heard of the name of Christ nay but with those who call upon it every day and call themselves the knowing men the Gnosticks of this age and whilst men love darknesse more then light with some men there will scarce be any sins upon that account as sins till the day of Judgement Next bring not in thy conscience to plead for that sin which did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 beat and wound thy conscience for the offie of thy conscience is before the fact to inform thee and after the fact if it be evil to accuse thee and what comfort can there be in this thought that thou didst not sollow her information that she called it a sin and thou didst it that she pointed out to it as to a rock and thou wouldest needs chuse it for thy Heaven no commonly this is the plea of those whose hearts are hard and yet will tell you they have a tender conscience and so they have Tender in respect of a ceremony or thing indifferent here they are struck in a manner dead quite besides themselves as if it were a Basilisk here they are true and constant to their conscience which may erre but not tender in respect of an eternal Law where it cannot mistake here they too often leave their conscience and then excuse themselves that they did so in the one they are as bold as a Lion in the other they call it the frailty of a Saint this they do with regret and some reluctancy that is by interpretation against their will Last of all do not think thy action is not evil because thy intention was good for it is as easie to fix a good intention upon an evil action as 't is to set a fair and promising title on a box of poison hay and stubble may be laid upon a good foundation but it will neither head well or bed well as they say in the work of the Lord we must look as well to what we build as the Basis we raise and set it on or else it will not stand and abide we see what a fire good intentions have kindled on the earth and we are told that many of them burn in Hell I may intend to beat down Idolatry and bury Religion in the ruins of that which I beat down I may intend the establishing of a Conmmon-wealth and shake the foundation of it I may intend the Reformation of a Church and fill it with Locusts and Caterpillars innumerable I may intend the Glory of God and do that for which his Name shall be evil spoken of and it will prove but a poor plea when we blasphemed him to say we did it for his Glory Let us then lay aside these Apologies for they are not Apologies but Accusations and detain us longer in our evil wayes then the false beauty and deceitful promises of a temptation could which we should not yeeld to so often did not these betray us nor be fools so long if we had not something to say for our selves And since we cannot answer the expostulation with these since these will be no plea in the Court of heaven before the tribunal of Christ let us change our plea and let us answer the last part of the Text with the first the moriemini with the convertimini answer him that we will Turn and then he will never ask any more Why will ye die but change his Language and assure us we shall not die at all And our answer is penn'd to our hands by the Prophet Jerem. Ecce accedimus Behold we come we turn unto thee for in our God is the Salvation of Israel and our Saviour hath registred his in his Gospel and left it as an invitation to turn Come unto me all ye that be weary of your evil wayes and are heavie laden feel the burden you did sweat under whilest you were in them and I will ease you that is I will deliver you from this body of sin fill you with my Grace enlighten your understandings sprinckle your Hearts from an evil Conscience direct your eye level your intentions lead you in the wayes of life and so fit and prepare you for my kingdom in Heaven To which he bring us c. THE THIRTEENTH SERMON GAL. 4.39 But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit even so is it now IN which words the Apostle doth present to our eye the true face of the Church in an Allegory of Sarah and Hagar of Ismacl and Isaac of mount Sinat and mount Sion which things are an Allegory verse 24. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for it speaks one thing and means another and carries wrapt up â—n it a more excellent sense then the words at first hearing do promise Take the full scheme and delineation in brief 1. Here is Sarah and Hagar that is Servitude and Freedom 2. Here are two Cities Jerusalem that now is the Synagogue of the Jews and that Jerusalem which is above the vision of peace and mother of all the faithful for by the New Covenant we are made children unto God 3. Here is the Law promulged and thundered out on mount Sinai and the Gospel the Covenant of Grace which God published not from the mount but from Heaven it self by the voice of his Son In all you see a faire correspondence and agreement between the Type and the thing but so that Jerusalem our mother is still the Highest the Gospel glorious with the liberty it brought and the Law putting on a yoke breathing nothing but servitude and fear Isaac an heire and Ismael thrust out the Christian more honorable then the Jew The curtain is now drawn and we may enter in even within the vail and take that sense which the Apostle himself hath drawn out so plainly to us And indeed it is a good and pleasing sight to see our priviledge and priority in any figure to finde out our inheritance in such an Heire our liberty and freedom though in a woman who would not lay claim to so much peace and so much liberty who would not challenge kindred of Isaac and a Burgesseship in Jerusalem 't is true every Christian may But that we mistake not and think all is peace and liberty that we boast not against the branches that are cut off he brings in a corrective to check and keep down all swelling and lifting up our selves the adversative particle sed but But as then so now we are indeed of Sarah the free-woman we are children of the promise we are from Jerusalem which is from above sed but if we will inherit with Isaac we must be persecuted with Isaac if we will be of the Covenant of grace we must take up the Crosse if we look for a City whose maker and founder is God we must walk to it in our blood in other things we rise above the Type but here we fall and our condition is the same But as then he that was born after
their name calls them by one quite contrary Immundissimos the impurest men of all the world pietatis paternae aversarios Nazianz. or 14. the Enemies of Gods mercy and goodnesse and Nazianzen tells them their Religion was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 impudence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ibid. and uncleannesse which had nothing but the name of Purity which they made saith he a bait to catch and cajol the ignorant and unwary multitude who are taken more with the Trumpet of a Pharisee then with his almes and are fed with shewes and pretenses as they say Camelions are with air For as Basil and Nazianzen observe this severe Doctrine of these proud and covetous men did drive the offending Brethren into despair and despair did plunge them deeper in sin left them wallowing in the mire in their blood and pollution being held down by a false opinion that no hand could draw them out and that pardon was impossible whereas a Convertimini the Doctrine of Repentance might have raised them from the ground drawn them out of their blood and failth strengthned their feeble knees and hands hat hang down put courage and and life into them to turn from that evil which had cast them down and stand up to see and meet the Salvation of the Lord. And this is the proper and Natural effect of mercy to give sight to the blinde that they may see to binde up a broken limb that it may move and to raise us from the dead that we may walk to make us good who were evil For this is shines in brightnesse upon us every day not onely to enlighten them who sit in darknesse but many times the children of light themselves who though they sit not in darknesse yet may be under a cloud raise up and setled in the brain not from a corrupt but a tender and humble Heart For we cannot think that every man that sayes he despairs is cast away and lost or that our erroneous Judgement of our state and condition shall be the rule by which God will proceed against us and Judge us at the last day that when we have set our hearts to serve him and have been serious in all our wayes when we have made good the condition i. e. our part of the Covenant as far as the Covenant of Grace and the equity and gentlenesse of the Gospel doth exact it he will refuse to make good his part because we cannot think well of our selves and though we have done what is required perswade our selves that we are fallen so short in the performance of our duty that we shall never reach to the end in a word that he will forbear to pronounce the Euge well done because we are afraid and tremble at all our works or put us by and reject us after all the labour of our charity for a melancholly fit or condemn the soul for the distemper of the body or some perturbation of the minde which he had not strength enough to withstand though he were strong in the Lord and in the power of his spirit did cheerfully run the wayes of his Commandements It were a great want of Charity thus to Judge of those whose troublesome and most afflicting errour was conceived and formed in the very bowels of charity For sometimes it proceeds from the distemper of the body from some indisposition of the brain and if we have formerly and do yet strive to do him service he is not so hard and austere a Master as to punish us for being sick Sometimes it arises from some defect in the judicative faculty through which as we make more Laws to our selves and so more sins then there are so we are as ready to passe sentence against our selves not onely for the breach of those Laws which none could binde us to but our selves but even of those also which we were so careful to keep for as we see some men so strong or rather so stupid that they think they do nothing amisse so there be others but not many so weak or rather so scrupulous that they cannot perswade themselves that they ever did any thing well This is an infirmity and disease but it is not Epidemical The first are a great multitude which 't is hard to number quocunque sub axe they are in every Climate and in every place but most often in the Courts of Princes and the habitations of the Rich who can do evil but will not see it who can make the loud condemnation of a fact and the bold doing it the businesse of one and the same hour almost of one and the same moment The other are not many for they are a part of that little Flock and the good Shepherd will not drive them out of the fold for the weak conceit they had that they had gone too far astray For errour is then most dangerous and fatal when we do that which is evil not when we shun and fly from it as from the plague and yet cannot beleeve we are removed far enough from the infection of it And therefore again it may have its Original not onely from the Acrasie and discomposedness of the outward-man or the weaknesse in Judgement or that ignorance of their present estate which may happen to good men even to those who have made some fair proficiency in the School of Christ and to which we are very subject amidst that variety of circumstances that perplexity and multiplicity of thoughts which rise and sink and return again and strangle one another to bring in others in their place but it may be brought in by our very care and diligence and an intensive love For care and diligence and love are alwayes followed with fears and jealousies love is ever a beginning till all be done and is but setting out till she be at her journeyes end The liberal man is afraid of his Almes and the Temperate mistrusts his abstinence the meek man is jealous of every heat pietas etiam tuta pertimescit piety is afraid even of safety it self because it is piety and cannot be safe enough And if it be a fault thus to undervalue himself it is a fault of a fair extraction begotten not by blood or the will of men not by negligence and wilfulnesse and the pollutions of the flesh but of care and anxiety and an unsatisfied love which will sometimes demur and be at a stand in the greatest Certainty so that though the lines be fallen to him in a faire place and he have a Goodly Heritage a well setled spiritual Estate yet he may sometimes look upon it as Bankrupts doe upon their temporall worne out Debts and Statutes and Mortgages and next to nothing Every man hath not a place and mansion in Heaven that pretends a Title to it nor is every man shut out that doubts of his evidence This diffidence in our selves is commonly the mark and Character of a Good man who would be better and though he hath
certainly ours let us not send our Thoughts and hopes afarr off to that which hath no better foundation to rest on then uncertainty it self let us not hope to raise Eternity upon a Thought of that which may bee or rather of that which may not be For we may as well consult and determine what we will do when we are dead as what we will doe in this kind Hereaster and if it be never wrought out of its contingency if it never come to passe the difference is not great For that which may be Arestot de interp c. 9. and that which never shall be may be the same That which may be and may not be hath no Entity at all and so cannot be the object of our Knowledge nor beare either an Affirmation or Negation and wilt thou settle a Resolution on such a Contingency Resolve to doe that at such a Time which thou canst not tell whether it will ever come or no Resolve upon that of which thou canst neither affirme nor deny that it shall ever be wilt thou hazard the favour of God thy soul and Salvation upon the hope of that which is not and may be nothing This were to let go Juno and embrace a cloud to set thy happinesse on the cast of a die to call the things that are not as if they were but in vain in brief to set up an Idol a false hope a gilded nothing and fall down and worship it and forsake that present opportunity which is the voice of God and bespeaks us to make no more delayes but to turn Now. The word now sounds and let us hearken now we have been told by him and we have been told by them who had it from Christ as Christ had it from his Father that now is the acceptable time now is the day of Salvation and we were never yet told of any other day For did ever yet any Prophet or Apostle exhort you to turn to morrow At what time soever is not when you please but though you have not yet lest your evil wayes yet now you may turn At what time soever is now Divinity or the Doctrine of the Gospel is practical and considers not contingencies but necessaries In it there is nothing presented to us in the futurtense but Salvation which is a thing of another world the means are all derived to us in the present To day if you will hear his voice Deny your selves take up your Crosse mortifie your fleshly lusts to day beleeve now love him now hope in him now that which is to come or may be in respect of our duty is not considerable in that science but left in his hands who is the Ancient of dayes who is eternal who may indulge as many opportunities as in wisdom be shall think fit Dan 7 9 but his command is Now who may receive us at any time but bindes us to the present We have been told nay we can tell our selves that now is better then to morrow that we have but one day and moment which we can call ours and after that Time may be â—o more we have heard that delay is a Tyrant a Pharaoh and layes more work upon us doubles trebles nay infinitely multiplies our Task and yet allows us no straw withdraws the means the helps and advantages we had to turn or else makes us weak and impotent lesse able to use them delivers us over to more difficulties more pangs and troubles and more tormenting Agonies then we should have felt if we had cast her off and begun betimes And shall we yet delay we have heard that it is a sinne to delay and makes sinne yet more sinful that it is the devils first heave to throw us into that Gulph out of which we shall have neither power nor will to come that it is a leading sin the forerunner to the sin against the Holy Ghost which shall never be forgiven and shall we yet delay we have been taught that it is a high presumption to leave Christ working out his part of the covenant in his blood which was once shed for us Non expectat Deus frigescentes Senectu is annos nec emortuam jam per consuetudinem vitio rum consuetudinem vult longi praelij militem Hilar. in Psal 118. Beth. and intercedes for us for ever and wilfully to neglect our part and drive it off from time to time from the cheerfulnesse and vigor of youth to the dulnesse and lazinesse of old age to withered hands trembling joynts to weak memories heavy hearts and dull understandings to the unactive amazednes the would but cannot of a bedrid-sinner then to strive against sin when we are to struggle with our disease then to do it when we can do nothing and so when we cannot finish and perfect our Repentance fill and make it up in a Though or Sigh a faint and sick acknowledgement which are rather sad Remonstrances against our former neglect and delay then Infallible Testimonies or Demonstrative Declarations of a wounded and Broken Heart This we have been told and shall wee yet delay in brief we have been taught That Delay if we cut it not off betimes will at last cut us out of the Covenant of Grace That it will make the Gospel as killing as the Law The Promises which are yea and Amen Nothing to us that it will make a Gracious God a consuming fire and Jesus a Destroyer That a dying man can no more Turne to God then the Dead prayse him That after we have thus scared our Consciences drawn out our life in a continued disobedience the Gospel is sealed up and concernes us not at the houre of Death who would not lay hold of one houre of our life to Turne in and therefore cannot goe the same ordinary way to heaven with the Apostles Agens poenitentiam reconciliatus cum sanus est poste à benè viveus securus hinc exit Agens poenitentiam ad ultimum recenciliatus si securus hinc exit ego non sum securus Aug. Hom. 41. and Martyrs and the souls of just men made perfect with those who have put off the old man and put on the new with those who have escaped the pollutions of the world and were never againe entangled in them but are left to that Mercy which was never promised and which they have little reason to hope for who have so much abused it to their own perdition All that can be said is scarce worth their Hearing Non dico salvabuntur non dico Damnabuntur we cannot say they shall be saved we cannot say they shall be Damned They may be safe but of this we cannot be sure because we have no Revelation for it but rathere for the contrary onely God is not bound to Rules and Lawes as man is no not to his owne but keepes to himself his Supreame right and power entire and may doe what he will with his owne and may
and increasing our faith that it may be more apprehensive more operative more lively that it may even spring in our hearts at the mention of Christ at this representation of his body and blood as the babe did in Elizabeths womb at the Virgin Mary's salutation For our Faith as it may have its increasings and improvements so it may have its decreasings and failings may be weakned by the daily incursions which the world and the devil make upon it by presenting objects of Terror to daunt and enfeeble it objects of delight to slumber and charm it It may be weakned by the daily avocations and common actions of our life that we may not cleave so close unto Christ not eye him with that intention not love him with that fervour not obey him with that cheerfulnesse which we should but be in a disposition ready to fall off and let go our hold of him And therefore as we must at all times stir it up and actuate it so especially in our approaches to the Lords table for in this doth our preparation to it in this doth the benefit and power of the Sacrament principally consist for here doth our Saviour as it were again present himself to us opens him wounds shewes us his hand and his side speaks to us as he did to Thomas reach hither your fingers and behold my hands and reach hither your hands and thrust them into my sides take eat this is my body and be not faithlesse but believing here shake off that chilness that restivenesse that acedie that wearinesse that faintnesse of your faith here warm and actuate and quicken it that it may be a working fighting conquering faith For thus to do it is to do this in remembrance of him Secondly It takes in repentance by which we doe most truly remember Christ remember his birth and are born againe for repentance is our new birth remember his Circumcision and circumcise our hearts for repentance is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the great circumcision saith Epiphanius goe about with him doing good for repentance is our obedience remember him on his Crosse for repentance setteth up a Crosse in imitation of his and lifts us up upon it stretcheth and dilates all the powers of our soule peirceth our hearts and so crucifies the flesh and the affections and lusts thereof Our repentance if it be true is an imitation of Christs suffering a revenge upon our selves for what the Jewes did to him the proper issue and effect to his love for what Christ worketh in us he first works upon us makes us see and feele and handle his love that we may be active in those duties of love which by his command and ensample we owe to him and in him to our brethren He dyed to be a propitiation for our sinnes that is that he might make sinne to cease for so the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 implyes gives us strength by repentance quite to extinguish and abolish sinne Thus if we repent thus if we doe we doe it in remembrance of him And this we are to doe but then especially when we prepare our selves and make our addresses to Christs Table for though repentance be the fruit of a due examination of our selves yet we may and must examine our repentance it self and the time to doe it is now now thou art to renew thy Covenant and so must also renew thy repentance In the Feast of the Atonement the Lord tells his people Lev. 23.27 you shall keep it and he that doth not afflict his soul shall be cut off This is a day for it and in this day thou must doe it This is the season to ransack thy soule to see how many graines of hypocrisie were left behind in thy former repentance what hollowness was in thy groanes what coldnesse in thy devotion to see what advantage Satan hath since taken what ground he hath won in thy soule and then in remembrance of Christs love set afresh to the work of mortification wound thy heart deeper lay on surer blowes empty thy self of thy self of all that rust and rubbish which thy self-love left behind and then stir up those graces in thee which through inadvertency and carelessnesse lye raked up as in the ashes in a word refine every vertue quicken every grace intend thy will exalt thy faith draw neerer to Christ and so renew thy Covenant and sit down at his Table and thus if thou doe it thou dost it in remembrance of him I might here take in the whole traine the whole Circle and Crown of Christian graces and virtues and draw them together and shut them within the compasse of this one word remembrance for it will comprehend them all knowledge obedience love sincerity thankfulnesse from whence the Sacrament hath its name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 my last payment and peace offering for he that truly believes and repents as he is sick of sinne so is he sick of love of that love which in the Sacrament is sealed and confirmed to us is full of saving knowledge is ever bowing to Christs scepter is sincere and like himself in all his wayes will meditate of it day and night will drive it ab animo in habitum as Tertull. speaks from the mind to the motions and actions of his body from the conscience into the outward man till it appeare in liberall hands in righteous lips and in attentive eares will breath forth nothing but devotion but prayers and Hallelujahs glory honour and praise for this his love and so become as the picture and image and face of Christ reflecting all his favours and graces back upon him as a Pillar engraven with Gods lovingkindnesses a Memoriall of Gods goodnesse thankfully set up for ever and thus to doe it is to doe it in remembrance of him And to conclude thus if we doe it if we thus remember him he will also remember us remember us and set us as seales upon his heart and signets on his right hand remember us as his peculiar treasure and as our remembrance of him takes up all the duty of a Christian so doth his remembrance of us comprehend all the benefits of a Saviour our love of him and his love to us are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 will be as matter and fuell to nourish and uphold this remembrance between us for ever Nazian or 17. we shall remember him in humility and obedience and he shall remember us in love and power we shall remember him on earth and he shall remember us in heaven and prepare a place for us he shall remember our affliction and uphold us he shall remember our prayers and make them effectuall our almes and make them a pleasing sacrifice he shall remember our failings and settle and establish us our teares and turn them into joy he shall remember all that we do or suffer all but our sinnes those he hath buried in his grave for ever And now we are drawing neere to his table
ever was came not to destroy but to perfect nature not to blot out those common notions which we brought into the world with us but to make them more legible to improve them and so make them his Law and if we look upon them as not belonging to us we our selves cannot belong to the covenant of grace for even these duties are weaved in and made a part of the covenant and if we break the one we break the other and not onely if we believe not but if we live not peaceably if we stretch beyond our line if we labour not in our calling we shall not enter into his rest For these also are his Laws and these doth our blessed Apostle teach and command And to conclude such a power hath Christ left in his Church conferred it first on his Apostles and those who were to succeed and supply their place who were to speak after them in the person and in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ we will not dispute now what power it is it is sufficient to say it is not an Earthly but a Heavenly Power derived from Christ himself the Fountain and originall of all power whatsoever As Christs kingdom is not of this world so is not this power of that nature as to stand in need of an Army of Souldiers to defend and hold it up but is like to the object and matter it works upon spirituall a power to command to remember every man of his duty in the Church or Common-wealth for the Church and Common-wealth are two distinct but not contrary things and both powers were ordained to uphold and defend each other the civill power to exalt Religion and Religion to guard and fence the civill power and both should concur in this that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all Godlinesse and honesty Our commission is from heaven and we need no other power then his that sealed it and the virtue and Divinity of it shall then be made manifest when all earthly power shall cease and even Kings and they who did what they list shall tremble before it We see that power which is exercised here on earth though the glory of it dazle an eye of flesh yet sits heavy upon them who weare it we see it tortures them that delight in it eats up them that feed on 't eats up it self and driving all before it at last falls it self to the ground and falls as a milstone upon him that hath it and bruiseth him to pieces It is not such a power but I may be bold to say though it be lookt upon laught at despised by the men of this world yet is it a greater power than that which sometimes sets it up on high and sometimes makes it nothing and hath its end when it hath not its end for to publish our masters will to command in his name is all and though the command prove to some the savour of death unto death yet the power is still the same and doth never faile and if men were what they professe themselves Christians if they had any taste of the powers of the world to come they would more tremble at this then at the other be more afraid of a just reproof then a whip of an excommunication then a sword of the wrath of God which is yet scarce visible then of that which comes in fire and tempest to devour us for his favour or his wrath ever accompanies this power which draws his love neerer to them that obey it and poures forth his vengeance on them that resist it To conclude then look upon the command and honor the Apostle that brings it for the commands sake for his sake whose power and command it is A power there is proper and peculiar to them who are called to it and if the name of power may move envy for we see men fret at that which was ordeined for their good and so wast and exhale all their Religion till it be nothing if the name of power beare so harsh a sound we will give you leave to think it is not much materiall whether you call it so or no whether we speak in the imperative mood hoc fac do this upon your perill or onely positively point as with the finger this is to be done we will be any thing do any thing be as low as you please so we may raise you above the vanities of the world above that wantonnesse which stormes at that which was ordained for no other end but to lift you out of ruine into the highest heavens Our power and the command of Christ differ not so much but the one includes and upholds the other and if you did but once love the command you would never boggle at the name of power but blesse and honour him that brings it Oh that men were wise but so wise as not to be wiser then God as not to choose and fall in love with their own wayes as more certain and direct unto the end then Gods as not to preferre their own mazes and Labyrinths and uncertain gyrations drawn out by lust and fancy before those even and unerring paths found out by an infinite wisdome and discovered to us by a mercy as infinite oh that we could once work out and conquer the hardship of a command and then see the beauty of it and to what glory it leads us we should then receive an Apostle in the name of an Apostle and look upon the command though brought in an earthen vessell as upon heaven it self oh that we were once spirituall then those precepts which concern our conversation on earth would be laid hold on and embraced as from the Heaven Heavenly then should we be as quiet as the Heavens which are ever moving and ever at rest because ever in their own place then should we be as the Angels of Heaven who envy not one another malice not one another trouble not one another but every Angel knows his office and moves in his own order and our assiduous labour in our calling would be a resemblance of the readynesse of those blessed spirits who at the beck of Majesty have wings and haste to their duty who are ever moving and then in their highest exaltation when they are in their ministery In aword then should we every one sit under his own vine and figtree and no evill eye should look towards him no malice blast him no injury assault him no bold intrusion unsettle him but we should all rejoyce together the poore with the rich the weak with the strong the low with the high all blesse one another help one another guard one another and so in the name of the prince of peace walk peaceably together every one moving in his own place till we reach that peace which yet we do not understand but shall then fully enjoy to all Eternity The One and Twentieth SERMON PART I. MICAH v. 6. Wherewith shall I come
the grave Consummatum est all is finished and he is returned victoriously with the spoils of his enemies and of this last enemy death But for all this his triumph death may be still the King of terrours and as dreadfull as before All is finisht on his part but a covenant consists of two and something is required on ours He doth not turn Conditions into Promises as some have been willing to perswade themselves and others It must be done is not thou shalt do it If thou wilt believe is not thou shalt believe But every promise every act of grace of his implies a condition He delivers those that are willing to be delivered who do not feed death and supply this enemy with such weapons as make him terrible All the terrour death hath is from our selves our sin our disobedience to the commands of God that 's his sting And our part of the covenant is by the power virtue of Christs death every day to be plucking it from him and at last to take it quite away We we our selves must rise up against this King of terrours and in the Name and Power of Christ take the Scepter out of his hand and spoile him of his strength and terrour And this we may do by parts and degrees now cut from him this sin now that now this desire and anon another and so dye daily as Saint Paul speaks dye to profit dye to pleasure dye to Honour be as dead to every temptation which may beget sin in us and a sting in him and so leave him nothing to take from us not a desire not a hope not a thought nothing that can make us feare death Then we shall look upon it not as a divorcement from those delights which we have cast off already or a passage into a worse condition from that we loved too well to that we never feared enough but we shall consider it as a sleep as it is to all wearied pilgrims as a message sent from Heaven to tell us our walk is at an end and now we are to lay down our staffe and scrip and rest in that Jerusalem which is above for which we vowed this pilgrimage Et quis non ad meliora festinat Tert. de patientia What stranger will be afraid to return to his Fathers house or lose that life quam sibi jam supervacuam fecit which by dying daily to the world he hath already made superfluous and unnecessary To conclude this He that truly fears God can feare nothing else nor is Death terrible to any but to those who would build their tabernacle here who love to feed with swine on husks because they have not tasted of the powers of the world to come who wish immortality to this mortall before they put it on who are willing to converse and trade with vanity for ever who desire not with David to be spared a little but would never goe hence Last of all It will moderate our sorrow for those our friends who are dead or rather fallen asleep or rather at their journeys end For why should any man who knows the condition of a stranger how many dangers how many cares how many stormes and tempests he was obnoxious to hang down the head and complain that he had now passed through them all and was set down at his journeys end why should he who looks for a City to come be troubled that his fellow pilgrime came thither and entred before him It might be a matter of holy Emulation perhaps but why it should afflict us with grief I cannot see unlesse it be because we have not made it our meat and drink to keep Gods commandments which might give us a taste of a better estate to come unlesse it be because we have not well learnt to act the part of a stranger Miserable men that we are that we will be that know not our own quality and condition that are strangers and yet unwilling to draw neer our selves or to see others come to their home but think them lost where they are made perfect We stand by the bed of our sick and dying friend as if he were now removed to a place of torment and not of rest and to be either nothing or more miserable then he was in a region of misery we send out shreeks and outcries to keep time with his gasps to call him back if it were possible from heaven and to keep him still under the yoke and harrow when as the fainting of his spirits the failing of his eyes the trembling of his joynts are but as the motion of bodies to their center most violent when they are neerest to their end And then we close up his eyes and with them our hopes as if with his last gasp he had breathed out his soul into aire when indeed there is no more then this one pilgrime is gone before his fellows one gone and left others in their way in trouble and more troubled that he is gone to rest Migrantem migrantes praemisimus saith Saint Hierom we are passing forward apace and have sent one before us to his journeys end his everlasting sabbath With this contemplation doth religion comfort and uphold us in our way and keeps us in that temper which the Philosopher commends as best in which we do sentire desiderium opprimere she gives nature leave to draw teares but then she brings in faith and hope to wipe them off Sen. ad Marciam she suffers us to mourn for our friends but not as men without hope Nature will vent and love is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the Orator ever querulous and full of complaints when the object is removed out of sight and God remembers whereof we are made is not angry with our love and will suffer us to be men but then we must silence one love with another our naturall affection with the love of God at least divide our language thus Alas my Father Alas my Husband Alas my Friend but then he was a stranger and now at his journeys end and here we must raise our note and speak it more heartily Blessed are such strangers blessed are they that dye in the Lord even so saith the spirit that they rest from their labours For conclusion let us feare God and keep his commandments this is the whole duty of a stranger to observe those Lawes which came from that place to which he is going let these his Lawes be in our heart and our heart will be an elaboratory a limbeck to work the water of life out of the vanities and very dregs of world through which we are to passe It shall be as a rock firm and solid against every wave and temptation that shall beat against it and a shop of precious receipts and proper remedies against every evil It shall be spoliarium mortis a place where death shall be stript and spoiled of its sting and of its terrour In a word It