the drop is swallowed up in the ocean and the small dust in the huge mountaine so shall the short moment of this present life be forgotten when the bright morning of eternal joy shall break upon your souls and the righteous shall shine as the Sun in the Kingdom of the Father This is that life and immortality which is brought to light through the Gospel 2 Tim. 1.10 Wherfore gird up the loynes of your mind be sober and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ unto whom ye are hastening waiting for the day of your departing hence that ye may be with Christ which is far better Thirdly How doth the death of the Saints bring them immediatly to Christ a their departure in what manner doth the soul depart The Apostle joyneth his departing and being with Christ together by a small copulative particle as if the soul were as soon with Christ after dissolution as we can speak so short a word even in the next moment which is the third general head to be handled In the explaining whereof I shall take it for granted that the soul is immortal and dyeth not with the body but immediately appeareth before God according to the apprehension of St. Paul in my text who therefore desired to depart that he might be with Christ For were not the soul immortal and that in Pauls perfect judgement it had been far better for him to have lived then dyed for to him to live was Christ but in case he had dyed he could not have been with Christ according to his desire had not his soul survived his body Therefore subscribing to the judgement of so great an Apostle I shall wave the needless controversie and proceed to the explication of this last question in hand the truth and manner whereof will appear in these following demonstrations I. Demonst First the Souls of the Saints are spiritually and inseparably united unto Christ He that is joyned to the Lord is one spirit 1 Cor. 6.17 The spirit of Christ dwelleth in beleivers and though the body be dead or mortall because of sin yet the spirit is life because of righteousness Rom. 8.10 11. The spirit of Christ in the soul is a principle of eternal life by conjunction of the soul with Christ whereby we are quickned together with him through which both our spiritual and eternal life is secured the union of the soul with Christ being inviolable Therefore our life is said to be hid with Christ in God Col. 3.3 * Cum Christ in Deo est exira periculum esse Calv. and is out of all danger of ever being separated for who or what shall separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus Rom. 8. latter end I am perswaded saith Paul neither life nor death c. As the hypostatical union of the Godhead and humanity of Christ could not be separated by his death so neither the mystical and spiritual union between Christ and the soul by the death of the Saints For he is the head of his body the Church whereof every true believer is a living member unto whom they are so really spiritually and immediately united that no state condition or power whatsoever can sever or dis-joyn them And though every unfruitful branch may and shall be taken away and cut off from Christ the true vine by final Apostasie Ecclesiastical censure or the judicial sentence that shall pass upon every hypocrite when God shall require and take away his soul every true and living branch shall abide in him for ever through the skill and care of the Father the great husbandman And if we consider the relation which Christ standeth in to all the Saints of a husband to his spouse contracted together by an everlasting covenant betrothed in loving kindness and faithfulness and joyned together by the eternal spirit of grace through which they enjoy the sweet embraces and mutual expressions of their conjugal union and affections how can it be imagined that the Spouse of Christ or any particular Christians should by their dissolution be deprived of so near a relation and firm union for the soul being a spirit and uncapable of suffering the least alteration in its essence by the death of the body from which it is only separated as the life thereof it must of necessity retaine and still possess its spiritual beauty and all supernatural and heavenly priviledges in and with Christ whereof it is far more capable and that more fully and perfectly to receive being separate then in the present body II. Demonstr Secondly the souls of believers are by a natural force and necessity detained from their desired presence with Christ while they are present in the body and thus the death of the Saints bringeth them to Christ by releasing their souls from the tyes and bonds of an absented estate Therefore are we alwayes confident saith the Apostle knowing that whilst we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord we are confident I say and willing rather to be absent from the body and present with the Lord 2 Cor. 5.6 8. The body is the Saints natural home wherein by a natural necessity they are kept absent from Christ and yet a forced absence in regard of their desires to be with him and to change their bodily home for an eternal house The Philosophers called the body animae carcerem pistrinum the prison and gaol of the soul if so how welcome should death be to the righteous that setteth this prisoner free and enlargeth the souls confinement But how the soul being set at liberty and delivered from the natural bond and relation to the body is immediately present with Christ I shall explain with what clearness and brevity I can for the making good of this second Demonstration First the soul and body in the Godly as in all other men are joyned together by the God of nature in the creation of them as essential parts of one person the humane nature consisting of body and soul which God himself breathed into the humane and organical body and whereby man became a living soul Gen. 2.7 It is also a received maxime in natural science that in the propagation of the humane nature the soul of man is immediately created and that not out of the body but in the body into which it is infused in the very creation of it and so one man is said to beget another not that he doth generate the soul but the body and the union of both God concurring as the first and universal cause with the secondary and particular causes in their natural acts and motions Which union of the soul and body being natural as of two essential parts of the whole though the soul being a spirit hath a subsistence being separate from the body by dissolution yet it is but a separate part and remaineth as a part during the time and
soul It is dreadful to consider what a mass and mountainous bigness the sins of a poor carnal wretch arise unto if we lay them together his original sin actual sins sins of omission and commission his secret sins and open and scandalous sins his whole life hath been a trade of sin and whatsoever proceedeth from him is sin the ploughing of the wicked is sin and his prayer is turned into sin And to his own sins personally committed we may add his other mens sins either occasioned countenanced or allowed Now multiply these by their particulars and individuals and measure all by their sinful circumstances and then judge of the guilt of every sinful ma that dieth in unbelief and without pardoning grace through the bloud of Christ Secondly The conscience of every wicked man is awakened immediately after death and dissolution to a continual sense of the guilt of all his sins Natural conscience in carnal men is for the most part peaceable silent in this present life delight custome in sin hardning the heart and searing the conscience which they labour to keep asleep by diverting the thoughts to worldly objects or to satisfie by a formal profession attended with some outward performances But as soon as ever the soul of an unregenerate person is separate from the body this lyon awaketh sleepeth no more the faculties of the soul being alwayes in act and exercise in a separate state whereby his sins shall be alwayes before him and set in order before his eyes upon which his conscience shall reflect continually without diversion or intermission Then the sins you have laboured to forget and cast out of mind shall be brought to remembrance and ye shall ever behold them for which conscience shall charge and accuse you and in the fresh remembrance of them you shall lye down self-condemned for ever This is the worm that never dieth Mark 9 48. But shall gnaw your hearts to eternity Thirdly Hereupon the soul of a wicked man shall tremble at the sight and presence of God That the soul of every man and consequently of the wicked shall see and approach the powerful and immediate presence of God in his Divine nature and essence upon their dissolution is apparent in that the spirit of man is said to go upward Eccles 3.21 And to return to God who gave it Chap. 12.7 As also by the particular judgement immediately consequent upon death whereby God appearing to conscience decideth and determineth the eternal state and condition of every soul preparative to the last and glorious appearing of Christ at the great and terrible day who shall then judge the whole world and the soul and body together For it is appointed unto men once to ye and after this the judgement Heb. 9.27 Which may include this particular judgement after death whereof we are speaking as well as the last and general judgement yet some restrain it to the particular only But in what manner the soul of a wicked man shall see God take in a few words Death being the unclothing and putting off off the earthly house of the body the soul remaineth naked in respect of that clothing which nakedness of the separate souls of the Saints is covered and clothed upon with the glory of their house in heaven 2 Cor. 5.3 In which state of nakedness wherein the souls of the wicked abide the soul must needs be quickly and powerfully apprehensive of God and of any impression and influence of God upon it as the body being naked of its clothing is tenderly sensible of heat or cold and any thing that approacheth unto it For the foul being separate from the body receiveth its object no more through the senses of the body but in an immediate way of discovery of them We know also that the Lord doth sometimes immediately wound the spirit of man while it is in the body by letting fall the drops of wrath upon it and thereby tormenteth it which David calleth the rebukes of God Ps 39.11 When thou with rebukes dost correct a man for iniquity thou makest his beauty to consume away like a moth Moreover if the soul being a spirit and separate from the body can converse with spirits as the Saints with Angels and the damned with Devils much more with God the Father of spirits who can discover himself unto them as he pleaseth But take heed of mistaking here for though a gracious and and sanctified soul reconciled unto God hath to do with him as a father in the apprehension of his love through which it hath comfort and joy in communion with him yet it is not so with the sinful soul of that than that dieth in his sins which apprehendeth God only as he appeareth to it in wrath and displeasure for without holiness no man shall see the Lord that is with peace and comfort Heb. 12.14 Now consider ye that forget God can ye see and behold the wrath of his countenance doe ye not tremble in your very thoughts of him Surely the presence of an angry God will make every guilty soul to fear and tremble at his feet when they shall be brought before him by his Serjeant Death The apprehension of guilt and of God together made Adam and Eve to run behind the Trees for fear when they heard the voice of God in the garden Gen. 3.8 Moses though a Favourite yet when he saw the appearance of God in the thundrings and lightnings and earthquakes the smoke and fire heard the sound of the trumpet upon Mount Sinai he said I exceedingly fear â—nd quake Heb. 12.21 When Elijah apprehended God was in the still small voice he wrapped his face in his mantle â—nd went out and stood in the entring of the â—ave 1 Kings 19.13 When Job came to see God with his eyes he abhorred himself in dust and ashes Job 42.6 The judgements of God made holy Davids flesh to tremble Psal 119.120 My flesh trembleth for fear of thee I am afraid of thy judgements The glorious vision which Isaiah saw how did it work upon that holy Prophet Isaiah 6.5 When he saw the Lord sitting upon a throne and cryed woe is me for I am undone because I am a man of unclean lips I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips for mine eyes have seen the King â—he Lord of Hosts And if these Saints so eminent for grace and holiness have trembled at the presence of God manifested unto them in love and mercy how shall the unner and ungodly stand in his sight Doest thou beleive there is a God If not thou shalt see and beleive but remember that the Devils beleive and tremble Fourthly The soul of a wicked man thus trembling before God the holiness of God breaketh forth in wrath upon the soul to punish torment it For the soul appearing before God in the guilt of all its sins which are the greatest contrariety opposition against the holy nature of God who
cannot but glorifie himself vindicate his holiness the justice of God in the execution of his infinite unsatiable displeasure can no longer be suspended but stirreth up his fury as fire to prey upon the soul Thus fitted for destruction The day of patience is now over wherein the Lord waited upon this soul in the ministery of the Gospel in the use of all means to gain it in wooing it by tenders of grace mercy warning it by foretelling this present misery What fair opportunities rich advantages hath all wicked ungodly wretches to prevent this condemnation and to escape the wrath of God while the glorious Gospel of the great God is preaching to them wherein grace is upon the knee and mercy stretcheth forth her hands Christ standeth knocking at their hard hearts and his messengers cry aloud to their deaf ears No wonder therefore if now patience abused turn into fury mercy slighted stir up indignation and contempt of favour heighten displeasure and hereby wrath is treasured up against the day of wrath Rom. 2.4 5. Or despisest thou the richer of his goodness and forbearance and long suffering not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance but after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thy self wrath against the day of wrath and the revelation of the righteous judgement of God God is a consuming fire to all such dry and combustible souls seizing upon them as straw and stubble in their approach unto him like Nadab and Abihu when they offered strange fire before the Lord which he commanded them not Lev. 10.2 And there went out fire from the Lord and devoured them and they died before the Lord. O that the sinners in Zion were afraid and that fear might surprise the hypocrites Consider who among you shall dwell with the devouring fire and who among you shall dwell with everlasting burnings The wrath of the Lord is the lake of fire and brimstone of which the Scripture so often speaketh this is hell it self wherein God himself is the tormentor who by his wrath kindleth those unquencheable flames Isa 30.33 For Tophet is ordained of old yea for the King it is prepared he bath made it deep and large the pile thereof is much wood the breath of the Lord like a stream of brimstone kindleth it In this Scripture the Lord denounceth hell to King Sennacherib in describing whereof the Prophet alludeth to the fires in the valley of Hinnon wherein those Idolaters burned their children in sacrifice to Moloch and that the parents might not hear the cry of their children they beat up their taâ—rets or drummes and from the name of Toph or drum the place was called Tophet So in hell there shall be no pitty or compassion of God to the cryes of burning souls And this is the punishment of old ordained not only for Sennacherib but all the ungodly which is said to be deep and large As the dimensions of Gods love to his people in heaven are highth length depth and breadth in all which love passeth knowledge so are the dimensions of his wrath to the damned in hell which we are not able to conceive the heat whereof is intollerable as of a fire made with much wood and eternal through the stream of wrath for ever flowing forth from God the fountaine of wrath to the wicked the hot breath of whose mouth kindleth and bloweth up the everlasting flames of their endless sorrow and torments Fifthly the soul under this consuming wrath of God lyeth down in everlasting despair of ever being released or in the least measure releived or eased Eternity in torments maketh them unsupportable though in themselves they were not so heavy and burthensome how much more intollerable will that punishment be that is both in nature as well as duration so insufferable And if the paines of wrath but for one hour in hell cannot be recompensed with all the wealth of the world who would venture the eternity thereof for the pleasures of sin which are but for a season The damned in hell apprehend the endlessness of their torments by the immortality of the soul the demerit of sin and the unchangeableness of God from whom they suffer If the soul could be consumed or annihilated by its torments if sin could be expiated by any measure of sufferings or if God could repent or be moved to compassion there might be hope in hell but all these are impossible For God changeth not guilt diminisheth not the soul wasteth not therefore the worm never dieth and the fire is never quenched Mark 9.48 And to seal up this bottomless pit upon such miserable souls we may add that if there might be any help in this case either Christ must suffer once more to expiate Gospel disobedience as he suffered for legal or time must be called back again for these tormented ones to enjoy once more the Gospel which they refused But neither of these can be imagined Christ will no more leave the bosom of his Father and his glory having offered one sacrifice for ever and being set down at the right hand of God from hence expecting that all his enemies should become his footstool Heb. 10.12 13. For if we sin wilfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins but a certain fearful looking for of judgement and fiery indignation which shall devour the adversaries verses 26 27. And who can call time again that is past If God should bring the Sun back upon the dial by a contrary motion through all those minutes of time it hath gone from the beginning of the creation and of its motion in the firmament time would still goe forward by the Suns going backward and it would measure succeeding time by its retrograde motion So that to call time again that is past is one of those impossibilities which God himself cannot doe because it implyeth a contradiction Therefore this shall aggravate the misery of the soul under the wrath of God that the sufferings are easeless endless and helpless wherein the wicked shall bewail their lost seasons never to be regained and their precious time never to be redeemed Despair is written upon the gate of hell whence there is no returning Omnia te adversum spectantia no prints appearing of the feet of any that have come from thence Sixthly the Soul of a wicked man thus desparing under the implacable wrath of God shall stir up it self against God through malice and despite in sin to curse and blaspheme him to his face For the soul being an immortal spirit cannot be only passive but active under its intollerable sufferings the object whereof being God and sin and punishment or God punishing it for sin and all the acts of the soul being purely evil and sinful without the least mixture of good the soul must of necessity be so far from an humble acknowledgement confession and godly sorrow as to
what a night may bring forth or whether thine eyes shall see the light of another day Compose a while thy wandring unsetled thoughts and if thou canst be serious at such a solemn assembly and sad occasion tell me if thou canst venture this night thy eternal condition to be determined upon thee by a sudden dissolution Art thou ready to be uncloathed and to lye down in the dust of death or dost thou not tremble at the thoughts of it as a poor sinful creature amazed distracted and confounded in thy self through the fear of death and hell that followes it Oh cast not away so precious a soul though thou hast hitherto made it a servant to sin and a drudge to Satan If thou knewest the worth of an immortal spirit thou wouldest not barter it away to the Devil for such short and empty pleasures nor expose it to the rapine of vain lusts to be defiled and deflowred but on the contrary by all means and unwearied paines seek the deliverance and salvation thereof from eternal misery and everlasting ruine which shall be inevitable without true and unfeigned repentance That I may now catch thee in thy fall and pull thee out of the fire and through compassion save a soul from death for knowing the terrour of the Lord we perswade men oh resist not the counsell of God to thy destruction but accept of direction from an unworthy labourer in the Lords vineyard who shall rejoyce to become an instrument of bringing thee in to God that thou mayest be translated from the power of darkness into the Kingdom of his dear Son First Search the Scriptures and make them the impartial judge of thy condition Examine thy heart and wayes by the infallible touchstone of the word of God and try the rectitude or declination of thy soul by this line and plummet The word of God is the true standard and exact ballance of the Sanctuary by which if thou wouldest not be deceived thou mayest know thy present and consequently thy future estate to eternity Therefore open this booke and in obedience to this present call of God unto thee take and read and judge thy self that thou mayest escape the final condemnation and judgement of God when this book with the rest of those bookes mentioned by Saint John in his Revelation shall be opened Rev. 20.12 And I saw the dead small and great stand before God and the bookes were opened and another booke was opened which is the book of life and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the bookes according to their workes Friend God will not judge thee by another law and rule then what he hath revealed unto thee for he is righteous in judgement And though the heathen that have not this law of God revealed unto them shall be judged without it even by the light of nature and the law of their own consciences whereby they are a law unto themselves yet they that have it shall be judged by it Rom. 2.12 13 14 15. For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law c. And think not to plead ignorance in that day for that will be but to plead guilty also where God hath afforded so much meanes of knowledge For God hath not cast thy lot and habitation in a land of darkness but of light and under the plain and powerful ministery of the Gospel under which thou canst not be ignorant unless thou shuttest thine eyes against the truth and lovest darkness rather theu light that thou mayest sin more securely Therefore supposing through charity that thou art not wholly ignorant and unacquainted with the mysteries of the Gospel and the rule of righteousness contained in the holy Scriptures let me engage thee to a self examination by them as being able to make thee wise unto salvation But give me leave however to put that question to thee which Paul put to King Agrippa Acts 26.27 King Agrippa beleivest thou the Prophets Beleivest thou the Scriptures if thou beleivest why tremblest thou not at the wrath of God proclaimed and his judgment denounced against sin and sinners But how canst thou beleive and still persevere in prophaneness and a wicked and licentious conversation Suppose thou shouldest see one of thy old acquaintance and companions in iniquity now in torments arise out of his grave and hear him relate with trembling and astonishment the miserable estate of the damned in hell and the unexpressible paines they endure there and withal falling prostrate at thy feet with cryes and teares beseech thee to repent and accept of the riches of mercy now offered unto thee in the Gospel that thou mightest not perish in the same condemnation and destruction would not this scare and affright thee or worke in thee a serious reflexion upon thy sinful condition Now hath not the eternal God and Jesus Christ the faithful and true witness declared the same unto thee by the word of truth which cannot be broken or changed and dost thou remain still secure and obstinate It is to be feared if thou beleivest not the report of God that thou wouldest not beleive the report of man though God should miraculously call up the dead to warne thee As Abraham told the rich man in hell intreating him to send Lazarus from the dead unto his Fathers house to his five brethren to testifie unto them least they should come to that place of torment Luke 16.29 31. They have Moses and the Prophets let them hear them and if they hear not Moses nor the Prophets neither will they be perswaded though one rose from the dead Hearken therefore not only to Moses and the Prophets but to a greater then Moses to Christ and his holy Apostles by whom the counsells of God and his good and perfect and acceptable will are sufficiently made known unto the Sons of men For the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty Angels in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God and obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ 2 Thessal 1.8 Let every soul then enquire after God and examine the evidences of his salvation the grounds of his hope the fruits of repentance the signes of regeneration and the Scripture markes and characters of a sound and saving faith in Christ Jesus For without faith it is impossible to please God without holiness no man shall see him and without repentance and regeneration no salvation Therefore be not deceived but search the Scriptures daily whether these things be so or no. Secondly set the fear of God and his wrath before your eyes continually Consider O ye Sons of men in whose presence ye are at all times yea when ye are most retired from the eyes of men who can strike you dead in the act of sin though never so secretly committed stand in awe therefore and