pained with these diseases And can we live in daily pain and weariness and not be willing of release Is there a gracious soul that groaneth not under the burden of these miseries yea in every prayer what do we else but confess them and lament them and groan for help and for deliverance And yet shall we fear our day of freedom and be loth that Death should bring us news that our prayers are heard and our groans have reached up to heaven and that the bonds of flesh and sin shall be dissolved and we shall have need to watch and strive and fear and complain and sigh and weep no more Shall the face of death discourage us from desiring such a blessed day When we have so full assurance that at last this enemy also shall be destroyed The Lord heal and pardon the Hypocrisie of our complaints together with the unbelief and cowardliness of our Souls Do we speak so much and hear so much and seem to do so much against sin and yet had we rather keep it still then be stript of it together with the rags of our mortality and yet had we rather dwell with sin in tempting troubling corruptible flesh then lay them by and dwell with Christ O Lord how lamentably have we lost our wisdom and drowned our minds in flesh and folly by forsaking thee our light and life How come our reasonable souls to be so bewitched as after all our convictions complaints and prayers to be still more willing of our sickness then of the remedy and more afraid of this bitter Cup then of the poyson that lodgeth in our bowels which it would expel and that after all the labour we have used we had yet rather dwell with our greatest enemy then by a less to be transmitted to our dearest friend and had rather continue in a troublesome weary restless life then by the sleep of death to pass to Rest And this sin in others also is our trouble though not so much as in our selves It maketh those our bitter enemies whose good we most desire and endeavour and causeth the unthankful world to requite us with malicious usage For telling them the ungrateful truth and seeking their salvation It makes our friends to be but half-friends and some of them too like our enemies It puts a sting into the sweetest friendship and mixeth smart with all our pleasures It worketh us grief from precious mercies and abateth the comfort of our near Relations So that our smart by the pricks is often greater then our pleasure in the sweetness of the Rose No friend is so smoothed and squared to the temper and interest of another but that some inequality and unevenness doth remain which makes the closure to be less near and stedfast Even Family-relations are usually so imperfectly jointed and cemented that when the when the winds of tryal are any thing high they shake the frame and though they are but low they find an entrance and cause such a coldness of affections as is contrary to the nature and duty of the Relations Either a contrariety of opinions or of natural temperature and humours or else of the dispositions of the mind Sometime cross interests and sometime passions and cross words do cause such discontents and sowrness such frowns or jealousies or distances that our nearest friends are but as sackloth on our skins and as a shoo too strait for us or as a garment that is unmeet which pinch and trouble us in their use and those that should be to us as the Apple of our eyes are as the dust or smoak to them that vex or blind them And the more we Love them the more it grieveth us to be crossed in our love There is scarce any friend so wise so good so suitable to us or so near that we can alwayes please And the displeasure of a friend is as gravell in our shoos or as Nettles in our bed oft-times more grievous then the malice of an enemy There is no such doing as this in heaven because there is no such guest as sin We shall love each other far more then we do here and yet that Love shall never be inordinate nor in the least divert our love from God but every Saint and Angel in the Society shall be loved with most chaste and pure affections in a perfect subordination to the love of God and so as that God himself in them shall be the chiefest object of that love It is there that our friends being freed from all their imperfections do neither tempt us to a carnal Love nor have any thing in them to discourage the love that is spiritual and pure We have here our passionate friends our self-conceited friends our unkind unthankfull selfish friends our mutable and unfaithful friends our contentions friends that are like to enemies and who have used us more hardly then our friends But when we come to God we shall have friends that are like God that are wholly good and are participatively turned into Love and having left behind them all that was unclean and noysome and troublesome to themselves they have also cast off all that could be troublesome to us Our love will be there without suspicions without interruptions unkindnesses and discontents without disappointments frustrations and dissatisfactions For God himself will fully satisfie us and we shall love his goodness and glory in his Saints as well as immediately in himself Our friends are now lost at the turning of a straw the change of their interest their company their opinions the slanders of back-biters and mis-representations of malicious men can cool their Love and kill their friendship But Heaven is a place of constant Love The Love of Saints as all things else is there eternal And yet it declineth not with age It is a world of Love that we are hasting to It is a life of love that we must there live and a work of love and perfect love that we must be there employed in for ever If here we have a pure a dear a faithful friend that is without false-heartedness and deceit that loveth us as his own soul how quickly is he snatcht away by death and leaves us melted into tears and mourning over his earthly relicts and looking upward with grieved hearts as the Disciples did after their ascending Lord Acts 1. 9 10 11. We are left almost as lifeless by such friends as the body is left by the departed soul We have nothing but grief to tell us that we live and that our souls are not departed with them we are left in greater lamentation then if we had never known a faithful friends And alas how quickly are they gone when once God sees them ripe for heaven When Droans and Dullards live much longer If we see a Saint that 's clear of judgement and low in humility and naked-hearted in sincerity and that abounds in love to God and man that 's faithful and constant to their friend and
the world and this is the victory that overcometh the world even our Faith who is he that overcometh but he that believeth c. For greater is he that is in us than he that is in the world 1 John 4. 4. The believing Soul foreseeing the day when death shall be swallow'd up in Victory may sing beforehand the triumphing song O Death where is thy sting O grave where is thy Victory 1 Cor. 15. 54 55. For this cause we faint not though our outward man perish our inward man is renewed day by day For our light affliction though it reach to death which is but for a moment worketh for us a far more exceeding eternal weight of glory while we look not at the things that are seen but at the things which are not seen for the hings which are seen are temporal and therefore not worthy to be looked at but the things that are not seen are eternal and therefore more prevalent with a believing Soul than either the enticing pleasures of sin for a season or the light and short afflictions or the death that standeth in our way 2 Cor. 5. 16 17 18. Heb. 11. 24 25 26. 2. A second Antidote against the Enmity of Death that is given us at the time of our Conversion is The Pardon of our sins and Justification of our persons by the blood and merits of Jesus Christ When once we are forgiven we are out of the reach of the greatest terrour being saved from the second death Though we must feel the killing stroke we are delivered from the damning stroke Yea more than so it shall save us by destroying us It shall let us into the glorious presence of our Lord by taking us from the presence of our mortal friends It shall help us into Eternity by cutting off our Time For in the hour that we were justified and made the Adopted Sons of God we were also made the Heirs of Heaven even Coheirs with Christ and shall be glorified with him when we have suffered with him Rom. 8. 17. As Death was promoting the Life of the world when it was killing the Lord of Life himself So is it hastnening the deliverance of believers when it seems to be undoing them No wonder if Death be that mans terrour that must be conveyed by it into Hell or that imagineth that he shall perish as the beast But to him that knows it will be his passage into Rest and that Angels shall convey his Soul to Christ what an Antidote is there ready for his Faith to use against the enmity and excess of fears Hence faith proceedeth in its triumph 1 Cor. 15. 56 57. The sting of death is sin and the strength of sin is the Law But thanks be to God that giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ Let him inordinately fear Death that is loth to be with Christ or that is yet the heir of Death eternal Let him fear that is yet in the bondage of his sin and in the power of the Prince of darkness and is not by Justification delivered from the curse But joy and holy triumph are more seemly for the Justified 3. A third Antidote against the Enmity of Death is the Holiness of the soul By this the Power of sin is mortified and therefore the fears of Death cannot actuate and use it as in others they may do By this the Interest of the flesh is cast aside as nothing and the flesh it self is crucified with Christ and therefore the destruction of the flesh will seem the more tolerable and the fears of it will be a less temptation to the Soul By this we are already crucified to the world and the world to us and therefore we can more easily leave the world We now live by another Life than we did before being dead in our selves our life is hid with Christ in God and being crucified with Christ we now so Live as that it is not we but Christ Liveth in us the life which we Live in the flesh is by the faith of the Son of God that hath loved us Gal. 2. 20. The things that made this life too dear to us are now as it were annihilated to us and when we see they are Nothing they can do nothing with us Sanctification also maketh us so weary of sin as being our hated enemy that we are the more willing to die that it may die that causeth us to die And especially the Holy Ghost which we then receive is in us a Divine and heavenly Nature and so inclineth us to God and Heaven This Nature principally consisteth in the superlative Love of God And Love carrieth out the soul to the beloved As the Nature of a prisoner in a dungeon carrieth him to desire Liberty and Light so the Nature of a holy Soul in flesh inclineth it to desire to be with Christ As Love maketh husband and wife and dearest friends to think the time long while they are asunder so doth the Love of the Soul to God How fain would the holy loving Soul behold the pleased face of God and be glorified in the beholding of his glory and live under the fullest influences of his Love This is our conquest over the Enmity of Death As strong as Death is Love is stronger Eccles 8. 6 7. Love is strong as Death the coals thereof are coals of fire a most vehement flame which will not by the terrible face of Death be hindered from ascending up to God Many waters cannot quench Love neither can the floods drown it if a man would give all the substance of his house for Love that is to bribe it and divert it from its object it would utterly be contemned If the Love of David could carry Jonathan to hazard his life and deny a Kingdom for him and the Love of David to Absalom made him wish that he had died for him and the Love of friends yea lustful love hath carried many to cast away their lives no wonder if the Love of God in his Saints prevail against the fear of Death The power of holy Love made Moses say Else let my name be blotted out of the Book of Life And it made Paul say That he could wish that he were accursed from Christ for his brethren and kindred according to the flesh Rom. 9. 3. And doubtless he felt the fire burning in his breast when he broke out into that triumphant challenge Rom. 8. 35 36. to the end Who shall separate us from the love of God shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword As it is written For thy sake we are killed all the day long we are counted as Sheep to the slaughter Nay in all this we are more then Conquerours through him that loved us For I am perswaded that neither Death nor Life nor Angels nor Principalities nor Powers nor things present nor things to come nor height nor depth nor any other Creature shall be able
Catholick Church and the Communion of Saints what is it to hate the Holy members of the Church and to avoid if not deride the Communion of Saints Be not deceived God is not mocked A mock-Religion and the name of Christianity will never save you Do you know how near you are to judgement and will you fearlesly thus heap up wrath and lay in fewel for the everlasting flames Do you know how speedily you shall wish in the bitterness of your souls that you had heard and prayed and laboured as for your lives and redeemed your time and obeyed your Teachers and yet will you now stand loitering and quarrelling and jesting and dallying in the matters of salvation and will you live as if you had nothing but the world to mind when you are even readie to step into the endless world O Sirs do you know what you are doing You are abusing the living God and wronging the Lord Jesus and trampling upon that mercy which would comfort you in your extremity a drop of which you would then be glad of You are grieving your poor Friends and Teachers and preparing for your endless grief Alas what should a faithfull Minister do for the saving of your souls He seeth you befooled in your security and carelesly passing on towards Hell and cannot help it He sees you posting to your misery where you will be out of the reach of all our exhortations and where mercie will not follow you to be accepted or rejected and though he see you almost past remedie he cannot help you He knoweth not when he speaks to you whether ever he shall speak unto you more and whether ever you shall have another call and offer and therefore he would fain speak effectually if he could but it is not in his power He knows that the matter sticks all at your own wills and that if he could but procure your own consent to the most reasonable and necessary business in the world the work were done and you might scape the everlasting flames And yet this is it that he cannot procure O wonderful that any man should be damned Yea that many men and most men should be damned when they might be saved if they would and will not Yea that no saying will serve to procure their consent and make them willing That we must look on our poor miserable neighbours in Hell and say they might have been saved once but would not they had time and leave to turn to God and to be holy and happy as well as others but we could never prevaile with them to consent and know the day of their visitation O what should we do for the saving if careless senseless souls Must we let them go Is there no remedie Shall Ministers study to meet with their necessities and tell them with all possible plainness and compassion of the evil that is a little before them teach them how they may escape it Why this they do from day to day and some will not hear them but are tipling or idleing or making a jeast of the Preacher at home and others are hearing with prejudice and contempt and most are hardned into a senseless deadness and all seems to them but as an emptie sound and they are so used to hear of Heaven and Hell that they make as light of them as if there were no such States Alas that while millions are weeping and wailing in utter desperation for the neglecting of their day of grace and turning away from him that called them our poor hearers at the same time should wilfully follow them when they are told from God what others suffer Alas that you should besleepy dead under those means that should waken you to prevent eternal death and that ever you should make merry so near damnation and be sporting your selves with the same kind of sins that others at the same hour are tormented for And is such madness as this remediless in people that seem as wise as others for worldly things Alas for any thing that we can do experience tells us that with the most it is remediless Could we remedie it our poor people should not wilfully run from Christ and lie in the flames of Hell for ever Could our perswasions and entreaties help it they should not for ever be shut out of Heaven when it s offered to them as well as others We bewail it from our hearts before the Lord that we can entreat them no more earnestly and beg not of them as for our lives to look before them and hearken to the voice of grace that they may be saved And a thousand times in secret we call our selves hard-hearted unmerciful and unfaithful in too great a measure that speak no more importunatelie for the saving of mens souls when we know not whether we shall ever speak to them any more Is this all that we can say or do in so terrible a case and in a matter of such weight as mens salvation The Lord forgive our great insensibilitie awaken us that we may be fit to waken others But yet for all this with grief we must complain that our people feel not when we feel and that they are senseless or asleep when we speak to them as seriously as we can and that tears and moans do not prevail but they go home and live as stupidlie in an unconverted state as if all were well with them and they were not the men we speak to O that you knew what a fearful judgment it is to be forsaken of God because you would have none of him and to be given up to your hearts lusts to walk in your own Counsells because you would not hearken to his voice Psa 81. 11 12 13. and to have God say Let those wretches be ignorant and careless and fleshly and worldly and filthy still Rev. 22. 11. O that you knew but not by experience what a heavie plague it is to be so forsaken as to have eyes that see not or seeing do not percieve and to have ears that hear not or to hear and not understand and so to be unconverted and unhealed Mark 4. 12. and to be hardned and condemned by the word and patience and mercies that do soften and save others and should have saved you Take heed lest Christ say I have sent them my messenger long enough in vaine From henceforth never fruit grow on them Because they would not be converted they shall not Take heed lest he take you away from means and quickly put an end to your opportunities You see how fast men pass away but little do you know how manie are lamenting that they made no better use of time and helps and mercies while they had them O hear while you may hear for it will not be long Read while you may read and pray while you may pray and turn while you may turn and go to your Christian friends teachers and enquire of them what you must do to be
what it is that sin hath done and consequently how vile and odious it is and how we should esteem and use it Sin hath not only forfeited our Happiness but laid those impediments in the way of our recovery which will find us work and cause our danger and sorrow while we live And Death is not the least of these impediments O foolish man that still will love such a mortal Enemy If another would rob them but of a groat or defame them or deprive them of any accommodation how easily can they hate them and how hardly are they reconciled to them But sin depriveth them of their lives and separates the soul and body asunder and forfeiteth their everlasting happiness and sets death betwixt them and the Glory that is purchased by Christ and yet they love it and will not leave it Though God have made them and do sustain them and provide for them and all their hope and help is in him they are not so easily drawn to love him And yet they can love the sin that would undo them Though Christ would deliver them and bring them to everlasting blessedness and hath assumed flesh and laid down his life to testifie his Love to them yet are they not easily brought to love him but the sin that made them enemies to God and hath brought them so near to everlasting misery this they can love that deserves no love A Minister or other friend that would draw them from their sin to God and help to save them they quarrel against as if he were their enemy but their foolish companions that can laugh and jest with them at the door of Hell and clap them on the back and drive away the care of their salvation and harden them against the fear of God these are the only acceptable men to them O Christians leave this folly to the world and do you judge of sin by its sad effects You feel if you have any feeling in you in some measure what it hath done against your Souls The weakness of your faith and love the distance of your hearts from God your doubts and troubles tell you that it is not your friend You must shortly know what it will do to your bodies As it keeps them in pain and weariness and weakness so it will ere long deliver them up to the jaws of death which will spare them no more then the beasts that perish Had it not been for sin we should have had no cause to fear a dissolution nor have we had any use for a coffin or a winding-sheet nor been beholden to a grave to hide our carkasses from the sight and smell of the living But as Henoch and Elias were translated when they had walked with God even so should we as those shall that are alive and remain at the coming of Christ shall be caught up together in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air and so shall they ever be with the Lord 1 Thes 4. 17. Use sin therefore as it will use you Spare it not for it will not spare you It is your murderer and the murderer of the world Use it therefore as a Murderer should be used Kill it before it kills you and then though it kill your bodies it shall not be able to kill your souls and though it bring you to the grave as it did your Head it shall not be able to keep you there If the thoughts of death and the grave and rottenness be not pleasant to you let not the thoughts of sin be pleasant Hearken to every temptation to sin as you would hearken to a temptation to self-murder And as you would do if the Devil brought you a knife and tempted you to cut your throat with it so do when he offereth you the bait of sin You love not Death Love not the cause of Death Be ashamed to stand weeping over a buried friend and never to weep over a sinning or ungodly friend nor once to give them a compassionate earnest exhortation to save their Souls Is it nothing to be dead in sins and trespasses Ephes 2. 1 5. Col. 2. 13. Yea it is a worse Death than this that is the wages of sin and the fruit which it brings forth Rom. 6. 21 23. and 7. 5. Surely God would never thus use mens bodies and forsake them soul and body for ever if sin were not a most odious thing What a poyson is this that kills so many millions and damneth so many millions and cannot be cured but by the blood of Christ that killed our Physician that never tasted it because he came so near to us O unbelieving stupid souls that smart and sin and groan and sin and weep and lament our bodily sufferings and yet sin still that fear a grave and fear not sin that have heard and seen and felt so much of the sad effects and yet sin still Psal 78. 32. Alas that murderers should be so common and that we should be no wiser when we have paid so dear a price for wisdom SECT V. Use 3. FROM the Enmity of Death we may further learn that Man hath now a need of Grace for such exceeding difficulties which were not before him in his state of innocency Though Adam was able to have obeyed perfectly without sin and had Grace sufficient to have upheld him and conquered temptations if he had done his part which by that Grace he might have done yet whether that Grace was sufficient to the works that we are called to is a doubt that many have been much troubled with It is certain that he was able to have done any thing that was suitable to his present state if it were commanded him And it is certain that much that is now our duty would have been unsuitable to his state But whether it belonged to his perfection to be able and fit for such duties that were then unsuitable to him on supposition they had been suitable and duties this is the difficulty which some make use of to prove that such works cannot now be required of us without suitable help because we lost no such grace in Adam But this need not trouble us For 1 Though Adam was put on no such difficulty in particular as to encounter death yet the perfect obedience to the whole Law required a great degree of internal Habitual holiness and to determine the case Whether our particular difficulties or his sinless perfect obedience required greater strength and help is a matter of more difficulty then use For 2. It is but about the Degrees of Holiness in him and us and not about the Kind that the difficulty lyeth For it is the same End that he was created for and disposed to by Nature and that we are redeemed for and disposed to supernaturally But yet it is worthy our observation what a difficulty sin hath cast before us in the way of life which Adam was unacquainted with that so we may see the nature of our works
dare not stand the charge of Death and with it the charge of the Law and of our Consciences How dreadfully should we then be foiled and nonplust if we must be found in no other righteousness but what we have received from the first Adam and have wrought by the strength received from him But being gathered under the wings of Christ as the chickens under the wings of the Hen Mat. 23. 37. and being found then in him having the righteousness which is through the faith of Christ the righteousness which is of God by faith we may boldly answer to all that can be charged on us to our terrour If we know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings and are made conformable to his death Phil. 3. 9 10. if we are dead with him to the world and risen with him to a holy life if we have believingly traced him in his sufferings and conquest and perceive by faith how we participate in his victories we shall then be able to grapple with the hands of Death and though we know the grave must be for a while the prison of our flesh we can by faith foresee the opening of our prison-doors and the loosing of our bonds and the day of our last and full Redemption It strengtheneth us exceedingly to look unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith who for the joy that was set before him endured the Cross despising the shame and is set down at the right hand of the Throne of God When we consider what he endured against himself we shall not be weary nor faint in our minds Heb. 12. 2 3. DIRECTION III. LIve also by faith on the Heavenly Glory As one eye of faith must be on an humbled crucified Christ so must the other be on Heaven on a glorified Christ and on the glory and everlasting Love of God which we shall there enjoy This is it that conquereth the fears of Death when we belive that we shall pass thorow it into everlasting life If a man for health will take the most ungrateful potion the bitterness being short and the benefit long and if he will suffer the Surgeon to let out his blood and in case of necessity to cut of a member how light should we make of Death that have the assured hopes of glory to encourage us What door so streight that we would not pass thorow if we could to our dearest friend What way so soul that we would not travel to our beloved home And shall Death seem intolerable to us that letteth in our souls to Christ Well might Paul say To dye is gain Phil. 1. 21. when we gain deliverance from all those sins that did here beset us all those sorows that sin had bred We gain the accomplishment of our desires the end of our faith the salvation of oursouls We gain the Crown that fadeth not away a place before the Throne of Christ in the Temple of God in the City of God the New Jerusalem to eat of the hidden Manna and of the Tree of Life which is in the midst of the Paradise of God Rev. 2. 3. We gain the place prepared for us by Christ in his Fathers house Joqn 14. 1 2. For we shall be with him where he is that we may behold his glory Joh. 17. 24. We shall gain the sight of the glory of God and the feeling of his most precious love and the fulness of joy that is in his presence and the everlasting pleasures at his right hond Psal 16. 11. And shall we think much to dye for such a gain we will put off our cloaths and welcome sleep which is the Image of death that our bodies may have rest and refuse not thus to dye every night that we may rise more refreshed for our employments in the morning And shall we stick at the uncloathing of our souls in ordâ—â— to their everlasting Rest Set but the eye of Faith to the Prospective of the Promise and take a serious frequent view of the promised Land and this if any thing will make Death more welcome than Physick to the sick than uncloathing to a beggar that puts on new or better cloaths Shall a poor man chearfully ply his labour all day in hope of a little wages at night and shall not a believer chearfully yield to Death in hope of everlasting glory so far as Heaven is soundly believed and our conversations and hearts are there the fears of Death will be asswaged and nothing else will well asswage them DIRECTION IV. MOreover if you will conquer the enmity of Death do all that you can to encrease and exercise the love of God in you For love will so encline you to the blessed object of it that Death will not be able to keep down the flame Were God set as a seal upon our hearts we should find that Love is as strong as Death and the coals thereof are coals of fire and the flame is vehement many waters cannot quench it nor can the floods drown it Cant. 8. 6 7. If carnal Love have made the amorous to chuse Death that they might passionately express it especially when they have heard if the death of their beloved and if natural fortitude and love to their Country have made many valiant men though Heathens to contemn Death and readily lay down lives and if the love of fame and vain glory in a surviving name have caused many to dye through pride how much more will the powerful love of God put on the soul to leave this flesh and pass through Death that we may see his face and fully enjoy the object of our love So much as you love God so much will you be above the terrours of the grave and past through Death for the enjoyment of your beloved Perfect Love casteth out fear and he tqat feareth is not made perfect in love in Death and Judgement we shall have boldness if our love be perfect 1 John 4. 17 18. This maketh the Martyrs chearfully lay down their lives for Christ and love is glad of so precious an opportunity for its exercise and manifestation Love is a restless working thing that will give you no rest till your desires are attained and you be with God Nothing is so valiant as Love It rejoyceth when it meeteth with difficulties which it may encounter for the sake of our beloved It contemneth dangers It glorieth in sufferings Though it be humble and layeth by all thoughts of merit yet it rejoyceth in sufferings for Christ and glorieth in the Cross and in the participation of his sufferings and in the honourable wounds and fears which we receive for him that died for us DIRECTION V. TO overcome the terrours and enmity of Death it is necessary that we keep the Conscience clear from the guilt of wilful sin and of impenitency If it may be see that you wound it not if you have wounded it presently seek a cure
is above the pride and vanities of this world and doth converse by a life of faith above and is usefull and exemplary in their generation alas how soon are they snatcht away and we are left in our temptations ripening and murmuring at God as Jonah when his gourd was withered as if the Lord had destinated this world to be the dwelling of unfaithfull worthless men and envied us the presence of one eminent Saint one faithful friend and one that a◠Moses when he had talkt with God hath a face that shineth with the reflected raies of the heavenly glory when indeed it is because this world is unworthy of them Heb. 11. 38. not knowing their worth nor how to use them nor how to make use of them for their good and because when they are ripe and mellow for eternity it is fit that God be served before us and that Heaven have the best and that be left on earth that is earthly Must Heaven be deprived of its inhabitants Must a Saint that is ripe be kept from Christ and so long kept from his inheritance from the company of Angels and the face of God and all lest we should be displeased and grudge at God for glorifying those whom he destinated to glory before the foundations of the world and whom he purchased and prepared for Glory Must there a place be empty and a voice be wanting in the Heavenly Chore Iest we should miss our friends on earth Are we not hasting after them at the heels and do we not hope to live with them for ever and shall we grudge that they are gone a day or week or year before us O foolish unbelieving souls We mourn for them that are past mourning and lament for our friends that are gone to Rest when we are left our selves in a vexatious restless howling wilderness as if it were better to be here we mourn and weep for the souls that are triumphing in their Masters joy And yet we say we believe and hope and labour and wait for the same felicity Shall the happiness of our friends be our sorrow and lamentation O did we but see these blessed souls and where they are and what they are enjoying and what they are doing we should be ashamed to mourn thus for their change Do you think they would wish themselves again on earth or would they take it kindly of you if you could bring them down again into this world though it were to reign in wealth and honour O how would they disdain or abhor the motion unless the commanding will of God did make it a part of their obedience And shall we grieve that they are not here when to be here would be their grief But thus our lives are filled with griefs Thus smiles and frowns desires and denyals hopes and frustrations indeavours and disappointments do make a quotidian ague of our lives The persons and the things we love do contribute to our sorrows as well as those we hate If our friends are bad or prove unkind they gall and grieve us while they live If they excell in holiness fidelity and suitableness the dart that kills them deeply woundeth us and the sweeter they were to us in their lives the bitterer to us is their death We cannot keep mercy but sin is ready to take it from us or else to marr in and turn it into Vinegar and Gall. And doth not Death accidentally befriend us that puts an end to all these troubles and lands us safe on the Celestial shore and puts us into the bosome of perpetual Rest where all is calm and the storms and billows that tost us here shall 〈◊〉 or trouble us no more And thus Death shall make us some recompence at last for the wrong it did us and the mortal blow shall hurt us less then did the dreadful apparition of it in our fore-thoughts Let not our fears then exceed the cause Though we fear the pangs and throws of travel let us withal remember that we shall presently rejoyce and all the holy Angels with us that a soul is born into the world of glory And Death shall gain us much more then it deprived us of DIRECTION X. THE last Direction that I shall give you to conquer the Enmity of Death is this Give up your wills entirely to the will of God as knowing that his will is your beginning and your end your safety your felicity and rest in which you should gladly aquiesce When you think of Death remember who it is that sends it It is our Fathers messenger and is sent but to execute his will And can there be any thing in the will of God that his servants should inordinately fear Doubtless his Will is much safer and better for us then our own And if in generall it were offered to our choice Whether all particulars of our lives should be disposed of by Gods will or by ours common reason might teach us to desire to be rather in Gods hands then our own The fulfilling of his will is the care and business of our lives and therefore it should be a support and satisfaction to us at our death that it is but the fulfilling of his will His Justice and punishing Will is good though selfishness maketh it ungratefull to the offendor But his children that are dear to him and tast no evil but that which worketh for their good have no cause to quarrell at his will Whatsoever our surest dearest friends would have us take or do or suffer we are ready to submit to as being confident they will do nothing for our hurt if they do but know what is for our good And shall we not more boldly trust the will of God then of our dearest friend He knows what he hath to do with us and how he will dispose of us and whither he will bring us and his interest in us is more then ours in our selves and shall we then distrust him as if we had to do with an enemy or one that were evil and not with love and infinite goodness It is the will of God that must be the everlasting Rest the Heaven the pleasure of our souls And shall we now so fear it and fly from it as if it were our ruine Look which way you will through all the world your souls will never find repose nor satisfying quietness and content but in the will of God Let us therefore commit our souls to him as to a faithful Creator and desire unfeignedly the fulfilling of his will and believe that there is no ground of confidence more firm Abraham may boldly trust his Son his only Son on the will of God And Christ himself when he was to drink the bitter Cup submitteth his own naturall love of life to his Fathers will saying Not my will but thine be done 'T is a most unworthy abuse of God that we could be quiet and rejoyce if our own wills or our dearest friends might dispose of our lives and
is ordinarily endured to prevent a longer A woman doth bear the pains of her travail because it is short and tends to the bringing of a child into the world Who would not submit to any labour or toyl for a day that he might win a life of plenty and delight by it who would not be spit upon and made the scorn of the world for a day if he might have his will for it as long as he liveth on earth And should we not then cheerfully submit to our momentany afflictions and the troubles of a few dayes which are light and mixt with a world of mercies when we know that they are working for us a far more exceeding eternal weight of glory 2 Cor. 4. 17. Our clamorous and malicious enemies our quarrelsome Brethren our peevish friends our burdensome corruptions and imperfections will shortly trouble us no more As our life is short and but a dream and shadow and therefore the pleasures of this world are no better so our troubles also will be no longer and are but sad dreams and dark shadows that quickly pass away Our Lord that hath begun and gone on so far will finish his victories and the last enemy shall shortly be destroyed And if the fearful doubting Soul shall say I know this is comfort to them that are in Christ but what is it to me that know not whether I have any part in him I answer 1. The foundation of God still standeth sure the Lord knoweth his own even when some of them know not that they are his own He knoweth his mark upon his sheep when they know it not themselves God doubteth not of his interest in thee though thou doubt of thy interest in him And thou art faster in the arms of his Love then by the arms of thy own faith as the child is surer in the Mothers arms then by its holding of the Mother And moreover your doubts and fears are part of the evil that shall be removed and your bitterest sorrows that hence proceed shall with the rest of the enemies be destroyed 2. But yet take heed that you unthankfully plead not against the mercies which you have received and be not friends to those doubts and fears which are your enemies and that you take not part with the enemy of your comforts Why dost thou doubt poor humbled soul of thy interest in Christ that must make the conquest Answer me but these few Questions from thy heart 1. Did Christ ever shew himself unkind to thee or unwilling to receive thee and have mercy on thee Did he ever give thee cause to think so poorly of his Love and grace as thy doubts do intimate thou dost Hast thou not found him kind when thou wast unkind and that he thought on thee when thou didst not think on him and will he now forget thee and end in wrath that begun in Love He desired thee when thou didst not desire him and gave thee all thy desires after him and will he now cross and deny the desires which he hath caused He was found of thee or rather found thee when thou soughtest not after him and can he reject thee now thou cryest and callest for his grace O think not hardly of his wonderous grace till he give thee cause Let thy sweet experiences be remembred to the shame of thy causless doubts and fears and let him that hath loved thee to the death be thought on as he is and not as the unbelieving flesh would misrepresent him Quest 2. If thou say that it is not his unkindness but thy own that feeds thy doubts I further ask thee Is he not kind to the unkind especially when they lament their own unkindness Thou art not so unkind to him as thou wast in thy unconverted state and yet he then exprest his Love in thy conversion He then sought thee when thou wentest astray and brought thee carefully home into his Fold and there he hath kept thee ever since And is he less kind now when thou art returned home Dost thou not know that all his children have their forwardness and are guilty of their unkindnesses to him And yet he doth not therefore disown them and turn them out of his family but is tender of them in their froward weakness because they are his own How dealt he with the peevish Prophet Jonah that was exceedingly displeased and very angry that God spared Nineveh lest it should be a dishonour to his Prophesie in so much that he wisht that he might die and not live and after repined at the withering of his gourd and the scorching of the Sun that beat upon him The Lord doth gently question with him Dost thou well to be angry and after hence convince him that the mercy which he valued to himself he should not envy to so many Jonah 4. How dealt he with the Disciples that fell a sleep when they should have watcht with Christ in the night of his great agony He doth not tell them You are none of mine because you could not watch with me one hour but tenderly excuseth that which they durst not excuse themselves The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak When he was on the Cross though they all forsook him and fled he was then so far from forsaking them that he was manifesting to admiration that exceeding love that never would forsake them And knowest thou not poor complaining soul that the kindness of Christ overcometh all the unkindness of his children and that his blood and grace is sufficient to save thee from greater sins then those that trouble thee If thou hadst no sin what use hadst thou of a Saviour Will thy Physitian therefore cast thee off because thou art sick Quest 3. Yea hath not Christ already subdued so many of thy enemies as may assure thee he will subdue the rest and begun that life in thee which may assure thee of eternal life Once thou wast a despiser of God and his holy wayes but now it is far otherwise with thee Hath he not broken the heart of thy pride and worldliness and sensuality and made thee a new Creature and is not this a pledge that he will do the rest Tell me plainly hadst thou rather keep thy sin or leave it Hadst thou rather have liberty to commit it or be delivered from it Dost thou not hate it and set thy self against it as thy enemy Art thou not delivered from the reign and tyranny of it which thou wast once under And will not he perfect the conquest which he hath begun He that hath thus far delivered thee from sin thy greatest enemy will deliver thee from all the sad effects of it The blessed work of the Spirit in thy Conversion did deliver thee from the bondage of the Devil from the power of darkness and translated thee into the Kingdom of Jesus Christ Then didst thou enter the holy warfare under his banners that was never overcome in the victorious Army that shall
as they Am I now in flesh in fears in griefs so was David and Paul and all the Saints a while ago yea and Christ himself Am I beset with sin and compassed with infirmities and racked by my own distempered passion so were the many saints now glorified but the other day Elias was a man subject saith James to like passions as we are James 5. 17. Am I maliced by dissenting adversaries Do they privily lay snares for me and watch my halting and seek advantage against my name and liberty and life so did they by David and many other now with Christ But now these enemies are overcome Art thou under pains and consuming sicknesses are thine eyes held waking and doth trouble and sorrow wast thy spirits doth thy flesh and thy heart fail thee and thy friends prove silly comforters to thee So was it with those thousands that are now in Heaven where the night of calamities is past and the just have dominion in the morning and glory hath banished all their griefs and joyes have made them forget their sorrows unless as the remembrance of them doth promote those joyes Are thy friends lamenting thee and grieved to see the signs of thy approaching death do they weep when they see thy pale face and consumed body and when they hear thy sighs and groans Why thus it was once with the millions that are now triumphing with their Lord They lay in sickness and underwent the pains and were lamented by their friends as as thou art now Even Christ himself was once in his agony and some shake the head at him and others pitied him who should rather have wept for themselves than for him This is but the passage from the womb of mortality into the life of immortality which all the Saints have past before thee that are now with Christ Dost thou fear the dreafdul face of death Must thy tender flesh be turned to rottenness and dust and must thou lie in darkness till the Resurrection and thy body remain as the Common earth And is not this the case of all those millions whose souls now see the face of Christ Did they not lie as thou dost and die as thou must and pass by death to the life which they have now attained O then commit thy soul to Christ and be quiet and comforted in his care and love Trust him as the Mid-wife of thy departing soul who will bring it safe into the light and life which thou are yet such a stranger to But it is not strange to him though it be strange to thee What was it that that rejoyced thee all thy life in thy prayers and sufferings and labours was it not the hopes of heaven And was Heaven the spring and motive of thy obedience and the comfort of thy life and yet wilt thou pass into it with heaviness and shall thy approaches to it be thy sorrows Didst thou pray for that which thou wouldst not have Hast thou laboured for it and denyed thy self the pleasures of the world for it and now art thou afraid to enter in Fear not poor soul Thy Lord is there Thy husband and thy head and life is there Thou hast more there a thousand fold more than thou hast here Here thou must leave poor mourning friends that languish in their own infimities and troubled thee as well as comforted thee while thou wast with them and that are hasting after thee and will shortly overtake thee But there thou shalt find the souls of all the blessed Saints that have lived since the Creation till this age that are all uncloathed of the rags of their mortality and have laid by their frailties with their flesh and are made up of holiness and prepard for joy and will be suitable companions for thee in thy joyes Why shouldst thou be afraid to go the way that all the Saints have gone before thee Where there is one on earth how many are there in Heaven and one of them is worth many of us Art thou better then Noah and Abraham and David then Peter and Paul and all the Saints Or dost thou not love their names and wouldst thou not be with them Art thou loath to leave thy friends on earth And hast thou not far better and more in heaven Why then art thou not as loath to stay from them Suppose that I and such as I were the friends that thou art loath to leave What if we had dyed long before thee If it be our company that thou lovest thou shouldst then be willing to die that thou mayst be with us And if so why then shouldst thou not be more willing to die and be with Christ and all his holy ones that are so much more excellent than we Wouldst thou have our company Remove then willingly to that place where thou shalt have it to everlasting and be not so loath to go from hence where neither thou nor we can stay Hadst thou rather travel with us than dwell with us And rather here suffer with us than reign in Heaven with Christ and us O What a brutish thing is flesh What an unreasonable thing is unbelief Shall we believe and fly from the end of our belief Shall we hope and be loath to enjoy our hopes Shall we desire and pray and be afraid of attaining our desires and lest our prayers should be heard Shall we spend our lives in labour and travel and be afraid of comming to our journeys end Do you love life or do you not If not why are you afraid of death If you do why then are you loath to pass into everlasting life You know there is no hope of immortality on earth Hence you must pass whether you will or not as all your Fathers have done before you it is therefore in Heaven or no where that endless life is to be had If you can live here for ever do Hope for it if any have done so before you Go to some man of a thousand years old and ask him how he made shift to draw out his life so long But if you know that man walketh here in a vain shew and that his life is a shadow a dream a post and that all these things shall be dissolved and the fashion of them passeth away is it not more reasonable that we should set our hearts on the place where there is hopes of our continuance than where there is none and where we must live for ever than where we must be but for so short a time Alas poor darkned troubled soul Is the presence of Christ less desirable in thy eyes than the presence of such sinful worms as we whom thou art loath to part with Is it more grievous to thee to be absent from us than from thy Lord from Earth than from Heaven from Sinners than from blessed Saints from trouble and frailty than from glory Hast thou any thing here that thou shalt want in Heaven Alas that we should thus draw back from Happiness
in 12. In sum for strict close watchfull holy walking with God even her Husband professeth that she was a pattern to him As I hinted before she kept a daily acount in writing which is now to be seen from the beginning of the year 1654. especially of these particulars 1. Of the frame of her heart in every dayes duty in Meditation Prayer Hearing Reading c. whether lively of dull c. 2. Of those sins which she had especially to repent of and watch against 3. Of her Resolutions and Promises and how she kept them 4. Of all special Providences to her self Husband Brothers and others and the improvement of them As at the death of her Son who died with great sighs and groans she recorded her sense of the special necessity of holy Armour and great preparation for that encounter when her turn should come to be so removed to the everlasting habitation 5. Of her returns of Prayer what answers and grant of them she found 6. Of the state of her soul upon examination how she found it and what was the issue of each examination and in this it seems she was very exact and punctual In which though many times fears and doubtings did arise yet hath she frequent records of the discovery of evidences and comfortable assurance of sincerity Somtime when she hath heard Sermons in London that helped her in her search and somtimes when she had been reading writings that tended that way she recorded what evidences she found and in what degree the discovery was If imperfect resolving to take it up and follow the search further And if she had much joy she received it with jealousie and expectation of some humbling consequent When any grace languished she presently turned to some apt remedy As for instance it s one of her Notes Novemb. 1658. I found thoughts of Eternity slight and strange and ordinary imployments very desirable at which I read Mr. Bs. Crucifixion was awakened to Mortification and Humiliation c. The last time that she had opportunity for this work was two or three dayes before her delivery in Child-bearing where she finally recorded the apprehensions she had both of her bodily and spiritual State in these words Drawing near the time of my delivery I am fallen into such weakness that my life is in hazzard I find some fears of death but not very great hoping through grace I die in the Lord. I only mention these hints to shew the Method she used in her daily Accounts To those Christians that have full leisure this course is good But I urge it not upon all Those that have so great duties to take up that time that they cannot spare so much to record their ordinary passages Such must remember what others record and daily renew repentance for their daily failings and record only the extraordinary observable and more remarkable and memorable passages of their lives lest they lose time from works of greater moment But this excellent work of Watchfulness must be performed by all And I think it was a considerable expression of her true wisdom and care of her immortal soul that when any extraordinary necessity required it and she found such doubts as of her self she was not able to deal with she would go to some able experienced Minister to open her case and seek assistance as she did more than once to my dear and ancient friend Mr. Cross who in full age is since gone after her to Christ And therefore chose a Minister in Marriage that he might be a ready assistant in such cases of necessity as well as a continual help At last came that death to summon her soul away to Christ for which she had so seriously been preparing and which she oft called a dark entry to her Fathers Palace After the death of her Children when she seemed to be somewhat repaired after her last delivery a violent Convulsion suddenly surprized her which in a few dayes brought her to her end Her understanding by the fits being at last debilitated she finding it somewhat hard to speak sensibly excused it and said I shall ere long speak another language Which were the last words which she spake with a tongue of flesh and lying speechless eighteen hours after she departed August 17. 1659. Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord from henceforth yea saith the spirit that they may rest from their labours and their works do follow them Our turn is coming Shortly we shall also lay by flesh this is our day of preparation There is no preparing time but this Did men but know the difference between the death of the holy and the unholy which doth not appear to fleshly eyes how speedily would they turn how seriously would they meditate how fervently would they pray how carefully would they live how constantly painfully and resolvedly would they labour Did they well consider the difference between dying prepared and unprepared and of what difficulty and yet everlasting consequence it is to die well O then what manner of persons would men be in all manner of holy conversation and godliness and all their lives would then be a continued preparation for death as all their life is a hasting towards it And now I shall only desire you for the right understanding of all that I have here said and to prevent the cavils of blinded malice to observe these three or four particulars 1. That though I knew so much of her as easily maketh me believe the rest upon so sure a testimony and saw her Diary yet the most of this History of her life is the collection and observation of such faithful witnesses as had much better opportunity than I to know the secrets of her soul and life 2. That it is no wonder if many that knew her perceived not all this by her that is here expressed For that knowledg of our outward carriage at a distance will not tell our Neighbours what we do in our Closets where God hath commanded us to shut our door upon us that our Father which seeth in secret may reward us openly And many of the most humble and sincere servants of the Lord are so afraid of hypocrisie and hate ostentation that their Justification and Glory is only to be expected from the searcher of hearts and a few of their more intimate acquaintance Though this was not the case before us the example described being more conspicuous 3. That I over-pass the large expessions of her charity which you may hear from the poor and her intimate acquaintance as I have done that I may not grate upon the modesty of her surviving friends who must participate in the commendations 4. That it is the benefit of the living that is my principal end Scripture it self is written much in History that we may have matter of imitation before our eyes 5. If any say that here is no mention of her faults I answer Though I had acquaintance with her I knew them not nor ever heard from any other so much as might enable me to accuse her if I were her enemy Yet I doubt not but she was imperfect and had faults though unknown to me The example of Holiness I have briefly proposed They that would see examples of iniquity may look abroad in the world and find enough I need not be the accuser of the Saints to furnish them And I think if they enquire here of any thing notable they will he hard put to it to find enough to cover the accusers shame 6. It is the honour of Christ and Grace in his members more than the honour of his servant that I seek 7. And I would not speak that in commendation of the living which I do of the dead who are out of the reach of all temptations of being lifted up with pride thereby Unless it be such whose reputation the interest of Christ and the Gospel commandeth me to vindicate 8. Lastly I am so far from lifting up one above the rest of the members of Christ by these commendations and from abasing others whose names I mention not that I intend the honour of all in One and think that in the substance I describe all Saints in describing one I am not about a Popish work of making a wonder of a Saint as of a Phoenix or some rare unusual thing Saints with them must be Canonized and their names put in the Calender and yet their blind malice tels the world that there are no such things as Saints among us But I rejoyce in the many that I have communion with and the many that have lately stept before me into Heaven and are safe there out of the reach of malice and of sin and all the enemies of their peace and have left me mourning and yet rejoycing fearing and yet hoping and with some desires looking after them here behind And the faster Christ calls away his chosen ones whose graces were amiable in mine eyes the more willing he maketh me to follow them and to leave this world of darkness confusion wickedness danger vanity and vexation and to meet these precious souls in Life where we shall rejoyce that we are past this howling wilderness and shall for ever be with the Lord. FINIS