discover it would dash it in pieces by a solemn disclaiming it for thou art the Way the Truth and the Life and I know that whatsoever thou hast declared that is the truth of God and I do firmly adhere to the religion thou hast taught and glory in nothing so much as that I am a Christian that thy name is called upon me O my God though I die yet will I put my trust in thee In thee O Lord have I trusted let me never be confounded Amen SECT V. Of the practise of the Grace of Repentance in time of the Sicknesse MEn generally do very much dread sudden death and pray against it passionately and certainly it hath in it great inconveniences accidentally to mens estates to the settlement of families to the culture and trimming of souls and it robs a man of the blessings which may be consequent to sickness and to the passive graces and holy contentions of a Christian while he descends to his grave without an adversary or a tryal and a good man may be taken at such a disadvantage that a sudden death would be a great evil even to the most excellent person if it strikes him in an unlucky circumstance But these considerations are not the onely ingredients into those mens discourse who pray violently against sudden deaths for possibly if this were all there may be in the condition of sudden death something to make recompence for the evils of the over-hasty accident For certainly it is a lesse temporal evil to fall by the rudenesse of a sword then the violences of a Feaver and the axe is much a lesse affliction then a strangury and though a sicknesse tries our vertues yet a sudden death is free from temptation a sicknesse may be more glorious and a sudden death more safe the deadest deaths are best the shortest and least premeditate so Caesar said and Pliny called a short death the greatest fortune of a mans life For even good men have been forced to an undecencie of deportment by the violences of pain and Cicero observes concerning Hercules that he was broken in pieces with pain even then when he sought for immortality by his death being tortured with a plague knit up in the lappet of his shirt And therefore as a sudden death certainly loses the rewards of a holy sicknesse so it makes that a man shall not so much hazard and lose the rewards of a holy life But the secret of this affair is a worse matter men live at that rate either of an habitual wickednesse or else a frequent repetition of single acts of killing and deadly sins that a sudden death is the ruine of all their hopes and a perfect consignation to an eternal sorrow But in this case also so is a lingring sicknesse for our last sicknesse may change us from life to health from health to strength from strength to the firmnesse and confirmation of habitual graces but it cannot change a man from death to life and begin and finish that processe which sits not down but in the bosom of blessednesse He that washes in the morning when his bath is seasonable and healthful is not onely made clean but sprightly and the blood is brisk and coloured like the first springing of the morning but they that wash their dead cleanse the skin and leave palenesse upon the cheek and stiffnesse in all the joynts A repentance upon our death-bed bed is like washing the coarse it is cleanly and civil but makes no change deeper then the skin But God knowes it is a custom so to wash them that are going to dwell with dust and to be buried in the lap of their kinred earth but all their lives time wallow in pollutions without any washing at all or if they do it is like that of the Dardani who washed but thrice in all their life time when they are born and when they marry and when they die when they are baptized or against a solemnity or for the day of their funeral but these are but ceremonious washings and never purifie the soul if it be stained and hath sullied the whitenesse of its baptismal robes * God intended we should live a holy life * he contracted with us in Jesus Christ for a holy life * he made no abatements of the strictest sense of it but such as did necessarily comply with humane infirmities or possibilities that is he understood it in the sense of repentance which stil is so to renew our duty that it may be a holy life in the second sense that is some great portion of our life to be spent in living as Christians should * a resolving to repent upon our death-bed is the greatest mockery of God in the world and the most perfect contradictory to all his excellent designes of mercy and holinesse for therefore he threatned us with hell if we did not and he promised heaven if we did live a holy life and a late repentance promises heaven to us upon other conditions even when we have lived wickedly * It renders a man uselesse and intolerable to the world taking off the great curb of religion of fear and hope and permitting all impiety with the greatest impunity and incouragement in the world * by this means we see so many 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Philo calls them or as the prophets pueros centum annorum children of almost an hundred years old upon whose grave we may write the inscriptions which was upon the tomb of Similis in Xiphilin Here he lies who was so many years but lived but seven * and the course of nature runs counter to the perfect designes of piety and * God who gave us a life to live to him is only served at our death when we die to all the world * and we undervalue the great promises made by the Holy Jesus for which the piety the strictest unerring piety of ten thousand ages is not a proportionable exchange yet we think it a hard bargain to get heaven if we be forced to part with one lust or live soberly twenty years But like Demetrius Afer who having lived a slave all his life time yet desired to descend to his grave in freedom begged manumission of his Lord we lived in the bondage of our sin all our dayes and hope to dye the Lords freed man * but above all this course of a delayed repentance must of necessity therefore be ineffective and certainly mortal because it is an intire destruction of the very formality and essential constituent reason of religion which I thus demonstrate When God made man and propounded to him an immortal and a blessed state as the end of his hopes and the perfection of his condition he did not give it him for nothing but upon certain conditions which although they could add nothing to God yet they were such things which man could value and they were his best and
preserve thee in the faith and fear of his holy Name to thy lives end and bring thee to his everlasting Kingdom to live with him for ever and ever Amen Then let the sick man renounce all heresies and whatsoever is against the truth of God or the peace of the Church and pray for pardon for all his ignorances and errors known and unknown After which let him if all other circumstances be fitted be disposed to receive the Blessed Sacrament in which the Curate is to minister according to the form prescribed by the Church When the rites are finished let the sick man in the dayes of his sicknesse be imployed with the former offices and exercises before described and when the time drawes neer of his dissolution the Minister may assist by the following order of recommendation of the soul. I. O Holy and most Gracious Saviour Jesus we humbly recommend the soul of thy servant into thy hands thy most mercifull hands let thy Blessed Angels stand in ministery about thy servant and defend him from the violence and malice of all his ghosâ—ly enemies and drive far from hence all the spirits of darknesse Amen II. LOrd receive the soul of this thy servant Enter not into judgement with thy servaant spare him whom thou hast redeemed with thy most precious blood deliver him from all evil and mischief from the crafts and assaults of the Devil from the fear of death and from everlasting death Good Lord deliver him Amen III. IMpute not unto him the follies of his youth nor any of the errors and miscarriages of his life but strengthen him in his agony let not his faith waver nor his hope fail nor his charity be disordered Let none of his enemies imprint upon him any afflictive or evil phantasme let him die in peace and rest in hope and rise in glory Amen IIII. LOrd we know and beleeve assuredly that whatsoever is under thy custody cannot be taken out of thy hands nor by all the violences of hell robbed of thy protection preserve the work of thy hands rescue him from all evil for whose sake thou didst suffer all evil Take into the participation of thy glories him to whom thou hast given the seal of Adoption the earnest of the inheritance of the Saints Amen V. LEt his portion be with Abraham Isaac and Iacob with Iob and David with the Prophets and Apostles with Martyrs and all thy holy Saints in the arms of Christ in the bosome of felicity in the Kingdom of God to eternall ages Amen These following prayers are fit also to be added to the foregoing offices in case there be no communion or entercourse but prayer Let us Pray O Almighty and eternall God there is no number of thy dayes or of thy mercies thou hast sent us into this world to serve thee and to live according to thy lawes but we by our sins have provoked thee to wrath and we have planted thorns and sorrows round about our dwellings and our life is but a span long and yet very tedious because of the calamities that inclose us in on every side the dayes of our pilgrimage are few and evil we have frail and sickly bodies violent and distempered passions long designes and but a short stay weak understandings and strong enemies abused fancies perverse wils O Dear God look upon us in mercy and pity let not our weaknesses make us to sin against thee nor our fear cause us to betray our duty nor our former follies provoke thy eternall anger nor the calamities of this world vex us into tediousnesse of spirit and impatience but let thy Holy Spirit lead us thorow this vally of misery with safety and peace with holiness and religion with spirituall comforts and joy in the Holy Ghost that when we have served thee in our generations we may be gathered unto our Fathers having the testimony of a holy conscience in the communion of the Catholike Church in the confidence of a certain faith and the comforts of a reasonable religious and holy hope and perfect charity with thee our God and all the world that neither death nor life nor Angels nor principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come nor height nor depth nor any other creature may be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen II. O Holy and most gracious Saviour Jesus in whose hands the souls of all faithfull people are laid up till the day of recompence have mercy upon the body and soul of this thy servant and upon all thy elect people who love the Lord Jesus and long for his coming Lord refresh the imperfection of their condition with the aids of the Spirit of grace and comfort and with the visitation and guard of Angels and supply to them all their necessities known onely unto thee let them dwell in peace and feel thy mercies pitying their infirmities and the follies of their flesh and speedily satisfying the desires of their spirits and when thou shalt bring us all forth in the day of Judgement O then shew thy self to be our Saviour Jesus our Advocate and our Judge Lord then remember that thou hast for so many ages prayed for the pardon of those sins which thou art then to sentence Let not the accusations of our consciences nor the calumnies and aggravation of Devils nor the effects of thy wrath presse those souls whâ—ch thou lovest which thou didst redeem which thou doest pray for but enable us all by the supporting hand of thy mercy to stand upright in judgement O Lord have mercy upon us have mercy upon us O Lord let thy mercy lighten upon us as our trust is in thee O Lord in thee have we trusted let us never be confounded Let us meet with joy and for ever dwell with thee feeling thy pardon supported with thy graciousnesse absolved by thy sentence saved by thy mercy that we may sing to the glory of thy Name eternall Allelujahs Amen Amen Amen Then may be added in the behalf of all that are present these ejaculations O spare us a little that we may recover our strength before we go hence and be no more seen Amen Cast us not away in the time of age O forsake us not when strength faileth Amen Grant that we may never sleep in sin or death eternall but that we may have our part of the first resurrection and that the second death may not prevail over us Amen Grant that our souls may be bound up in the bundle of life and in the day when thou bindest up thy Jewels remember thy servants for good and not for evil that our souls may be numbred amongst the righteous Amen Grant unto all sick and dying Christians mercy and aids from heaven and receive the souls returning unto thee whom thou hast redeemed with thy most precious blood Amen Grant unto thy servants to have faith in the Lord Jesus a daily meditation of death a contempt of
the world a longing desire after heaven patience in our sorrows comfort in our sicknesses joy in God a holy life and a blessed death that our souls may rest in hope and my body may rise in glory and both may be beatified in the communion of Saints in the kingdom of God and the glories of the Lord Jesus Amen The blessing Now the God of peace that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus that great shepherd of the sheep thorough the blood of the everlasting covenant make you perfect in every good work to do his will working in you that which is pleasing in his sight to whom be glory for ever and ever Amen The doxology To the blessed and onely Potentate the King of kings and the Lord of Lords who only hath immortality dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto whom no man hath seen nor can see be honour and power everlasting Amen After the sick man is departed the Minister if he be present or the Major dome or any other fit person may use the following prayers in behalf of themselves I. ALmighty God with whom do live the spirits of them that depart hence in the Lord we adore thy Majesty and submit to thy providence and revere thy justice and magnifie thy mercies thy infinite mercies that it hath pleased thee to deliver this our brother out of the miseries of this sinful world Thy counsels are secret and thy wisdom is infinite with the same hand thou hast crowned him and smitten us thou hast taken him into regions of felicity and placed him among Saints and Angels and left us to mourn for our sins and thy displeasure which thou hast signified to us by removing him from us to a better a far better place Lord turn thy anger into mercie thy chastisements into vertues thy rod into comforts and do thou give to all his neerest relatives comforts from heaven and a restitution of blessings equall to those which thou hast taken from them And we humbly beseech thee of thy gracious goodnesse shortly to satisfie the longing desires of those Holy souls who pray and wait and long for thy second coming Accomplish thou the number of thine elect and fill up the Mansions in heaven which are prepared for all them that love the coming of the Lord Jesus that we with this our Brother and all other departed this life in the obedience and faith of the Lord Jesus may have our perfect consummation and blisse in thy eternall glory which never shall have ending Grant this for Jesus Christ his sake our Lord and onely Saviour Amen II. O Mercifull God Father of our Lord Jesus who is the first fruits of the resurrection and by entring into glory hath opened the kingdom of heaven to all the beleevers we humbly beseech thee to raise us from the death of sin to the life of righteousnesse that being partakers of the death of Christ and followers of his Holy life we may be partakers of his Spirit and of his promises that when we shall depart this life we may rest in his arms and lie in his bosom as our hope is this our brother doth O suffer us not for any temptation of the world or any snares of the Devil or any pains of death to fall from thee Lord let thy H. Spirit enable us with his grace to fight a good fight with perseverance to finish our course with holiness and to keep the faith with constancie unto the end that at the day of judgement we may stand at the right hand of the throne of God and hear the blessed sentence of Come ye blessed children of my Father receive the kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of the world O blessed Jesus thou art our Judge and thou art our Advocate even because thou art good and gracious never suffer us to fall into the intolerable pains of hell never to lye down in sin and never to have our portion in the everlasting burning Mercy sweet Jesu Mercy Amen A prayer to be said in the case of a sudden surprise by death as by a mortal wound or evil accidents in childebirth when the forms and solemnities of preparation cannot be used O Most gracious Father Lord of heaven and earth Judge of the living and the dead behold thy servants running to thee for pity and mercy in behalf of our selves and this thy servant whom thou hast smitten with thy hasty rod and a swift Angel if it be thy will preserve his life that there may be place for his repentance and restitution O spare him a little that he may recover his strength before he go hence and be no more seen but if thou hast otherwise decreed let the miracles of thy compassion and thy wonderfull mercy supply to him the want of the usual measures of time and the periods of repentance and the trimming of his lamp and let the greatnesse of the calamity be accepted by thee as an instrument to procure pardon for those defects and degrees of unreadiness which may have caused this accident upon thy servant Lord stirre up in him a great and effectual contrition that the greatnesse of the sorrow and hatred against sin and the zeal of his love to thee may in a short time do the work of many dayes and thou who regardest the heart and the measures of the minde more then the delay and the measures of time let it be thy pleasure to rescue the soul of thy servant from all the evils he hath deserved and all the evils that he fears that in the glorifications of eternity and the songs which to eternal ages thy Saints and holy Angels shall sing to the honour of thy mighty Name and invaluable mercies it may be reckoned among thy glories that thou hast redeemed this soul from the dangers of an eternall death and made him partaker of the gift of God eternall life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen If there be time the prayers in the foregoing offices may be added according as they can be fitted to the present circumstances SECT VIII A peroration concerning the contingencies and treatings of our departed friends after death in order to their buriall c. WHen we have received the last breath of our friend and closed his eyes and composed his body for the grave then seasonable is the counsell of the son of Syrach Weep bitterly and make great moan and use lamentation as he is worthy and that a day or two lest thou be evil spoken of and then comfort thy self for thy heavinesse But take no grief to heart for there is no turning again thou shalâ— not do him good but hurt tâ—y self Solemn and appointed mournings are good expressions of our dearnesse to the departed soul and of his worth and our value of him and it hath its praise in nature and in manners and publike customs but the praise of it is not in the Gospel that is it hath
The Rule and Exercises of holy Dying by Ier Taylor D. D. THE RVLE AND EXERCISES OF HOLY DYING In which are described The MEANS and INSTRUMENTS of preparing our selves and others respectively for a blessed Death and the remedies against the evils and temptations proper to the state of Sicknesse Together with Prayers and Acts of Vertue to be used by sick and dying persons or by others standing in their Attendance To which are added Rules for the visitation of the Sick and offices proper for that Ministery 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Isoc ad Demonic LONDON Printed for R. R. and are to be sold by Edward Martin Bookseller in Norwich 1651. To the Right Honourable and most truly Noble RICHARD Lord VAVGHAN Earl of CARBERY Baron of EMLIN and MOLINGAR Knight of the Honourable Order of the BATH My Lord I Am treating your Lordship as a Roman Gentleman did Saint Augustine and his Mother I shall entertain you in a Charnel house and carry your meditations awhile into the chambers of death where you shall finde the rooms dressed up with melancholy arts and fit to converse with your most retired thoughts which begin with a sigh and proceed in deep consideration and end in a holy resolution The sight that S. Augustine most noted in that house of sorrow was the body of Caesar clothed with all the dishonours of corruption that you can suppose in a six moneths burial But I know that without pointing your first thoughts will remember the change of a greater beauty which is now dressing for the brightest immortality and from her bed of darknesse calls to you to dress your soul for that change which shall mingle your bones with that beloved dust and carry your soul to the same Quire where you may both sit and sing for ever My Lord it is your dear Ladies Anniversary and she deserved the biggest honour and the longest memory and the fairest monument and the most solemne mourning and in order to it give me leave My Lord to cover her Hearse with these following sheets this book was intended first to minister to her piety and she desired all good people should partake of the advantages which are here recorded she knew how to live rarely well and she desired to know how to dye and God taught her by an experiment But since her work is done and God supplyed her with provisions of his own before I could minister to her and perfect what she desired it is necessary to present to your Lordship those bundles of Cypresse which were intended to dresse her Closet but come now to dresse her Hearse My Lord both your Lordship and my self have lately seen and felt such sorrows of death and such sad departure of Dearest friends that it is more then high time we should think our selves neerly concerned in the accidents Death hath come so neer to you as to fetch a portion from your very heart and now you cannot choose but digge your own grave and place your coffin in your eye when the Angel hath dressed your scene of sorrow and meditation with so particular and so neer an object and therefore as it is my duty I am come to minister to your pious thoughts and to direct your sorrows that they may turn into vertues and advantages And since I know your Lordship to be so constant and regular in your devotions and so tender in the matter of justice so ready in the expressions of charity and so apprehensive of religion and that you are a person whose work of grace is apt and must every day grow towards those degrees where when you arrive you shall triumph over imperfection and choose nothing but what may please God I could not by any compendium conduct and assist your pious purposes so well as by that which is the great argument and the great instrument of holy living the consideration and exercises of death My Lord it is a great art to dye well and to be learnt by men in health by them that can discourse and consider by those whose understanding and acts of reason are not abated with fear or pains and as the greatest part of death is passed by the preceding years of our life so also in those years are the greatest preparation to it and he that prepares not for death before his last sicknesse is like him that begins to study Philosophy when he is going to dispute publikely in the faculty All that a sick and dying man can do is but to exercise those vertues which he before acquired and to perfect that repentance which was begun more early And of this My Lord my Book I think is a good testimony not onely because it represents the vanity of a late and sick-bed repentance but because it contains in it so many precepts and meditations so many propositions and various duties such forms of exercise and the degrees and difficulties of so many graces which are necessary preparatives to a holy death that the very learning the duties require study and skill time and understanding in the wayes of godlinesse and it were very vain to say so much is necessary and not to suppose more time to learn them more skill to practise them more opportunities to desire them more abilities both of body and mind then can be supposed in a sick amazed timerous and weak person whose naturall acts are disabled whose senses are weak whose discerning faculties are lessened whose principles are made intricate and intangled upon whose eye sits a cloud and the heart is broken with sicknesse and the liver pierced thorow with sorrows and the strokes of death And therefore my Lord it is intended by the necessity of affairs that the precepts of dying well be part of the studies of them that live in health and the dayes of discourse and understanding which in this case hath another degree of necessity superadded because in other notices an imperfect study may be supplied by a frequent exercise and a renewed experience Here if we practise imperfectly once we shall never recover the errour for we die but once and therefore it will be necessary that our skill be more exact since it is not to be mended by triall but the actions must be for ever left imperfect unlesse the habit be contracted with study and contemplation before hand And indeed I were vain if I should intend this book to be read and studied by dying persons and they were vainer that should need to be instructed in those graces which they are then to exercise and to finish For a sick bed is only a school of severe exercise in which the spirit of a man is tried and his graces are rehearsed and the assistances which I have in the following pages given to those vertues which are proper to the state of sicknesse are such as suppose a man in the state of grace or they confirm a good man or they support the weak or adde degrees or minister
of a cloud and the meeting of a vapor by the fall of a chariot and the stumbling at a stone by a full meal or an empty stomach by watching at the wine or by watching at prayers by the Sun or the Moon by a heat or a cold by sleeplesse nights or sleeping dayes by water frozen into the hardnesse and sharpnesse of a dagger or water thawd into the floods of a river by a hair or a raisin by violent motion or sitting still by severity or dissolution by Gods mercy or Gods anger by every thing in providence and every thing in manners by every thing in nature and every thing in chance Eripitur persona manet res we take pains to heap up things useful to our life and get our death in the purchase and the person is snatchâ—ed away and the goods remain and all this is the law and constitution of nature it is a punishment to our sins the unalterable event of providence and the decree of heaven The chains that confine us to this condition are strong as destiny and immutable as the eternal laws of God I have conversed with some men who rejoyced in the death or calamity upon others and accounted it as a judgement upon them for being on the other side and against them in the contention but within the revolution of a few moneths the same man met with a more uneasy and unhandsom death which when I saw I wept and was afraid for I knew that it must be so with all men for we also shall die and end our quarrels and contentions by passing to a final sentence SECT II. The Consideration reduced to practice IT will be very material to our best and noblest purposes if we represent this scene of change and sorrow a little more dressed up in Circumstances for so we shall be more apt to practice those Rules the doctrine of which is consequent to this consideration * It is a mighty change that is made by the death of every person and it is visible to us who are alive Reckon but from the spritefulnesse of youth and the fair cheeks and full eyes of childehood from the vigorousnesse and strong flexure of the joynts of five and twenty to the hollownesse and dead palenesse to the loathsomnesse and horrour of a three dayes burial and we shall perceive the distance to be very great and very strange But so have I seen a Rose newly springing from the clefts of its hood and at first it was fair as the Morning and full with the dew of Heaven as a Lambs fleece but when a ruder breath had forced open its virgin modesty and dismantled its too youthful and unripe retirements it began to put on darknesse and to decline to softnesse and the symptomes of a sickly age it bowed the head and broke its stalk and at night having lost some of its leaves and all its beauty it fell into the portion of weeds and out-worn faces The same is the portion of every man and every woman the heritage of worms and serpents rottennesse and cold dishonour and our beauty so changed that our acquaintance quickly knew us not and that change mingled with so much horrour or else meets so with our fears and weak discoursings that they who six hours ago tended upon us either with charitable or ambitious services cannot without some regret stay in the room alone where the body lies stripped of its life and Honour I have read of a fair young German Gentleman who living often refused to be pictured but put ofâ— the importunity of his friends desire by giving way that after a few dayes burial they might send a painter to his vault and if they saw cause for it draw the image of his death unto the life They did so and found his face half eaten and his midriffe and back bone full of serpents and so he stands pictured among his armed Ancestours So does the fairest beauty change and it will be as bad with you and me and then what servants shall we have to wait upon us in the grave what friends to visit us what officious people to cleanse away the moist and unwholsom cloud reflected upon our faces from the sides of the weeping vaults which are the longest weepers for our funeral This discourse will be useful if we consider and practise by the following Rules and Considerations respectivly 1. All the Rich and all the Covetous men in the world will perceive and all the world will perceive for them that it is but an ill recompence for all their cares that by this time all that shall be left will be this that the Neighbours shall say he died a rich man and yet his wealth will not profit him in the grave but hugely swell the sad accounts of Doomsday And he that kills the Lords people with unjust or ambitious wars for an unrewarding interest shall have this character that he threw away all the dayes of his life that one year might be reckoned with his Name and computed by his reign or consulship and many men by great labors and affronts many indignities and crimes labour onely for a pompous Epitaph and a loud title upon their Marble whilest those into whose possessions their heirs or kinred are entred are forgotten and lye unregarded as their ashes and without concernment or relation as the turf upon the face of their grave A man may read a sermon the best and most passionate that ever men preached if he shall but enter into the sepulchres of Kings In the same Escurial where the Spanish Princes live in greatnesse and power and decree war or peace they have wisely placed a coemeterie where their ashes and their glories shall sleep till time shall be no more and where our Kings have been crowned their Ancestours lay interred and they must walk over their Grandsires head to take his crown There is an acre sown with royal seed the copy of the greatest change from rich to naked from ciâ—led roofs to arched coffins from living like Gods to dye like Men. There is enough to cool the flames of lust to abate the heights of pride to appease the itch of covetous desires to â—ully and dash out the dissembling colours of a lustful artificial and imaginary beauty There the warlike and the peaceful the fortunate and the miserable the beloved and the despised Princes mingle their dust and pay down their symbol of Mortality and tell all the world that when we die our ashes shall be equal to Kings and our accounts easier and our pains or our crowns shall be lesse * To my apprehension it is a sad record which is left by Athenaeus concerning Ninus the great Assyrian Monarch whose life and death is summed up in these words Ninus the Assyrian had an Ocean of gold and other riches more then the sand in the Caspian sea he never saw the stars and perhaps he never desired
and unavoidable forgetfulnesse will be enough to be intrusted to such a bank and that if a general repentance will serve towards their expiation it will be an infinite mercy but we have nothing to warrant our confidence if we shall think it to be enough on our death-bed to confesse the notorious actions of our lives and to say The Lord be merciful to me for the infinite transgressions of my life which I have wilfully or carelesly forgot for very many of which the repentance the distinct particular circumstantiate repentance of a whole life would have been too little if we could have done more 5. After the enumeration of these advantanges I shall not need to adde that if we decline or refuse to call our selves frequently to account and to use daily advices concerning the state of our souls it is a very ill signe that our souls are not right with God or that they do not dwell in religion But this I shall say that they who do use this exercise frequently will make their conscience much at ease by casting out a daily load of humor and surfet the matter of diseases and the instruments of death He that does not frequently search his conscience is a house without a window and like a wilde untutored son of a fond and undiscerning widow But if this exercise seem too great a trouble and that by such advices religion will seem a burden I have two things to oppose against it 1. One is that we had better â—ear the burden of the Lord then the burden of a base and polluted conscience Religion cannot be so great a trouble as a guilty soul and whatsoever trouble can be fancied in this or any other action of religion it is onely to unexperienced persons It may be a trouble at first just as is every change and every new accident but if you do it frequently and accustom your spirit to it as the custom will make it easy so the advantages wil make it delectable that will make it facile as nature these will make it as pleasant and eligible as reward 2. The other thing I have to say is this That to examine our lives will be no trouble if we do not intricate it with businesses of the world and the Labyrinths of care and impertinent affairs A man had need have a quiet and disintangled life who comes to search into all his actions and to make judgement concerning his errors and his needs his remedies and his hopes They that have great intrigues of the world have a yoak upon their necks cannot look back and he that covets many things greedily and snatches at high things ambitiously that despises his Neighbour proudly and bears his crosses peevishly or his prosperity impotently and passionately he that is prodigal of his precious time and is tenacious and retentive of evil purposes is not a man disposed to this exercise he hath reason to be afraid of his own memory and to dash his glasse in pieces because it must needs represent to his own eyes an intolerable deformity He therefore that resolves to live well whatsoever it costs him he that will go to Heaven at any rate shall best tend this duty by neglecting the affairs of the world in all things where prudently he may But if we do otherwise we shall finde that the accounts of our death-bed and the examination made by a disturbed understanding will be very empty of comfort and full of inconveniencies 6. For hence it comes that men dye so timorously and uncomfortably as if they were forced out of their lives by the violencies of an executioner Then without much examination they remember how wickedly they have lived without religion against the laws of the covenant of grace without God in the world then they see sin goes off like an amazed wounded affrighted person from a lost battel without honour without a veil with nothing but shame sad remembrances Then they can consider that if they had lived vertuously all the trouble and objection of that would now be past and all that had remained should be peace and joy and all that good which dwells within the house of God and eternal life But now they finde they have done amisse and dealt wickedly they have no bank of good works but a huge treasure of wrath and they are going to a strange place and what shall be their lot is uncertain so they say when they would comfort and flatter themselves but in truth of religion their portion is sad and intollerable without hope and without refreshment and they must use little silly arts to make them go off from their stage of sins with some handsom circumstances of opinion They will in civility be abused that they may die quietly and go decently to their execution and leave their friends indifferently contented and apt to be comforted and by that time they are gone awhile they see that they deceived themselves all their dayes and were by others deceived at last Let us make it our own case we shall come to that state and period of condition in which we shall be infinitely comforted if we have lived well er else be amazed and go off trembling because we are guilty of heaps of unrepented and unforsaken sins It may happen we shall not then understand it so because most men of late ages have been abused with false principles and they are taught or they are willing to believe that a little thing is enough to save them and that heaven is so cheap a purchase that it will fall upon them whether they will or no. The misery of it is they will not suffer themselves to be confuted till it be too late to recant their errour In the interim they are impatient to be examined as a leper is of a comb and are greedy of the world as children of raw fruit and they hate a severe reproof as they do thorns in their beds and they love to lay aside religion as a drunken person does to forget his sorrow and all the way they dream of fine things and their dreams prove contrary and become the hieroglyphics of an eternal sorrow The daughter of Polycrates dreamed that her Father was lifted up and that Iupiter washed him and the Sun anointed him but it proved to him but a sad prosperity for after a long life of constant prosperous successes he was surprized by his enemies and hanged up till the dew of heaven wet his cheeks and the Sun melted his grease Such is the condition of those persons who living either in the despight or in the neglect of religion lye wallowing in the drunkennesse of prosperity or worldly cares they think themselves to be exalted till the evil day overtakes them and then they can expound their dream of life to end in a sad and hopelesse death I remember that Cleomenes that was called a God by the Egyptians because when he was hang'd a serpent grew out of his
body and wrapt it self about his head till the Philosophers of Egypt said it was natural that from the marrow of some bodies such productions should arise and indeed it represents the condition of some men who being dead are esteemed saints and beatified persons when their head is encircled with dragons and is entered into the possession of Devils that old serpent and deceiver For indeed their life was secretly so corrupted that such serpents fed upon the ruines of the spirit and the decayes of grace and reason To be cosened in making judgements concerning our finall condition is extremely easie but if we be cosened we are infinitely miserable SECT III. Of exercising Charity during our whole life HE that would die well and happily must in his life time according to all his capacities exercise charity and because Religion is the life of the soul and charity is the life of religion the same which gives life to the better part of man which never dies may obtain of God a mercy to the inferiour part of man in the day of its dissolution 1. Charity is the great chanel through which God passes all his mercy upon mankinde For we receive absolution of our sins in proportion to our forgiving our brother this is the rule of our hopes and the measure of our desire in this world and in the day of death and judgement the great sentence upon mankinde shall be transacted according to our almes which is the other part of Charity Certain it is that God cannot will not never did reject a charitable man in his greatest needs and in his most passionate prayers for God himself is love and every degree of charity that dwells in us is the participation of the divine nature and therefore when upon our death-bed a cloud covers our heads and we are enwrapped with sorrow when we feel the weight of a sicknesse and do not feel the refreshing visitations of Gods loving kindnesse when we have many things to trouble us and looking round about us we see no comforter then call to minde what injuries you have forgiven how apt you were to pardon all affronts and real persecutions how you embraced peace when it was offered you how you followed after peace when it run from you and when you are weary of one side turn upon the other and remember the alms that by the grace of God and his assistances you have done and look up to God and with the eye of faith behold him coming in the cloud and pronouncing the sentence of dooms day according to his mercies and thy charity 2. Charity with its Twin-daughters almes and forgivenesse is especially effectual for the procuring Gods mercies in the day and the manner of our death almes deliver from death said old Tobias and almes make an atonement for sins said the son of Sirach and so said Daniel and so say all the wise men of the world And in this sence also is that of S. Peter Love covers a multitude of sins and S. Clement in his Constitutions gives this counsell If you have any thing in your hands give it that it may work to the remission of thy sins for by faith and alms sins are purged The same also is the counsel of Salviâ—n who wonders that men who are guilty of great and many sins will not work out their pardon by alms and mercy But this also must be added out of the words of Lactantius who makes this rule compleat and useful But think not that because sins are taken away by alms that by thy money thou mayest purchase a license to sin For sins are abolished if because thou hast sinned thou givest to God that is to Gods poor servants and his indigent necessitous creature But if thou sinnest upon confidence of giving thy sins are not abolished For God desires infinitely that men should be purged from their sins and therefore commands us to repent But to repent is nothing else but to professe and affirm that is to purpose and to make good that purpose that they will sin no more Now almes are therefore effective to the abolition and pardon of our sins because they are preparatory to and impetratory of the grace of repentance and are fruits of repentance and therefore S. Chrysostom affirmes that repentance without almes is dead and without wings and can never soar upwards to the element of love But because they are a part of repentance and hugely pleasing to Almighty God therefore they deliver us from the evils of an unhappy and accursed death for so Christ delivered his Disciples from the sea when he appeased the storm though they still sailed in the chanel and this S. Hierome verifies with all his reading and experience saying I do not remember to have read that ever any charitable person died an evil death and although a long experience hath observed Gods mercies to descend upon charitable people like the dew upon Gideons fleece when all the world was dry yet for this also we have a promise which is not onely an argument of a certain number of years as experience is but a security for eternall ages Make ye friends of the mammon of unrighteousnesse that when ye fail they may receive you into everlasting habitations When faith fails and chastity is uselesse and temperance shall be no more then charity shall bear you upon wings of cherubins to the eternall mountain of the Lord. I have been a lover of mankinde and a friend and mercifull and now I expect to communicate in that great kindnesse which he shews that is the great God and Father of men and mercies said Cyrus the Persian on his death-bed I do not mean this should onely be a death-bed charity any more then a death-bed repentance but it ought to be the charity of our life healthfull years a parting with portions of our goods then when we can keep them we must not first kindle our lights when we are to descend into our houses of darknesse or bring a glaring torch suddenly to a dark room that will amaze the eye and not delight it or instruct the body but if our Tapers have in their constant course descended into their grave crowned all the way with light then let the death-bed charity be doubled and the light burn brightest when it is to deck our hearse But concerning this I shall afterwards give account SECT IV. General considerations to enforce the former practises THese are the generall instruments of preparation in order to a holy death It will concern us all to use them diligently and speedily for we must be long in doing that which must be done but once and therefore we must begin betimes and lose no time especially since it is so great a venture and upon it depends so great a state Seneca said well There is no Science or Art in the world so hard as to
checked with the stiffnesse of a tower or the united strength of a wood it grew mighty and dwelt there and made the highest branches stoop and make a smooth path for it on the top of all its glories So is sicknesse and so is the grace of God When sicknesse hath made the difficulty then Gods grace hath made a triumph and by doubling its power hath created new proportions of a reward and then shews its biggest glory when it hath the greatest difficulty to Master the greatest weaknesses to support the most busie temptations to contest with For so God loves that his strength should be seen in our weaknesse and our danger Happy is that state of life in which our services to God are the dearest and the most expensive 5. Sicknesse hath some degrees of eligibility at least by an after-choice because to all persons which are within the possibilities and state of pardon it becomes a great instrument of pardon of sins For as God seldom rewards here and hereafter too So it is not very often that he punishes in both states In great and finall sins he doth so but we finde it expressed onely in the case of the sin against the Holy Ghost which shall never be forgiven in this world nor in the world to come that is it shall be punished in both worlds and the infelicities of this world shall but usher in the intollerable calamities of the next But this is in a case of extremity and in sins of an unpardonable malice In those lesser stages of death which are deviations from the rule and not a destruction and perfect antinomy to the whole institution God very often smites with his rod of sicknesse that he may not for ever be slaying the soul with eternall death I will visit their offences with the rod and their sin with scourges Neverthelesse my loving kindenesse will I not utterly take from him nor suffer my truth to fail And there is in the New Testament a delivering over to Satan and a consequent buffeting for the mortification of the flesh indeed but that the soul may be saved in the day of the Lord. And to some persons the utmost processe of Gods anger reaches but to a sharp sicknesse or at most but to a temporall death and then the little momentany anger is spent and expires in rest and a quiet grave Origen S. Austin and Cassian say concerning Ananias and Sapphira that they were slain with a sudden death that by such a judgement their sin might be punished and their guilt expiated and their persons reserved for mercy in the day of judgement And God cuts off many of his children from the land of the living and yet when they are numbred amongst our dead he findes them in the book of life written amongst those that shall live to him for ever and thus it happened to many new Christians in the Church of Corinth for their little undecencies and disorders in the circumstances of receiving the holy Sacrament S. Paul sayes that many amongst them were sick may were weak and some were fallen asleep He expresses the divine anger against those persons in no louder accents which according to the stile of the New Testament where all the great transactions of duty and reproof are generally made upon the stock of Heaven and Hell is plainly a reserve and a period set to the declaration of Gods wrath For God knowes that the torments of hell are so horrid so insupportable a calamity that he is not easy and apt to cast those souls which he hath taken so much care and hath been at so much expence to save into the eternal never dying flames of Hell lightly for smaller sins or after a fairly begun repentance and in the midst of holy desires to finish it But God takes such penalties and exacts such fines of us which we may pay salvo contenemento saving the main stake of all even our precious souls And therefore S. Augustine prayed to God in his penitential sorrowes Here O Lord burn and cut my flesh that thou mayest spare me for ever For so said our blessed Saviour Every sacrifice must be seasoned with salt and every sacrifice must be burnt with fire that is we must abide in the state of grace and if we have committed sins we must expect to be put into the state of affliction and yet the sacrifice will send up a right and unâ—roubled cloud and a sweet smell to joyn with the incense of the Altar where the eternal Priest offers a never ceasing sacrifice And now I have said a thing against which there can be no exceptions and of which no just reason can make abatement For when sicknesse which is the condition of our nature is called for with purposes of redemption when we are sent to death to secure eternal life when God strikes us that he may spare us it shewes that we have done things which he essentially hates and therefore we must be smitten with the rod of God but in the midst of judgement God remembers mercy and makes the rod to be medicinal and like the rod of God in the hand of Aaron to shoot forth buds and leaves and Almonds hopes and mercies and eternal recompences in the day of restitution This is so great a good to us if it be well conducted in all the chanels of its intention and designe that if we had put off the objections of the flesh with abstractions contempts and separations so as we ought to do were as earnestly to be prayed for as any gay blessing that crowns our cups with joy and our heads with garlands and forgetfulnesse But this was it which I said that this may nay that it ought to be chosen at least by an after-election for so said S. Paul If we judge our selves we shall not be condemned of the Lord that is if we judge our selves worthy of the sicknesse if we acknowledge and confesse Gods justice in smiting us if we take the rod of God in our own hands and are willing to imprint it in the flesh we are workers together with God in the infliction and then the sickness beginning and being managed in the vertue of repentance and patience and resignation and charity will end in peace and pardon and justification and consignation to glory That I have spoken truth I have brought Gods Spirit speaking in Scripture for a witnesse But if this be true there are not many states of life that have advantages which can out-weigh this great instrument of security to our final condition Moses dyed at the mouth of the Lord said the story he died with the kisses of the Lords mouth so the Chaldee Paraphrase it was the greatest act of kindesse that God did to his servant Moses he kissed him and he died But I have some things to observe for the better finishing this consideration 1. All these advantages and lessenings of evil in the
mortals with ignorant and foolish persons with Tyrants and enemies of learning to converse with Homer and Plato with Socrates and Cicero with Plutarch and Fabricius So the Heathens speculated but we consider higher The dead that die in the Lord shall converse with S. Paul and all the Colledge of the Apostles and all the Saints and Martyrs with all the good men whose memory we preserve in honour with excellent Kings and holy Bishops and with the great Shepherd and Bishop of our souls Iesus Christ and with God himself For Christ dyed for us that whether we wake or sleep we might live together with him Then we shall be free from lust and envy from fear and rage from covetousnesse and sorrow from tears and cowardice and these indeed properly are the onely evils that are contrary to felicity and wisdom Then we shall see strange things and know new propositions and all things in another manner and to higher purposes Cleombrotus was so taken with this speculation that having learned from Plato's Phaedon the souls abode he had not patience to stay natures dull leisure but leapt from a wall to his portion of immortality And when Pomponius Atticus resolved to die by famine to ease the great pains of his gout in the abstinence of two dayes found his foot at ease But when he began to feel the pleasures of an approaching death and the delicacies of that ease he was to inherit below he would not withdraw his foot but went on and finished his death and so did Cleanthes and every wise man will despise the little evils of that state which indeed is the daughter of fear but the mother of rest and peace and felicity 5. If God should say to us Cast thy self into the Sea as Christ did to S. Peter or as God concerning Ionas I have provided for thee a Dolphin or a Whale or a Port a safety or a deliverance security or a reward were we not incredulous and pusillanimous persons if we should tremble to put such a felicity into act and our selves into possession The very duty of resignation and the love of our own interest are good antidores against fear In fourty or fifty years we finde evils enough and arguments enough to make us weary of this life And to a good man there are very many more reasons to be afraid of life then death this having in it lesse of evil and more of advantage And it was a rare wish of that Roman that death might come onely to wise and excellent persons and not to fools and cowards that it might not be a sanctuary for the timerous but the reward of the vertuous and indeed they onely can make advantage of it 6. Make no excuses to make thy desires of life seem reasonable neither cover thy fear and pretences but suppresse it rather with arts of severity and ingenuity Some are not willing to submit to Gods sentence and arrest of death till they have finished such a designe or made an end of the last paragraph of their book or raised such portions for their children or preached so many sermons or built their house or planted their orchard or ordered their estate with such advantages It is well for the modesty of these men that the excuse is ready but if it were not it is certain they would search one out for an idle man is never ready to die and is glad of any excuse and a busied man hath alwayes something unfinished and he is ready for every thing but death and I remember that Petronius brings in Eumolpus composing verses in a desperate storm and being called upon to shift for himself when the ship dashed upon the rock cried out to let him alone till he had finished and trimmed his verse which was lame in the hinder leg the man either had too strong a desire to end his verse or too great a desire not to end his life But we must know Gods times are not to be measured by our circumstances and what I value God regards not or if it be valuable in the accounts of men yet God will supply it with other contingencies of his providence and if Epaphroditus had died when he had his great sicknesse S. Paul speaks of God would have secured the work of the Gospel without him and he could have spared Epaphroditus as well as S. Stephen and S. Peter as well as S. Iames Say no more but when God calls lay aside thy papers and first dresse thy soul and then dresse thy hearse Blindnesse is odious and widow-hood is sad and destitution is without comfort and persecution is full of trouble and famine is intolerable and tears are the sad ease of a sadder heart but these are evils of our life not of our death For the dead that die in the Lord are so farre from wanting the commodities of this life that they do not want life it self After all this I do not say it is a sin to be afraid of death we find the boldest spirit that discourses of it with confidence and dares undertake a danger as big as death yet doth shrink at the horror of it when it comes dressed in its proper circumstances And Brutus who was as bold a Roman to undertake a noble action as any was since they first reckoned by Consuls yet when Furius came to cut his throat after his defeat by Anthony he ran from it like a girl and being admonished to die constantly he swore by his life that he would shortly endure death But what do I speak of such imperfect persons Our B. Lord was pleased to legitimate fear to us by his agony and prayers in the garden It is not a sin to be afraid but it is a great felicity to be without fear which felicity our dearest Saviour refused to have because it was agreeable to his purposes to suffer any thing that was contrary to felicity every thing but sin But when men will by all means avoid death they are like those who at any hand resolve to be rich The case may happen in which they wil blaspheme and dishonor providence or do a base action or curse God and die But in all cases they die miserable and insnared and in no case do they die the lesse for it Nature hath left us the key of the Churchyard and custome hath brought Caemeteries and charnell houses into Cities and Churches places most frequented that we might not carry our selves strangely in so certain so expected so ordinary so unavoydable an accident All reluctancy or unwillingnesse to obey the Divine decree is but a snare to our selves and a load to our spirits and is either an intire cause or a great aggravation of the calamity Who did not scorn to look upon Xerxes when he caused 300. stripes to be given to the Sea and sent a chartell of defiance against the Mountain Atho Who did not scorn the proud vanity of Cyrus when he
hand of the most High No temptation hath taken me but such as is common to man but God is faithful who will not suffer me to be tempted above what I am able but will with the temptation also make a way to escape that I may be able to bear it Whatsoever things were written afore time were written for our learning that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope Now the God of peace and consolation grant me to be so minded It is the Lord let him do what seemeth good in his eyes Surely the word that the Lord hath spoken is very good But thy servant is weak O remember mine infirmities and lift thy servant up that leaneth upon thy right hand There is given unto me a thorn in the flesh to buffet me For this thing I besought the Lord thrice that it might depart from me and he said unto me My grace is sufficient for thee For my strength is made perfect in weaknesse Most gladly therefore will I glory in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me For when I am weak then am I strong O Lord thou hast pleaded the causes of my soul thou hast redeemed my life And I said My strength and my hope is in the Lord remembring my affliction and my misery the wormwood and the gall My soul hath them still in remembrance and is humbled within me This I recall to my minde therefore I have hope It is the Lords mercies that we are not consumed because his compassions fail not They are new every morning great is thy faithfulnesse The Lord is my portion said my soul therefore will I hope in him The Lord is good unto them that wait for him to the soul that seeketh him It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord. For the Lord will not cast off for ever But though he cause grief yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies For he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men Wherefore doth a living man complain a man for the punishment of his sins O that thou wouldest hide me in the grave of Jesus that thou wouldest keep me secret until thy wrath be past that thou wouldest appoint me a set time and remember me Shall we receive good at the hand of God and shall we not receive evil The sick man may recite or hear recited the following Psalms in the intervals of his agony I. O Lord rebuke me not in thine anger neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure Have mercy upon me O Lord for I am weak O Lord heal me for my bones are vexed My soul is also sore vexed but thou O Lord how long Return O Lord deliver my soul O save me for thy mercies sake For in death no man remembreth thee in the grave who shall give thee thanks I am weary with my groaning all the night make I my bed to swim I water my couch with my tears Mine eye is consumed because of grief it waxeth old because of all my sorrowes Depart from me all ye workers of iniquity for the Lord hath heard the voice of my weeping The Lord hath heard my supplication the Lord will receive my prayer Blessed be the Lord who hath heard my prayer and hath not turned his mercy from me II. IN the Lord put I my trust how say ye to my soul flee as a bird to your mountain The Lord is in his holy temple the Lords throne is in heaven his eyes behold his eye-lids try the children of men Preserve me O God for in thee do I put my trust O my soul thou hast said unto the Lord thou art my Lord my goodnesse extendeth not to thee The Lord is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup thou maintainest my lot I will blesse the Lord who hath given me counsel my reins also instruct me in the night seasons I have set the Lord alwayes before me because he is at my right hand I shall not be moved Therefore my heart is glad and my glory rejoyceth my flesh also shall rest in hope Thou wilt shew me the path of life in thy presence is the fulnesse of joy at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore As for me I will behold thy face in righteousnesse I shall be satisfied when I awake with thy likenesse III. HAve mercy upon me O Lord for I am in trouble mine eye is consumed with grief yea my soul and my belly For my life is spent with grief and my years with sighing my strength faileth because of mine iniquity and my bones are consumed * I am like a broken vessel But I trusted in thee O Lord I said thou art my God My times are in thy hand make thy face to shine upon thy servant save me for thy mercies sake When thou saidst seek ye my face my heart said unto thee thy face Lord will I seek Hide not thy face from me put not thy servant away in thy anger thou hadst been my help leave me not neither forsake me O God of my salvation I had fainted unlesse I had beleeved the goodnesse of the Lord in the land of the living O how great is thy goodnesse which thou hast laid up for them that fear thee which thou hast wrought for them that trust in thee before the sons of men Thou shalt hide them in the secret of thy presence from the pride of man thou shalt keep them secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues from the calumnies and aggravation of sins by Devils I said in my haste I am cut off from before thine eyes neverthelesse thou heardest the voice of my supplication when I cried unto thee O love the Lord all ye his Saints for the Lord preserveth the faithfull and plenteously rewardeth the proud doer Be of good courage and he shall strengthen your heart all ye that hope in the Lord. The Prayer to be said in the beginning of a sicknesse O Almighty God mercifull and gracious who in thy justice didst send sorrow and tears sicknesse and death into the world as a punishment for mans sins and hast comprehended all under sin and this sad covenant of sufferings not to destroy us but that thou mightest have mercy upon all making thy justice to minister to mercy short afflictions to an eternall weight of glory as thou hast turned my sins into sicknesse so turn my sicknesse to the advantages of holinesse and religion of mercy and pardon of faith and hope of grace and glory thou hast now called me to the fellowship of sufferings Lord by the instrument of religion let my present condition be so sanctified that my sufferings may be united to the sufferings of my Lord that so thou mayest pity me and assist me relieve my sorrow and support my spirit direct my
thoughts and sanctifie the accidents of my sicknesse and that the punishment of my sin may be the school of vertue In which since thou hast now entred me Lord make me a holy proficient that I may behave my self as a son under discipline humbly and obediently evenly and penitently that I may come by this means neerer unto thee that if I shall go forth of this sicknesse by the gate of life and health I may return to the world with great strengths of spirit to run a new race of a stricter holinesse and a more severe religion Or if I passe from hence with the out-let of death I may enter into the bosome of my Lord and may feel the present joyes of a certain hope of that Sea of pleasures in which all thy Saints and servants shall be comprehended to eternall ages Grant this for Jesus Christ his sake our Dearest Lord and Saviour Amen An act of resignation to be said by a sick person in all the evil accidents of his sicknesse O Eternall God thou hast made me and sustained me thou hast blessed me in all the dayes of my life and hast taken care of me in all variety of accidents and nothing happens to me in vain nothing without thy providence and I know thou smitest thy servants in mercy and with designes of the greatest pity in the world Lord I humbly lie down under thy rod do with me as thou pleasest do thou choose for me not onely the whole state and condition of being but every little and great accident of it Keep me safe by thy grace and then use what instrument thou pleasest of bringing me to thee Lord I am not sollicitous of the passage so I may get thee Onely O Lord remember my infirmities and let thy servant rejoyce in thee alwayes and feel and confesse and glory in thy goodnesse O be thou as delightfull to me in this my medicinal sicknesse as ever thou wert in any of the dangers of my prosperity let me not peevishly refuse thy pardon at the rate of a severe discipline I am thy servant and thy creature thy purchased possession and thy son I am all thine and because thou hast mercy in store for all that trust in thee I cover my eyes and in silence wait for the time of my redemption Amen A Prayer for the grace of Patience MOst Mercifull and Gracious Father who in the redemption of lost Mankind by the passion of thy most holy Son hast established a Covenant of sufferings I blesse and magnifie thy Name that thou hast adopted me into the inheritance of sons and hast given me a portion of my elder Brother Lord the crosse falls heavy and sits uneasie upon my shoulders my spirit is willing but my flesh is weak I humbly beg of thee that I may now rejoyce in this thy dispensation and effect of providence I know and am perswaded that thou art then as gracious when thou smitest us for amendment or triall as when thou releevest our wearied bodies in compliance with our infirmity I rejoyce O Lord in thy rare and mysterious mercy who by sufferings hast turned our misery into advantages unspeakable for so thou makest us like to thy Son and givest us a gift that the Angels never did receive for they cannot die in conformity to and imitation of their Lord and ours but blessed be thy Name we can and dearest Lord Let it be so Amen II. THou who art the God of patience and consolation strengthen me in the inner man that I may bear the yoak and burden of the Lord without any uneasie and uselesse murmurs and ineffective unwillingnesse Lord I am unable to stand under the crosse unable of my self but thou O Holy Jesus who didst feel the burden of it who didst sink under it and wert pleased to admit a man to bear part of the load when thou underwentest all for him be thou pleased to ease this load by fortifying my spirit that I may be strongest when I am weakest and may be able to do and suffer every thing thou pleasest through Christ which strengthens me Lord if thou wilt support me I will for ever praise thee If thou wilt suffer the load to presse me yet more heavily I will cry unto thee and complain unto my God and at last I will lie down and die and by the mercies and intercession of the Holy Jesus and the conduct of thy blessed Spirit and the ministery of Angels passe into those mansions where Holy souls rest and weep no more Lord pity me Lord sanctifie this my sicknesse Lord strengthen me Holy Jesus save me and deliver me thou knowest how shamefully I have fallen with pleasure in thy mercy and very pity let me not fall with pain too O let me never charge God foolishly nor offend thee by my impatience and uneasie spirit nor weaken the hands and hearts of those that charitably minister to my needs but let me passe through the valley of tears and the valley of the shadow of death with safety and peace with a meek spirit and a sense of the divine mercies and though thou breakest me in pieces my hope is thou wilt gather me up in the gatherings of eternity Grant this eternall God Gracious Father for the merits and intercession of our mercifull high Priest who once suffered for me and for ever intercedes for me our most gracious and ever Blessed Saviour Jesus A Prayer to be said when the sick man takes Physick O Most blessed and eternall Jesus thou who art the great Physician of our souls and the Sun of righteousnesse arising with healing in thy wings to thee is given by thy heavenly Father the Government of all the world and thou disposest every great and little accident to thy Fathers honour and to the good and comfort of them that love and serve thee Be pleased to blesse the ministery of thy servant in order to my ease and health direct his judgement prosper the medicines and dispose the chances of my sicknesse fortunately that I may feel the blessing and loving kindnesse of the Lord in the ease of my pain and the restitution of my health that I being restored to the society of the living and to thy solemn Assemblies may praise thee and thy goodnesse secretly among the faithfull and in the Congregation of thy redeemed ones here in the outer-courts of the Lord and hereafter in thy eternall temple for ever and ever Amen SECT III. Of the practise of the grace of Faith in the time of sicknesse NOw is the time in which faith appears most necessary and most difficult It is the foundation of a good life and the foundation of all our hopes it is that without which we cannot live well and without which we cannot die well it is a grace that then we shall need to support our spirits to sustain our hopes to alleviate our sickesse to resist temptations to prevent despair upon the belief of the articles of our
he is to do is to secure his hold which he can do no way but by prayer and by his interest And by this Argument or instrument it was that Socrates refreshed the evil of his condition when he was to drink his aconite If the soul be immortall and perpetuall rewards be laid up for wise souls then I lose nothing by my death but if there be not then I lose nothing by my opinion for it supports my spirit in my passage and the evil of being deceived cannot overtake me when I have no being So it is with all that are tempted in their faith If those Articles be not true then the men are nothing if they be true then they are happy and if the Article fails there can be no punishment for beleeving but if they be true my not beleeving destroyes all my portion in them and possibility to receive the excellent things which they contain By faith we quench the fiery darts of the Devil but if our faith be quenched wherewithall shall we be able to endure the assault therefore seiz upon the Article and secure the great object and the great instrument that is the hopes of pardon and eternall life through Iesus Christ and do this by all means and by any instrument artificiall or inartificiall by argument or by stratagem by perfect resolution or by discourse by the hand and ears of premisses or the foot of the conclusion by right or by wrong because we understand it or because we love it super totam materiam because I will and because I ought because it is safe to do so and because it is not safe to do otherwise because if I do I may receive a good and because if I do not I am miserable either for that I shall have a portion of sorrows or that I can have no portion of good things SECT IV. Acts of faith by way of prayer and ejaculation to be said by sick men in the dayes of their temptation LOrd whither shall I go thou hast the words of eternall life I beleeve in God the Father Almighty and in Jesus Christ his onely Son our Lord c. And I beleeve in the Holy Ghost c. Lord I beleeve help thou mine unbelief I know and am perswaded by the Lord Jesus that none of us liveth to himself and no man dieth to himself For whether we live we live unto the Lord and whether we die we die unto the Lord whether we live therefore or die we are the Lords If God be for us who can be against us He that spared not his own Son but delivered him up for us all how shall he not with him give us all things Who shall lay any thing to the charge of Gods elect It is God that justifieth who is he that condemneth It is Christ that died yea rather that is risen again who is even at the right hand of God who also maketh intercession for us If any man sin we have an Advocate with the Father Jesus Christ the righteous and he is the propitiation for our sins This is a faithfull saying and worthy of all acceptation that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners O grant that I may obtain mercy that in me Jesus Christ may shew forth all long-suffering that I may beleeve in him to life everlasting I am bound to give thanks unto God alway because God hath from the beginning chosen me to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth whereunto he called me by the Gospel to the obtaining of the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God even our Father which hath loved us and hath given us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace Comfort my heart and stablish me in every good word and work The Lord direct my heart into the love of God and into the patient waiting for Christ. O that our God would count me worthy of this calling and fulfill all the good pleasure of his goodnesse and the work of faith with power That the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in me and I in him according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ. Let us who are of the day be sober putting on the brest-plate of faith and love and for an helmet the hope of salvation For God hath not appointed us to wrath but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ who died for us that whether we wake or sleep we should live together with him Wherefore comfort your selves together and edifie one another There is no name under heaven whereby we can be saved but onely the Name of the Lord Jesus And every soul which will not hear that Prophet shall be destroyed from among the people God forbid that I should glory save in the Crosse of Jesus Christ. I desire to know nothing but Jesus Christ and him crucified For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain Cease ye from man whose breath is in his nostrils for wherein is he to be accounted of But the just shall live by faith Lord I beleeve that thou art the Christ the Son of God the Saviour of the world the resurrection and the life and he that beleeveth in thee though he were dead yet shall he live Jesus said unto her Said I not to thee that if thou wouldest beleeve thou shouldst see the glory of God 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. Lord make me stedfast and unmoveable alwayes abounding in the work of the Lord For I know that my labour is not in vain in the Lord. The Prayer for the grace and strengths of faith O Holy and eternall Jesus who didst die for me and for all mankind abolishing our sin reconciling us to God adopting us into the portion of thine heritage and establishing with us a covenant of faith and obedience making our souls to rely upon spirituall strengths by the supports of a holy belief and the expectation of rare promises and the infallible truths of God O let me for ever dwell upon the rock leaning upon thy arm beleeving thy word trusting in thy promises waiting for thy mercies and doing thy commandements that the Devil may not prevail upon me and my own weaknesses may not abuse or unsettle my perswasions nor my sins discompose my just confidence in thee and thy eternall mercies Let me alwayes be thy servant and thy disciple and die in the communion of thy Church of all faithfull people Lord I renounce whatsoever is against thy truth and if secretly I have or do beleeve any false proposition I do it in the simplicity of my heart and great weaknesse and if I could
God had made appetites of pleasure in man that in them the scene of his obedience should lye For when God made instances of mans obedience he 1. either commanded such things to be done which man did naturally desire or 2. such things which did contradict his natural desires or 3. such which were indifferent Not the first and the last For it could be no effect of love or duty towards God for a man to eat when he was impatiently hungry and could not stay from eating neither was it any contention of obedience or labour of love for a man to look Eastward once a day or turn his back when the North winde blew fierce and loud Therefore for the trial and instance of obedience God made his laws so that they should lay restraint upon mans appetites so that man might part with something of his own that he may give to God his will and deny it to himself for the interest of his service and chastity is the denyall of a violent desire and justice is parting with money that might help to inrich me and meekness is a huge contradiction to pride and revenge and the wandring of our eyes and the greatnesse of our fancy and our imaginative opinions are to be lessened that we may serve God there is no other way of serving God we have nothing else to present unto him we do not else give him any thing or part of our selves but when we for his sake part with what we naturally desire and difficulty is essential to vertue and without choice there can be no reward in the satisfaction of our natural desires there is no election we run to them as beasts to the river or the crib If therefore any man shall teach or practise such a religion that satisfies all our natural desires in the dayes of desire and passion of lust and appetites and only turns to God when his appetites are gone his desires cease this man hath overthrown the very being of vertues and the essential constitution of religion Religion is no religion and vertue is no act of choice and reward comes by chance and without condition if we onely are religious when we cannot choose if we part with our money when we cannot keep it with our lust when we cannot act it with our desires when they have left us death is a certain mortifier but that mortification is deadly not useful to the purposes of a spiritual life When we are compeld to depart from our evil customs and leave to live that we may begin to live then we dye to dye that life is the prologue to death and thenceforth we die eternally S. Cyril speaks of certain people that chose to worship the sun because he was a day God for believing that he was quenched every â—â—ght in the sea or that he had no influence upon them that light up candles and lived by the light of fire they were confident they might be Atheists all night and live as they list Men who divide their little portion of time between religion and pleasures between God and Gods enemy think that God is to rule but in his certain period of time and that our life is the stage for passion and folly and the day of death for the work of our life but as to God both the day and night are alike so are the first and the last of our dayes all are his due and he will account severely with us for the follies of the first and the evil of the last The evils and the pains are great which are reserved for those who defer their restitution to Gods favour till their death And therefore Antisthenes said well It is not the happy death but the happy life that makes man happy It is in piety as in fame and reputation he secures a good name but loosely that trusts his fame and celebritie onely to his ashes and it is more a civilitie 〈◊〉 then the base of a firm reputation that men speak honour of their departed relatives but if their life be vertuous it forces honour from contempt and snatches it from the hand of envy and it shines thorough the crevises of detraction and as it anointed the head of the living so it embalms the body of the dead From these premises if followes that when we discourse of a sick mans repentance it is intended to be not a beginning but the prosecution and consummation of the covenant of repentance which Christ stipulated with us in Baptisme and which we needed all our life and which we began long before this last arrest and in which we are now to make further progresse that we may arrive to that integrity and fulnesse of of dutie that our sins may be blotted out when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord. SECT VI. Rules for the practise of Repentance in sicknesse 1. LEt the sick man consider at what gate this sicknesse entred and if he can discover the particular let him instantly passionately and with great contrition dash the crime in pieces lest he descend into his grave in the midst of a sin and thence remove into an ocean of eternal sorrowes but if he onely suffers the common fate of man and knowes not the particular inlet he is to be governed by the following measures 2. Inquire into the repentance of thy former life particularly whether it were of a great and perfect grief and productive of fixed resolutions of holy living and reductive of these to act How many dayes and nights have we spent in sorrow or care in habitual and actual pursuances of vertue what instrument we have chosen and used for the eradication of sin how we have judged our selves and how punished and in summe whether we have by the grace of repentance changed our life from criminal to vertuous from one habit to another and whether we have paid for the pleasure of our sin by smart or sorrow by the effusion of alms or pernoctations or abodes in prayers so as the spirit hath been served in our repentance as earnestly and as greatly as our appetites have been provided for in the dayes of our shame and folly 3. Supply the imperfections of thy repentance by a general or universal sorrow for the sins not onely since the last communion or absolution but of thy whole life for all sins known and unknown repented and unrepented of ignorance or infirmity which thou knowest or which others have accused thee of thy clamorous and thy whispering sins the sinnes of scandall and the sinnes of a secret conscience of the flesh and of the spirit for it would be but a sad arrest to thy soul wandring in strange and unusuall regions to see a scroll of uncancelled sins represented and charged upon thee for want of care and notices and that thy repentance shall become invalid because of its imperfections 4. To this purpose it is usually advised by spirituall persons
tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousnesse The sacrifice of God is a broken heart a broken and a contrite heart O God thou wilt not despise Lord I have done amisse I have been deceived let so great a wrong as this be removed The prayer for the grace and perfection of Repentance I. O Almighty God thou art the great Judge of all the world the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ the Father of mercies the Father of men and Angels thou lovest not that a sinner should perish but delightest in our conversion and salvation and hast in our Lord Jesus Christ established the Covenant of repentance and promised pardon to all them that confesse their sins and forsake them O my God be thou pleased to work in me what thou hast commanded should be in me Lord I am a dry tree who neither have brought forth fruit unto thee and unto holinesse nor have wept out salutary tears the instrument of life and restitution but have behaved my self like an unconcerned person in the ruins and breaches of my soul But O God thou art my God earnestly will I seek thee my soul thirsteth for thee in a barren and thirsty land where no water is Lord give me the grace of tears and pungent sorrow let my heart be as a land of rivers of waters and my head a fountain of tears turn my sin into repentance and let my repentance proceed to pardon refreshment II. SUpport me with thy graces strengthen me with thy Spirit soften my heart with the fire of thy love and the dew of heaven with penitentiall showers make my care prudent and the remaining portion of my dayes like the perpetuall watches of the night full of caution and observance strong and resolute patient and severe I remember O Lord that I did sin with greedinesse and passion with great desires and an unabated choice O let me be as great in my repentance as ever I have been in my calamity and shame let my hatred of sin be great as my love to thee and both as neer to infinite as my proportion can receive III. O Lord I renounce all affection to sin and would not buy my health nor redeem my life with doing any thing against the Lawes of my God but would rather die then offend thee O dearest Saviour have pity upon thy servant let me by thy sentence be doomed to perpetuall penance during the abode of this life let every sigh be the expression of a repentance and every groan an acccent of spiritual life and every stroke of my disease a punishment of my sin and an instrument of pardon that at my return to the land of innocence I may eat of the votive sacrifice of the supper of the Lamb that was from the beginning of the world slâ—in for the sins of every sorrowful and returning sinner O grant me sorrow here and joy hereafter through Jesus Christ who is our hope the resurrection of the dead the justifier of a sinner and the glory of all faithful souls Amen A prayer for pardon of sins to be said frequently in time of sicknesse and in all the portions of old age I. O Eternal and most gracious Father I humbly throw my self down at the foot of thy mercy seat upon the confidence of thy essential mercy and thy commandment that we should come boldly to the throne of grace that we may finde mercy in time of need O my God hear the prayers and cries of a sinner who calls earnestly for mercy Lord my needs are greater then all the degrees of my desire can be unlesse thou hast pity upon me I perish infinitely and intolerably and then there will be one voice fewer in the quire of singers who shall recite thy praises to eternal ages But O Lord in mercy deliver my soul. O save me for thy mercy sake For in the second death there is no remembrance of thee in that grave who shall give thee thanks II. O Just and dear God my sins are innumerable they are upon my soul in multitudes they are a burden too heavy for me to bear they already bring sorrow and sicknesse shame and displeasure guilt and a decaying spirit a sense of thy present displeasure and fear of worse of infinitely worse But it is to thee so essential so delightful so usual so desired by thee to shew mercy that although my sin be very great and my fear proportionable yet thy mercy is infinitely greater then all the world and my hope and my comfort rise up in proportions towards it that I trust the Devils shall never be able to reprove it nor my own weaknesse discompose it Lord thou hast sent thy Son to die for the pardon of my sins thou hast given me thy holy Spirit as a seal of adoption to consigne the article of remission of sins thou hast for all my sins still continued to invite me to conditions of life by thy ministers the prophets and thou hast with variety of holy acts softned my spirit and possessed my fancie and instructed my understanding and bended and inclined my will and directed or overruled my passions in order to repentance and pardon and why should not thy servant beg passionately and humbly hope for the effect of all these thy strange and miraculous acts of loving kindnesse Lord I deserve it not but I hope thou wilt pardon all my sins and I beg it of thee for Jesus Christ his sake whom thou hast made the great endearment of thy promises and the foundation of our hopes and the mighty instrument whereby we can obtain of thee whatsoever we need and can receive III. O My God how shall thy servant be disposed to receive such a favour which is so great that the ever blessed Jesus did die to purchase for us so great that the falling angels never could hope and never shall obtain Lord I do from my soul forgive all that have sinned against me O forgive me my sins as I forgive them that have sinned against me Lord I confesse my sins unto thee daily by the accusations and secret acts of conscience and if we confesse our sins thou hast called it a part of justice to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousnesse Lord I put my trust in thee and thou art ever gracious to them that put their trust in thee I call upon my God for mercy and thou art alwayes more ready to hear then we to pray But all that I can do and all that I am and all that I know of my self is nothing but sin and infirmity and misery therefore I go forth of my self and throw my self wholly into the arms of thy mercy through Jesus Christ and beg of thee for his death and passions sake by his resurrection and ascension by all the parts of our redemption and thy infinite mercy in which thou pleasest thy self above all the works of the creation to be pitifull and compassionate to thy servant
in the abolition of all my sins so shall I praise thy glories with a tongue not defiled with evil language and a heart purged by thy grace quitted by thy mercy and absolved by thy sentence from generation to generation Amen An act of holy resolution of amendment of life in case of recovery O Most just and most mercifull Lord God who hast sent evil diseases sorrow fear trouble and uneasinesse briars and thorns into the world and planted them in our houses and round about our dwellings to keep sin from our souls or to drive it thence I humbly beg of thee that this my sicknesse may serve the ends of the Spirit and be a messenger of spirituall life an instrument of reducing me to more religious and sober courses I know O Lord that I am unready and unprepared in my accounts having thrown away great portions of my time in vanity and set my self hugely back in the accounts of eternity and I had need live my life over again and live it better but thy counsels are in the great deep and thy footsteps in the water and I know not what thou wilt determine of me If I die I throw my self into the arms of the Holy Jesus whom I love above all things and if I perish I know I have deserved it but thou wilt not reject him that loves thee But if I recover I will live by thy grace and help to do the work of God and passionately pursue my interest of Heaven and serve thee in the labour of love with the charities of a holy zeal and the diligence of a firm and humble obedience Lord I will dwell in thy temple and in thy service religion shall be my imployment and alms shall be my recreation and patience shall be my rest and to do thy will shall be my meat and drink and to live shall be Christ and then to die shall be gain O spare me a little that I may recover my strength before I go hence and be no more seen Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven Amen SECT VIII An Analysis or resolution of the Decalogue and the speciall precepts of the Gospel describing the duties injoyned and the sins forbidden respectiuely for the assistance of sick men in making their confessions to God and his Ministers and the rendring their repentance more particular and perfect I THou shalt have none other Gods but me Duties commanded are 1. To love God above all things 2. To obey him and fear him 3. To worship him with prayers vows thanksgivings presenting to him our souls and bodies and all such actions and expressions which the consent of Nations or the Lawes and Customs of the place where we live have appropriated to God 4. To designe all to Gods glory 5. To enquire after his will 6. To beleeve all his word 7. To submit to his providence 8. To proceed toward all our lawfull ends by such means as himself hath appointed 9. To speak and think honourably of God and recite his praises and confesse his Attributes and perfections They sin against this Commandement 1. Who love themselves or any of the creatures inordinately and intemperately 2. They that despise or neglect any of the Divine precepts 3. They that pray to unknown or false gods 4. They that disbeleeve or deny there is a God 5. They that make vows to creatures 6. Or say prayers to the honour of men or women or Angels as Pater nosters to the honour of the Virgin Mary or S. Peter which is a taking a part of that honour which is due to God and giving it to the creature it is a religion paid to men and women out of Gods proper portion out of prayers directed to God immediately and it is an act contrary to that religion which makes God the last end of all things for this thâ—ough our addresses to God passes something to the creatures as if they stood beyond him for by the intermediall worship paid to God they ultimately do honour to the man or Angel 7. They that make consumptive oblations to the creatures as the Collyridians who offered cakes and those that burn incense or candles to the Virgin Mary 8. They that give themselves to the Devil or make contracts with him and use phantastic conversation with him 9 They that consult Witches and Fortune-tellers 10. They that rely upon dreams and superstitious observances 11 That use charmes spels superstitious words and characters verses of Psalms the consecrated elements to cure diseases to be shot free to recover stolne goods or inquire into secrets 12. That are wilfully ignorant of the lawes of God or love to be deceived in their perswasions that they may sin with confidence 13. They that neglect to pray to God 14. They that arrogate to themselves the glory of any action or power and do not give the glory to God as Herod 15. They that doubt of or disbeleeve any article of the Creed or any proposition of Scripture or put false glosses to serve saecular or vitious ends against their conscience or with violence any way done to their reason 16. They that violently or passionately pursue any temporall end with an eagernesse greater then the thing is in prudent account 17 They that make religion to serve ill ends or do good to exil purposes or evil to good purposes 18. They that accuse God of injustice or unmercifulnesse remissenesse or cruelty such as are the presumptuous and the desperate 19. All hypocrites and pretenders to religion walking in forms and shadows but denying the power of godlinesse 20. All impatient persons all that repine or murmur against the prosperities of the wicked or the calamities of the godly or their own afflictions 21. All that blaspheme God or speak dishonourable things of so Sacred a Majesty 22. They that tempt God or rely upon his protection against his rules and without his promise and besides reason entring into danger from which without a miracle they cannot be rescued 23. They that are bold in the midst of judgement and fearlesse in the midst of the Divine vengeance and the accents of his anger II. Comm. Thou shalt not make to thy self any graven image nor worship it The morall duties of this commandement are 1. To worship God with all bodily worship and externall forms of addresse according to the custom of the Church we live in 2. To beleeve God to be a spirituall and pure substance without any visible form of shape 3. To worship God in wayes of his own appointing or by his proportions or measures of nature and right reason or publike and holy customes They sin against this Commandement 1. That make any image or pictures of the Godhead or fancy any likenesse to him 2. They that use images in their religion designing or addressing any religious worship to them For if this thing could be naturally tolerable yet it is too neer an intolerable for a jealous God to suffer 3.
2 That God delights not in the confusion and death of sinners 3. That in heaven there is great joy at the conversion of a sinner 4. That Christ is a perpetual advocate daily interceding with his Father for our pardon 5. That God uses infinite arts instruments and devices to reconcile us to himself 6. That he prayes us to be in charity with him and to be forgiven 7. That he sends Angels to keep us from violence and evil company from temptations and surprizes and his holy Spirit to guide us in holy wayes and his servants to warn us and reminde us perpetually and therefore since certainly he is so desirous to save us as appears by his word by his oaths by his very nature and his daily artifices of mercy it is not likely that he will condemn us without great provocations of his Majesty and perseverance in them 8. That the covenant of the Gospel is a covenant of grace and of repentance and being established with so many great solemnities and miracles from heaven must signifie a huge favour and a mighty change of things and therefore that repentance which is the great condition of it is a grace that does not expire in little accents and minutes but hath a great latitude of signification and a large extension of parts under the protection of all which persons are safe even when they fear exceedingly 9. That there are great degrees and differences of glory in heaven and therefore if we estimate our piety by proportions to the more eminent persons and devouter people we are not to conclude we shall not enter into the same state of glory but that we shall not go into the same degrees 9 That although forgivenesse of sins is consigned to us in Baptism and that this Baptism is but once and cannot be repeated yet forgivenesse of sins is the grace of the gospel which is perpetually remanent upon us and secured unto us so long as we have not renounced our Baptisme For then we enter into the condition of repentance and repentance is not an indivisible grace or a thing performed at once but is working all our lives and therefore so is our pardon which ebbes and flowes according as we discompose or renew the decency of our Baptismall promises and therefore it ought to be certain that no man despair of pardon but he that hath voluntarily renounced his Baptism or willingly estranged himself from that covenant He that sticks to it and still professes the religion and approves the faith and endeavours to obey and to do his duty this man hath all the veracity of God to assure him and give him confidence that he is not in an impossible state of salvation unlesse God cuts him off before he can work or that he begins to work when he can no longer choose 10. And then let him consider the more he fears the more he hates his sin that is the cause of it and the lesse he can be tempted to it and the more desirous he is of heaven and therefore such fears are good instruments of grace and good signes of a future pardon 11. That God in the old law although he made a Covenant of perfect obedience and did not promise pardon at all after great sins yet he did give pardon and declared it so to them for their own and for our sakes too So he did to David to Manasses to the whole Nation of the Israelies ten times in the wildernesse even after their Apostacies and Idolatries and in the Prophets the mercies of God and his remissions of sins were largely preached though in the Law God put on the robes of an angry Judge and a severe Lord but therefore in the Gospel where he hath established the whole summe of affairs upon faith and repentance if God should not pardon great sinners that repent after baptisme with a free dispensation the Gospel were far harder then the intolerable Covenant of the Law 12. That if a Proselyte went into the Jewish communion and were circumcised and baptized he entred into all the hopes of good things which God had promised or would give to his people and yet that was but the Covenant of works If then the Gentile Proselytes by their circumcision and legall baptisme were admitted to a state of pardon to last so long as they were in the Covenant even after their admission for sins committed against Moses law which they then undertook to observe exactly In the Gospel which is the Covenant of Faith it must needs be certain that there is a great grace given and an easier conditon entred into then was that of the Jewish law and that is nothing else but that abatement is made for our infirmities and our single evils and our timely repented and forsaken habits of sin and our violent passions when they are contested withall and fought with and under discipline and in the beginnings and progresses of mortification 13. That God hath erected in his Church a whole order of men the main part and dignity of whose work it is to remit and retain sins by a perpetuall and daily ministery and this they do not onely in baptisme but in all their offices to be administered afterwards in the Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist which exhibits the Symbols of that blood which was shed for pardon of our sins and therefore by its continued ministery and repetition declares that all that while we are within the ordinary powers and usuall dispensations of pardon even so long as we are in any probable dispositions to receive that Holy Sacrament And the same effect is also signified and exhibited in the whole power of the Keyes which if it extends to private sins sins done in secret it is certain it does also to publike but this is a greater testimony of the certainty of the remissibility of our greatest sins for publike sins as they alwayes have a sting and a superadded formality of scandall and ill example so they are most commonly the greatest such as murder sacriledge and others of unconcealed nature and unprivate action and if God for these worst of evils hath appointed an office of ease and pardon which is and may daily be administred that will be an uneasie pusillanimity and fond suspicion of Gods goodnesse to fear that our repentance shall be rejected even although we have not committed the greatest or the most of evils 14. And it was concerning baptized Christians that Saint Iohn said If any man sin we have an Advocate with the Father and he is the propitiation for our sins and concerning lapsed Christians S. Paul gave instruction that if any man be overtaken in a fault ye which are spiritual restore such a man in the spirit of meeknesse considering lest ye also be temted the Corinthian Christian committed incest and was pardoned and ‑ Simon Magus after he was baptized offered to commit his own sin of Simony and yet Saint Peter bid him pray
for pardon and S. Iames tells that if the sick man sends for the Church and they pray over him and he confesse his sins they shall be forgiven him 15. That onely one sin is declared to be irremissible the sin against the Holy Ghost the sin unto death as S. Iohn calls it for which we are not bound to pray for all others we are and certain it is no man commits a sin against the Holy Ghost if he be afraid he hath and desires that he had not for such penitentiall passions are against the definition of that sin 16. That all the Sermons in the Scripture written to Christians Disciples of Jesus exhorting men to repentance to be afflicted to mourn and to weep to confession of sins are sure testimonies of Gods purpose and desire to forgive us even when we fall after baptisme and if our fall after baptisme were irrecoverable then all preaching were in vain and our faith were also vain and we could not with comfort rehearse the Creed in which as soon as ever we professe Jesus to have died for our sins we also are condemned by our own conscience of a sin that shall not be forgiven and then all exhortations and comforts and fasts and disciplines were uselesse and too late if they were not given us before we can understand them for most commonly as soon as we can we enter into the regions of sin For we commit evil actions before we understand and together with our understanding they begin to be imputed 17. That if it could be otherwise infants were very ill provided for in the Church who were baptized when they have no stain upon their brows but the misery they contracted from Adam and they are left to be Angels for ever after and live innocently in the midst of their ignorances and weaknesse and temptations and the heat and follies of youth or else to perish in an eternall ruine we cannot think or speak good things of God if we entertain such evil suspicions of the mercies of the Father of our Lord Jesus 18. That the long-sufferance and patience of God is indeed wonderfull but therefore it leaves us in certainties of pardon so long as there is possibilitie to return if we reduce â—he power to act 19. That God calls upon us to forgive our brother seventy times seven times and yet all that is but like the forgiving a hundred pence for his sake who forgives us ten thousand talents for so the Lord professed that he had done to him that was his servant and his domestic 20. That if we can forgive a hundred thousand times it is certain God will do so to us Our Blessed Lord having commanded us to pray for pardon as we pardon our offending and penitent brother 21. That even in the case of very great sins and great judgements inflicted upon the sinners wise and good men and Presidents of Religion have declared their sense to be that God spent all his anger and made it expire in that temporall misery and so it was supposed to have been done in the case of Ananias but that the hopes of any penitent man may not rely upon any uncertainty we find in holy Scripture that those Christians who had for their scandalous crimes deserved to be given over to Sathan to be buffetted yet had hopes to be saved in the day of the Lord. 22. That God glories in the titles of mercy and forgivenesse and will not have his appellatives so finite and limited as to expire in one act or in a seldome pardon 23. That mans condition were desperate and like that of the falling Angels equally desperat but unequally oppressed considering our infinite weaknesses and ignorances in respect of their excellent understanding and perfect choice if he could be admitted to no repentance after his infant Baptisme and if he may be admitted to one there is nothing in the Covenant of the Gospel but he may also to a second and so for ever as long as he can repent and return and live to God in a timely religion 24. That every man is a sinner In many things we offend all and if we say we have no sin we deceive our selves and therefore either all must perish or else there is mercy for all and so there is upon this very stock because Christ died for sinners and God hath comprehended all under sin that he might have mercy upon all 25. That if ever God sends temporall punishments into the world with purposes of amendment and if they be not all of them certain consignations to hel and unlesse every man that breaks his leg or in punishment loses a child or wife be certainly damned it is certain that God in these cases is angry and loving chastises the sin to amend the person and smites that he may cure and judges that he may absolve 26. That he that will not quench the smoaking flax nor break the bruised reed will not tie us to perfection and the lawes and measures of heaven upon earth and if in every period of our repentance he is pleased with our duty and the voyce of our heart and the hand of our desires he hath told us plainly that he will not onely pardon all the sins of the dayes of our folly but the returns and surprises of sins in the dayes of repentance if we give no way and allow no affection and give no peace to any thing that is Gods enemy all the past sins and al the seldom returning and ever repented evils being put upon the accounts of the Crosse. An exercise against despair in the day of our death TO which may be added this short exercise to be used for the curing the temptation to direct despair in case that the hope and faith of good men be assaulted in the day of their calamity I consider that the ground of my trouble is my sin and if it were not for that I should not need to be troubled but the help that all the world looks for is such as supposes a man to be a sinner * Indeed if from my self I were to derive my title to heaven then my sins were a just argument of despair but now that they bring me to Christ that they drive me to an appeal to Gods mercies and to take sanctuary in the Crosse they ought not they cannot infer a just cause of despair * I am sure it is a stranger thing that God should take upon him hands and feet and those hands and feet should be nailed upon a crosse then that a man should be partaker of the felicities of pardon and life eternall and it were stranger yet that God should do so much for man and that a man that desires it that labours for it that is in life and possibilities of working his salvation should inevitably misse that end for which that God suffered so much For what is the meaning and what is the extent and what are the significations