to our miseries and a beginning to our joyes it cures all diseases the aking head and the fainting heart Asa of his Gout and Mephibosheth of his lameness Lazarus of his Sores and Gehazi of his Leprosie finishes that life that was a kinde of death or a passage to it and gives birth to another not subject to mutation and serves as a short bridge to conduct the Pious soul to a spacious inheritance But it may here come within the verge of an inquiry whether the righteous may desire death 't is answer'd that it may de desired not for it self but for what it brings First we may desire it as it puts a period to sin there 's no offending of God in the Grave sin will be an inmate with the choicest of Gods Saints whilst they are here but is forc't to leave them when they leave the world For as one observes sin was
the Midwife or rather the womb that brought death into the world and death must be the Grave to bury sin so the Mother is killed by the Daughter Again we may desire it as it brings us home to our Fathers house near our Head and our elder Brother so Saint Paul desir'd it Phil. 5.23 Secondly That none shall dye so but those that live so c. For as the effect follows the cause or the shadow the body so happiness is the attendant of holiness Would Balaam dye the death of the Righteous that was so far as a learned Author observes of him from living the life of the Righteous that he gave Pestilent counsel against the lives of Gods Israel and though here in a fit of compunction he seem a friend yet he was after slain by the Sword of Israel whose happiness he admires and desires to share in Carnal men care not to seek that which they would gladly finde some faint desires and short-winded wishes may be sometimes found in them but their mistake is in breaking Gods chain to sunder Holiness from Happiness Salvation from Sanctification the end from the means they would dance with the Devil and sup with Christ at night Live all their lives long in Dalilahs lap and then go to Abrahams bosom when they dye The Romanists have a saying that a man would desire to live in Italy a place of great pleasure but to dye in Spain because there the Catholick Religion as they call it is so sincerely profest And a Heathen being askt whether he would rather be Socrates a painful Philosopher or Craesus a wealthy King answer'd That for his life he would be Craesus but for the life to come Socracrates But stay not here and hereafter too you know what Father Abraham said to Dives in flames Son Remember that thou in thy life time receivedst thy good things and therefore now must look for evil That King Balaks proffers were so liberal that Balaam was loath to forgo so fat a Morsel his mouth watred and his fingers itcht to be dealing with Balak he will ask God again and again to gain such a prize and his heart again is ravisht with Israels happiness he would fain please Balak if he might not displease God in it and partake of both but as Balak had not his will so neither had Balaam either his wages or his wish God oftentimes fools wicked men of their expectations that whilst they strive to gain the happiness of both worlds at once finde neither so here I know not how fitter to compare Balaam then to a stranger travelling a far Countrey beholds the state and magnificence of the Court but no interest in the King or to a surveyor of Lands that takes an exact compass of other mens Grounds of which he shall never enjoy a foot I shall see him sayes Balaam so shall every eye and those also that pierc't him but not as Abraham saw him and rejoyced nor as Job Chap. 19.25 The pure in heart onely see him to their comfort when Balaam beholds him it shall be with terror and though when he made this prayer his soul danc't on his lips ready to flye off yet was he never nearer heaven then those Pisgah Hills Had Balaams works been answerable to his words or his worth to his wishes he might have reacht his desires But as Saul who was once among the Prophets fell after from God so Balaam is not long in these raptures and therefore for all his devotion though he were not so wicked as to kill himself is nevertheless so unfortunate as to fall by the Sword of the Israelites even among the thickest of Gods Enemies the Midianites as you may read at large in the one and thirtieth Chapter of this Book of Numbers v. 8. There is no man so much an enemy to himself but would be happy if happiness were to be gain'd with wishing for Ask the wickedst man upon earth if he does not hope to dye well he will tell you he does and so he will if a word upon his death-bed will do it A Lord have mercy upon me but alas Heaven is not to be attained on such easie tearms Cain may be distracted for his Murder Balaam and Saul may Prophesie Ahab walk in Sack-cloth Judas Preach and do miracles and all to no purpose 't was not Esau's blubber'd eyes that could recover either his Birth-right or his Fathers blessing I cannot but reprehend their folly that spend their dayes in sin and vanity and at the point of death think to turn suddain penitents as if that would do how foully are they mistaken that think so for he that lives like a devil upon earth though under an Angels vail shall never be a Saint in Heaven So I have now done with the parts propos'd what remains but that I in brief give some short directions how to lead this happy life how to reach that happy death and so I le conclude For the certain and speedy attainment of which be pleased seriously to weigh these following instructions First be conversant in the Scriptures make that your day and your night studies and take notice of the lives of all Gods Saints and endeavours to track them in those steps which brought them to glory Make Abrahams faith and Jobs patience Eliahs zeal and Hezekiahs Integrity patterns of your immitation Let Joseph be an example of unconquer'd chastity and Moses of meekness and humility Let Davids troubles teach us to depend upon Gods Providence and Pauls perseverance not to be weary of his Corrections Remember the Character which our Blessed Saviour gave of the Baptist That he was a burning and a shining light Indeed the Saints of God in all ages have serv'd as Beacons on hills to give light to a crooked and perverse generation Oh that we could but learn by their examples to adorn our profession and we shall be no losers in the end What sayes David Marke the upright man and behold the just indeed he is worth the noting for the end of that man is peace He it is that may be truly said to leave this world like a Lamb and shall for ever be owned in a better for one of Christs fold But above all look upon him that is the Author and finisher of your Faith strive to immitate the blessed steps of the holy Jesus whose feet were ever running Gods Commandements whose hands were ever busied in works of Charity his eyes ever looking for Objects of Mercy whose Soul was ever yerning with bowels of Compassion whose discourse was alwayes gracious and guile never found in his lips And that we may be the better fitted to write after such blessed copies let us set a narrow watch over our thoughts words and actions that we offend in neither but remember that he is an Almighty and Omniscient God with whom we have to do and all things naked and bare to his all-seeing eye and that we may make a happy progress in
no heart unless harder then Adamant but must needs melt into tears at such a sight no malice except altogether implacable but would be appeas'd with such sharp and so underserved revenge I appeal to you all whether he be not an object of pitty rather then further cruelty and whether you have not greater reason to bewail his misery then increase it but this will not do No sorrows which are not mortal no sufferings which are not deadly no blood but the heart-blood can satisfie the malicious and therefore albeit crown'd with Thorns and flead with Whips they still cry Execution Execution Let him be crucified But Pilate notwithstanding these obstinate repulses again solicites them to save his life and that his arguments might be crown'd with success he changes his stile from a man of sorrows presents him as a king of sufferings that so his dignity might prevail where his miseries could not and that the majesty of the sufferer might aggravate his sufferings and their cruelty bespeaks them thus Behold your King behold a king deprived of his comforts spoiled of all his goods sold by his brethren apprehended by his subjects scourged as a villain derided as a fool Behold a King who hath no other use of majesty but to aggravate his misery Behold a King whose sufferings are as transcendent as his person Behold a King who hath suffered things bitterer then death Behold a King yea your King how he hath suffered every thing but death and shall that malice of yours pursue him even do death it self shall I crucifie your King will ye have me to bring innocent blood upon my own head as well as yours and be a sharer with you in so hateful a sin For my part I le have no hand in it and let me advise you to have none neither wherefore let me request you to desist from so bloody a design And if ye have no regard neither to his innocency sufferings nor majesty look upon your own reputations which will suffer much for putting such a person to death Do not you know I mean you that are the Doctors of the Law and the Elders of the People that the name of a King is sacred God owns it as one of his Titles and them as his Vicegerents that represent himself who is the great Monarch of Heaven and Earth and their persons as sacred as their names being subject to no Tribunal but that of Heaven no Judge but the highest Wherefore to offer violence to one that bears that Title were a piece of such unparallel'd cruelty for which your selves could produce no example nor the world a president all nations would cry shame at so horrid a fact and your own consciences would fly in your faces for committing so hainous a Crime A way then with so bloody a motion you that pretend your selves such Zealots stain not your hands with such blood nor your souls with the guilt of it left ye bring such an odium on your Nation which your selves nor posterity shall be ever able to take off But all his rhetorick will not serve turne for their guilty consciences told them that they had already done more then they could justifie Therefore the more he perswades the more they exclaim lest their King might have out-liv'd his wounds recover'd his losses and turn'd his Reed into a Scepter they earnestly importune the Judge to dispatch him Let him be be Crucified He is no King of ours If he were we should not thus prosecute him We have no King but Caesar and thou art not Caesars friend if thou let him go 'T is not his innocency nor his sorrows nor his majesty which thou so much plead'st for shall satisfie us 't is his deserved death which we sue for and nought but that shall excuse him Take thou no care if he dye unjustly the guilt shall lie on us not thee Wherefore act thou thy part perform thy office and we will ours as thou sittest in judgement to do justice express it by thy condemnation of this man Thou seest the proofs are clear and evidence perspicuous Therefore without any more delayes excuses or apologies pronounce the sentence we will see it executed Pilate finding all his reasons too short to convince unreasonable men is now brought to his last shift and that 's to make him a donative and freeman at the Petition of the People but they prefer Barrabbas a Rebel a Murderer before the Saviour of the World desire to have him Crucified who raised the dead to have the other released who destroyed the living Pilate now finding that all his projects were frustrated and no way left to save his life calls for water and washes his hands before them as innocent of his Blood but being a timerous Man affraid of the Jews lest they should mutiny or tel tales to his Master whereby he might lose either his place or Caesars favour delivers up the most unspottedperson in the world into the hands of malice to glut it self with revenge in the exercising the most exquisite torments and expatiating them to the longest thread of misery but as if all this did not adde enough to the sadness of his tragedy he must after all this dye and the worst of deaths the Cross onely inflicted on most notorious offenders and betwixt two infamous Thieves the worst sort of companions In order to which he is led forth of the holy now the bloody City Jerusalem to the place of execution bearing his own Cross his head adorn'd with his Crown of Thorns which was not at all pul'd off so it became the King of sufferings notto lay aside his imperial thorns til they were chang'd into Diadems of glory he advances Mount Calvary a place difficult in the ascent eminent apt forthe publication of shame a hil of death and dead bones where he is stript naked who cloaths the field with flowers and all the world with robes and the whole Globe with the Canopy of Heaven A gay spectacle to satisfie impious eyes who would not stay behinde but attend the hangman to see the catastrophe of this bloody tragedy he is now fastened to his Cross and heaven and earth all creatures in both vailed in blacks to lament his obsequies as if terrified at his sufferings whilst menand devils conspire to increase them that he might have no sense but that of misery How are all his senses at once tormented in him and he in all of them his eies in seeing nothing but what disconsolated and afflicted him either his enemies rejoycing at his sufferings or his friends those few poor friends he had lamenting his miseries His ears play'd upon from every side with whole volleys of fearful blasphemies If thou be the King of Israel descend from the Cross cry the Jews If thou be the Christ save thy self and us sayes one of his fellow sufferers For his smell I le not offend the nice and delicate with commemorating the noisomness of the place
and the abominable stench he there was sensible of For his taste he had nothing administred it to sweeten the bitterness of death but Gall and Vinegar For his feeling we have spoken of that before if it were not altogether unspeakable what he felt In a word all heads are working and all hands busied in lengthning his torments and now tormentors and tormented both weary the one in doing the other in suffering he yeilds up the ghost But their malice doth not terminate with him though he be dead their malice still lives which we shall see presently break forth for though Joseph of Arimathea one of their councel but not against his life had begg'd the body of Pilate they also go to Pilate fraught with malice against his memory that had done their worst to his person and bespeak Pilate Sir This deceiver said whilst he was yet alive that in three dayes he should rise again therefore let his Sepulchre be made sure with a guard lest his Disciples come and steal him away by night and say he is risen Pilate grants their request and now they triumph in their villany and think perpetually to keep him there whom they had brought thither Is this the Saviour of the world say they that could not save himself Where now are these dreaming shepherds who spake so big of a quire of Angels that should sing his Nativity Where those Angels that they come not to his Rescue Where are those besotted vulgar that rob'd the trees of their branches and themselves of their garments to strow his way to Jerusalem and sang Hosanna's to him as the son of David a Saviour of the world have not we laid their Hosanna's in the dust and he whom they adored as a Deity executed as a Malefactor Is this he that would deliver Israel that could not himself We do not expect ever to be delivered by so mean a hand and so slender a retinue we expect a glorious Prince with a princely train of unconquer'd warriors not a Carpenters son and silly fisher-men God never gave us any promise or president of such a Saviour We know that 't was by a strong arm he delivered our Fathers out of Egypt and that he gave them Saviours afterwards when they were in Canaan such as by force of arms broke the bonds of their oppressors and are not we involv'd in as miserable slavery and bondage as ever our fathers were hath not the invincible Roman Eagle spread his wings o're the greatest part of the world and seized many kingdoms with his ravenous talons making Kings his Prey and Scepters his Conquest and who but a mighty Saviour can deliver us and our Countrey from so potent an adversary If this be he that undertook to do it or were sent from God for the purpose where 's his power to make him so where 's his red-coat Souldiers whose very garments might speak nothing but blood and death to our insulting foes where 's his Magazin and Money his Swords and Pistolls his Granado's and Murdering-pieces his Captains and Officers to lead his Army that they did not perfect that happy work but suffer their Lord and Master thus to fall O fools and slow of heart to believe what the Prophets have spoken ought not Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into his glory was he not long before prophesied of to come in the form of a servant not in the gayish magnificence of an earthly prince that he should be a man of sorrows and by his sufferings should purchase freedom and happiness for inthral'd mankinde How exactly doth your Prophet Isay pourtray to the life both his person and sufferings and writes of him in the Present Tense not the Future as a thing then really acted not after to be fulfilled as more becoming an Evangelist then a Prophet in giving rather a History of his sufferings then a Prediction of them but lest ye should not think one witness enough look upon all the Prophets that have been since the world began you will finde they did all unanimously breathe with one mouth the mystery of his coming and of that redemption which by his death he was to accomplish Was not his Birth long before prophesied of as to the time manner and place of it his person names and offices his tribe and Family his eternal Generation the union of his God-head with his Humanity his Humiliation upon earth his perfect obedience to his Father his riding to Jerusalem in triumph the childrens Hosanna's his Agony in the Garden the manner of his delivery the price he was sold for the flight of his Disciples the parting his garments the piercing his hands and his feet his revilings on the Cross his companions in death his patience in suffering his dying words for whom be should lay down his life and whom he should conquer and what clearer proof could ye desire then the mouths and attestations of so many witnesses and could ye be so blinde as not to discover this to be he that was of old design'd and foretold to be the worlds Saviour did ye not behold a majesty in the sufferer did not the refulgent beams of his divinity shine through the greatest clouds of his adversity and did not Humility and Glory go hand in hand through the several passages of his life and death that by miracles as well as miseries he might convince the world That he should abase himself so low as to be born of a Virgin that spake his humility but to have his incarnation publisht by an heavenly host and kings to rise to the brightness of his coming this his glory to suffer himself to be baptized in the common river of Jordan that speaks his humility but there to be proclaim'd the onely beloved Son and Saviour of the world both by the testimony of the Father and presence of the Holy Ghost this his glory to receive the slaunders of his Countrey-men that he cast out devils by Belzebub that spake his humility but to make the devils confess him to be the Son of the Highest this his glory to suffer death even the death of the Cross that speaks his humility but to make the foundations of the world to shake the Sun to vail it self in black the moon to hide her head the rocks to rend and the vail of the temple to part in sunder at his yielding up of the ghost this his glory to be laid in another mans Sepulchre that shews his humility but to make the Graves to open to receive him as their Lord and the dead to rise to attest his Divinity this his glory to suffer himself to be seal'd up in his Sepulchre with a guard of Souldiers to keep him there that was humility but in that house of death to have the visits of Angels and to rise from thence by his own power this his glory to sojourn forty dayes on that earth where he had been so cruelly handled speaks his humility but
to have a convoy of Angels to fetch him away and to ascend on high with such a guard of attendants in view of so many witnesses this his glory And thus did he evidence his mediatorship by the lowest humiliation of his humanity and exaltation of his divinity by the glorious miracles by the one he did do and the insufferable injuries in the other he did undergo How many glorious miracles did he work certainly if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon they had repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes Did he not seed your admiring multitudes 5000 of them at one time with five barley loaves and two fishes and twelve baskets of fragments to spare did he not turn water into wine heal the sick make the lame to walk the deaf to hear the blinde to see and the dumb to sing did he not cleanse the Leper cast out Devils raise the dead even a Lazarus that had been a four dayes prisoner in the Grave Many things of him were remarkable and suited with him as he was the Messiah as to his Birth Death and Burial he was born under Augustus Caesar at such a time when there was an universal peace o're the whole world to shew that he was the prince of peace and came to reconcile his Father to fallen man In Bethlehem the house of bread for him that was the bread of life and the life of the world In an Inne a place of common resort for all persons to shew that all persons should have free admission to him and that he was in publick to manifest himself to the world He was Crucified without the Gates of Jerusalem to shew that he died for those out of the pale of the Church on Mount Calvary a place of death to shew that he came to destroy death on a Cross to shew that that was the way to a Crown and by his sufferings on that tree of shame he purchast for us diadems of glory He was buried in a Grave cut out of a Rock to shew that he was the Stone cut out of the Mountain a Grave untoucht for a body undefil'd in a Garden where mankinde was lost for him by whom the world was saved But this is not all he was a King and such a one you lookt for but here 's the difference you lookt for one to come in outward pomp and splendor he in meekness and humility for the glory of his kingdom consists not in outward shew but hidden splendor you lookt for a temporal Savior he an eternal you to be freed in bodies and estates he to save your souls in comparison of which the whole world is not worthy a name you to be delivered from the Roman yoke he from the Devils tyranny The weapons of his warfare were spiritual and his glory not temporal witness his progress to the Royal City for instead of Chariots and Steeds and Trains of State he hath not a beast but a borrowed one to ride upon no Crown on his head no Scepter in his hand no Cloth of State over him no precious Furniture about him no Tissue upon him no Caparisons of Gold under him No rich Carpets and curious Tapestries before him No Heralds in robes No Clarions No Trumpets to proclaim him And yet Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like this Lilly of the Vallies No Coats of Arms like his Fisher-mens No Laurels to the peoples Boughs No vests of beaten gold to their spread Clothes No Troops of Nobles to his Trains No Grandees to his Disciples which have even the Devils themselves for their subjects no Heralds to the Babes that bless him No Salve's no Jo 's no Ave's to the Hosanna's and Benisons bestowed on him He was a King as he told Pilate but 't was of another world his Throne Heaven the Angels his Courtiers and the whole Creation his Subjects his Judicatory the Courts of Conscience and Church Tribunals and at Doomsday the Clouds It was ordered by Divine Providence that you should put him to death else you should never have had the power to have done it Had he pleas'd he could have call'd Legions of Angels to his rescue one of which armed with his permission able to destroy a world In testimony of which did not the whole fabrick of heaven and earth acknowledge him whom the devils themselves beheld with terror and are you so stupied as not to take notice of him did not you see the rocks rend at his Passion and are you so senseless as to think that a stone shall bar his Resurrection did ye not hear of dead Saints walking up and down the City and do you think to hinder it in a dead Saviour Was not a whole band of you struck down with a word of his Mouth and can a watch keep him from rising up though your Souldiers be too strong for weak Disciples are they able to contend with Angels 'T was strange that he that was immortal should taste of death but impossible he should see corruption Wherefore notwithstanding all your guards he shall rise the third day all the powers of hell shall be too weak to detain him longer or hinder his return to his Fathers Bosome there to continue till the last day and then this Carpenters Son shall come in the Clouds with Power and great Glory and those silly Fishermen sit upon twelve Thorns and judge the twelve Tribes of Israel Look therefore on him now with faith whom else you shall then behold with horror and amazement and now mourn lest then too late ye repent strive to have an interest in his Blood as well as a hand in his Death And now dear Christian let me request thee seriously to look back admire and make a right use of thy Saviours sufferings behold his readiness to suffer his willingless to save the unspeakableness of his pains the greatness of his patience and the luster of his victory how ready was he to save how did his bowels yearn for lost man after the lost sheep of the house of Israel was he come and to save sinners was his errand how ready was he to lay down his life when they came with Swords and Staves to apprehend him did he not betray himself by his so ready a confession I am he How did he hasten that bitter cup and how was he straitned till he did suffer did he not forbid Saint Peter the use of his Sword though in so just a quarrel as his defence how ready was he to pardon how meek and patient in his sufferings was he not the Lamb dumb before the shearers that opened not his mouth who being revil'd revil'd not again but prayed for his enemies whilst they blasphem'd him which prayer of his was so prevalent with his father that in fifty five dayes it occasioned the conversion of eight thousand of his enemies at one time Christs sufferings did as far transcend any other as his Person but they were
but for a time they did not last alwayes every Day hath his Night every Summer its Winter every Spring his Fall and every Life his Death and as some nights are darker then other some Autumns more unseasonable some Winters more sharp and some Death 's more yea much more cruel then others be some men fall like fruit others are cut down like trees some cut up as the flower others by the root some men dye onely others with torment which is two or more deaths in one but among all deaths that ever were suffer'd never any so strange never any so sad as our Saviours was for in it both pain and patience met in their extremities pain did her worst to overcome patience and patience her best to overcome pain and yet neither had pain the upper hand though it kil'd nor patience lost though Christ dyed such was his passion that the whole world cannot sample it with its parallel for Christs pain was such as never creature felt and his patience so great as for all the forrow he felt on the Cross he is not said to have utter'd a groan there so that it may easily be discerned that patience had the victory because pain could neither make her leave the field till she list nor bring her to any conditions but her own which were most honourable Though God be crucified Life be dead and Righteousness suster all effected yet nothing done to advance the contrary party For through his body Death slue it self and Sin and Satan took their deadly wounds for now the flesh hath lost her life and sin in that his throne and death with it his sting and the grave with this his power and hell with them her keys and the devil with all his victory whilst he hangs despicably on the tree of shame the powers of hell are dragg'd captive after the triumphant Chariot of his Cross Well might he therefore say 'T is finished for the Satisfaction is full Salvation sure Sin is nail'd Hell foil'd Satan chain'd the World baffled the Flesh wounded Death slain the Grave buried and every Adversary-power conquer'd by Christ Triumphant over all all is finished mans redemption compleated and that perfected he came about This is a true saying and worthy of all acceptation that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners But what is all this to us what is it to know that Christ is a Saviour if he be not ours what to know that he came to save the world if we are not one of the world he came to save what to know that his death is satisfactory to expiate the Justice of his Father if we have no interest in it I answer that as Christ hath done his part so must we do ours if ever we hope to have part in his sufferings he never came to save any that had no minde of salvation or to use those means which he hath appointed for all those that shall inherit eternal life as he did both do and suffer for us 't is requisite we should either do or suffer something for him His love to us and sufferings for us were unspeakable and they justly challenge our deepest affection and admiration that he should purchase our happiness at so dear a rate as his own Blood that God should be in Gore that man might be in Bliss the Prince of Life should dye that the Childe of Death might live that he should suffer on a Cross that we might not in Hell Did he sweat for our guilt and shall not we weep for our own and dissolve into love and tears for our dying Lord. O my soul shew thy affection to him that exprest so much to thee love him above thy life to serve him think milstones light to suffer for him make tortures pleasures hate sin more then death the Crown of pride as his Throns thy hearts lust as his spear thy iron neck and evil works and wayes as his nails their habit as his hammer which drives them home into his heart and his hands and feet Think not any thing enough thou sufferest for his sake that suffer'd so much for thine Though violent Tongues were laid on our Credit Hands of Rapine on our Estates of Bondage on our Persons of Blood on our Lives be so far from shrinking at it that hadst thou for one a thousand souls give all to his service a thousand bodies all to his suffering a thousand heads all to his study a thousand hearts bate not one to thy Saviour a thousand lives lay out all to his honour Hadst thou for two two thousand hands let them all do his business two thousand feet let them all go his errands if thou shouldst not thou wert unworthy of such a Saviour Now that we may know the cause or causes of Christs coming and understand our own duty in order to the making it a happy coming to us be pleased to take notice of these following particulars There are saith one four causes of mans salvation The Efficient cause The Meritorious cause The Instrumental cause And the Final cause First the Efficient cause which is the love of God 'T was Gods love to the world that caused him to send his Son into the world Had he not loved the world he would not have permitted his Son to dye for the world And he that denied us not his Son who is Heir of all things will not deny us any thing whereof he is heir Secondly the Meritorious cause That is Christ 'T was his Merits that purchast our happiness his Blood that gives us a right and title to that glorious undefiled and unfading Inheritance which he aforehand hath taken possession of Thirdly the Instrumental cause that is Faith Christ is the onely cure of our leprous souls Faith the hand to convey his merits to us Suppose a plaister of a soveraign nature were laid by a man dangerously wounded be the plaister never so excellent he may dye of his wounds if it be not applied to him for without an active hand to apply the plaister to the sore the worth of it is not at all available Christ saith one may be compared to sope Faith to the hand of the Landress though sope in it self be of a purifying nature yet without the hand of the Landress it does nothing The Apostle tells us that we are saved by Faith but that we may understand what that saving Faith is which the Apostle speaks of we are to present it first in the Negative what 't is not then in the Affirmative what it is Not an Historical Faith onely for that the Devils and damned in hell have that shall never receive any benefit at all by the death of Christ they know that Christ came into the world and that he suffered and that a day will come in which he shall be revealed from heaven in flaming fire when he shalâ— take vengeance on all the ungodly of the earth and compleat their torments Not a Temporary
him or take his part Philopoemen forc't to expire by a cup of poison from the hands of a Hangman So Lucullus Dions throat cut with a dagger by an Executioner So Sertorius Phocian reduc't to so much misery in prison that he feed the Hangman to dispatch him Cicero that famous man murthered and decapited his head and hands set up ore the Pulpit in Rostra where they made Orations Darius condemn'd to die as a Malefactour his throat cut in prison by the common Hang-man 'T is lamentable to recite what the Prophet Jeremy so mournfully delivers in those his Lamentations Chap. 4.5 They that did feed delicately are desolate in the streets and they that were brought up in scarlet embrace dunghills We need seek no further proof of this sad truth then the age we live in have we not seen many princely and noble Families that not long ago were in so happy a condition as to afford much hospitality to others now reduc't to that misery as to live onely upon the courtesie of others and forc't to poste from place to place for relief and safety To shew that the best of men are but Pilgrims upon earth and no permanency in the things of this life Worldly Glories I conceive may be reduc't to these three heads viz. Honours Riches Pleasures I shall crave leave of my Readers to dilate upon each of these and in the close present you with the insufficiency and inconstancy of Worldly Glory First Honours Suppose a man were at the height of honours his Throne as high as Babels Tower and all the Potentates of the earth prostrate themselves at his footstool and all persons of all ranks qualities degrees and conditions admire and adore him had he ten thousand times as many titles as that cracking Spaniard attributed to his Master and his territories as vast as the universe yet all these would be so far from giving true felicity that it would but load him with cares and miseries Crowns are but splendid vanities and vexation and mutation the ordinary attendants of Diadems Crowns are full of cares and high places not without their fears which made one King cry out concerning his Diadem Were it but known how many miseries and molestations do attend thee none would dare to take thee up lying at his feet Antonius the Philosopher said often that the Empire was an ocean of mischiefs and one caus'd it to be written upon his Tomb Happy had I been if I had never reigned They are much mistaken who thinks to meet with happiness in greatness Ambition is ever attended with three Furies Envy in the eye Jealousie in the ear and Covetousness in the heart Envy in the eye It grieves him more to see one above him then ten thousand below him Haman was more distracted with Mordecai the Jew's sitting in the Kings gate with a careless neglect then he was delighted with all the reverence and adoration which others gave him Secondly Jealousie in the ear alwayes fearful of Competetours he thinks himself never secure every thing he hears makes him suspicious of some approaching danger and if any but whisper in his presence he is unsatisfied till he understands it Thirdly Covetousness in the heart If against his will he empty some of his bags in the progress of his ambition he will not be himsef till he hath refill'd them by extorted oppression and when he possesses most is least satisfied when he has considered with how much toyl trouble he purchast it with how much care fear he preserves it knows not how suddenly must part from it either it may be taken from him by violence or he from it by treachery and so his enemies become Lords and Masters of his greatness and eat the fruit of his labours Who would be in love with that which hath such Furies for its Attendants 'T is seldom seen that the greatest darlings of the world enjoy perfect contentment be they never so well deserving something they shall have to complain of that shall give an unsavory verdure to their sweetest morsells and make their very felicity miserable Multitude of business banish sleep from the eye-lids of Kings and make the night troublesome and fear many times keeps them waking though in a Palace lest some Achitophel should be projecting to turn his silent slumbers into a sleep of death whilest the rustick Swain snores securely in his loomy Cottage Bajazet Emperour of the Turks thought a shepheard whom he heard whistling on a hill to be a happier man then himself and if I mistake not the event gives me sufficient cause to be of his opinion for he was shortly after taken Prisoner by Tamerlain the Scythian who loads him with golden fetters and encloses him in an iron cage and carried up and down in triumph with the Conquerour and in that strait prison expires by being his own Executioner High places are not onely uneasie but slippery inconstancy as well as vexation attends the Thrones of Princes a great man stands very unsure he had need to wear ice spurs for he doth rather glide then go If he begins to fall he will fall to purpose as Zeresh unlucky told Haman If his feet begin to slip on the steep hill of honour his own weight will down with him to the bottom once past noon with him it is presently night there is but a step said that mirrour of men 'twixt the prisons and graves of Princes The Airy Chair though it be conspicuous is you see full of dangers He stands surest that hath no ascent to fall from the highest riser hath ever the lowest fall few of the magnifices of this world ever left it with rejoycing or parted in peace but hurried with violence to untimely graves What did Abimelech Absolom Zimri Jezabel and Athalia get by their greatnesse but miserable and infamous deaths Those who have thought to have justled the stars out of their places and made their nests as high or higher have had their glory laid in the dust and their honour in disgrace and those who all men in their lives have judg'd the happiest have ere they parted with the world lamentably declar'd the contrary Earthly glories are at best but transient The greatest Favorite that ever the world had could never assure himself of one minute of happinesse but ever obnoxious to those lamentable hazards and mutations incident to greatnesse How many are there that laught yesterday that have cause enough to weep to day He on whom prosperity yesterday did smile doth to day adversity frown He that yesterday was reputed the happiest man in this world is to day sent miserable to another That which hath a Diadem for its aim oftentimes meets with an ignominious death for its end He who in the morning hath been an object of envy hath ere night been of misery and contempt He whom the morning sun hath beheld in the height of honour Cappape shining in all his glory hath the evening sun beheld
the sentence pardons Ravens and layes hold on Doves the poor innocent afflicted whilest the wicked holds up his head gloriously If outward appearance therefore should be the judge woe were the portion of the Saints happiness the Sinners For as a late reverend Father of the Church of England observes if we should judge according to appearance we should think basely of the Saviour of the world himself Who that should see him sprawling in the Cratch flying into Egypt chopping of chips at Nazareth famished in the Desert tempted of Satan attended by Fishermen persecuted by his kindred betrayed by one servant abjur'd by another forsaken of all apprehended arraigned condemned buffetted spit upon scourged to blood scepter'd with a reed crown'd with thorns nail'd to the Cross hanging naked between two Theeves scorn'd of beholders seal'd up in a borrowed grave Who that should have seen his skin all dew'd with pearls of bloody sweat his back bleeding his face blubber'd and besmear'd his forehead harrowed his hands and his feet pierc't his side gushing out his head bowed down in death and should have heard with all his dying lips say My God my God why hast thou forsaken me would not have said he is despis'd and rejected of men yea in appearance of God himself Yet even in this while to the cutting off the sinnews of those stiff-necked Jews the Angels owned him for their Lord the Sages ador'd him the Star design'd him the Prophets foreshew'd him the Devils confest him his miracles evinc't him the earth shook the rocks rent the dead lookt out the sun lookt in answered at the suffering of the God of nature Even while he was despis'd of men he commanded the Devils to their chains whilest base men shoot out their tongues at him principalities and powers bowed their knees to him whilest he he hang'd despicably on the tree of shame the powers of hell were drag'd captive after the triumphant chariot of his Cross the appearance was not so contemptible as the truth of his estate glorious judge not therefore according to appearance should appearance be the rule woe were Gods people happy were his enemies Who that had seen Cain standing imperiously over the bleeding carkass of Abel Joseph in his bonds his Mistress in her dress Moses in the flags Pharaoh in the Palace David sculking in the wilderness Saul commanding in the Court Elijah fainting under a Juniper-tree Jezabel painting in her closet Micaiah in the prison Zedkijah in the presence Jeremiah in the dungeon Zedekiah in the throne Daniel trembling among the lions the Median Princes feasting in their bowers Johns head bleeding in a charger Herod smiling at the revels Christ at the Bar Pilate on the Bench the Disciples scourged the Scribes and Elders insulting would not have said O happy Cain Potephars Wife Pharaoh Saul Jezabel Zedkijah Zedekiah Median Princes Pilate Herod Elders miserable Abel Joseph Moses David Elijah Micaiah Jeremiah Daniel John Baptist Christ the Disciples Yet we know Cains victory was as woful as Abels Martyrdome glorious Josephs irons were more pretious then the golden tyres of his Mistress Moses reeds were more sure then Pharaohs Cedars Davids Cave in the Desert more safe then the Towers of Saul Elijahs Raven a more comfortable purveyour then all the Officers of Jezabel Micaiahs prison was the Guard-chamber of Angels when Ahabs presence was the Counsel-chamber of evil spirits Jeremiahs Dungeon had more true light of comfort then the shining state of Zedekiah Daniel was better guarded with the Lions then Darius and the Medean Princes with their Janizaries Johns head was more rich with the crown of his Martyrdom then Herods with the Diadem of his Tetrarch Christ at the Bar gave life and being to Pilate on the Bench gave motion to those hands that struck him to that tongue that condemn'd him and in the mean while gave sentence on the judge the Disciples were better pleased with their stripes then the Jewish Elders with their proud Phylacteries After this who that had seen the Primitive Christians some broiled on Gridirons others boyl'd in lead some roasted others frozen to death some flead others torn with horses some crasht in pieces by the teeth of lions others cast down from high rocks to the stakes some smiling on the wheel others in the flame all wearying their Tormentours and shaming their Tyrants with their patience would not have said of all things I would not be a Christian Yet even this while were these poor torturing stocks higher then their persecutours dying victors yea victors of death never so glorious as when they began not to be in gasping crowned in yielding up the ghost more then conquerours Judge not therefore according to appearance Afflictions they are the lot of Gods people here their crown is hereafter and by them are they fitted for the crown Iron is never cleaner then when it comes out of the furnace nor brighter then when it hath been under the sharp teeth of the file The sun never shines clearer then when it comes from under a cloud no coal more hot then that which hath been cover'd with ashes Though innocency be shaded in the obscurity of prisons yet nevertheless she comes forth in triumph radeating with glory God chastiseth every son whom he loveth the Son of his love was perfected by afflictions he bore his Cross before he wore his Crown The stones of the Temple were first hewen in the mountain before they were set in the building The sacrifices of the Law were first slain before they were offered The vessels of the Sanctuary were first to passe the fire before they were put to any service so must Gods lively stones 1 Pet. 2.5 reasonable sacrifices Rom. 12.1 vessels of honour 2 Tim. 2 22. pass the hammer the knife and the fire of affliction before they can be fit for the masters use God if in his divine wisdom he thought it best for us could bring his servants to glory without these trialls but that after our troubles here we shall be the better able to prize our rest hereafter should we have a glut of prosperity here we should be so wedded to this world that we should not take pains to enquire after a better Gods people never so devout as when exercised with afflictions It is good for me that I have been in trouble saith David for thereby have I known thy statutes Psalm 119.71 Adversity though it be more horrid in the view yet prosperity is more dangerous in the in the event A Summers sun-shine is the mother of more diseases then a winters Frost the one seeks to make a conquest on our Vertue by force and that makes us like a besieged City fortifie our selves more strongly for a Resistance the other by the treaties of Peace by the tribute of Gifts seeks to bring our minds into servitude and this melts our souls our too too easie souls into yelding The fire burns hotter for being blown on by the cold winde but the sun
shining on it well nigh puts it out so Vertue flames more brightly being blown on by the cold winde of adversity but is extinguisht by the sun-shine of prosperity like lime which is set on fire with water and as some report is quenched with oyl That prosperity doth draw more to ruine then adversity doth drive the Prophet David intimates where he sayes A thousand shall fall besides thee and ten thousand at thy right hand There is ten to one whose vertue the right hand of prosperity doth choak more then the left hand of adversity doth starve Afflictions are Gods troops and he their Captain intended for the perdition of the wicked for the purgation of the godly he will not lay any more on any of his servants then he shall enable them to bear alas the miseries of this life are not worthy of the felicities of the next nor may these crosses stand in competition with that crown nor are the greatest torments that can here be inflicted comparable to those endless and insufferable tortures which the wicked shall be sensible of the greatest that a Saint can suffer here is but the malice of men and devils the damned in hell shall taste the wrath of the Almighty The sufferings of the Saint and the triumphs of the sinner are but for a moment but the reward of the one and the plagues of the other are to eternity Suppose our life here spread with roses yet they are marcessible and if with thorâ—s yet they are dying The jewels of the Crown will receive a damp and the terrors of the Cross will soon be at an end Groans and joyes in this life are both expiring our troubles and our triumphs have both their setting The distresses of the world are a short and a sudden tempest and the delights of it are a shedding flower Now as an elegant Writer observes who would not rather endure the Hell of a few dayes miscries here and enjoy the Heaven of eternal happiness hereafter then enjoy the Heaven of a few days pleasure here and endure the eternal miseries of Hell hereafter Temporal pleasures are dearly bought with the loss of eternal and temporal sufferings are well requited with eternal pleasures That is a miserable happiness that must end in such miseries as must never end and those are happy miseries that shall soon end in endless happiness This life is but a journey towards death and but a short one and death is yet a shorter passage to a longer and a better life That life of joyes is worth the wishing that shall never have an end and that end of our life is full as worthy of our wishes that shall begin the joyes of that endless life and that end must be ere long for life is short Man that is born of a woman is but of few dayes and full of trouble He is of few dayes that he might not live too long in trouble and his dayes are full of trouble that he might not long for more of them then a few Mans dayes are full of trouble that a few might serve his turn and make him weary of them and his dayes of trouble are but few that he might not be too much wearied with them If it be mans misery that his few dayes are full of trouble 't is Gods mercy that mans days of trouble are but few The few dayes of mans life are full of trouble that man might be daily minded of his duty in seeking after another a better life and mans dayes of trouble are but few that man may not be wearied so as to leave seeking for the other life before that this doth leave him What but the happiness and glory of that better life held up the spirits of Gods afflicted servants in their greatest sufferings in this 'T was the recompence of reward that Moses had respect to which made him spurn at the treasures of Egypt and refused to be called the son of Pharaohs daughter and to slight all the discouragements and afflictions which he here met with Let the miseries therefore which accompany mortality wean us from all fondnesse towards this life present and the felity of life eternal make us the more earnestly to long after that The thoughts of the Elizian happinesse did so encourage a poor Grecian a meer Pagan at the instant of his death that he rejoyced much to think of going to Pythagoras and other learned Philosophers to Olympus and other skilful Musicians to Hecataeus and other approved Historians to Homer the prince of Poets and other famous Wits that were his followers that Poetical Paradise the Elizian Field could make a Pagan give his longum vale to this present world with notable resolution and shall not the real pleasures of the celestial Paradise the fulness of joy in the glorious presence of God encourage a Christian at his death to depart as comfortably as a faithlesse Grecian Shall fantasie in an Heathen be more powerful then faith in a Christian Is not the company as good which we believe to be at Gods right hand as that which he imagined to be in Elizio campo and are not the joys as many and as great Well therefore may a Saint chear up himself at his departure by thinking of his going to Saint Peter Saint Paul Saint James Saint John and to all that glorious company of Apostles and of his going to Elias and Elisha and Isaiah and Ezekiel and to Daniel and all that goodly fellowship of the Prophets and of his going to Saint Stephen the Proto Martyr and to Ignatius and to Justinus and to our Cranmer and our Ridley and our Hooper and our Taylor and all that noble army of Martyrs and of his going to that Reverend Patriarch Abraham the father of the faithful and to Isaac and to Jacob and to all the holy Patriarchs and of his going to the holy Angels and Arch-Angels and Thrones and Powers and Principalities and to the spirits of all just men made perfect Who can think of being thus transported and not be transported with the very thoughts of it Surely it must needs be a very consolatory Viaticum to the soul of a dying Saint to think of exchanging Earth for Heaven and the sordid company of sinners for the sweet society of Saints And this is it which makes the Saint entertain death as a friend whom the sinner fears as an enemy The Saints of God in all Ages have lookt upon him as a friend because by him they have been wafted to glory Moses sing when he was told his last Elijah had his Sufficit he desir'd his God to take away his life Old Simeon craved a dismission and St. Paul a discharge In the times of Persecution how did the Martyrs run in troops to the flames even to the amazement and admiration of their Persecutours which made a mortal Enemy to Christianity in the dayes of Queen Mary who speaking of some of the Primitive Christians and of the glorious Martyrs that
unto him by Michael Paleologus Emperour of Constantinople askt whether those things could drive away calamities diseases or death No this they cannot do as Henry Beauford that rich and wretched Cardinal found by woful experience in the dayes of Hen. 6. who perceiving death at hand askt wherefore he should dye being so rich if the whole Realm will save my life I am able either by policy to get it or by riches to buy it Fie quoth he will not death be hired will money do nothing No money in this case bears no mastery death as the Jealous man will not regard any ransom neither will he rest content though thou offer many gifts Prov. 6.25 'T was but a vaine conceit of one who when he heard that his sickness was deadly and that he was for another world call'd for a bag of gold and laid to his heart as if that which had solely swayed him in his life to the committing of many prepostrous actions should now do something for him but he finding no ease by it threw it away crying it would not do Nor was he less ridiculous who being ready to expire clapt a twenty shillings piece of gold in his mouth saying some wiser then some I le take this with me howsoever alas he and his gold must now perish together death shews him a dismal change for now Balaam and his Bribes Belshazzar and his Bowls Dives and his Dishes Herod and his Harlots the Usurer and his Bills the Merchant and his Measures shall part assunder for ever which made one that was ready to breath his last call for his bags of money and sadly took his leave of them in these words Ah! I must now leave you there is no remedy I tremble to think in how sad a manner the wicked leaves the world to think what a sad fit of trembling doth surprize him when the cruel Sergeants and merliless Officers of the King of Terrors do arrest him as it were in the Devils name when death shall come with a writh of Habeas corpus and the Devil with a writh of Habeas animam when the cold Earth must have his Body and hot Hell hold his Soul Reader now tell me which is the happiest man Adrian the Emperour when his soul was ready to fly from his body bespake it thus O animula vagula blandula quae jam abibis in loca Poor forlorn soul into what gloomy and dismal mansions art thou now departing but of those Mansions in my next discourse I shall now with a few words to the Temporizing Professor and my Readers in general bring this to a conclusion First to the Temporizing Professor you I mean that in all mutations will be men of the Times be they never so bad and call those Men and Times blessed and glorious which make you gainers that admire all men for their greatness and conclude those to be hated of God that are despised of men and censure all as Reprobates that are not of your spirit You that pretend to such a transcendent measure of perfection to such high notions and revelations as if with St. Paul ye had been wrapt up into the third heaven and understood more then all your forefathers did as if Christ had led his Church in ignorance and blindness for 1600 years and upwards till you came with your new Discoveries You that have prated Religion out of the Nation as if it consisted in nothing but words and instead of practising the Graces of the Spirit as Faith Repentance Humility Charity c. studied nothing but needless and unnecessary Questions not at all tending to Edification but Vain glory which have enlarg'd the Breaches of the Church instead of closing them up Remember that God is just as well as merciful and though he spares you long will pay you at last and though you feed your selves like porkets with the fat things of the world a time will come when you shall cast it up again and all your hypocrisie shall be unmaskt and unvail'd both to Angels and men Humble your selves therefore under the mighty hand of God left for your pride God inflicts on you the saddest Judgement that is mention'd in the Book of God of being deliver'd over to a Reprobate sense Oh take heed that Satan couzen you not to hell and there twit you as he did Saul in Samuels mantle when there is no place for repentance You know what a plausible speech he made in the mouths of Ahabs Prophets when he tic't that King to his ruine have a care that ye are not condemn'd one day for condemning others and spued out of the Bridegrooms mouth for your lukewarnnesse think not me your enemy for telling you the truth be not Solomons fools to hate instruction better repent these things here then in a worse place consider seriously the foregoing Discourse take notice of the sad exit of wicked men that the doleful sound of their sad and too late Repentance may seasonably caution you by their harms to beware One word more think not without Repentance ever to arrive at Glory there 's no going to heaven on beds of doun you have more cause to fear exchanging doun pillows for beds of flames there 's no leaping from Dives his diet to Lazarus his crown nor from Dalilahs lap to Abrahams bosom Lastly To my Readers in general Let me caution you to take notice of Gods Omnipotency Omnisciency and Justice and our own Mortallity and these severally and seriously considered may be a motive to startle us from the very thoughts of those sins that we commit with greediness First his Omnisciency Remember that he is an all-seeing God that discovers all our actions and beholds all our wayes to whom the day and the night the darkness and the light are both alike If we dare not commit our beastly sins before the eyes of men how dare we presome to commit them before him that is able everlastingly to damn us and throw our souls into Tophets endless flames Secondly his Omnipotency Let us adumbrageously fancy as one hath it the Firmament to be his face the all-seeing Sun his right eye the Moon his left the Winds the breath of his nostrils the Lightning and Tempests the troubled actions of his ire the Frost and Snow his frowns that Heaven is his throne the Earth his footstool that he is in all things that his Omnipotency fills all the vacuities of Heaven Earth and Sea that by his power he can ungirdle and let loose the seas impetuous waves to orewhelm and bury this lower Universe in their vaste wombs in a moment that he can let drop the Azure Canopy which hath nothing above it whereto it is perpendicularly knit or hurl thunderbolts through the tumerous clouds to pash us precipitate through the center into the lowest dungeon of hell and that all the creatures in their several ranges are as so many Regiments of the great King and that with the meanest of these he can avenge
the greatest threats nor the humblest intreaties shall not serve the turn The usurers gold cannot ransome him nor the mighty mans honour priviledge him those that shut up their bowels of compassion from others shall finde nothing but tyranny from him Here the luxurious Epicure that through the five Senses which are the cinque ports or rather the sinners ports of the soul did gulp down delightful sin like water shall now finde that those pleasant dayes are now blown over and that the end will prove them like the Angels book sweet in the mouth but bitter in the bowels in that he must in few moments be wafted to remorselesse flames Here the gorbellied Mammonist that piled up huge masses of refulgent earth purchased by all unconscionable courses shall have nothing left but a coffin and winding sheet and which is worst of all a guilty conscience now all his fair pretences and apologies will be but like characters drawn upon the sands or arrows shot up to heaven ward they cannot release him from Satans inexpiable Servitude Deaths warrants run very high Non omittas propter ullum libertatem attache them where ever thou findest them there are no places in the world free from the arrests of death and when once this grim Serjeant death hath arrested their bodies their souls must be presently sent to the bar of judgement for particular sentences then actum erit as one hath it the matter will be past cure now the day-book of their own consciences will be produced as a thousand witnesses against them for there the debt of sin is scored up and never to be crost till expung'd by repentance which is now too late to speak of and now shall not the Judge of all the world do right Yes surely and he will give the Devil his due as the Devil bought their souls so he must now have them The Devil is the Jaylour of Hell and thither the Judge commands them Take them Jaylour saith the Judge take them Devil and keep them till the general Judgement that then their miseries may be compleated and suffer in soul and body as they sinned in both The end comes when the earth shall tremble and the foundations of the hills shall be shaken when the Sun shall be turn'd into darkness and the Moon into blood to usher in the coming of that day at which time how wilt thou be beleagur'd with anguish and horror when thou shalt behold with thy mortal eyes the Cataracts of Heaven unsluced and hushing showers of sulphrous fires disperse themselves through all the corners of the Earth and Air the whole universe o're-canoped with a remorse lesse flame when thou shalt see the great and glorious Judge appear triumphantly in the Skies whilest mighty winged clouds with devouring flames fly before him as ushers to his powerful and terrible Majesty attended with innumerable multitudes of beautiful Angels golden wing'd Seraphims and Cherubims sounding their shrill alarms whose clamorous tonges shall affright the empty air and call and awake the drouzie Dead from their dark and duskie cabbins when thou shalt see the dissipated bones of all Mortals since the creation concatinate and knit in their proper and peculiar form amazedly start up and in numberless troops flock together all turning up their wondering eyes to gaze upon their high and mighty Creator When thousand thousands shal minister unto him ten thousand times ten thousand stand before him the Thrones set for judgement and the Books opened and nothing remain but a fearful expectation and looking for of judgement and fiery indignation which shall devour the adversaries Then will thy Conscience recommemorate a fresh thy past committed sins and with the coroding sting of guilt stab through thy perplexed soul Then indeed to be nothing were something but that will not be for Justice must now exact to the utmost farthing 'T will be too late to wish the mountains to fall upon thee for they themselves would if possible for fear shrink into their center Alas it cannot then be available to wooe the Waters to swallow thee for they would be glad to exclaim their liquid substance and be reduc't to a nullity What will it boot thee to intreat the Earth to entomb thee in her darkish womb when she her self will struggle to remove her local residence and to fly from the presence of the great Judge The Air cannot muffle thee in her foggy vastity that will be clearly refin'd there 's celestial flames uncontaminated with humane pollution so that thou must be forc't to appear before a most severe Judge carrying in thy own conscience thy Indictment ready written and a perfect Register of all thy misdeeds When thou shalt see him that was once a Saviour now a Judge whose Knowledge is infallible whose Power is infringible and his Justice inflexible of exceeding dreadful Majesty clothed in glorious apparel and his body shining through it like sparkling diamonds his eyes like burning lamps his face like flashing lightning his arms and legs like inflamed brass his voice like the shout of a multitude or of many waters prepared for thy idle words evil deeds time mispent and talent ill govern'd to pass the sentence upon thee against whom thou hast transgressed and he thy umpire whom by many offences thou hast made thine enemy And in order to a full and clear accomplishment of Justice a final separation shall be made no hypocrite shall closely lurk here among the Saints the Gold shall be taken from the Dross and the Silver from the Tin the Tares from the Wheat and the Corn from the Chaff the Sheep from the Goats the Vile from the Precious and the Elect from the Reprobates and plac't on each side the Judge those on the left hand to be doom'd to everlasting punishment and those on the right to life eternal How will it then perplex thy afflicted soul to see those on the Judges right hand whom thou contemnest as inferiour to the dogs of thy flock who shall now be one of that Jury that shall confirm thy condemnation and applaud the sentence of the Judge here shall be a general Audit the Widows tears and the Orphans cryes shall be here regarded what wouldst thou now give for a good conscience that were a jewel of price then Christian graces shall be more precious then natural gifts There the foolish and dumb may be more happy then the wise and eloquent there the ignorant Rustick may be preferred before the knowing Philosopher and the mean Beggar before the mighty Prince and the simple and ignorant before the witty and subtle There simple obedience shall be found better then cunning hypocrisie a clear conscience more pleasant then profound Philosophy zealous prayers of more worth then fine tales and good works more acceptable then sweet words then shall the poor and meek triumph and the proud shake and tremble then shall the memory of misery be sweet because they are past and the thoughts of pleasure be