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
dangerous Incision what a striving doth it cause between the contrary passions the love of life and the love of ease the fear of death and the fear of suffering Could we but come to Heaven as easily as innocent Adam might have done if he had conquered what wings would it add to our desires Might we be translated as Henoch or conveyed thither in the Chariot of Elâ—â—â— what Saint is there that would not long to see the face and glory of the Lord Were it but to go to the top of a Mountain and there see Christ with Moses and Elias in a glimpse of Glory as he did the three Disciples Who would not make haste and say It is good for us to be here Matth 17. 1 4 But to travel so chearfully with Abraham to the Mount of Moriah to sacrifice an only Son or with a Martyr to the flames is a harder task This is the principal enmity of death it deterreth our desires and thoughts from Heaven and maketh it a far harder matter to us to long after God than otherwise it would be Yea it causeth us to flie from him even when we truly love him And where Faith and Love do work so strongly as to overcome these fears yet do they meet with them as an enemy and must fight before they overcome 2. And as this Enemy dulleth our Desires so doth it consequently cool our Love as to the exercise and it hindereth our hope and much abateth the complacency and Joy that we should have in the believing thoughts of Heaven when we should be rejoycing in hope of the glory of God Rom. 5. 2. the face of death appearing to our thoughts is naturally an enemy to our joy When we think of the grave and of dissolution and corruption and of our long abode in the places of darkness of our contemned dust and scattered bones this damps our joyful thoughts of Heaven if supernatural grace do not make us Conquerours But if we might pass from Earth to Heaven as from one room to another what haste should we make in our desires How joyfully should we think and speak of Heaven Then we might live in the Joy of the Holy Ghost and easily delight our selves in God and Comfort would be our daily food 3. Moreover as our Natural Enemy doth thus occasion the abatement of Desire and Love and Joy so also of our Thankfulnesse for the Glory that is promised us God would have more praise from us if we had more pleasing joyful thoughts of our Inheritance We should magnifie him from day to day when we remember how we shall magnifie him for ever Our hearts would be turned into thankfulnesse and our tongues would be extolling our dear Redeemer and sounding forth his praise whom we must praise for ever if dreadful Death did not draw a veil to hide the heavenly glory from us 4. And thus the dismal face of Death doth hinder the heavenlinesse of our Conversation Our Thoughts will be diverted when our complacency and desire is abated Our minds be willinger to grow strange to Heaven when Death still mingleth terrour in our meditations Whereas if we could have come to God in the way that was first appointed us and could be cloathed with glory without being stript of our present cloathing by this terrible hand how familiarly should we then converse above How readily would our Thoughts run out to Christ Meditation of that glory would not be then so hard a work Our hearts would not be so backward to it as now they are 5. Faith is much hindered and Infidelity much advantaged by Death Look either to the state of soul or body and you will easily perceive the truth of this The state of a Soul incorporated we know by long experience what kind of apprehensions volitions and affections belong to a soul while it acteth in the Body we feel or understand But what manner of Knowledge Will or Love what Joy what sorrow belong to souls that are separated from the Bodies it is not possible for us now distinctly and formally to conceive And when men find themselves at a loss about the manner they are tempted to doubt of the thing it self The swarms of irreligious Infidels that have denied the Immortality and separated existence of the Soul are too full a proof of this And good men have been haunted with this horrible temptation Had there been no death we had not been liable to this dangerous assault The opinion of the sleeping of the soul till the Resurrection is but a step to flat Infidelity and both of them hence receive their life because a soul in flesh when it cannot conceive to its satisfaction of the being state or action of a separated soul is the easier drawn to question or deny it And in regard of the Body the difficulty and tryal is as great That a corps resolved into dust and perhaps first devoured by some other body and turned into its substance should be re-united to its soul and so become a glorified body is a point not easie for unsanctified nature to believe When Paul preached of the Resurrection to the learned Athenians some mocked and others turned off that discourse Acts 17. 32. It is no easier to believe the Resurrection of the Body than the Immortality or separated Existence of the Soul Most of the world even Heathens and Infidels do confess the latter but few of them comparatively believe the former And if sin had not let in Death upon our Nature thâ—â— perilous difficulty had been prevented Then we should not have been puzled with the thoughts of either a corrupted Body or a separated Soul 6. And consequently by all this already mentioned our Endeavors meet with a great impediment If Death weaken Faith Desire and Hope it must needs dull our Endeavors The deterred discouraged soul moves slowly in the way of life Whereas if Death were not in our way how chearfully should we run towards Heaven our thoughts of it would be still sweet and these would be a powerful Spring to action When the Will goes with full Sails the commanded faculty will the more easily follow We should long so earnestly to be in Heaven if Death were not in the way that nothing could easily stop us in our course How earnestly we should pray How seriously should we meditate and confer of Heaven and part with any thing to attain it But that which dulls our Desires of the End must needs be an Enemy to holy Diligence and dull us in the use of means 7. This Enemy also doth dangerously tempt us to fall in love with present things and to take up the miserable Portion of the worldling when it hath weakened faith and cooled our desires to the life to come we shall be tempted to think that its best take such pleasure as may here be had and feed on that where a sensual mind hath less discouragement Whereas if Death did not stand in the way and darken
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
could not be so unwilling to be removed to it for no man is unwilling to be happy or to attain his end But stay a little and better consider of your Case Is it Christ that your heart is thus a verse to or is it only Death that standeth in the way You are not I hope unwilling to see the face of God nor unwilling to be translated from earth to heaven but unwilling to die It is not because you love the creature better then the Creator but because you are afraid of Death You may love God and long to be perfected in holiness and to see his Glory and to have the most near Communion with him and yet at the same time you may fear this Enemy that standeth in your way I mean not only the Pain of death but principally the dissolution of our natures and the separation of the soul from the body and its abode in a separated state and the bodies abode in dust and darkness Grace it self is not given us to reconcile us to corruption and make death as death to seem desirable but to cause us patiently to bear the evil because of the good that is beyond it It is not our duty to love death as death Had it not been naturally an evil to be dreaded and avoided God would not have made it the matter of his threatning nor would it have been a fit means to restrain men from transgression To threaten a man with a benefit as such is a contradiction Enquire therefore into your hearts whether there be not a belief of heaven a love to God a desire to enjoy and please him even while you draw back and seem to be a verse and whether it be not only a lothness to die and not a lothness to be with Christ For the fuller discovery of this because I find that our comfort much dependeth on it I shall try you by these following Questions Quest 1. What is it that is ungrateful to you in your meditations of your change Is it God and Heaven or is it Death If it be only Death it seems it is not the want of Love to God and Heaven that causeth your averseness If it be God himself that is ungrateful to your thoughts it is because you desire not his nearer presence or communion with him in the state of glory or is it only because you fear lest you have no interest in his Love and shall not attain the blessedness which you desire If it be the first I must confess it proves a graceless soul and signifieth the want of Love to God But if it be the latter only it may stand with grace For Desire is a true signification of Love though there be doubts and fears lest we shall miss the attainment of those desires Quest 2. Would you not gladly hear the news of your removal if you might be changed without Death and translated to heaven as Henoch and Elias were and as Christ at his Ascension Had you not far rather be thus changed then abide on earth If so then it seems it is not God and Heaven that you are against but death Nay if you could reach Heaven by travelling a thousand miles would you not gladly take the journey as soon as you had got assurance of your title to it and done the work of God on earth If it were but a Peter James and John to go with Christ into an exceeding high Mountain and there to see him in glory Mat. 17. 12. would you not gladly do it It seems that thou desirest to see the Lord and thy love is to him though thou be afraid of death Quest 3. Consider of the Nature of the Heavenly felicity and try whether thou love it in the several parts One part is our personal Perfection that oursouls shall be free from ignorance and error and sin and sorrow and enlarged for the perfect Love of God and our bodies at the Resurrection made like the glorious body of our Lord Phil. 3. 21. and wouldst thou not be thus perfected in soul and body Another part is that we shall live with the society of Angels and glorified Saints And wouldst thou not have such company of sinners and enemies and imperfect Saints on earth Another part is we shall see our glorified Head and be with him where he is that we may behold his glory And doth not thy heart desire this But the perfection of our Happiness is that we shall see the face of the glory of God which is the light of that world as truly as the Sun is the light of this and that we shall be filled up with the feeling of his Love and abound with Love to him again and perfectly delighted in this Communion of Love and express in the Praises of the LORD and thus make up the New Jerusalem where GOD will place his glorious presence and in which he will for evermore take pleasure And is there any thing in this that thy soul is against and which dost not value above this WORLD If thou find that all the parts are sweet and the Description of Heaven is most grateful to thee and that this is the state that thou wouldst be in it seems then it is not Heaven but Death that thou art averse from and that maketh thee so loth to hear the tydings of thy change Quest 4. Couldst thou not joyfully see the coming of Christ if it were this day if thou have done thy work and art assured of his love The Apostle hath told us by the word of the Lord that the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout with the voice of the Archangel and with the Trump of God and the dead in Christ shall rise first and then they which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air and so shall we ever be with the Lord 1 Thes 4. 15 16 17. And this is the doctrine that comforteth believers verse 18. Would it not rejoyce your hearts if you were sure to live to see the coming of the Lord and to see his glorious appearing and retinue If you were not to die but to be caught up thus to meet the Lord and to be changed immediately into an immortal incorruptible glorious state would you be averse to this would it not be the greatest joy that you could desire For my own part I must confess to you that death as death appeareth to me as an enemy and my nature doth abhor and fear it But the thoughts of the Coming of the Lord are most sweet and joyful to me so that if I were but sure that I should live to see it and that the Trumpet should sound and the dead should rise and the Lord appear before the period of my age it would be the joyfullest tydings to me in the world O that I might see his Kingdome come It is the Character of his Saints to love his appearing 2
disputing with the Doctors in his Child-hood in the Temple or to have seen him do his Miracles or heard him Preach much more to have seen him as the three Disciples in his transfiguration or to have seen him after his Resurrection and when he ascended up to Heaven But how far is all this below the sight that we shall have of him when he comes in glory when the brightness of his shining face shall make us think the Sun was darkness and the glory of his attendants shall make us think what a sorbid thing and childish foolery was all the glory of this world The face of Love shall be then unvailed and ravish us into the highest Love and Joy that our natures are capable of Then doubt and fear and grieve if thou canst What then wilt thou think of all these disquieting distrustful Thoughts that now so wrong thy Lord and thee If going into the Sanctuary and foreseeing the end can cure our brutish mis-apprehensions of Gods providences Psal 73. 17. how perfectly will they be cured when we see the glorious face of Christ and behold the New Jerusalem in its glory and when we are numbred with the Saints that judge the world We shall never more be tempted then to condemn the generation of the just nor to think it vain to serve the Lord nor to envy the prosperity of the wicked nor to stagger at the promise through unbelief nor to think that our sickness death and grave were any signs of unkindness or unmercifulness in God We shall then be convinced that sight and flesh were unfit to censure the wayes of God or to be our guides Hasten O Lord this blessed day Stay not till Faith have left the earth and infidelity and impiety and tyranny have conquered the rest of thine inheritance Stay not till selfish uncharitable pride hath vanquished love and self-denyal and planted its Colonies of Heresie confusion and cruelty in thy dominions and Earth and Hell be turned into one Stay not till the eyes of thy servants fail and their hearts and hopes do faint and languish with looking and waiting for thy salvation But if yet the day be not at hand O keep up Faith and Hope and Love till the Sun of perfect Love arise and Time hath prepared us for Eternity and Grace for Glory FINIS Some imitable Passages of the Life of Elizabeth late Wife of Mr. Joseph Baker THough I spoke so little as was next to nothing of our dear deceased friend it was not because I wanted matter or thought it unmeet But I use it but seldom lest I raise expectations of the like where I cannot conscionably perform it But he that hath promised to honour those that serve and honour him Joh. 12. 26. 1 Sam. 2. 30. and will come at last to be glorified in his Saints and admired in all them that do believe 2 Thes 1. 10. I know will take it as a great and acceptable act of service to proclaim the honour of his grace and to give his servants their due on earth whose souls are glorified with Christ in Heaven though Serpentine enmity will repine and play the envious accuser It is not the history of the Life of this precious servant of the Lord which I intend to give you for I was not many years acquainted with her but only some passages which either upon my certain knowledge or her own Diurnal of her course or the most credible testimony of her most intimate judicious godly friends I may boldly publish as true and imitable in this untoward distempered generation She was born Novem. 1634. in Southwark near London the only child of Mr. John Godeschalk alias Godscall Her Father dying in her Child-hood she was left an Orphane to the Chamber of London Her Mother after married Mr. Isaac Barton with whom she had the benefit of Religious Education But between sixteen and seventeen years of age by the serious reading of the Book called The Saints Everlasting Rest she was more throughly awakened and brought to set her heart on God and to seek salvation with her chiefest care From that time forward she was a more constant diligent serious hearer of the ablest Ministers in London rising early and going far to hear them on the week dayes waiting on God for his confirming grace in the use of those ordinances which empty unexperienced hypocrites are easily tempted to despise The Sermons which she constantly wrote she diligently repeated at home for the benefit of others and every week read over some of those that she had heard long before that the fruit of them might be retained and renewed it being not novelty that she minded In the year 1654. being near one and twenty years of age after seeking God and waiting for his resolving satisfying directions she consented to be joyned in marriage to Mr. Joseph Baker by the approbation of her nearest friends God having taken away her Mother the year before With him she approved herself indeed such a Wife as Paul no Papist describeth as meet for a Bishop or Pastor of the Church 1 Tim. 3. 11. Even so must their Wives be grave not slanderers sober faithful in all things Some instances I shall give for the imitation of others 1. She was very exemplary in self-denial and humility And having said thus much what abundance have I comprehended O what a beauty doth self-denyal and humility put on souls Nay what a treasure of everlasting consequence do these two words express I shall give you a few of the discoveries 1. It appeared in her accompanying in London with the holiest how mean soever avoiding them that were proud and vain and carnal She desired most to be acquainted with those that she perceived were best acquainted with God neglecting the pomp and vain glory of the world 2. When she was called to a married state though her portion and other advantages invited persons of greater estates in the world She chose rather to marry a Minister of known integrity that might be a near and constant guide and stay and comfort to her in the matters which she valued more than riches And she missed not of her expectations for the few years that she lived with him Even in this age when the Serpent is hissing in every corner at faithful Ministers and they are cnotemned both by Prophane and Heretical Malignants She preferred a mean life with such a one for her spiritual safety and solace before the Grandeur of the world 3. When some inhabitants of the City of Worcester were earnest with me to help them to an able Minister Mr. Baker then living in Kent had about an hundred pound per annum and when at my motion he was readily willing to take a great charge in Worcester upon a promise from two men to make the maintenance fifty pounds a year by a voluntary Contribution of the continuance of which he had no security his Wife was a promoter and no discourager of his self