could not be so unwilling to be removed to it for no man is unwilling to be happy or to attain his end But stay a little and better consider of your Case Is it Christ that your heart is thus a verse to or is it only Death that standeth in the way You are not I hope unwilling to see the face of God nor unwilling to be translated from earth to heaven but unwilling to die It is not because you love the creature better then the Creator but because you are afraid of Death You may love God and long to be perfected in holiness and to see his Glory and to have the most near Communion with him and yet at the same time you may fear this Enemy that standeth in your way I mean not only the Pain of death but principally the dissolution of our natures and the separation of the soul from the body and its abode in a separated state and the bodies abode in dust and darkness Grace it self is not given us to reconcile us to corruption and make death as death to seem desirable but to cause us patiently to bear the evil because of the good that is beyond it It is not our duty to love death as death Had it not been naturally an evil to be dreaded and avoided God would not have made it the matter of his threatning nor would it have been a fit means to restrain men from transgression To threaten a man with a benefit as such is a contradiction Enquire therefore into your hearts whether there be not a belief of heaven a love to God a desire to enjoy and please him even while you draw back and seem to be a verse and whether it be not only a lothness to die and not a lothness to be with Christ For the fuller discovery of this because I find that our comfort much dependeth on it I shall try you by these following Questions Quest 1. What is it that is ungrateful to you in your meditations of your change Is it God and Heaven or is it Death If it be only Death it seems it is not the want of Love to God and Heaven that causeth your averseness If it be God himself that is ungrateful to your thoughts it is because you desire not his nearer presence or communion with him in the state of glory or is it only because you fear lest you have no interest in his Love and shall not attain the blessedness which you desire If it be the first I must confess it proves a graceless soul and signifieth the want of Love to God But if it be the latter only it may stand with grace For Desire is a true signification of Love though there be doubts and fears lest we shall miss the attainment of those desires Quest 2. Would you not gladly hear the news of your removal if you might be changed without Death and translated to heaven as Henoch and Elias were and as Christ at his Ascension Had you not far rather be thus changed then abide on earth If so then it seems it is not God and Heaven that you are against but death Nay if you could reach Heaven by travelling a thousand miles would you not gladly take the journey as soon as you had got assurance of your title to it and done the work of God on earth If it were but a Peter James and John to go with Christ into an exceeding high Mountain and there to see him in glory Mat. 17. 12. would you not gladly do it It seems that thou desirest to see the Lord and thy love is to him though thou be afraid of death Quest 3. Consider of the Nature of the Heavenly felicity and try whether thou love it in the several parts One part is our personal Perfection that oursouls shall be free from ignorance and error and sin and sorrow and enlarged for the perfect Love of God and our bodies at the Resurrection made like the glorious body of our Lord Phil. 3. 21. and wouldst thou not be thus perfected in soul and body Another part is that we shall live with the society of Angels and glorified Saints And wouldst thou not have such company of sinners and enemies and imperfect Saints on earth Another part is we shall see our glorified Head and be with him where he is that we may behold his glory And doth not thy heart desire this But the perfection of our Happiness is that we shall see the face of the glory of God which is the light of that world as truly as the Sun is the light of this and that we shall be filled up with the feeling of his Love and abound with Love to him again and perfectly delighted in this Communion of Love and express in the Praises of the LORD and thus make up the New Jerusalem where GOD will place his glorious presence and in which he will for evermore take pleasure And is there any thing in this that thy soul is against and which dost not value above this WORLD If thou find that all the parts are sweet and the Description of Heaven is most grateful to thee and that this is the state that thou wouldst be in it seems then it is not Heaven but Death that thou art averse from and that maketh thee so loth to hear the tydings of thy change Quest 4. Couldst thou not joyfully see the coming of Christ if it were this day if thou have done thy work and art assured of his love The Apostle hath told us by the word of the Lord that the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout with the voice of the Archangel and with the Trump of God and the dead in Christ shall rise first and then they which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air and so shall we ever be with the Lord 1 Thes 4. 15 16 17. And this is the doctrine that comforteth believers verse 18. Would it not rejoyce your hearts if you were sure to live to see the coming of the Lord and to see his glorious appearing and retinue If you were not to die but to be caught up thus to meet the Lord and to be changed immediately into an immortal incorruptible glorious state would you be averse to this would it not be the greatest joy that you could desire For my own part I must confess to you that death as death appeareth to me as an enemy and my nature doth abhor and fear it But the thoughts of the Coming of the Lord are most sweet and joyful to me so that if I were but sure that I should live to see it and that the Trumpet should sound and the dead should rise and the Lord appear before the period of my age it would be the joyfullest tydings to me in the world O that I might see his Kingdome come It is the Character of his Saints to love his appearing 2
Two Treatises The first of DEATH On 1 Cor. 15. 26. The Second of JUDGMENT On 2 Cor. 5. 10 11. By Rich. Baxter LONDON Printed for Nevil Simmons at the Princes-Arms in St. Pauls Church-yard 1672. A Treatise of DEATH The last ENEMY to be destroyed Shewing wherein its enmity consisteth and how it is destroyed Part of it was Preached at the Funerals of Elizabeth the late Wife of Mr. Joseph Baker Pastor of the Church at Saint Andrews in Worcester By Rich. Baxter With some few passages of the life of the said Mrs. Baker observed Psal 15. 4. In whose eyes a vile person is contemned but he honoureth them that fear the Lord. 1 Cor. 15. 55 56 57. 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 thanks be to God which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ LONDON Printed for Nevil Simmons at the Princes-Arms in St. Pauls Church-yard 1672. To the Worshipfull the Major Aldermen and Sheriff of the City of Worcester with the rest of the Inhabitants especially those of the Parishes of Andrews and Hellens Worshipfull and the rest Beloved THE chief part of this following Discourse being preached among you and that upon an occasion which you are obliged to consider Isa 57. 1. being called to publish it I thought it meet to direct it first to your hands and to take this opportunity plainly and seriously to exhort you in some matters that your present and everlasting peace is much concerned in Credible fame reporteth you to be a people not all of one mind or temper in the matters of God but that 1. Some of you are Godly Sobe and Peaceable 2. Some well-meaning and zealous but addicted to divisions 3. Some Papists 4. Some Hiders seduced by your late deceased neighbour Clement Writer to whom the Quakers do approach in many opinions 5. And too many prophane and obstinate persons that are heartily and seriously of no Religion but take occasion from the divisions of the rest to despise or neglect the Ordinances of God and join themselves to no Assemblies 1. To the first sort having least need of my exhortation I say no more but As you have received Christ Jesus the Lord so walk ye in him rooted and built up in him and stablished in the faith as ye have been taught abounding therein with thanksgiving and beware lest any man spoil you by deceit c. Col. 2. 6 7 8. Walk as a chosen generation a royal Priest-hood a holy Nation a peculiar people to shew forth the praises of him that hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light having your conversation honest among the ungodly that whereas they are apt to speak against you as evil doers they may by your good works which they shall behold glorifie God in the day of visitation For so is the will of God that with well doing you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men 1 Pet. 2. 9 11 12 15. Your labour and patience is known to the Lord and how ye cannot bear them which are evill but have tried them which say they speak from the Lord and are Apostles and are not and have found them lyars even the woman Jezabel that is suffered to teach and seduce the people calling her self a Prophetess who shall be cast into a bed of tribulation and all that commit adultery with her except they repent and her children shall be killed with death and all the Churches shall know that Christ is he which searcheth the reines and hearts and will give to every one according to their work As for your selves we put upon you no other burden but that which you have already Hold fast till the Lord come Rev. 2. Be watchfull that ye fall not from your first Love and if any have declined and grown remiss remember how you have received and heard and hold fast and repent and strengthen the things that remain which are ready to die lest your Candlestick should be removed Rev. 3. 2 3 c. And beware lest ye also being led away with the error of the wicked fall from your own stedfastness but grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ 2 Pet. 3. 17 18. And I beseech you brethren do all things without murmurings and disputings that ye may be blameless and harmless the Sons of God without rebuke in the midst of a crooked and perverse Nation among whom you and your brethren shine as lights in the world Phil. 2. 14 15. And if in well doing you suffer think it not strange but rejoyce that ye are partakers of the sufferings of Christ that when his glory shall be revealed ye may be glad also with exceeding joy If ye be reproached for the name of Christ ye are happy for the Spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you being glorified on your part while he is evil spoken of on theirs 1 Pet. 4. 12 13 14. 2. To the second sort inclinable to divisions let me tender the Counsel of the Holy Ghost Jam. 3. 1. My brethren be not many Masters or Teachers knowing that ye shall receive the greater condemnation The wisdom that is from above is first pure and then Peaceable gentle and easie to be intreated full of mercy good fruits without partiality and without hipocrisie And the fruit of Righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace Who then is the wise and knowing man amongst you Let him shew out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts glory not and lye not against the truth This wisdom descendeth not from above but is earthly sensuall devilish For where envying and strife is there is confusion and every evil work Look on those Assemblies where the people professing the fear of God are of one heart and mind and walk together in Love and holy Order and people give due honour and obedience to their faithful Guides and compare them with the Congregations where professors are self-conceited unruly proud and addicted to ostentation of themselves and to divisions and see which is likest to the Primitive pattern and in which it is that the power of godliness prospereth best and the beauty of Religion most appears and Christians walk as Christians indeed If pride had not brought the heavy judgment of infatuation or insensibility on many the too clear discoveries of the fruits of divisions in the numerous and sad experiences of this age would have caused them to be abhorred as odious and destructive by those that now think they do but transcend their lower brethren in holiness and zeal I beseech you therefore brethren by the name of the Lord Jesus Christ that you all speak the same thing and that there be no divisions among you but that you be perfectly joyned together in the same mind and
Catholick Church and the Communion of Saints what is it to hate the Holy members of the Church and to avoid if not deride the Communion of Saints Be not deceived God is not mocked A mock-Religion and the name of Christianity will never save you Do you know how near you are to judgement and will you fearlesly thus heap up wrath and lay in fewel for the everlasting flames Do you know how speedily you shall wish in the bitterness of your souls that you had heard and prayed and laboured as for your lives and redeemed your time and obeyed your Teachers and yet will you now stand loitering and quarrelling and jesting and dallying in the matters of salvation and will you live as if you had nothing but the world to mind when you are even readie to step into the endless world O Sirs do you know what you are doing You are abusing the living God and wronging the Lord Jesus and trampling upon that mercy which would comfort you in your extremity a drop of which you would then be glad of You are grieving your poor Friends and Teachers and preparing for your endless grief Alas what should a faithfull Minister do for the saving of your souls He seeth you befooled in your security and carelesly passing on towards Hell and cannot help it He sees you posting to your misery where you will be out of the reach of all our exhortations and where mercie will not follow you to be accepted or rejected and though he see you almost past remedie he cannot help you He knoweth not when he speaks to you whether ever he shall speak unto you more and whether ever you shall have another call and offer and therefore he would fain speak effectually if he could but it is not in his power He knows that the matter sticks all at your own wills and that if he could but procure your own consent to the most reasonable and necessary business in the world the work were done and you might scape the everlasting flames And yet this is it that he cannot procure O wonderful that any man should be damned Yea that many men and most men should be damned when they might be saved if they would and will not Yea that no saying will serve to procure their consent and make them willing That we must look on our poor miserable neighbours in Hell and say they might have been saved once but would not they had time and leave to turn to God and to be holy and happy as well as others but we could never prevaile with them to consent and know the day of their visitation O what should we do for the saving if careless senseless souls Must we let them go Is there no remedie Shall Ministers study to meet with their necessities and tell them with all possible plainness and compassion of the evil that is a little before them teach them how they may escape it Why this they do from day to day and some will not hear them but are tipling or idleing or making a jeast of the Preacher at home and others are hearing with prejudice and contempt and most are hardned into a senseless deadness and all seems to them but as an emptie sound and they are so used to hear of Heaven and Hell that they make as light of them as if there were no such States Alas that while millions are weeping and wailing in utter desperation for the neglecting of their day of grace and turning away from him that called them our poor hearers at the same time should wilfully follow them when they are told from God what others suffer Alas that you should besleepy dead under those means that should waken you to prevent eternal death and that ever you should make merry so near damnation and be sporting your selves with the same kind of sins that others at the same hour are tormented for And is such madness as this remediless in people that seem as wise as others for worldly things Alas for any thing that we can do experience tells us that with the most it is remediless Could we remedie it our poor people should not wilfully run from Christ and lie in the flames of Hell for ever Could our perswasions and entreaties help it they should not for ever be shut out of Heaven when it s offered to them as well as others We bewail it from our hearts before the Lord that we can entreat them no more earnestly and beg not of them as for our lives to look before them and hearken to the voice of grace that they may be saved And a thousand times in secret we call our selves hard-hearted unmerciful and unfaithful in too great a measure that speak no more importunatelie for the saving of mens souls when we know not whether we shall ever speak to them any more Is this all that we can say or do in so terrible a case and in a matter of such weight as mens salvation The Lord forgive our great insensibilitie awaken us that we may be fit to waken others But yet for all this with grief we must complain that our people feel not when we feel and that they are senseless or asleep when we speak to them as seriously as we can and that tears and moans do not prevail but they go home and live as stupidlie in an unconverted state as if all were well with them and they were not the men we speak to O that you knew what a fearful judgment it is to be forsaken of God because you would have none of him and to be given up to your hearts lusts to walk in your own Counsells because you would not hearken to his voice Psa 81. 11 12 13. and to have God say Let those wretches be ignorant and careless and fleshly and worldly and filthy still Rev. 22. 11. O that you knew but not by experience what a heavie plague it is to be so forsaken as to have eyes that see not or seeing do not percieve and to have ears that hear not or to hear and not understand and so to be unconverted and unhealed Mark 4. 12. and to be hardned and condemned by the word and patience and mercies that do soften and save others and should have saved you Take heed lest Christ say I have sent them my messenger long enough in vaine From henceforth never fruit grow on them Because they would not be converted they shall not Take heed lest he take you away from means and quickly put an end to your opportunities You see how fast men pass away but little do you know how manie are lamenting that they made no better use of time and helps and mercies while they had them O hear while you may hear for it will not be long Read while you may read and pray while you may pray and turn while you may turn and go to your Christian friends teachers and enquire of them what you must do to be
saved before enquiring be too late Spend the Lords Day and what other time you can redeem in holy preparations for your endless Rest while you have such a happie day to spend O sleep no longer in your sins while God stands over you lest before you are aware you awake in Hell Patience and Mercie have their appointed time and will not alway wait and be despised O let not your Teachers be forced to say We would have taught them publikelie and privatelie but they would not We would have Catechized the ignorant and exhorted the negligent but some of them would not come near us and others of them gave us but the hearing and went away such as they came If once by forfeiting the Gospel the Teachers whom you slight be taken from you you may then sin on and take your course till time and help and hope are past The providence that called me to this work was some warning to you Though it was not the calling away your Teacher it was a removing of his helper a pattern of meekness and godliness and charitie and he is left the more disconsolate in the prosecution of his work God hath made him faithful to your souls and careful for your happiness He walks before you in humilitie and self-denial and Patience and peaceableness and in an upright inoffensive life He is willing to teach you publicklie and privatelie in season and out of season He manageth the work of God with prudence moderation and yet with Zeal carefullie avoiding both ungodliness and schism or the countenancing of either of them Were he not of eminent wisdom and integritie his name would not be so unspotted in a place where Dividers and Disputers Papists and Quakers and so manie bitter enemies of godliness do watch for matter of accusation and reproach against the faithful Ministers of Christ As you love the safetie and happiness of your City and of your souls undervalue not such mercies nor think it enough to put them off with your commendations and good word It is not that which they live and preach and labour for but for the Conversion Edification and Salvation of your souls Let them have this or they have nothing if you should give them all you have The enemies of the Gospel have no wiser Cavil against the painful Labourers of the Lord then to call them Hirelings and blame them for looking after Tithes and great matters in the world But as among all the faithful Ministers of this Countrie through the great mercie of God these adversaries are now almost ashamed to open their mouths with an accusation of Covetousness So this your Reverend faithful Teacher hath stopt the mouth of all such calumnie as to him When I invited him from a place of less work and a competent maintenance to accept of less then half that maintenance with a far greater burden of work among you he never stuck at it as thinking he might be more serviceable to God and win that which is better then the riches of this world And if now you will frustrate his expectations and disappoint his labours and hopes of your salvation it will be easier for Sodom in the day of judgment then for you Alas how sad is it to see a faithful Minister longing and labouring for mens salvation and manie of them neglecting him and others picking groundless quarrels and the proud unrulie selfish part rebelling and turning their backs upon their Teachers when ever they will not humour them in their own wayes or when they deal but faithfullie with their souls Some even of those that speak against disobedience conventicles and schism turn away in disdain if their Children may not be needleslie baptized in private houses and if that solemn Ordinance may not be celebrated in a Parlour-Conventicle How manie refuse to come to the Minister in private to be instructed or Catechised or to confer with him about their necesarie preparation for death and Judgement Is not this the case of manie among you Must not your Teachers say He sent to you and was willing to have done his part and you refused Little will ye now believe how heavie this will lie upon you one day and how dear you shall pay for the causless grieving and disappointment of your guides It is not your surliness and passions that will then serve turn to answer God Nor shall it save you to say that Ministers were of so manie minds and wayes that you knew not which of them to regard For it was but one way that God in the holy Scripture did prescribe you and all faithful Ministers were agreed in the things which you reject and in which you practicallie differ from them all What are we not all agreed that God is to be preferred before the world and that you must first seek the Kingdom of God his Righteousness that no man can be saved except he be converted and born again and that he that hath not the Spirit of Christ is none of his Mat. 6. 33 John 3. 3 5. Mat. 18. 3. Rom. 8. 9. and that you and your housholds should serve the Lord Josh 24. 15. Are we not all agreed that the Law of the Lord must be your delight and that you must meditate in it day and night Psal 1. 2 3. and that you must be constant and fervent in Prayer 1 Thes 5. 17. Luke 18. 1. c. and that all that name the name of Christ must depart from iniquitie and that if you live after the flesh ye shall die 2 Tim. 2. 19. Rom. 8. 13. You shall find one day that it was you only such as you that practicallie differed from us in these points but we differed not in these or such as these among our selves I never read that a man shall not see God because he is Episcopal Presbyterian Independant no nor Anabaptist or because he readeth not his Prayers or such like But I read that no man shall see God without holiness Hebrews 12. 14. It will not serve your turn in judgement to say that you were for this side or that side and therefore you hearkened not to the other side as long as all those sides agree in the necessitie of holiness which you neglect Why did you not learn of your own side at least to forsake your tipling and swearing and worldly-mindedness and to make it the daily trade of your lives to provide for life everlasting and make sure work in the matter of your salvation If you had learnt but this much of any side you would cast away your siding more and have loved and honoured them that fear the Lord of what side soever Psal 15. 4. and have contemned the ungodlie as vile persons though they had been of your side The Catholick Church is One and containeth all that heartilie and practicallie believe in God the Father Son and Holy Ghost the Creator Redeemer and Sanctifier and live a holy heavenlie life Leave
shall see the light no more Our ears shall hear the voice of man delightful sounds and melody no more we shall taste no more our meat or drink Our appetite is gone Our strength is gone Our natural warmth is turned into an earthly cold Our comeliness and beauty is turned into a ghastly loathsome deformity Our white and red doth soon turn into horrid blackness Our tender flesh hath lost its feeling and is become a senseless lump that feeleth not whether it is carried nor how it is used that must be hidden in the earth lest it annoy the living that quickly turns to loathsome putresaction and after that to common earth Were all the once-comely bodies that now are rotting in one Church-yard uncovered and here presented to your view the fight would tell you more effectually than my words do what an Enemy Death is to our Nature When corruption hath finished its work you see the earth that once was flesh you see the bones you see the skulls you see the holes where once were brains and eyes and mouth This change Death makes And that universally and unavoidably The Prince cannot resist it by his Majesty for he hath sinned against the highest Majesty The strong cannot resist it by their strength For it is the Messenger of the Almighty The Commanders must obey it The Conquerours must be conquered by it The Rich cannot bribe it The Learned Orator cannot perswade it to pass him by The skilful Physician cannot save himself from the mortal stroke Neither fields nor gardens earth or sea affordeth any medicine to prevent it All have sinned and all must die Dust we are and to dust we must return Gen. 3. 19. And thus should we remain if the Lord of Life should not revive us 2. And it is not only to the Body but to the Soul also that Death is naturally an Enemy The Soul hath naturally a Love and Inclination to its Body and therefore it feareth a Separation before and desireth a Restauration afterward Abstracting Joy and Torment Heaven and Hell in our consideration the state of Separation as such is a natural evil even to the humane Soul of Christ it was so while his Body remained in the grave which separated state is the Hades that our English calleth Hell that Christ is said to have gone into And though the Soul of Christ and the souls of those that die in him do passe into a far more happy state than they had in flesh yet that is accidentally from Rewarding Justice and the Bounty of the Lord and not at all from Death as Death the separation as such is still an evil And therefore the Soul is still desirous of the Bodies Resurrection and knoweth that its felicity will then be greater when the re-union and glorification hath perfected the whole man So that Death as Death is unwelcome to the soul it self though Death as accidentally gainful may be desired 3. And to the unpardoned unrenewed soul Death is the passage to everlasting misery and in this regard is far more terrible than in all that hitherto hath been spoken Oh could the guilty soul be sure that there is no Justice to to take hold on it after death and no more pain and sorrow to be felt but that man dieth as a beast that hath no more to feel or lose then Death would seem a tolerable evil But it s the living Death the dying Life the endless woe to which death leads the guilty soul that makes it to be unspeakably terrible The utter darkness the unquenchable fire the worm that dieth not the everlasting flames of the wrath of God these are the chief horrour and sting of death to the ungodly O were it but to be turned into Trees or Stones or Earth or nothing it were nothing in comparison of this But I pass by this because it is not directly intended in my Text. 4. The Saints themselves being sanctified but in part are but imperfectly assured of their Salvation And therefore in that measure as they remain in doubt or unassured Death may be a double terror to them They believe the threatenings and know more than unbelievers do what an â—sufferable 〈◊〉 it is to be deprived of the celestial glory and what an unspeakable misery it is to bear the endless wrath of God! And therefore so far as they have such fears it must needs make death a terrour to them 5. But if there were nothing but Death it self to be our Enemy foreknowledge of it would increase the misery A Beast that knoweth not that he must die is not tormented with the fears of death though nature hath possessed them with a self preserving fear for the avoiding of an invading evil But man foreknoweth that he must die He hath still occasion to anticipate his terrors that which will be and certainly and shortly will be is in a manner as if it were already And therefore fore-knowledge makes us as if we were alway dying We see our Graves our weeping Friends our sore-described corruption and dismal state and so our life is a continual Death And thus Death is an enemy to Nature 2. But this is not all nor the greatest Enmity that Death hath to the godly It is a lamentable hinderance to the work of Grace as I shall shew you next in ten particulars 1â— The fears of Death do much abate our Desires after God as he is to be enjoyed by the separated soul Though every believing holy soul do love God above all and take Heaven for his home and therefore sincerely longeth after it yet when we know that Death stands in the way and that there is no coming thither but through this dreadful narrow passage this stoppeth and lamentably dulleth our desires And so the Natural Enmity turneth to a Spiritual sorer enmity For let a man be never so much a Saint be will be still a Man and therefore as Death will still be death so nature will still be nature And therefore death as death will be abhorred And we are such timerous sluggards that we are easily discouraged by this Lyon in the way The ugly Pâ—â—er affrighted us from those grateful thougâ—â— of the New Jerusalem the City of God the heavenly Inheritance which otherwise the blessed object would produce Our sanctified affections would be mounting upwards and holy Love would be working towards its blessed object but Death standing in the way suppresseth our desires and turns us back and frighteneth us from our Fathers presence We look up to Christ and the Holy City as to a precious Pearl in the bottom of the Sea or as to a dear and faithful Friend that is beyond some dreadful gulf Fain we would enjoy him but we dare not venture we fear this dismal enemy in the way He that can recover his health by a pleasant medicine doth take it without any great reluctancy But if a Leg or an Arm must be out off or a stone cut out by a painful
Tim. 4. 8 and to look for the blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ Tit. 2. 13. The Spirit and the Bride say Come Come Lord Jesus Come quickly is the voice of faith and hope and love Revel 22. 17 20. But I find not that his servants are thus Characterized by their desires to die It is therefore the presence of their Lord that they desire But it is Death that they abhor And therefore though they can submit to death it is the coming of Christ that they Love and long for and it is interposing Death that causeth them to draw back Let not Christians be discouraged by mistakes and think that they love not God and glory because they love not this enemy in the way nor think that they are gracenor think that they are graceless or unbelieving worldlings because they are afraid of death as death But perhaps you will say that if grace prevail not against the fears of death then fear is predominant and we are not sincere To which I answer that you must distinguish between such a prevailing as maintaineth our sincerity and such a prevailing as also procureth our fortitude and joy If grace prevail not to keep us upright in a holy life renouncing the world and crucifying the flesh and devoting our selves entirely to God though the fear of death would draw us from it then it is a sign that we are not sincere But if grace do this much and yet prevail not against all fears and unwillingness to die but leave us under uncomfortable hideous thoughts of death this proves us not to be unsound For the soul may savingly love God that is afraid of death And he may truly love the End that fears this dark and dismal way Yet must there be so much to prove our uprightness as that in our deliberate choice we will rather voluntarily pass through death either natural or violent then lose the happiness beyond it Though we love not death yet we love God and Heaven so well that we will submit to it And though we fear it and abhor it yet not so much as we fear and abhor the loss of Heaven Let not poor Christians therefore wrong themselves and deny the graces of the Spirit as if they had more mind of earth then heaven and of things temporal then of things eternal because they are afraid to die All suffering is grievous and not joyous to our nature Paul himself desired not to be uncloathed but clothed upon with our house which is from Heaven that mortality might be swallowed up of life 2 Cor. 5. 2 4. it being better to be absent from the body and present with the Lord. Even Christ himself had a will that desired that the Cup might have passed from will if it had been agreeable to his Fathers will and the ends of his undertaken Office Matth. 26. 41 42. Raise therefore no unjust conclusions from these natural fears nor from the imperfection of our conquest but praise him that relieveth us and abateth the enmity of death and furnisheth us with his Antidotes and will destroy this enemy at last SECT VIII Use 6. FRom the Enmity of Death we may further learn to study and magnifie the victorious grace of our Redeemer which overcometh the enemy and turneth our hurt into our benefit and maketh death a door of life Though death be the enemy that seemeth to conquer us and to destroy and utterly undo us yet being conquered it self by Christ it is used by him to our great advantage and sanctified to be a very great help to our salvation The suffering of Christ himself was in the hour of his enemies and the power of darkness Luke 22. 53. which seemed to have prevailed against him when yet it was but a destroying of Death by Death and the purchasing of life and salvation for the world So also in our Death though sin and Satan seem to conquer it is they that are conquered and not we who are supervictors through him that hath loved us Romans 8. 37. They destroy themselves when they seem to have destroyed us As the Serpent bruised but the heel of Christ who bruised his head so doth he bruise but our heel who in that conflict and by the means of his own execution through the strength of Christ do bruise his head Gen. 3. 15. And this is the upshot of all his enmity against the womans holy seed Though Death was unsuitable to innocent man and is still a natural enemy to us all yet unto sinners it is an evil that is suitable and fit to destroy the greater evil that did cause it and to prevent the everlasting evil The fore-knowledee of our certain Death is a very great help to keep us humble and disgrace all the seducing pleasures of the flesh and all the profits and honours of the world and so to enervate all temptations It is a singular help to quicken a stupid careless siuner and to awaken men to prepare for the life to come and to excite them to seek first the Kingdom of God and to give all diligence to make their calling and election sure and to consider seeing all these things must be dissolved what manner of persons they ought to be in all holy conversation and godliness looking for and hastening to the coming of the day of God 2 Pet. 3 11 12. When we drop asleep the remembrance of Death may quickly awake us when we grow slack it is our spur to put us on to mend our pace Who is so mad as wilfully to sin with Death in his eye or who so dead as with Death in his eye to refuse to live a godly life if he have any spiritual light and feeling Experience telleth us that when health and folly cause us to promise our selves long life and think that Death is a great way off it lamentably cools our zeal and strengtheneth our temptations and dulls our souls to holy operations and the approach of Death puts life into all our apprehensions and affections It is a wonderful hard thing to maintain our lively apprehensions and strong affections and tenderness of conscience and self-denyal and easie contempt of earthly things when we put far from us the day of Death We see what a stir men make for the profits and honours of this world and how fast they hold their fleshly pleasures while they are in health and how contemptuously they speak of all and bitterly complain of the vanity and vexation when they come to dye And if our lives and the world be brought hereby into such disorders when men live so shore a time on Earth what monsters of ambition and covetousnesse and luxury would men be if they lived as long as before the FLOOD even to Eight Hundred or nine hundred years of age Doubtless long life was so great a temptation then to man in his corrupted state that it is no wonder if his wickedness
they have had tryal of cruel mockings and scourgings yea moreover of bonds and imprisonment they were stoned they were sawn asunder were tempted were slain with the sword Heb. 11. 35 36 37. Thanks be to God which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ 1 Cor. 15. 57. They overcome by the blood of the Lamb and love not their lives unto the death Rev. 12. 11. They fear not them that kill the body and after that have no more that they can do Luke 124. They trust upon his promise that hath said I will ransome them from the power of the grave I will redeem them from Death O Death I will be thy plagues O grave I will be thy destruction Hos 13. 14. Precious in the sight of the Lord is the Death of his Saints Psal 116. 15. Blessed are the dead which dye in the Lord from henceforth yea saith the Spirit that they may rest from their labours and their works do follow them Rev. 14. 13. SECT IX Use 7. MOreover from the Enmity of Death we may be directed which way to bend our cares and seeing where our difficulty most lyeth we may see which way our most diligent preparations must be turned Death cannot be prevented but the malignant influence of it on our souls may be much abated If you let it work without an Antidote it will make you live like unbelieving worldlings It will deterr your hearts from Heaven and dull your love to God himself and make your meditations of him and of your Everlasting Rest to be seldom and ungrateful to you And it will make you say It s good to be here and have sweeter thoughts of this present life than of your inheritance It will rob you of much of your heavenly delights and fill you with slavish fears of Death and subject you unto bondage all your lives and make you dye with agony and horrour so that your lives and deaths will be dishonourable to your holy faith and to your Lord. If it were meerly our own suffering by fears and horrours or meerly our loss of spiritual delights the matter were great but not so great But it is more than this For when our joyes are overwhelmed with the fears of Death and turned into sorrows our love to God will be abated and we shall deny him the thanks and cheerful praises which should be much of the employment of our lives and we shall be much discomposed and unfitted for his service and shall much dishonour him in the world and shall strengthen our temptations to the overvaluing of earthly things Think it not therefore a small or an indifferent matter to fortifie your souls against these malignant fears of death Make this your daily care and work your peace your safety your innocency and usefulness and the honour of God do much lie on it And it is a work of such exceeding difficulty that it requireth the best of your skill and diligence and when all is done it must be the illuminating quickning beams of grace and the shining face of the Eternal Love that must dothe work though yet your diligence is necessary to attend the spirit and use the means in subservience to grace and in expectation of these oelestiall rayes And above all take heed lest you should think that carnall mirth or meer security and casting away the thoughts of Death will serve to overcome these fears or that it is enough that you resolve against them For it is your safety that must be lookt to as well as your present ease and peace and fear must be so overcome as that a greater misery may not follow Presumption and security will be of very short continuance To dye without fear and pass into into endless desperation which fear should have wakened you to prevent is no desirable kind of dying And besides resolving against the terrours of Death will not prevent them When Death draws near it will amaze you in despight of all your resolutions if you are not furnished with a better Antidote The more jocund you have been in carnal mirth and the more you have presumptuously slighted Death it is likely your horrour will be the greater when it comes And therefore see that you make a wise and safe preparation and that you groundedly and methodically cure these fears and not securely cast them away Though I have given you to this end some Directions in other writings in the Saints Rest and in the Treatise of Self-denyal and that of Crucifying the world yet I shall add here these following helps which faithfully observed and practised will much promote your victory over Death which conquereth all the strength of flesh and glory of this world DIRECTION I. IF you would overcome the danger and the fears of Death Make sure of your Conversion that it is sound and see that you be absolutely devoted unto God without Reserves Should you be deceived in your foundations your life and hopes and joyes would all be delusory things Till sin be mortified and your souls reconciled to God in Christ you are still in danger of worse than Death and it is but the senselesness of your dead condition that keepeth you from the terrours of damnation But if you are sure that you are quickened by renewing grace and possessed by the sanctifying spirit and made partakers of the Divine nature you have then the Earnest of your inheritance Ephes 1. 14. 2 Cor. 1. 22. 5. 5. and the fire is kindled in your breast that in despight of Death will mount you up to God DIRECTION II. TO Conquer the Enmity of Death you must live by faith in Jesus Christ as men that are emptied of themselves and ransomed from his hands that had the power of Death and as men that are redeemed from the curse and are now made heirs of the grace of life being made his members who is the Lord of Life even the second Adam who is a quickning spirit The serious believing study of his design and office to destroy sin and death and to bring many Sons to glory and also of his voluntary suffering and his obedience to the death of the Cross may raise us above the fears of Death When we live by faith as branches of this blessed Vine and are righteous with his righteousness justified by his blood and merits and sanctified by his Word and Spirit and find that we are united to him we may then be sure that Death cannot conquer us and nothing can take us out of his hands For our life being hid with Christ in God we know that we shall live because he liveth Col. 3. 3. Joh. 14. 19. and that when Christ who is our life appeareth we shall also appear with him in glory Col. 3. 4. And that he will change our vile bodies and make them like to his glorious body by his mighty power by which he is able to subdue all things to himself Phil. 3. 20 21. In our own strength we
pained with these diseases And can we live in daily pain and weariness and not be willing of release Is there a gracious soul that groaneth not under the burden of these miseries yea in every prayer what do we else but confess them and lament them and groan for help and for deliverance And yet shall we fear our day of freedom and be loth that Death should bring us news that our prayers are heard and our groans have reached up to heaven and that the bonds of flesh and sin shall be dissolved and we shall have need to watch and strive and fear and complain and sigh and weep no more Shall the face of death discourage us from desiring such a blessed day When we have so full assurance that at last this enemy also shall be destroyed The Lord heal and pardon the Hypocrisie of our complaints together with the unbelief and cowardliness of our Souls Do we speak so much and hear so much and seem to do so much against sin and yet had we rather keep it still then be stript of it together with the rags of our mortality and yet had we rather dwell with sin in tempting troubling corruptible flesh then lay them by and dwell with Christ O Lord how lamentably have we lost our wisdom and drowned our minds in flesh and folly by forsaking thee our light and life How come our reasonable souls to be so bewitched as after all our convictions complaints and prayers to be still more willing of our sickness then of the remedy and more afraid of this bitter Cup then of the poyson that lodgeth in our bowels which it would expel and that after all the labour we have used we had yet rather dwell with our greatest enemy then by a less to be transmitted to our dearest friend and had rather continue in a troublesome weary restless life then by the sleep of death to pass to Rest And this sin in others also is our trouble though not so much as in our selves It maketh those our bitter enemies whose good we most desire and endeavour and causeth the unthankful world to requite us with malicious usage For telling them the ungrateful truth and seeking their salvation It makes our friends to be but half-friends and some of them too like our enemies It puts a sting into the sweetest friendship and mixeth smart with all our pleasures It worketh us grief from precious mercies and abateth the comfort of our near Relations So that our smart by the pricks is often greater then our pleasure in the sweetness of the Rose No friend is so smoothed and squared to the temper and interest of another but that some inequality and unevenness doth remain which makes the closure to be less near and stedfast Even Family-relations are usually so imperfectly jointed and cemented that when the when the winds of tryal are any thing high they shake the frame and though they are but low they find an entrance and cause such a coldness of affections as is contrary to the nature and duty of the Relations Either a contrariety of opinions or of natural temperature and humours or else of the dispositions of the mind Sometime cross interests and sometime passions and cross words do cause such discontents and sowrness such frowns or jealousies or distances that our nearest friends are but as sackloth on our skins and as a shoo too strait for us or as a garment that is unmeet which pinch and trouble us in their use and those that should be to us as the Apple of our eyes are as the dust or smoak to them that vex or blind them And the more we Love them the more it grieveth us to be crossed in our love There is scarce any friend so wise so good so suitable to us or so near that we can alwayes please And the displeasure of a friend is as gravell in our shoos or as Nettles in our bed oft-times more grievous then the malice of an enemy There is no such doing as this in heaven because there is no such guest as sin We shall love each other far more then we do here and yet that Love shall never be inordinate nor in the least divert our love from God but every Saint and Angel in the Society shall be loved with most chaste and pure affections in a perfect subordination to the love of God and so as that God himself in them shall be the chiefest object of that love It is there that our friends being freed from all their imperfections do neither tempt us to a carnal Love nor have any thing in them to discourage the love that is spiritual and pure We have here our passionate friends our self-conceited friends our unkind unthankfull selfish friends our mutable and unfaithful friends our contentions friends that are like to enemies and who have used us more hardly then our friends But when we come to God we shall have friends that are like God that are wholly good and are participatively turned into Love and having left behind them all that was unclean and noysome and troublesome to themselves they have also cast off all that could be troublesome to us Our love will be there without suspicions without interruptions unkindnesses and discontents without disappointments frustrations and dissatisfactions For God himself will fully satisfie us and we shall love his goodness and glory in his Saints as well as immediately in himself Our friends are now lost at the turning of a straw the change of their interest their company their opinions the slanders of back-biters and mis-representations of malicious men can cool their Love and kill their friendship But Heaven is a place of constant Love The Love of Saints as all things else is there eternal And yet it declineth not with age It is a world of Love that we are hasting to It is a life of love that we must there live and a work of love and perfect love that we must be there employed in for ever If here we have a pure a dear a faithful friend that is without false-heartedness and deceit that loveth us as his own soul how quickly is he snatcht away by death and leaves us melted into tears and mourning over his earthly relicts and looking upward with grieved hearts as the Disciples did after their ascending Lord Acts 1. 9 10 11. We are left almost as lifeless by such friends as the body is left by the departed soul We have nothing but grief to tell us that we live and that our souls are not departed with them we are left in greater lamentation then if we had never known a faithful friends And alas how quickly are they gone when once God sees them ripe for heaven When Droans and Dullards live much longer If we see a Saint that 's clear of judgement and low in humility and naked-hearted in sincerity and that abounds in love to God and man that 's faithful and constant to their friend and
and follow Christ so heavily and sadly into life But all this is long of the enemies that now molest our peace Indwelling sin and a flattering world and a brutish flesh and interposing death are our discouragements that drive us back But all these enemies shall shortly be overcome Fear not Death then let it do its worst It can give thee but one deadly gripe that shall kill it self and prove thy life as the Wasp that leaves its sting behind and can sting no more It shall but snuff the Candle of thy life and make it shine brighter when it seems to be put out It is but an undressing and a gentle sleep That which thou couldst not here attain by all our preaching and all thy prayers and cares and pains thou shalt speedily attain by the help of death It is but the messenger of thy gracious Lord and calleth thee to him to the place that he hath prepared Hearken not now to the great Deceiver that would draw thee to unbelief and cause thee to stagger at the promises of God when thou hast followed him so far and they are near to the full performance Believe it as sure as thou believest that the Sun doth shine upon thee that God cannot lye he is no Deceiver it was his meer love and bounty that caused him to make the promises when he had no need for himself to make them and shall he be then unfaithful and not fulfil the promises which he hath freely made Believe it faith is no delusion It may be folly to trust man but it is worse than folly not to trust God Believe it Heaven is not a shadow nor the life of faith and holiness a dream These sensible things have least reality These grosser substances are most drossy delusory and base God is a Spirit who is the prime Being and the cause of all created Beings And the Angels and other celestial Inhabitants that are nearest to him are furthest from corporeity and are spirits likest unto God The further any thing is from spirituality the further from that excellency and perfection which the creatures nearest God partake of The earth is baser than the air and fire The drossy flesh is baser than the soul And this lumpish dirty visible world is incomparably below that spiritual world which we believe and wait for And though thy conceptions of spirits and the spiritual world are low and dark and much unsatisfying remember still that thy head is there and it belongeth to him to know what thou shalt be till thou art fit to know it which will not be till thou art fit to enjoy it Be satisfied that thy Father is in Heaven and that thy Lord is there and that the Spirit that hath been so long at work within thee preparing thee for it dwelleth there And let it suffice thee that Christ knoweth what he will do with thee and how he will employ thee to all eternity And thou shalt very shortly see his face and in his light thou shalt behold that light that shall fully satisfie thee and shame all thy present doubts and fears and if there were shame in Heaven would shame thee for them Use 9. FRom the Enmity of Death and the necessity of a Conquest we may see what a wonderful mercy the Resurrection of Christ himself was to the Church and what use we should make of it for the strengthening of our Faith It was not only impossible to man to conquer Death by his own strength and therefore it must be conquered by Christ but it was also beyond out power to believe it that ever the dead should rise to life if Christ had not risen as the first fruits and convinced man by eye-sight or certain testimony that the thing is possible and already done But now what a pillar is here for faith What a word of Hope and Joy is this that Christ is risen With this we will answer a thousand Cavi's of the Tempter and stop the mouth of the enemies of our faith and profligate our infidelity As unlikely as it seems to flesh and blood shall we ever doubt whether we shall rise again when the Lord came down in flesh among us that he might die and rise again himself to shew us as to our faces that we shall rise This is the very Gospel which we preach and by which we must be saved that Christ dyed for our sins according to the Scriptures and was buried and that he rose again the third day according to the Scriptures and that he was seen of Cephas then of the Twelve and after that he was seen of above five hundred Brethren at once of whom the greater part remained alive when Paul wrote this who was the last that saw him 1 Cor. 15. 1 2 3 4 5 6. Read over this Chapter again and again where our Resurrection is proved by the Resurrection of Christ No wonder therefore that the Church in all ages ever since the very day of Christs Resurrection hath kept the first day of the week as a holy festival in remembrance of it wherein though they commemorated the whole work of our Redemption yet was it from the Resurrection as the most glorious part that the Spirit of Christ did chuse the day This hath been the joyful day to the Church this 1625 years or thereabouts in which the ancient Christians would assemble themselves together saluting one another with this joyful word The Lord is risen And this is the day that the Lord hath blessed with the New-birth and resurrection of millions of souls So that it is most probable that all the six dayes of the week have not begot half so many souls for Heaven as this blessed day of the Lords Resurrection hath done Let Infidels then despise it that believe not Christs Resurrection but let it still be the Churches joyful day This was the Lords doing and it is marvelous in our eyes This is the day which the Lord hath made we will be glad and rejoyce therein Psal 118. 23 24. In it Let us sing unto the Lord let us make a joyful noise to the Rock of our salvation Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving and make a joyful noise to him with Psalms Psal 95. 1 2. Every day let us Remember the Lords Resurrection but on this day let the joyful commemoration of it be our work We may see by the witness of the Apostles and their frequent preaching the Resurrection of Christ as if it were the summ of all the Gospel that this is a point that Faith must especially build and feed upon and that we must make the matter of our most frequent meditations Oh what vigour it addeth to our faith when we are encountred by the sight of Death and of a grave to remember seriously that Christ is risen Did he take flesh purposely that he might dye and rise and shew us how he will raise his members and will he after all this break his
promise and leave us in the dust for ever It cannot be Hath he conquered Death for himself alone and not for us Hath he taken our Nature into Heaven to be there alone and will he not have all his members with him Remember then Christian when thou lookest on thy grave that Christ was buried and hath made the grave a bed of rest that shall give up her trust when his Trumpet sounds And that his Resurrection is the pledge of ours Keep therefore thy rising and glorified Lord continually in thy eye If Christ were not risen our preaching were vain and your faith were vain and all men were miserable but we most miserable that suffer so much for a life which we had no ground to hope for 1 Cor. 15 14 17 19. But now we have an Argument that Infidelity it self is ashamed to encounter with that hath been the means of the conversion of the Nations unto Christ by which we may put even Death it self to a defiance as knowing it is now a conquered thing If it could have held Christ captive it might also have held us But he being risen we shall surely rise Write it therefore Christians upon your hearts mention it more in your conference for the encouragement of your faith Write it on the grave-stones of your friends that CHRIST IS RISEN and that BECAUSE HE LIVETH WE SHALL LIVE ALSO and that OUR LIFE IS HID WITH CHRIST IN GOD though we are dead and when he shall appear who is our Life we shall also appear with him in glory John 14. 19. Col. 3. 3 4. Though we must be sown in corruption in weakness and dishonour we shall be raised in incorruption strength and honour 1 Cor. 1. 15. 42 43. While our souls behold the Lord in glory we may bear with the winter that befalls our flesh till the sping of Resurrection come Knowing that he that raised up the Lord Jesus shall also raise us up by Jesus For which cause we faint not but though our outward man perish yet the inner man is renewed day by day while we look not at the things which are seen but at the things which are not seen For the things which are seen are temporal but the things which are not seen are eternal 2 Cor. 4. 14 15 16 17 18. As we are risen with Christ to newness of life so we shall rise with him to glory Use 10. LAstly If Death be the last Enemy to be destroyed at the Resurrection we may learn hence how earnestly believers should long and pray for the second coming of Christ when this full and final Conquest shall be made Death shall do much for us but the Resurrection shall do more Death sends the separated soul to Christ but at his coming both soul and body shall be glorified There is somewhat in Death that is penal even to believers but in the coming of Christ and their Resurrection there is nothing but glorifying grace Death is the effect of sin and of the first sentence passed upon sinners but the Resurrection of the Just is the final destruction of the effects of sin And therefore though the fears of Death may perplex us me-thinks we should long for the coming of Christ there being nothing in that but what tends to the deliverance and glory of the Saints Whether he will come before the general Resurrection and reign on earth a thousand years which some expect I shall not presume to pass my determination But sure I am it is the work of faith and Character of his people to love his appearance 2 Tim. 4. 8. and to wait for the Son of God from Heaven whom he raised from the dead even Jesus who delivered us from the wrath to come 1 Thes 1. 10. and to wait for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ 1 Cor. 1. 7. and to wait for the adoption the redemption of our bodies with inward groanings Rom. 8. 23. O therefore let us pray more earnestly for the coming of our Lord and that the Lord would direct our hearts into the love of God and into the patient waiting for Christ 2 Thes 3. 5. O blessed day when the glorious appearing of our Lord shall put away all his servants shame and shall communicate Glory to his members even to the bodies that had laid so long in dust that to the eye of flesh there seemed to be no hope Though the Majesty and glory will cause our Reverence yet it will not be our terrour to the diminution of our joy It is his enemies that would not have him rule over them whom he cometh to destroy Lu. 19. 27. Behold the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his Saints to execute judgement upon all to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodlily committed and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him as Henoch the seventh from Noah prophesied Jud. 14. 15. But the precious faith of the Saints shall be found to praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ 1 Pet. 1. 7. When the chief Shepherd shall appear we shall receive a Crown of glory that fadeth not away 1 Pet. 5. 4. He that was once offered to bear the sins of many and now appeareth for us in the presence of God shall unto them that look for him appear the second time without sin to salvation Heb. 9. 24. 28. And When Christ who is our life shall appear then shall we also appear with him in Glory Col. 3. 4. The Lord shall then come to be glorified in his Saints and admired in all them that believe in that day 2 Thes 1. 10. This is the day that all believers should long and hope and wait for as being the accomplishment of all the work of their redemption and all the desires and endeavours of their souls It is the hope of this day that animateth the holy diligence of our lives and makes us turn from the carelesness and sensuality of the world For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared unto all men teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts we should live soberly righteously and godlily in this present world looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of our great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ Tit. 2. 11 12 13. The heavens and the earth that are now are kept in store by the word of God reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men And though the Lord seem to delay he is not slack of his promise as some men count slackness for a day is with him as a thousand years and a thousand years but as a day But the day of the Lord will come as a Thiefin the night in the which the Heavens shall pass away with a great noise and the elements shall melt with fervent heat the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burnt up Seeing then all
denyal and never tempted him to lookafter greater things And afterward when I was afraid lest the smalness and uncertainty of the means together with his discouragements from some of his people might have occasioned his remove and have heard of richer places mentioned to him as he still answered that he had enough and minded not removing without necessity so was she ever of the same mind and still seconded and confirmed him in such resolutions even to follow Gods work while they had a competency of their own and to mind no more 4. Her very speech and behaviour did so manifest meekness and humility that in a little converse with her it might easily be discerned 5. She thought nothing too mean for her that belonged to her in her family and relation no employment food c. saying often that What God had made her duty was not too low a work for her And indeed when we know once that it is a work that God sets us upon it signifieth much forgetfulness of him and our selves if we think it too base or think our selves too good to stoop to it 6. No Neighbour did seem too mean or poor for her familiar converse if they were but willing 7. She had a true esteem and chearful love for the meanest of her Husbands Relations and much rejoyced in her comfort in his kindred recording it among her experienced mercies 2. She was very constant and diligent in doing her part of family duties teaching all the inferiours of her family and labouring to season them with principles of holiness and admonishing them of their sin and danger never failing on the Lords Day at night to hear them read the Scriptures and recite their Catechisms when publick duty and all other family duty was ended and in her Husbands absence praying with them How much the imitation of such examples would conduce to the sanctifying of families is easie to be apprehended 3. In secret duty she was very constant and lived much in those two great soul-advancing works Meditation and Prayer in which she would not admit of interruptions This inward holy diligence was it that maintained spiritual life within which is the spring of outward acceptable works When communion with God and daily labour upon our own hearts is laid aside or negligently and remisly followed grace languisheth first within and then unfruitfulness if not disorders and scandals appear without 4. Her Love to the Lord Jesus was evidenced by her great affection to his Ordinances and Wayes and Servants A very hearty Love she manifested to those on whom the Image of God did appear even the poorest and meanest as well as the rich or eminent in the world Nor did a difference in lesser matters or any tolerable mistakes alienate her affections from them 5. She was a Christian of much plainness simplicity singleness of heart far from a subtil erafty dissembling frame also from loquacity or ostentation And the world was very low in her eyes to which she was long crucified and on which she looked as a lifeless thing Sensuality and pampering the flesh she much loathed When she was invited to feasts she would oft complain that they occasioned a difficulty in maintaining a sence of the presence of God whose company in all her company she preferred 6. She was a very careful esteemer and redeemer of her time At home in her family the works of her general and particular calling took her up When necessary business and greater duties gave way she was seldom without a Book in her hand or some edifying discourse in her mouth if there were opportunity And abroad she was very weary of barren company that spent the time in common chatt and dry discourses 7. She used good company Practically and profitably making use of what she heard for her own spiritual advantage When I understood out of her Diary that she wrote down some of my familiar discourses with serious application to her self it struck exceeding deep to my heart how much I have sinned all my dayes since I undertook the person of a Minister of Christ by the slightness and unprofitableness of my discourse and how exceeding careful Ministers should be of their words and how deliberately wisely and seriously they should speak about the things of God and how diligently they should take all fit opportunities to that end when we know not how silent hearers are affected with what we say For ought we know there may be some that will write down what we say in their Books or hearts or both And God and conscience write down all 8. In her course of Reading she was still laying in for use and practise Her course was when she read the Scriptures to gather out passages and sort and refer them to their several uses as some that were fit subjects for her Meditations some for encouragement to prayer and other duties Promises suited to various conditions and wants as her papers shew And for other Books she would meddle with none but the sound and practical and had no itch after the empty Books which make ostentation of Novelty and which Opinionists are now so taken with nor did she like writing or preaching in envy and strife And of good Books she chose to read but few and those very often over that all might be well digested Which is a course for private Christians that tends to avoid luxuriancy and make them sincere and solid and established 9. She had the great blessing of a tender conscience She did not slightly pass over small sins without penitent observation Her Diary records her trouble when causelesly she had neglected any Ordinance or was hindered by Rain or small occasions or if she had overslept her self and lost a Morning-exercise in London or came too late or if she were distracted in secret duty And if she mist of a Fast through mis-information and disappointments and found not her heart duly sensible of the loss that also she recorded So did she her stirrings of anger and her very angry looks resolving to take more heed against them Though all ought not to spend so much time in writing down their failings yet all should watch and renew repentance 10. She was very solicitous for the souls of her friends As for instance her Brothers in Law over whom she exercised a Motherly care instructing them and watching over them and telling them of miscarriages and counselling them Causing them to keep a constant course of reading the holy Scriptures and meditating on it as far as she could Causing them to learn many Chapters without Book and to read other good Books in season Earnestly praying for them in particular Much desiring one or both should be Ministers And when her Father-in-law appointed the eldest to go to France she was much troubled for fear of his miscarriage among strangers especially those of the Romish Way 11. She was a serious Mourner for the sins of the time and place she lived
in 12. In sum for strict close watchfull holy walking with God even her Husband professeth that she was a pattern to him As I hinted before she kept a daily acount in writing which is now to be seen from the beginning of the year 1654. especially of these particulars 1. Of the frame of her heart in every dayes duty in Meditation Prayer Hearing Reading c. whether lively of dull c. 2. Of those sins which she had especially to repent of and watch against 3. Of her Resolutions and Promises and how she kept them 4. Of all special Providences to her self Husband Brothers and others and the improvement of them As at the death of her Son who died with great sighs and groans she recorded her sense of the special necessity of holy Armour and great preparation for that encounter when her turn should come to be so removed to the everlasting habitation 5. Of her returns of Prayer what answers and grant of them she found 6. Of the state of her soul upon examination how she found it and what was the issue of each examination and in this it seems she was very exact and punctual In which though many times fears and doubtings did arise yet hath she frequent records of the discovery of evidences and comfortable assurance of sincerity Somtime when she hath heard Sermons in London that helped her in her search and somtimes when she had been reading writings that tended that way she recorded what evidences she found and in what degree the discovery was If imperfect resolving to take it up and follow the search further And if she had much joy she received it with jealousie and expectation of some humbling consequent When any grace languished she presently turned to some apt remedy As for instance it s one of her Notes Novemb. 1658. I found thoughts of Eternity slight and strange and ordinary imployments very desirable at which I read Mr. Bs. Crucifixion was awakened to Mortification and Humiliation c. The last time that she had opportunity for this work was two or three dayes before her delivery in Child-bearing where she finally recorded the apprehensions she had both of her bodily and spiritual State in these words Drawing near the time of my delivery I am fallen into such weakness that my life is in hazzard I find some fears of death but not very great hoping through grace I die in the Lord. I only mention these hints to shew the Method she used in her daily Accounts To those Christians that have full leisure this course is good But I urge it not upon all Those that have so great duties to take up that time that they cannot spare so much to record their ordinary passages Such must remember what others record and daily renew repentance for their daily failings and record only the extraordinary observable and more remarkable and memorable passages of their lives lest they lose time from works of greater moment But this excellent work of Watchfulness must be performed by all And I think it was a considerable expression of her true wisdom and care of her immortal soul that when any extraordinary necessity required it and she found such doubts as of her self she was not able to deal with she would go to some able experienced Minister to open her case and seek assistance as she did more than once to my dear and ancient friend Mr. Cross who in full age is since gone after her to Christ And therefore chose a Minister in Marriage that he might be a ready assistant in such cases of necessity as well as a continual help At last came that death to summon her soul away to Christ for which she had so seriously been preparing and which she oft called a dark entry to her Fathers Palace After the death of her Children when she seemed to be somewhat repaired after her last delivery a violent Convulsion suddenly surprized her which in a few dayes brought her to her end Her understanding by the fits being at last debilitated she finding it somewhat hard to speak sensibly excused it and said I shall ere long speak another language Which were the last words which she spake with a tongue of flesh and lying speechless eighteen hours after she departed August 17. 1659. Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord from henceforth yea saith the spirit that they may rest from their labours and their works do follow them Our turn is coming Shortly we shall also lay by flesh this is our day of preparation There is no preparing time but this Did men but know the difference between the death of the holy and the unholy which doth not appear to fleshly eyes how speedily would they turn how seriously would they meditate how fervently would they pray how carefully would they live how constantly painfully and resolvedly would they labour Did they well consider the difference between dying prepared and unprepared and of what difficulty and yet everlasting consequence it is to die well O then what manner of persons would men be in all manner of holy conversation and godliness and all their lives would then be a continued preparation for death as all their life is a hasting towards it And now I shall only desire you for the right understanding of all that I have here said and to prevent the cavils of blinded malice to observe these three or four particulars 1. That though I knew so much of her as easily maketh me believe the rest upon so sure a testimony and saw her Diary yet the most of this History of her life is the collection and observation of such faithful witnesses as had much better opportunity than I to know the secrets of her soul and life 2. That it is no wonder if many that knew her perceived not all this by her that is here expressed For that knowledg of our outward carriage at a distance will not tell our Neighbours what we do in our Closets where God hath commanded us to shut our door upon us that our Father which seeth in secret may reward us openly And many of the most humble and sincere servants of the Lord are so afraid of hypocrisie and hate ostentation that their Justification and Glory is only to be expected from the searcher of hearts and a few of their more intimate acquaintance Though this was not the case before us the example described being more conspicuous 3. That I over-pass the large expessions of her charity which you may hear from the poor and her intimate acquaintance as I have done that I may not grate upon the modesty of her surviving friends who must participate in the commendations 4. That it is the benefit of the living that is my principal end Scripture it self is written much in History that we may have matter of imitation before our eyes 5. If any say that here is no mention of her faults I answer Though I had acquaintance with her I knew them not nor ever heard from any other so much as might enable me to accuse her if I were her enemy Yet I doubt not but she was imperfect and had faults though unknown to me The example of Holiness I have briefly proposed They that would see examples of iniquity may look abroad in the world and find enough I need not be the accuser of the Saints to furnish them And I think if they enquire here of any thing notable they will he hard put to it to find enough to cover the accusers shame 6. It is the honour of Christ and Grace in his members more than the honour of his servant that I seek 7. And I would not speak that in commendation of the living which I do of the dead who are out of the reach of all temptations of being lifted up with pride thereby Unless it be such whose reputation the interest of Christ and the Gospel commandeth me to vindicate 8. Lastly I am so far from lifting up one above the rest of the members of Christ by these commendations and from abasing others whose names I mention not that I intend the honour of all in One and think that in the substance I describe all Saints in describing one I am not about a Popish work of making a wonder of a Saint as of a Phoenix or some rare unusual thing Saints with them must be Canonized and their names put in the Calender and yet their blind malice tels the world that there are no such things as Saints among us But I rejoyce in the many that I have communion with and the many that have lately stept before me into Heaven and are safe there out of the reach of malice and of sin and all the enemies of their peace and have left me mourning and yet rejoycing fearing and yet hoping and with some desires looking after them here behind And the faster Christ calls away his chosen ones whose graces were amiable in mine eyes the more willing he maketh me to follow them and to leave this world of darkness confusion wickedness danger vanity and vexation and to meet these precious souls in Life where we shall rejoyce that we are past this howling wilderness and shall for ever be with the Lord. FINIS