and Sense to govern our bodily Appetites and Passions to grow indifferent to the Pleasures of Sense to use them for the refreshment and necessities of Nature but not to be over-curious about them not to be fond of enjoying them nor troubled for the want of them never to indulge ourselves in unlawful Pleasures and to be very temperate in our use of lawful ones to be sure we must take care that the Spiritual part that the sense of God and of Religion be always predominant in us and this will be a principle of Life in us a principle of divine Sensations and Joys when this Body shall tumble into Dust. VI. If Death be our putting off these Bodies then the Resurrection from the Dead is the Re-union of Soul and Body the Soul does not die and therefore cannot be said to rise again from the Dead but it is the Body which like Seed falls into the Earth and springs up again more beautiful and glorious at the Resurrection of the Just. To believe the Resurrection of the Body or of the Flesh and to believe another Life after this are two very different things the Heathens believed a future State but never dreamt of the Resurrection of the Body which is the peculiar Article of the Christian Faith. And yet it is the Resurrection of our Bodies which is our Victory and Triumph over Death for Death was the Punishment of Adam's sin and those who are in a separate state still suffer the Curse of the Law Dust thou art and to dust thou shalt return Christ came to deliver us from this Curse by being made a Curse for us that is to deliver us from Death by dying for us But no man can be said to be delivered from Death till his body rise again for part of him is under the power of Death still while his body rots in the Grave nay he is properly in a state of Death while he is in a state of Separation of Soul and Body which is the true notion of Death And therefore St. Paul calls the Resurrection of the Body the destroying Death 1 Cor. 15. 25 26. He must reign till he hath put all enemies under his feet the last enemy that shall be destroyed is Death That is by the Resurrection of the Dead as appears from the whole scope of the place and is particularly expressed 54 55 c. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption and this mortal shall have put on immortality then shall be brought to pass that saying which is written Death is swallowed up in victory O death where is thy sting O grave where is thy victory The sting of death is sin and the strength of sin is the law but blessed be God who hath given us the victory through our Lord Iesus Christ. This is the perfection and consummation of our reward when our Bodies shall be raised incorruptible and glorious when Christ shall change our vile Bodies and make them like to his own most glorious Body I doubt not but good men are in a very happy state before the Resurrection but yet their happiness is not complete for the very state of Separation is an imperfect state because a separate Soul is not a perfect Man a Man by the original Constitution of his Nature consists of Soul and Body and therefore his perfect happiness requires the united glory and happiness of both parts of the whole Man. Which is not considered by those who cannot apprehend any necessity why the Body should rise again since as they conceive the Soul might be as completely and perfectly happy without it But yet the Soul would not be an intire and perfect Man for a Man consists of Soul and Body a Soul in a state of Separation how happy soever otherwise it may be has still this mark of God's displeasure on it that it has lost its body and therefore the Reunion of our Souls and Bodies has at least this advantage in it that it is a perfect restoring of us to the Divine Favour that the badge and memorial of our Sin and Apostacy is done away in the Resurrection of our Bodies and therefore this is called the Adoption viz. the Redemption of our Bodies 8. Rom. 23. For then it is that God publickly owns us for his Sons when he raises our dead Bodies into a glorious and immortal Life And besides this I think we have no reason to doubt but the Reunion of Soul and Body will be a new addition of Happiness and Glory for though we cannot guess what the pleasures of glorified Bodies are yet sure we cannot imagine that when these earthly Bodies are the instruments of so many pleasures a spiritual and glorified Body should be of no use A Soul and Body cannot be vitally united but there must be a sympathy between them and receive mutual impressions from each other and then we need not doubt but that such glorified Bodies will highly minister though in a way unknown to us to the pleasures of a divine and perfect Soul will infinitely more contribute to the divine pleasures of the Mind then these earthly Bodies do to our sensual pleasures That all who have this hope and expectation may as St. Paul speaks earnestly groan within themselves waiting for the adoption even the redemption of our bodies 8. Rom. 23. This being the day of the Marriage of the Lamb this consummates our Happiness when our Bodies and Souls meet again not to disturb and oppose each other as they do in this World where the Flesh and the Spirit are at perpetual Enmity but to live in eternal Harmony and to heighten and inflame each others Joys Now this consideration that Death being a putting off these Bodies the Resurrection of the Dead must be the raising our Bodies into a new and immortal Life and the Reunion of them to our Souls suggests many useful thoughts to us For This teaches us how we are to use our Bodies how we are to prepare them for Immortality and Glory Death which is the separation of Soul and Body is the punishment of Sin and indeed it is the cure of it too for Sin is such a Leprosie as cannot be perfectly cleansed without pulling down the House which it has once infected But if we would have these Bodies raised up again immortal and glorious we must begin the Cleansing and Purification of them here We must be sanctified throughout both in body soul and spirit 1 Thess. 5. 23. Our Bodies must be the Temples of the Holy Ghost must be holy and consecrated places 1 Cor. 6. 19. must not be polluted with filthy Lusts if we would have them rebuilt again by the Divine Spirit after the desolations which Sin hath made Thus St. Paul tells us at large 8. Rom. 10 11 12 13. And if Christ be in you the body is dead because of sin but the spirit is life because of righteousness That is that divine and holy Nature which we receive from
Christ will secure the life of our Souls and translate us to a happy state after death but it will not secure us from the necessity of dying Our Bodies must die as a punishment of Sin and putrifie in the Grave but yet they are not lost for ever for if the spirit of him that raised up Iesus from the dead dwell in you he that raised up Iesus from the dead shall quicken your mortal bodies by his spirit which dwelleth in you that is if your Bodies be cleansed and sanctified be the Temples of the Holy Spirit he will raise them up again into a new Life Therefore brethren we are debtors not to the flesh to live after the flesh for if ye live after the flesh ye shall die but if ye through the spirit do mortifie the deeds of the body ye shall live If ye subdue the fleshly principle if ye bring the Flesh into subjection to the Spirit not only your Souls shall live but your Bodies shall be raised again to immortal Life And this is a mighty obligation on us if we love our Bodies and would have them glorious and immortal not to pamper the Flesh and gratifie its appetites and lusts not to yeild your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity but to yeild your members servants to righteousness unto holiness that being made free from sin and becoming the servants of God ye may have your fruit unto holiness and the end everlasting life As the same Apostle speaks 6. Rom. 19 22. it is our relation to Christ that our very Bodies are his Members it is our relation to the Holy Spirit that our Bodies are his Temples which entitles our Bodies to a glorious Resurrection But will Christ own such Bodies for his Members as are Members of a Harlot Will the Holy Spirit dwell in such a Temple as is defiled with impure Lusts And therefore such polluted Bodies will rise as they lay down in Dishonour will rise not to immortal Life but to eternal Death For can we think those Bodies well prepared for a glorious Resurrection to be refined into spiritual Bodies which are become ten times more Flesh than God made them which are the Instruments and the Tempters to all Impurity Is there any reason to expect that such a Body should rise again spiritual and glorious which expires in the flames of Lust which falls a Sacrifice in the quarrel of a Strumpet which sinks under the load of its own Excesses and Eats and Drinks itself into the Grave which scorns to die by Adam's sin but will die by its own without expecting till the Laws of Mortality according to the ordinary course of Nature must take place Holiness is the only principle of Immortality both to Soul and Body Those love their Bodies best those honour them most who make them instruments of Vertue who endeavour to refine and spiritualize them and leave nothing of fleshly appetites and inclinations in them those are kindest to their Bodies who consecrate them for Immortality who take care they shall rise again into the Partnership of eternal Joys All the severities of Mortification abstinence from bodily pleasures watchings Fastings hard lodging when they are instruments of a real Vertue not the arts of Superstition when they are intended to subdue our Lusts not to purchase a liberty of sinning are the most real expressions of honour and respect to these Bodies It shews how unwilling we are to part with them or to have them miserable how desirous we are of their advancement into eternal Glories for the less of Flesh they carry to the Grave with them the more glorious will they rise again This is offering up our Bodies a living Sacrifice when we intirely devote them to the service of God and such living Sacrifices shall live for ever for if God receives them a living Sacrifice he will preserve them to immortal Life But the highest honour we can do these Bodies and the noblest use we can put them to is to offer them up in a proper sence a Sacrifice to God that is willingly and chearfully to die for God when he calls us to suffering first to offer up our Souls to God in the pure flames of Love and Devotion and then freely to give up our Bodies to the Stake or to the Gibbet to wild Beasts or more savage Men. This vindicates our Bodies from the natural shame and reproach of Death what we call a natural Death is very inglorious it is a mark of dishonour because it is a punishment of Sin Such Bodies at best are sown in dishonour and corruption as St. Paul speaks but to die a Martyr to fall a Sacrifice to God this is a glorious Death this is not to yeild to the Laws of Mortality to Necessity and Fate but to give back our Bodies to God who gave them to us and he will keep that which we have committed to his trust to a glorious Resurrection and it will be a surprizing and astonishing Glory with which such Bodies shall rise again as have suffered for their Lord for if we suffer with him we shall also be glorified together Which seems to imply that those shall nearest resemble the Glory of Christ himself who suffer as he did This is the way to make our Bodies immortal and glorious We cannot keep them long here they are corruptible Bodies and will tumble into Dust we must part with them for a while and if ever we expect and desire a happy meeting again we must use them with modesty and reverence now We dishonour our Bodies in this World when we make them instruments of Wickedness and Lust and lay an eternal foundation of shame and infamy for them in the next World it is a mortal and killing love to cherish the fleshly Principle to make provision for the Flesh to fulfil the lusts thereof but if you love your Bodies make them immortal that though they die they may rise again out of their Graves with a youthful vigour and beauty that they may live for ever without pain or sickness without the decays of age or the interruptions of sleep or the fatigue and weariness of labour without wanting either food or raiment without the least remains of corruptions without knowing what it is to tempt or to be tempted without the least uneasie thought the least disappointment the least care in the full and blissful enjoyment of the Eternal and Soveraign Good. SECT III. Death considered as our Entrance upon a new and unknown State of Life III. LEt us now consider Death as it is an Entrance upon a new and unknown State of Life for it is a new thing to us to live without these Bodies it is what we have never tried yet and we cannot guess how we shall feel ourselves when we are stript of Flesh and Blood what entertainments we shall find in that place where there is neither eating nor drinking neither marrying nor giving in marriage what kind of
Heaven Nothing but the hopes and fears of the next World can enforce these Duties on us and this justifies the wisdom and goodness of God in making the present exercise of these Vertues necessary to our future Rewards I shall only add that whatever complaints bad Men may make that their future Happiness or Misery depends upon the government and conduct of their Lives in this World I am sure all Mankind would have had great reason to complain if it had been otherwise For how miserable must it have made us to have certainly known that we must be eternally happy or eternally miserable in the next World and not to have as certainly known how to escape the Miseries and obtain the Hapâ—iness of it And how could that be possibly known if the trial of it had been reserved for an unknown state What a terrible thing had it been to die could no Man have been sure what would have become of him in the next World as no Man could have been upon this supposal for how can any Man know what his reward shall be when he is so far from having done his work that he knows not what he is to do till he comes into the next World. But now since we shall be rewarded according to what we have done in this Body every Man certainly knows what will make him happy or miserable in the next World and it is his own fault if he do not live so as to secure immortal Life and what a blessed state is this to have so joyful a prospect beyond the Grave and to put off these Bodies with the certain hopes of a glorious Resurrection This I think is sufficient to vindicate the wisdom and goodness of God in making this present Life a state of trial and probation for the happiness of the next But to proceed 2. If this Life only be our state of trial and probation for Eternity then Death as it puts a final period to this Life so it puts a final end to our work too our day of Grace and time of Working for another World ends with this Life We shall easily apprehend the necessity of this if we remember that Death which is the punishment of Sin is not meerly the death of the Body but that state of Misery to which Death translates Sinners and therefore if we die while we are in a state of Sin under the Curse and under the power of Death there is no Redemption for us because the Justice of God has already seiz'd us the Sentence is already executed and that is too late to obtain a Pardon for in this case Death answers to our casting into Prison from whence we shall never come forth till we have paid the uttermost Farthing as our Saviour represents it 5 Matt. 25 26 for indeed Sin is the death of the Soul and those who are under the power of Sin are in a state of Death and if they die before they have a principle of a new Life in them they fall under the power of Death that is into that state of Misery and Punishment which is appointed for such dead Souls and therefore our redemption from Death by Christ is begun in our dying to Sin and walking in newness of Life which is our conformity to the Death and the Resurrection of Christ 6 Rom. 4. This is to be dead to sin and to be alive to GOD as Christ is and if we die with Christ we shall rise with him also into immortal Life which is begun in this World and will be perfected in the next which is the sum of St. Paul's argument v. 6 7 8 9 10 11. thus he tells us 8 Rom. 10 11. If Christ be in you the body is dead because of sin but the spirit is life because of righteousness That is our Bodies are mortal and must die by an irreversible Sentence which God pronounc'd against Adam when he had sinned but the Soul and Spirit has a new principle of Life a principle of Righteousness and Holiness by which it lives to God and therefore cannot fall into a state of Death when the Body dies But if the spirit of him that raised up Iesus from the dead dwell in you he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his spirit that dwelleth in you That is when the divine Spirit has quicken'd our Souls and raised them into a new Life though our Bodies must die yet the same divine Spirit will raise them up also into immortal Life This is the plain account of the matter If Death arrests us while we are in a state of Sin and Death we must die for ever but if our Souls are alive to God by a principle of Grace and Holiness before our Bodies die they must live for ever A dead Soul must die with its Body that is sink into a state of Misery which is the death and the loss of the Soul a living Soul survives the Body in a state of Bliss and Happiness and shall receive its Body again glorious and immortal at the Resurrection of the Just but this change of state must be made while we live in these Bodies a dead Soul cannot revive in the other World nor a living Soul die there and therefore this Life is the day of God's Grace and Patience the next World is the place of Judgment And the reason St. Peter gives why God is not hasty in executing judgment but is long suffering to us ward is because he is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance 2 Pet. 3. 5. Hence the Apostle to the Hebrews exhorts them Wherefore as the Holy Ghost saith To day if ye will hear his voice harden not your hearts as in the provocation in the day of temptation in the wilderness when your fathers tempted me proved me and saw my works forty years Wherefore I was grieved with that generation and said They do alway err in their hearts and they have not known my ways So I swear in my wrath they shall not enter into my rest There is some dispute what is meant by to day whether it be the day of this Life or such a fixt and determin'd day and season of Grace as may end long before this Life The example of the Israelites of whom God swear in his wrath that they should die in the Wilderness and never enter into his Rest that is into the Land of Canaan seems to incline it to the latter sence for this sentence That they should not enter into his Rest was pronounc'd against them long before they died for which reason they wandered forty Years in the Wilderness till all that Generation of Men were dead and if we are concern'd in this example then we also may provoke God to such a degree that he may pronounce the final sentence on us That we shall never enter into Heaven long before we leave this World Our day of Grace may
IMPRIMATUR Z. Isham R. P. D. Hen. Episc. Lond. Ã Sacris Septemb. 11 1689. A Practical Discourse CONCERNING DEATH BY WILLIAM SHERLOCK D. D. Master of the TEMPLE LONDON Printed for W. Rogers at the Sun over against St. Dunstan's Church in Fleet-street MDCLXXXIX To the Worshipful THE MASTERS of the BENCH And the rest of the Members of the two Honourable Societies OF THE TEMPLE My much Honoured Friends ONE reason of Publishing this Plain Discourse is because I cannot now Preach to you as formerly I have done and have no other way left of discharging my Duty to You but by making the Press supply the place of the Pulpit Part of this You have already heard and should have heard the rest had I enjoyed the same Liberty still which God restore to me again when He sees fit if not His will be done And the only reason of this Dedication is to make this publick and thankful Acknowledgment before I am forced from You if I must be so Unhappy of Your Great Respects and many singular Favours to me which have been always so free and generous that they never gave time nor left any room for me to ask especially that obliging Welcome You gave me at my first coming I mean Your Present of a House which besides the Conveniencies and Pleasure of a Delightful Habitation has afforded me that which I value much more the frequent opportunities of Your Conversation Though I am able to make You no better Return than Thanks I hope that Great MASTER whom I serve will and that GOD would multiply all Temporal and Spiritual Blessings on You is and always shall be the sincere and hearty Prayer of GENTLEMEN Your Most Obliged and Humble Servant W. Sherlock THE CONTENTS THe Introduction Page 1 CHAP. I. The several Notions of Death and the Improvement of them 4 SECT I. The first Notion of Death that it is our leaving this World with the Improvement of it 6 SECT II. The second Notion of Death that it is our putting off these Bodies 35 SECT III. Death considered as our entrance upon a new and unknown State of Life 69 CHAP. II. Concerning the Certainty of our Death 89 SECT I. A Vindication of the Iustice and Goodness of God in appointing Death for all Men 92 SECT II. How to improve this Consideration that we must certainly die 110 CHAP. III. Concerning the time of our Death and the proper Improvement of it 125 SECT I. That the general Period of Humane Life is fixt and determined by God and that it is but very short 128 SECT II. What little reason we have to complain of the Shortness of Humane Life 184 SECT III. What Use to make of the fixt Term of Humane Life 144 SECT IV. What Use to make of the Shortness of Humane Life 162 SECT V. The time and manner and circumstances of every particular Man's Death are not determined by an Absolute and Unconditional Decree 185 SECT VI. The particular time when we are to die is unknown and uncertain to us 196 SECT VII That we must die but Once or that Death translates us to an unchangeable State with the Improvement of it 234 CHAP. IV. Concerning the Fear of Death and the Remedies against it 328 The Conclusion 351 ERRATA PAge 130. l. 8. for unreasonable read unanswerable p. 214. l. 13. r. at present A Practical Discourse CONCERNING DEATH 9 Hebrews 27. It is appointed for Men once to die The INTRODUCTION THere is not a more effectual way to revive the True Spirit of Christianity in the World than seriously to meditate on what we commonly call the four last things Death Judgment Heaven and Hell For it is morally impossible men should live such careless lives should so wholly devote themselves to this World and the service of their Lusts should either cast off the fear of God and all reverence for his Laws or satisfie themselves with some cold and formal Devotions were they possest with a warm and constant sense of these things For what manner of Men ought we to be who know that we must shortly die and come to Judgment and receive according to what we have done in this World whether it be good or evil either eternal Rewards in the Kingdom of Heaven or eternal Punishments with the Devil and his Angels That which first presents it self to our thoughts and shall be the Subject of this following Treatise is Death a very terrible thing the very naming of which is apt to chill our Blood and Spirits and to draw a dark veil over all the Glories of this Life And yet this is the condition of all Mankind we must as surely die as we are born For it is appointed unto Men once to die This is not the Original Law of our Nature for though Man was made of the dust of the Earth and therefore was by nature Mortal for that which is made of dust is by nature corruptible and may be resolved into dust again yet had he not sinned he should never have died he should have been immortal by Grace and therefore had the Sacrament of Immortality the Tree of Life Planted in Paradise But now by Man Sin entred into the World and Death by Sin and so Death passed upon all Men for that all have sinned 5 Rom. 12. and thus it is decreed and appointed by God by an irreversible Sentence dust thou art and unto dust thou shalt return Now to improve this Meditation to the best advantage I shall 1. Consider what Death is and what Wisdom that should teach us 2. The certainty of our Death that it is appointed unto Men once to die 3. The time of our death it must be once but when we know not 4. The natural fears and terrors of Death or our natural aversions to it and how they may be allayed and sweetned CHAP. I. The several Notions of Death and the Improvement of them 1. WHat Death is and I shall consider three things in it 1. That it is our leaving this World. 2. Our putting off these earthly Bodies 3. Our entrance into a New and Unknown state of Life for when we die we do not fall into nothing or into a profound sleep into a state of silence and insensibility till the Resurrection But we only change our place and our dwelling we remove out of this World and leave our Bodies to sleep in the Earth till the Resurrection but our Souls and Spirits live still in an invisible State. I shall not go about to prove these things but take it for granted that you all believe them For that we leave this World and that our Bodies rot and putrifie in the Grave needs no proof for we see it with our eyes and that our Souls cannot die but are by nature Immortal has been the belief of all Mankind The Gods which the Heathens Worshipped were most of them no other but dead Men and therefore they did believe that the Soul survived the Funeral of the
for a Man who must die to forfeit an immortal Life to reprieve a mortal and perishing Life for some few years II. As Death which is our leaving this World proves that these present things are not very valuable to us so it proves that they are not the most valuable things in their own natures though we were to enjoy them always it would be but a very mean and imperfect state in comparison of that better Life which is reserved for good Men in the next World. For 1. It is congruous to the Divine Wisdom and Goodness that the best things should be the most lasting Wisdom dictates this for it is no more than to give the preference to those things which are best The longest continuance gives a natural preference to things we always value those things most which we shall enjoy longest and therefore to give the longest duration to the worst things is to set the greatest value on them and to teach mankind to prefer them before that which is better What we value most we desire to enjoy longest and were it in our power we would make such things the most lasting which shows that it is the natural sense of mankind that the best things deserve to continue longest and therefore we need not doubt but that infinite Wisdom which made the World has proportioned the continuance of things to their true worth And if God have made the best things the most lasting then the next World in its own intrinsick nature is as much better then this World as it will last longer For this is most agreeable to the Divine Goodness too and Gods love to his Creatures that what is their greatest and truest happiness should be most lasting For if God have made Man capable of different degrees and states of happiness of living in this World and in the next it is an expression of more perfect goodness as it is most for the happiness of his Creatures that the most perfect state of happiness should last the longest for the more perfectly happy we are the more do we experience the Divine Goodness and he is the most perfectly happy who has the longest enjoyment of the best things 2. It seems most agreeable also to the Divine Wisdom and Goodness that where God makes such a vast change in the state of his Creatures as to remove them from this World to the next the last state should be the most perfect and happy I speak now of such Creatures as God designs for happiness for the reason alters where he intends to punish But where God intends to do good to Creatures it seems a very improper method to translate them from a more perfect and happy to a less happy state Every abatement of Happiness is a degree of Punishment and that which those Men are very sensible of who have enjoyed a more perfect Happiness And therefore we may certainly conclude that God would not remove good Men out of this World were this the happiest place Yes you 'l say Death is the Punishment of Sin and therefore it is a Punishment to be removed out of this World which spoils that Argument that this World is not the happiest place because God removes good Men out of it For this is the effect of that curse which was entailed on Mankind for the sin of Adam dust thou art and to dust thou shalt return Now I grant Death as it signifies a separation of Soul and Body and the death of both which was included in that Curse was a Curse and a Punishment but not as it signifies leaving this World and living in the next We have some reason to think that though Man should never have died if he had not sinned yet he should not always have lived in this World. Human nature was certainly made for greater things than the enjoyment of sense It is capable of nobler advancements it is related to Heaven and to the World of Spirits and therefore it seems more likely that had Man continued innocent and by the constant exercise of Wisdom and Vertue improved his faculties and raised himself above this body and grown up into the Divine Nature and Life after a long and happy life here he should have been translated into Heaven as Enoch and Elias were without dying For had all Men continued innocent and lived to this day and propagated their kind this little spot of Earth had many Ages since been over-peopled and could not have subsisted without transplanting some Colonies of the most Divine and Purified Souls into the other World. But however that be it is certain that being removed out of this World and living in Heaven is not the Curse This fallen Man had no right to for he who by Sin had forfeited an earthly Paradise could not hereby gain a Title to Heaven Eternal Life is the gift of God through Iesus Christ our Lord it is the reward of good Men of a well spent life in this World of our Faith and Patience in doing and suffering the Will of God it is our last and final State where we shall live for ever and therefore the Argument is still good that this World cannot be the happiest place for then Heaven could not be a reward Though all Men are under the necessity of dying yet if this World had been the happiest place God would have raised good Men to have lived again in this World which he could as easily have done as have translated them to Heaven Now if this World be not the happiest place if present things be not the most valuable as appears from this very consideration that we must leave this World for to this I must confine my discourse at present there are several very good uses to be made of this As 1. To rectifie our Notions about present things 2. To live in expectation of some better things 3. Not to be over-concerned about the shortness of our Lives here 1. To rectify our Notions about present things 'T is our opinions of things which ruin us For what Mankind account their greatest happiness they must love and they must love without bounds or measures And it would go a great way to cure our extravagant fondness and passion for these things could we perswade our selves that there is any thing better But this I confess is a very hard thing for most Men to do because present things have much the advantage of what is absent and future Some who believe another life after this what ever great things they may talk of the other World yet do not seem throughly perswaded that the next World is a happier state than this for I think they could not be so fond of this World if they were And the reason of it is plain because happiness cannot be so well known as by feeling now Men feel the pleasures and happiness of this World but do not feel the happiness of the next and therefore are apt to think that that is the greatest
this Life be our time to work in we should not consult our ease and softness and pleasures here for this is a place of labour and diligence not of rest We are a travelling to Heaven and must have our eye on our journeys end and not hunt after Pleasures and Diversions in the way The great end of living in this World is to be happy in the next and therefore we must wisely improve present things that they may turn to our future account Must make to our selves Friends of the Mammon of Unrighteousness that when we fail they may receive us into everlasting Habitations What concerns a better life must take up most of our thoughts and care and whatever endangers our future happiness must be rejected with all its charms It would not be worth the while to live some few years here were we not to live for ever and therefore it becomes a wise man who remembers that he must shortly leave this World to make this present life wholly subservient to his future happiness SECT II. The second Notion of Death that it is our putting off these Bodies II. LEt us now consider Death as it is our putting off these Bodies for this is the proper Notion of Death the separation of Soul and Body that the Body returns to Dust the Soul or Spirit unto God who gave it when we die we do not cease to be nor cease to live but only cease to live in these earthly Bodies the vital Union between Soul and Body is dissolved we are no longer encloister'd in a Tabernacle of Flesh we no longer feel the impressions of it neither the pains nor pleasures of the Body can affect us it can charm it can tempt no longer This needs no proof but very well deserves our most serious Meditations For 1. this teaches us the difference and distinction between Soul and Body which men who are sunk into flesh and sense are so apt to forget nay to lose the very notion and belief of it all their delights are fleshly they know no other pleasures but what their five senses furnish them with they cannot raise their thoughts above this body nor entertain any noble designs and therefore they imagine that they are nothing but flesh and blood a little organized and animated Clay and it is no great wonder that men who feel the workings and motions of no higher principle of life in them but flesh and sense should imagine that they are nothing but flesh themselves tho' methinks when we see the senseless and putrefying remains of a brave man before us it is hard to conceive that this is all of him that this is the thing which some few hours ago could reason and discourse was fit to govern a Kingdom or to instruct Mankind could despise flesh and sense and govern all his bodily Appetites and Inclinations was adorned with all divine graces and Vertues was the glory and pride of the Age And is this dead Carkase which we now see the whole of him Or was there a more divine Inhabitant which animated this earthly Machine which gave life and beauty and motion to it but is now removed To be sure those who believe that Death does not put an end to their being but only removes them out of this body which rots in the Grave while their Souls survive live and act and may be happy in a separate state should carefully consider this distinction between Soul and Body which would teach them a most Divine and Heavenly Wisdom For when we consider that we consist of Soul and Body which are the two distinct parts of Man this will teach us to take care of both for can any man who believes he has a Soul be concerned only for his Body A compound Creature cannot be happy unless both parts of him enjoy their proper pleasures He who enjoys onely the pleasures of the Body is never the happier for having a humane and reasonable Soul the soul of a Beast would have done as well and it may be better for bruit Creatures relish bodily pleasures as much and it may be more than Men do and reason is very troublesome to men who resolve to live like Bruits for it makes them ashamed and afraid which in many cases hinders or at least allays their pleasures And why should not a man desire the full and entire happiness of a man why should he despise any part of himself and that as you shall hear presently the best part too And therefore at least we ought to take as much care of our Souls as of our Bodies Do we adorn our Bodies that we may be fit to be seen and to converse with men and may receive those respects which are due to our quality and fortune and shall we not adorn our Souls too with those Christian Graces which make us lovely in the sight of God and men The Ornament of a meek and quiet Spirit which is in the sight of God of great price which St. Peter especially recommends to Christian Women as a more valuable ornament than the outward adorning of plaiting the hair or wearing gold or putting on of apparel 1 Peter 3. 3 4. The ornaments of Wisdom and Prudence of well governed Passions of Goodness and Charity give a grace and beauty to all our actions and such a pleasing and charming air to our very countenance as the most natural Beauty or artificial Washes and Paints can never imitate Are we careful to preserve our Bodies from any hurt from pains and sickness from burning Feavers or the racking Gout or Stone and shall we not be as careful of the ease of the Mind too To quiet and calm those Passions which when they grow outragious are more intollerable than all natural or artificial Tortures to moderate those Desires which rage like Hunger and Thirst those Fears which convulse the Mind with trembling and paralytick motions those furious Tempests of Anger Revenge and Envy which rufle our Minds and fill us with Vexation Restlesness and Confusion of Thoughts especially those guilty Reflections upon ourselves that Worm in the Conscience which gnaws the Soul and torments us with shame and remorse and dreadful expectations of an Avenger These are the Sicknesses and Distempers of the Soul these are Pains indeed more sharp and pungent and killing pains than our Bodies are capable of The spirit of a man can bear his infirmity natural Courage or the powers of Reason or the comforts of Religion can support us under all other Sufferings but a wounded spirit who can bear And therefore a man who loves ease should in the first place take care of the ease of his Mind for that will make all other sufferings easie but nothing can support a man whose mind is wounded Are we fond of bodily Pleasures are we ready to purchase them at any rate And if we be men why should we despise the pleasures of the mind if we have Souls why should we not reap the
and preserved a perpetual Youth but in this state we are now the Tree of Life could not preserve us immortal if a Sword or Poison can kill which shews us how impossible it was but that Sin and Death must come into the World together Man might have been immortal had he never sinned but brutish and ungovern'd passions will destroy us without a Miracle And therefore we have no reason now to quarrel at the Divine Providence that we are mortal for in the ordinary course of Providence it is impossible it should be otherwise III. Considering what the state of this World necessarily is since the Fall of Man an immortal Life here is not desireable No state ought to be immortal if it be designed as an act of favour and kindness but what is completely happy but this World is far enough from being such a state Some few years give wise men enough of it tho' they are not oppressed with any great Calamities and there are a great many Miseries which nothing but Death can give relief to This puts an end to the sorrows of the Poor of the Oppressed of the Persecuted it is a Haven of Rest after all the Tempests of a troublesome World it knocks off the Prisoners Shackles and sets him at liberty it dries up the Tears of the Widdows and Fatherless it cases the complaints of a hungry Belly and naked Back it tames the proudest Tyrants and restores Peace to the World it puts an end to all our Labours and supports men under their present Adversities especially when they have a prospect of a better life after this The labour and the misery of Man under the Sun is very great but it would be intolerable were it endless and therefore since Sin is entred into the World and so many necessary miseries and calamities attend it it is an act of Goodness as well as Justice in God to shorten this miserable life and transplant good men into a more happy as well as immortal State. IV. Since the Fall of Man Mortality and Death is necessary to the good Government of the World nothing else can give check to some mens Wickedness but either the fear of Death or the execution of it some men are so outragiously wicked that nothing can put a stop to them and prevent that mischief they do in the World but to cut them off This is the reason of capital punishments among men to remove those out of the World who will be a plague to Mankind while they live in it For this reason God destroyed the whole Race of Mankind by a Deluge of Water excepting Noah and his Family because they were incurably wicked For this reason he sends Plagues and Famines and Sword to correct the exorbitant growth of Wickedness to lessen the numbers of Sinners and to lay restraints on them And if the World be such a Bedlam as it is under all these restraints what would it be were it filled with immortal Sinners Ever since the Fall of Adam there always was and ever will be a mixture of good and bad men in the World and Justice requires that God should reward the Good and punish the Wicked But that cannot be done in this World for these present external Enjoyments are not the proper Rewards of Vertue There is no complete Happiness here man was never turned into this World till he sinned and was flung out of Paradise which is an argument that God never intended this World for a place of Reward and perfect Happiness nor is this World a proper place for the final punishment of bad Men because good Men live among them and without a Miracle bad Men cannot be greatly punished but good Men must share with them and were all bad Men punisht to their deserts it would make this World the very Image and Picture of Hell which would be a very unfit place for good Men to live and to be happy in As much as good Men suffer from the Wicked in this World it is much more tolerable then to have their ears filled with the perpetual cries of such miserable Sinners and their eyes terrified with such perpetual and amazing executions Good and bad Men must be separated before the one can be finally rewarded or the other punished and such a separation as this cannot be made in this World but must be reserved for the next So that considering the fallen State of Man it was not fitting it was not for the good of Mankind that they should be immortal here Both the Wisdom and Goodness and Justice of God required that Man should die which is an abundant Justification of this divine Decree That it is appointed for men once to die V. As a farther Justification of the Divine Goodness in this we may observe that before God pronounced that Sentence on Adam Dust thou art and to dust thou shalt return he expresly promised that the seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head 3. Gen. 15. In his Curse upon the Serpent who beguiled Eve I will put enmity between thee and the woman and between thy seed and her seed it shall bruise thy head and thou shalt bruise his heel Which contains the promise of sending Christ into the World who by death should destroy him who had the power of death that is the Devil and deliver them who through fear of death were all their life time subject to bondage i. e. before he denounces the Sentence of Death against Man he promises a Saviour and Deliverer who should triumph over Death and raise our dead Bodies out of the dust immortal and glorious Here is a most admirable mixture of Mercy and Judgment Man had forfeited an earthly Immortality and must die but before God would denounce the Sentence of Death against him he promises to raise up his dead Body again to a new and endless Life And have we any reason to complain then that God has dealt hardly with us in involving us in the sad consequences of Adam's Sin and exposing us to a temporal Death when he has promised to raise us from the Dead again and to bestow a more glorious Immortality on us which we shall never lose When Man had sinned it was necessary that he should die because he could never be completely and perfectly happy in this World as you have already heard and the only possible way to make him happy was to translate him into another World and to bestow a better Immortality on him This God has done and that in a very stupendious way by giving his own Son to die for us and now we have little reason to complain that we all die in Adam since we are made alive in Christ to have died in Adam never to have lived more had indeed been very severe upon Mankind but when death signifies only a necessity of going out of these Bodies and living without them for some time in order to re-assume them again immortal and glorious we
Reason and by that time he has got a little Knowledge and is earnestly seeking after more by that time he knows what it is to be a Man and to what purpose he ought to live what God is and how much he is bound to Love and Worship him while he is ennobling his Soul with all Heavenly Qualities and Vertues and Coppying out the Divine Image when the Glories of Humane Nature begin to appear and to shine in him that is when he is most fit to live to serve God and Men then I say either this mortal Nature decays and dust returns to its dust again or some violent distemper or evil accident cuts him off in a vigorous age and when with great labour and industry he is become fit to live he must live no longer How is it possible to reconcile this with the Wisdom of God if man perishes when he dies if he ceases to be as soon as he comes to be a man. And therefore we have reason to believe that death only translates us into another World where the beginnings of Wisdom and Vertue here grow up into perfection and if that be a more happy place than this World as you have already heard we have no reason to quarrel that we live so little a while here For seting aside the Miseries and Calamities the troubles and inconveniencies of this Life which the happiest men are exposed to for our experience tells us that there is no complete and unmixt happiness here setting aside that this World is little else than a Scene of Misery to a great part of Mankind who struggle with want and poverty labour under the oppressions of Men or the pains and sicknesses of diseased Bodies yet if we were as happy as this World could make us we should have no reason to complain that we must exchange it for a much greater happiness We now call it death to leave this World but were we once out of it and enstated in the happiness of the next we should think it were dying indeed to come into it again We read of none of the Apostles who did so passionately desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ as St. Paul and there was some reason for it because he had had a tast of that happiness being snatched up into the third Heavens Indeed could we see the Glories of that place it would make us impatient of living here and possibly that is one reason why they are concealed from us but yet reason tells us that if death translate us to a better place the shortness of our lives here is an advantage to us if we take care to spend them well for we shall be the sooner possest of a much happier Life III. From this Notion of Death that it is our leaving this World I observe farther what this life is only a state of growth and improvement of trial and probation for the next There can be no doubt of this if we consider what the Scripture tells us of it that we shall be rewarded in the next World as we have behaved our selves in this That we shall receive according to what we have done in the Body whether good or evil Which proves that this life is only in order to the next that our eternal happiness or misery shall bare proportion to the good or evil which we have done here And when we only consider that after a short continuance here man must be removed out of this World if we believe that he does not utterly perish when he dies but subsists still in another state we have reason to believe that this life is only a preparation for the next For why should a man come into this World and afterwards be removed into another if this World had no relation nor subordination to the next Indeed it is evident that man is an improvable Creature not created at first in the utmost perfection of his Nature nor put into the happiest state he is capable of but trained up to perfection and happiness by degrees Adam himself in a state of innocence was but upon his good behaviour was but a probationer for Immortality which he forfeited by his sin and as I observed before it is most probable that had he continued innocent and refined and exalted his nature by the practise of Divine Vertues he should not have lived always in this World but have been translated into Heaven And I cannot see how it is inconsistent with the Wisdom of God to make some Creatures in a state of Probation that as the Angelical Nature was created so pure at first as to be fit to live in Heaven so Man though an earthly yet a reasonable Creature might be in a capacity by the improvement of his natural powers of advancing himself thither As it became the manifold Wisdom of God to create the Earth as well as the Heavens so it became his Wisdom to make Man to inhabitate this Earth for it was not fitting that any part of the World should be destitute of reasonable Beings to know and adore their Maker and to ascribe to him the glory of his Works but then since a reasonable Nature is capable of greater improvements than to live always in this World it became the Divine Goodness to make this World only a state of Probation and Discipline for the next that those who by a long and constant practice of Vertue had spiritualized their Natures into a Divine Purity might ascend into Heaven which is the true Center of all intelligent Beings This seems to be the original intention of God in making man and then this earthly life was from the beginning but a state of growth and improvement to make us fit for Heaven though without dying But to be sure the Scene is much alter'd now for Adam by his sin made himself mortal and corrupted his own nature and propagated a mortal and corrupt nature to his Posterity and therefore we have no natural right to Immortality nor can we refine our Souls into such a divine Purity as is fit for Heaven by the weakned and corrupted powers of Nature but what we cannot do Christ has done for us he has purchast Immortality for us by his Death and quickens and raises us into a new Life by his Spirit but since still we must die before we are immortal it is more plain than ever that this life is only in order to the next that the great business we have to do in this World is to prepare ourselves for Immortality and Glory Now if our life in this World be onely in order to another life we ought not to expect our complete Happiness here for we are only in the way to it we must finish the Work God has given us to do in this World and expect our reward in the next And if our reward cannot be had in this World we may conclude that there is something much better in the next World than any thing here If
benefit and the pleasures of them Do you think there are no pleasures proper to the Soul have we Souls that are good for nothing of no use to us but only to relish the pleasures of the Body Ask those who have tried what the pleasures of Wisdom and Knowledge are which does as much excel the pleasures of seeing as Truth is more beautiful and glorious than the Sun ask them what a pleasure it is to know God the greatest and best Being and the brightest Object of our minds to contemplate his Wisdom and Goodness and Power in the Works of Creation and Providence to be swallowed up in that stupendious Mystery of Love the Redemption of Sinners by the Incarnation and Sufferings of the Son of God ask them what the pleasures of Innocence and Vertue are what the Feast of a good Conscience means which is the greatest Happiness to give or to receive what the Joys even of Sufferings and Persecutions of Want and Poverty and Reproach are for the sake of Christ ask a devout Soul what transports and ravishments of Spirit he feels when he is upon his knees when with St. Paul he is even snatched up into the third Heavens filled with God overflowing with praises and divine joys And does it not then become a man who has a reasonable Soul to seek after these rational these manly these divine Pleasures the pleasures of the Mind and Spirit which are proper and peculiar to a reasonable Creature Let him do this and then let him enjoy the pleasures of the Body as much as he can which will be very insipid and tastless when his Soul is ravished with more noble delights In a word if we are so careful to preserve the life of our Bodies which we know must die and rot and putrifie in the Grave methinks we should not be less careful to preserve the life of our Souls which is the only immortal part of us for though our Souls cannot die as our Bodies do yet they may be miserable and that is called eternal Death where the Worm never dieth and the Fire never goeth out For to be always miserable is infinitely worse than not to be at all and therefore is the most formidable Death And if we are so unwilling to part with these mortal Bodies we ought in reason to be much more afraid to lose our Souls II. That Death is our putting off these Bodies teaches us That the Soul is the only principle of Life and Sensation The Body cannot live without the Soul but as soon as it is parted from it it loses all sence and motion and returns to its original Dust but the Soul can and does live without the Body and therefore there is the principle of Life This may be thought a very common and obvious Observation and indeed so it is but the consequences of this are not so commonly observed and yet are of great use and moment For 1. this shews us that the Soul is the best part of us that the Soul indeed is the Man because it is the only seat of Life and Knowledge and all Sensations for a Man is a living reasonable and understanding Being and therefore a living reasonable Soul not an earthly Body which has no life or sense but what it derives from the Soul must be the Man Hence in Scripture Soul so frequently signifies the Man thus we read of the Souls that were born to Iacob and the Souls that came with him into Aegypt 46. Gen. that is his Sons and Soul signifies our selves a Friend which is as thy own Soul that is as dear to us as our selves 13. Deut. 6. And Ionathan loved David as his own Soul that is as himself 1 Sam. 18. 3. For in propriety of Speech the Body has no sense at all but the Soul lives in the Body and feels all the motions and impressions of it so that it is the Soul only that is capable of Happiness or Misery of Pain or Pleasure and therefore it is the only concernment of a wise man to take care of his Soul as our Saviour tells us What shall it profit a man though he gain the whole world and lose his own soul or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul 16. Matth. 26. The reason of which is easily apprehended when we remember that the Soul only is capable of Happiness or Misery that it is the Soul which must enjoy every thing else And what can the whole World then signifie to him who has no Soul to enjoy it whose Soul is condemned to endless and eternal Miseries Such a miserable Soul is as uncapable of enjoying the World or any thing in it as if it had lost its being 2ly Hence we learn the true notion of bodily Pleasures that they are such pleasures as the Soul feels by its union to the Body for it is not the Body that feels the pleasures but the Soul though the Body be the instrument of them and therefore how fond soever we are of them we may certainly conclude that bodily pleasures are the meanest pleasures of humane nature because the union to these earthly Bodies is the meanest and most despicable state of reasonable Souls These are not its proper and genuine pleasures which must result from its own nature and powers but are only external impressions the light and superficial touches of matter and it would be very absurd to conceive that the Soul which is the onely subject of pleasure should have no pleasures of its own but borrow its whole Happiness from its affinity and alliance to Matter or that its greatest pleasures should be owing to external impressions not to the actings of its own natural faculties and powers Which may convince us as I observed before that the pleasures of the mind are much the greatest and noblest pleasures of the Man and he who would be truly happy must seek for it not in Bodily entertainments but in the improvements and exercise of Reason and Religion 3ly Hence we learn also that the Body was made for the Soul not the Soul for the Body as that which in it self has no Life and Sense is made for the use of that which has The Body is only a convenient habitation for the Soul in this World an Instrument of Action and a Tryal and Exercise of Vertue but the Soul is to use the Body and to govern it to tast its pleasures and to set bounds to them to make the Body serviceable to the ends and purposes of Reason and Vertue not to subject Reason to Passion and Sense If the Body was made for the use of the Soul it was never intended the Soul should wholly consorm it self to it and by its sympathy with corporeal Passions transform it self into a sensual and brutish nature Such degenerate Creatures are those who live only to serve the Body who value nothing else and seek for nothing else but how to gratifie their Appetites and Lusts which is to invert
the order of Nature to fall in love with our Slaves and change Fortunes and Shackles with them That our Saviour might well say He that commiteth sin is the Servant of Sin for this is a vile and unnatural subjection to serve the Body which was made to serve the Soul such Men shall receive the reward of Slaves to be turned out of God's Family and not to inherit with Sons and Freemen as our Saviour adds The Servant abideth not in the House for ever but the Son abideth for ever if the Son therefore shall make you free ye shall be free indeed 8 John 31 32. III. That Death which is our leaving this World is nothing else but our putting off these Bodies teaches us That it is only our union to these Bodies which intercepts the sight of the other World The other World is not at such a distance from us as we may imagine the Throne of God indeed is at a great remove from this Earth above the third Heavens where he displays his Glory to those blessed Spirits which encompass his Throne but as soon as we step out of these Bodies we step into the other World which is not so properly another World for there is the same Heaven and Earth still as a new State of Life To live in these Bodies is to live in this World to live out of them is to remove into the next For while our Souls are confined to these Bodies and can look only through these material Casements nothing but what is material can affect us nay nothing but what is so gross that it can reflect light and convey the shapes and colours of things with it to the eye So that though within this visible World there be a more Glorious Scene of things than what appears to us we perceive nothing at all of it For this vail of Flesh parts the visible and invisible World But when we put off these Bodies there are new and surprizing Wonders present themselves to our view when these material spectacles are taken off our Souls with its own naked eyes sees what was invisible before And then we are in the other World when we can see it and converse with it Thus St. Paul tells us That when we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord but when we are absent from the body we are present with the Lord 2 Cor. 5. 6 8. And methinks this is enough to cure us of our fondness for these Bodies unless we think it more desirable to be confined to a Prison and to look through a Grate all our lives which gives us but a very narrow prospect and that none of the best neither then to be set at liberty to view all the glories of the World. What would we give now for the least glimpse of that Invisible World which the first step we take out of these Bodies will present us with There are such things as eye hath not seen nor ear heard neither hath it entred into the heart of man to conceive Death opens ours eyes enlarges our prospect presents us with a new and more glorious World which we can never see while we are shut up in Flesh which should make us as willing to part with this Vail as to take the Film off of our Eyes which hinders our sight IV. If we must put off these Bodies methinks we should not much glory nor pride ourselves in them nor spend too much of our time about them For why should that be our pride why should that be our business which we must shortly part with And yet as for pride these mortal corruptible Bodies and what relates to them administer most of the occasions of it Some men glory in their Birth and in their Descent from Noble Ancestors and Ancient Families which besides the Vanity of it for if we trace our Pedigrees to their Original it is certain that all our Families are equally Ancient and equally Noble for we descend all from Adam and in such a long Descent as this no man can tell whether there have not been Beggars and Princes in those which are the noblest and meanest Families now Yet I say what is all this but to pride ourselves in our Bodies and our bodily Descent unless men think that their Souls are derived from their Parents too Indeed our Birth is so very ignoble whatever our Ancestors are or however it may be dissembled with some pompous circumstances that no man has any reason to glory in it for the greatest Prince is born like the wild Asses Colt. Others glory in their external Beauty which how great and charming soever it be is but the beauty of the Body which if it be spared by Sickness and old Age must perish in the Grave Death will spoil those features and colours which are now admired and after a short time there will be no distinction between this beautiful Body and common Dust. Others are guilty of greater Vanity than this and what Nature has denied they supply by Art they adorn their Bodies with rich Attire and many times such Bodies as will not be adorned and then they glory in their borrowed Feathers But what a sorry beauty is that which they cannot carry into the other World And if they must leave their Bodies in the Grave I think there will be no great occasion in the other World for their rich and splendid Apparel which will not fit a Soul. Thus what do Riches signifie but to minister to the wants and conveniences and pleasures of the Body And therefore to pride ourselves in Riches is to glory in the Body too to think our selves more considerable than other men because we can provide better for our Bodies than they can And what a mean and contemptible Vice is Pride whose subject and occasion is so mean and contemptible To pride ourselves in these Bodies which have so ignoble an extraction are of so short a continuance and will have so ignoble an end must lie down in the Grave and be food for Worms As for the Care of our Bodies that must unavoidably take up great part of our time to supply the necessities of Nature and to provide the conveniences of Life but this may be for the good of our Souls too as honest Labour and Industry and ingenious Arts are but for men to spend their whole time in Sloth and Luxury in Eating and Drinking and Sleeping in Dressing and Adorning their Bodies or gratifying their Lusts this is to be vile Slaves and Servants to the Body to Bodies which neither need nor deserve this from us after all our care they will tumble into Dust and commonly much the sooner for our indulgence of them V. If Death be our putting off these Bodies then it is certain that we must live without these Bodies till the Resurrection nay that we must always live without such Bodies as these are for though our Bodies shall rise again yet they shall be changed and
transformed into a spiritual nature as St. Paul expresly tells us 1 Cor. 15. 42 43 44. It is sown in corruption it is raised in incorruption it is sown in dishonour it is raised in glory it is sown in weakness it is raised in power it is sown a natural body it is raised a spiritual body For as he adds 50 v. Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God neither can corruption inherit incorruption Which is true of a fleshly Soul but here is understood of a Body of flesh and blood which is of a corruptible nature As our reason may satisfie us that such gross earthly Bodies as we now carry about with us cannot live and subsist in those pure regions of Light and Glory which God inhabits no more than you can lodge a stone in the Air or breathe nothing but pure Aether and therefore our glorified Bodies will have none of those earthly passions which these earthly Bodies have will relish none of the pleasures of flesh and blood that upon this account we may truly say that when we once put off these Bodies we shall ever after live without them Now the use of this Observation is so very obvious that methinks no man can miss it for when we consider that we must put off these Bodies and for ever live without them the very next thought in course is that we ought to live without our Bodies now as much as possibly we can while we do live in them to have but very little commerce with flesh and sense to wean ourselves from all bodily pleasures to stifle its appetites and inclinations and to bring them under perfect command and government that when we see it fit we may use bodily pleasures without fondness or let them alone without being uneasie for want of them that is that we may govern all our bodily appetites not they govern us For a wise man should thus reason with himself If I grow so fond of this Body and the pleasures of it if I can relish no other pleasures if I value nothing else what shall I do when I leave this body For bodily pleasures can last no longer than my body does what shall I do in the next World when I shall be striped of this body when I shall be a naked Soul or whatever other covering I may have shall have no flesh and blood about me and therefore all the pleasures I value now will then vanish like a dream for it is impossible to enjoy bodily pleasures when I have no body And though there were no other punishments in the next Life yet it is a great pain to me now to have my desires disappointed or delayed and should I retain the same fondness for these things in the next World where they cannot be had the eternal despair of enjoying them would be punishment enough Indeed we cannot tell what alteration our putting off these Bodies will make in the temper and disposition of our minds We see that a long and severe fit of sickness while it lasts will make men absolute Philosophers and give them a great contempt of bodily pleasures nay will make the very thoughts of those pleasures nauseous to them which they were very fond of in health Long Fasting and Abstinence and other bodily Severities are an excellent means to alter the habits and inclinations of the Mind and one would think that to be separated from these Bodies must needs make a greater alteration in our Minds than either Sickness or bodily Severities That I dare not say that a sensual man when he is separated from this body shall feel the same sensual desires and inclinations which he had in it and shall be tormented with a violent thirst after those pleasures which he cannot enjoy in a separate state But this I dare say that a man who is wholly sunk into flesh and sense and relishes no other pleasures is not capable of living happily out of this body unless you could find out a new Scene of material and sensible Pleasures to entertain him for though the particular appetites and inclinations of the body may cease yet his very Soul is sensualized and therefore is uncapable of the pleasures of a spiritual Life For indeed setting aside that mischief which the unruly lusts and appetites of men and the immoderate use of bodily pleasures does either to the persons themselves or to publick Societies and the true reason why we must mortifie our sensual inclinations is to improve our minds in all divine Graces for the Flesh and the Spirit cannot thrive together sensual and spiritual Joys are so contrary to each other that which of them soever prevails according to the degrees of its prevalence it stifles and and suppresses or wholly subdues the other A Soul which is ravished with the love of God and the Blessed Jesus transported with the spiritual hopes of another Life which feels the passions of Devotion and is enamour'd with the glories and beauties of Holiness and divine Vertues must have such a very mean opinion of Flesh and Sense as will make it disgust bodily pleasures or be very indifferent about them and a Soul which is under the government of Sense and Passion cannot tast those more intellectual and divine Joys for it is our esteem of things which gives a relish to them and it is impossible we can highly esteem one without depretiating and undervaluing the other It is universally true in this case what our Saviour tells us No man can serve two masters for either he will hate the one and love the other or else he will hold to the one and despise the other Ye cannot serve God and Mammon 6. Matth. 24. The least beginnings of a divine Nature in us is to love God above all the World and as we every day grow more devoutly and passionately in love with God and take greater pleasure in the spiritual acts of Religion in praising God and contemplating the divine Nature and Perfections and meditating on the spiritual Glories of another Life so we abate of our value for present things till we get a perfect conquest and mastery of them But he who is perfectly devoted to the pleasures of the Body and the service of his Lusts has no spiritual Life in him and tho' putting off these Bodies may cure our bodily appetites and passions yet it cannot give us a new principle of Life nor work an essential Change in a fleshly Nature and therefore such a man when he is removed from this Body and all the Enjoyments of it is capable of no other Happiness Nay though we are renewed by the divine Spirit and have a principle of a new Life in us yet according to the degree of our love to present things so much the more indisposed are we for the Happiness of unbodied Spirits And therefore since we must put off these Bodies if we would live for ever happily without them we must begin betimes to shake off Matter
of things he will very easily trust God for every thing else for he is not so solicitous about any thing in this World as he is for his Soul and if he can trust God with his dearest interests surely he will trust him in less matters The Promises of eternal Life through our Lord Jesus Christ are the highest demonstration of God's love to us and he who is so well assured of God's love that he can trust him for Heaven can never distrust his care and providence in this World. The methods of God's Providence can never be so unknown to us in this World as the State of the other World is unknown and if we can chearfully follow God into an unseen and unknown World cannot we be contented to follow him through the most dark and perplexed tracks of Providence here So that we have as little reason to complain that the State of the other World is unknown to us as we have that we must live by Faith in this World for absent unseen and unknown things are the objects of our Faith And those who will trust God no farther than they can see neither in this World nor in the next have no reason to depend upon his Providence here nor to expect Heaven hereafter 2ly The State of the other World being so much unknown to us is a very good reason why we should chearfully comply with all the terms and conditions of the Gospel to do whatever our Saviour requires that we may obtain eternal Life This it may be you will not so readily apprehend and yet the reason of it is very plain for since the State of the other World is so much unknown to us we do not and cannot know neither what dispositions and habits and complexion of Soul are necessary to fit and qualifie us for this unknown Happiness But our Saviour who knew what that state is knew also what is necessary to that State and therefore the wisest course we can take is to obey all his Laws without any dispute not only as the Conditions of Happiness without which we shall not be admitted into Heaven but as the necessary Preparations for it As to explain this by a paralel case which you will easily understand Suppose we had pre-existed in a former state as some say we did before we came into these Bodies and before we knew any thing of this World or what the pleasures and entertainments of it are should have been told what kind of Bodies we must go into no doubt but there would have been wonderful wise disputes about the make and frame of our Bodies we should have thought some parts superfluous or useless or ill contrived indeed should have wonder'd what such a Body was made for as well we might before we understood the use of any part of it but God who knew what he intended us for provided such a Body for us as is both beautiful and useful and we cannot want any part of it but we are deprived of some conveniences and pleasures of life And thus we may easily suppose it to be with reference to the next World that the habits and tempers of our Minds are as necessary to relish the pleasures of that state as our bodily senses are to tast bodily pleasures and since we do not particularly know what the delights of that state are and Christ does we ought as perfectly to resign up ourselves to his directions for the fashioning our Minds as we trust God to form our Bodies for us Whatever Graces and Vertues he requires us to exercise in this World though we do not see the present use of them though we may think them an unnecessary restraint of our liberties and very needless and unreasonable severities yet we ought to conclude that Christ knew the reason of such commands and that such qualities and dispositions of mind will be found as necessary in the next World as our bodily senses are here And this we ought especially to conclude of such degrees and instances of Vertue as seem above our present state and not so well fitted to our condition of life in this World for why should our Saviour give us such Laws and exact such a degree of Vertue from us here as abridges our present enjoyments and it may be exposes us to great inconveniencies and sufferings were not that temper of Mind which these Vertues form in us of great use and necessity in the next life As for instance We should think it sufficient while we live in this World where there are so many inviting objects and while we are clothed with bodies of Flesh which are made for the enjoyments of sense and have natural appetites and inclinations to them so to govern ourselves in the use of these pleasures as neither to make ourselves Beasts nor to injure our Neighbours and while we keep within these bounds to gratifie our appetites and inclinations to the full for it is certainly the happiness of an earthly Creature to enjoy this World though a reasonable Creature must do it reasonably But not to love this World seems a hard command to a Creature who lives in it and was made to enjoy it to despise bodily pleasures to subdue the fleshly principle in us not only to Reason but to the Spirit to live above the Body and to strive to stifle not only its irregular but even its natural appetites and to tast the pleasures of it very sparingly and with great indifference of mind seems a very hard saying to Flesh and Blood We should think it time enough to have our conversation in Heaven when we come thither but it is plainly above the state of an earthly Creature to live in Heaven to have all our joys our hopes our treasure and our hearts there The state of this World would be very happy and prosperous without such a raised and refined and spiritualized Mind and therefore these are such Vertues as are not necessary to the present constitution of this World and therefore can be only in order to the next Thus it is sufficient to the Happiness and good Government of this World that men do no injury to each other and that they express mutual Civilities and Respects that they take care of those whom Nature has endeared to them and that they be just and in ordinary cases helpful to others and therefore this is all that the state of this World requires But that Divine and Universal Charity which teaches us to love all Men as ourselves even our Enemies and those who hate and persecute us to forgive the injuries we suffer and not to revenge and retaliate them not to render evil for evil nor railing for railing but contrariwise blessing I say this wonderful Vertue does not only lie extreamly cross to self-love but is hardly reconcileable with the state of this World for the practise of it is very dangerous when we live among bad men who will take advantage of such a bearing and
sinned and brought Death into the World and thus Death passed upon all men for his sin notwithstanding they themselves were Sinners for tho' they were Sinners yet that they died was not owing to their own sins because they had not sinned against any Law which threatned death but to the sin of Adam and therefore in a proper sence in Adam all die Now this is thought very hard that the sin of Adam should bring death upon all his Posterity that one man sinned and all men must die and therefore I suppose no man will think it improper to my present Argument to give you such an account of this matter as will evidently justifie the Wisdom and Goodness as well as the Justice of GOD in it I. In the first place then I observe that an immortal Life in this World is not the original Right of earthly Creatures but was wholly owing to the Grace and Favour of God. I call that an original Right which is founded in the Nature of things for otherwise properly speaking no Creatures have any right either to being or to subsistance which is a continuance in being It is the Goodness and the Power of God which both made the World and upholds and sustains all things in being And therefore Plato confesses that the inferiour Gods those immortal Spirits which he thought worthy of Divine Honours were both made by the Supreme God and did subsist by his Will for He who made all things can annihilate them again when he pleases and therefore their Subsistence is as much owing to the Divine Goodness as their Creation But yet there is a great difference between the natural gift and bounty of God and what is supernatural or above the nature of things What God makes by nature immortal so that it has no principles of Mortality in its constitution Immortality may be said to be its natural Right because it is by nature immortal as Spirits and the Souls of Men are And in this case it would be thought very hard that a whole race of immortal Beings should be made mortal for the sin of one which would be to deprive them of their natural Right to Immortality without their own fault But when any Creature is immortal not by Nature but by supernatural Grace God may bestow this supernatural Immortality upon what conditions he pleases and take the forfeiture of it when he sees fit and this was the case of Man in Innocence His Body was not by Nature immortal for a Body made of Dust will naturally resolve into Dust again and therefore without a supernatural power an earthly Body must die for which reason God provided a remedy against Mortality the Tree of Life which he planted in Paradise and without which man could not be immortal so that Mortality was a necessary consequence of his losing Paradise for when he was banished from the Tree of Life he could have no Remedy nor Preservative against Death Now I suppose no man will question but God might very justly turn Adam out of Paradise for his disobedience and then he must die and all his Posterity die in him for he being by Nature mortal must beget mortal Children and having forfeited the Tree of Life he and his Posterity who are all shut out of Paradise with him must necessarily die Which takes nothing from them to which any man had a right for no man had a natural right to Paradise or the Tree of Life but only leaves them to those Laws of Mortality to which an earthly Creature is naturally subject God had promised Paradise and the Tree of Life to no man but to Adam himself whom he created and placed in Paradise and therefore he took nothing away from any man but from Adam when he thrust him out of Paradise Children indeed must follow the condition of their Parents had Adam preserved his right to the Tree of Life we had enjoyed it too but he forfeiting it we lost it in him and in him die We lost I say not any thing that we had a right to but such a supernatural Priviledge as we might have had had he preserved his Innocence and this is a sufficient Vindication of the Justice of God in it He has done us no injury we are by nature mortal Creatures and he leaves us in that mortal state and to withdraw favours upon a reasonable provocation is neither hard nor unjust II. For we must consider farther when Sin was once entred into the World an immortal Life here became impossible without a constant series of Miracles Adam had sinned and thereby corrupted his own nature and therefore must necessarily propagate a corrupt nature to his Posterity His earthly Passions were broke loose he now knew good and evil and therefore was in the hands of his own counsel to refuse or choose the good or evil and when the Animal Life was once awakned in him there was no great dispute which way his affections would incline To be sure it is evident enough in his Posterity whose boisterous passions act such Tragedies in the World. Now suppose in a state of Innocence that the Tree of Life would have preserved men immortal when no man would injure himself nor another when there was no danger from wild Beasts or an intemperate Air or poisonous Herbs yet I suppose no man will say but that even in Paradise itself could we suppose any such thing Adam might have been devoured by a Beast or killed with a Stab at the Heart or had there been any Poison there it would have killed him had he eaten or drunk it or else he had another kind of Body in Paradise than we have now for I am sure that these things would kill us Consider then how impossible it is that in this fallen and apostate State God should preserve Man immortal without working Miracles every minute Mens passions are now very unruly and they fall out with one another and will kill one another if they can of which the World had a very early example in Gain who slew his Brother Abel and all those Murders and bloody Wars since that day put this matter out of doubt Now this can never be prevented unless God should make our Bodies invulnerable which a body of flesh and blood cannot be without a Miracle some die by their own hands others by wild Beasts others by evil Accidents and there are so many ways of destroying these brittle Bodies that it is the greatest wonder that they last so long and yet Adam's body in Paradise was as very Earth and as brittle as our Bodies are but all this had been prevented had men continued innocent they would not then have quarrelled or fought they would not have died by their own hands nor drunk themselves into a Feavour nor over-loaded Nature with riotous Excesses there had been no wild Beasts to devour no infectious Air or poisonous Herbs and then the Tree of Life would have repaired all the decays of Nature
have no reason to think this any great hurt Nay indeed if we consider things aright the Divine Goodness has improved the Fall of Adam to the raising of Mankind to a more happy and perfect state for though Paradise where God placed Adam in Innocence was a happier state of life than this World freed from all the disorders of a mortal Body and from all the necessary cares and troubles of this Life yet you 'll all grant that Heaven is a happier place than an earthly Paradise and therefore it is more for our happiness to be translated from Earth to Heaven than to have lived always in an earthly Paradise You will all grant that the state of good men when they go out of these Bodies before the Resurrection is a happier life than Paradise was for it is to be with Christ as St. Paul tells us which is far better 1. Phil. 23. And when our Bodies rise again from the Dead you will grant they will be more glorious Bodies than Adam's was in Innocence For the first man was of the earth earthy but the second man is the Lord from heaven 1 Cor. 15. 47. Adam had an earthly mortal Body tho' it should have been immortal by Grace but at the Resurrection our Bodies shall be fashioned like unto Christ's most glorious Body The righteous shall shine forth like the sun in the kingdom of the Father that as we have born the image of the earthy we shall also bear the image of the heavenly 1 Cor. 15 49. So that our Redemption by Christ has infinitely the advantage of Adam's Fall and we have no reason to complain That by man came death since by man also came the resurrection of the dead That St. Paul might well magnifie the Grace of God in our Redemption by Christ above his Justice and Severity in punshing Adam's Sin with Death 5. Rom. 15 16 17. But not as the offence so also is the free gift For if through the offence of one many be dead much more the grace of God and the gift by grace which is by one man Iesus Christ hath abounded unto many And not as it was by one that sinned so is the gift for the judgment was by one to condemnation but the free gift is of many offences unto justification For if by one man's offence death reigned by one much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one Iesus Christ. Where the Apostle magnifies the Grace of God upon a fourfold account 1. That Death was the just Reward of Sin it came by the offence of one and was an act of Justice in God whereas our Redemption by Christ is the Gift of Grace the free Gift which we had no just claim to 2. That by Christ we are not only delivered from the effects of Adam's Sin but from the guilt of our own For though the judgement was by one to condemnation the free gift is of many offences unto justification 3. That though we die in Adam we are not barely made alive again in Christ but shall reign in life by one Iesus Christ which is a much happier Life than what we lost in Adam 4. That as we die by one man's offence so we live by one too By the righteousness of one the free gift comes upon all men unto justification of life We have no reason to complain that the Sin of Adam is imputed to us to Death if the Righteousness of Christ purchase for us eternal Life The first was a necessary consequence of Adam's losing Paradise the second is wholly owing to the Grace of God. Thus we see what it is that makes us mortal God did not make Death he created us in a happy and immortal state but by man sin entred into the world and death by sin What ever aversion then we have to Death should beget in us a greater horrour of Sin which did not only at first make us mortal but is to this day both the cause of Death and the Sting of it No degree indeed of Vertue now can preserve us from dying but yet Vertue may prolong our lives and make them happy while sin very often hastens us to the Grave and cuts us off in the very midst of our days An intemperate and lustful man destroys the most vigorous constitution of Body dies of a Feavour or a Dropsie of Rottenness and Consumptions others fall a Sacrifice to private Revenge or publick Justice or a Divine Vengeance for the wicked shall not live out half their days However setting aside some little natural aversions which are more easily conquered and Death were a very innocent harmless nay desirable thing did not Sin give a sting to it and terrifie us with the thoughts of that Judgment which is to follow quarrel not then at the Divine Justice in appointing Death God is very good as well as just in it but vent all your indignation against Sin pull out this sting of Death and then you will see nothing but smiles and charms in it then it is nothing but putting off these mortal Bodies to reassume them again with all the advantages of an immortal Youth It is certain indeed we must die this is appointed for us and the very certainty of our death will teach us that Wisdom which may help us to regain a better Immortality then we have lost SECT II. How to improve this Consideration that we must certainly Die. FOr 1. if it be certain that we must Die this should teach us frequently to think of Death to keep it always in our eye and view For why should we cast off the thoughts of that which will certainly come especially when it is so necessary to the good government of our lives to remember that we must die If we must die I think it concerns us to take care that we may die happily and that depends upon our living well and nothing has such a powerful influence upon the good government of our lives as the thoughts of Death I have already shewed you what Wisdom Death will teach us but no man will learn this who does not consider what it is to die and no man will practise it who does not often remember that he must die but he that lives under a constant sence of Death has a perpetual Antidote against the Follies and Vanities of this World and a perpetual Spur to Vertue When such a man finds his desires after this World enlarge beyond not onely the wants but the conveniencies of Nature Thou Fool says he to himself what is the meaning of all this what kindles this insatiable thirst of Riches why must there be no end of adding House to House and Field to Field is this World thy home is this thy abiding City dost thou hope to take up an eternal Rest here Vain man thou must shortly remove thy dwelling and then whose shall all these things be Death will shortly close thy eyes
summons to Death but much more necessary is it when Death is even at the door and by the course of Nature we know that it is so It is very proper to leave the World before we are removed out of it that we may know how to live without it that we may not carry any hanckerings after this World with us into the next and therefore it is very fitting that there should be a kind of a middle state between this World and the next that is that we should withdraw from this World to wean ourselves from it even while we are in it which will make it more easie to part with this World and make us more fit to go to the next But it seems strangely undecent unless the necessities of their Families or the necessities of the Publick call for it and exact it to see men who are just a going out of the World who it may be bow as much under their Riches as under their Age plunging themselves over head and ears in this World courting new Honours and Preferments with as much zeal as those who are but entring into the World. It is to be feared such men think very little of another World and will never be satisfied with Earth till they are buried in it SECT IV. What use to make of the Shortness of Humane Life 2. AS the general Period of Humane Life is fixt and determin'd by God so this term of life at the utmost extent of it is but very short For what are threescore and ten or fourscore years how soon do they pass away like a Dream and when they are gone how few and empty do they appear The best way to be sensible of this is not to look forward for we fancy time to come to be much longer than we find it but to look backward upon the time which is past and as long as we can remember and how suddenly are thirty or forty years gone how little do we remember how they past but gone they are and the rest are a going apace while we eat and drink and sleep and when they are gone too we shall be sensible that all together was but very short Now from hence I shall observe several things of very great use for the government of our Lives 1. If our lives be so very short it concerns us to lose none of our time for does it become us to be prodigal of our time when we have so little of it We either ought to make as much of our lives as we can or not complain that they are short for that is a greater reproach to ourselves than to the order of Nature and the Providence of God for it seems we have more time than we care to live in more than we think necessary to improve to the true ends and purposes of living and if we can spare so much of our lives it seems they are too long for us how short soever they are in themselves and when our lives are too long already for the generallity of Mankind to improve wisely why should God give us more time to play with and to squander away And yet let us all reflect upon ourselves and consider how much of our lives we have perfectly lost how careless we have been of our time which is the most precious thing in the World how we have given it to every body that will take it and given away so much of ourselves and our own being with it Should men set down and take a review of their lives and draw up a particular account of the expence of their time after they came to years of discretion and understanding what a shameful Bill would it be what unreasonable abatements of life how little time would there be at the foot of the account which might be called living So much extraordinary for eating and drinking and sleeping beyond what the support and refreshment of Nature required so much in Courtship Wantonness and Lust so much in Drinking and Revelling so much for the recovery of the last Night's Debauch so much in Gaming and Mascarades so much in paying and receiving formal and impertinent Visits in idle and extravagant Discourses in censuring and reviling our Neighbours or our Governours so much in dressing and adorning our Bodies so many blanck and long Parentheses of Life wasted in doing nothing or in counting the slow and tedious Minutes or chiding the Sun for making no more haste down and delaying their evening Assignations But how little would there appear in most mens account spent to the true ends of living The very naming of these things is sufficient to convince any considering man that this is really a mispending of time and a flinging away great part of a very short life to no purpose but to make you all sensible of this consider with me when we may be said to lose our time for time passes away very swiftly and we can no more hold it than we can stop the Charriot Wheels of the Sun but all time that is past is not lost indeed no time is our own but what is past or present and its being past makes it never the less our own if ever it was so but then we lose our time 1. When it turns to no account to us when it is gone when we are never the better for it in Body or Soul this is the true way of judging by our own sense and feeling whether we have spent our time well or ill by observing what relish it leaves upon our minds and what the effects of it are when it is past how vainly soever men spend their time they find some pleasure and diversion and entertainment in it while it lasts but the next morning it is all vanished as their night Dreams are and if they are not the worse for it they find themselves never the better And this is a certain sign that our time was vainly and foolishly spent that when it is gone it can be brought into no account of our lives but that of idle Expences Whatever is good whatever is in any degree useful leaves some satisfaction when it is gone and time so spent we can place to our account and all such time is not lost but men who spend one day after another in Mirth and Jollity and Entertainments in Visits or Gaming c. can give no other account of it but that it is a pleasant way of spending time And that is the true name for it not living but spending time which they know not how otherwise to pass away when their time is spent they have all they intended and their enjoyments pass away with their time and there is an end of both and it were somewhat more tolerable if they themselves could end with their time too but when men must out-live time and the effects of time must last to Eternity that time which if it have no ill yet has no good effects more lasting than itself is utterly
have had a good relish of it themselves yet when they are got loose from these Restraints and fall into ill Company and into the way of Temptations have a mind to try another kind of life and to tast those pleasures which they see Mankind so fond of and too often try so long till they grow as great Strangers to Piety and Vertue as they were ignorant of Vice before Now if such men ever be reclaimed again yet all their early beginnings of life are lost for here is a long interruption and intermission of life which sets them back in the account of Eternity and thus it is proportionably in every wilful sin we commit it makes a break in our lives does not only stop our progress for a while but sets us backward But he who begins betimes to live without any or very few and very short interruptions will be able to reckon a very long life by that time he attains to the common period of humane life 3. Especially if he live apace There is a living apace as some call it not to lengthen but to shorten life when men by minding their business well can in ten or twenty years destroy such a constitution of body and exhaust that vital heat and vigour which would have lasted another man sixty or eighty years this is to live much in a little time and to make an end of their lives quickly and the living apace I mean is to live much also in a little time but to double and treble our lives not to shorten them that is to do all the good that ever we can for the more good we do the more we live life is not meer duration but action time is not life but we live that is we act in time and he who does two days work in one lives as much in one day as other men do in two He who in one year does as much improve his mind in knowledge and wisdom and all Christian graces and vertues worships God as much and more devoutly does as much good to the World in all capacities and relations of life as another man does in two or three or four he lives so much proportionably longer than those other men he does the work of so much time and this is equivalent to nay much better than being so much time for he who can have the reward of two hundred years in the next World and not live above threescore or fourscore here I take to be a much happier man than he who spends two hundred years in this World This is the best way of lengthening our lives by living doubly and trebly which will make a vast addition to our lives in fifty or sixty years and then there will be no reason to complain of the shortness of them 3dly If our lives are so very short as most men complain they are surely we have little reason to complain of spending the whole of these short lives in the service of God for an eternal reward What are threescore or fourscore years when compared to eternity And therefore setting aside all the present advantages and pleasures of a life of Religion that this only is to live to improve and perfect our own Natures to serve God and to do good in the World Suppose there were nothing in Religion but hardships and difficulties a perpetual force and violence to Nature a constant War with the World and the Flesh cannot we indure all this so short a time for an endless reward Men think their day's work very well spent when they receive their wages at night and can go home and sup chearfully with their Family and sleep sweetly as labouring men use to do all night and yet our Saviour compares all the work and industry of our lives to Day-Labourers in the Parable of the Housholder who at several hours of the day hired Labourers to work in his Vineyard and paid them their wages at night 20 Matth. 1 c. We all confess that threescore and ten years if we live so long is but a very short time in itself and quickly passes away I am sure we all think so when it is gone and yet consider how much of this time is cut off by Infancy Childhood and Youth while we are under the care and conduct of Parents and Governours and are not our own men how much is spent in sleeping in eating and drinking and necessary diversions for the support and repair of these mortal bodies in our necessary business to provide for our Families or to serve the Publick which God allows and requires of us and accounts it serving himself while we live like men are sober and temperate and just and faithful to our trust which we should do for our own sakes and which all well governed Societies require of us without any consideration of another World so that there is but very little of this very short life spent purely in the service of God and in the care of our Souls and the concernments of a future State and is this too much for an Eternity of Bliss and Happiness To complain of Sobriety and Temperance and Moral Honesty as such unsufferable burdens that a man had better be damned than submit to them is not so much to complain of the Laws of God as of all the wise Governments in the World even in the Heathen World which branded all these Vices with Infamy and restrained and corrected them with condign Punishments it is to complain of humane Nature which has made all these Vices infamous and to think it better to be damned than to live like men and yet above two thirds of our time require the exercise of few other Vertues but these and whatever difficulties men may imagine in other acts of Religion if they can possibly think it so intolerable to love the greatest and the best Being to praise and adore Him to whom we owe ourselves and all we have to ask the supply of our wants from him who will be sure to give if we faithfully ask to raise our hearts above this World which is a Scene of Vanity Emptiness or Misery and to delight ourselves in the hope and expectations of great and eternal Happiness wherein the very life of Religion consists I say if these be such very difficult and uneasy things which one would wonder how they came to be difficult or why they should be thought so yet they imploy very little of our time and methinks a man might bear it to be happy for ever I am sure men take a great deal more pains for this World than Heaven would cost them and when they have it don't live to enjoy it and if this be thought worth their while surely to spend a short life in the service of God to obtain an endless and eternal Happiness is the best and most advantageous spending our time and we must have a very mean opinion of Heaven and Eternal Happiness if we think it not
worth the obedience and service of a few years how difficult soever that were 4hly If our lives are so very short at their utmost extent the sinful pleasures of this World can be no great temptation when compared with an Eternity of Happiness or Misery Those sensual pleasures which men are so fond of and for the sake of which they break the Laws of God and provoke his Justice forfeit immortal Life and expose themselves to all the Miseries and Sufferings of an eternal Death can last no longer than we live in this World and how little a while is that When we put off these Bodies all bodily pleasures perish with them nay indeed as our bodies die and decay by degrees before they tumble into the Grave so do our pleasures sensibly decay too As short as our lives are men may out-live some of their most beloved Vices and therefore how luscious soever they may be such short and dying Pleasures ought not to come in competition with eternal Happiness or Mifery what ever things are in their own nature the value of them increases or diminishes according to the length or shortness of their enjoyment that which will last our lives and make them easy and comfortable is to be prefered by wise men before the most ravishing enjoyments of a day and a happiness which will out-last our lives and reach to eternity is to be preferred before the perishing enjoyments of a short life unless men can think it better to be happy for threescore years than for ever nay unless men think the enjoyments of threescore years a sufficient recompence for eternal want and misery 5hly The shortness of our lives are a sufficient answer to all these arguments against Providence taken from the Prosperity of bad Men and the Miseries and Afflictions of the good for both of them are so short that they are nothing in the account of Eternity Were this life to be considered by it self without any relation to a future State the difficulty would be greater but not vâ—ry great because a short happiness or a short misery chequered and intermixt as all the happiness and miseries of this life are is not very considerable nor were it worth the while either to make objections against Providence or to answer them if Death put an end to us Bad men who make these Objections against Providence are very well contented to take the World as they find it so they may have it without a Providence which is a sign that it is not their dislike of this World though many times they suffer as much in it as good men do which makes them quarrel at Providence but the dread and fear of another World and this proves that they think this World a very tolerable place whether there be a Providence or not And if so short a life as this is be but tolerable it is a sufficient justification of Providence that this life is well enough for its continuance a very mixt and imperfect state indeed but very short too such a state as bad men themselves would like very well without another World after it and such a state as good men like very well with another Life to follow It is not a spight at humane life which makes them reject a Providence as any one would guess who hears them object their own Prosperity and the Calamities of good men as arguments against Providence both which they like very well and whatever there may be in these Objections supposing there were no other life after this yet when they all vanish at the very naming of another life where good Men shall be rewarded and the Wicked punished it is ridiculous to prove that there is no other life after this because rewards and punishments are not dispensed with that exact Justice in this life as we might suppose God would observe if there were no other life To prove that there is no other life after this because good and bad men do not receive their just rewards in this life is an Argument which becomes the wit and understanding of an Atheist for they must first take it for granted that there is no Providence before this argument can prove any thing for if there be a Providence then the prosperity of bad Men and the sufferings of the good is a much better argument that there is another life after this where rewards and punishments shall be more equally distributed Thus when they dispute against Providence from the Prosperity of bad men and the Calamities of the good before this can prove any thing they must take it for granted that there is no other life after this where good Men shall be rewarded and the wicked punished for if there be it is easie enough to justifie the Providence of God as to the present prosperity of bad men and the sufferings of the good So that they must of necessity dispute in a circle as the Papists do between the Church and the Scriptures when they either prove that there is no Providence or no Life after this from the unequal rewards and punishments of bad and good Men in this World For in effect they prove that there is no Providence because there is no life after this or that there is no life after this because there is no Providence for the prosperity of bad Men and the sufferings of the good proves neâ—â—her of them unless you take the other for granted and if you will prove them both by this Medium you must take them both for granted by turns and that is the easier and safer way to take them for granted without exposing themselves to the scorn of wise men by such kind of proofs But yet though this were no Objection against the being of another World and a Providence yet had the prosperity of bad Men and the calamities of the good continued some hundred years it had been a greater difficulty and a greater temptation than now it is The prosperity of the Wicked is a much less objection when it is so easily answered as the Psalmist does Yet a little while and the wicked shall not be yea thou shalt diligently consider his place and it shall not be 37 Psal. 10. When the very same persons who have been the Spectators and Witnesses of his prosperous Villanies live to see a quick and sudden end of him I have seen the wicked in great power and spreading himself like a green bay-tree yet he passed away and lo he was not yea I sought him but he could not be found 35 36 And this is enough also to support the spirits of good men For this cause we faint not but though our outward man perish yet the inward man is renewed day by day for our light affliction which is but for a moment worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory 2 Cor. 4. 16 17. SECT V. The time and manner and circumstances of every particular Man's Death is not determined
by an absolute and unconditional Decree II. THough God who knows all things does know also the time and manner and circumstances of every particular Man's Death yet it does not appear that he has by an absolute and unconditional Decree fixed and determined the particular time of every Man's Death This is that famous Question which Beverovicius a learned Physitian was so much concerned to have resolved and consulted so many learned men about as supposing it would be a great injury to his Profession did men believe that the time of their Death was so absolutely determined by God that they could neither die sooner nor live longer then that fatal Period whether they took the Advice and Prescriptions of the Physicians or not But this was a vain fear for there are some Speculations which men never live by how vehemently soever they contend for them A Sceptick who pretends that there is nothing certain and will dispute with you as long as you please about it yet will not venture his own arguments so far as to leap into Fire or Water nor to stand before the mouth of a loaded Canon when you give fire to it Thus men who talk most about fatal Necessity and absolute Decrees yet they will eat and drink to preserve themselves in health and take Physick when they are sick and as heartily repent of their sins and vow amendment and reformation when they think themselves a dying as if they did not believe one word of such absolute Decrees and fatal Necessity as they talk of at other times I do not intend to engage in this Dispute of Necessity and Fate of Prescience and absolute Decrees which will be Disputes as long as the World lasts unless men grow wiser than to trouble themselves with such Questions as are above their reach and which they can never have a clear notion and perception of but all that I intend is to shew you according to the Scripture account of it that the Period of our Lives is not so peremptorily determined by God but that we may lengthen or shorten them live longer or die sooner according as we behave ourselves in this World. Now this is very plain from all those places of Scripture where God promises long life to good Men and threatens to shorten the lives of the Wicked 91 Psal. 16. With long life will I satisfie him and shew him my salvation Solomon tells us of Wisdom Length of days is in her right hand and in her left riches and honours 3 Prov. 16. The fear of the Lord prolongeth days but the years of the wicked shall be shortned 10 Prov. 27. Thus God has promised long life to those who honour their Parents in the fifth Commandment and the same promise is made in more general terms to those who observe the Statutes and Commandments of God 4 Deut. 40. Upon the same condition God promised long life to King Solomon 1 Kings 3. 14. And if thou wilt walk in my ways to keep my statutes and commandments as thy father David did walk then will I lengthen thy days The same is supposed in David's Prayer to God not to take him away in the midst of his days 102 Psal. 24. And in 55 Psal. 23. he tells us That bloody and deceitful men shall not live out half their days Now one would reasonably conclude from hence that God has not absolutely and unconditionally determined the fatal period of every Man's life because he has conditionally promised to prolong Mens lives or threatned to shorten them for what place can there be for conditional Promises where an absolute Decree is past How can any man be said not to live out half his days if he lives as long as God has decreed he shall live for if the period of every particular Man's life be determined by God none are his days but what God has decreed for him As for matter of fact it is plain and evident both that men shorten their own lives and that God shortens them for them and that in such a manner as will not admit of an absolute and unconditional Decree Thus some men destroy a healthful and vigorous constitution of body by intemperance and lust and do as manifestly kill themselves as those who hang or poison or drown themselves and both these sorts of men I suppose may be said to shorten their own lives and so do those who rob or murder or commit any oother villany which forfeits their lives to publick Justice or quarrel and fall in a Duel and the like and yet you will no more say that God decreed and determined the death of these men then he did their sin Thus God himself very often shortens the lives of men by Plague and Famine and Sword and such other Judgments as he executes upon a wicked World and this must be confest to be the effect of God's counsel and decrees as a Judge decrees and pronounces the death of a Malefactor but this is not an absolute and unconditional decree but is occasioned by their sins and provocations as all Judgments are they might have lived longer and escaped these Judgments had they been vertuous and obedient to God for if they should have lived no longer whether they had sinned or not their death by what judgments soever they are cut off is not so properly the execution of Justice as of a peremtory Decree their lives are not shortned but their fatal period is come Indeed unless we make the Providence of God not the government of a wise and free Agent who acts pro re nata and rewards and punishes as men deserve as the Scripture represents it but an unavoidable execution of a long series of fatal and necessary Events from the beginning to the end of the World as the Stoicks thought we must acknowledge that in the government of free Agents God has reserved to himself a free liberty of lengthning or shortning mens lives as will best serve the ends of Providence for if we will allow Man to be a free Agent and that he is not under a necessity of sinning and deserving to be cut off at such a time or in such a manner the application of rewards and punishments to him must be free also or else they may be ill applied he may be punished when he deserves to be rewarded the fatal period of life may fall out at such a time when he most of all deserves long life and when the lengthning his life would be a publick Blessing to the World. Fatal and necessary Events can never be fitted to the government of free Agents no more than you can make a Clock which shall strike exactly for time and number when such a man speaks let him speak when or name what number he pleases And yet there is nothing of greater moment in the government of the World than a free power and liberty of lengthning or shortning mens lives for nothing more over-aws Mankind and keeps them more in
dependance on God nothing gives a more signal demonstration of a divine Power or Vengeance or Protection nothing is a greater blessing to Families or Kingdoms or a greater punishment to them than the life or death of a Parent of a Child of a Prince and therefore it is as necessary to reserve this Power to God as to assert a Providence There are two or three places of Scripture which are urged in favour of the contrary opinion 14 Job 5. Seeing his days are determined the number of his months are with thee thou hast appointed his bounds that he cannot pass 7 Job 1. Is there not an appointed time to man upon earth are not his days also like the days of an hireling Which refer not to the particular period of every Man's life but as I observed before to the general period of humane Life which is fixt and determined which is therefore called the days or the years of Man because God has appointed this the ordinary time of Man's life as when God threatens that the Wicked shall not live out half their days that is half that time which is allotted for men to live on Earth for they have no other interest in these days but that they are the days of a man and therefore might be their days too From what I have now discoursed there are two things very plainly to be observed 1. That men may contribute very much to the lengthening or shortning their own lives 2. That the Providence of God does peculiarly over-rule and determine this matter 1. As for the first there is no need to prove it for we see men destroy their own lives every day either by intemperance and lust or more open violence by forfeiting their lives to publick Justice or by provoking the Divine Vengeance and therefore who ever desires a long life to fill up the number of his days which God has allotted us in this World must keep himself from such destructive Vices must practise the most healthful Vertues must make God his Friend and engage his Providence for his defence Can any thing be more absurd than to hear men promise themselves long life and reckon upon forty or fifty years to come when they run into those Excesses which will make a quick and speedy end of them which will either inflame and corrupt their Bloud and let a Feavour or a Dropsy into their Veins or bring Rottenness into their Bones or engage them in some fatal Quarrel or ruine their Estates and send them to seek their fortune upon the Road which commonly brings them to the Gallows What a fatal Cheat is this which men put upon themselves especially when they sin in hope of time to repent and commit such sins as will give them no time to repent in The advice of the Psalmist is much better What man is he that desireth life and loveth many days that he may see good Keep thy tongue from evil and thy lips from speaking guile depart from evil and do good seek peace and persue it These are natural and moral causes of a long life but that is not all For the eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous and his ears are open unto their cry the face of the Lord is against them that do evil to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth That is God will prolong the lives of good Men and cut off the Wicked not that this is a general rule without exception but it is the ordinary method of Providence 34 Psal. 12 13 c. 2. For though God has not determined how long every man shall live by an absolute and unconditional Decree yet if a Sparrow does not fall to the ground without our Father much less does Man No man can go out of this World no more than he can come into it but by a special Providence no man can destroy himself but by God's leave no Disease can kill but when God pleases no mortal Accident can befal us but by God's appointment who is therefore said to deliver the Man into the hands of his Neighbour who is killed by any evil Accident 19 Deut. 4 5. Those wasting Judgments of Plague and Pestilence Famine and Sword are appointed by God and have their particular Commissions where to strike as we may see 26 Lev. 47. Ier. 6. 7. 65 Isai. 12. 15 Ierem. 2. 91 Psal. and several other places All the rage and fury of Men cannot take away our lives but by God's particular permission 10 Matth. 28 29 30 31. And this lays as great an obligation on us as the love of life can which is the dearest thing in this World to serve and please God this will make us secure from all fears and dangers My times saith David are in thy hand deliver me from the hand of mine enemies and from them that persecute me 31 Psal. 15. This encourages us to pray to God for ourselves or our Friends whatever danger our lives are in either from sickness or from men There is no case wherein he can't help us when he sees fit he can rectify the disorders of Nature and correct an ill habit of Body and rebuke the most raging Distempers which mock at all the Arts of Physick and powers of Drugs and many times does so by insensible methods To conclude this is a great satisfaction to good men that our lives are in the hands of God that though there be not such a fixt and immoveable Period set to them yet Death cannot come but by God's appointment SECT VI. The particular Time when we are to Die is unknown and uncertain to us III. THe particular time when any of us are to Die is unknown and uncertain to us and this is that which we properly call the uncertainty of our lives that we know not when we shall Die whether this night or to morrow or twenty years hence There is no need to prove this but only to mind you of it and to acquaint you what wise use you are to make of it 1. This shews how unreasonable it is to flatter ourselves with the hope of long life I mean of prolonging our lives near the utmost term and period of humane life which though it be but short in itself is yet the longest that any man can hope to live No wise man will promise himself that which he can have no reason to expect but what has very often failed others for let us seriously consider what reason any of us have to expect a long life is it because we are young and healthful and vigorous And do we not daily see young men die can youth or beauty or strength secure us from the arrests of Death is it because we see some men live to a great age But this was no security to those who died young and left a great many men behind them who had lived twice or thrice their age and therefore we also may see a great many old men and die young
so long in it that it weakens the hopes and fears of the next World by removing it at too great a distance from us that it encourages men to live in sin because they have time enough before them to indulge their Lusts and to repent of their Sins and make their Peace with God before they die and if the uncertain hopes of this undoes so many men what would the certain knowledge of it do Those who are too wise and considerate to be imposed on by such uncertain hopes might be conquered by the certain knowledge of a long life This would take off all restraints from men and give free scope to their vicious inclinations when they know that how wicked soever they were they should not die before their time was come and could never be surpiz'd by Death since they certainly knew when it will come which destroys one great motive to Obedience that Sin shall shorten Mens lives and that Vertue and Piety shall prolong them That the wicked shall not live out half their days that the fear of the Lord prolongeth days but the years of the wicked shall be shortned 10 Prov. 27. Such promises and threatnings as these must be struck out of the Bible should God let all men know the time of their death Nay this would frustrate the methods and designs of Providence for the reclaiming Sinners some times publick Calamities Plague and Famine and Sword alarum a wicked World and summon Men to repentance sometimes a dangerous fit of Sickness awakens Men into a sence of their sins and works in them a true and lasting repentance but all this would be ineffectual did Men know the time of their death and that such publick Judgments or threatning Sickness should not kill them The uncertainty of our Lives is a great motive to constant Watchfulness to an early and persevering Piety but to know when we shall die could serve no good end but would encrease the wickedness of Mankind which is too great already which is a sufficient Vindication of the Wisdom of God in leaving the time of Death unknown and uncertain to us SECT VII That we must Die but once or that Death translates us to an unchangable State with the Improvement of it THe last thing to be consider'd is That we must die but once It is appointed for men once to die There are some exceptions from this Rule as there are from dying that as Enoch and Elias did not die so some have been raised again from the Dead to live in this World and such men died twice But this is a certain Rule in general That as all men must die once so they must die but once which needs no other proof but the daily experience and observation of Mankind But that which I intend by it is this That once dying determines our state and condition for ever when we put off these mortal Bodies we must not return into them again to act over a new part in this World and to correct the errours and miscarriages of our former lives Death translates us to an immutable and unchangeable state that in this sence what the wise man tells us is true If the tree fall towards the south or toward the north in the place where the tree falleth there it shall be 11 Eccles. 3. This is a consideration of very great moment and deserves to be more particularly explain'd which I shall do in these following Propositions 1. That this life is the only state of trial and probation for Eternity And therefore 2. Death when ever it comes as it puts a final period to this life that we die once for all and must never live again as we do now in this World so it puts a final end to our work too that our day of grace and time of working for another World ends with this life And 3dly As a necessary consequence of both these once dying puts us into an immutable and unchangeable state 1. That this life only is our state of trial and probation for Eternity whatever is to be done by us to obtain the favour of God and a blessed Immortality must be done in this life I observed before that this life is wholly in order to the next that the great the only necessary business we have to do in this World is to fit and prepare ourselves to live for ever in GOD's presence To finish the work GOD has given us to do that we may receive the reward of good and faithful Servants to enter into our Master's rest I now add that the only time we have to do this in is while we live in this World This is evident from what S. Paul tells us That we must all appear before the judgement-seat of Christ that every one may receive the things done in his body according to that he hath done whether it be good or bad 2 Cor. 5. 10. Now if we must be judged and receive our final sentence according to what we have done in the body then our only time of trial and working is while we live in these Bodies for the future Judgment relates only to what is done in the Body The Gospel of Christ is the Rule whereby we must be judged even that Gospel which St. Paul preached 2 Rom. 16. and all the Laws and Precepts of the Gospel concern the government of our Conversation in this World and therefore if we be judged by the Gospel we must be judged only for what we have done in this World. This life throughout the Scripture is represented as the time of working as a Race a Warfare a labouring in the Vineyard the other World as a place of Recompence of Rewards or punishments and if there be such a relation between this World and the next as between fighting and conquering and receiving the Crown as between running a race and obtaining a prize as between the work and the reward then we must fight and conquer run our race and finish our work in this World if we expect the Rewards of the next Many of those Graces and Vertues which our Saviour has promised to reward with eternal Life can be exercised only in this World Faith and Hope are peculiar only to this Life while the other World is absent and unseen And these are the great Principles and Graces of the Christian Life to believe what we do not see and to live and act upon the hopes of future Rewards the government of our bodily appetites and passions by the rules of Temperance Sobriety and Chastity necessarily supposes that we have Bodies and bodily Appetites and Passions to govern and therefore these Vertues can be exercised only while we live in these Bodies which solicite and tempt us to sensual Excesses To live above this World to despise the tempting Glories of it is a Vertue only while we live in it and are tempted by it to have our Conversation in Heaven which is the most divine temper of Mind is
a Gospel-grace only while we live in this World at a great distance from Heaven to be contented in all Conditions to trust God in the greatest Dangers to suffer patiently for Righteousness sake c. I need not tell you are Vertues proper only for this World for there can be no exercise for them in Heaven unless we can think it a Vertue to be patient and contented with the Happiness and glory of that blessed Place Thus most of the Sins which the Gospel forbids under the penalty of eternal Damnation can be committed by us only in this World and in these Bodies such as Fornication Adultery Uncleanness Rioting Drunkenness Injustice Murder Theft Oppression of the Poor and Fatherless Earthly Pride and Ambition Covetuousness a fond Idolatry of this World Disobedience to Parents and Governours c. now if these be the things for which men shall be saved or damned it is certain that men must be saved or damned only for what they do in this Life Bad men who are fond of this World and of bodily Pleasures which makes them impatient of the severe restraints of Religion complain very much of this that their eternal Happiness or Misery depends upon such a short and uncertain Life that they must spend this Life under the awe and terrour of the next that some few momentary Pleasures must be punished with endless Misery and that if they out-slip their time of Repentance if they venture to sin on too long or die a little too soon there is no remedy for them for ever But let bad men look to this and consider the folly of their Choice I am sure how hard soever it may be thought to be eternally damned for the short pleasures of Sin no man can reasonably think it a hard condition of eternal Salvation to spend a short Life in the Service of God And if we will allow that God may justly require our Service and Obedience for so great a Reward as Heaven is where can we do him this Service but on Earth If a corrupt Nature must be cleansed and purified if an earthly Nature must be spiritualized and refined before it can be fit to live in Heaven where can this be done but on Earth while we live in these Bodies of flesh and are encompass'd with sensible Objects This is the time for a Divine Soul which aspires after Immortality to raise itself above the Body to conquer this present World by the belief and hope of unseen things to awaken and exercise its spiritual Powers and Faculties and to adorn itself with those Graces and Vertues which come down from Heaven and by the Mercies of God and the Merits of our Saviour will carry us up thither There is no middle State between living in this Body and out of it and therefore whatever habits and dispositions of Mind are necessary to make a Spirit happy when it goes out of this Body must be formed and exercised while it is in it Earth and Heaven are two extreams and opposite states of Life and therefore it is impossible immediately to pass from one to t'other a Soul which is wholly sensualiz'd by living in the Body if it be turn'd out of the Body without any change cannot ascend into Heaven which is a state of perfect Purity for in all reason the place and state of life must be fitted to the nature of things and therefore a life of Holiness while we live in these Bodies is a kind of a middle State between Earth and Heaven such a man belongs to both Worlds he is united to this World by his Body which is made of Earth and feels the impression of sensible Objects but his Heart and Affections are in Heaven by Faith he contemplates those invisible Glories and feels and relishes the pleasures of a heavenly Life and he who has his conversation in Heaven while he lives in this body is ready prepared and fitted to ascend thither when he goes out of it he passes from Earth to Heaven through the middle region if I may so speak of a holy and divine Life Besides this it was necessary to the happiness and good Government of this present World that future Rewards or Punishments should have relation to the good or evil which we do in this Life This in many cases lays restraints upon the lusts and passions of men when the Rods and Axes of Princes cannot reach them it over-awes them with invisible terrours and makes a guilty Conscience it s own Judge and Tormenter it sowers all the pleasures of sin stuffs the Adulterer's Pillow with Thorns and mingles Gall and Wormwood with the Drunkard's Cups it governs those who are under no other government whose boundless and uncontroulable power gives them opportunity of doing what mischief they please and gives them impunity in doing it but the most lawless Tyrants who fear no other Power yet feel the invisible restraints of Conscience and those secret and severe rebukes which make them tremble Nay many times the fear of the other World governs those whom no present Evils or Punishments could govern men who would venture whatever they could suffer in this life by their sins are yet afraid of Hell and dare not venture that those who would venture being sick after a Debauch who would venture to sacrifice their Bodies their Estates their Reputation in the service of their Lusts who are contented to take their fortune at the Gallows or at the Whipping-post yet dare not venture Lakes of Fire and Brimstone the Worm that never dieth and the Fire that never goeth out Thus on the other hand How much is it for the present Happiness of the World that Men should live in the practise of those Christian Graces and Vertues which no Humane Laws command and the neglect of which no Humane Laws will punish As to instance only in the love of Enemies and forgiveness of Injuries and such an universal Charity as does all the good it can to all Men. I need not prove that the exercise of these Vertues is for the good of the World or that no Humane Laws require the exercise of them in such noble measures and degrees as the Gospel does The Laws of the Land allow scope enough to satisfie the most revengful Man who will use all the extremities and all the vexatious arts of Prosecution unless nothing will satisfie his revenge but bloud and a speedy execution for the Laws ought to punish those Injuries which a good Christian ought to forgive and then some Men may be undone by legal Revenge and others damned for taking it If no Man should do any good Offices for others but what the Law commands there would be very little good done in the World for Laws are principally intended for the preservation of Justice but the acts of a generous and bountiful Charity are free and Men may be as charitable as the Law requires without any degree of that divine Charity which will carry them to
neither For there is no foundation that I know of for what some pretend that God has given us greater power over our own lives than over other Mens We find no such power given us in Scripture which is the only revelation of God's will and I am sure Nature teaches us no such thing nay Nature teaches the quite contrary the natural aversions to Death and the natural principle of Self-preservation were not only intended to make us cautious of any hurt or mischief which other Men may do us but to make us careful to do no hurt to much less to destroy ourselves and therefore the voice of Nature is That we must preserve our own lives and being When God made us he did not make us the absolute Lords and Masters of our selves we cannot dispose of ourselves as we please but are his Creatures and Subjects and must receive Laws from him and that in such instances wherein the injury is done only to ourselves We must not abuse our own Bodies by Intemperance and Luxury or Lust though neither the Publick nor any private persons are injured by it and if we have not power over our own Bodies in lesser instances much less to kill them And if it be a sin to destroy our own lives it is the most mortal and damning sin for it destroys Soul and Body together because it makes our repentance impossible unless Men can repent of their sin and obtain God's pardon for it before they have committed it or can repent and obtain their pardon in the next World. Did Men seriously consider this it is impossible that the greatest shame and infamy want or suffering or whatever it is that makes them weary of life should be thought so intolerable as to make them force their passage into the other World to escape it when such a violent and unnatural escape will cost them their Souls Men may be in such evil circumstances as make death desirable but no considering Man will exchange the sufferings of this life for the endless miseries of the next If we cannot destroy our Lives and put an end to our present sufferings without destroying our Souls too we must be contented to live on and bear our lot patiently in this World which whatever it is is much more easie and tolerable than to be eternally miserable And yet God forbid that I should pronounce a final and peremptory Sentence upon all those unfortunate persons who have died by their own hands We know not what allowances God may make for some Mens opinion of the lawfulness of it and for the distraction of other Mens thoughts and passions thro' a setled melancholy or some violent temptation My business is not to limit the Soveraign and Prerogative Grace of God but to declare the nature of the thing according to the Terms of the Gospel To Murder ourselves is the most unnatural Murder it is a damning Sin and such a sin as no Man can repent of in this World and therefore unless God forgive it without repentance it can never be forgiven and the Gospel of Christ gives us no commission to preach Forgiveness of Sin without Repentance the Gospel-grace which only forgives Penitents cannot save such Men and he is a very bold Man and ventures very far upon unpromised and uncovenanted Mercy who will commit a sin which the Grace of the Gospel cannot pardon All that I have to add under this Head is the case of those who die in despair of God's Mercy This is commonly thought a very hopeless state for to despair of the mercy of God is a great sin and therefore such Men die in the actual commission of sin unrepented of and By-standers are apt to suspect their despair to be little better than their final doom and sentence and yet many times we see Men labouring under despair in their last Agonies who have to all outward appearance lived very innocent and vertuous lives and it is hard to judge so severely of them as to think they were secret Hypocrites and that God has finally rejected them because they pass such a severe judgment upon themselves Now I confess despair is as uncomfortable a state as any Man can die in but I cannot think it so fatal and dangerous as some imagine for let us consider what the nature of Despair is and wherein the sinfulness of it consists To disbelieve the Promises of Grace and Mercy made to true penitent Sinners by Jesus Christ is Infidelity not Despair and this indeed is a great and unpardonable sin for it is to renounce the Faith of Christ and the Grace of the Gospel but this is not what we commonly call Despair Such men believe the Gospel of Christ and all the Promises of it as firmly as others do they do not doubt but God will forgive all true Penitents through the Merits and Mediation of Jesus Christ and therefore are as true and sincere Believers as those who do not despair but their despair is in the application of these Promises to themselves that is they fear that they are not within the Terms and Conditions of Gospel-grace that they are not true Penitents that their Day of Grace is expired and now they shall not receive the Blessing though as Esau did they seek it earnestly with tears or it may be that they are Reprobates who have no right to the Promises of the Gospel Now if these Men may upon all other accounts be very good Christians but are either oppressed with melancholy or disturbed with false and mistaken notions of Religion can we think that their melancholy or mistakes which make them pass so false a judgment upon themselves shall make God condemn them too who knows them better than they know themselves Should a Man who has a delirous fancy accuse himself of Theft or Murder or Treason which he was never guilty of would a just and righteous Judge who certainly knows that he is not gulty of these crimes condemn him only because he condemns himself Suppose a Man who is in the right way to Heaven should be perswaded by some Travellers he meets that he has mistaken his way and upon this he should fall into great horrors and agonies and give himself for lost is this Man ever the further off of Heaven because he is perswaded that he has mistaken the way The false judgments dying Men make of themselves either through Enthusiasm Presumption or Despair shall not determine their final State Men may go to Hell with all the triumphs of a deluded fancy which promises nothing less than eternal Glories and those who go trembling out of this World may find themselves happily mistaken in the next It is a wrong notion of justifying Faith which makes Men conclude Despair to be so damning and unpardonable a Sin if justifying Faith were nothing else but a strong belief and perswasion that we are justified there were good reason to conclude Despair to be a mortal Sin because it is
a direct contradiction to justifying Faith nay if the justifying act of Faith were an actual reliance and recumbency on Christ for Salvation Despair must be very mortal because while Men are under these Agonies they do not they cannot rely on Christ for Salvation for they believe that Christ has cast them off and will not save them but if to believe in Christ that he is the Saviour of the World that he has made expiation for our Sins and intercedes for us at the right hand of God and is able to save to the uttermost all those that come unto God by him that he will save all true penitent Sinners and will save us if we be true Penitents I say if such a Faith as this when it brings forth the genuine fruits of Repentance and a holy Life be a true justifing Faith this is consistent with the blackest Despair and then Men may be in a justified state though they are never so strongly perswaded that they are Reprobates A very good Man may have his fancy disturbed and may pass a false judgment upon himself but this is no reason for God to condemn him no more than God will justifie a presuming and enthusiastick Hypocrite because he justifies himself 4. If Death put a final end to our Work and Labour and shuts up our Accounts then it concerns us to do all the good that we can while we live What ever our hand findeth to do we should do it with all our might seeing there is no wisdom nor knowledge nor working in the grave whither we are hasting Not that the next World is an idle and unactive State where we shall know nothing and have nothing to do but Death puts an end to our working for the other World nothing can be brought to our account at the Day of Judgment but the good we do while we live here for this onely we shall receive our reward proportionable to the encrease and wise improvement of our Talents And is not this a good reason why we should begin to serve God betimes and to take all opportunities of doing good since we have only a short life to work in for Eternity There are great and glorious rewards prepared for good Men but those shall have the brightest Crown who do the most good in the World who are rich in good works and lay up for themselves treasures in heaven Indeed the meanest place in Heaven is a happiness too great for us to conceive I 'm sure much greater than our greatest deserts but since our bountiful Lord will reward all the good service we do why should we neglect doing any good when such neglects will lessen our reward why should we be contented to lose any degrees of Glory This is a holy Ambition to be as good and to be as happy as God can make us This is never thought of by those Men who have no greater designs than to escape Hell but as for the Glories of Heaven they can be contented with the least share of them No Man will ever get to Heaven who so despises the Glories of it and if a late repentance should open our eyes not only to see our sins but to alter our opinions of this World and of the next yet we can never recal our past time and that little time that remains which is the very dregs and sediment of our lives the dead and unactive Scene will minister very few opportunities of doing good and if it did we are capable of doing very little and if we get to Heaven that will be all but the bright and triumphant Crowns shall be bestowed upon those who have improved their time and their talents better It is the good we do while we live that shall be rewarded and therefore we must take care to do good while we live It is well when Men who do no good while they live will remember to do some good when they die But if God should accept such presents as these yet it will make great abatements in the account that they kept their Riches themselves as long as they could and would part with nothing to God till they could keep it no longer it is not the Gift but the mind of the Giver that is accepted Under the Gospel God is pleased with a living Sacrifice but the Offerings of the Dead and such these Testimentary Charities are which are intended to have no effect as long as we live are no better than dead Sacrifices and it may be questioned whether they will be brought into the account of our lives if we did no good while we lived The case is different as to those who did all the good they could while they lived and when they saw they could live no longer took care to do good after death such surviving Charities as these prolong our lives and add daily to our account when such Men are removed into the other World they are doing good in this would still they have a Stock a going below the increase and improvements of which will follow them into the other World Men who have been charitable all their lives may prolong their Charity after death and this will be brought to the Account of their Lives but I cannot see how a Charity which commences after death can be called doing good while we live and then it cannot belong to the Account of our Lives all that can be said for it is this That they make their Wills whereby they bequeath these Charities while they live and therefore their bequeathing these Charities is an act of their Lives but they never intend they shall take place while they live but after their death and when they never intend their Charity to be an act of their Lives I know not why God should account it so These Death-bed Charities are too like a Death-bed Repentance Men seem to give their Estates to God and the Poor just as they part with their Sins when they can keep them no longer This is much such a Charity as it is Devotion to bequeath our dead Bodies to the Church or Chancel which we would never visit while we lived But yet as I have already intimated this is the only way to prolong our Lives and to have an increasing Account after death to lay the foundations of some great good to the World which shall out live us which like Seed sown in the Earth shall spring up and yeild a plentiful Harvest while we sleep sweetly in the dust such as the religious Education of our Children and Families which may propagate itself in the World and last many Ages after we are dead the Endowment of Publick Schools and Hospitals in a word whatever is for the Relief of the Necessities or for the Instruction and good Government of Mankind when we are gone To do good while we live and to lay designs of great good to future Generations will both come into our Account and this may extend the Account of our
or the constant and uniform practice of an universal Righteousness And a great many such Signs have been invented which like strong Opiates asswage their pain and smart till their Consciences awake when it is too late in the next World. For all this is Cheat and Delusion as St. Iohn assures us Little children Let no man deceive you he that doth righteousness is righteous even as he is righteous He that committeth sin is of the devil for the devil sinneth from the beginning for this purpose the Son of God was manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil Whosoever is born of GOD doth not commit sin for his seed remaineth in him and he cannot sin because he is born of GOD. In this the children of GOD are manifest and the children of the devil whosoever doth not righteousness is not of GOD neither he that loveth not his brother This is the only sure Evidence for Heaven and therefore every Sin Men commit makes their state doubtful and this must fill them with perplexities and fears Men may cheat themselves with vain hopes and imaginations when they come to die but nothing can be a solid foundation for Peace and Security but an Universal Righteousness The CONCLUSION FOr the Conclusion of this Discourse I shall only observe in a few words that it must be the business of our whole Lives to prepare for Death Our Accounts must be always ready because we know not how soon we may be called to give an account of our Stewardship we must be always upon our Watch as not knowing at what hour our Lord will come A good Man who has taken care all his life to please God has little more to do when he sees Death approaching than to take leave of his Friends to bless his Children to support and comfort himself with the hopes of immortal Life and a glorious Resurrection and to resign up his Spirit into the hands of God and of his Saviour His Lamp is full of Oyl and always burning tho' it may need a little trimming when the Bridegroom comes some new acts of Faith and Hope and such devout Passions as are proper to be exercised at our leaving the World and going to God but when the Bridegroom is at the Door it is too late with the foolish Virgins to buy Oyl for our Lamps unless we be ready when the Bridegroom comes to enter in with him to the Marriage the Door will be shut against us Watch therefore for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh Some Men talk of preparing for Death as if it were a thing that could be done in two or three days and that the proper time of doing it were a little before they die but I know no other Preparation for Death but living well and thus we must every day prepare for Death and then we shall be well prepared when Death comes that is we shall be able to give a good account of our Lives and of the improvement of our Talents and he who can do this is well prepared to die and to go to Judgment but he who has spent all his days wickedly whatever care he may take when he comes to die to prepare himself for it it is certain he can never prepare a good Account of his past Life and all his other Preparations are little worth The END ADVERTISEMENT A Preservative against Popery in two Parts With a Vindication in Answer to the Cavils of Lewis Sabran a Jesuit By William Sherlock D. D. Master of the Temple Printed for W. Rogers 2. Heb. 14 15. See 5 Prov. 22 23. 7. 22 23 26 27. 3 Heb. 12. 12 Heb. 15. 2 Pet. 2. 20 21 22. 12 Heb. 14. 2 Rom. 6 7 8 9 10. 6 Gal. 7 8. 20 Mat. 1 c. 15 Luk. 11 c. 1 Rom. 18. 1 Cor. 6 9 10. 7 Mat. 21. 18 Mat. 21 22. 2 Acts 38 41. 3 Rom. 20 21 22 24. 5 Rom. 1. 2 Eph. 8 9. 5 Gal. 2 3. Ibid. 2 Rom. 13 25 26 27 28 29. 8 Rom. 4. 1 Cor. 15. 55 56 57. 7 Heb. 25. 1 John 3. 20 21. 1 John 3. 7 8 9 10. 25 Mat. 1 c.