fear with a temporall suffering preventing Gods judgement by passing one of his own let him groan for the labours of his pilgrimage and the dangers of his warfare and by that time he hath summed up all these labours and duties and contingencies all the proper causes instruments and acts of sorrow he will finde that for a secular joy and wantonnesse of spirit there are not left many void spaces of his life It was Saint Iames's advice Be afflicted and mourn and weep let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy into weeping And Bonaventure in the life of Christ reports that the H. Virgin Mother said to S. Elizabeth That Grace does not descend into the soul of a man but by prayer and by affliction Certain it is that a mourning spirit and an afflicted body are great instruments of reconciling God to a sinner and they alwayes dwell at the gates of atonement and restitution But besides this a delicate and prosperous life is hugely contrary to the hopes of a blessed eternity Wo be to them that are at ease in Sion so it was said of old and our B. Lord said Wo be to you that laugh for you shall weep but Blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted Here or hereafter we must have our portion of sorrows He that now goeth on his way weeping and beareth forth good seed with him shall doubtlesse come again with joy and bring his sheaves with him And certainly he that sadly considers the portion of Dives and remembers that the account which Abraham gave him for the unavoidablenesse of his torment was because he had his good things in this life must in all reason with trembling run from a course of banquets and faring deliciously every day as being a dangerous estate and a consignation to an evil greater then all danger the pains and torment of unhappy souls If either by patience or repentance by compassion or persecution by choise or by conformity by severity or discipline we allay the festival follies of a soft life and professe under the Crosse of Christ we shall more willingly and more safely enter into our grave But the death-bed of a voluptuous man upbraids his little and cosening prosperities and exacts pains made sharper by the passing from soft beds and a softer mind He that would die holily and happily must in this world love tears humility solitude and repentance SECT II. Of daily examination of our actions in the whole course of our health preparatory to our death-bed HE that will die well and happily must dresse his soul by a diligent and frequent scrutiny He must perfectly understand and watch the state of his soul he must set his house in order before he be fit to die And for this there is great reason and great necessity Reasons for a daily examination 1. For if we consider the disorders of every day the multitude of impertinent words the great portions of time spent in vanity the daily omissions of duty the coldnesse of our prayers the indifference of our spirit in holy things the uncertainty of our secret purposes our infinite deceptions and hypocrisie sometimes not known very often not observed by our selves our want of charity our not knowing in how many degrees of action and purpose every vertue is to be exercised the secret adherencies of pride and too forward complacencie in our best actions our failings in all our relations the niceties of difference between some vertues and some vices the secret undiscernable passages from lawfull to unlawfull in the first instances of change the perpetuall mistakings of permissions for duty and licentious practises for permissions our daily abusing the liberty that God gives us our unsuspected sins in the managing a course of life certainly lawfull our little greedinesses in eating our surprises in the proportions of our drinkings our too great freedoms and fondnesses in lawfull loves our aptnesse for things sensual and our deadnesse and tediousnesse of spirit in spiritual employments besides infinite variety of cases of conscience that do occur in the life of every man and in all entercourses of every life and that the productions of sin are numerous and increasing like the families of the Northern people or the genealogies of the first Patriarks of the world from all this we shall find that the computations of a mans life are buisie as the Tables of Signes and Tangents and intricate as the accounts of Eastern Merchants and therefore it were but reason we should summe up our accounts at the foot of every page I mean that we call our selves to scrutiny every night when we compose our selves to the little images of Death 2. For if we make but one Generall account and never reckon till we die either we shall onely reckon by great summes and remember nothing but clamorous and crying sins and never consider concerning particulars or forget very many or if we could consider all that we ought we must needs be confounded with the multitude and variety But if we observe all the little passages of our life and reduce them into the order of accounts and accusations we shall finde them multiply so fast that it will not onely appear to be an ease to the accounts of our death-bed but by the instrument of shame will restrain the inundation of evils it being a thing intolerable to humane modesty to see sins increase so fast and vertues grow up so slow to see every day stained with the spots of leprosie or sprinkled with the marks of a lesser evil 3. It is not intended we should take accounts of our lives onely to be thought religious but that we may see our evil and amend it that we dash our sins against the stones that we may go to God and to a spirituall Guide and search for remedies and apply them And indeed no man can well observe his own groweth in Grace but by accounting seldomer returns of sin and a more frequent victory over temptations concerning which every man makes his observations according as he makes his inquiries and search after himself In order to this it was that Saint Paul wrote Before receiving the Holy Sacrament Let a man examine himself and so let him eat This precept was given in those dayes when they communicated every day and therefore a daily examination also was intended 4. And it will appear highly fitting if we remember that at the day of judgement no onely the greatest lines of life but every branch and circumstance of every action every word and thought shall be called to scrutiny and severe judgement insomuch that it was a great truth which one said Wo be to the most Innocent life if God should search into it without mixtures of mercy And therefore we are here to follow S. Pauls advice Iudge your selves and you shall not be judged of the Lord. The way to prevent Gods anger is to be angry with our selves and by examining
our actions and condemning the Criminal by being Assessors in Gods Tribunal at least we shall obtain the favour of the Court. As therefore every night we must make our bed the memoriall of our grave so let our Evening thoughts be an image of the day of judgement 5. This advice was so reasonable and proper instrument of vertue that it was taught even to the Scholers of Pythagoras by their Master Let not sleep seiz upon the Regions of your senses before you have three times recalled the conversation and accidents of the day Examine what you have committed against the Divine Law what you have omitted of your duty and in what you have made use of the Divine Grace to the purposes of vertue and religion joyning the Iudge reason to the legislative mind or conscience that God may reigne there as a Law-giver and a Judge Then Christs kingdom is set up in our hearts then we alwayes live in the Eye of our Judge and live by the measures of reason religion and sober counsels The benefits we shall receive by practising this advice in order to a blessed death will also adde to the account of reason and fair inducements The Benefits of this exercise 1. By a daily examination of our actions we shall the easier cure a great sin and prevent its arrival to become habitual For to examine we suppose to be a relative duty and instrumentall to something else We examine our selves that we may finde out our failings and cure them and therefore if we use our remedy when the wound is fresh and bleeding we shall finde the cure more certain and lesse painfull For so a Taper when its crown of flames is newly blown off retains a nature so symbolical to light that it will with greedinesse reenkindle and snatch a ray from the neighbour fire So is the soul of Man when it is newly fallen into sin although God be angry with it and the state of Gods favour and its own graciousnesse is interrupted yet the habit is not naturally changed and still God leaves some roots of vertue standing and the Man is modest or apt to be made ashamed and he is not grown a bold sinner but if he sleeps on it and returns again to the same sin and by degrees growes in love with it and gets the custome and the strangenesse of it is taken away then it is his Master and is sweld into a heap and is abetted by use and corroborated by newly entertained principles and is insinuated into his Nature and hath possessed his affections and tainted the will and the understanding and by this time a man is in the state of a decaying Merchant his accounts are so great and so intricate and so much in arrear that to examine it will be but to represent the particulars of his calamity therefore they think it better to pull the napkin before their eyes then to stare upon the circumstances of their death 2. A daily or frequent examination of the parts of our life will interrupt the proceeding and hinder the journey of little sins into a heap For many dayes do not passe the best persons in which they have not many idle words or vainer thoughts to sully the fair whitenesse of their souls Some indiscreet passions or trifling purposes some impertinent discontents or unhandsome usages of their own persons or their dearest Relatives And though God is not extreme to mark what is done amisse and therefore puts these upon the accounts of his Mercy and the title of the Crosse yet in two cases these little sins combine and cluster and we know that grapes were once in so great a bunch that one cluster was the load of two men that is 1. When either we are in love with small sins or 2. When they proceed from a carelesse and incurious spirit into frequency and continuance For so the smallest atomes that dance in all the little cels of the world are so trifling and immaterial that they cannot trouble an eye nor vex the tenderest part of a wound where a barbed arrow dwelt yet when by their infinite numbers as Melissa and Parmenides affirm they danced first into order then into little bodies at last they made the matter of the world So are the little indiscretions of our life they are alwayes inconsiderable if they be considered and contemptible if they be not despised and God does not regard them if we do We may easily keep them asunder by our daily or nightly thoughts and prayers and severe sentences But even the least sand can check the tumultuous pride and become a limit to the Sea when it is in a heap and in united multitudes but if the wind scatter and divide them the little drops and the vainer froth of the water begins to invade the Strand Our sighes can scatter such little offences but then be sure to breath such accents frequently least they knot and combine and grow big as the shoar and we perish in sand in trifling instances He that despiseth little things shall perish by little and little So said the son of Sirach 3. A frequent examination of our actions will intenerate and soften our consciences so that they shall be impatient of any rudenesse or heavier load And he that is used to shrink when he is pressed with a branch of twining Osier will not willingly stand in the ruines of a house when the beam dashes upon the pavement And provided that our nice and tender spirit be not vexed into scruple nor the scruple turn into unreasonable fears nor the fears into superstition he that by any arts can make his spirit tender and apt for religious impressions hath made the fairest seat for religion and the unaptest and uneasiest entertainment for sin and eternal death in the whole world 4. A frequent examination of the smallest parts of our lives is the best instrument to make our repentance particular and a fit remedy to all the members of the whole body of sin For our examination put off to our death-bed of necessity brings us into this condition that very many thousands of our sins must be or not be at al washed off with a general repentance which the more general and indefinite it is it is ever so much the worse And if he that repents the longest and the oftnest and upon the most instances is still during his whole life but an imperfect penitent and there are very many reserves left to be wiped off by Gods mercies and to be eased by collateral assistances or to be groaned for at the terrible day of judgement it will be but a sad story to consider that the sins of a whole life or of very great portions of it shall be put upon the remedy of one examination and the advices of one discourse and the activities of a decayed body and a weak and an amazed Spirit Let us do the best we can we shall finde that the meer sins of ignorance
and unavoidable forgetfulnesse will be enough to be intrusted to such a bank and that if a general repentance will serve towards their expiation it will be an infinite mercy but we have nothing to warrant our confidence if we shall think it to be enough on our death-bed to confesse the notorious actions of our lives and to say The Lord be merciful to me for the infinite transgressions of my life which I have wilfully or carelesly forgot for very many of which the repentance the distinct particular circumstantiate repentance of a whole life would have been too little if we could have done more 5. After the enumeration of these advantanges I shall not need to adde that if we decline or refuse to call our selves frequently to account and to use daily advices concerning the state of our souls it is a very ill signe that our souls are not right with God or that they do not dwell in religion But this I shall say that they who do use this exercise frequently will make their conscience much at ease by casting out a daily load of humor and surfet the matter of diseases and the instruments of death He that does not frequently search his conscience is a house without a window and like a wilde untutored son of a fond and undiscerning widow But if this exercise seem too great a trouble and that by such advices religion will seem a burden I have two things to oppose against it 1. One is that we had better â—ear the burden of the Lord then the burden of a base and polluted conscience Religion cannot be so great a trouble as a guilty soul and whatsoever trouble can be fancied in this or any other action of religion it is onely to unexperienced persons It may be a trouble at first just as is every change and every new accident but if you do it frequently and accustom your spirit to it as the custom will make it easy so the advantages wil make it delectable that will make it facile as nature these will make it as pleasant and eligible as reward 2. The other thing I have to say is this That to examine our lives will be no trouble if we do not intricate it with businesses of the world and the Labyrinths of care and impertinent affairs A man had need have a quiet and disintangled life who comes to search into all his actions and to make judgement concerning his errors and his needs his remedies and his hopes They that have great intrigues of the world have a yoak upon their necks cannot look back and he that covets many things greedily and snatches at high things ambitiously that despises his Neighbour proudly and bears his crosses peevishly or his prosperity impotently and passionately he that is prodigal of his precious time and is tenacious and retentive of evil purposes is not a man disposed to this exercise he hath reason to be afraid of his own memory and to dash his glasse in pieces because it must needs represent to his own eyes an intolerable deformity He therefore that resolves to live well whatsoever it costs him he that will go to Heaven at any rate shall best tend this duty by neglecting the affairs of the world in all things where prudently he may But if we do otherwise we shall finde that the accounts of our death-bed and the examination made by a disturbed understanding will be very empty of comfort and full of inconveniencies 6. For hence it comes that men dye so timorously and uncomfortably as if they were forced out of their lives by the violencies of an executioner Then without much examination they remember how wickedly they have lived without religion against the laws of the covenant of grace without God in the world then they see sin goes off like an amazed wounded affrighted person from a lost battel without honour without a veil with nothing but shame sad remembrances Then they can consider that if they had lived vertuously all the trouble and objection of that would now be past and all that had remained should be peace and joy and all that good which dwells within the house of God and eternal life But now they finde they have done amisse and dealt wickedly they have no bank of good works but a huge treasure of wrath and they are going to a strange place and what shall be their lot is uncertain so they say when they would comfort and flatter themselves but in truth of religion their portion is sad and intollerable without hope and without refreshment and they must use little silly arts to make them go off from their stage of sins with some handsom circumstances of opinion They will in civility be abused that they may die quietly and go decently to their execution and leave their friends indifferently contented and apt to be comforted and by that time they are gone awhile they see that they deceived themselves all their dayes and were by others deceived at last Let us make it our own case we shall come to that state and period of condition in which we shall be infinitely comforted if we have lived well er else be amazed and go off trembling because we are guilty of heaps of unrepented and unforsaken sins It may happen we shall not then understand it so because most men of late ages have been abused with false principles and they are taught or they are willing to believe that a little thing is enough to save them and that heaven is so cheap a purchase that it will fall upon them whether they will or no. The misery of it is they will not suffer themselves to be confuted till it be too late to recant their errour In the interim they are impatient to be examined as a leper is of a comb and are greedy of the world as children of raw fruit and they hate a severe reproof as they do thorns in their beds and they love to lay aside religion as a drunken person does to forget his sorrow and all the way they dream of fine things and their dreams prove contrary and become the hieroglyphics of an eternal sorrow The daughter of Polycrates dreamed that her Father was lifted up and that Iupiter washed him and the Sun anointed him but it proved to him but a sad prosperity for after a long life of constant prosperous successes he was surprized by his enemies and hanged up till the dew of heaven wet his cheeks and the Sun melted his grease Such is the condition of those persons who living either in the despight or in the neglect of religion lye wallowing in the drunkennesse of prosperity or worldly cares they think themselves to be exalted till the evil day overtakes them and then they can expound their dream of life to end in a sad and hopelesse death I remember that Cleomenes that was called a God by the Egyptians because when he was hang'd a serpent grew out of his
body and wrapt it self about his head till the Philosophers of Egypt said it was natural that from the marrow of some bodies such productions should arise and indeed it represents the condition of some men who being dead are esteemed saints and beatified persons when their head is encircled with dragons and is entered into the possession of Devils that old serpent and deceiver For indeed their life was secretly so corrupted that such serpents fed upon the ruines of the spirit and the decayes of grace and reason To be cosened in making judgements concerning our finall condition is extremely easie but if we be cosened we are infinitely miserable SECT III. Of exercising Charity during our whole life HE that would die well and happily must in his life time according to all his capacities exercise charity and because Religion is the life of the soul and charity is the life of religion the same which gives life to the better part of man which never dies may obtain of God a mercy to the inferiour part of man in the day of its dissolution 1. Charity is the great chanel through which God passes all his mercy upon mankinde For we receive absolution of our sins in proportion to our forgiving our brother this is the rule of our hopes and the measure of our desire in this world and in the day of death and judgement the great sentence upon mankinde shall be transacted according to our almes which is the other part of Charity Certain it is that God cannot will not never did reject a charitable man in his greatest needs and in his most passionate prayers for God himself is love and every degree of charity that dwells in us is the participation of the divine nature and therefore when upon our death-bed a cloud covers our heads and we are enwrapped with sorrow when we feel the weight of a sicknesse and do not feel the refreshing visitations of Gods loving kindnesse when we have many things to trouble us and looking round about us we see no comforter then call to minde what injuries you have forgiven how apt you were to pardon all affronts and real persecutions how you embraced peace when it was offered you how you followed after peace when it run from you and when you are weary of one side turn upon the other and remember the alms that by the grace of God and his assistances you have done and look up to God and with the eye of faith behold him coming in the cloud and pronouncing the sentence of dooms day according to his mercies and thy charity 2. Charity with its Twin-daughters almes and forgivenesse is especially effectual for the procuring Gods mercies in the day and the manner of our death almes deliver from death said old Tobias and almes make an atonement for sins said the son of Sirach and so said Daniel and so say all the wise men of the world And in this sence also is that of S. Peter Love covers a multitude of sins and S. Clement in his Constitutions gives this counsell If you have any thing in your hands give it that it may work to the remission of thy sins for by faith and alms sins are purged The same also is the counsel of Salviâ—n who wonders that men who are guilty of great and many sins will not work out their pardon by alms and mercy But this also must be added out of the words of Lactantius who makes this rule compleat and useful But think not that because sins are taken away by alms that by thy money thou mayest purchase a license to sin For sins are abolished if because thou hast sinned thou givest to God that is to Gods poor servants and his indigent necessitous creature But if thou sinnest upon confidence of giving thy sins are not abolished For God desires infinitely that men should be purged from their sins and therefore commands us to repent But to repent is nothing else but to professe and affirm that is to purpose and to make good that purpose that they will sin no more Now almes are therefore effective to the abolition and pardon of our sins because they are preparatory to and impetratory of the grace of repentance and are fruits of repentance and therefore S. Chrysostom affirmes that repentance without almes is dead and without wings and can never soar upwards to the element of love But because they are a part of repentance and hugely pleasing to Almighty God therefore they deliver us from the evils of an unhappy and accursed death for so Christ delivered his Disciples from the sea when he appeased the storm though they still sailed in the chanel and this S. Hierome verifies with all his reading and experience saying I do not remember to have read that ever any charitable person died an evil death and although a long experience hath observed Gods mercies to descend upon charitable people like the dew upon Gideons fleece when all the world was dry yet for this also we have a promise which is not onely an argument of a certain number of years as experience is but a security for eternall ages Make ye friends of the mammon of unrighteousnesse that when ye fail they may receive you into everlasting habitations When faith fails and chastity is uselesse and temperance shall be no more then charity shall bear you upon wings of cherubins to the eternall mountain of the Lord. I have been a lover of mankinde and a friend and mercifull and now I expect to communicate in that great kindnesse which he shews that is the great God and Father of men and mercies said Cyrus the Persian on his death-bed I do not mean this should onely be a death-bed charity any more then a death-bed repentance but it ought to be the charity of our life healthfull years a parting with portions of our goods then when we can keep them we must not first kindle our lights when we are to descend into our houses of darknesse or bring a glaring torch suddenly to a dark room that will amaze the eye and not delight it or instruct the body but if our Tapers have in their constant course descended into their grave crowned all the way with light then let the death-bed charity be doubled and the light burn brightest when it is to deck our hearse But concerning this I shall afterwards give account SECT IV. General considerations to enforce the former practises THese are the generall instruments of preparation in order to a holy death It will concern us all to use them diligently and speedily for we must be long in doing that which must be done but once and therefore we must begin betimes and lose no time especially since it is so great a venture and upon it depends so great a state Seneca said well There is no Science or Art in the world so hard as to
live and die well The professors of other arts are vulgar and many but he that knows how to do this businesse is certainly instructed to eternity But then let me remember this that a wise person will also put most upon the greatest interest Common prudence will teach us this No man will hire a Generall to cut wood or shake hay with a Scepter or spend his soul and all his faculties upon the purchase of a cockleshell but he will fit instruments to the dignity and exigence of the designe and therefore since heaven is so glorious a state and so certainly designed for us if we please let us spend all that we have all our passions and affections all our study and industry all our desires and stratagems all our witty and ingenuous faculties toward the arriving thither whither if we do come every minute will infinitely pay for all the troubles of our whole life If we do not we shall have the reward of fools an unpitied and an upbraided misery To this purpose I shall represent the state of dying and dead men in the devout words of some of the Fathers of the Church whose sense I shall exactly keep but change their order that by placing some of their dispersed meditations into a chain or sequell of discourse I may with their precious stones make an Vnion and compose them into a jewel for though the meditation is plain and easie yet it is affectionate and materiall and true and necessary The circumstances of a dying mans sorrow and danger When the sentence of death is decreed and begins to be put in execution it is sorrow enough to see or feel respectively the sad accidents of the agony and last contentions of the soul and the reluctancies and unwillingnesses of the body The forehead wash'd with a new and stranger baptisme besmeared with a cold sweat tenacious and clammy apt to make it cleave to the roof of his coffin the nose cold and undiscerning not pleased with perfumes nor suffering violence with a cloud of unwholsome smoak the eyes dim as a sullied mirror or the face of heaven when God shews his anger in a prodigious storm the feet cold the hands stiffe the Physitians despairing our friends weeping the rooms dressed with darknesse and sorrow and the exteriour parts betraying what are the violences which the soul and spirit suffer the nobler part like the lord of the house being assaulted by exteriour rudenesses and driven from all the out-works at last faint and weary with short and frequent breathings interrupted with the longer accents of sighes without moisture but the excrescencies of a spilt humour when the pitcher is broken at the cisterne it retires to its last sort the heart whither it is pursued and stormed and beaten out as when the barbarous Thracian sacked the glory of the Grecian Empire Then calamity is great and sorrow rules in all the capacities of man then the mourners weep because it is civil or because they need thee or because they fear but who suffers for thee with a compassion sharp as is thy pain Then the noise is like the faint eccho of a distant valley few heare and they will not regard thee who seemest like a person void of understanding and of a departing interest Verè tremendum est mortis sacramentum But these accidents are common to all that die and when a speciall providence shall distinguish them they shall die with easie circumstances but as no piety can secure it so must no confidence expect it but wait for the time and accept the manner of the dissolution But that which distinguishes them is this He that hath lived a wicked life if his conscience be alarmed and that he does not die like a Wolf or a Tigre without sense or remorse of all his wildnesse and his injury his beastly nature and desert and untilled manners if he have but sense of what he is going to suffer or what he may expect to be his portion then we may imagine the terrour of their abused fancies how they see affrighting shapes and because they fear them they feel the gripes of Devils urging the unwilling souls from the kinder and fast embraces of the body calling to the grave and hasting to judgement exhibiting great bills of uncancelled crimes awaking and amazing the conscience breaking all their hope in pieces and making faith uselesse and terrible because the malice was great and the charity was none at all Then they look for some to have pity on them but there is no man No man dares be their pledge No man can redeem their soul which now feels what it never feared Then the tremblings and the sorrow the memory of the past sin and the fear of future pains and the sense of an angry God and the presence of some Devils consigne him to the eternall company of all the damned and accursed spirits then they want an Angel for their guide and the Holy Spirit for their comforter and a good conscience for their testimony and Christ for their Advocate and they die and are left in prisons of earth or air in secret and undiscerned regions to weep and tremble and infinitely to fear the coming of the day of Christ at which time they shall be brought forth to change their condition into a worse where they shall for ever feel more then we can beleeve or understand But when a good man dies one that hath lived innocently or made joy in Heaven at his timely and effective repentance and in whose behalf the Holy Jesus hath interceded prosperously and for whose interest the Spirit makes interpellations with groans and sighs unutterable and in whose defence the Angels drive away the Devils on his death-bed because his sins are pardoned and because he resisted the Devil in his life time and fought successefully and persevered unto the end then the joyes break forth through the clouds of sicknesse and the conscience stands upright and confesses the glories of God and owns so much integrity that it can hope for pardon and obtain it too Then the sorrowes of the sicknesse and the flames of the Feaver or the faintnesse of the consumption do but untye the soul from its chain and let it go forth first into liberty and then to glory for it is but for a little while that the face of the skie was black like the preparations of the night but quickly the cloud torn and rent the violence of thunder parted it into little portions that the Sun might look forth with a watry eye and then shine without a tear but it is an infinite refreshment to remember all the comforts of his prayers the frequent victory over his temptations the mortification of his lust the noblest sacrifice to God in which he most delights that we have given him our wills and killed our appetiâ—es for the interest of his services then all the trouble of that is gone and what remains
so and that is that God doth minister proper aids and supports to every of his servants whom he visits with his rod. He knows our needs he pities our sorrows he relieves our miseries he supports our weaknesse he bids us ask for help and he promises to give us all that and he usually gives us more and indeed it is observable that no story tells of any godly man who living in the fear of God fell into a violent and unpardoned impatience in his naturall sicknesse if he used those means which God and his holy Church have appointed We see almost all men bear their last sicknesse with sorrowes indeed but without violent passions and unlesse they fear death violently they suffer the sicknesse with some indifferency and it is a rare thing to see a man who enjoyes his reason in his sicknesse to expresse the proper signes of a direct and solemne impatience For when God layes a sicknesse upon us he seizes commonly on a mans spirits which are the instruments of action and businesse and when they are secured from being tumultuous the sufferance is much the easier and therefore sicknesse secures all that which can do the man mischief It makes him tame and passive apt for suffering and confines him to an unactive condition To which if we adde that God then commonly produces fear and all those passions which naturally tend to humility and poverty of spirit we shall soon perceive by what instruments God verifies his promise to us which is the great security for our patience and the easinesse of our condition that God will lay no more upon us then he will make us able to â—ear but together with the affliction he will finde a way to escape Nay if any thing can be more then this we have two or three promises in which we may safely lodge our selves and roul from off our thorns and finde ease and rest God hath promised to be with us in our trouble and to be with us in our prayers and to be with us in our hope and conâ—idence 2. Prevent the violence and trouble of thy spirit by an act of thanksgiving for which in the worst of sicknesses thou canst not want cause especially if thou remembrest that this pain is not an eternall pain Blesse God for that But take heed also lest you so order your affairs that you passe from hence to an eternall soâ—râ—w If that be hard this will be intolerable But as for the present evil a few dayes will end it 3. Remember that thou art a man and a Christian as the Covenant of nature hath made it necessary so the covenant of grace hath made it to be chosen by thee to be a suffering person either you must renounce your religion or submit to the impositions of God and thy portion of sufferings So that here we see our advantages and let us use them accordingly The barbarous and warlike nations of old could fight well and willingly but could not bear sicknesse manfully The Greeks were cowardly in their fights as most wise men are but because they were learned and well taught they bore their sicknesse with patience and severity The Cimbrians and Celtiberians rejoyce in battail like Gyants but in their diseases they weep like Women These according to their institution and designes had unequal courages and accidental fortitude but since our Religion hath made a covenant of sufferings and the great businesse of our lives is sufferings and most of the vertues of a Christian are passive graces and all the promises of the Gospel are passed upon us through Christs crosse we have a necessity upon us to have an equal courage in all the variety of our sufferings for without an universal fortitude we can do nothing of our dutie 4. Resolve to do as much as you can for certain it is we can suffer very much if we list and many men have afflicted themselves unreasonably by not being skilful to consider how much their strength and state could permit and our flesh is nice and imperious crafty to perswade reason that she hath more necessities thâ—n indeed belong to her and that she demands nothing superfluous suffer as much in obedience to God as you can suffer for necessity or passion fear or desire And if you can for one thing you can for another and there is nothing wanting but the minde Never say I can do no more I cannot endure this For God would not have sent it if he had not known thee strong enough to abide it onely he that knows thee well already would also take this occasion to make thee know thy self But it will be fit that you pray to God to give you a discerning spirit that you may rightly distinguish just necessity from the flattery and fondnesses of flesh and blood 5. Propound to your eyes and heart the example of the holy Jesus upon the crosse he endured more for thee then thou canst either for thy self or him and remember that if we be put to suffer and do suffer in a good cause or in a good manner so that in any sense your sufferings be conformable to his sufferings or can be capable of being united to his we shall reign together with him The high way of the Crosse which the King of sufferings hath troden before us is the way to ease to a kingdom and to felicity 6. The very suffering is a title to an excellent inheritance for God chastens every son whom he receives and if we be not chastised we are bastards and not sons and be confident that although God often sends pardon without correction yet he never sends correction without pardon unless it be thy fault and therefore take every or any affliction as an earnest peny of thy pardon and upon condition there may be peace with God let any thing be welcome that he can send as its instrument or condition Suffer therefore God to choose his own circumstances of adopting thee and be content to be under discipline when the reward of that is to become the son of God and by such inflictions he hewes and breaks thy body first dressing it to funeral and then preparing it for immortality and if this be the effect or the designe of Gods love to thee let it be occasion of thy love to him and remember that the truth of love is hardly known but by somewhat that puts us to pain 7. Use this as a punishment for thy sins and so God intends it most commonly that is certain if therefore thou submittest to it thou approvest of the divine judgement and no man can have cause to complain of any thing but of himself if either he believes God to be just or himself to be a sinner if he either thinks he hath deserved Hell or that this little may be a means to prevent the greater and bring him to Heaven 8. It may be that this may be the last instance and the last opportunity that ever
checked with the stiffnesse of a tower or the united strength of a wood it grew mighty and dwelt there and made the highest branches stoop and make a smooth path for it on the top of all its glories So is sicknesse and so is the grace of God When sicknesse hath made the difficulty then Gods grace hath made a triumph and by doubling its power hath created new proportions of a reward and then shews its biggest glory when it hath the greatest difficulty to Master the greatest weaknesses to support the most busie temptations to contest with For so God loves that his strength should be seen in our weaknesse and our danger Happy is that state of life in which our services to God are the dearest and the most expensive 5. Sicknesse hath some degrees of eligibility at least by an after-choice because to all persons which are within the possibilities and state of pardon it becomes a great instrument of pardon of sins For as God seldom rewards here and hereafter too So it is not very often that he punishes in both states In great and finall sins he doth so but we finde it expressed onely in the case of the sin against the Holy Ghost which shall never be forgiven in this world nor in the world to come that is it shall be punished in both worlds and the infelicities of this world shall but usher in the intollerable calamities of the next But this is in a case of extremity and in sins of an unpardonable malice In those lesser stages of death which are deviations from the rule and not a destruction and perfect antinomy to the whole institution God very often smites with his rod of sicknesse that he may not for ever be slaying the soul with eternall death I will visit their offences with the rod and their sin with scourges Neverthelesse my loving kindenesse will I not utterly take from him nor suffer my truth to fail And there is in the New Testament a delivering over to Satan and a consequent buffeting for the mortification of the flesh indeed but that the soul may be saved in the day of the Lord. And to some persons the utmost processe of Gods anger reaches but to a sharp sicknesse or at most but to a temporall death and then the little momentany anger is spent and expires in rest and a quiet grave Origen S. Austin and Cassian say concerning Ananias and Sapphira that they were slain with a sudden death that by such a judgement their sin might be punished and their guilt expiated and their persons reserved for mercy in the day of judgement And God cuts off many of his children from the land of the living and yet when they are numbred amongst our dead he findes them in the book of life written amongst those that shall live to him for ever and thus it happened to many new Christians in the Church of Corinth for their little undecencies and disorders in the circumstances of receiving the holy Sacrament S. Paul sayes that many amongst them were sick may were weak and some were fallen asleep He expresses the divine anger against those persons in no louder accents which according to the stile of the New Testament where all the great transactions of duty and reproof are generally made upon the stock of Heaven and Hell is plainly a reserve and a period set to the declaration of Gods wrath For God knowes that the torments of hell are so horrid so insupportable a calamity that he is not easy and apt to cast those souls which he hath taken so much care and hath been at so much expence to save into the eternal never dying flames of Hell lightly for smaller sins or after a fairly begun repentance and in the midst of holy desires to finish it But God takes such penalties and exacts such fines of us which we may pay salvo contenemento saving the main stake of all even our precious souls And therefore S. Augustine prayed to God in his penitential sorrowes Here O Lord burn and cut my flesh that thou mayest spare me for ever For so said our blessed Saviour Every sacrifice must be seasoned with salt and every sacrifice must be burnt with fire that is we must abide in the state of grace and if we have committed sins we must expect to be put into the state of affliction and yet the sacrifice will send up a right and unâ—roubled cloud and a sweet smell to joyn with the incense of the Altar where the eternal Priest offers a never ceasing sacrifice And now I have said a thing against which there can be no exceptions and of which no just reason can make abatement For when sicknesse which is the condition of our nature is called for with purposes of redemption when we are sent to death to secure eternal life when God strikes us that he may spare us it shewes that we have done things which he essentially hates and therefore we must be smitten with the rod of God but in the midst of judgement God remembers mercy and makes the rod to be medicinal and like the rod of God in the hand of Aaron to shoot forth buds and leaves and Almonds hopes and mercies and eternal recompences in the day of restitution This is so great a good to us if it be well conducted in all the chanels of its intention and designe that if we had put off the objections of the flesh with abstractions contempts and separations so as we ought to do were as earnestly to be prayed for as any gay blessing that crowns our cups with joy and our heads with garlands and forgetfulnesse But this was it which I said that this may nay that it ought to be chosen at least by an after-election for so said S. Paul If we judge our selves we shall not be condemned of the Lord that is if we judge our selves worthy of the sicknesse if we acknowledge and confesse Gods justice in smiting us if we take the rod of God in our own hands and are willing to imprint it in the flesh we are workers together with God in the infliction and then the sickness beginning and being managed in the vertue of repentance and patience and resignation and charity will end in peace and pardon and justification and consignation to glory That I have spoken truth I have brought Gods Spirit speaking in Scripture for a witnesse But if this be true there are not many states of life that have advantages which can out-weigh this great instrument of security to our final condition Moses dyed at the mouth of the Lord said the story he died with the kisses of the Lords mouth so the Chaldee Paraphrase it was the greatest act of kindesse that God did to his servant Moses he kissed him and he died But I have some things to observe for the better finishing this consideration 1. All these advantages and lessenings of evil in the
that it is not reasonable to think that every man and every life and an easie religion shall possesse such infinite glories * That although heaven is a gift yet there is a great severity and strict exacting of the conditions on our part to receive that gift * That some persons who have lived strictly for 40. years together yet have miscarried by some one crime at last or some secret hypocrisie or a latent pride or a creeping ambition or a phantastic spirit and therefore much lesse can they hope to receive so great portions of felicities when their life hath been a continuall declination from those severities which might have created confidence of pardon and acceptation through the mercies of God and the merits of Jesus * That every good man ought to be suspicious of himself and in his judgement concerning his own condition to fear the worst that he may provide for the better * That we are commanded to work out our salvation with fear trembling * That this precept was given with very great reason considering the thousand thousand wayes of miscarrying * That S. Paul himself and S. Arsenius and S. Elzearius and divers other remarkable Saints had at some times great apprehensions of the dangers of failing of the mighty price of their high calling * That the stake that is to be secured is of so great an interest that all our industry and all the violences we can suffer in the prosecution of it are not considerable * That this affair is to be done but once and then never any more unto eternal ages * That they who professe themselves servants of the institution and servants of the law and discipline of Jesus will find that they must judge themselves by the proportions of that law by which they were to rule themselves * That the laws of society and civility and the voices of my company are as ill judges as they are guides but we are to stand or fall by his sentence who will not consider or value the talk of idle men or the persuasion of wilfully abused consciences but of him who hath felt our infirmity in all things but sin and knowes where our failings are unavoidable and where and in what degree they are excusable but never will endure a sin should seize upon any part of our love and deliberate choice or carelesse cohabitation * That if our conscience accuse us not yet are we not hereby justified for God is greater then our consciences * That they who are most innocent have their consciences most tender and sensible * That scrupulous persons are alwayes most religious and that to feel nothing is not a signe of life but of death * That nothing can be hid from the eyes of the Lord to whom the day and the night publike and private words and thoughts actions and designes are equally discernable * That a lukewarme person is onely secured in his own thoughts but very unsafe in the event and despised by God * That we live in an Age in which that which is called and esteemed a holy life in the dayes of the Apostles and holy primitives would have been esteemed indifferent sometimes scandalous and alwayes cold That what was a truth of God then is so now and to what severities they were tyed for the same also we are to be accountable and heaven is not now an easier purchase then it was then * That if he will cast up his accounts even with a superficial eye Let him consider how few good works he hath done how inconsiderable is the relief which he gave to the poor how little are the extraordinaries of his religion and how unactive and lame how polluted and disordered how unchosen and unpleasant were the ordinary parts and periods of it and how many and great sins have stained his course of life and until he enters into a particular scrutinie let him only revolve in his minde what his general course hth been and in the way of prudence let him say whether it was laudable and holy or onely indifferent and excusable and if he can think it onely excusable and so as to hope for pardon by such suppletories of faith and arts of persuasion which he and others use to take in for auxiliaries to their unreasonable confidence then he cannot but think it very fit that he search into his own state and take a Guide and erect a tribunal or appear before that which Christ hath erected for him on earth that he may make his accesse fairer when he shall be called before the dreadfull Tribunal of Christ in the clouds For if he can be confident upon the stock of an unpraised or a looser life and should dare to venture upon wilde accounts without order without abatements without consideration without conduct without fear without scrutinies and confessions and instruments of amends or pardon he either knows not his danger or cares not for it and little understands how great a horrour that is that a man should rest his head for ever upon a cradle of flames and lye in a bed of sorrows and never sleep and never end his groans or the gnashing of his teeth This is that which some spiritual persons call a wakening the sinner by the terrours of the law which is a good analogie or Tropical expression to represent the threatnings of the Gospel and the dangers of an incurious and a sinning person but we have nothing else to do with the terrours of the law for Blessed be God they concern us not the terrours of the law were the intermination of curses upon all those that ever broke any of the least Commandements once or in any instance And to it the righteousnesse of faith is opposed The terrors of the law admitted no repentance no pardon no abatement and were so severe that God never inflicted them at all according to the letter because he admitted all to repentance that desired it with a timely prayer unlesse in very few cases as of Achan or Corah the gatherer of sticks upon the Sabbath-day or the like but the state of threatnings in the Gospel is very fearful because the conditions of avoiding them are easie and ready and they happen to evil persons after many warnings second thoughts frequent invitations to pardon and repentance and after one entire pardon consigned in Baptism and in this sense it is necessary that such persons as we now deal withall should be instructed concerning their danger 4. When the sick man is either of himself or by these considerations set forward with purposes of repentance and confession of his sins in order to all its holy purposes and effects then the Minister is to assist him in the understanding the number of his sins that is the several kinds of them and the various manners of prevaricating the divine commandments for as for the number of the particulars in every kinde he will need lesse help and if he did he
of religion to declare publike criminals and scandalous persons to be such that when the leprosie is declared the flock may avoid the infection and then the man is excommunicate when the people are warned to avoid the danger of the man or the reproach of the crime to withdraw from his society and not to bid him God speed not to eat and celebrate synaxes and Church-meetings with such who are declared criminal and dangerous and therefore excommunication is in a very great part the act of the Congregation and communities of the faithfull and S. Paul said to the Church of the Corinthians that they had inflicted the evil upon the incestuous person that is by excommunicating him all the acts of which are as they are subjected in the people acts of caution and liberty but no more acts of direct proper power or jurisdiction then it was when the scholers of Simon Magus lefâ— his chair and went to hear S. Peter But as they are actions of the Rulers of the Church so they are declarative ministerial and effective too by morall causality that is by perswasion and discourse by argument and prayer by homily and materiall representment by reasonablenesse of order and the superinduced necessities of men though not by any reall change of state as to the person nor by diminution of his right or violence to his condition 2. He that baptises and he that ministers the Holy Sacrament and he that prayes does holy offices of great advantage but in these also just as in the former he exercises no jurisdiction or preheminence after the manner of saecular authority and the same is also true if he should deny them He that refuseth to baptize an indisposed person hath by the consent of all men no power or jurisdiction over the unbaptized man and he that for the like reason refuseth to give him the Communion preserves the sacrednesse of the mysteries and does charitie to the undisposed man to deny that to him which will do him mischief and this is an act of separation just as it is for a friend or Physitian to deny water to an Hydropic person or Italian wines to a hectic feaver or as if Cato should deny to salute Bibulus or the Censor of maners to do countenance to a wanton and vitious person and though this thing was expressed by words of power such as separation abstention excommunication deposition yet these words we understand by the thing it self which was notorious and evident to be matter of prudence security and a free unconstrained discipline and they passed into power by consent and voluntary submission having the same effect of constraint fear and authority which we see in secular jurisdiction not because ecclesiastical discipline hath a natural proper coercion as lay-Tribunals have but because men have submitted to it and are bound to do so upon the interest of two or three Christian graces 3. In pursuance of this caution and provision the Church superinduced times and manners of abstention and expressions of sorrow and canonical punishments which they tyed the delinquent people to suffer before they would admit them to the holy Table of the Lord. For the criminal having obliged himself by his sin and the Church having declared it when she could take notice of it he is bound to repent to make him capable of pardon with God and to prove that he is penitent he is to do such actions which the Church in the vertue and pursuance of repentance shall accept as a testimony of it sufficient to inform her for as she could not binde at all in this sence till the crime was publike though the man had bound himself in secret so neither can she set him free till the repentance be as publike as the sin or so as she can note it and approve it Though the man be free as to God by his internal act yet as the publication of the sin was accidental to it and the Church censure consequent to it so is the publication of repentance and consequent absolution extrinsecal to the pardon but accidentally and in the present circumstances necessary This was the same that the Jews did though in other instances and expressions and do to this day to their prevaricaâ—ing people and the Essenes in their assemblies and private Colleges of scholars and publike Universities For all these being assemblies of voluntary persons and such as seek for advantage are bound to make an artificial authority in their superiours and so to secure order and government by their own obedience and voluntary subordination which is not essential and of proper jurisdiction in the superiour and the band of it is not any coeâ—citive power but the denying to communicate such benefits which they seek in that communion and fellowship 4. These I say were introduced in the speciall manners and instances by positive authority and have not a divine authority commanding them but there is a divine power that verefies them and makes these separations effectual and formidable for because they are declarative and ministerial in the spirituall man and suppose a delinquencie and demerit in the other and a sin against God our blessed Saviour our hath declared that what they binde in earth shall be bound in heaven that is in plain signification The same sins and sinners which the Clergie condemns in the face of their assemblies the same is condemned in heaven before the face of God and for the same reason too Gods law hath sentenced it and these are the preachers and publishers of his law by which they stand condemned and these laws are they that condemn the sin or acquit the penitent there and here whatsoever they binde here shall be bound there that is the sentence of God at the day of judgement shall sentence the same men whom the Church does rightly sentence here it is spoken in the future it shall be bound in heaven not but that the sinner is first bound there or first absolved there but because all binding and loosing in the interval is imperfect and relative to the day of judgement the day of the great sentence therefore it is set down in the time to come and sayes this only The Clergie are tyed by the word and laws of God to condemn such sins and sinners and that you may not think it ineffective because after such sentence the man lives and growes rich or remains in health and power therefore be sure it shall be verified in the day of judgement This is hugely agreeable with the words of our Lord and certain in reason for that the minister does nothing to the final alteration of the state of the mans soul by way of sentence is demonstratively certain because he cannot binde a man but such as hath bound himself and who is bound in heaven by his sin before his sentence in the Church as also be-because the binding of the Church is meerly accidental and upon publication
only and when the man repents he is absolved before God before the sentence of the Church upon his contrition and dereliction only and if he were not the Church could not absolve him The consequent of which evident truth is this that whatsoever impositions the Church officers impose upon the criminal they are to avoid scandal to testifie repentance and to exercise it to instruct the people to make them fear to represent the act of God and the secret and the true state of the sinner and although they are not essentially necessary to our pardon yet they are become necessary when the Church hath seized upon the sinner by publike notice of the crime necessary I say for the removing the scandal and giving testimony of our contrition and for the receiving all that comfort which he needs and can derive from the promises of pardon as they are published by him that is commanded to preach them to all them that repent and therefore although it cannot be necessary as to the obtaining pardon that the Priest should in private absolve a sick man from his private sins and there is no loosing where there was no precedent binding and he that was only bound before God can before him onely be loosed yet as to confess sins to any Christian in private may have many good ends and to confess them to a Clergy-man may have many more so to hear Gods sentence at the mouth of the Ministers pardon pronounced by Gods embassador is of huge comfort to them that cannot otherwise be comforted and whose infirmity needs it and therefore it were very fit it were not neglected in the dayes of our fear and danger of our infirmities and sorrow 5. The execution of this ministery being an act of prudence and charity and therefore relative to changing circumstances it hath been and in many cases may and in some must be rescinded and altered the time of separation may be lengthned and shortned the condition made lighter or heavier and for the same offence the Clergy man is deposed but yet admitted to the communion for which one of the people who hath no office to lose is denyed the benefit of communicating and this sometimes when he might lawfully receive it and a private man is separate when a multitude or a prince is nor cannot ought not and at last when the case of sicknesse and danger of death did occur they admitted all men that desired it sometimes without scruple or difficulty sometimes with some little restraint in great or insolent cases as in the case of Apostacie in which the Councel of Arls denyed absolution unlesse they received and gave publike satisfaction by acts of repentance and some other Councels denyed at any time to do it to such persons according as seemed sitting to the present necessities of the Church all which particulars declare it to be no part of a divine commandment that any man should be denyed to receive the Communion if he desires it and if he be in any probable capacitie of receiving it 6. Since the separation was an act of libertie and a direct negative it followes that the restitution was a meer doing that which they refused formerly and to give the holy Communion was the formality of absolution and all the instrument and the whole matter of reconcilement the taking off the punishment is the pardoning of the sin for this without the other is but a word and if this be done I care not whether any thing be said or no. Vinum Dominicum ministratoris gratia est is also true in this sence to give the chalice and cup is the grace and indulgence of the Minister and when that is done the man hath obtained the peace of the Church and to do that is all the absolution the Church can give and they were vain disputes which were commenced some few ages since concerning the forms of absolution whether they were indicative or optative by way of declaration or by way of sentence for at first they had no forms at all but they said a prayer and after the manner of the Jews laid hands upon the penitent when they prayed over him and so admitted him to the holy Communion for since the Church had no power over her children but of excommunicating and denying them to attend upon holy offices and ministeries respectively neither could they have any absolution but to admit them thither from whence formerly they were forbidden whatsoever ceremonie or forms did signifie this was superinduced and arbitrary alterable and accidental it had variety but no necessity 7. The practise consequent to this is that if the penitent be bound by the positive censures of the Church he is to be reconciled upon those conditions which the laws of the Church tye him to in case he can perform them if he cannot he can no longer be prejudiced by the censure of the Church which had no relation but to the people with whom the dying man is no longer to converse for whatsoever relates to God is to be transacted in spirituall wayes by contrition and internall graces and the mercy of the Church is such as to give him her peace and her blessing upon his undertaking to obey her injunction if he shall be able which injunctions if they be declared by publike sentence the Minister hath nothing to do in the affairs but to remind him of his obligation and reconcile him that is give him the Holy Sacrament 8. If the penitent be not bound by publike sentence the Minister is to make his repentance as great and his heart as contrite as he can to dispose him by the repetition of acts of grace in the way of prayer and in reall and exteriour instances where he can and then to give him the Holy Communion in all the same cases in which he ought not to have denied it to him in his health that is even in the beginnings of such a repentance which by humane signes he beleeves to be reall and holy and after this the event must be left to God The reason of the rule depends upon this Because there is no Divine commandement directly forbidding the Rulers of the Church to give the Communion to any Christian that desires it and professes repentance of his sins And all Church discipline in every instance and to every single person was imposed upon him by men who did it according to the necessities of this state and constitution of our affairs below but we who are but Ministers and delegates of pardon and condemnation must resigne and give up our judgement when the man is no more to be judged by the sentences of man and by the proportions of this world but of the other to which if our reconciliation does advantage we ought in charity to send him forth with all the advantages he can receive for he will need them all and therefore the Nicene Councel commands that no man be deprived of this necessary
in temporall instances for he ever gave me sufficient for my life and although he promised such supplies and grounded the confidences of them upon our first seeking the kingdom of heaven and its righteousnesse yet he hath verified it to me who have not sought it as I ought But therefore I hope he accepted my endeavour or will give his great gifts and our great expectation even to the weakest endeavour to the least so it be a hearty piety * And sometimes I have had some chearful visitations of Gods Spirit and my cup hath been crowned with comfort and the wine that made my heart glad danced in the chalice and I was glad that God would have me so and therefore I hope this cloud may passe for that which was then a real cause of comfort is so still if I could disâ—ern it and I shall discern it when the veil is taken from my eyes * and blessed be God I can still remember that there are temptations to despair and they could not be temptations if they were not apt to perswade and had seeming probability on their side and they that despair think they do it with greatest reason for if they were not confident of the reason but that it were such an argument as might be opposed or suspected then they could not despair despair assents as firmly and strongly as faith it self but because it is a temptation and despair is a horrid sin therefore it is certain those persons are unreasonably abused and they have no reason to despair for all their confidence and therefore although I have strong reasons to condemn my self yet I have more reason to condemn my despair which therefore is unreasonable because it is a sin and a dishonour to God and a ruine to my condition and verifies it self if I do not look to it for as the hypochondriac person that thought himself dead made his dream true when he starved himself because dead people eat not so do despairing sinners lose Gods mercies by refusing to use and to believe them * And I hope it is a disease of judgement not an intolerable condition that I am falling to because I have been told so concerning others who therefore have been afflicted because they see not their pardon sealed after the manner of this world and the affairs of the Spirit are transacted by immaterial notices by propositions and spiritual discourses by promises which are to be verified hereafter and here we must live in a cloud in darknesse under a veil in fear and uncertainties and our very living by faith and hope is a life of mystery and secresie the onely part of the manner of that life in which we shall live in the state of separation and when a distemper of body or an infirmity of minde happens in the instances of such secret and reserved affairs we may easily mistake the manner of our notices for the uncertainty of the thing and therefore it is but reason I should stay till the state and manner of my abode be changed before I despair there it can be no sin nor error here it may be both and if it be that it is also this and then a man may perish for being miserable and be undone for being a fool In conclusion my hope is in God and I will trust him with the event which I am sure will be just and I hope full of mercy * However now I will use all the spiritual arts of reason and religion to make me more and more to love God that if I miscarry Charity also shall fail and something that loves God shall perish and be damned which if it be impossible then I may do well These considerations may be useful to men of little hearts and of great piety or if they be persons who have lived without infamy or begun their repentance so late that it is very imperfect and yet so early that it was before the arrest of death But if the man be a vitious person and hath persevered in a vitious life till his death-bed these considerations are not proper Let him inquire in the words of the first Disciples after Pentecost Men and brethren what shall we do to be saved and if they can but entertain so much hope as to enable them to do so much of their dutie as they can for the present it is all that can be provided for them an inquirie in their case can have no other purposes of religion or prudence and the Minister must be infinitely careful that he do no not go about to comfort vitious persons with the comforts belonging to Gods elect lest he prostitute holy things and make them common and his sermons deceitful and vices be incouraged in others and the man himself finde that he was deceived when he descends into his house of sorrow But because very few men are tempted with too great fears of failing but very many are tempted by confidence and presumption the Ministers of religion had need be instructed with spiritual armour to resist this fiery dart of the Devil when it operates to evil purposes SECT VI. Considerations against Presumption I Have already enumerated many particulars to provoke a drowzy conscience to a scrutinie and to a suspicion of himself that by seeing cause to suspect his condition he might more freely accuse himself and attend to the necessities and duties of repentance but if either before or in his repentance he grow too big in in his spirit so as either he does some little violence to the modesties of humilitie or abate his care and zeal of his repentance the spiritual man must allay his frowardnesse by representing to him 1. That the growths in grace are long difficult uncertain hindred of many parts and great variety 2. That an infant grace is soon dash'd and discountenanced often running into an inconvenience and the evils of an imprudent conduct being zealous and forward and therefore confident but alwayes with the least reason and the greatest danger like children and young fellows whose confidence hath no other reason but that they understand not their danger and their follies 3. That he that puts on his armour ought not to boast as he that puts it off and the Apostle chides the Galatians for ending in the flesh after they had begun in the spirit 4. that a man cannot think too meanly of himself but very easily he may think too high 5 That a wise man will alwayes in a matter of great concernment think the worst and a good man will condemn himself with hearty sentence 6. That humility and modesty of judgement and of hope are very good instruments to procure a mercie and a fair reception at the day of our death but presumption or bold opinions serve no end of God or man and is alwayes imprudent ever fatal and of all things in the world is its own greatest enemy for the more any man presumes the greater reason he hath to fear 7. That a mans
heart is infinitely deceitful unknown to it self not certain in his own acts praying one way and desiring another wandring and imperfect loose and various worshipping God and entertaining sin following what it hates and running from what it flatters loving to be tempted and betrayed petulant like a wanton girle running from that it might invite the fondnesse and enrage the appetite of the foolish young man or the evil temptation that followes it cold and indifferent one while and presently zealous and passionate furious and indiscreet not understood of it self or any one else and deceitful beyond all the arts and numbers of observation 8. That it is certain we have highly sinned against God but we are not so certain that our repentance is reall and effective integral and sufficient 9. That it is not revealed to us whether or no the time of our repentance be not past or if it be not yet how far God will give us pardon and upon what condition or after what sufferings or duties is still under a cloud 10. That vertue and vice are oftentimes so neer neighbours that we passe into each others borders without observation and think we do justice when we are cruel or call our selves liberal when we are loose and foolish in expences and are amorous when we commend our own civilities and good nature 11. That we allow to our selves so many little irregularities that insensibly they swell to so great a heap that from thence we have reason to fear an evil for an army of frogs and flies may destroy all the hopes of our harvest 12. That when we do that which is lawful and do all that we can in those bounds we commonly and easily run out of our proportions 13. That it is not easie to distinguish the vertues of our nature from the vertues of our choice and we may expect the reward of temperance when it is against our nature to be drunk or we hope to have the coronet of virgins for our morose disposition or our abstinence from marriage upon secular ends 14. That it may be we call every little sigh or the keeping a fish-day the dutie of repentance or have entertained false principles in the estimate and measures of vertues and contrarie to the Steward in that Gospel we write down fourscore when we should set downe but fifty 15. That it is better to trust the goodnesse and justice of God with our accounts then to offer him large bits 16. That we are commanded by Christ to sit down in the lowest place till the Master of the house bids us sit up higher 17. That when we have done all that we can we are unprofitable servants and yet no man does all that he can do and therefore is more to be despised and undervalued 18. That the self-accusing Publican was justified rather then the thanksgiving and confident Pharisee 19. That if Adam in Paradise and David in his house and Solomon in the Temple and Peter in Christs family and Iudas in the College of Apostles and Nicholas among the Deacons and the Angels in heaven it self did fall so foully and dishonestly then it is prudent advice that we be not high minded but fear and when we stand most confidently take heed lest we fall and yet there is nothing so likely to make us fall as pride and great opinions which ruined the Angels which God resists which all men despise and which betrayes us into carelesnesse and a wretchlesse undiscerning and an unwary spirit 4. Now the main parts of the Ecclesiastical ministery are done and that which remains is that the Minister pray over him and reminde him to do good actions as he is capable * to call upon God for pardon * to put his whole trust in him * to resigne himself to Gods disposing * to be patient and even * to renounce every ill word or thought or undecent action which the violence of his sicknesse may cause in him * to beg of God to give him his holy Spirit to guide him in his agony and * his holy Angels to guard him in his passage 5. Whatsoever is besides this concerns the standers by that they do all their ministeries diligently and temperately * that they joyn with much charity and devotion in the prayer of the Minister * that they make no outcries or exclamations in the departure of the soul * and that they make no judgement concerning the dying person by his dying quietly or violently with comfort or without with great fears or a cheerful confidence with sense or without like a lamb or like a lyon with convulsions or semblances of great pain or like an expiring and a spent candle for these happen to all men without rule without any known reason but according as God pleases to dispense the grace or the punishment for reasons onely known to himself Let us lay our hands upon our mouth and adore the mysteries of the divine wisdome and providence and pray to God to give the dying man rest and pardon and to our selves grace to live well and the blessing of a holy and a happy death SECT VII Offices to be said by the Minister in his visitation of the sick IN the Name of the Father of the Son and of the Holy Ghost Our Father which art in Heaven c. Let the Priest say this prayer secretly O Eternal Jesus thou great lover of souls who hast constituted a ministery in the Church to glorifie thy Name and to serve in the assistance of those that come to thee professing thy discipline and service give grace to me the unworthiest of thy servants that I in this my ministery may purely and zealously intend thy glory and effectually may minister comfort and advantages to this sick person whom God assoil from all his offences and grant that nothing of thy grace may perish to him by the unworthinesse of the Minister but let thy Spirit speak by me and give me prudence and charity wisdom and diligence good observation and apt discourses a certain judgement and merciful dispensation that the soul of thy servant may passe from this state of imperfection to the perfections of the state of glory thorough thy mercies O Eternal Jesus Amen The Psalm OUt of the depths have I cryed unto thee O Lord Lord hear my voice let thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications If thou Lord should mark iniquities O Lord who shall stand but there is forgivenesse with thee that thou mayest be feared I wait for the Lord my soul doth wait and in his word do I hope my soul waiteth for the Lord more then they that watch for the morning Let Israel hope in the Lord for with the Lord there is mercy and with him is plenteous redemption and he shall redeem his servants from all their iniquities Wherefore should I fear in the dayes of evil when the wickednesse of my heels shall compasse me about No man can by any means redeem
his brother nor give to God a ransome for him for the redemption of their soul is precious and it ceaseth for ever that he should still live for ever and not see corruption But wise men die likewise the fool and the brutish person perish and leave their wealth to others but God will redeem my soul from the power of the grave for he shall receive me As for me I will behold thy face in righteousnesse I shall be satisfied when I awake in thy likenesse Thou shalt shew me the path of life in thy presence is the fulnesse of joy at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore Glory be to the Father c. As it was in the beginning c. Let us Pray ALmighty God Father of mercies the God of peace and comfort of rest and pardon we thy servants though unworthy to pray to thee yet in duty to thee and charity to our brother humbly beg mercy of thee for him to descend upon his body and his soul One sinner O Lord for another the miserable for the afflicted the poor for him that is in need but thou givest thy graces and thy favours by the measures of thy own mercies and in proportion to our necessities we humbly come to thee in the Name of Jesus for the merit of our Saviour and the mercies of our God praying thee to pardon the sins of this thy servant and to put them all upon the accounts of the Crosse and to bury them in the grave of Jesus that they may never rise up in judgement against thy servant nor bring him to shame and confusion of face in the day of finall inquiry and sentence Amen II. GIve thy servant patience in his sorrows comfort in this his sicknesse and restore him to health if it seem good to thee in order to thy great ends and his greatest interest And however thou shalt determine concerning him in this affair yet make his repentance perfect and his passage and his faith strong and his hope modest and confident that when thou shalt call his soul from the prison of the body it may enter into the securities and rest of the sons of God in the bosome of blessednesse and the custodies of Jesus Amen III. THou O Lord knowest all the necessities and all the infirmities of thy servant fortifie his spirit with spirituall joyes and perfect resignation and take from him all degrees of inordinate or insecure affections to this world and enlarge his heart with desires of being with thee and of freedome from sins and fruition of God IV. LOrd let not any pain or passion discompose the order and decencie of his thoughts and duty and lay no more upon thy servant then thou wilt make him able to bear and together with the temptation do thou provide a way to escape even by the mercies of a longer and a more holy life or by the mercies of a blessed death even as it pleaseth thee O Lord so let it be V. LEt the tendernesse of his conscience and the Spirit of God call to mind his sins that they may be confessed and repented of because thou hast promised that if we confesse our sins we shall have mercy Let thy mighty grace draw out from his soul every root of bitternesse lest the remains of the old man be accursed with the reserves of thy wrath but in the union of the Holy Jesus and in the charities of God and of the world and the communion of all the saints let this soul be presented to thee blamelesse and intirely pardoned and thorowly washed through Jesus Christ our Lord. Here also may be inserted the prayers set down after the Holy Communion is administred The Prayer of S. Eustratius the Martyr to be used by the sick or dying man or by the Priests or assistants in his behalf which he said when he was going to martyrdom I Will praise thee O Lord that thou hast considered my low estate and hast not shut me up in the hands of my enemies nor made my foes to rejoyce over me and now let thy right hand protect me and let thy mercy come upon me for my soul is in trouble and anguish because of its departure from the body O let not the assemblies of its wicked and cruell enemies meet it in the passing forth nor hinder me by reason of the sins of my passed life O Lord be favourable unto me that my so I may not behold the hellish countenance of the spirits of darknesse but let thy bright and joyfull Angels entertain it Give glory to thy Holy Name and to thy Majesty place me by thy mercifull arm before thy seat of Judgement and let not the hand of the prince of this world snatch me from thy presence or bear me into hell Mercy sweet Jesu Amen A Prayer taken out of the Euchologion of the Greek Church to be said by or in behalf of people in their danger or neer their death 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. I. BEmired with sins and naked of good deeds I that am the meat of worms cry vehemently in spirit Cast not me wretch away from thy face place me not on the left hand who with thy hands didst fashion me but give rest unto my soul for thy great mercy sake O Lord. II. SUpplicate with tears unto Christ who is to judge my poor soul that he would deliver me from the fire that is unquenchable I pray you all my friends and acquaintance make mention of me in your prayers that in the day of Judgement I may find mercy at that dreadfull Tribunall III. Then may the by-standers pray WHen in unspeakable glory thou dost come dreadfully to judge the whole world vouchsafe O gracious Redeemer that this thy faithfull servant may in the clouds meet thee cheerfully They who have been dead from the beginning with terrible and fearfull trembling stand at thy Tribunall waiting thy just O Blessed Saviour Jesus None shall there avoid thy formidable and most righteous judgement All Kings and Princes with servants stand together and hear the dreadfull voyce of the Judge condemning the people which have sinned into hell from which sad sentence O Christ deliver thy servant Amen Then let the sick man be called upon to rehearse the Articles of his Faith or if he be so weak he cannot let him if he have not before done it be called to say Amen when they are recited or to give some testimony of his faith and confident assent to them After which it is proper if the person be in capacity that the Minister examine him and invite him to confession and all the parts of repentance according to the foregoing rules after which he may pray this prayer of absolution OUr Lord Jesus Christ who hath given Commission to his Church in his Name to pronounce pardon to all that are truly penitent he of his mercy pardon and forgive thee all thy sins deliver thee from all evils past present and future