baptised for the dead This Custom was anciently observed by the Corinthians a sort of Hereticks who notwithstanding their own practise denyed the Resurrection of Bodies and it is likely were Authors of the Error taxed in this Chapter in the Church of the Corinthians wherefore S. Paul's meaning is that this custom which weighed so much in those days were very absurd if there were no Resurrection seeing that the very Ground and Foundation of Baptism not only Sacramental but Ritual is to seal unto us both our spiritual and corporal rising from the dead Rom. 6.3.4 Coloss 2.12 And the end of this particular Ceremony was the profession of the expectance of the blessed Resurrection of Believers a Custom which in following Ages was much abused unto Superstition but without doubt was primitively blameless and piously practicable Then the Apostle comes to a general Instance by way of Quaere why and for what reason and upon what hope do Christians expose themselves voluntarily to death and to so many Dangers Conflicts and Tryals for the Gospel and the Cause of Christianity if it bringeth us to no happiness after this life which happiness according to God's order and our own aims cannot be of the Soul alone without any relation to the body being eternally separate from it vers 19. and 32. compared Lastly he comes to his own personal experience and practise and by a most strong asseveration or assertion equivalent to an Oath which is in the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A particle never used by the Greeks but in Oath only which is here rendred I protest as if he had said as true as my chief Glory and Joy in this world is in the blessing of God on my Ministry towards you which he seems to speak so earnestly that he might the more oblige his Corinthians not to deprive him of that only comfort amongst so many sufferings as sure as you minister Joy to me or as I in my Ministry rejoyce you or that he might the more forcibly press on them his own Example and the more prevalently win them unto Imitation I die daily The words are but three and promptly furnish me with three part which I intend shall bound my Sermon The Protestant I. The matter protested Die The Diuturnity of its practice Daily The Protestant is presented in the personal Pronoun singular I S. Paul the Apostle of the Gentiles in his Order and Epistolar Writings which are tantamount his Sermons a great Preacher a living President to the Churches in all his holy life and labours His Eminency did not exempt him from strict Religion no more than from Mortality he who when he says I live he corrects himself Yet not I but Christ liveth in me Galat. 2.20 Philip 1.21 To whom to live was Christ When he says I die to be sure it is he the same that protesteth in his mortal but regenerate Estate affirming that the better birth is an entrance and engagement to a dying life and the choicest Saints are both Vessels of Earth and of Election as of Earth so must we return to our Earth and as of Election so must we die unto this world as Heirs of a better New creatures live by a new way of dying we live unto God by dying unto sin The chosen of God have a dying principle from the Prince of Life Rom. 6.3 to 12. who died and rose again S. Paul's Eminency in Grace directed him to the frequent exercise of Mortification Dying was his life whose Dignity was to live to God this is that only life which makes death the Christians Game To the common Herd of Men to live is sin and to die is loss but to S. Paul and such as he to live is Christ and to die is Gain Christ was that great Example of the dying life of a Christian whom this his Apostle followed in the exactness of so choice a Mystery of Dying Daily Who S. Paul the Prisoner Eph. 4.1 no wonder if a Prisoner saith I die for a Prison is but a larger Grave and such a one as is fettered and penned up within Bars and Bolts and Grates and Gyves is but one buryed alive and such a one may justly say I die No the Apostle shews himself a Freeman the Prison Gates are open the Bars are broken and Gyves are knocked off from him that can say I die in the sense of the Text. Time was when Paul himself thought he was a jolly person in a lively posture Rom. 7.9 yet Whâ—n the commandment came sin revived and hâ— diâ—d Then was Paul a Prisoner indeed even as a Gâ—lly Slave sold under sin then he stood in so great need of a Redeemer to deliver him from that body of death but now being made free from sin and become the servant of God he goes about to kill that which would have slâ—in him and to lead his Câ—ptivity captive to crucifie the old man that the B dy of Sin might be destroyed This is he wh◠〈…〉 Who S. Paul the aged well may such a one say I die for Age is the next stage to death nay Philemon v. 9. the next step to the Grave when one Foot is already in what a fardle of dying Infirmities doth old Age carry on its back yet the oldest living hopes to live a little longer yet there are many that have lived to great age and experience who have not yet learn'd to die 't was never in their study nor practice If men would exercise themselves this way what a Glory would it be to see many years and many-fold Graces to meet in one person the hoary Head is a Crown of Glory if found in the way of righteousness No doubt S. Paul's Age was to be reckoned by holy Endowments as well as hoary Hairs his Communion with the Ancient of days and his relyance on the Rock of Ages his Statuâ—e in Christ and his Improvements for Eternity his Growth in Grace and saving Wisdom his long serving God in his Generation and the innumerable advantages he had procured to the Churches of Christ and the everlasting good done so many souls which profited by his effectual Ministry were so happy productions of his time and pains as that his Age might be better computed by his good works than by multitude of years this was he who so lived every day that all his days of his Convert Life were his dying days Who S. Paul the Hebrew the Israelite 1 Cor. 1â— 22 23. c. of the stock of Abraham the Minister of Christ so abundant in labours so frequent in dangers so patient in sufferings for him to say I die you may believe him without an Oath and wonder rather that he lived when ye read the Catalogue of his Adventures 1 Cor. 11.28 His daily care of the Churches his intimate Sympathies and ardent â—â—plyances of Charity for such a one as wasted himself 〈◊〉 a burning Taper to give others light such an one as 〈◊〉
Grace go forth with it and prosper it and bless those that read and hear it so as to learn and live it and all in the rare exercise of Daily Dying For me dear Sir whatsoever I am or have or can speak write or act in the utmost of my poor Faculties which are any ways communicable you have justly merited that all shall be yours so as this and whatever Service I shall be capable to do for you is devoted to your self not only upon the account of so near Relation and so notable Benefactions but from the confidence I have that much of this Mystery is already transcribed and become legible in your own heart and these severer Truths make deepest Impresses and find best reception upon the Heart-Tables of experienced Christians such prize them best practise them best and prove them best And that you and I and all that read these Lines may be of this number and we all may set upon this Work and do it well for it is our Master-piece for Eternity is the Hearts desire and prayer of Dear Sir Your sincerely Devoted Uncle and Servant in Faith and Love Which is in Jesus William Pyke THE MYSTERY OF Dying Daily A SERMON ON 1 Corinth 15.31 the last Clause I die daily MY Text lies within the Territory of the King of Terrours Job 18.14 whose Empire spreads it self from Pole to Pole as far as Mortals have any ground to live or lie on even the wide Sea hath its depths for the Sepulture of the dead as well as for the floating and flitting Traffick and passage and wonderment of the living there is no spot in this habitable world or navigable waters but hath a place as rightfully and readily for mens Recumbency as for their Residence and the necessity of dying once which is by Statute entayl'd on the Community of Mankind Heb. 9.27 is by our Heavenly Apostle S. Paul converted into an Act of Religion and is espoused into his Choice and is taken into his care and timely forecast and expectancy and daily account he tells us he was in Deaths oft 2 Cor. 11.23 and here he tells us Death was in his view and voysinage every day not only in respect of Deaths Imminency as daily in the danger and in jeopardy every hour but in respect of dying Concerns Causes Designs Duties Considerations as daily busied about the preparative provisional and consolative qualifications requisite for the dying Estate And all this he represents in all Apostolick Presidency as an unerring pattern for Catholick Practice for all Christians Imitation because it is the great Task of the Religion of our dying Lord who gave his Disciples the same Example and all his ever since and so on till our last Enemy be destroyed that as we follow in an inevitable succession of mortality so we stand bound to be followers of them who were followers of Christ to do that often which ought to be done well that we do it at last but once and so may die not only as Mortals but as Christians with wisdom in innocence and in peace and not like Beasts or Fools or Infidels I know whatever we fancy or flatter our selves every one of us present is daily dying in jeopardy every hour nay 〈◊〉 come nearer every moment the â—wâ—â—d of death hanging over our Heads but by a Heir and some may be but a hairs breadth and some but a hairs length at most from the Grave it is but God's speaking the word not mortâ—ris in illâ— die but mortâ—â—â—s â—s thou art a dead man as to Aâ—imelech Psal 104.29 Gen 20.3 for 't is upon his breath we live and though it be called our Breath it is only because it plays in our Nostrils but it is under God's Restraint if he restrain our spirit we die and return to our Dust Lo death and dust are ours but our breath is his who gives and takes continues and restrains at pleasure 't is but the going forth of God's breath in summons and ours goes forth in expiration Lord upon how slippery ground do our Feet stand as upon the waters paved with Ice which is both sliding and brittle so as there is not more danger of falling than of sinking Since then our dying is consecrated by the Lord Jesus Christs once dying for us and we must die before we can blissfully see our living Redeemer it grows into a rational Christian Service from our Apostles practice to die daily I die daily The Text is short hardly one in Scripture shorter but it is with these sacred Clauses as with Coins or Jewels in smallest compass is the greater value So have we seen rare Beauties drawn in little Tablets and a world of Countries described in little Maps So here 's much counsel in a narrow room and the Holy Ghost affects Brevity as making wholesome Truths more portable for memory and readier for use such is this exceeding compendious and of rich Contents 'T is a precious Paragraph this that three words and four syllables should comprise the business of the Christian Life The words are S. Paul's as the work was his he was a Vessel of Election and we need not doubt but he presents us a choice draught he vents it upon this occasion An unhappy Doctrinal Error against the Resurrection springing from the old four Leven of the Sadduces which threatned to Leven the whole Lump 1 Cor. 5.6 had privily crept into the Church of Corinth which occasioned an excellent Demonstrative Discourse of the Apostle upon that weighty subject which is solid enough to establish many thousand Souls in the succeding Churches and serves to shame and extirpate all the Heresies about it until the Resurrection come to prove it self In this his Discâ—urse he beats much upon the Scriptural and rational proof of it and confirms all by occular Testimony But as not contented to dwell on the Doctrinal and Theorical part to the 29 vers he comes to personal and practical Instances as from that particular notable Ceremony or Ritual of the Church and Custom of Antiquity and I must tell you Church-Custom in S. Paul's time 1 Cor. 11.16 and in this Epistle carries much force and that was Baptising the dead the beginning whereof it seems was if not altogether good and laudable yet it was inoffensively tolerable which was that when any one died in the profession of the Faith of Jesus Christ before he could be washed and cleansed as for his Interment some one or more of the Christian Friends would come and offer themselves to be sprinkled both in their own names and in the name of the deceased whom they attested to have died in the Faith of Christ that the Church might write them down in the Register then kept for Believers who dying they publickly prayed for their happy Resurrection And so the Apostles Argument bears else what shall they do which are baptised for the dead if the dead rise not at all why are they then
his Lungs spent his Breath macerated his boâ—y beating his brains and eating his bread in a worse â—â—eat than that of his brows breaking his sleep burning as in a Feaver of Zeal for God's Honour and the Gospels furtherance and bringing in of stubborn and gainsaying Sinners to Christ weeping in secret and vexing his righteous soul for the evil conversations and froward dispositions of men surely such a one may sadly yet safely say I die daily Or yet again is it Paul the chosen Vessel once a notorious Persecutor now an eminent Saint once a Blasphemer a cruel blood-sucker under whose Tyrannous Agitations many died daily Martyrs for the Truth of Christ once mad against the Church with too much zeal again reputed mad with too much Learning sometimes a Boanerges in his thundering Comminations then a Barnabas in his Consolatory Rhetorick such an one as hath experienced all the methods of the Christian Calling and the perils and persecutions attending that envied Cause such a one as had been in the Deeps by Soul-affliction 1 Cor. 12.2 and in the heights of the third Heaven by Rapture and Revelation one who might glory to the utmost even to the degree of his Apostolate or Saintship as to his excellency in Labours Faculties Gifts or Graces This is he who affirms of himself I even I die daily Now if we find him in this mortified posture considering his Eminency which might be so far doubted as that it put this holy man upon his Oath to attest it sans dispute he may be believed he died daily in his meaner and more ordinary capacities if he was so busie about dying as an Apostle we conclude him so too as a Tent-maker If he died daily as a Saint as the chief of Sinners much more It is enough to ground a President in the case and to render it an acquirable faculty and to determine it the Epitome or Brief of Practical Christianity To die daily But is not this Durus Sermo may we not with Nicodemus in such a case 〈◊〉 60. â— say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 How can these things be Can a man die whiles he lives Such sayings are Spirit not Letter Mystery not Demonstration This is a kind of dying which consists in Action not in Cessation in labouring not in rest from Labours Such as in Jacob's expression Gen. 48.21 Behold I die yet he had much to do and 't is the story of another Chapter before he gave up the Ghost noting there is a way of dying for good men before they expire To die in the Text may have a five-fold sense 1. To be in continual jeopardy of death in the foregoing Verse for we are subjected to death every moment by sentence on Adam's sin vers 22. we are under the statute of Mortality in our best and most vigorous strength and sufficiency whiles our Breasts are full of Milk and our Bones full of Marrow we have the sentence of death in our selves and through fear of death Job 21.24 are all our life time subject to bondage we live but as condemn'd persons under reprieve and life being but a span every Inch and Barley-breadth of time is but a respite of the divine patience protracting the Date for our better perfecting our Duty we are sure we carry deaths enough within us as to give our Bodies themselves the denomination of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as being incident to deaths stroke as open to deaths sting every moment Nor youth nor strength Rom â— 24 nor wisdom nor wealth nor power nor parts nor sufficiency nor sanctity can exempt nor prevent nor redeem from it And in weakness sickness and old age we are so under the sentence as we are not far from the season of death Thus because of the daily Incidencies it is prudential and pious to reckon upon the daily event And if the Heathens defined life to be continua mortis contemplatio the continual meditation of Death Christians with S. Paul should turn it into diurna expectatio a daily â—â—ing expectation and that 's one sense of the Text. 2. I die imports the vicinity of death Gen. 50.24 Jos ph said I die i. e. I must shortly go hence So Joshua This day I go the way of all the earth Josh 22 â—â— He reckoned his death for that day which happened not long after So Job computes to day Job 16.22 When a few years come I shall go to the place from whence I shall not return Our years which are the largest measure of man's time are but few by Moses his cast Psal 90.10 yet he makes days the Dividend though seventy years be the Quotient of man's life And David reckons by days noting that the longest life is but a day of life the Morning of Youth and Noon of Strength Job 9.25 Job 7.1 and Night of Age. Lord how swift is the revolution As a Post or the swift Ships as the day of an Hireling This holy David thus expresseth I am afflicted and ready to die from my youth Psal 88.15 3. I die is as much as to say I am willing to die It is my indifferency as to the time or manner or place but if it were left to my choice I would desire to be dissolved that I might be with Christ The present Tense is rendred in the Optative Mood In matters of Faith by faith things hoped for are made present Heb. 14.1 and become the matter of Prayer and Option A good Christian is a Voluntier for the Grave Phil. 1.23 'T was S. Paul's choice and Simeon's Prayer Luke 2.29 Having Christ in his Arms who had been so long in his hopes the old Expectant thought it a burden to live longer our Apostle always longing to go hence and seeming long first that which is so much in his expectation is frequent in his Option and that which is so much in option is in daily action and such actions as have a direct tendency to fruition Death naturally considered cannot be the object of Election because it is enmity to nature and no man rationally desires his own dissolution nor death penally considered cannot be the object of man's choice but as the dying Jesus hath unstung it and conquered its Malignity and destroyed him that had the power of death and consecrated Interitum into transitum a passage from earth to Heaven and Introitum the dark Entry to the Mansions of Bliss so to die bodily is a desireable benefit and Grace turns its necessity into election and brings inevitable destination into daily exercise We look for death and so with submission to God's will we long for it not only as a cessation from sufferings and sin and sorrows but as our Translation to eternal life our Convoy to Christ our Change our Removal and we daily labour and give all diligence to be found of Christ Jesus in peace And Job 14.14 all the days of our appointed time we wait till our change come 4.
I die imports the Apostles fitness for death Then is a Christian fit to die when he is furnished for a better life and daily practice breeds promptitude and the exercise of dying is a tuning and timeing us for the dying day that we may be made meet to be partakers of the eternal Inheritance It is with Christians as with tender and precious Fruits they are daily upon some incremental change till they come to be mature and mellow and fit for use and then they are every day falling to the earth as ready for the owners hand In Job 5.26 ye have an allusion to this in that Parabolical Speech of Eliphaz to Job Thou shalt come to thy grave in a full age as a shock of corn cometh in in its season This was a promise of Honour and Comfort in death As a shock of corn in its season notes a readiness and ripeness for that season Thou shalt come notes a willingness and chearfulness in dying In season notes the ripeness and fitness for death Now that the allusion may fully bear our Apostle helps us to the apprehension of it in the thirty sixth Verse of this fifteenth Chapter to the Corinthians he increpates the dullness of ignorant Atheists about the Resurrection Thou fool that which thou sowest is not quickened except it die Dying is in order to quickening and Growth until the Corn come to a full Grain in the Ear and be ripe for Harvest and the Ears are bound 〈◊〉 in the Sheaves and the Sheaves gathered into the Shock and the Shocks into the Barn And in this sense though a Child of God die in his Youth in the Flower and Spring of his days yet his death is as the Harvest Season to his hopes and the gathering of his Soul to God and his Body to his Fathers though in his natural capacity he be cut down whiles he is green and cropt in the Bud or Blossom yet in his spiritual capacity he never dies till he come to ripeness God ripens his Servants speedily when he intends to take them out of the world speedily he can and doth let out such warm Rays of his Spirit upon them as shall soon maturate the Seeds of Grace into a preparedness for Glory This is S. Paid's and every good Christian's profession so to live as to be daily ready for death 't was holy Job's cast of his state Job 17.1 My breath is corrupt my days are extinct the Graves are ready for me And I am ready for the Grave I am undressing my self daily to lie down in dust and sleep in death there is nothing now for me to think of I lay all aside and attend this business alone and 't is a business indeed of great necessity and no small difficulty daily to cast upon it and contrive how I may lie down in peace and rest in death I have fought a good fight I have finished my course I have done my work 2 Tim. 4.7 and am going to my Bed I have nothing to do but to die and this is my daily care to sequester my Soul from this world as one that hath life and portion and Inheritance in a better I die daily Lastly And so daily dying notes a continual Exercise of Mortification for in the Christian Dialect and Scriptural Style to die daily is a spiritual sanctified Habit made up of many Acts and quotidian Exercises of suppressing and destroying the old man and the whole body of Sin and this is meant in those Scriptures which speak of putting off the old man Eph. 4.12 â— Cor. 9. â—â— beating down the body and keeping it in subjection the Spring of Grace is a living Fountain always cleansing away the dead Sediments of Dirt aâ— Mire The expression of the Holy Ghost about this 〈◊〉 worthy of our serious consideration Rom. 6.6 Known that our old man is crucified with him Christ that the bâ— of sin might be destroyed that henceforth we should not sâ—◠〈◊〉 For he that is dead is freed from sin Lo here 〈◊〉 Appellation and its execution the old man partly in respect of Antiquity as old as the eldest of men partly in respect of the Renovation 1 Thess 5.23 which is universal of the whole man Body and Soul Then 't is called the body of Sin partly because mans corrupt nature Coloss 3.5 like a body or stock brancheth forth into divers actual enormities as so many Members partly because of its strength and for that men are as much naturally in love of their Sins as of their Limbs and are as impatient of Amputation But if ye take notice of Sins execution This old man is crucified Crucifixion is made up of many deliberate Acts and these bring on exquisite Torments and the Torments cause successive decays every hour so doth Sin by this crucifying Discipline grow weaker and weaker and nearer to its Grave and utter Abolition Regenerative Acts give Sin many wounds though as those that are crucified it dieth lingringly yet it dieth certainly Sin in the mortifying Mystery like a man in a Consumption is always wasting and dying till at last it is quite dead and the dying day of the Regenerate is the utmost date of Sins being Thus if as long as we live we give Sin a daily wound it may sprawl and move for a time but afterwards giveth up the Ghost For while Saints live though Sin be mortally wounded as the creature that hath lost its sting it may rage and stir but it abateth in strength and malignity and dieth with them In Psalm 88.4 Heman complains Thus My soul is full of troubles and my life draweth nigh to the grave I am accounted with them that go down into the pit I am as a man of no strength free among the dead The surest Interpretation of that sweet Singers Style and State is That he was much exercised in this sin mortifying austerity he was a great Proficient in it as we say of one that hath served a rigid Apprentiship he is his Crafts-Master he hath got the knack of it he is a Freeman at the Occupation And in this sense death is not to be looked on as a Saints expiration but as an accumulative Mystery and an high Improvement in the Faculty of Sin-slaying And some Ancients have been rare at it and some skillful Christians still are as well versed in it and they know how to encounter with Soul-Enemies as tryed Champions having been long conversant in the Artillery and Fencing-School of Christ as that they have been able to teach it by certain Rules and Rudiments and so it is one of the Gospel-Mysteries in which by frequent exercise we may grow Graduates and S. Paul had it seems commenced Doctor in it even in this rare Accomplishment of Dying Daily So then we are resolved upon the Question what this kind of Dying is It is not a natural dying consisting of many gradual Tendencies unto the Dissolution of this our mortal Body though