and the same person arising from divers principles In every renewed soul there is is a principle of nature and a principle of grate I speak not now of corrupt nature but of pure nature for we may so speak There is a desire that ariseth from nature and that tendeth to the conservation of a mans beeing and to the conservation of a man in all the comforts and contentments of his beeing This is and may be in a child of God But then it is overswayed by grace which makes a man now resign up this will of his to Gods hand to be content against his own natural desires to be disposed of according to Gods will This we may see in our Lord and Saviour Father faith he if it be possible let this cup pass from me Hear is a desire to keep not onely in his natural beeing but to keep in the comfort of nature and life And this is lawful and a good desire for these affections are the works of God upon the soul of man The will of man moveth naturally by these affections these desires they are the fruits of nature and so the works of God in nature and therefore not simply to be blamed But now that which keepeth them within compass is an over-ruling work of grace whereby the creature is made to acknowledge his distance from the Creatour and that subjection he oweth to God as the soveraign Lord of nature and of all creatures And in this sense our Saviour Christ doth check his natural desires if it be possible let this cup pass from me nevertheless not as I will but as thou wilt faith he So here is a work of grace ordering and over-ruling nature that it might not exceed that proportion of the creature and those desires that should be in nature So then you see what kind of willingness we mean such a kind of willingness as in the issue and close resteth in Gods will The object of this Patience is Afflictions and the changes of this life Affliction is properly any thing that is grievous to a mans sense any thing that crosseth a mans will There are some things that indeed are Afflictions but not to this or that person because he is not sensible of them or because he is not carried with any desires against them But when a man is crost in his will that is an affliction to him but specially when this is set on him with a change when God brings as Job speaks changes upon him when a man is in another turning and course of life this is an affliction indeed A man that hath tasted the sweetness of prosperity now to be left in affliction this was Jobs case and this is specially the object of Patience You have heard of the Patience of Job But how did Jobs Patience appear in the Afflictions in the changes of his life That notwithstanding he had felt the sweeness of a prosperous estate and the comfort of freinds yea and the comfort of Gods favour shining upon his heart and many other particular mercies yet when God turned his hand and took away the comforts of his life the comfort and society of his freinds the comfortable expressions of his own love to his soul and threatned the taking away even of life it self Job could now in this case resolve to rest in the determination and appointment and will of God Here is Patience now Thus briefly you have heard what the duty is to which the Apostle exhorteth It is Patience that is a willing resigning of our selves to Gods appointment in the changes of our life But now that is not enough the Apostle contents not himself to say Have Patience but let Patience have her perfect work He would have them grow in Patience to grow from one degree to another to abound in Patience as the Apostle speaks of Hope and Joy in Rom. 15.13 that they might not only have patience but have it brought to perfection which in Coll. 1. 11. is called all long suffering that there might not be the least defect that they might have a measure of patience proportionable to the measure of Tryals that look as God increased the measure of their tryals upon them so they might have patience to answer those tryals somewhat to support the heart when the greatest weight should be laid upon the soul to press it down so the word Hipomene that is translated patience signifieth to bear up a man to support him under a burthen that he be not prest down by it So he would have them have such a measure of Patience as might bear up the soul in the greatest pressures that though they were afflicted they might not be broken in their afflictions Thus you have the duty opened Let Patience have her perfect work The reason is that you may be perfect and entire wanting nothing That you may be intire Some understand it thus that you may be intire in respect of every grace in respect of all gracious habits that you may have one grace as well as another that as you have knowledge and faith so you may have Patience too that which is so necessary a grace for a Christian as well as any other Others by intireness here and wanting nothing think that the Apostle meant this that they might have that which might supply comfort to their souls in all their wants A man is then said to want nothing when he is content and satisfied with that estate wherein he is as if he had all things So David when Ziglag was burnt his Wives carried away captive his souldiers began to mutiny and threaten him yet nevertheless he seemed to want nothing when he could comfort himself in the Lord his God Godliness is great gain but how with contentment that is there is such a sufficiency with contentment of heart as if a man had the things he wants So then hear is the thing that you may be intire in respect of all gracious habits necessary to the beeing of a Christian that you may have that inward store and supply of comfort that may support your hearts in all outward wants Thus you have the meaning of the words The parts are two An exhortation to duty An argument to enforce that exhortation The duty whereto they are exhorted is that they should be perfect in Patience let Patience have her perfect work The Argument whereby they are perswaded to this duty is that they may be intire and wanting nothing that they may have all that is necessary to a Christian We will observe two Conclusions hence which we shall follow at this time The first is this That Patience is necessary to the perfection of a Christian Or A Christian is not perfect without patience The second is this That every Christian should strive for a perfection of degrees of Patience Or that a Christian must labour to attaine the highest degree and perfection in Patience These two Conclusions we
be upon us and we pine away in them how shall we then live The Prophet had incouraged them notwithstanding their great sins to return by true repentance and they should not perish nevertheless they are muttering discouraged with fear breaking their spirits withdrawing themselves from God the judgements of God are begun upon us the hand of wrath is gone out against us we are pining away in them though we are not wasted yet yet we are like a man in a consumption that wasteth by degrees how shall we live certainly we shall die Saith the Lord say not thus among your selves but know if ye turn ye shall live As I live saith the Lord I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked but that the wicked turn from his way and live turn ye turn ye from your evil wayes for why will ye die oh house of Israel Beware of discouragment therefore it is Sathans device that when once he hath drawn men from God by a path of sin to hold them under discouragement that so he may ever after keep them from turning to God again It was his device whereby he would have kept Adam from turning to God after he had committed that great sin in eating of the forbidden tree He thought of nothing but hiding himself from God and so he did hide himself amongst the bushes of the Garden I heard thy voyce and was afraid and I hid my self Mark here was a fear of discouragement in Adam that whereas he should have come and fell down before the Lord and have begged mercy and said as David here Who knoweth whether the Lord will be gracious to me He run clean away from God There is a fear of reverence that keepeth a man with God and there is a fear that draweth a man to God but this fear of discouragement driveth a man from God and that is the temptation of Sathan to keep a man from God when once he hath turned aside from him Therefore that is the first thing take heed of such inward discouragements as may drive you quite off Secondly Take incouragement then to seek the face of God in his own means and way He hath threatned judgements against others for the same sins that ye find your selves guilty of when they have returned to him they have found mercy Return ye to him in truth and seek his face aright and ye shall find the same mercy In the prophesie of Joel ye shall see there that though God had threatned judgements nay though he had begun judgement for that was the case of those times judgement was begun upon them yet neverthelesse the Prophet calleth them to fasting and weeping and telleth them that the Lord is gracious and merciful and ready to forgive and who knoweth if he will return and repent and leave a blessing behind him Therefore let us do our parts and seek God in truth amend our lives and then no question of this but that God will return It is an old device of Sathan to draw men instead of Gods revealed will to look to Gods secret will whether I be absolutely rejected or cast off or not But this is not the thought wherein a Christian should exercise himselfe his main business is this to make his calling and election sure by all the evidences of it hy a holy life walk obediently to Gods revealed will and be certain thou shalt not be rejected by Gods secret will He never rejecteth those by his secret will and purpose and decree to whom he giveth a heart to walk obediently to his revealed will So much for that Who knoweth that the Lord will be gracious to me that the child may live The incouragement is this That the child may live But mark his expression Whether the Lord will be gratious to me that the child may live If he had said no more but this Who knoweth whether the child may live A man would have thought this would fully enough have expressed his mind but there is more in it that could not be expressed without this addition Who knoweth whether the Lord will be gracious to me that the child may live The life of a child is a mercy to the father David expresseth herein both his Pitty and his Piety His pitty He accounteth all the good or ill that befalleth his child as his own if death befalleth it he accounteth it as a misery that befalleth himself if sickness befalleth his child he accounteth it as an affliction upon himself This is his natural pitty that some natural affection of a father to his Child See such an expression of the woman of Canaan have mercy on me thou son of David my daughter is miserably vexed of a divel The Daughter was miserably vexed and the mother cryeth out Have mercy on me There is such a simpathy ariseth hence from the natural and free course that love hath in descending from the Father to the Child There are not only moral perswasions that may invite and draw on love but besides that there is a course of affection that floweth naturally and kindly from the Father to the child as it is with those rivers that fall downward they fall more vehenently then those that are carried upward so the more natural the affection is the more vehement it expresseth it self in the motion to such objects Now when the Father expresseth his affection to his child this is more vehement because it is more natural there is more strength of nature in it I cannot stand upon this only a word by way of inference and application to our selves First are natural parents thus to their children Then here is a ground of faith for the children of God that he is pleased to stile himself by the name of Father and to receive them into the adoption of sons and daughters This was Davids expression of God As a father hath compassion of his children so hath the Lord on those that fear him And the Prophet Isaiah expresseth it fully In all their affliction he was afflicted and the Angel of his presense saved them in his love and pitty he redeemed them and he bare them all the dayes of old he bore them upon his wings This giveth confidence and boldness to Gods children in making their requests known to him This was it that incouraged the Prodigal I will arise and go to my father and say Father I have sinned against heaven and bofore thee c. God saith S. Barnard alwayes grants those petitions that are sweetned with the name of father and the affection of a child I should hence speak somewhat to children to stir them up to answer the love of their Parents but other things that follow forbids me any long discourse of this Secondly here is Davids piety expressed in this Who knoweth whether the Lord will be gracious to me He exprest not only the Pitty and affection of a natural father to a child but piety
those that were without God in the present world as the Apostle saith Now for this there is no distinction in our time for Christ being made the Corner stone hath made both walls one the Jewes and Gentiles being built upon himself all this difference is taken away But at that time it was fit to maintain a distinction to keep a note of difference As God set a mark upon the flesh of Abraham and upon the houses of the Israelites in Egypt so they kept this in all points even in their very Graves that a difference might be maintained between the seed of the Woman and the seed of the Serpent to the uttermost Give me a possession a burying place Here is the end why he would have this Pessession A strange kind of Possession a thing that every one is born to no man will deny this we say the land in the Church-yard is every mans every man is born to that land Behold such a land such an inheritance this Father cometh to begg He hath not a foot of ground in all the whole land no place to dwell in but by their leeves no place to feed on but with there consent he is content thus to possesse to have it upon their hand to have his house upon their liking and his field and grass upon their affection and content to be gone and depart upon their bidding but when it cometh that his dead must be buryed there is no dislodging then no removing then that is a Possession he makes not other things his Possession but useth them in a transitory manner So that the holy Ghost would teach us this that a mans Grave is his strong hold his Possession And indeed there is no Possession so durable and certain as the Grave all the lands and all the means that a man hath in this world it may in the course of time either by the misguidence of the party or the succession of prodigals be made away that he that hath had full possessions may not have a foot of land to call his own so Possession are alterable sometime one mans sometimes anothers and again anothers no man knoweth whose because they are still removing But when a man is possest of his Grave that is a long Possession that Lease is time out of mind and it holdeth to the coming of Christ to Jndgement Though there be a sort of covetous men in the world that care not for lucre and gain to remove dead bodies to make men pay dear and yet presently when the memory of that payment is gone in this base respect to remove them from their natural rest and to put new bodies in their room Though this I say be practised by some yet notwithstanding the Lord hath ordered this that a man should have his Grave for ever and that all Christian men should know that they have no such true inherent Possession sticking to them and they to it as the Grave Thus the great God bringeth us to life by death making us possesse the Grave here for a time and after possesseth us with life and glory and joy in the highest heavens Behold Abraham see how he beginneth to possesse the world by no land pasture or earable Lordship the first thing is a Grave So every Christian must make his resolution The first houshold-stuff that ever Seleucus bought in Babylon was a Sepulchre stone a stone to lay upon him when he was dead that he kept in his garden So we should begin to make that our chief utensill it should teach every Christian much more to be mortified so to the world as to be settled upon nothing for a Possession so as the ground where his flesh shall rest in hope till the Lord receive him and give him his Spirit again A strong kind of entrance this holy man made into the holy Land that the first thing he takes possession of should be a place of burial for the dead Even so wondrously God useth to work the promised seed it came of the dead womb of Sarah and accordingly it is in this great and famous History that out of these dead ones the Lord takes such a firme possesson of this Land that when four hundred years were come about there was such a quick issue that it drove all the Inhabitants out of the Land for out of Sarah that was now dead and Abraham and the Partiarchs that were interred in his Cave out of their dead loynes the Lord raised a living issue of six hundred thousand foot-men besides women and children that came under the conduct of Joshua and discomfited the Captains of the Land and took possession The gracious God out of dead and poor things in the world raiseth strength and Majesty that those that they trampled upon and accounted as dead men the Lord made out of them such a living stock that all the poor of Canaun was not able to hold up and make head against them they were such a powerful Army but hid themselves in Caves and became as dead men to give place to these dead men Here is the wonderful great glory of the Almighty out of meer nothing to work all things and as he made all things that are seen out of nothing for by faith we learn that things that are seen were made of things that are not seen so he still continueth to lay his foundation in baseness and humility in a ridiculous manner to flesh and bloud yet out of that he bringeth large and infinitie majesty and glory such as no man can aspire in his thoughts to think sufficiently of Give me a burying place to bury my dead Behold he calleth her Sarah his dead he calleth her not Wife though it is said after in the Text that Abraham buried Sarah his wife yet that is in respect of the time of her life when they lived together and in respect of the former society and converse they had but now he speaks to the point she is no more his Wise but his dead It is translated by all in the Neuter Gender not my dead she but my dead simply in the Neuter gender as a thing which now had not so much relation So it is true when men and women are severed by Death they are no more man and wife but one anothers dead For as the Apostle saith Do you not know that as long as a man liveth his wife is subject to him and she must not couverse with another So likewise for men again but when God dissolveth the contract by Death then as she is free for another man so she is no more his Wife so long as she was alive upon the ground she was his Wife but now when she is to go into the ground he calleth her his dead but not his Wife The substance and sum is this That Matrimony is Gods blessing for present use of mankind for the propagating of the Species to continue the seed of man to the worlds end that there may be
man of a stammering tongue saith the Lord I will be with thy tongue He bids him quiet his heart in that perplexity and rest on him that made the tongue to be with his tongue And because there was another secret that troubled him the Lord knew his heart God saith go the man that sought thy life is dead as if he should say Moses though thou wilt not confess it I know what troubleth thee thou art afraid that the men that sought thy life are alive in Pharaohs Court and that therefore when thou comest thither thou shalt be executed No saith he they are dead he would have him rest on him and that would revive his heart that he should not be troubled and disquieted So you may see in other servants of God that this was alwaies the reason of any indirect course they took Jacob and Rebecca in that case why did Rebecca use that device in getting the blessing with Jacob Because she failed in her trust in God she saw how she was perplexed with the daughters of Heth Esaus wives and many troubles that way And Isaac was dim-sighted and had many weaknesses upon him she knew not how he might mistake and give the blessing to the other therefore she deviseth a way to get the blessing but she got many sorrows you know what a hard service it cost Jacob and how many evils it exposed him to and all was because through fear and disquiet of heart he cast not himself upon God in his way but they would find out wayes of their own It should teach us in all disquiet of spirit to look principally to the strengthening of our faith This is called a shield Eph. 6. when all the darts of temptation that fire the soul and perplex it many wayes are cast upon a man here is a shield to preserve and keep him safe Therefore let us ever have this for our use whose and found You shall find that even the servants of God have so far been in a comfortable estate as they have been in the exercise of their faith Take David for an example when Ziglag was burnt and his Wives and servants and goods and cattel were all carryed away and the Souldiers in the rage of their hearts and discontent began to think of stoning of him yet faith the Text Then David comforted himself in the Lord his God When there was no comfort in his Souldiers about him or in those that were neer him every thing was taken away at this time David comforts himself in the Lord his God So Job see how quiet his heart is and well satisfied when he rested on God in the greatest occasions and troubles his goods was carried away his sons were slain all added to Jobs misery but he comes to this The Lord hath given and the Lord hath taken away blessed be the Lord when he can look above the creature to God and settle his heart upon this rock he finds comfort in it On the other side the servants of God are never out of trouble and disquiet when they neglect this as the Disciples in the tempest upon the Sea Math. 8. they cry out they are utterly undone Save Master saith Christ Oh ye of little faith The not exercising of their faith did so perplex and disquiet them as it did and if you look upon all the complaints of the lives of men for the loss of such friends and the decay of trading for the ill dealing of Customers for sickness c. Men are always complaining What is the reason Because they place too much hope and confidence in the creature they look not above these things with the eye of faith and hence comes that disturbance and disquiet if the outward means be taken from them they look not upon that God that hath all means and opportunities in his own hand You beleeve in God beleeve also in me They that would have their hearts quiet by beleeving in God should especially exercise faith in resting on Christ Beleeve in me saith Christ for the heart of man flies off from God Alas the Lord is holy and I am a sinful man he is righteous and I am sinful who shall come before this holy and righteous God Now when faith can look upon Christ and set him between God and me and look on God through him now the soul rests he looks on God as a Father through Christ his Son when the soul looks on Christ as my husband married to me as my head and I am united to him as a member as my Lord that hath taken me into his protection when the soul thus looks on Christ now it looks upon God in all his attributes wondrous glorious and comfortable to the soul This is the thing that I can but touch at this time There are two things considerable in it First there is no ground of reposing the soul upon God but by beleeving in Christ he is the Mediatour Therefore in John 8.24 saith Christ Except you beleeve that I am he whom the Father sent you shall die in your sins The Jews they did beleeve in God they were the children of Abraham and worshipped the God of their Fathers and beleeved in God but saith he except you beleeve in me that I am he that God hath sent as Mediatour you shall die in your sins And so in this Chapter I am the way the truth and the life no man cometh to the Father but by me there is no other way to the Father That as the high Priest under the law was in all things pertaining to God he was between God and the people So Christ our great high Priest is in all things that concern the glory of God and the salvation of man and the acceptance of a sinner in all things between God and us Here is the first thing Secondly it is worth our consideration how Christ comes to be thus he was willing to die a cursed a shameful and cruel death of the Cross and to be despised and abased and all this for man and yet Christ crucified is despised and scorned in the world therefore if ever you will have acceptance of God beleeve in me In me that am now going from you that am to be taken away by a cursed ignominious death Here is another truth then They that believe in Christ must believe in Christ abased and Crucified as well as in Christ in Glory That is a thing that flesh and blood despiseth indeed all the World speaks well of the profession of the Faith and believing in Christ when Christ is in triumph Conquering to conquer every man glories in Christians but when Christianity and profession is cryed down in the world when Christ is Crucified when all the World speaks ill of the wayes of Christ and of the obedience of Faith now to obey a crucified scorned despised Christ in the sight of the world to rest on him in the midst of his abasement this will comfort the
ÎΡÎÎÎÎÎÎΣ THE House of Mourning FURNISHED With DIRECTIONS for PREPARATIONS to MEDITATIONS of CONSOLATIONS at the Hour of Death DELIVERED IN LIII SERMONS Preached at the FUNERALS of divers faithfull SERVANTS of CHRIST By Daniel Featly Martin Day John Preston Doctors in Divinity Ri. Houldsworth Richard Sibbs Thomas Taylor Thomas Fuller And other Reverend Divines ECCLES 7.4 The heart of the wise is in the house of Mourning but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth Ambr. de obit frat Non amitti sed praemitti videntur quos sed non absumptura mors sed aeternitatas receptura est Seneca Ep. 77. Iter imperfectum est si in media parte aut citra petitum locum steterit vita non est imperfecta si honesta ubicunqque desieris si benè desieres tota est Newly Corrected and Amended with several ADDITIONS LONDON Printed by G. Dawson and are to be sold by John Williams at the Sign of the Crown in St. Pauls-Chruch-Yard 1660. TO THE CHRISTIAN READER THere is no man that can plead Ignorance to the universal Decree of God concerning the necessity of Mans Mortality It is appointed for all men once to die and every man can say as that wise Woman of Tekoaeh we are all as water spilt upon the ground There is no Age Estate Condition or rank of Men but have been foyled with that invincible Champion Death who riding up and down the World upon his pale Horse above these five thousand years hath with an impartial stroke laid all flat before him some in there Infancy have proved what it is to die before they knew what it was to live others in the strength of Youth some in their old Age rich and poor high and low of all sorts young men may die old men must die even those that are stiled Gods and that by no fawning Sycophant but by God himself their Mortality proves them to be men to themselves though they be as Gods to others and as Epictetus once told the Emperour That to be born and to die was common both to Prince and Beggar The sicknesses and miseries of this World have made the proudest Painims to confess with St. Peter to Cornelius Even I my self also am a mortal man So that experience as well as Scripture concludes what man is he that liveth and shall not see death There are no ingredients in the shop of Nature that are sufficiently cordial to fortifie the heart against this King of terrors or his harbingers the velvet slipper cannot sence the foot from the gout nor the gold ring the finger from a fellon the richest Diadem cannot quit the head-ach nor the purple Robe prevent a Fever Beauty strength riches honour friends nor any nor all can repeal that sentence Dust thou art and to dust thou shalt return Every fit of an Ague and every distemper of this frail constitution being as a light skirmish before the main battel of Death wherein weak man being vanquished is led captive to his long home and when once the lines of Mortality are drawn upon the face of the fairest mortal he becomes a ghastly spectacle how lovely soever before and the conclusion is Bury my dead out of my sight This inevitable necessity however it be confessed and acknowledged of all yet lamentable experience teacheth that in the Christian world most men so live as though they should never die and at length they so die as though they should never live again and when the time of their dissolution cometh their souls are rather chased out by violence then yielded to God in obedience Indeed to a wicked man Death is the beginning of sorrows it is a trap-door to let him down to the everlasting dungeon of Hell but the children of God though they cannot scape the stroke yet they are freed from the sting of death they can play upon the hole of this Aspe without danger and welcome the grimmest approach of this Gyant with a smile being freed from the hurt of him by Him that is the Captain of the Lords Host who hath abolished death and brought life and immortality to light so that the sting of it being plucked out and the suffering sanctified by Christ death is become to every Believer but a dark entry to the glorious Pallace of Heaven Now as it is Gods tender mercy to his Children that their conflict and misery should be temporary but their perfect happiness eternal so it should be their care in this little space of time alotted them whereupon their everlasting condition depends so to provide that they may live happily where they shall live eternally and since we cannot escape death to prepare for it that we may get the sight of this Basilisk before it approach and so avoid the danger of it Wretched is the estate of that man who when these spiritual Philistims the terrors of death make war upon him shall have just cause to say The Lord is departed from me the death of such a one will be like the sleep of a frantick man who when the malignant humor is concocted awakes in a greater rage than he lay down whereas to him that is wise to consider his latter end death is no way dreadful death may kill him but it cannot hurt him it doth free him from temporary misery but cannot hinder him from eternal felicity and as that noble Captain of Thebes who having gotten the victory over his enemies but withal received his mortal wound he made this his grand enquiry whether his weapons were safe or not whether his buckler was not in his enemies hands and when it was replied all was safe he died with a great deal of chearfulness and fortitude So when a Christian is to grapple with death his main care is that his Buckler of Faith and the Helmet of his Salvation his Hope that they be safe to guard his Soul and then he passeth not much what becomes of his outward man he dies in peace and confidence Now that we may be fitted to encounter with this last enemy besides the manifold helps which God hath reached to us in his Word in the passages of his providence in the frequent examples of mortality before us continually and in our own sensible approaches to the gates of death I say besides these and infinite more this ensuing Volumn with so much care and pains compiled by Gods blessing and our endeavours may prove no small furtherance in our Pilgrimage Each Sermon therein being as a several Legasie bequeathed by those upon the occasion of whose deaths they were Preached as by so many Testators who themselves have made a reall experiment of Mortality and left these for our instruction that survive them It is true the dayly examples of Mortality are so many real Lectures that by a kind of dumb Oratory perswade us to expect our end but as they are transient so our thoughts of them vanish therefore it can be no small advantage to have in
things God will bring thee into Judgment Abrahams Purchase c. Page 233. GEN. 23.4 I am a stranger and a sojourner among you give me a possession of a burying place with you that I may bury my dead out of my sight Gods Esteem of the Death of his Saints Page 243. PSAL. 116.15 Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his Saints The desire of the Saints after immortal Glory Page 251. 2 COR. 5.2 For in this we groan earnestly desiring to be cloathed upon with our house which is from heaven The Careless Merchant c. Page 265. MAT. 16.26 What is man profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose his soul Christs second Advent c. Page 273. REVEL 22.12 Behold I come shortly and my reward is with me to give every man according to his works The Saints longing for the great Epiphany Page 263. TITUS 2.13 Looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ Lifes Apparition and Mans Dissolution Page 291. JAMES 4.14 For what is your life it is even a vapour that appeareth for a little while and then vanisheth away Saint Pauls Trumpet c. Page 303. ROM 13.11 And that knowing the time that now it is high time to awake out of sleep The Righteous Mans resting-place c. Page 313. GEN. 15.1 After these things the word of the Lord came to Abraham saying Fear not Abraham I am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward The righteous Judge c. Page 323. JAM 2.12 So speak ye and so do as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty Sins Stipend and Gods Munificence Page 335. ROM 6.23 For the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. The Profit of Afflictions c. Page 343. HEB. 12.10 For they verily for a few dayes chastened us after their own pleasure but he for our profit that we might be partakers of his holiness Spiritual Hearts-ease c. Page 355. JOHN 14.1 2 3. 1. Let not your hearts be troubled believe in God believe also in me 2. In my Fathers house are many mansions if it were not so I would have told you I go to prepare a place for you 3. And if I go to prepare a place for you I will come again and receive you unto my self that where I am there you may be also Faiths Triumph over the greatest Tryals Page 367. HEB. 11.17 By Faith Abraham when he was tryed offered up his Son Isaac and he that had received the promise offered up his only begotten Son The Priviledge of the Faithful c. Page 377. IPET 3.7 As Heirs together of the grace of life Peace in Death c. Page 387. LUKE 2.29 Lord now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace according to thy word The Vital Fountain c. Page 399. JOHN 11.25 26. 25. Jesus said unto her I am the resurrection and the life he that believeth in me though he were dead yet shall he live 26. And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die Death in Birth c. Page 411. GEN. 35.19 And Rachel died The Death of Sin and life of Grace Page 419. ROM 6.11 Likewise reckon ye also your selves to be dead unto sin but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Hopes Anchor-Hold c. Page 433. 1 COR. 15.19 If in this life only we have hope in Christ we are of all men most miserable The Platform of Charity c. Page 445. GAL. 6.10 As we have therefore opportunity let us do good to all especially to them that are of the houshold of faith Death prevented c. Page 463. JOB 14.14 All the dayes of my appointed time will I wait till my change shall come Iter Novissimum or Man his last Progress Page 473. ECCLESIAST 12.5 Man goeth to his long home and the mourners go about the streets Tempus putationis or the ripe Almond gathered Page 485. GEN. 15.15 And thou shalt go to thy Fathers in peace thou shalt be buried in a good old age Io Paean or Christs Triumph over Death Page 493. 1 COR. 15.55 O Death where is thy sting O Grave where is thy victory Fato Fatum The King of Fears frighed c. Page 501. HOS 13.14 O Death I will be thy plagues Vox Coeli The Deads Herauld Page 509. APOC. 14.13 And I heard a voyce from Heaven saying unto me Write blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth c. Victoris Brabaeum or The Conquerours Prize Page 517. APOC. 14.13 So saith the Spirit that they may rest from their labours and their works follow them Faith's Eccho or The Souls AMEN Page 527. REVEL 22.19 AMEN Even so come Lord Jesus Deaths Prerogative Page 539. GEN. 3.19 For dust thou art and unto dust thou shalt return The Patriarchal Funeral Page 549. GEN. 50.10 And he made a mourning for his Father seven dayes The true Accountant Page 559. PSAL. 90.12 So teach us to number our dayes that we may apply our hearts to wisdome The Just-Mans Funeral Page 575. ECCLES 7.15 All things have I seen in the dayes of my vanity there is a just man that perisheth in his righteousness and there is a wicked man that prolongeth his life in his wickedness The Righteous Mans Service to his Generation Page 587. ACTS 13.36 For David after he had served his own Generation after the will of God fell asleep c. The Crown of Righteousness c. Page 597. 2 TIM 4.7 8. I have fought a good fight I have finished my course I have kept the faith henceforth there is laid up for me a Crown of Righteousness which the Lord the righteous Judge shall give me at that day and not to me only but unto them also who love his appearing THE STEVVARDS SUMMONS SERMON I. LUKE 16.2 Give an account of thy Stewardship for thou maist be no longer Steward IN the Chapter going before our blessed Lord and Saviour had preached the Doctrine of the Free Grace of God in the Remission of Sin and receiving of Repenting and Returning Sinners in the Parable of an indulgent Fathers receiving of a prodigal Son The Pharisees were a People that hardned their own hearts and scoffed at every thing that Christ delivered therefore now in this Chapter he cometh to summon and warn them to appear before God the great Master of the world to give an account of their stewardship that by the consideration of Gods proceeding in the day of Judgment they might know the better how to prize the Remission of Sins in the day of Grace This he doth by presenting to them a Parable of a certain rich man that had a steward who was accused unto him that he had wasted his goods calleth him to an account and to the end that the Pharisees might not think that it was a matter to be jested withal and that such considerations
as these were to be slighted he telleth them how the unjust steward having received this summons and warning from his Master that he must come to a reckoning he forthwith for his own temporal good casteth about that he may the better be fitted to give up his account thereby teaching them and in them all the world that if this steward here for his own temporal benefit was thus careful to prepare himself how much more should they and every one be careful to prepare themselves for that great day of Account wherein God will come to judge the World and bring to light all things that are hid in darkness In these words ye have two things considerable A Narration and An Application of the Parable The Narration is two-fold Of the Persons Of the Proceedings Of the Persons in the first verse A rich man and his Steward Of the Proceeding in the second verse the Rich Man upon the information made against his Steward that he had wasted his goods calleth him to an account Give an account of thy Stewardship for thou maist be no longer Steward The Steward in the third and fourth verses upon his summons falleth first to consult and after to resolve as we shall see afterward In this verse then that I have read you see here is first the Summons or warning Give an account Secondly the reason of that Sammons for thou mayest be no longer Steward The day is ended now give an account of thy work thou must go out of thy office now give an account how thou hast behaved thy self in thy office thou must be no longer steward therefore give an account of thy stewardship In the first the Summons and calling of this Steward to an Account ye have clearly offered to ye these two Propositions Considerations of Conclusions First That every man in the World is Gods Steward Secondly That every one of Gods Stewards must be brought to a reckoning First I say Every man in the World is Gods Steward If ye ask me who it is that is called a Steward The text tels ye that it is he that must give an account to his Master If you ask me who is the Master It is God If then God be the Master and if every man must give an account and reckoning to God then every man is the Steward here intended in this Text. That every man must give a reckoning to God it appeareth 2 Cor. 5.10 We must all appear before the Judgement seat of Christ to give an account of the things me have done in this life whether they be good or evil All men That which is here expressed by the Apostle in plain terms All men Is more parrabollically and obscurely expressed by Christ in this word Steward Give an account of thy Stewardship So that the Conclusion remaineth clear and is directly gathered from the Text. That every man in the World is Gods Steward There is no man or woman in the world but in some respect or other is the Steward here that must be called to an account That every man is a Steward will appear if we consider two things First what every man receiveth from God Secondly what God expects from every man Man receiveth from God that which a Steward doth from his Lord. God expects from every man that which a Lord expects from his Steward First I say man receiveth from God that which a Steward doth from his Master That is such goods such abilities as whereby he may be of use for such a place as the Master shall set him in the family All the World is but Gods great Family all the fittings and endowments of men are the talents the gifts that God hath intrusted men with some have the gifts of the world riches and places of authority these are gifts committed to those kind of Stewards Others have the gifts of the body as health and strength their senses and lives and the like these are gifts committed to these kind of Stewards others have the gifts of the mind understanding and wisdome and policy and to all these some have spiritual graces According as men are furnished with these gifts and according to their several qualifications with these endowments they all receive them from God as Stewards Secondly if we consider what God expects from men he expects that which a Lord doth from his Steward First that they acknowledge him to be the chief to acknowledge that they hold all from him that they have it not from themselves or for themselves this is that which every Master expects from him to whom he committeth his treasure And this would God have all men do God speaks that truly that Benhadad spake proudly and falsly to the King of Israel thy silver is mine and thy gold is mine and thy daughters and wives are mine and thy vineyards and thy orchards are mine So may God say truly All are his the earth saith David is the Lords and the fulness thereof He is the great possessor of all things God as he possesseth all things so he letteth out parcels of his possessions to the sons of men To some a larger portion of the earth than to others yet they are but Tenants at will and Tenants upon certain conditions and reservations wherein this great Lord bindeth those that hold any thing of him And the first Condition or Reservation that he ties all his Stewards unto is this that they waste not his goods that they scatter them not abroad vainly or unprofitably Now a man that hath riches if he relieveth not the poor a man that hath authority and helpeth not the oppressed a man that hath wisdome and instructeth not the ignorant In a word A man that hath any abilities if he be not of use unto others with it this man scattereth his Masters goods and is like that unprofitable servant that hid his Talent in a napkin and therefore was bound hand and foot and cast into utter darkness This was the accusation that was brought against this Steward here that he had wasted the goods of his Lord that is that he had spent them vainly he was no honour to his Master there came no profit to the houshold by it That 's the first The second thing that this great Lord expects of all his Stewards is that as they do not scatter his goods nor vainly waste them so that they should not abuse them to ill ends There are a generation of men in the world that fight against God with his own weapons and that use all their strength and wisdome and power to maintain a faction of rebellion against him that side with the wicked of the world against his Laws and Ordinances and this is the greatest unthankfulness that can be If a King should raise a servant to honour and bestow offices and dignities upon him and yet if he should raise an Army against him and set himself against all his Laws What greater
's the reason of this but that man may come to this conclusion with himself that he may bring his own heart to a reckoning for his former carriage This is that the Apostle faith for this cause many are weak and sickly among you and many sleep some were taken with sickness upon others there was a consuming weakness and others were strucken with death what is the end that God propounds in all this For this reason that we should judge our sevles for if we judge our selves wee shall not be judged of the Lord but when we are judged wee are chastned of the Lord that we should not be condemned of the world As if he should say God now calleth you to a reckoning in this life to the end you may prevent that heavy and grievous one that comes after this life Againe when outward afflictions prevail not God hath spiritual afflictions to awaken men Thus David when he was in a deepe sleep of securitie God awakned him with a spiritual judgment see his speech in the 32 Psal When I kept close my sinnes my boues were consumed and I roared for the disquietnesse of my soul what followed God by this means brought him to confession I will confesse my transgressions to the Lord and thou forgavest the iniquitie of my sinne Thus God in this life calleth men to a reckoning sometimes by the preaching of the Word sometimes by judgments upon the outward man or by terrours upon the soule But if all this prevaile not to make a man reckon with himselfe in this life then God hath another reckoning after this life where every man must give an account and cannot avoid it and there he must abide the sentence of the Judg that would not prevent it before That there is such a Judgment to come it appeareth By the Equitie of it By the Necessitie of it In respect of God In respect of the Saints In respect of the wicked First I say in respect of God there is a necessitie of it That his Decree may be fulfilled and executed Hee hath appointed a day wherein he will judge the world in righteousnesse And his counsell shall stand and he will doe all his pleasure Secondly it is necessary that Gods honour may be vindicated Now things seeme to go in some confusion and disorder in the world good men the children of God are not alwayes best in the place of judgment I have seene saith Solomon an evil under the Sunne that in the place of judgment wickednesse was there and in the place of righteousnesse that iniquitie was there this observation Solomon makes therefore I said God will bring to judgement every thing both good and evill for there is a time for every work and every purpose God hath a time to doe that great work that he hath now purposed What is that work that is to bring every work to judgement whether it be good or evill I say if we consider this it is necessary that there should come a judgment that shall set all right againe It is necessarie likewise in respect of the Saints The very tribulations of the Saints in 2 Thes 1.5 are called Indigma an evident demonstration or a manifest token of the righteous judgment of God There is a necessitie of it in respect of them in two regards First that there innocencie that is traduced here may be manifest They undergoe many disgraces and hard censures amongst men the world accounts them proud hypocrites singular foolish vaine-glorious and I know not what now saith Iob my witnesse is in heaven and saith Saint Paul I care not to be judged of you or of mans judgment he that judgeth me is the Lord. The Word in the Greek is mans day as if he should say Men have their day here but God hath a greater day after the Lord will judg in another manner and upon other grounds than men doe Secondly it is necessary also That their works may be rewarded When we speak of reward wee meane not the reward of merit wee meane the reward of grace called a reward because God is tied to it by his promise The servants of God though they serve him with all care they have not the fatt of the earth as sometimes the Ishmaels of the world have they doe not abound with outward things as many others doe nay sometimes they are in the worst condition and that makes Gods wayes the more despised as if God were not able to maintaine his servants in the world in his wayes and worke God therefore hath a time when his servants shall have full measure heaped up pressed down shaken together and running over When God shall make up his jewels as he saith in Malac. 3. then shall yee discerne between the righteous and the wicked between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not Marke yee shall discerne God will make it appeare to the whole world in the day when he makes up his jewels that not withstanding his servants are dispised and lie here under divers pressures yet that they are a people whom he delights in and accounteth as his treasures Thirdly it is necessarie in respect of the wicked too that is First that Gods righteousnesse may fully be manifested Secondly that their unrighteousnesse may fully bee punished First I say that Gods righteousnesse may fully bee manifested therefore the day of Judgment in Rom. 2.5 is called a day of wrath and revelation of the righteous Judgment of God As if he should say As God will manifest his wrath against the vessels of wrath so he will make it appear to the world that he proceedeth in a right manner and by a right rule in judging For wee must know that howsoever God cannot bee unjust and how soever that the ungodly men in this life contend with their owne consciences such is the hardnesse of their hearts and abundance of corruption that they would faine justifie themselves amongst men and againe howsoever it bee true that the soule when it is departed out of the body is under Gods particular judgment by an intelectuall elevation of it that it may receive the sentence of the Judge by an illumination and by such a spiritual and contemplative discourse and observation and understanding of Gods actions as that by reflection upon it selfe it may know it selfe to be accursed or acpuitted and accordingly is entred into the possession either of happinesse or miserie Yet all this is secret in the world till the day of Gods tribunall come wherein secret things shall be made manifest and things that have beene done in darknesse shall appeare before men and Angels Secondly Gods justice must be cleared and fully manifested so the wicked and unrighteous must be fully punished They are not fully punished when they are under the sense of Gods wrath in this life or when the soule is judged at death there must be yet a
parts the main matter whereof things were made and shall that be the destruction of that whereof it is made Yes saith the Apostle All things were made by water too and yet they were destroyed by water and why not then by fire But God deserreth the promise of his coming What of that He putteth it not quite off though he deferre yet it is not long with God for there is no time long to him that is eternal and in that he deserreth it is that some men may be brought to salvation and others made inexcusable Thus the Apostle takes off all objections of the Atheists of the world and sheweth that there shall be a day of Judgment Secondly it serveth for instruction If there shall be such a Judgment to come if God will have such a time of rekconing with all his Stewards in the world Then it teacheth us first not to busie our selves in judging one another why because there shall a time come of Gods Judgment Who art thou saith the Apostle that judgest thy brother we shall all stand before the Judgment seate of Christ As if he should say What a bold part what a presumptuous part is this that thou shouldest judg thy brother Dost thou not know that there is one that shall judge him and thee is it fit that he that is a prisoner at the Barre should come and leap up into the place of the Judg and sit in his seat Ye are all fellow prisoners together and ye must all stand before the Judgment fear of Christ So in another place the same Apostle when he would take men off from judging saith he Judg nothing before the time Why for the Lord will come who both will bring to light the hidden things of darknesse and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts and then shall every man have praise of God As if he should say Thou art not able to judg aright it may be that man that thou dispraisest at that day may find praise with God Secondly Turn the Judgment on thy own heart be more in Judging of thy self that thou mayest not be Judged of the Lord. Will God call thee to a reckoning then begin to call thy self to a reckoning first How shall that be done There is a double reckoning that every man must undergoe that will avoid this reckoning with God First he must reckon with his own heart Secondly with others First with his own heart Every man must take all the advantages opportunities that God hath given to reckon with himselfe Doth God awaken thy conscience by the preaching of his word Descend into thy own heart It is that that the Lord looks for that a man should say What have I done Doth God smite thee with some afflictions if with losses reckon with thy self how thou hast gained thy wealth If with disgraces reckon with thy selfe about thy pride and ambition and vanitie of thy heart If God smite thy body with sicknesse reckon with thy self about the imployment of thy health and the well usage of the times and seasons of grace Every evening call thy self to an account What have I done this day where have I been In what company how have I carried my self there what good have Idone what good have I received In the matters of thy calling reckon with thy self with what heart thou hast followed it with what care to conforme thy selfe to Gods word the rule of righteousnesse If thou hast been in pleasures whether they were lawful and if they were whether they were lawfully used Thus must every man reckon with his own heart as the Church in Lament 3.39 Wherefore is the living man sorrowful Man suffereth for his sinâ⦠let us search our wayes and turne again to the Lord. There are many that ãâã to out-face God and men in their sins but know this who-ever thou art that if thou forbear to reckon with thy own heart God will assuredly reckon with thee thou must reckon here or hereafter with thy self or with God therefore saith David Psal 4 Commune with your own hearts upon your beds that is be sure to take time from your sleep rather then to neglect this businesse of reckoning with your own hearts Secondly Reckon with others too Let that man that is in authority a Magistrate so carry himself in his imployments that he may reckon with the people and give an account to them if need be as Samuel did Whose oxe have I taken or whose asse have I taken or whom have I defrauded whom have I oppressed or of whose hand have I received any bribe to blind mine eyes therewith The Lord saith he is a witnesse that ye have not found any thing in my hand And not only so but that they may be able to witnesse that they have been great instruments of Gods glory and of the good of others Let Ministers reckon with the people committed to their charge as Paul did when he took his leave of the Ephesians and was to go up to Jerusalem I take you to record this day saith he that I am pure from the blood of all men for I have not shunned to declare to you the whole counsel of God and I have kept back nothing that was profitable unto you but have shewed you and tought you publikely and from house to house And because I know that after my departure there will somewhat remain to be done for Grievous wolves will enter in not sparing the flock therefore I will be carefull that there be a succession of faithfull Ministers afther me and therefore I give carge to the rest that follow that they take heed to themselves and to the stook over which the holy Ghost hath made them overseers to feed the Church of God which he hath purchased with his own bloud Let Masters reckon with their Familes their servants and children whether they have done their duty as faithful Masters not only in furthering the service of God but also in furthering of them by instruction and example to all good Let those that are in a way of traffique learn to reckon with those that they deal withal If thou hast wronged any by unjust gain thou must reckon with him by restitution there is nothing that thou hast gotten unjustly for which thou dost not reckon now but as Saint James saith at that day shall eat they flesh as it were fire Therefore Zacheus when salvation was brought to his house If I have done uujustly and wronged any I restore it Doubtless there are many men that cloath themselves in Sattin and Velvet and abound in all variety and bravery that would now be houseless and moneyless and apparelless it may be if they should make restitution of their unjust gain Well do it as ye love your own souls you shall reckon as you are Gods Stewards with him how you have come by every penny that you have in the world and
of doing holy duties Would you be found praying pefunctorily and carelesly Would you be found coming to the Sacrament unprepared What though you do holy actions that are good for the matter would you be found doing of them with unfit and unprepared hearts You see what the Apostle saith 1. Cor. 11. For this cause many are sick and weak and many sleep they slept they were dead for this even because they came unworthily to receive the Sacrament of the Lords Supper Would you therefore be found doing of holy duties and not in a right manner The serious consideration of this that Death is the end of all men with the particular application of it to a mans selfe that as it is the state of all men so it is mine in particular I must die and I may die now it hath an influence into all the actions of a mans life To conclude In the last place This point is of use to us also in the death of others First to moderate the mourning of Christians for the death of others Why It is the end of all men it is that that is the common condition of all men it should not be too grievous not too doleful to any man We would not have our freinds to be in another condition in their birth then others we would not have them have more fingers or more members then a man and would we have them have more dayes Let this serve as a brief touch upon that Secondly it teacheth us to make good use of our fellowship while we are together Not only we may die but those that are useful to us may die also let us make good use of one another while we live therefore This will make the death of others bitter and will be worse than the death and losse of our freinds the guilt upon a mans conscience that he hath not made that use of them while they were alive that he might have done let us therefore make the death of our freinds easie by making good use of them while they live It did smite the heart of those Ephesians that they should see the face of Paul no more specially above the rest it grieved them that they should see him no more how would it have grieved them think you if they had alwayes hardned themselves against his ministry before Think with your selves seriously here is such a Minister such a Christian freind that husband and wife that parent and child a time of parting will come let us make it easie now by making good use of one another while we live that when freinds are took away we may have cause to thank God that we have had communion and confort of their fellowship and society the benefit of their graces the fruit of their lives and not sorrow for the want of them by death So much for that I come now to the second and principal reason why it is better to go to the house of mourning then to the house of feasting it is this because the living shall lay it to his heart What shall he lay to his heart That that is the end of all mèn he shall lay the death of all men to heart The point I observe from hence is thus much It is the dutie of those that live to lay to heart the death of others That is seriously ro consider and make use for themselves of the death of others You see the Text is clear for the point And there is good reason why it should be so First in respect of the glory that cometh to God Secondly in respect of the good that cometh to our selves by it First God is glorified by this when we lay to heart the death of others there is a dishonour to God to slight any of his actions this is one of Gods works in the world the death of men this is a thing wherein Gods hand is seen he saith to the sons of Adam Return The spirit returneth to God that gave it It is he that hath the power of life and death If a sparrow fall not to the ground without the providence of God much lesse the servants of God the precious ones upon the earth the excellent ones as David calleth them I say God is seen much in these works and it is a great dishonour to God when men do not consider the works of his hands David by the spirit of prophesie in Psal 28.5 wisheth a curse upon ungodly men and for this reason among the rest because they consider not the operation of his hands this is that that puts men into a curst estate and exposeth them to the wrath of God when they regard not the works of the Lord. The actions of Princes and great men upon earth every man considereth of them and weigheth them It is that wherein we give God the glory of his wisdome and of his truth of his power of his justice of his mercy of his soveraignty and dominion and Lordship over the whole earth when we labour to draw to a particular use to our selves the works of God in the world specially the death of men of all men good and bad for we must give it the same latitude and extent and scope that the Text doth here he speaks here of the death of men in general and he saith of all men that their death shall be laid to heart by the living Secondly as their is reason that we should take to heart the death of others in respect of the glory that cometh to God thereby so in respect of our selves also much benefit cometh to our selves by laying to heart the death of other men There be three special things considerable in the death of any one that is matter of profit and benefit to those that live and survive after them Therein we see the Certainty of Death Therein we see the Nature of Death Therein we see the Cause End of Death First therein we see the certainty of death For now we have not only the word of God that tels us that we shall die but the works of God taking others before us that as the Sacraments are called visible instructions because they teach by the eye and the outward senses so the death of others are visible instructions to the living it teacheth by the eye a man is guided by the eye to see his own condition and as it were in a glasse there is represented to him his own state what we are they were once the time was that they converst with men as we do that they spake for Gods glory upon earth as we do and what they are now we shall be there will come a time when our works shall cease as theirs do when we shall be in the place of silence as they are I say it confirmeth to us the former certainty and assurance of our death when we see others fall before us And there is great profit and benefit that
off of all holds and takes us off from all sensible and visible props and humane supports and makes us to see nothing in the creature to do us that good we look for to make us eternal happy therefore we were taught saith he not to trust in our selves if a man trust any he might trust himselfe first yea but we are dying and cannot enjoy our selves long therefore we trust in him that raiseth us up from the dead Thirdly another end that God aymeth at in holding his servants many times under the fear of death is that he may make them more watchful and holy in the course of their lives This our Saviour expresseth under two parables the one of the Virgins that were to watch for the coming of the Bridegroom they knew that he would come but they knew not when therefore they were alwayes to keep their watch with oyle in their lamps And the other of a Master that left Talents with his servants he told them that he would come but he told them not when that they might be sure to employ them to the best advantage And the Apostle Peter raiseth an exhortation to this purpose on this very ground Since saith he that all these things must be dissolved what manner of persons ought we to be in all holy conversation and godlinesse looking for and hastning to the appearance of our Lord Jesus Christ We know that the Lord Jesus Christ will come but he hath concealed the particular time of his coming that we might alwayes keep our watch and be prepared for him whensoever he cometh Now this is necessary for all the servants of God for they are apt to be secure and to be carried away with worldly business and delights and to neglect that which concerns their eternal good and therefore God will affect them with the fear of death that they may be stirred up to more watchfulnesse and holinesse in a godly course of life Fourthly God doth it that by the fear of Death they may be better prepared for death that it may not come upon them as a stranger that they never thought on before that it may not come as an armed man upon them therefore is it that God will have thim not onely to have thoughts of it but fear of it fear you know is an affection that quickneth a man to action keeps him to a constant observing of God Jehosaphat when God did not onely bring a multitude of enemies upon him but also sent the report of them to him and that in such a manner as he might be affected with fear What did all this work in him The text saith Jehosaphat did seek the Lord with all his heart and proclaimed a fast in Judah and provided such other defence as was necessary he saw nothing but fear and danger in the creature We know not what to do with this great company that cometh against us this set him awork to seek the Lord with all his heart and to make other provision against them So the Lord will have his servants apprehend death as an Armed enemy coming upon them that they may be better prepared to receive it that they may get evidences of comfort and assurance of heaven and so may be fitted upon good grounds to entertain death with joy when it cometh And this the servants of God have need of because if there be not somewhat to quicken to this there are other things enough to pervert them from it and then when men are most weak and full of pain and wearinesse the divel takes advantage to cast them off from all comfort so that at the least we shall die uncomfortably if not miserably if they be not prepared beforehand to receive Death and have gotten assurance and evidence of a better condition afterward Thus you have the first thing that is Gods act and for what reasons he keepeth his servants in this bondage of the fear of death Again secondly another cause from without is from the malice of Sathan His main aim is to keep men from a Christian course altogether if that cannot be done his next work is to make men go on as uncomfortably in it as he can possible therefore he will present them with as many fears as may be and because that this is that that nature most abhorreth for it is the most natural desire of man to preserve his beeing I say because nature most abhorreth this this dissolution and destruction of it self therefore the striveth to affect them with the fear of death especially and above all other I say this is Sathans malice Saint Paul when he came to Macedonia that he might do the work of the Lord with lesse diligence and comfort saith he We had fears on every side horrors within and terrors without It was Sathans devise that the Apostle might do the work of the Lord with lesse strength and comfort to afflict them with as many fears and horrors as he could And he hath the same malice still and still getteth much advantage of men making men to go on with lesse comfort in a godly life adorning their profession of religion lesse with unchearful walking because they have been held under the fear of death These are the causes that are from without Secondly there are some causes from within from the servants of God themselves And these causes whence the fear of death ariseth are either natural or sinful First the natural causes of it are The apprehension of Death as a thing contrary to nature and according to the strength of mens apprehension so is there fear Now Death in this natural respect is fearful to every man whether we consider the object or the subject the thing or the person in whom it is we shall find a natural cause of this even in the servants of God First for the object look upon Death it self it hath all that in it which makes it a fit object of fear There be three things which makes a thing the object of fear which makes a thing affect the heart with fear First when it is considered as an ill Secondly when it is considered as an ill difficult and hard to be avoided Thirdly when it is considered as an ill to come For if it be not conceived a thing that is ill but good it is not feared but rather desired And then again if it be but a slight ill such as hath but a weak strength in it which a man may easily master it is not fearful but disdained And then thirdly if it be an ill that hath strength in it and can hardly be resisted and overcome if it be present it is not feared but grieved for It must be evil apprehended as future appreheneed as difficult and apprehended as ill if it be a thing that is to be feared Now all these things are in Death in the apprehension of Gods servants while they live First I say they apprehend
Death and therefore when by faith he looks upon Christ and through him upon Death he looks upon that as a thing made instead of poison a medicine instead of a destroyer a Saviour and deliverer as a means to free him from the bondage of sin and misery and afflictions c. Thirdly Doth God do this that he may make men more holy and watchful in their course then certainly the more thou canst purge out thy sin in the course of thy life the less thou shalt fear death The sting of Death is sin then if thou wilt have Death comfortable let thy life be conformable to Gods rule and word or else every sin will present it selfe in death before thee specially those sins thou allowest thy self in will make Death as bitter as Hell Fourthly Doth God do it for this end that he may make thee better prepared for death Then the more thou art prepared for Death beforehand the less thou shalt fear it when it cometh upon thee it will not come as a stranger but thou wilt be ready to receive it as one with whom thou art acquainted already It is a great matter if men could learn this wisdome to die daily that is be every day imployed as dying daily I mean for the manner of your carriage not for the matter for the substance of the duty If a man were sure to die this day he would lay aside all business and set himself to be prepared for judgment and would lay aside the use of any other comforts and delights But this is not the meaning but this that we carry our selves in business every day as if death should seize upon us in that business that we might be found well-doing that is when a man followeth his earthly business with a heavenly mind when he keepeth to the rule of righteousness and truth in his ordinary calling when he is doing or receiving good in his company when he useth his pleasures and recreations as the whet-stone to the Sithe to make him fitter for God I say when thus we do things to a right end and in a right manner if Death now should seize upon us in such an action it should find us well-doing And this is that we perswade you to if you would have death comfortable and not tertible be so imployed as that your actions may be good both for matter and forme that you are now about because Death may stricke you in such an action But I cannot stand on these particulars Again for the causes in our selves If you would be freed from the terrours of Death then rectifie your apprehensions and opinions of Death think of it as it is as it is I say to beleevers to those that are in Christ It is not the destruction of nature and so a natural Ill as you account it It is rather a cure of nature for assoon as ever we live we are dying and all our life it is but a living death a continual decaying and dying Now when death cometh it putteth an end to all the decayes of nature and setteth all right again It is but a sleep and sleep it is not a destruction but a help of the body and that which inableth to vigour and strength and fitnesse to action Again it is not the distruction of any part of a man the body it self is not destroyed indeed it is in the Grave but it is in the grave as in a bed of peace They shall come and rest in their beds saith the Prophet The grave is but as a bed wherein the body lies asleep and no man you know is troubled with fear that he goeth to bed The grave is but as Gods chest to keep in all his Treasure whereof the bodies of his servants are a part precious to him even in the grave in death Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his Saints and God will open this Cabinet and the Chest of the Grave in the great day of the Resurrection and bring the body out again and then it shall be as good as ever it was nay I say not only as good but much better too for our vile bodies shall be made like the glorious body of Christ Phil 3. No man when he goeth to bed thinks much to have his old cloathes taken off that they may be mended and made better against morning When we sleep in the Grave it is no more but this the garment of the soul the body the old apparel that is taken off that it may be made better and a more glorious body this is all we lose nothing by it but our estates even our bodily estate is bettered by it And for the Soul Death doth not destroy that neither for know this the soul liveth for ever the bodie indeed returneth to the Earth as it was but the soul returneth to God that gave it The soul I say liveth that is the thing that Christ himself proveth in 22. Mat. Abraham is alive why so for God is not the God of the dead but of the living for God said I am the God of Abraham c. How can this be that God is the God of Abraham and yet he is dead Indeed he is dead if we looke to the separation of the soul and body in the cessation of bodily actions but if we looke to the better part of Abraham his soul that continueth the everliving God hath made an everlasting Covenant with him and therefore he dieth not Again it is not only not the destruction of nature but not of your actions neither Death doth not destroy them neither Indeed there is a cessation of bodily actions but it is that the body may have better strength and be the fitter instrument of holiness after But for those actions of the soul that depend not upon the body they are as perfectly done when we are dead as when we are alive and better too When a man liveth upon the earth you see his soul is much hindered by the body A distempered sick crazie body or a full well-fed body is a hinderance to the soul because of that tie that is between the body and the soul and the spirit so there is a simpathy the soul is affected somewhat in this sense But it is not so then the soul shall be loosed from the body and so freer for spiritual actions then now it is The souls under the Altar they crie How long Lord holy and just wilt thou not revenge our bloud upon them that are upon the earth The souls of Gods servants you see then are glorified when they are out of the body and therefore shall glorifie God more prefectly and enjoy God more freely and fully then now while their souls are in these mortal bodies And at that very instant when the soul of Cods servant is carried out of the body to heaven it more perfectly injoyeth Christ and is more sensible and more fit to answer the love
they mistake Gods wayes and that very way that he intendeth them good in they complain of as if it were their utter undoing Again thirdly another way whereby men increase their impatience and distemper is when they will not give way to comfort they will not only be exceeding vehement and intent upon their Passions but besides stop all passages and in-lets against comfort It was Iacobs fault concerning the death of Joseph When he heard that Joseph was dead not onely his heart sunck within him but he rends his garments and covereth himselfe with sack-cloth he takes on so that when his sonnes and children rose up to comfort him he would not be comforted Why Because Joseph was not and I will go to the grave to Joseph nothing would comfort Jacob but he would goe downe to the grave to Joseph by all means What a great matter was this He only heard that Joseph was dead he was alive he knew not so much but he heard a present sound of fear and he was carried away with that So it is with us the very apprehension of our feares are as bad to us as the things themselves could possible be Nay we multiply upon our selves our fears and we will not hear counsel and comfort as Rachel that mourned for her children and would not be comforted because they were not Again a fourth thing whereby men increase impatience in themselves and aggravate their sorrowes is this when men look only upon the present afflictions and not upon the mercies they have as if they had but one eye to behold all objects with as if they could look but upon one thing at once there should be a looking upon the affliction and there should be a looking upon the mercy too This was Hamans case when he was vexed that Mordecay did not do him reverence all his wealth and his honours could do him no good he had much wealth and the glory of his house was increased he had the favour of the King and was inclining to have the honour of the Queen put upon him yet all this availeth me nothing saith he so long as I see Mordecay the Jew sitting in the Kings gate He looks only on this particular that vexed and grieved him and not upon the rest So it is with us if there be but one particular affliction upon us we fix our eyes upon that Like a Flie that flieth about the glass and can stick no where till she come to some crack or as a Gnat that cometh about the body of a beast that will be sure to stick on the galled part or some sore or other So it is with these disquieted thoughts of men that are of no other use but to further Sathans ends to weaken their faith and discourage their own hearts men stick on the gall on the sore of any affliction there they will rest It is true God hath given us such and such favours and mercies hath offered us such and such opportunities but what is this this and that particular affliction is upon me This is that that increaseth impatience when a man will not look on the mercies he receiveth but only looks on that that he wanteth Again a fifth course that men take to aggravate their sorrows and increase impatience in themselves is this They look upon the instrument of their sorrows and afflictions but never look up to God that ruleth and over-ruleth these things Men look upon such a person such a man and no more Ye see how David was disquieted at this If it had been an enemie that reproached him then he could have born it but it was thou my freind my equall my guid my acquaintance that sate at my table we took sweet counsel together and walked unto the house of God in company This troubled him and see how he multiplied his sorrows when he looked upon the instrument till he looked upon God and then I was dumb I opened not my mouth because thou didst it There is no quiet in the heart when a man looks upon man till he looks upon God that ordereth all things by his wisdom and counsel Lastly men aggravate their sorrows and increase their impatience by another course they take that is when they look on their sorrows and afflictions only and not upon the benefit of affliction they look only upon that that flesh would avoyd but not that which if they were spiritual and wise they would desire No affliction faith the Apostle is joyous for the time that is to flesh and nature but grievous nevertheless afterward it yeeldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness to them which are exercised thereby Now men look upon that only which is grievous in affliction upon the smart of it but not upon the profit of affliction the quiet fruit of righteousness that cometh by it As a man when he hath a Corroding plaister put to a sore he cryeth and complaineth of the smart it putteth him to but takes no notice of the healing that cometh by it and the cure that followeth Thus it is with men they complain of God as if he envied them the comfort of their lives as if he intended to rob them of all conveniencies and to make them utterly miserable to begin a Hell with them on earth when they never look how God by this means fitteth them for heaven by this means purging out corruption and strengthening grace in them We are afflicted of the Lord that we may not be condemned of the world Men look upon the affliction not upon their freedom from condemnation So much for that I come now to a second use You see here the way whereby men aggravate affliction and get causes of impatience in themselves and if we seriously consider it we shall find one of these the ordinary causes of all distempers and impatience in losses in sicknesses in distress of mind in crosses upon a mans name or whatsoever befalleth him amiss in the world that which makes him flie out that which makes him that he cannot submit unto God it is some of these particulars here spoken of Let it therefore in the second place stir us up evety one in the presence of God to set our selves upon this task of Christianity to labour for Patience that we may be perfect Christians and to be perfect in Patience Let Patience have her perfect work But all the question is how a man may get it As there are two sorts of afflictions in a mans life so Patience hath two offices One affliction is those present evils that a man undergoeth and suffereth Patience is to support him in those present miseries and calamities Another sort of tryal is when the good that a man expects is delayed and is not presently granted and here patience is necessary in this case also I will shew ye how a man may set patience a work in both these and so conclude First for the
present calamities of a mans life For crosses of any kind in name state freinds or families or in whatsoever a man hath or goeth about they may all be reduced to this one head when a man cometh from a state of health to a state of sickness from a state of comfort to a state of sorrow from acquaintance and society to be as a Pelican in the wilderness as David speaks destitute of all freinds and helps from inward rejoycing in his heart in the assurance of Gods love to spiritual disertions wherein he seemeth to be as in a cloud under the frowns of God When a man is in this case how shall he exercise Patience how shall he come to it Briesly the way for a man to get patience in such cases as these is this First to consider that there is no change in my life there is no condition whatsoever that I am cast into but it is ordered by God Set thy soul awork now to give God his glory in that change of thy life First give God the glory of his absolute Soveraignty and Dominion Secondly give him the glory of his wisdome Thirdly give him the glory of his mercy in those changes of thy life that seem most grievous to thee First I say give him the glory of his absolute soveraignty Acknowledge him an absolute in-dependant Lord that doth what he will among the creatures His will is the rule of all his actions upon the creatures here below and uncontroul'd unquestionable It is high arrogancy and presumption and pride of spirit for the creature to contest with his Creator concerning his actions on earth Let every man reason thus I must give God the glory of his Soveraignty and acknowledge that he hath power and right to rule all the families of the earth and why not mine as well as another Why not my person as well as anothers Why not to order all the changes of my life as well as another mans That which Benhadad spake proudly to Ahab thy silver and thy gold thy wives and thy children and thy house and thy Citie are mine That may God speak truely and by right All that thon hast and all that thou art is mine therefore give him that glory that Job did in the change of his life The Lord hath given the Lord hath taken away blessed be the name of the Lord. The Lord that gave hath right to take what he will There is nothing that will keep the creature in his due place but the consideration of Gods absolute soveraignty This consideration was that that meekned the spirit of Eli when that heavy message was brought to him that there should come such misery upon his house that whosoever heard it both his eares should tingle well saith he It is the Lord let him do what seemeth him good It is the Lord and it becometh not servants to stand and contend with their Lord. So David when the Priests offered him their service to go along with him to the field from Absolom If saith he I shall find favour in the eyes of the Lord he will bring me back to Jerusalem and his tabernacle but if he thus say I have no delight in thee behold here am I let him do to me as seemeth good unto him Here was that that humbled the spirit of David when he considered that he was under the hands of an absolute Lord let the Lord do with me what seemeth him good Secondly as thou must give him the glory of his soveraignty so of his wisdome Know that God ordereth all his wayes with wisdome and counsel he knoweth what is good for his children Ye are content when ye are sick that the Physitian should diet ye because ye account him wise and one that hath skill in that course If God diet thee for the purging out of some corruption and for the curing of some spiritual disease in thy soul submit to God in this case be willing to resigne thy self up to be ordered by him A man that hath a Gangreen or such a dangerous disease in his body submitteth to the Surgeon in his course though it be to the cutting and sawing off a limb though it be never so painful and the losse be never so great yet he is for the saving of his life willing to have that taken away God is a wise God that knoweth what estate is best for thee not onely when tryals are better than comforts but what one kind of tryall is better then another it may be it is better to exercise one with poverty another with disgrace another with spiritual trouble another with restraint of liberty which particular tryall is necessary to cure that disease and which this that is in my soul the heavenly Physitian will bring that upon thee as a spirituall prescription and a heavenly course that he takes in insinite wisdome to cure thee Lastly give him in all this the glory of his mercy What hast thou lost but thou maiest have lost a great deal more What dost thou suffer but thou maiest have suffered a great deal more As Alcibiades when he was told that one had stollen half his plate I have cause faith he rather to be thankeful that he took no more then to be troubled that he took so much I am sure it is true of God in this case what hath God took from thee some part of thy estate some friend some comfort of thy life some one or other particular comfort could he not have done more He afflicteth thee in thy body he might have afflicted thee in thy soul and a wounded spirit who can bear He hath afflicted thee in some one member of thy body he could have cast body and soul into Hell There is not a tryall upon thee but God could have made it heavier let that make thee therefore to submit with a more meek heart and willing spirit to God as a merciful God as the Church in the Lamentations It is the Lords mercy that we are not consumed the Church was in great affliction when the Babilonians came upon them and they were driven from the house of God and their own houses but yet it was Gods mercy that they were not consumed So the Prophet Jeremy telleth Baruch in the captivity Seekest thou great things for thy selfe thou shalt have thy life for a prey Baruch was wondrously disquieted he complained that the Lord had added grief to his sorrow What grief was that that He must go to Egypt and after to Babylon Well saith the Prophet thy case is not so heavy as thou seemest to make it thou shalt have thy life for a prey in all places wheresoever thou goest God might have taken away life and all but thy life thou shalt have for a prey Therefore be content with so much So I say to thee when great afflictions comes upon thee they might have been greater therefore consider that that thou maiest give
God the glory of his mercy And so much for the first direction that is to acknowledge God in all the changes of life that befalleth thee Secondly look to sin as that deserving cause that draweth on all the afflictions of this life Consider thou hast fallen by thy sin into Gods displeasure therefore whatsoever affliction befalleth thee thy sin hath deserved that at the hands of God The Lord now dealt with the as a just God though not in the extermity of rigor yet neverthelesse there is a righteous proceeding in it as the Church confesseth Righteousnesse belongeth to thee O Lord though they were in great affliction yet God was righteous in it It is profitable to consider this nay and not only that thou sufferest righteously as the Theif on the Crosse said We suffer according to our deserts but thou sufferest not so much as thy sins deserve thy sins deserve greater things at the hands of God then yet he hath infflicted on thee We see that a commutation and change of punishment a less for a greater hath the place of a mercy upon a malefactor that deserveth greater when he deserveth to be executed and to die he is not only content to be burnt in the hand but the confesseth it to be a mercy of the Prince So it is with us whatsoever affliction God hath laid on thee thou maiest conclude I have deserved greater Therefore saith the Church Why is the living man sorrowful Man suffereth for his sin let us search and trie our wayes and turn again to the Lord. So let this be the main businesse of thy life in this case rather bethink thy self how to get the favour of God then to be eased of such a trouble Let a man look to sin in all this Lastly consider the gratious and comfortable fruit of Affliction that is born with patience For first patience lesseneth the judgment impatience increaseth it on a man The strugling child hath more stripes A man in a Fever the more he strugleââ¦h and striveth the more he increaseth his pain The more patiently a man yeeldeth himself to the hands of God the more by the mercy of God he findeth ease and mitigation of the affliction And this God promiseth Because thou hast kept the word of my patience I will deliver thee in the time of trouble God will take off the affliction when once he hath perfected Patience by affliction for you must know this that all that God aymeth at in all afflictions that he layeth on men is to perfect patience in them therefore the issue will be good There will for the presene be more ease to the heart and afterward a gracious issue and deliverance from trouble when thou art exercised by patience Secondly there are other afflictions of our life and that is not only in those cases wherein some positive evil as we account it naturally some affliction grievous to nature and sense are upon a man but mercies are delayed and hope deferred maketh the heart faint It is an affliction to a man to be kept and delayed in the expectation of that good he hath not if he seem to catch at it it is drawn from him further and further There are many men that have sent many a prayer to God yet the thing they ask is not granted to this day Many a man hath waited long and sought the Lord yet he hath not that his soul desireth How shall a man come to exercise patience in such a case as this In such a case when God delayeth know first that Gods delayes are not danyals though God delay the thing he may and will in time certainly grant it yea though he delay it a great while As we see in other servants of God we may see it in David in Job in Paul in the Canaanitish woman and in others The Vision is for an appointed time saith Habakkuk wait for it it will come and it will not tarry it will not lie God will be known a God of truth what he hath promised he will performe in due time only what doth he expect of thee to wait for the present Now this is an act of faith He that beleeveth will not make hast Glorifie God by beleeving put to thy seal that he is true Whatsoever God hath promised in the Word and thou hast a warrant to beleeve wait for it Secondly Gods delayes are not only not denials but improvements of Gods favour God increaseth and commendeth the excellencies of his mercies by delayes he recompenceth our expectation and waiting for them with putting in greater sweetness into those favours when they come I say God increaseth the comfort answerable to the delay as in the 61. Isa 7. God to comfort the distressed Church in the time of calamity for their affliction faith he they shall have double Double what Double comforts for their tryals Our light afflictions faith the Apostle that are but for a moment cause us a farr more excellent and sxrpassing weight of glory A weight of glory for light Afflictions an eternal weight of glory for momentary afflictions Here is the issue As our afflictions have abonnded so our consolations abound much more This is the course of God Thirdly know that Gods delayes are never long at the longest they are but for a short time what if he delay a year what if twenty thirty forty years what if the the life of a man this is no great delay Compare this time of thy waiting for mercy with the time to come of thy enjoying of mercy A small time of waiting on earth to an eternity of recompence in heaven Compare eternity with the time of thy suffering Alas how little what a small or no agreement is between them A moment to eternity If the life of a man should extend to a hundred years to a thousand yeares to which age never man yet lived yet that is but a point a moment to eternity A thousand years past and to come they are but as yester-day to God Take the eternity past in God himself that is without all beginning and the eternity to come that shall be without all end and put the life of man in the middest of these two and we will conclude it is as a point in the middest of a circumference it is but a moment nay not so much as a moment of time Stretch out the duty of Patience then hast thou waited a week wait a month a year seven years seventy years nay seventy Ages all the ages of the world if it were possible All these are but a moment to eternity And where is there a man that hath waited so long but God that his servants may not faint in their expectation either supports them with other comforts lest they should faint in their desire or else giveth them that which they desire before their hearts faint Know therefore that it is no such great matter for
they declare the inward truth of the heart and the inward sense of our wants and the weight of the petitionâ⦠we put up to God Such were these tears here I fasted and wept I will not stand upon this The reason of this action why he fasted and wept I did it for this end for saith he I said who knoweth whether the Lord will be gratious to me that the child may live A man may wonder if he read the former part of the chapter whence this perswasion and hope should come into the heart of David that there should be a possibility of having the life of this child by his prayer whereas the Lord had said before by Nathan to him that the child should die Nathan had told him in expresse terms that the child should die yet he putteth up his prayer for it and said Who knoweth whether the Lord will be gracious to me that the child may live We must know therefore that God sometime even in those sentences that seem absolute implies and intends a condition David had respect to such a course as God ordinarily took he knew well that God at other times had threatned things yet neverthelesse upon the repentance and prayers and tears upon the humiliation and contrition of the hearts of his servants he hath been pleased to alter the sentence to suspend nay it may be wholly to take away and change the Execution Thus it hath been It was so in the case of Hezekiah The Lord sent as express a message by Isaiah the Prophet to Hezekiah as he did by Nathan to David Set thy house in order for thou shalt die and not live Yet neverthelesse Hezekiah turneth his face to the wall he wept and laid open his request before the Lord Remember now oh Lord I beseech the how I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart c. Ye see the Lord presently sendeth the Prophet to tell him that he had added fifteen years to his life and yet the message was carried in expresse words and in as peremptory terms as a man would have thought it had been absolute and no condition intended The like in the case of Niniveh Jonah cometh to Niniveh and began to enter the City a dayes journey and he cried and said Yet forty dayes and Nineveh shall be destroyed Here was the time limited the judgement declared and no condition exprest yet the King of Nineveh humbleth himself and the people they fast and pray and go in sackcloth c. and the Lord was pleased to alter this sentence But some will say these Examples were after Davids time What were these to him upon what ground did he take this course had he any promise or example before time of any such thing as this that did give him incouragement to fast and pray in hope that though God had said the child should die yet it should live Certainly David had examples before time of the like nature when God had threatned judgements and they did not know whether the issue would prove or no as they desired yet they sought God As in the case of Saul When the Lord sent an expresse message by Samuel that the kingdom should be taken from him and given to another because he had not dealt faithfully in the execution of Gods command concerning Amaleck yet saith the text Samuel mourned for Saul still Insomuch as the Lord questioneth him How long wilt thou mourn for Saul seeing I have rejected him from raigning over Israel Yet Samuel continued in seeking God as if he should say Who knoweth what the Lord will do But more expresly David had examples before his time not only of seeking the Lord but of a gracious successe and answer that those had that sought him As in the case of the Israelites when there was a discontent among the people because of the ill report that the Spies put upon the good land the people began now to murmur against God Well saith the Lord to Moses let me alone and I will destroy this people at once Moses setteth himself to seek the Lord and prayeth and presseth the Lord with many arguments for his own glory for his peoples sake for his Covenant sake and many other wayes to spare them What was the issue of it He was heard the Lord told him that he had heard his prayer and granted his request though he would fill the earth with his glory and all the world should know what a jealous God he was another way yet in this particular he had granted his request they should not be cut off at this time So that David had good experience that though judgement hath been threatned before yet neverthelesse courses have been taken that the sentence hath been altered with a change of Gods purpose at all For God ever intended it to be understood with a condition if they returned not to him he would go on if they returned to him he would not go on So the purpose of God remaineth unchangeable yet the sentence according to the externall expression seemeth altered to us so the change is in us and not in God Hence let us note something briefly for our selves and that is this First how to understand all these threatnings in Scripture that seem peremptory and absolute by this rule A judgement is threatned against a nation against a person or family c. Yea and it is absolutely threatned in divers places because thou hast done such and such evils therefore such and such things shall come upon thee All such as these are to be understood conditionally though they seem to be expressed absolutely And the rule God himself giveth At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom to pluck up and to pull down and to destroy it If that nation against whom I have pronounced turn from their evil I will repent of the evil that I thought to doe unto them Whatsoever I threatned in my Word if they turn to me by true repentance I will turn all that evil from them that I have threatned against them and would certainly have brought upon them if they have not returned I say thus we are to understand all these and upon this ground we may build some further uses that I will but touch First to take off those discouragments that lie upon the hearts of many When they find themselves guilty of a sin against God when they see that sin threatned with severe punishment and judgement in the word of God now they conclude their case to be disperate it is in vain to seek further to use the means the Lord will proceed in judgement and there is no stopping of him This is an addition to a mans other sins to conclude thus Mark how the Lord expresseth himself in Ezekiel 33. The people were much troubled about such things there say they Our transgressions and our sins
it is for good use as well to remember and consider it as to understand it But now I go on to tell ye what the Scripture teacheth concerning Death for that giveth a perfecter and larger information of the thing then the dim light of Nature The scripture then over and above that which Nature sheweth telleth us concerning Death these things First it sheweth better what it is and then It sheweth whence it cometh and what are the causes of it Thirdly it declareth the consequences what follow upon it And lastly and bestly it tellech us the remedy against the ill of Death In all which Nature stumbleth and can do little or nothing First the Scripture telleth us what it is It telleth us how that it is the disolution of a man not the annihilation It doth not make him cease to be but takes asunder awhile the soul from the body It carrieth the one to the earth and the other to another world so that both continue to be though they be not united as before The word of God teacheth us that he hath created the world as it were a house of three Stories The middle is this present life where we be And there is a lower place the Dungeon a place of unhappiness and destruction there is a higher place a pallace of glory According as men behave themselves in this middle room so Death either leadeth them down to the place of unhappiness or conveyeth them up to the pallace of glory and blessedness This Nature is ignorant of but the Scripture is plain in The rich man dieth and his soul is carried to Hell the poor man when he died his soul was advanced to Heaven So that Death is nothing but the messenger of God to take the soul out of the body and to convey it to a place of more happiness or more misery then can be conceived Secondly the Scripture acquaints us further with the cause of death Philosophers wondred since nature desireth a perpetuity and continuance of it self that man should be so short a time in the world The Scripture endeth this wonderment and tels us that man indeed was made immortal to continue for ever and should not have died but sin came into the world and by sin death Death is the mother of sin and of all misery that by little and little draweth to death I say sin the first sin of our first Parents whereby they transgressed that most easie and equal mandate about eating the forbidden fruit That transgression that was the treading under foot the covenant of works and the disanulling of it that sin let in Death at a great Gap and now it triumpheth and beareth rule over all the world Nature cannot tell which way in the world a man should die so soon and that he that is the Lord of all creatures should be inferiour to a great number of them in length of life But the word of God unriddleth this riddle and telleth us that God made man that he might and should have lived for ever but Sin coming and coming in the person of the first man it brought death and made all men mortal and when sin entred Gods curse came and that working upon us poor and miserable creatures it is the cause that we cannot continue long here It was equal that death should follow sin for since God made man to obey his will when man had unfitted himself for Gods service it was reason that he should have a short continuance of life for the longer he endured the more he would abuse himself Ye see then two things that the Scripture teacheth concerning death The third thing it sheweth is what followeth after death and that is plain It is appointed for all men once to die and after death cometh judgment Narure never dreamed of judgment after Death but the Scripture telleth us there is a judgment after Death Judgment what is that Judgment ye know is a calling of a man before Authority a looking into his wayes a considering of his actions a finding out whether he be a sinner an evil-doer and if he find him so to passe sentence according to his evil deeds When God hath took the soul from the body he takes the soul first and after both soul and body and presents them before his own Tribunal and there searcheth into every mans life ransacks his conscience looks deep into his conversation and inquireth into his secrets openeth his actions and whole carriage from his infancy to his last breath and findeth out the things that he hath done and passeth sentence according to that he hath done This Indgment hath two degrees First assoon as a man dieth No sooner is the soul separated from this case as it were the body but instantly it is presented before the Lord Jesus Christ and there he passeth sentence either that it is a true beleever a godly liver a person united to Christ that walked as becometh the Gospel of Christ and then it receiveth glory and joy and bliss for the present more then tongue can express Or else it findeth against him that he was a sinfnl man a wicked man a hyyocrite a dissembler one that named Christ with his tongue but did not depart from iniquity nor live according to the Gospel of Christ and then he is delivered up to Satan to be hurried down to Hell and there to suffer the wrath of God according to the desert of so great wickedness This particular judgment passeth upon every soul assoon as it leaveth the Body Then followeth the great universal Judgment when soul and body shall be reunited and stand before God every particular man that ever hath been is or shall be every man shall appear in their own persons their whole lives shall be laid open all secret things shall be made known for God faith the Apostle shall judg the secrets of all hearts by Jesus Christ according to my Gospel This is the third thing that the word of God informeth us concerning death that nature could never do The last that is the best the Scripture giveth us a remedy against the ill of death It is a pittiful thing to hear of mortality and sickness if there were not a good Potion or Phisick prescribed to ascape the ill of it To hear tell of Death and so tell as the Scripture saith that it is a going to another world of weale or woe and not to hear of a remedy it is woful tydings and would wring tears from a hard heart But the Scripture makes report of death not only tollerable and easie but comfortable and gladsome to a Christian heart for it sheweth by whom and by what means we may infallibly and certainly escape all the hurt that Death can do Nay by what means we may order our selves so that Death may be beneficial to us What is that In one short word It is Christ I am the resurrection and the life he that beleeveth in
and to be taken away Impenitent men when they are taken away in Judgement they are snatched away in displeasure The godly man God takes him away removes him it is as gentle a word as could be used there cannot be a better word to express it in our translation then for God to take him away Job and Moses expressed it so and so Isaiah here to shew that Death is never sudden to the merciful and righheous man Why because he is alwayes prepared It may be sudden in respect of others but not to himself The stroke of Death may be the same to a righteous man as to an impenitent man they may both fall by the prevalency of the same disease the same duration of sickness the same warning given them the same sympathy but there is a difference in regard of the suddenness If it be a sudden stroke that overtakes an impenitent man then it is two wayes sudden even a premeditated death is sudden to him because he is not prepared sudden death cometh not to a prepared man because he looks for it it may as I said be sudden to others but it is not to himself Why because he expects Death he dieth dayly he dieth in his thoughts before he dies in act he dies in meditation before he dies in passion I die daily faith the Apostle Death when it came to the Apostle it found him dying it could not come suddenly to him Death finds him setting open the doors therefore though it seem sudden death it cannot be sudden because he is taken away the stroke of Death may be sudden but the issue of death is not sudden the stroke may be sudden to his body but not to his mind because he fitteth himself still for it There is the deliberation implied in the word his death is not sudden in that he is prepared God awaketh his heart to make him look for it therefore when Death comech though sooner or later it doth but take him it shatcheth him not away that is the meaning of the second The third word is the extent of this act from the evil to come that is a word that is not specified in the former part it makes both this and that the more full it makes a greater demonstration of Gods goodness he is not only merciful in taking away but he takes away from that that is evil he takes from a bad estate to a better An evil that is present that is simply so an Evil for the time to come God takes righteous and merciful men from both That I may lay a sit path for my proceeding in it Saint Aust in devideth the nature of Evil well to those two heads there is the Evil of doing and the evil of suffering that is the evil of sin and of punishment The first of these the Evil of sin is opposite faith Aquinas to the increated good The second the Evil of punishment is opposite to the created good God takes away merciful men from both these First from the Evil of suffering Two wayes he is took from that He is took away from the Evil of suffering that he shall not see it and that he shall not undergo it and endure it First that he shall not see it that he shall not be a sepectator that is one part of taking away For righteous and merciful men have tender affections and yearning bowels when they see Gods judgements extended over any place or person they sympathize with them they weep with those that weep and mourn with those that mourn God takes them from this sorrow and mourning It hath alwayes been accounted one part of the happiness of a godly man to be taken from the Evil of the place he liveth in God takes Josiah from the evil to come Saint Jerom sheweth it well in Nepotian he makes this as an Argument amongst others that his departure was a comfort and happiness to him because saith he Nepotian is happy that he sees not those Evils and calamities and miseries that are now come on the Church that we see Nay not only in the esteem of godly and righteous and Christian men but in the esteem of the Heathens it was accounted a happiness to die before a man see the miseries on the place he wisheth well to Virgil in the eleventh of his AEniads bringeth in Vandall making a lamentation over his son Pallas that was slain after many tears that were shed over him and doleful words that were past the Poet bringeth in his wife and faith it was her happiness to die before him that she saw not this misery the Poet accounted her happy that she died before and saw not the misery that was brought on that place and her husband In his esteem then it is one point of happiness to be taken away before that Evil come upon a place we wish well too He expresseth himself in another place in the first of his AEniads They are happy that die before their Country before they see the ruin of that Therefore it must needs be a great happiness for a Christian to be taken away before misery come upon the Church Here is one respect the Lord hath he takes them away that they do not see the Evil he bringeth on a place Secondly That they should not suffer it that is a further degree and a greater So we see that it is the happiness that is intailed on other servants of God Though it is not a course that God alwayes constantly keepeth sometime he suffereth godly men to live and to be swept away in common calamities as the Plague Famine Sword and the like even righteous men perish in these times that is the course that God sometimes takes On the other side sometime he takes this course that he will preserve them in the middest of danger he will keep them alive he sendeth calamities and plagues and yet he preserveth the righteous So in the Revelation he commandeth the Angel to seal his servants on the forehead when he poureth his curses on the Earth so in the ninth of Ezekiel he speaks to the man with a slaughter weapon to mark those that mourned to passe them by So in Exod. 12. he commandeth the bloud to be sprinkled on the posts of the doors that the Angel may passe by So God when he seeth his mark the bloud of the Covenant on the head of his servants he passeth them by in common calamities sometimes I say he takes that course But he is not tyed to one course alwayes sometimes he takes away his servants from the Evil to come he doth not suffer them to have the sorrow of seeing or feeling of it God when he intendeth to smite the Earth with plagues and curses he will make this way for his course he will remove the obstables the Saints that are the impediments they hold Gods hands they wrestle by prayer they prevaile by humiliation they cast down themselves and stand in
be greater then I can give warrant for they that die thus die eternally And we had need beseech God with all earnestness of spirit to keep us from such a fearful temptation as this for they that die thus die not in the Lord and therefore cannot be blessed for my Text saith it of no other but of those Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord. This is the first point I come to the Restriction Die in the Lord. It may be construed two wayes the preposition is Ambiguous for the preposition many times in Scripture signifies In Domino or propter Dominum As Rom. 16.1 I commend unto you Phebe our sister that you would receive her in Domino in the Lord that is for the Lords sake as becometh Saints And in the twelfth verse of the same Chapter Salute the beloved Persis which laboured much in the Lord that is laboured much in Gods cause for the Lord. So again Say to Archippus look to the ministery that thou hast received In Domino that is for the Lord for the Lords service for his work I might give you many more instances There is one place most pregnant Eph. 4.1 I Paul a prisoner in Domino so saith the vulgar Latine and so is the Greek interpretation In the Lord. What meaneth Saint Paul A prisoner in the Lord what is that A prisoner for the Lord a prisoner for the Lords cause And thus you may take the word here in the Text Blessed are they that die in Domino that is such as die in causa Domini and thus Judicious Beza to whose judgment I attribute much in translations he readeth it so Blessed are the dead qui moriuutur causa Domini and then in his Annotations propter Dominum And if you take it thus then the Martyrs only are blessed That Martyrs are blessed the Church of God is so far from making a question that they set it down as a Rule Injuriam facit Martyri qui orat pro Martyre A man doth wrong to a Martyr that prayes for a Martyr their blessedness is so sure for He that loseth his life for my sake and the Gospels shall find it saith Christ If he loseth a temporal life he shall find an eternal If he lose a life accompanied with sorrow he shall find another life that is with joy such joy as cannot be conceived such joy as shall never be ended Precious in the eyes of the Lord is the death of his Saints There are two things saith S. Bernard that makes the death of a Saint precious the one is a good life before the other is a good cause for which he dieth A good life will make it a precious death but a good cause will make it a more precious death But that is the most pretious death that hath both a good life before it and a good cause coming next The Matyrs are blessed but they must be such Martyrs as suffer for the Lord be sure of that or else they are not blessed There be some that would be accounted Martyrs a great company of such we have had of late that have died for broaching of reason and some for sowing of sedition some for absolving subjects from the oath of Alleageance some for attempting to blow up Parliament houses Such as these are not Martyrs It is not the punishment it is the cause that makes the Martyr Our blessed Lord himselfe that never did evil was crucified between two evil-doers there was an equal punishment there was not an equal cause It must be the cause that we must look to if we look to be blessed But I cantot stand upon that Here is the first interpretation To die in the Lord is for the Lord. But there is a second and that is more large die in the Lord that is die in the faith of the Lord. Salute Andronicus and Junius my fellow prisoners which were in the Lord before me Saith S. Paul that is that were Beleevers that were in the faith before me And to let pass many other places if there be no resurrection of the dead saith the Apostle then we that are asleep in Christ c. If we beleeve that Jesus died then those that sleep in Jesus shall he bring with him c. and Again He shall descend from heaven with a shout and they that are dead in Christ shall rise first Now what is it to die in Christ in a large sense I will tell you He that would die in Christ first he must die in obedience There are many works of obedience that we are to doe Our last and greatest act of obedience is to resign up this same spirit of ours willingly chearfully into the hands of God that gave it If we have not attained to that strength that some have done that is to live patiently and die willingly yet we should labour to attain to thus much strength to live willingly and to die patiently So as Christ may be magnified in my body saith the Apostle I pass not it makes no matter let it either be by life or by death When we have done the work that God hath set us to do we must be gone and thus must every one say with himself Lord if I have done all the work thou hast appointed me to do call me away at thy pleasure Here is the first In obedience Secondly Die in repentance I remember what Possidonius said of Saint Augustine a little before his death that it was necessary that men when they died they should not go out of the world absque digna competenti resipiscentiâ without a fit competent repentance He himselfe did so for he caused the penitential Plalmes to be written and they were before him as he lay upon his bed and he was continually reading those penitential Psalmes and meditating upon them with many tears he died even in the very act of contrition I do love to see a man chearful upon his death-bed but I do more love to see a man penitent There is a day indeed when God will wipe away all tears from our eyes When that cometh then he will wipe away these tears of repentance too these tears of godly sorrow But the Lord grant he may find me with tears in mine eyes Thirdly Die in faith Indeed if ever Faith had a work to doe it bath then a work to do when all other comforts in the world fail us and freinds go from us then faith to lay hold on the promises I know that my Redeemer liveth and that I shall rise again at the last day and be covered with my skin and shall see God with these same eyes Thus faith And then fourthly Die with Invocation calling upon the name of God Thus have all the Saints of God done continually commending of their souls to God in prayers Saint Paul would have us commend our souls to God in well-doing And it is a necesary thing every morning
Zacheus his offer was but half of his goods Lord half of my goods I give to the poor For ought I can perceive and understand above half of her estate she hath given to charitable uses I say no more of her These works of her will praise her in the gates She died in the Country And I am sorry that I had not information as I did desire of her behaviour in her sickness I have it not I can say nothing of it but thus much It was not possible that such a creature that lived thus as we know she did in obedience to God in repentance in faith with invocation of Gods mercy in Charity in Peace but that her death was blessed She that lived in the Lord no question but she died in the Lord and she is blessed for Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord. Good Lord teach us to number our dayes that we may apply our hearts to wisdom and grant that as we grow in years we may grow in knowledge of thy truth in obedience to thy will in faith in thy promises in love toward thee and toward our neighbours for thy sake that when we come to the end of our dayes we may come to the end of our hope the salvation of our souls through Jesus Christ to whom with thee oh Father and thee oh holy Spirit three Persons but one true and immortal and only wise God be given both from us and all thy creatures in heaven and in earth continual praise honour glory dominion and power now and for evermore Let all those that hear the word of God depart from iniquity Now the God of Peace that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus the great Shepheard of the sheep through the bloud of the everlasting Covenant make you perfect to do his will working in you that which is pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ Amen THE CHRISTIANS CENTER OR HOW TO LIVE TO GOD. SERMON X. ROM 14.7 For none of us liveth to himself and no man dieth to himself for whether we live we live to the Lord and whether we die we die unto the Lord whether we live therefore or die we are the Lords THese words contain an Argument or reason which the Apostle useth to prove that the weak Christian should be born withal and that men should not judge because of the difference of meat amongst them He sheweth that they did not with the neglect of the knowledge of any truth keep themselves ignorant in this particular but it was their weakness The strong should bear with the weak and the weak should not censure the strong the reason is because they agree in one end they propound one general end to themselves that guides them in all their actions they walk in one way and in one path and therefore they should in these things agree together The general end at which they all aymed in their doings is the Lord He that eateth faith he eateth to the Lord he that eateth not to the Lord he eateth not that is still he propoundeth God as his end and the pleasing of God in his actions as the rule of them That he may prove this unto us that they stand thus affected both of them notwithstanding this difference he bringeth in this as the general reason where to every particular of their lives may be reduced All their life is ordered by the Lord they live to the Lord they die to the Lord so that whet her they live or die they are the Lords Therefore all their particular actions are to the Lord. Whether we live we live to the Lord and whether we die we die to the Lord. Now this general reason he propoundeth two wayes First Negatively None of us living to himself and no man dieth to himself Secondly Affirmatively which consisteth of two parts Their duty to God Gods acceptance of them and protection over them Their duty to God if we live we live to the Lord and if we die we die to the Lord. Gods acceptance of them Whether we live or die we are the Lords That which we shall now insist upon is the former part the negative expression and proposal of this general reason none of us liveth to himself and no man dieth to himself Now when the A postle affirmeth this of the beleevers of those times he therein intimateth thus much that it is the course of beleevers in all times It is a duty belonging to all others of which they must make account not to live to themselves but to the Lord. Therefore though he speaks generally here yet there is in his speech a kind of particular universality a generality with a restraint He saith none of us he saith not none in the world live to themselves for there are many in the world live to themselves and not to the Lord but none of us none of those that we rank our selves with that are in the condition of beleevers none of those concerning whom we speak in this question none of us live to our selves Life in general is nothing else but that power whereby we act or move As we read Gen. 2. God breathed into man the breath of life and he became a living soul he gave him the power whereby he acted The acting of this power is the exercise of that life whether the action be of the mind or of the body And so as there is a donble life there are two sorts of actions of life there are natural actions of a natural life and there are spiritual actions of a spiritual life When the Apostle speaks of living he intends both these We live not that is we do not the actions of life whether natural or spiritual to our selves but to the Lord. No man liveth to himselfe By himself he meaneth not only a mans person either soul or body but all those advantages that conduce to the well-being of a man No man of us so ordereth the actions of his life with reference and respect to our selves as the uttermost end we do not make our own well-being or well-fare the uttermost end of our actions none of us live to our selves You have the sense and meaning of the words which being a patterne to other Christians a thing which the Apostle supposeth is or should be in every beleever it giveth us this point of instruction whereupon we shall insist at this time That is No Beleever none that are in Christ should make themselves the end in their actions None should live that is spend their time and strength and endeavour ayming at no higher end then themselves No Christian should so spend his time as to seek himself only in the actions that he doth None of us liveth to himselfe But here it may be objected for the clearing of the point May not a Christian seek himself in the things that he doth When they do good things that which God commandeth that
the little time we have to continue below should be a marvellous means to take us off from the world and to put us upon the study and thought of better things Well now let me briefly apply this unto you that so I may come to that I principally intend Oh that we had learned this excellent lesson that the Apostle teacheth the Corinths here what wondrous happy people should we be You shall find evermore in the Scripture the Spirit of God putting the neglect that is amongst men and carelesness of heaven and all the wickedness of their lives upon this the not serious meditation of that small time they have to continue below If a man come to those that are not brethren as Saint Paul bespeaks the Corinths in the Text they will say It is true it is a good point to be prest upon a man that is in a consumption on one whom the Doctors have given over to tell him that he cannot continue a week that his time is short But for our parts we are but in the beginning of our voyage it may be we are but twenty years old we began but the other day to be furnished with a stock we are but newly entred and do you think that we are striking sayle Or another that hath lived forty or fifty years in the middest of a full trade that beginneth to get something in the world do you think that he is striking sayl Thus people put it off Alas what is thy time What is all thy life Let God decide it doth not he say it is a vapour a dream a tale that is told like a Ship that sayleth by and is gone and that in the turning or a hand almost If thou have no more time of life here but only while a little sand is running out of a glass while a Ship is sayling out of sight while a short tale is told God saith it is no more wilt thou account that thy voyage is yet scarcely begun I beseech you beloved all go home and often think of this point Say within your selves How long Lord am I like to continue below and what is there for me to do before I go out of this world But the truth is men dare not think of this and the Devil laboureth for nothing more in the world then this to make men put off the serious consideration of the brevity of their lives and that they have longer time to continue here then they have because he knows the truth of this that I have spoken that the meditation thereof will stir them up to make clear all reckonings with God before they gohence and he seen no more You may find this to be true in your own experience how loath men are to entertain thoughts of their latter end Go to one that lies sick of a Consumption and he will tell you the Docters say that I may live and I doubt not but I shall get up again such a one hath been brought as low as I and he is recovered and why may not I I once knew one that when the Phisitians came and told him that he must die Good Lord saith he what a deal of work have I to do I have all my seed to sow all my evidences to seal that my soul should he saved c. Such thoughts should enter into us now pitch on them seriously buckle to them soundly We may learn this point of wisdome of the divel himself He because he knoweth his time is short he is so much the fuller of rage and malice and plies his work with so much the more eagerness Wo be to the Inhabitants of the earth and the Sea Revelat. 12.12 for the divel is gone out amongst men having great wrath because he knoweth that he hath but a short time So should we do Think with thy self the seventh Angel will come ere long and sweare by him that liveth for ever and ever that there shall be no more time but GOD will have an account for the time past What if the Angel should come now and swear as ten to one but there is some man or woman in this Congregation concerning whom GOD hath determined that they shall have no more time before a week be at an end Put the case it should be any ones case thine or mine that God should say Go fetch such a man I will give him no more time It is true I give him some but now his voyage is at an end his sayl is struck and then we should have all to seek no Christ no true faith no evidence for Heaven when we must come and give an account to God What have you done with all your time will God say I must have a reckoning of it And then cometh in Imprimis so much time in drinking so much in revelling so much in dressing my self every day And then God shall say Were these the things I give you time for Did I bestow time on you for to be spent about such things as these No it was for Heaven Beloved how could we answer to these things It is good and profitable seriously to consider of this betimes say to thy self I have not long to live after awhile I must go hence and be no more I must give an account and a reckoning unto God of all that I have done whether it be good or evill But this is not the principal point I have to speak of therefore I pass it briefly I come to the Exhortatiou it self It remaineth that both they that have wives be as though thy had none and they that weep as if they wept not and they that rejoyce as though they rejoyced not and they that buy as though they possessed not and they that use the world as not abusing it c. In a word I take the sum of the exhortation to be as if the Apostle S. Paul had said thus Brethren you are ready to cast anchor trouble not your selves be stedfast gird up the loynes of you minds let your care be greatest for heaven as for these things that are here below if you have wives be as if you had none think assoon as you are ashoar you shall have none if you be sick or under any cross or affliction be as though you wept not suppose you be as a fellow that is fain to plie the pump all the day assoon as he is ashoar he is free if you rejoyce if you be in prosperity if you be as the Master of the Ship that hath great preferment be as if you rejoyced not Why you are almost come ashoare therefore be as if not in all these I will briefly open the meaning of all these particulars and then put all into one point of instruction and so come further to apply it unto you as God shall enable me What therefore is the meaning first Let them that have wives be as though they had none To that I answer A man
fingers of a mans hand and wrote upon the plaister of the wall of the Kings Pallace Mene Mene Tekell Upharsin Thou art laid in the ballance and art found too light thy kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians and immediatly In that very night vers 30. was Belshazzer King of the Caldeans slain he was took away from all his comfort and jollity See this in the Rich man Luke 12.19 Soul soul faith he take thine ease eat drink and be merry and why so was it because his sonl indeed was washed in the bloud of Christ Nothing less But take thine ease thou hast goods laid up for many years thou art well provided against a hard Winter against a dear year now take thine ease Well what of this had his soul any whit the more ease had he many years to enjoy that which he had laid up for many years Nay mark the answer of God verse 20. Thou fool this night thy soul shall be taken from thee then whose shall those things be that thou hast provided It is ordinary as Job noteth of worldly men thus to flatter themselves They spend their dayes in wealth and in a moment go down to the grave They spend their dayes in wealth this is that they resolve upon while they live upon earth they will be merry and enjoy their wealth and worldly contentments to the height and want nothing but in a moment while they are in the middest of these thoughts of raising a happiness to themselves out of their worldly estate in the middest of these thoughts they go down to the grave So it is also in Nations and States See it in two particulars in the 17. Luke That of the old world That of Sodome and Gomorrah They were eating and drinking and building and planting and marrying and giving in marriage till the flood came upon the one and fire and brimstone upon the other till sudden destruction came upon both according to my Text. Yee shall have Jerusalem in the same case Their Prophets are flattering them and crying peace peace as Jeremy tells them Chap. 6.14 15. They heal the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly saying peace peace when there is no peace Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination Nay they were not ashamed neither could they blush therefore they shall fall among men that fall at the time that I visit them they shall be cast down saith the Lord. Mark the Prophets cry peace It had been well done of the Prophets to cry peace to those Israelites that in truth were at peace with God but they cry peace to them to whom there was no peace What then Did the people reform did this make those that before were rebellious against God come in and accept of the conditions of peace and forsake their sins and turn to God No such matter nay though their sins were reproved by Jeremiah and other faithful Prophets yet they were not ashamed when they had committed abomination and they could not blush they stood it out they remained in their impenitency Well what of this Therefore faith the Lord they shall fall amongst them that fall in that day at that time they shall be dostroyed they shall be cast down they shall cease to be a people at least they shall cease to be men prevailing above other people In the first of Zephaniah vers 12. ye have the Lord saying there that he will visit Jerusalem with lights and search it with candles What to do to find out the men that are frozen on their dreggs that are settled on their lees that say in their heart the Lord will not do good neither will he do evil Why will the Lord visit Jerusalem with lights to find out these men He meeteth with the conceit that such men as these have they think as the Athiests in Job that God is circled in the clouds and seeth not the things below or as those in this Prophesie of Zephany that said The Lord sees not neither doth he regard Why doth he not so Because he wants light Well then faith the Lord I will bring candles to see with and visit Jerusalem with lights and whosoever he spies out amongst all the sinners in Israel he will be sure to meet with those that say The Lord sees not that are settled on their dreggs that secure themselves under false perswasions they shall not escape his wrath Gods greatest quarrel is against those men that flatter themselves as if God did not take notice of their sins he will surely punish those it is for their sakes why he will bring candles to search Jerusalem with It was so with Babylon Isa 47.8 9. The Lord observeth her boasting I am saith she a Queen I sit as a Lady I shall neither see loss of children nor widdowhood Mark now what God saith Heare now this thou that art given to pleasures and dwellest carelesly both these shall come upon thee loss of children and widdowhood all thy props and all thy staies shall be taken from thee yea and that in one day in a moment when thou least thinkest of it suddenly thou shalt be husbandless and childless Nay it is that which the Lord speaks of Romish Babylon in the 18. Revel 7. She had heard of the pride and boasting of old Babylon and she would fain be like it I sit as a Queen saith she too and am no widdow and shall see no sorrow she stands upon her outward pompe and glory as worldly-minded men do specially when they come to greatness and eminency Well what will the Lord do Therefore verse 8. shall her plagues come in one day death and mourning and famine and she shall be utterly burnt with fire for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her Thou saist I sit as a Lady I shall see no change Well saith the Lord it shall be indeed a famous Church for something even for such judgements as shall fall upon it above all other places there shall be famine and death and burning Yea and it shall be done when all outward means that should bring this to pass seem to fail and when Babylon shall seem to advance her self like a Queen above all other Churches when there is nothing but strength and might on her side then shall God do it for strong is the Lord that judgeth her He bringeth in this strong is the Lord to answer an objection It shall be done for the Church even then when the advers party thriveth most then when it may be seen to be Gods own work then when men are taken off from self-confidence then when men have none to fix their eyes on but God then will God do this for his Church He saith plainly that Babylon shall be burnt with fire and at such a time when it appeares that it cannot be done except he put his strength to the work Thus ye see the security of a people or
to the rest of our sins that in the middest of our sins and impenitency we are secure and therefore that destruction is coming upon us What are the signs whereby we may be convinced of security I will give you a few that by those you may see whether the Land the City your families your selves and all be not asleep and at rest this day The first sign shall be this When men profit not by the judgements of God Certainly it is an evident sign of a deep sleep in sin when neither the afflictions that are upon others or upon our selves do any good upon us Look how God hath smitten others Hath that awakned us You will say that it is a secure child that seeth his brother beaten for the same fault before his eyes and yet goeth on in it you will say that that is a secure malefactor that seeth such a person executed before his face and yet goeth on in the same fellony and thest And must we not say that we are a secure generation when we can see our brethren in other Countries how they have suffered and yet go on in the very same fins that we our selves think the hand of God is upon them for We can talk of their sins of their unrighteousness and in justice we can talk of their neglect of the Lords day and other holy duties and for these we judge them smitten of God How is it then that we are such our selves how is it that we go on in unrighteousness in prophaning the Lords day in neglecting the house of God and our own families have they found such sweetness in these sins that we walk on in the same Is it a pleasant and comfortable thing to be driven from Gods house and from our own houses to be a reproach to all the world If we think that the hand of God is upon them for these sins how is it that we are not awaked I remember Daniel in the fifth Chapter of his Prophesie taxeth Belshazzar for this though thou knowest saith he how the hand of God was upon thy father for this and this yet thou hast done the like and hast not humbled thy heart So may I say You have kown what God hath done to your brethren in other Countries yet you do still the same your selves for the which they have been punished Is not this security Look likewise upon our selves and we shall see a general neglect of those judgements of God that have been upon our selves How hath God smitten this Land this Citie eipecially with the Pestilence and may we not say we have been smitten and yet have not felt it is not this security and a dead sleep God threatneth those in Jer. 31.9 That escaped the pestilence that they should fall by the sword by the hand of Nebuchadnezar Why so because they did not reforme and amend by the pestilence What cause have we then to fear lest we fall into the hands of the sword of some Nebuchadnezar or other when the pestilence hath done no more good amongst us when it hath not awakened reformed us Look upon our selves upon your houses upon your dealings your company your conversations see if there be any reformation since there was such a mortal calamity as drove you from the Citie and frighted you from your own houses and from the house of God Well these are fearful presages that when former Judgements prevail not worser are a coming I have smitten them saith God in the fourth of Amos with cleanness of teeth and yet they have not returned unto me What then I have smitten them with blasting and mildew and yet they have not returned unto me What then I have smitten them with the pestilence after the manner of Egypt and yet they have not returned unto me What then Therefore I will come against them and because I will do this prepare to meet thy God Oh Israel As if he should say I have now stood out and tryed you at one or two weapons and found you obstinate and rebellious I have stroke at you with the sword of Famin I have shot at you the Arrows of pestilence I have smitten you with other judgements You should now meet me if not I have more weapons yet I will come and bid the battel against you and it shall appear who is the stronger you or I And since you will stand out against me notwithstanding the Judgements executed upon others and afflictions upon your selves see if you can stand out against my last stroke you have escaped some lesser sicknesses upon your own bodies you have escaped the Pestilence already but you shall find it a hard taske when God biddeth battel to escape his last stroke if you will not now be reconciled and come in and seek his face This is the first demonstration whereby it appears that we are sinfully secure which is a fore-runner of Judgement because we are not awakened by the Judgements of God upon our selves and others Secondly another sign is this The contempt of Gods ordinances the slighting of the Prophets This is an evident demonstration that we are under this carnal security I now speake of Mark how the Lord describeth a people whom he meaneth to destroy Zach. 7.11 12. They refused to hearken and pulled away the shoulder and stopped their ears that they should not hear Yea they made their hearts as an Adamant stone lest they should hear the Law and the words which the Lord of hosts hath sent in his spirit by the former Prophets therefore came a great wrath from the Lord of hosts A great wrath what is that Therefore vers 13. it is come to passe that as He cryed and they would not hear so they cryed and I would not here saith the Lord of Hosts Well beloved little do you know what time and wayes God hath to make you cry and roar in the anguish of your hearts because of Judgements and afflictions when you will not now hear God that striveth with you and cries unto you with the voyce of his Spirit in his Prophets from day to day When men will not hear God speaking to them in his Word it is alwayes a fore-runner of judgement In the sixth of Amos the Lord challengeth his people and telleth them that he had used many means for their reclaiming but nothing would do them good well now saith he hear the rod and him that hath appointed it As if he should say there is no more dealing with you with the Word but I must come with the rod with judgement Is it not thus with us at this day May not the Lord say of us as he did of the people in Jeremies time You have forsaken my law which I set before you and have not obeyed my voyce neither walked therein but have walked after the imaginations of your own heart And then what follows Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts Behold I will
as it is in the Revelation that the time is now come too neer He that is filthy let him be filthy still that is let him go on to the end It is evident and apparent that sin is increased since the sickness it is apparent that our sins are aggravated though they are dayly cryed down And now at this time as if we would defie God to his face and call upon him to hasten his judgments upon our Land upon our Families and persons every one strives as it were who shall outdare him most in our excesses in impenitency in hardning our selves in a course of sin These things convince us of our security There are many more that might be named if the time would permit But put these together and they may shew us our wretchedness When we consider how little we have profited by judgments how little we have profited by the ordinances how full of vain confidence and idle dreames how notwithstanding all these we abound still in wickedness and there is no reformation of our hearts and lives what may we not conclude against ourselves If ever people were drowned in a drunken security we of all people under heaven are at this time For of all people under heaven we are in a manner the last God hath spared us to the last We have had warning by judgments inflicted upon others for many years together It hath come neerer to us hy degrees it began a far off in Bohemia and then in the Phalatinate and in Germany The Lord would have us see how he cometh to us by degrees by steps that at the last we may meet him by repentance But where is the man that yet gets out of the bed of security that cometh out of his sleep to meet the Lord that comes with a broken heart to beg for forgiveness of his sins past and to beg for mercy for the time to come Well now since it is so that we are convinced by these signs that we are in a carnal and sinful security we see then so many of us at least that are children of the light and of the day what cause we have to be awakened and to do that for others which they will not do for themselves to be more earnest in prayer more frequent in humbling our souls for our own sins and theirs that God may lay aside and cast away his judgments and displeasure that either are feared or lie upon us Is it not a fearful thing that when the Lyon roareth the beasts of the Forrests tremble Yet the God of heaven roareth against the world at this day and the proud hearts of men do not tremble before him Shall the beasts of the forrests be afraid of the Lyon more then the poor worms of the earth of the mighty God of heaven and earth But this is the horrible Atheisme and Infidelity that is in the hearts of men that they beleeve not Gods power and justice nor his threatnings I beseech you let every man be exhorted to stirre up his soule to this business to awaken himselfe in his own particular person Consider that there are others that are awake that may bring you sorrow enough be you awakened to prevent those miseries Sathan is awake to tempt you Be sober and watchful saith Saint Peter for your adversary the devil goeth about seeking whom he may devoure Sathan is busie and watching to make you his prey watch you therefore that you enter not into tentation Your own Corruptions are alwayes awake The concupisence and depraved disposition of the soul it is awake still to further every evill motion to draw you aside by its tentations Therefore saith the Apostle I beseech you abstain as pilgrims and strangers from fleshly lusts that war against the soule Do as men in warre when they know that they have a waking enemy against them they will be sure to keep their Watch. Beloved you cannot but know that your corruptions are awake you may perceive it in your sleepes and dreames take heed that you be not found in a spiritual sleep that corruption prevail not over you Besides these the enemies of the Church are awake Heretiques are awake every where to bring men from the faith to pervert the faith of many oh be awake to prevent those Besides others are awaken to ransack houses to destroy Cities oh be awake that you may be at peace with the Lord of Hosts the God of Armies that hath all power in his hand to keepe you safe Againe secondly consider the evil of this security you are in of this disposition of heart when you cry peace peace to your selves in the middest of Gods displeasure It is an evil disease a spiritual lethargy That disease we know in the body it takes a man with sleep and so he dieth Oh how many are in this spiritual lethargy in this deep sleep of sin at this day the Lord awaken them It is the more dangerous because it is a sensless disease a disease that takes the senses from the soul and diseases we know that take away the senses are dangerous for it is not only a sign that nature is overcome by the disease but besides it draweth men from seeking for cure Thus it is with the spiritual lethargy it shews not only that sin hath prevailed in the heart that it hath overcome grace and thereupon you have yeelded unto it to your pride and covetousness and vanity as those that are subdued under a disease but it hindreth you from seeking the means to escape out of it Thou saist saith Christ to the Church of Laodicea that thou art rich and needest nothing and that was the reason she sought not to Christ It is our condition we have knowledg enough therefore we care not for the Ordinances of God We have faith enough and therefore we care not for increasing it though none of us say thus with our tongues yet most of us beleeve thus with our hearts As David saith of the ungodly man the wickedness of the wicked saith in my heart So may I say the neglecting of the ordinances the carelesness of men in the use of the means of salvation saith in my heart that there is abundance of security that they are in a spiritual lethargy that leadeth to death As it is an evil disease so it causeth much evil It is that which driveth away the Spirit of God It is the counsel of the Apostle Grieve not the Spirit quench not the Spirit When we neglect the motions of the Spirit the Spirit withdraweth it self Doth not your own experience tell you this Consider a little what motions you have had how God by the checks of your consciences somtime by secret incitements as it were a spur upon your hearts hath moved you to duty and to leave your sins How have these moved you you have had purposes it may be to perform these duties to walk in the wayes
Father that was a godly man and a Martyr in his time that he was so frequent in roling the name of Christ the name of Jesusin his mouth that when he died it is reported that in his heart there was ingraven and written the character of that Name in golden letters And as Saint Austin speaks of himself Time was faith he that I found infinite sweetness it was honey to me to read a piece of Tully there was so much eloquence in it but after I came to be a Christian to be acquainted with God and with Christ then me thought the leaves were dry and the beauty withered I found no such sappe nor rellish in them And he giveth the reason Because faith he I did not there find the Name of my blessed Lord they did not bring to my remembrance they were not Vehicula instruments to convey to my soul something of my God Therefore all that Eloquence vanished and it was but an empty sound like a Cart that runs with speed rattleth and makes a great noise when it is empty so all the goodly sound of words when there is nothing of God carried along with it that puts us in mind of God it will have but little savour and relish to a pious heart But I must not dilate upon things lest I prevent my self in what I more intend This is the first thing that I note here the Object upon which we should place our hearts and souls they should be toward God and toward his Name But then secondly here is intimated in these words nay and directly exprest the Acts which a Christian should exercise upon the Object There are three Acts that are here mentioned for the whole soul must be taken up and carried with full stream toward God in all the parts and faculties of it and so we have it here clearly exprest First here is an act of the Understanding the intellectuall faculty mentioned Our rememberance is toward thy name There is a remembrance of God and his name And this should be one thing which a Christian should take special care of Our memories should not be like sieves to let out the clear water and to return the grains and the dreggs We should not have that treasury to preserve rubbish but to preserve our Jewels as when there was a dispute before Alezander that great King concerning a rich Cabinet that he took among his spoils when he had overthrown Darius King of Persia the richest Cabinet of the most costly Jewles that the world had then seen there was a dispute before him to what use he should put it and every one having exprest their minds according as their fancies lead them the King himself concluded that he would keep that Cabinet to be a treasury to lay the books of Homer in I am sure the richest Cabinet that is is in the soul of a man the memory which is the treasure-house where we lay up all that we know and learn it is a rich Cabinet I confess and therefore the fitter for the richest Jewel to lay up the word of God there as Mary treasured up those things she heard in her heart to lay up the remembrance of God there often to think upon God It is a very sweet saying of a learned and godly Father A man should oftener remember God then he doth breath As the Common-wealth is maintained by exportation and importation of commodities so is our life maintained by a continual exportation and importation of the Ayre passing to and fro breathing out the Ayre when it is too hot in us and fetching it in cool again to refresh and supply the spirits our life I say is maintained by it and God is the very fountaine of life to us even as the soul is the life of the body so is God the life of the soul therefore we should alwayes be remembring of God so ost as we breath breathing out prayers to him or praises of him in return of his mercy Our memories I say should be exercised in thinking upon God in remembering of God Remember thy Creator in the dayes of thy youth faith Solomon We should begin betimes and we should never be weary of this The memory is one of the brittlest parts and we are most apt in age to grow to oblivion and forgetfulness as that great Oratour did sometime it is reported of him that his memory which was incomparably excellent before failed him so much before he died that he forgat his own name We cannot forget God but we must be worse then he and do that first forget our own name that we are Christians that we are sons and daughters of God Therefore this should be a thing that we should often inure our selves unto not to put the thoughts of God from us or think they are too sad and serious and so to account them as unwelcome guests but we should rather often bath our selves in these sweet delights in the meditation and remembrance of God That is one thing And then secondly besides the act of the understanding I will go according to the words of the text there is an act of the will and of the affections one onely named as a taste of all the rest for indeed where one is all are they are so linked and chained together that they cannot be separate And here is a sweet act of affection mentioned The desire of our soul is toward thee This should be one part of a Christians character that his desire should be alwayes breathing out and flaming up towards heaven that if he cannot at least obtain the highest pitch of full sayls of love and of a full perfection in vertue and grace yet whatsoever he cometh short in otherwise to make it up with abundant desires ardent longing desires not to come short in that to be sure that will make an excel lent supply And indeed it is that that poor and weak Christians must trust to many times must relieve themselves with thoughts of they often find themselves exceeding short and defective in performances if they did not find some desires working in them there would scarse be any symptome of life As it may be in the body a man can see sometimes but little motion in the body scarse any symptome of life the pulse is very weak and faint and scarse moveth at all that can be discerned but yet it may be there is some kind of breath stirring or else we conclude the party dead so it is in this case desire is that if there be truth in it be it the lowest degree of it which is an evidence of spiritual life there cannot be truth of grace where there is not unfeigned and hearty desires toward God desires to approve our selves to him desires to walk with him in our whole course desires to be defective in nothing and that is in some sort true as you know Divines have determined it and if it be not
share wherein being exercised with many years weakness as those that knew her knew very well but yet in such fatherly dealings she shewed her patience her perseverance her prosiciency and being a Mourner for the stobbornness of the wicked she was a gainer likewise by them too and all because she looked up to God who sees and weighs all our paths In which I have briefly recollected upon the matter the sum of the whole things contained in the text so that so long as this Text is in the Bible and so long as the Bible is in the Church and so long as any thing though unworthy of this Sermon remaines in your memories she cannot want either a sweet memorial of her vertues in the book of God or a stately Monument in the Church and in your hearts too Happily some may scoffe and some may doubt as though this commendation flew too high or out of sight To whom I shall briefly answer both For the former It is reported of two great Tragedians learned and famous in their time Sophocles and Euripides Euripides presented upon the Scaene all naughty women and Sophocles presented all vertuous women and the ordinary observation of the wits of the times was as men are apt to be vainly witted in these things they thought that Euripides that presented them bad presented women as they were and Sophocles that presented them good presented them as they should be If I had nothing else to say to the scoffs of any but only this I suppose it will be sufficient I do beleeve fully that I have presented her as she was but howsoever you can take no hurt if you do but consider that it is spoken as what you should be I am sure and I know I have presented what you should be And for any that shall doubt yet that it may seem to high I would desire them only to consider this I describe in the Text the very temper and character of one that is truly godly such as I conceive her to have been and the truth is there is none that is truly godly but in some degree or measure must attain and do attain to participate in a conformity with this Character and therefore I have neither done you as I conceive any wrong and yet done her right too And to draw to an end She hath left this honour behind her that she lived beloved and died desired And who is there here almost that suffereth not a loss in her Her Husband hath lost a loving wife that honoured him highly Her children have lost a loving Mother that loved them tenderly that tendered them duly Her servants have lost a loving Mistress that governed them gently and was every way beneficial to them Her Brothers and Sisters have lost a loving Sister that answered them in their loves sweetly Her Neighbours have lost a loving neighbour full of courtesie to the rich full of charity to the poor And my self have lost I hope there is none here so weak to suspect that I blast the living to blazon the praise of the dead or that I do rob or strip the living to cloath the dead with their spoyles but I think I may truly say I have lost as truly and cordially a loving friend as any she hath left behind though I esteem many her Peeres and I cannot complain of any But to end all Her gain in Christ countervaileth and sweetneth all our losses She was a disciple of Love she loved her Lord and loved all his Saints and servants and therefore I doubt not that she was a beloved disciple and resteth in the bosome of her Love where not to disquiet her happiness and detain your patience any longer I shall leave her in that blessed place and commend you to the blessing of God THE EXPECTATION OF CHRISTS COMING OR A MOTIVE To a Holy Conversation SERMON XVI PHIL. 3.20 21. For our Conversation is in Heaven from whence we look for the Saviour the Lord Jesus Christ Who shall change our vile body that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself IN the seventh verse of this Chapter the blessed Apostle Saint Paul exhorteth the Philippians to be followers together of him and to mark them which walk so as they had him for an ensample And that he might the better direct them in the duty the imitation of his ensample he sheweth that there is a great difference between others that pretended themselves to be the Apostles of Christ and indeed were not and himself Many saith he walk of whom I have told you often and now tell you weeping that they are the enemies of the Cross of Christ whose end is destruction whose God is their belly and whose glory is their shame who mind earthly things These ensamples he would have them to avoid follow not such but be ye followers of us for our conversation is in heaven from whence we look for the Saviour the Lord Jesus Christ c. and follow those which walk so as ye have us for an ensample This is the example he would have them imitate In the words you have these things considerable First What the conversation of these men was whom the Apostle would have the Philipians to follow Their conversation was a heavenly conversation Our conversation is in heaven Secondly the reason or incouragement that they had to this imitation to walk so heavenly while they were on earth because from thence we look for a Saviour the Lord Jesus Christ Thirdly the benefit by that Saviour whom they look for from heaven He shall change our vile body that it may be fashioned like to his glorious body Fourthly the means by which this great work shall be effected According to the working whereby he is able to subdue all things unto himself For the first to touch it only in a word there is from that these two Observations clearly arising First That there is a heavenly conversation of the Saints on earth Secondly That while they are on earth they are now stated in heaven Our conversation is in heaven He saith not only it shall be in heaven though there it shall be perfected but it is now in heaven in regard of our present state and possession Concerning the first that the Saints on earth have a heavenly conversation You must know that the word here Politeuma translated conversation signifieth such a course of life and of traffique as is in Cities and Corporations where many are knit and united together in one common society in one common freedome Our conversation is in heaven that is we have a kind of heavenly traffique a heavenly trade while we are upon earth There are divers things wherein there is an agreement between the carriages and conditions of men in Cities and Societies here on earth and this of the Saints of God that have their conversations in heaven I will
only in brief run them over this being not the thing that I purposely aym at First in Cities and Corporations there is a Register wherein the names of the Free-men are inrolled So in heaven also there is a Register a certain book of Records as it were wherein are written the names of as many as God hath appointed to life Rejoce not faith our Saviour in this that the divels are subdued unto you but rejoyce that your names are written in heaven And all that are not found written in the book of life are cast into the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone Rev. 20.15 God in his secret counsel and purpose in his special providence and love takes notice of all his servants even of their names and he hath them as sure as if they were written down in a book there is not one man that cometh to heaven but the Lord knows him already to be a man ordained to that estate and condition Secondly as in all Cities and Societies there is a certain law whereby they are all governed in obedience to which they live So there is a law whereby all the Citizens of heaven all the houshold of God are governed that law which the Apostle Saint James calleth the royal law a law which commandeth the very spirits of men a law that disposeth the whole man to a heavenly frame and subjection to the will of God the great King of Heaven so that a man while he is here below by degrees is drawn off from the world in his affections and disposition and carriage and madesutable and conformable to the rule of righteousness Thirdly as in all Cities there is a kind of safety and security to those that dwell there not only as they are incompassed with walls but also as there is watching and warding some waking while others sleep to keep the rest in safety So in this heavenly society the Angels pitch their Tents about those that fear God nay the Lord himself is the Shepheard of Israel that neither slumbereth nor sleepeth while men oppose them God defends them while men are labouring and plotting and devising against them and they it may be are secure and fear no danger God disperseth and disappointeth a thousand projects intended against his servants It was so with his own people Israel while they were in the plains securely lying in their tents there is Balack and Balaam consulting upon the mountains how to curse them but the God of Israel that is above the mountains that sitteth on the highest Heavens he ordereth the matter so that Balaam for his life though he might have had all the wealth and honour of the Kingdome could not pronounce one curse against Israel because God had said to him that he should not curse Fourthly As in Cities and societies on earth men have communion and society one with another the less have interest in the greater and the greater in the less and all have interest one in another the inferiours receive from the superiours protection and provision and the superiours receive from the inferiours subjection and submission So it is in this heavenly Corporation in this spiritual Jerusalem Jerusalem is a City at unitie in it self There is a communion and fellowship that the Saints have with God the Father with Christ with the Angels with the Saints in heaven and one with another on earth With God the Father they have an interest in him as subjects of his kingdome as servants and children of his family there is not the meanest subject in this kingdome but he may make his request known to this Prince there is not the least servant in this Family but he may make his complaint to this Master they may as children go boldly to the throne of grace and make their request known unto him though it be but in sighes and groans Hence it is that God takes notice of them your heavenly Father knoweth that you have need of all these things and therefore he will supply them If you that are earthly can give good things to your children how much more shall your heavenly father give good things to them that ask him They have interest in Christ also he is their Intercessour therefore hence it is that he is said to sit at the right hand of God making intercession for us He is their Advocate if any man sin we have an Advocate with the Father even Jesus Christ the righteous He is their Lord and Captain the Captain of the Lords Army to defend his Church Michael the great Prince standeth up for the children of his people They have interest also in the holy Ghost the third Person in Trinity they have not only the love of God the Father but the communion and fellowship of the holy Ghost as the Apostle wisheth for the Corinthians Hence it is that the Holy Ghost is ready to help their infirmities to in able them to put up their requests when they know not how to pray as they ought Hence it is that he sanctisieth them and therefore they are said to be Born again of water and of the spirit that he comforteth them therefore he is called the holy Ghost the Comforter As the Saints have interest in the three Persons in the Trinity in respect of their dependance upon them so the blessed Trinity hath an interest in them also If I be a Father where is my honour if I be a Master where is my fear Because they acknowledg God to be their Father they honour him because they acknowledg him to be their Lord they fear him c. They have interest in the Angels also Hence it is that they are called Ministring spirits sent forth for the good of the Elect They were Christs messengers his Angels and now they are made Messengers Angels to the Saints therefore faith Christ Offend not one of these little ones for I tell you that their Angels behold the face of my father in heavenâ⦠They have interest in them not as worshippers of Angels which the Apostle condemneth Coll. 2. as foreseeing to what a height Popish superstition would rise in this kind I say not to worship them to invocate them to pray to them we know no such will-worship which is without the rule We have an Angel comforting Hagar we have an Angel defending Elisha we have an Angel incouraging Jacob we have an Angel carrying Lazarus into Abrahams bosome But we never had any Angel that stood in this place to have worship and adoration This indeed the Angels have from us imitation of their obedience we pray thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven They have interest in the Saints also yea in those that are dead not as though they paayed for us yet they have a common desire of the welfare of the whole Church The souls under the Alter cry How long Lord holy and true wilt thou not
first I say is that the Saints and servants of God while they are on earth do continually expect and look for the Saviour of the world even the Lord Jesus Christ to come from heaven By the coming of Christ you must understand his second coming to judgement For there is a threefold coming of Christ A twofold coming in his Body and one by his Spirit The first was the coming of Christ in the flesh when he came to take our nature upon him and to be born of a Virgin The second is the coming of Christ by his Spirit so he cometh continually and daily in the hearts of men in the preaching of the Gospel in vertue and efficacy His last coming and his second coming in respect of his body is when he shall come to judgement Never look for the coming of Christ in his body upon earth in the sight of men till that great day come when the Lord Jesus shall come with thousands of his Angels in the glory of his Father Now then this being the meaning of it we will prove it And first that it is the continual expectation of all the Saints of God and the continual desire of their hearts their continual waiting is for the second coming of the Lord Christ As it was before the first coming of Christ in the flesh so it shall be before his second coming Before the first coming of Christ after the promise was made to Adam all the expectation and hope of the Fathers and Beleevers was this when the great Messias would come and therefore faith Jacob I have waited for thy salvation and David I have longed for thy salvation meaning Christ the Saviour of the world and the Church groweth to a kind of holy impatiency Oh that thou wouldest break the heavens and come down And immediatly upon the time of Christs coming there were alwayes holy men in those times that were stirred up with a continual expectation of it and therefore it was made a mark of a good man in those dayes It is said of Joseph of Arimathea and Simeon and of divers good women as of Anna and others that they waited for the consolation of Israel they continually waited and expected when the great comforter and Saviour of his people would come So shall the second coming of Christ be from the very time of his Ascension into heaven to the time now and to the time of his last coming to Judgement all the eyes of men will be towards him When I am lifted up faith our Saviour I will draw all men after me which though it be there particularly understood of his lifting up upon the Cross yet it is intended in general of his Ascension into heaven So that as after the promise was given of the Spirit The Disciples waited for the receiving of the gift of the holy Ghost So it is now and will be since the holy Ghost is already given there remaineth nothing to be looked for but Christ himself in his second coming to finish all these dayes of sin And that this is the disposition of all the servants of God appears by divers places of Scripture 2 Tim. 4.8 faith the Apostle there Hence forth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness which the Lord the righteous Judge shall give me at that day and not to me only but unto them also that love his appearing The Apostle here makes a description of all those that shall be saved and he faith they are such as love the appearing of Jesus Christ now that which a man loveth he desireth and looks and longs for And in Heb. 9.28 Christ died once for many and unto them that look for him shall he appeare the second time unto salvation Salvation is brought to whom to all those and only to those that look for the appearance of Christ Therefore it is said of all the Beleevers in Heb. 12. That they saw things that were invisible and that they had an eye to the recompense of reward and that they saw the promise a far off They looked still for those things that were to appear by Christ This I suppose is sufficiently confirmed by the Scripture let us therefore make some use of it Try now what comfort thou hast in the expectation of that great appearance of the Lord Jesus here spoken of This is the most infalible ground and undoubted evidence and testimony of the truth of grace now and assurance of glory hereafter if God have now stirred up thy heart in faith and holy affection to look for and to long and waite for the appearance of Jesus Christ Without this there is little love to Christ The Church in Cant. 1.2 sheweth her love to Christ Draw me saith she and we will run after thee And chap. 2.4 Stay me with flaggons comfort me with apples for I am sick of love and chap. 5. If you find him whome my soul loveth tell him I am sick of love If thou be of the disposition of the Church thou wilt out of love to Christ desire nothing so much as to enjoy the presence of Christ The Spirit and the Bride say come and let him that heareth say come the Spirit faith come and the Bride because she is stirred up in the same affection by the Spirit she faith come too Christ faith to his Church I come and the Church she faith again Come Here is the agreement between Christ and his Church and the same disposition is in all the members of Christ a waiting and longing and desiring for the coming of Christ There are many that pretend they wait and desire for the coming of Christ When a man is under any affliction or in any trouble then Oh that Christ would come and end these troubles You shall here a man that is abused and wronged by the oppressions and injuries of others and by the unrighteous dealings of wicked and ungodly men crying out Oh that Christ would come and put an end to these evil times Yea but if thou hast this desire of Christs coming that is in a man of a heavenly conversation It will appear in these three things First it will appear by the Ground of it What are the grounds of thy desire what are the motives that incourage thee to long for the coming of the Lord Jesus That which is the ground of faith is the ground of hope that is the promises Faith is the ground of things hoped for and the Word and Promise are the warrant of Faith Faith and Hope look both on this the free promise of God so it is said of Abraham that be beleeved above hope because be knew that be that promised was able to do it There is the first thing then Faith is the ground there is none but a true beleever that can indeed aright wait for and desire the coming of Christ But this will appeare more in the second thing and that is by the companion
a mans resting on Christ as his Saviour and Lord. The third is the change of the body which shall be in the great day when the soul and body shall be united together Who shall change our vile body and make it like his own glorious body c. But the main fruit whereof we are now presently possest is a heavenly Conversation And so I come to the second particular included in the observation before propounded viz. That nothing is so effectual to settle a man and to dispose him to a holy and heavenly Conversation here on earth as the right looking for the second coming of Christ That this is true you shall see it brefly how the Saints of God upon this very ground have been wrought and incouraged to a heavenly conversation in all the parts and degrees of it First of all yee shall see that this is that which mortifieth the secret lusts and corruptions of the heart A man will never set soundly and in truth to the mortification of his inward corruptions that doth not in truth out of love to Christ look for his second coming And the very reason why many are so dull and dead and backward to this work for want whereof they cannot lead so heavenly a conversation upon earth is this because they do not with love to Christ look for his second coming And that this is so it will appear by divers places of Scripture Set your affections saith the Apostle on things that are above where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God And he doth not only say so but Mortisie therefore saith he your earthly members Wherefore should they mortifie their earthly members because Christ sitteth at the right hand of God upon whom ye look upon whom the eye of your faith is fixed mortifie your members For what is that that makes a man in truth to dispose and frame his heart to be fit to stand in the number of those that are clothed in white Robes at the second coming of Christ but even this consideration that none shall appear then with comfort but such as now walk in holiness of conversation Certainly that man that doth with delight expect his second coming he will be most careful to fit himself for the receiving of Christ and most diligent in setting himself to the mortifying and subduing of his corruptions that so he may walk before him in all holiness of life A man that expects the coming of a King to his house will he therefore be secure and do nothing because he knows certainly that the King will come No surely he will therefore because he is sure that he will come make ready and furnish his house that it may be fit to receive him when he doth come Even so because I expect the coming of the great King the King of glory as he is called in Psal 24. I will now open my everlasting gates I will now labour that he may possess my soul I will now cleanse my self from all filthiness and pollution of flesh and spirit Therefore the Apostle Saint John having said We are now the Sons of God and it doth not yet appear what we shall be but we know that when he shall appear we shall be like unto him for we shall see him as he is He presently inferreth Every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself even as he is pure He that hath this hope that he shall be with Christ that he shall see him as he is he will be careful to purifie himself as Christ is pure This is the dispositton of a man that truly longs and rightly looks for the coming of Christ he will be careful to purifie himself A man that expects to be raised to some great and eminent place in the Court he will be careful to fit himself with those necessary requisits that may make him capable of it and enable him to go through it with credit and comfort So he that expects to have this great honour of the Saints to be of the number of those that receive glory and happiness and comfort by the second coming of Christ he will be careful to purge his heart from all corruption that it may be capable to receive that comfort What daunts a man at the apprehension of death and makes him have no delight in thinking of Judgment to come but the guilt of secret sins with which he hath been and is so unwilling to part It is impossible for any man to look with comfort upon the approach of Death and to take delight in and desire the second coming of Christ but he who upon this ground is careful to purge his heart of all secret corruptions and lusts whatsoever This is then the first thing wherein it doth appear that the looking for the coming of Christ is a special means to work us to a holy and heavenly conversation Secondly as this is that which mortifieth the secret lusts and corruptions of the heart so it is that also which mortifies our worldly affections For what is it that will subdue in the heart and purge out of it the love of the world and worldly things but this the looking for and expectation of a better estate to be had in Jesus Christ at his second coming What is it that makes men hold the world so fast What makes them so gripple of the earth and to cleave so close to the things of this life But because they have no comfortable perswasion and expectation of a better estate afterwards Certainly he that on a right ground and upon good warrant can expect with comfort the second coming of Christ he careth nothing for the things of this life Therefore faith the Apostle If you be risen with Christ seek those things which are above where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God because Christ sitteth at the right hand of God therefore set your affections there But how shall we come to set our affections there Set them not saith he upon the things of the earth It is necessary that the soul of a man should have something or other to fasten upon some object to take up its delight and joy and he that cannot have joy and delight in better things in things above he looks for it in things below and the reason why he so cleaves to and clasps and huggs with delight the things below is because he hath no better things to think of to hope after He that hath a better inheritance to hope for will easily let fall these things and his affection to them because his hope is in Christ who shall make him glorious at his second coming You see then the necessity of it in this second respect But to go further it is necessary also for the avoyding of any evil of any sin in the act What is it ãâã makes a man regulate and square his course of life according to the rule of ãâã so that he
affections of the whole man yeeld obedience now to his will and thou shalt find him a Jesus then He is not a Jesus a Saviour except he be a Lord and Commander also But you see I cannot stand to insist upon this The occasion of our meeting at this time is to commit to the Earth the body of our Sister departed She hath now the termination and conclusion of all her waiting and expectation And after so long a waiting there remaineth a sleeping in the Grave awhile when the soul resteth in the hands of Christ and waiteth for that great day when body and soul shall be joyned together I perswade my self well of her that She was one of the number of those waiters that shall have joy at the coming of Christ I had not much knowledg af her only I observed in her sickness a good purpose and desire of new and better obedience and performing better service to Christ then she had done if God should have spared her longer And she expressed also a great desire of Christs second coming a desire that he would receive her to himself and that these dayes of sin might be finished Much she was in these desires and she had good warrant for it for she was careful as I am informed to set up the kingdome of Christ in her Family It is the duty of a good Wife to be a help to her Husband especially in matters of piety and the worship of God and therein her example should teach wives to strive herein She was alwayes stirring him up to prayer in his Family to a more careful sanctifying of the Lords day herein She was frequent She was much mortified to the world for some late years as it was observed in her daily course by those that knew her Thus she laboured to fit her self and her Family that she might have comfort in the great Day of the appearing of the Lord Jesus I speak upon information for your edification to stir you up to labour to fit your selves for Christ by purging out of sin in your hearts and lives Labour to fit your Families for Christ that when you and your servants and children shall appear before him you may look on them and look on Christ with comfort as men that before have prepared themselves for the coming of Christ and as those that then shall lift up their heads because the day of their redemption draweth nigh CHRISTS PRECEPT AND PROMISE OR SECURITY AGAINST DEATH SERMON XVII JOHN 8.51 Verily verily I say unto you if a man keep my saying he shall never see Death IT is not long men and brethren since Death rode in triumph thorow this City and did bear down all before him he locked up your houses pulled down your windows and made the wealthiest among you put upon them the semblance of Banckroutness by locking up their doors and turning their backs to their houses and running away so it plaid the Tyrant then there died thousands a week and the Grave that alwaies cryeth Give give was almost cloyed with carkasses Death served himself so fast that the Prison could scarse hold the Prisoners It might almost have been said then of this City as once it was of AEgypt There was scarse a house wherein some were not dead at least where there was not the fear of Death Now it hath pleased God to shew you more favour and men now die but by scores Death goeth his old pace and takes away a few secretly without observation But Death is amongst you still and still will be so long as sin is among you and therefore it will not be unseasonable upon this occasion for me to speak and you to hear somewhat that may arme you against this last and worst Enemy Death which though he make not such a stir in these times of less Mortality yet he will certainly take us all away one by one And who can tell but he may be amongst the number of the hundred or fewer hundreds that die now as no man could tell wether he should be amongst the number of the thousands then Since Death therefore is alwayes an enemy and alwayes fighteth against us though not alwayes with like fury and violence it is a part of wisdome in us alwayes to hear and to practise that which may secure us against the danger of death And that is taught in this Text. Verily verily I say unto you If a man keep my saying he shall never see death Wherein not to speak any thing of the Context I pray take notice who speaks the words The Author of truth the Death of Death he that can best tell by what means a man may shun the hurt of it he that hath vanquished it and overcome the uttermost of his assaults Our Lord Jesus Christ that hath slain death and brought life and immortality to light He giveth us this direction for the avoyding of the hurt of Death Then observe the manner of his speaking Verily verily I say unto you with an affirmation earnest and redoubled He never affirmed any thing unture therefore that which he speaks is an undoubted verity He never spake any thing rashly therefore that which he affirmed so earnestly is a weighty thing and of great consequence And lastly observe that which I only shall insist upon the matter of his direction here comprehended in a hypothetical proposition which hath as all such have two parts An Antecedent and a Consequent In the one he sheweth the Duty to be done as a necessary condition for the obtaining of that which is specified in the other The first hath the Duty The second the benefit that floweth from the Duty These two are knit together in a most necessary consequence If a man keep my word he shall never see death You see now the only and perfect remedy against the evil of Death that is to keep the saying and word of Christ If any would know by what means he may be secured against the terrible of all terrible things as one calleth Death here is a sure and certain rule for him and he need not doubt of it it cometh from the mouth of Christ let him keep his saying and then Death shall never do him harm I will first interpret these words unto you and then make them good by Scripture and Reason and then apply them and commit my self and you and all at last to the blessing of God First then when our Saviour Christ saith If a man we must conceive him to mean generally at least indefinitely If any man whatsoever for so it pleaseth him to in large his promise in the redoubling of the word that no man may have cause to say he is excluded except he exclude himself Keep my sayings Here first I must shew you what is meant by sayings and then what it is to keep those sayings The Saying or words of Christ is the doctrine of the Gospel the Covenant of Grace which by an excellency
overcoming of all sin and by the vertue of Christ he shall prosper in this I beseech you therefore set your selves awork about this great business to get Repentance and Faith and New Obedience it is much more needful then sleep then meat then attire there is nothing in the world so requisite for thy welfare as these things Scrape thou riches together in the same quantity that Solomon did and ten thousands times more yet thou shalt see Death once within a hundred or half a hundred years Get wisdome yet thou shalt see Death after a few years Take pleasure with as much greediness as he did once when he forgat himself for a space yet thou shalt see death These things that the foolish world hunts after with so much earnestness of desire will not secure thee from the sight of the King of feares Death as Job calleth it But if thou once get Faith and Repentance and new obedience then thou hast obtained that that all the riches and honour and pleasures and learning or whatsoever seemeth desirable in the world will not help their possessors to What will you do brethren Grovel still on the earth and still be mad after back and belly Or will you now begin to think I must die I must shake hands with that dismal enemy pale-faced Death that is able to strike terrour into the strongest heart and amazement into the stoutest soul that is not well confirmed and if this Death find me destitute of true Repentance and Faith and New Obedience it will seize upon me and dragg me before the Judgement seat of God where I shall be Henced away with a malediction and curse and be forced to take my place with the Divel and his Angels in unquenchable flames Oh what shall I do then to secure my self from the great from the strong arme of death I will repent now I will begin Lord draw me help me that I may do it I will beleeve now Lord do thou work Faith that requirest it I will obey Lord inable me to preform such needful duties as thou commandest me Shall this be your practice when you come home Will you thus study to practise Repentance and Faith and Obedience and study to cry and call for it and use all your endeavour Or what will you do will you be as idle and careless as negligent and slothful in making after these graces as before Will you be as greedy of the transitory vanities of this life as in former times Oh abuse not the word of God If thou go out of the Church without a full purpose to apply thy self from hence forward either to begin or to proceed in the practise of the saying of Christ Cursed be thou in thy hearing cursed be that hour that thou hast spent and cursed be thy misbestowed labour thou dissembling hypocrite But if thou labour to practise this of Christ namely to keep his sayings the Doctrine of the Gospel to repent to beleeve and to obey blessed art thou in thy hearing and in thy doing and in thy obedience happy is the time and the place and all things that concur together to draw thee to so needful a work I pray Brethren set not your labour upon gold and silver and money and trash not upon the pleasures and delights and contentments of the world not on any other thing but mainly and principally above all things let your chief care be for Faith and Repentance and Obedience If you strive for these things earnestly and heartily and constantly as sure as the Lord is in heaven he will bestow them upon you and with them the benefit of benefits Freedome from Death And now I shall speak comfort to those few that are in the world that keep these sayings of Christ Let them be of good comfort if their capital enemy the King of fears and the King of Afflictions be held from a possiblity of doing them harm nothing can harme them He that Death cannot hurt paine cannot hurt poverty and disgrace cannot hurt nothing can hurt him You know if the King of an Army be reconciled to a place he will keep his Souldiers from spoyling and burning and destroying that place If Death be put out of power to do thee hurt and God be reconciled in Christ because thou keepest the saying of Christ nothing can hurt thee thou art the happiest man under the Sun Why should the poor sad afflicted grieved mourning lamenting Saints of God envie them that are rich and jolly and merry worldlings any of their pleasures and profits any of those things wherewith they like Idiots make themselves laugh at What hath not God given thee better things then he that thou shouldest murmure and whine and weep for want of them art thou still complaining for want of them Remember what Saint James faith Let the brother of low degree that is abased and dispised in the world rejoyce yea rejoyce with great boasting and glory in his Exaltation This is the exaltation of the Saints Christ writing his sayings in their hearts and inclining them through the operation of his Spirit and the powerful work of his Word to repent and beleeve hath freed them from the danger of Death and interessed them into eternal happiness and that blisse that no tongue can expresse nor no heart conceive This is thy happiness it is not to be rich or to be great for these cannot deliver the owner from the hurt of Death natural nor from the danger of Death eternal But to have Faith and Repentance and Obedience this is riches and exaltation for he that hath them shall not alone escape the Dungeon of eternal darkness but be advanced to the Palace of everlasting felicity The Saint is the happy man the penitent beleever and true practiser of Christian obedience he is the sole and only happy man under the Sun for whatsoever storme he suffereth in this present world he shall certainly escape Death and obtaine Glory Blesse God and bless thy self in God magnifie him rejoyce in him take comfort in thy lot and portion Death that devoureth Kings that destroyeth Emperours that conquers Captaines and men of valour shall not be able to approach thee for thy hurt for thou keepest the saying of the Lord Jesus Christ Rejoyce I say in this magnisie him that is the Authour of it and account thy self happy that thou hast receââ¦ed from him so excellent a gift as to be in some measure inabled to keep his saying Yea if it were so may some Christian heart object then I should esteem my self the happiest man alive â⦠but alas where is this Repentance you describe where is this New Obedience in me that still still find my self captive and thral to passion to this and that and the other lust and divers corruptions Where is I say that Repentance when I find so much fin Where is that Faith when I find so much wavering and quaking so much aptness to distrust and almost
still a generation to praise God their Creator and so being a temporal thing ordained for the office of this life it ceasoth when Death cometh there is nothing but Death and that which Christ speaks of in the Gospel can make a separation when death cometh all relations cease and a wife is no wife and a husband is no husband Behold out of this the infinite love of God in Christ that hath made all things all unions and contracts hath made all to be void but his own for our Lord Jesus in life and death is our Husband our Lord our Master our Father as well in the one as in the other whereas by the intercourse of death all things are dissolved two of the best friends that are may part upon discontent and body and soul must part at Death and Husband and wife the Symbol of Christ and his Church must part one from another yet when all societies and contracts part Christ doth not part from us but he is in the Grave as well as in the highest heavens our Husband and Lord and Spouse and we are his Church still we keep the same relation and as strong bonds in death as in life My Dead Yet not withstanding though she was not Abrahams Wife yet she was Abrahams dead This must teach a man after he is freed by Death to the combination and contract yet that there is a care remaining from the Dead a love to that though not as to a Wife the respects of Man and Wife are carnal and fleshly Death cometh and cutteth down the flesh therefore cutteth off that respect too but because she was dead and there was such bonds hetween them formerly therefore a man is bound to lament and sorrow for his dead as Abraham did here to love the memory of the dead to speak well of the dead when occasion serveth to commend them for their vertues to use the friends of the dead as far as is in their power with all courtisie to be good to the children of the Dead those that the mother hath left and not to cast them into the hands of a furious woman a new Wife that neither careth for dead nor living but to have a special regard to the bonds and familiarity and that spiritual acquaintance that God made in this life and so to be good to all that come of that issue for their sakes Let me bury my dead Lastly it followeth why he would bury his dead Out of my sight A strange thing Out of my sight Was his grief so aggravated as he could not still behold her face or was it necessary that the carkasse it self must be conveyed away must it needs be that the body being now no way amiable but noisome must be conveyed out of a mans sight The best friend in the world cannot endure the sight of a dead body it is a gastly sight especially when it cometh to that dissolution that the parts begin to have an evil savour and smell as all have when they are dead then to keep themselves in life and health it is necessary to avoid them to bury their dead out of their sight And what so sweet a sight once to blessed Abraham as Sarah What so sweet a spectacle to the world as Sarah The great Kings of the world set her as a Parragon and she came no where but her beauty enamoured them she was a sweet prospect in all eyes every man gazed on her with great content to see the beauty of God as in so many lines marked out in the face of Sarah Yet now she is odious every eye that looked upon her before now winks and cannot endure to look upon her she must be taken out of sight Oh bethink your selves of this you that take pride in this frail flesh that prank up your selves to make you graceful in every eye you that study to please the beholders you that are the great Minions of the world you that when age beginneth to purle your faces begin to redeem your selves with paintings think of this Mother Sarah the beautifullest woman in the world is loathsome to her husband her sweetest friend therefore I heseech you in the fear of God leave these fooleries and vain fancies remember what danger Sarahs beauty cast her into though it were a great gift of God yet she had better have been without it then to have that hazard of soul and body that she was brought to by Abrahams travels and necessity and know it that your best beauty is to please the eye of God to look beautiful in his sight for the sight of God is never weary the sight of men will be weary of you the best friends you have will loath to see you dead you will then be grisly in the eyes of men but the eye of God it is all one even in the dust and nothing can make you so ill-favoured but God will like you therefore labour to please Gods eye that never ceaseth nothing will make him after his affection whereas the eyes of men this life is so full of foul alterations as the least sickness bringeth an abomination unto them I see the time prevents me I will speak a little to the present occasion We have here a depositum a gage a pawn of a dear Sister of ours a woman known to you all to be of a holy Christian conversation a neighbour full of peace and quiet and of good works according to her calling She was also in the spiritual part a woman of a very good inclination loving the Word of God curious and attentive in the hearing of it She was much delighted in it and desired to communicate the knowledg she had in the Scriptures to others and to speak of it as often as occasion permitted By this study it pleased the Lord to work a constant and lively faith in her to put all her trust and considence in him She was now taken upon the sudden therefore the Lord hath left her as a pattern for us to look upon to take heed to our selves that we may make our peace with God and look for death every moment because we know not how soon we may be arrested She was indeed a woman of great trust and faith in God and one whose mouth was full of his praise still admiring and recounting the wondrous grace of God to her in all the course of her life in sparing her in giving her comfort in her conscience concerning the pardon and forgiveness of her sins and providing for her worldly helps which she thought never to attain to and in many other particulars She did open the grace of God according to her best understanding still giving the praise to his holy Name and no doubt if the stroke upon her had not been so fatal and as deadly as now it was we should have had the like fruit more abundantly at this time Howbeit she was not as one altogether destitnte but she called for and craved
his observing a fit season when and a fit decorum in speaking Third in his choyce of company and specially of such acquaintance as he would be neer with and intimate which were only such as might be able to afford him spiritual assistance in a time of need 4. His freeness from worldlyness and contentedness with his estate not as those in Horace Quocunque modo rem but he would not improve his estate by the raising it as haply he might have done and as others do upon his tenants He counted himself rich because he needed not all that he had but could have lived with less for he that can make a little to be his measure all else that he hath is his treasure which was the observation of a good Poet but a better and a more mortified Divine 5. His humility and even among the very temptations to pride It is an hard thing to be humble in an humble and low estate but much more difficult in the affluence of outward things You know his kindred and his relations yet as he manifested this grace in his whole carriage so in particular in not being puffed with his brothers and sisters greatness or the advancement of his children 6. His diligence in the use of the means of grace 1. He had a right conceit of Sermons most relishing such as were most wholesome and useful for edification 2. He took pains to hear He was often known in his younger time to go ten miles on foot in those times of greater scarcity 3. His behaviour in the Church in the time of prayer and in hearing was very observable for his reverend attendance and devotion 7. His answerable practise fitted and proportionable to his exterior profession 1. He was much in private prayer If you would have a tryal of sincerity follow a man home and to his closet and see what he doth within doors for there may be many respects that may set a man on work coram populo Secret prayer if it be constant cannot lodg long with hypocrisie in the same heart 2. He was often as they say in secret fasting by himself alone a Duty not ouly lamentably neglected in these lazie times of easie Christianity but ill spoken of too as a character of a Pharisie by such as are loath to be at the pains of subduing their bodies and yet are desirous to come off with the credit and reputation of religion 3. He was temperate in his dyer and in his habit sober and grave as counting wisdome and grace a better and trimmer dress then Lace or the fashion and so he was in his recreations though constantly chearful yet a man of little mirth or delight in any thing but spiritual 4. He was full of charity which appeared in these particulars 1. Alwayes upon the Lords day he had six poor at dinner to every one of which he gave a piece of beef away with them besides and at night he sent what was left to other poor Besides what he gave at his door and what he gave privately to the poor houshold of faith 2. His hospitality according to his rank was such as Peter Martyr reported of Martin Bucer whose table was ever open to any good people especially to Ministers whom he much respected 3. He sate up many nights for the comfort of the sick not thinking that work of mercy sufficiently performed by an How do you or a cold visit 4. He had a Sympathy with the condition of Christs Church abroad 5. In the last place let us view him in his last act his sickness and death which as the Text hath told us is pretious in the sight of the Lord. 1. He prepared himself to die not only being willing but desirous also to be set at liberty being often at S. Pauls Cupio dissolvi which they that were with him say was much in his mouth 2. He was very thankful for Gods assisting him with memory and understanding to the very last for the continuance of which he prayed and desired others that were about him to pray 3. He employed both his memory and speech for the comfort and counsel of such as visited him 4. He made a confession of his faith but chiefly in the matter of Justification by faith which an eminent Roman Prelate called a good supper doctrine and in the comfort of that point he resigned his soul to Christ and slept sweetly in the Lord. Thus as his life was holy his death was pretious He made no great noyse in the world nor raised greater expectations of himself then he could well mannage like many exhalations that rise out of dunghils as if they meant to reach the skie but presently fall down again and wet us But as a taper he gave light till he went out and now he is gone we will leave upon his Grave Memoria ejus in Benedictionibus and apply to him the words of the Text Pretiosa in oculis Jehovoe pretious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his Saints THE DESIRE OF THE SAINTS AFTER IMMORTAL GLORY SERMON XXI 2 COR. 5.2 For in this we do groan carnestly desiring to be cloathed upon with our house which is from heaven WHen I read these words I am in a great doubt whether I should rather admire the excellency of the temper of these Saints or deplore the vileness of ours so celestial the one so terrestrial the other so noble the one so ignoble the other so magnanimous the one so abject the other These Saints they did duly consider that our life it is but a Pilgrimage that this whole world is but a Diversory or Inn to refresh us for a while that it is a warfare all things within us without us our enemies that this body is but a Tabernacle a Tent a Cottage an carthen vessel a Gourd the scabbard the prison of the soul more brittle than glass decaying mouldering of it self though it be preserved from eternal injuries of air or weather they saw the vanity the vacuity the emptiness of the things of this life their affections were alienated estranged and divorced from the world they had by watchings fastings grovelings on the ground tears and groans scoured off the drosse of their souls and made them polished statues of piety they had made up their accounts between God and themselves and had sued out their pardon for their defects and failings and had that seated in their consciences they did penetrate the clouds with the eye of faith and did see the immense good things laid up for them in heaven with which being ravished and impatient of cunctation and delay they desire to be vested in the possession of them though it were with the deposition of their honse of clay which they did bear about them Of these things they had not a bareconjecture but a certain knowledge For we know vers 1. that if our earthly house of this tabernacle be dissolved we have a building not made with hands eternal in
see the face of God all are of his house all converse with him all stand in his presence all are his sons all are his heirs a house so scituated as never any upon the brow of that hill which is the beauty of perfection the delight not of the whole earth but of heaven it self in the purest ayre that ever was even purity it self free from all malignant vapour a place irriguous with the chrystal streams of Paradise it self a place inriched with all the precious things the heart of man can desire an house not built by man but by God himself not of terrestrial feculent matter not of gold or silver but that which excells all valuation whatsoever the hanging or or naments of which house are not of Arras or Tissue or cloth of Gold or whatsoever is more precious with men but far above these such and so excellent that Neither eye hath seen nor ear hath heard neither hath the like entered into the hearts of men The delights of this house are such that if all the contentments and delights that ever ravished the hearts of men in their private houses were put together yet were they but as a candle to the Sun as a drop to the Ocean Oh the stateliness and magnificence of the Hall of this house wherein are Prophets Apostles Martyrs Confessors Saints Angels the blessed Virgin especially all of them praising and lauding God! Blessed are they that dwell in this house they will be still praising thee Here in this life are variety of imployments according to the diversity of mens Callings and their necessities but there shall be no necessity there shall be but one work the work of Praise a duty which in this life is performed with fatigation and weariness but their it shall be done with all sweetness and delight increasing with the continuance of the same No vain thoughts to interrupt this duty no weariness of the flesh to weaken this duty no necessity or indigency to rend us from this duty but as it will be our happiness to love and see God so it will be the exercise of our happiness to admire and to laud God while we are here such is the weakness of our apprehension that we cannot with the same act conceive the work and the workman we cannot think of the benefit and the author of the same then we shall be enabled to joyn both these together so to admire the work as at the same time to praise the author so to contemplate the benefit as at the same time to fall down before the benefactor Oh the stateliness of this presence where the face of God the beauty of God the Majesty of God is seen in so glorious a manner that even Angels and Archangels cover their faces not being able to behold stedfastly the great lustre of the same Oh the loveliness of the chambers of the King made for the soul to repose her self in all spiritual delight after her labour and travel in this miserable world oh the beauty of the Mansions of this house prepared by Christ himself for the soul to refresh her self with all spiritual food and oh the variety and excellency of the food of this house the understanding shall have his food morning and evening knowledg a clear view of all things not in themselves or in their causes but in their exact Idea's subsisting in the essence of God but especially the radiant vision of the face of God the Essence of God the Sun of righteousness The will shall have her food goodness joy delectation not by measure but drowned in the full ocean of these with that stability and confirmation that she cannot will that which is evil The affectiens shall have their food being fully satisfied beyond their desires The Body shall have his food being made an impassible clarified Agil spiritual body defecated and purified from this feculent elementary food and all other alterations common to it with beasts and which is most wonderful the King of Kings shall gird himself to reach out these Joyes unto us they shall be administred unto us Ve jad Hammelek by the hand by the power of a King Did I say this of my self who would give credence unto me but Truth faith it Luke 12.37 Blessed are those servants whom he shall find watching verily I say unto you that he shall gird himself and make them sit down to meat and will come forth and serve them Oh wonderful dignation who ever heatd of the like Stat Cato dum Lixa bibit the Lord stands the servant sits the Lord is girt the servant is loosed the Master is reaching out full bowels and the servant is inebriated with the rivers of these pleasures once he girt himself to wash his Disciples feet and the servant was astonished to see so great a Majestie condescending to so mean ministery shall we not be much more ravished with this ineffable dignation when he shall again gird himself to supply the soul with unspeakeable delight as if God himself intended nothing in heaven but to heap content upon them that sit down with Abraham Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven This is the fatness the excellency of this house with the weak adumbration whereof I doubt not but that your hearts are so taken that ye have reduced all your desires to this one with the Psalmist One thing have I desired of the Lord which I will desire even that I may dwell in his house and behold the beauty of the Lord. And I wonder not when I contemplate the Mafesty of God I wish my self all fear and when I consider the power of God I wish my self all humility and when I meditate on the goodness of God I wish my self all Love and when I contemplate the Beauty of God and of this bouse I wish my self all desire and so do you also and therefore with unanimous votes you request me to conduct you to the gates of this house whereby you may enter into the same and according to the magnificence of this House so there are many gates whereby we may enter and all of these reaching even to the Earth with the foot of Jacobs ladder There is the gate of Faith by it we have ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã access unto God and that with boldness by this we lay hold on the Throne of Grace by this we prostrate our selves at his feet by this we adhaere and cleave close unto God by this we live in Christ and Christ in us by this our hearts are purified our conscience washed with the bloud of Christ and fitted to see God and to enter into the holy of holies unto which no unclean thing can be admitted This is one Gate Another is the gate of Hope which entreth within the Vail and bringeth us neerer unto God this grace taketh us by the hand and leadeth us through the streets of New Jerusalem and sheweth us the Temple of the Lamb and the Lamb sitting in his
Disciples Mat. 24. The Disciples point Christ to the stately buildings of the Temple but they were soon damped when Christ told them that after a while there should not a stone be left upon a stone So perhaps you are taken with admiration at the former part of the discourse concerning the excellency of mans soul but are damped to consider that a man may lose it It is a substance immortal in respect of the being of it but defiled with sin it is adjudgeable to death in regard of the well-being and a posibility so to die is nothing repugnant to the immortality of the soul The damned spirits they are alwayes dying and are never dead they are alwayes deprived of Gods comfortable presence and are never released of their hellish torments As the Apostle saith in another case as dying and yet behold they live as living and yet behold they die The soul expiring is the death of the body and God forsaking is the death of the soul But you will say how is it possible The question is soon resolved if we ponder the causes of death A thousand mortal maladies there are to kill the body and there are a thousand deadly diseases to destroy the soul There is no sin so small but in the rigour of Gods justice and in its own nature it way damn the soul When God in the beginning stated man in Paradise he gave him a special caveat about the tree of knowledg he gives him a command thus In the day thou eatest thou shalt die What for bare eating No beloved but for the sin for tansgressing so small a commandement of so great a God Sin alone makes a separation between God and the soul and causeth the death of the soul the soul that sins the same shall die It may teach us that for the time that we live in this world there is nothing easier then to sin There is a tree of Life and a tree of Kuowledg and by eating of the tree forbidden cometh death there is a way of felicity and a way to destruction there is a God of salvation and a ghostly enemy and by adhering to the pricipality of sin a man may lose his own soul Is it possible then that a man may lose his soul that is so precious and have we not great reason to try and to suspect our selves touching our standing towards God Is there not a main necessity to seek the means to preserve us in the compass and seals of grace It is lamentable to consider how in bodily diseases men can open their grief and seek for help and send to some learned Physitian We can go to some noble learned councel in case of law But alas the soul lies wounded in the way over laden with the grievances and pressures of sin distracted with the affrightings of a troubled conscience as if there were no balm in Gilead no Physitian there as if there were no Minister to afford help There is no seeking abroad a Lyon is pretented to be in the way and Solomons sluggard folds his hands to sleep O let not these things be so Be not as the Horse and Mule that have no understanding Neglect not the helps of your preservation in grace but be continually watchful with suspition and jealousie and abstain from fleshly lusts that fight against your souls The Poet could say Theeves rise by night to rob and kill and steal and wilt not thou wake to save thy soul God for the most part saith Saint Chrysostome hath alotted to nature all by two's two hands two eyes two feet two ears ears eyes hands feet two of all that if we chance to maim one we can help to relieve the necessity of it by the other but he hath given us but one soul if we lose that what shift shall we make for another soul a piercing contemplation if we had grace to consider it Therefore O my soul tender thy self as my own happiness if thou be translated to heaven the body in time shall come thither this corruption shall put on incorruption this mortal shall put on immortality Again if thou be haled with the fiends to the nethermost hell the body in time shall be tormented with thee It is altogether just with the righteous God that they that meet in sin should also consort in suffering Save thy self and save all and by woful consequence lose thy self and lose all For what is a man profited if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul So much for the second point the possibility of losing a mans soul Come we to the third the compossibility of outward prosperity he may lose his soul in gaining the whole world In the diversity of opinions concerning the chief good some there were that placed it in riches others in honours and how ever they differed in their judgements yet both agreed in this that they were both deceived For how ever it cannot be denied but that riches and honours are the blessings of God yet again they are no demonstration of a blessed man Lest any man should take them to be ill they are bestowed upon them that are good lest any man should reckon them for the chief good they are bestowed likewise upon the evil external blessings are but common favours vouchsafed to good and bad Was Abraham rich so was Abimelech Was Jacob rich so was Laban Was David a King so was Saul Was Constantine an Emperour so was Julian Salvation depends not on the multitude of riches or emminency in place the tallest Cedar hath the greatest fall and the fairest houses many times the greatest ruin and outward prosperity uuguarded with inward sanctity may soon lose the soul For first rich men are tainted with covetousness which is a kind of secret Idolatry Collos 3. and covetousness which is Idolatry saith the Apostle If you would know the reason the more tenaciously a man loves his own the less devotion he offers to God you cannot live in the service of Mammon and of Christ the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it you cannot serve God and Mammon If the young man in the Gospel have great possessions if Judas carry the bag if Demas imbrace the present world then fearewel Christ farewel Paul and farewel soul too So true is the saying of the Apostle They that will be rich fall into temptations and snares and many foolish and noysome lusts that drown men in perdition and destruction Where he saith not they that are but they that will be rich It is not simply money but the love of money that is the root of all evil Riches are good with a good conscience but if the soul be infected with avarice if it savour of that bitter Collaquintida Death is in the pot and how hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdome of heaven For the desire of worldly men it is as the unsatiable thirst of a dropsie patient there is
deal less then a man For what was he hark what David faith in his person I am a worm and no man the very off-scouring of men the out-cast of the people there was no glory in his first appearing But now his second appearing shall be in glory it shall be every way glorious First his Person glorious And then his Throne glorious he shall come and sit upon the throne of his glory And then his attendants glorious the Angels thousand thousands ministring to him ten thousand thousands standing before him and all glorious Again his administration of justice shall be glorious for if he got himself glory on Pharaoh when he drowned him in the Sea What glory will he get when he shall throw the Divel and wicked men into hell fire there is glory in his administration of justice Then glory in his Saints as the Apostle I Thes 1.10 faith that God shall be marvellous glorious in his Saints For when Christ that is our glory shall appear then we also shall appear with him in glory Here is the glorious Epiphany of Christ a glorious appearing But of whom The great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ Some there are that would make these two to be two persons The great God say they that is God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ that is God the Son Thus the Arrians thus the Semi-Arrians and thus which I wonder at Erasmus and thus some others But first of all you never find in the New Testament of the Epiphany of God the Father that same glorious Epiphany is ever of the Son Then the Greek makes it plain me-thinks for had there been two persons the Apostle should have said thus ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã there should have been two Articles but here is but one Article it is apparant to them that understand the Greek it is but one Person that same person is the mighty God the great God and the Saviour Jesus Christ The great God First Christ is God I need not stand to prove that now among you And that same incommunicable Name of Jehovah by which I find him called in Scripture and those incommunicable properties of the Divine Nature Immortality Immutability Immensity Omnipotency Omniscience which are all ascribed to Christ And then those names that are proper only to God as The Creator The Governour of the World And then the worship that is due to God alone is given to Christ in the Scriptures ipsius est solus est all these being given to him prove him to be God And lest you should think he is God now by participation of the Divine Essence in which sence the Angels are called Elohim Or as Majestrates are Gods by representation you shall find by what Epithites he is called God The true God 1. Ioh. The mighty God Isa 9.6 God blessed for ever Rom. 9.5 and here the great God And so he is great God great not in bodily bulk but great in Essence Great in Majesty great in power And this may first be a wondrous comfort to Gods children Doth thy heart condemn thee hark what S. John faith God is greater then our he art Again doth the Divel terrifie thee hark what our Lord faith No man shall be able to take them out of my hand He is able to keep us to the day of Salvation a great comfort to Gods people A great matter of terrour to wicked men that this Judge shall be the great God for who is able to stand before him when he is angry Do you remember when the band of Souldiers came to apprehend him in the Garden he said no more but Ego sum it is I faith he and presently they fell down to the ground they were beat down with the very breath of his mouth as a man is sometimes with the wind of a bullet or as the walls of Jericho with the found of the trumpets of Rams horns The very word Ego sum it was no more they fell all to the ground Now I may say with that Father what shall he do when he comes to Judge that was able to do thus when he was to be judged Quid regnatores patuerit c. what shall he do when he comes to reign that was able to do thus when he was to die But alas you will say if he be so great a God so glorious how shall such a poor wretch as I stand before him I confess my self a poor wretched and grievous sinner how shall I stand before him Oh mark here he that is called the great God he is called the Saviour Jesus Christ Here is the comfort he is a Saviour he came to work the work of Redemption He was made like us in all things sin excepted that he might be mereiful And it is wondrous comfortable that in that very nature he shall be our Judge in which he stood before the Judge at the judgement seat of Pilate God hath appointed a day faith Saint Paul in which he will judge the world in righteousness by whom by the man Jesus Christ Act. 17.31 O but what a comfort of comforts is that indeed I pray mark our Lords words John 5.27 God the Father faith he hath given all authority to his Son to judge Why Mark his reason because he is the Son of man He doth not say he hath given him power to judge because he is his Son but because he is the Son of man It made sweet Saint Bernard cry out O verum Patrem misericordia c. O true Father of mercies that wouldest have men judged by man he hath been a man and lived he knew no sin he knew temptation he knew what is was to be tempted he knows that we are tempted and he knows that we are but men he remembreth that we are but dust Thus I have gone over the words briefly There is a general Doctrine to be touched which I can but touch in a word it is this Every true Christian must so live as a man that waites and looks for this blessed hope at that glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ The holy men that lived before Christs first Epiphany his first coming here in the flesh they are described thus to be men that looked for that coming After his coming Anna the Prophetess the Scripture faith she spake of Christ to all that looked for redemption in Jerusalem Luke 2.36 and in verse 25. it is said that old Simeon a devout man and one that looked for the consolation of Israel And the like is said of Joseph of Aremathea he was a just man one that feared God and looked for the redemption of the people of God he looked for the kingdom of God There was looking then And the Children of God now in the New Testament they are all described by this looking for the second coming of Christ Gods children
degree cannot enter into the heart to conceive and this will help to keep us waking Then in the next place when a man hath opened his eyes to see the light then there must be a rouzing of the senses This awakes a man when his senses that were bound up by sleep are loosed that now he is able to see and to move and to talk c. What unbinds the spiritual senses of a man in this sleep of sin only faith in the Son of God that opens the eyes of them that were dead in sin it restore new senses and life that they are able to walk in the wayes of God and to move in the actions of godliness and Christianity Therefore the second thing that a man must doe to awake himself out of sleep is to get faith in his soul that he may suck vertue from Christ and to get his senses loofed that he may see and taste and feel the goodness of God which without Christ he cannot attain Thirdly and lastly a man must get out of his bed to awake him out of sleep when his eyes are open and his senses loosed leap out of the bed that is by repentance this is to cease to do evil Therefore when the Apostle exhorts to rise out of sleep these are the three main things the Apostle aims at wherein he expresseth it plentifully First to get the true knowledge of God to see those objects that may allure and draw our minds And then labour to get faith in the Son of God whereby our senses may be unbound And then to get out of the bed of sin by repentance to cease to do evil and learn to well this is to awake out of the bed of sleep Thirdly who they are that must arise out of sleep Every man for so the Apostle plainly expresseth it Ephes 2. Awake thou that sleepest whosoever thou art that sleepest awake and rise out of sleep But who are they that sleep Two sorts of men all sorts of men may be reduced to two heads The Natural Man The Regenerate Man And both sleep The natural man is in a fast dead sleep you shall as soon get a rib out of his side as God did out of Adam when he was asleep as wake him You shall sooner drive a nail into his temples as Jael did to Sisera then awake him He is in a fast dead sleep in the sleep of death as a man in a Lethargy that never wakes again Therefore this man had need to arise to be called upon and to be rouzed out of the sleep of death Awake thou that sleepest stand up from the dead that Christ may give thee light Arise as a man ariseth out of the Grave out of the bed of sleep This is the man that is in a dead sleep But not only these are in a dead sleep but the regenerate also are in a sleep and they keep not themselves so waking and so watchful as they ought to do therefore the Apostle applies it to himself and to all the Saints It is time for us to awake out of sleep He puts himself in the number For he that is most wakeful had need to be more and to rise out of sleep still Cant. 5. It is the voyce of the Church I sleep but my heart waketh Even the Church her self that was waked already in part in a great part yet she confessed that she slept Her sleep was not so dead and so fast as formerly yet she slept and slumbred I sleep but my heart waketh It was not a hearty a dead sleep as the other was So in Mat. 25. it is said of the wise virgins as well as of the foolish they all slumbred and slept The foolish slept that is they were fast asleep the wise virgins they slumbred And so the Disciples themselves by the side of our Lord even when a temptation was neer and the tempter was upon them they fell fast asleep and were not able to watch with Christ no not one hour as Christ saith Thus we see brethren that those also that are Regenerate those that have received the greatest measure of grace and are in the highest form in grace for who was higher then Saint Paul they themselves have need to be called out of sleep It is time for them to awake out of sleep though they be waking persons even those that have received grace to beleeve and obey and be watchful in some measure even these must be called out of sleep Therefore in Revel 3.2 It is the counsel that is given to the Church of Sardis that had received some grace and was in some measure watchful saith the holy Ghost to that Church Be awake and strengthen the things that are ready to die He tels them in the words before Thou hast a name to live but art dead that is thou art even almost dead there is a little life of grace in thee thou art almost dead for so it is explained in the words following awake and strengthen the things that are ready to die Thus we see the difference between the calling of the wicked and the godly in their sleep The one is called from sleep to stand up from the daad the other to streng then the things that are ready to die And thus we see the persons who must wake In the next place Why doth the Apostle call upon sleepers to awake out of sleep We see natural men are as dead men in a dead sleep he doth but lose his labour and spend his breath they cannot hear and understand And the godly likewise it is with them as with a man in a sleep they are drowsie and do not much intend what is spoken To this I answer briefly Exhortations in Scripture are never in vain fall where they will This voyce of exhortation if it come upon regenerate men that are awake in part it is a means to awake them more it is a means to keep them awake as it was a means to awake them at the first If it fall upon wicked men that are in a dead sleep it serves if not to awake them yet to convince them to make them inexcusable for such a man might object What is this to me I am called on to awake I am in a dead sleep can I hear if I be in a dead sleep But know this thou that art in a dead sleep that art not able to hear thou art not able to hear because thou hast cast thy self into a dead sleep For this is the difference Suppose a man in the night season be in his first sleep tell him a message from God what he would have him to do he understands it not he knows it not it is no sin of his because he is a-sleep because God hath ordained this sleep to be due to nature But it is not so in the sleep of sin God doth not cast a man into the sleep
he was out of the way the Angel watcheth him and catcheth him in this corner and in that corner he could go into no corner but the Angel with his drawn sword was ready to meet him and to slay him And the Apostle saith of those that were led away by false teachers Their damnation sleepeth not Gods judgments are alway waking thou maist sleep on both sides in sin but Gods justice sleepeth not And thou that art the Lords if thou sleep know that correction and chastisement sleepeth not and they will awake thee thou wert better to awake by slighter means To conclude all consider that all of us there is no man upon the earth but we are all going to meet the mortal sleep of death and if we shall when that meets us have our own consciences tell us that we have also a spiritual sleep within us that we carry a spiritnal sleep to meet that mortal sleep what a miserable and mournful state will that be when the heart of man or woman that is coming to die shall say and speak aloud and witness against his Master O thou hast been a sluggish and sleepy Christian thou hast had good means but thou hast not kept thy watch thou wouldest sleep do what the exhortations of the Word could thou wouldest be a drowsie Christian Hence it comes to pass that so many when on their death-bed they come to grapple with that mortal sleep and then conscience porclaims against them then they cry Oh that I had but one day but one hour more that I might waken and strengthen the things that are ready to die and that it might be better with me then it is But alas now their short day is past and one perpetual night to come and now it is too late as it proves many times Therefore let not time go but know that that mournful day must come upon us we must meet that mortal sleep Let us labour to shake off spiritual sleep drowsiness of spirit and make our peace in the mean time that conscience may witness with us and for us at the day of death and judgment Let us labour to be watchful and desire to be ready for the Lord and to have our accounts ready for him This shall suffice for the words Now for our occasion because this is my first occasion of this kind I must enter with a preface and that is this that as I have ever been in the course of my ministery so I shall be very sparing in the praise of the dead because I know that these exercises are appointed for the instructing of the living and the consolation of those that survive and not for the praise and commemoration of the dead Besides I know and see by daily experience every where how few there be that in their life time deserve the praise of Religion in their death For my part I never did nor never will gild a rotten post or a mud wall or give false witness in praising to give the praise of Religion to those that deserve it not I desire those of my congregation would make their own Funeral Sermons while they be living by their vertuous life and conversation As the Apostle saith He hath not praise that is praised of meh but he that is praised of God THE RIGHTEOUS MANS RESTING-PLACE OR AFENCE AGAINST UNNECESSARY FEARS SERMON XXVII GEN. 15.1 After these things the word of the Lord came to Abraham saying Fear not Abraham I am thy shield and they exceeding great reward THe tender mercy of God is seen in nothing more than in afflicting his own people for he proportions his castisements not to our deserts but to our streugth and you shall ordinarily observe where Almighty GOD laies a heavy affliction he gives an extraordinary assistance when he leads any of his people through a hot fire he is with them in extraordinary manner This holy Saint Abraham as he was the Father of the Faithful so he was a pattern to all the faithful in both these both in his tryals and in Gods assistance There was never any man called to more tryals than he to leave his Country and his Kindred and his Fathers house and after to sacrifice his own Son And there was never any man more assisted from God as we see in those many apparitions that God vouchsafed him Comforting him sometimes in Dreams and Visions Sometimes he appeared to him in an admirable and most friendly manner talking with him as a man doth with his Friend One of them are in this Chapter The Lord appeared to Abraham and comforted him in the midst of his tryals and troubles Where you may see an admirable incouragement that God gives to his servant Abraham You may note First the incouragement it self that is not to fear Secondly note the time when God gave him this incouragement when he had encountred with those Kings immediatly before as we see in Chapter 14. And when he was to encounter with many evils and troubles after then the Lord appeared to him Thirdly note the manner how God is pleased to reveal this comfort that is by way of vision God appeared by vision Fourthly note the ground of this comfort and incouragemeat that God gives him and that is taken from a twofold Argument First what God was to him in regard of any evils that he did feel or fear he was his shield to bear them off Secondly in regard of all the good things that Abraham could lose in the world an exceeding great reward he would be to him all in all So you see this portion of Scripture affords plentiful matter for instruction and consolation All that I will speak of at this time I will wind up in this proposition that is that They that are in covenant with God and labour to keep his covenant as faithful Abraham was and did they may be a people without all carnal and inordinate fear For Abraham felt much and had just cause to expect more but in the middest of all God appeared to him and bid him he should not fear And what was spoken to Abraham is spoken to us for he was the Father of the faithful and they that are of the faith with Abraham are blessed with him So then the blessing of Abraham and all the incouragements that were given to him they belong not to him only but to all that are the spiritual seed of Abraham to all the faithful so that the Proposition is not limitted to him but extends to all A Doctrine if ever needful it is now We know how it is with all men that are out of Covenant with God Adam as soon as he had sinned he runs from God he was afraid and hid himself from the face of God so every unregenerate man is except his conscience be ignorant in a dead sleep and cauterized for he seeth God on the one side a revenging Judge and he knows himself on the other side to be guilty and
it is death What a world of people run blindly and desperately on they turn to the race of sin as the horse to the battel without fear as if the Psalmists Tremble and sin not were rather sin and tremble not Whereas we have great cause every one to tremble at the least motion of sin in our selves to which so dreadful and woful wages is due Lastly for this point so many of us as have repented and have already left the service of sin we must hence learn as to be humbled in our selves considering what danger and misery we have escaped so to be more thankful to Christ that hath freed us from so wretched wages due to our sins and that by taking the whole punishment upon himself For we must know beloved that the best of us by nature are children of wrath as well as others the stipend that we have earned is eternal death and surely it hath been payed to us nothing could have kept it from us but only the satisfaction of Christ coming between Gods justice and us Think we then if we can what misery it is that we have escaped as many of us I mean as be in the state of grace we have escaped death the hurt of temporal death we have escaped eternal death What is that a separation from the blessed presence and glory of God destruction of body and soul for ever unutterable torments company with the divel and his angels and the rout of reprobates darkness blacker and thicker then that of Egypt Weeping and wayling and gnashing of teeth in the infernal lake that worm that never dies and the fire that never goeth out This is the wages of all sin and that it is not rendred to all sin and to all sinners the cause is only this that the payment hath been already exacted of Christ in the behalf of all true beleevers therefore in their own persons they are discharged how infinitely are we bound in thankfulness to him and how careful should we be to walk worthy of it resolving never to return to the service of sin again but to make it our whole study that we may please and honour such a Redeemer that hath redeemed us from such misery as this that we may please him for we had deserved eternal death as well as others and he hath not only freed us from that that we had most worthily deserved but most freely also bestowed that upon us that we could never deserve for so it followes in the next point The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. That is the second thing to be considered the reward of the service of God You have heard of the reward the wages of sin Now the reward of the service of God is eternal life it is called life There is a twofold life belongs to men The one is natural and is common to all good and bad in this world The other spiritual proper to the faithful begun by the union of God and the soul and maintained by the bond of the spirit and this life hath three degrees The first is in this life unto death and it begins when we begin to beleeve and repent and come to a saving knowledge of God and of his Son Jesus Christ as it is said This is eternal life to know thee to be the very God and whom thou hast sent Jesus Christ Joh. 17.3 The second degree is from our death to our resurrection for in that time our souls being freed from our bodies are withal free from all sin original and actuall Thirdly after the Resurrection when body and soul shall be reunited we shall have immediate communion and fellowship with God and so enjoy a more perfect and blessed life then ever ãâã could here And this spiritual life with all the three degrees of it is the life here spoken of especially the last degree the perfection of it in heaven It is called eternal life because it shall never end For a thing is said to be eternal three wayes First which hath neither beginning nor end so God alone is eternal and none but he Secondly which hath no beginning and yet shall have an end so Gods decree is eternal for it never had a beginning yet when all things decreed are fulfilled it shall have an end Thirdly which hath a beginning but never shall have end and so the life of Gods Saints had a beginning as all created things have but it shall never have an end and this eternal life it is called here The gift of God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Because we cannot deserve it but it is given and bestowed on us freely for Christ So then the point of observation from the latter part of the words is this that Our salvation it is the free gift of God given us only for the merits of Christ For observe I beseech you the Apostles words when he had said The wages of sin is death he doth not add and say but the wages of righteousness is eternal life but he calls that the gift of God To make us understand saith Damascene that God brings us to eternal life meerly for his own mercy not for our merits or else surely the Apostle would have made the latter part of the sentence answerable to the former But here perhaps some may ask why eternal life should not be the wages of righteousness as well as death the wages of sin I answer because there is not the same reason between sin and righteousness For first sin is our own it merits it but righteousness is none of our own it is the holy Ghosts and it is due to God Then again sin is perfectly evil and so it deserves death but our righteousness inherent is not perfectly good it is imperfect in this life and nothing that is imperfectly good can merit as wages eternal life therefore the Apostle makes such a manifest difference between them he calls death the wages of sin but eternal life the gift of God it is the free gift of God through Christ Indeed eternal life sometimes many times in Scripture is called a reward But there is a reward of mercy as well as of justice Nay God is said sometimes to reward his children in justice How is that Though the reward come originally from mercy yet accidentally it comes to be justice thus because God hath tyed himself by promise to reward now promise is debt from a just man Thus the Lord may be accounted a debtor How saith Saint Austin as a promiser if he had not promised eternal life otherwise he ows us nothing at all much less eternal life which is so great a thing Yet it may be doubted how eternal life is the free gift of God seeing it is given for the merits of Christ as it is here exprest the gift of God through Jesus Christ our Lord that is for the merits of Christ now a
spirits meaneth to keep us under his discipline suppose it be all our time and perhaps it shall be so yet all that is but the time of our minority and therefore if we have been content to submit to our earthly parents their discipline for a few dayes shall we not much more be in subjection to the Father of spirits to his chastisement though it be for our life-time for the disproportion is infinitely greater between the time of this life compared with the state of maturity and ripe age which the Saints shall come to hereafter and the time of our minority and child-hood compared with the state of full age and man-hood in this life for alas how short are our dayes they are spent even as a tale that is told But lastly that the Apostle might over-power the spirits of the godly and quiet their minds and make them compose themselves to a patient waiting upon God and a willing submission to whatsoever condition he shall bring them into Our earthly parents saith he according to their pleasure and many times in the strength of passion and with over-much unadvisedness and heat of bloud not so much respecting the weak condition of their children chastened us but he that is our heavenly Father the Father of spirits for our profit and what profit that we might be partakers of his holiness This is an Argument I conceive very sutable to the occasion of our meeting together at this time in regard of those whom more especially and neerly it concerneth the Parents of this deceased young Gentleman whom the Lord is pleased now deeply to afflict and to reach out to them a bitter Cup I shall endeavour therefore to speak somewhat in this Argument And though it concerns them in a more special manner yet it is a meditation that concerns us all to take knowledge of and such a one as if we belong to God and that the Lord hath a purpose to bring to heaven we shall have occasion in our time to make often use of Passing over therefore other things let us come to consider of this latter part of the verse and of the latter part of the comparison here framed by the Apostle in order to the strengthning of his main Argument whereby he urgeth his exhortation to the patient bearing of those Afflictions that God shall be pleased to exercise us withall Our earthly Parents for a few dayes chastened us after their own pleasure but He the Father of our spirits for our profit that he might make us a partaker of his holiness In the words themselves we have to consider these particulars And the main pillars of our discourse for the present letting passe the rest shall be these severals First we are to take knowledge of this point in the general viz. That God Almighty is graciously set to procure and further the good and profit of his people Secondly and more particularly That in all the afflictions and chastisments he bringeth upon his people his eye and aim is at their good Thirdly The great profit and benefit that God aimeth at and intendeth to his people in all his fatherly administrations especially of castigation is that be might make them partaker of his holiness I begin with the first and the more general point You see the Text importeth it plain enough that God Almighty is graciously set for to procure and promote and further the good and benefit and profit of his people of such as fear his name of such as he is pleased to receive for his own his heart I say is set upon them to do them good he is studious of their profit he hath a due respect to their benefit in all his dealings and administrations to them Next to his own glory which is dearest to him of all things else and good reason too for that is better then salvation and eternal happiness But I say next to his own glory and the glory of his beloved Son Jesus Christ the main thing that he aimeth at is that he might make his people happy with him and that they might be every way profited and advantaged both in soul and body and furthered to eternal happiness This will appear to us if we consider first The ordinances of God which he hath appointed in order to his peoples good Secondly if we consider his commandements and impositions And Thirdly if we consider all his various administrations toward them All which will clearly manifest to us that Gods aim in all is at the profit and benefit of his people I shall touch but upon some particulars and on them neither I shall but onely glance because I would keep my self within the compass of the time First consider the Lords ordinances that he hath provided for his people and calleth them out to give attendance upon they are all with respect to his peoples profit and an eye to that As for instance That great Ordinance which God hath set up in his Church namely that of preaching and dispensing of the sacred misteries of the Gospel it is with respect to his peoples profit To open their eyes and to turn them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto God that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith in Christ That they might be brought into the fellowship of this mistery and be inriched with all the treasures of the Gospel And the Apostle saith that all Scripture which this ordinance of Preaching is to be conversant about that Scripture which we are to break abroad among you this way it is profitable Profitable for Doctrine for reproof for instruction for correction and it will make the man of God perfect So profitable as that it is able to perfect a man to make him wise to salvation and we need no more wisdom The like might I speak concerning the Sacrament of the Lords Supper It is instituted of God with an eye to his peoples benefit that they may come to be made partakers of that profitable flesh and bloud for so I may justly call it of the Lord Jesus It is not the bloud of Bulls and of Goats it is not the bloud of all the men in the world that is profitable for such purposes as the pacifying of the wrath of God the quenching of the flames of his displeasure the purging of the conscience from dead works of those we may say as David in another case what profit is there in my bloud But there is profit in the bloud of Christ and with respect to that this ordinance is provided in the Church that the people of God attending thereon according to his institution may come to be made partakers of the vertue and benefit thereof having the remission of their sins thereby sealed up to their consciences through faith in that bloud The like Instance might I give of Prayer and the rest of those holy ordinances
whipping his people to hold them under such sharp discipline it is for the profit of the children so the Text expresseth it but he for our profit Which first of all implieth that afflictions and chastisements are a means conducing to the profit of those that undergo them A point plain in the Text and the Scripture abundant in the proof of it and the experience of the Saints in a plentiful manner confirming it It is good for me saith David that I have been afflicted And Joseph giveth this honourable testimony of God The Lord saith he hath caused me to be fruitful in the land of my afflictions and thereupon giveth his child a name sutable Afflictions and chastisements they become profitable as the furnace to the gold to purge out the dross to make a separation between the pure mettal and the ore Profitable as physick to the body to purge out the malignant humours Profitable as sope to the cloth to fetch out the stains to take out the greasie spots it is the Scripture expression their hearts are as fat as grease to make them white Profitable as the Thunder to the Ayr to purge it to make it more commodious to breath in Profitable as the wind to the water to make it the purer by its ventilation Profitable as the pruning knife to the tree to make it more fruitful These and the like metaphors we have and by them we are to conceive of the good and benefit that comes to us by Gods castigation and fatherly exercising of his people with his discipline and rod of Affliction But what are these blessed fruits what is the profit accruing to the soul of the people of God by this means I can but name part of them Besides that which is exprest in the Text that we might be partaker of his holiness there are these gracious effects of afflictions Weaning from the world a bringing us into more acquaintance with God Manasseth when he was in affliction he besought the Lord his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his Fathers and prayed unto him and then saith the Text he knew that the Lord he was God God by this means makes us know our selves the vanity of the creature the sinfulness of sin the sweetness of the Word the excellency that is in the promises makes us more compassionate to others keepeth us from hell and many other fruits there are of afflictions But to pass this A second thing implyed in the Doctrine is this that as afflictions are means conducing to our profit so God in exercising his people with them mainly intendeth it The Lord saith Moses led thee through that great and terrible wilderness wherein were fiery Serpents and Scorpions and drought where there was no water suffered thee to hunger brought thee into hard straits but what was Gods aim in this that he might humble thee and that he might prove thee to do thee good at the latter end By this saith the Prophet speaking of the afflictions of the Church shall the iniquity of Jacob be purged and this is all the fruit to take away his sin This I say is that which God intendeth by the afflictions of his people and this is that which the servants of God by faith have been able to apprehend and to interpret the Lords meaning in all his sharp dispensations towards them As the Propbet Habakuk having made a terrible description of the Babylonish rod he concludes in the twelfth verse of his first Chapter Art not thou from everlasting O Lord my God We shall not die O Lord thou hast ordained them for Judgment and O mighty God thon hast established them for correction This is that likewise which the Saints of God have looked for and expected that while the winds of afflictions have been blowing some ship or other should come home richly fraighted So David when that storm of cursing came from the mouth of Shimei Oh saith David let him alone let him curse it may be that the Lord will look on mine affliction and that the Lord will requite good for his cursing this day So when Rabshaketh came up against Jerusalem Let him alone saith Hezekiah answer him not a word it may be the Lord will hear the words of Rabshaketh whom his Master hath sent to reproach the living God and will reprove the words which the Lord hath heard It may be the Lord will open his ear upon this rage and blasphemy and consider his people and do them good The Saints of God I say have expected good and benefit from Gods afflicting of them For the use of this and so to draw to a conclusion In the first place Seeing this is Gods intent in all his administrations to his people especially in his castigations of them and reaching out unto them such sharp and bitter potions It may serve to check and controul all those hard thoughts that we are apt to suffer to lodge within us concerning Gods dealing with us in the time of our distresses Apt we are to speak foolishly and unadvisedly concerning God and to misconster his administrations This hath been the frailty of Gods dearest servants in their affliction I shall one day said David perish by the hand of Saul Woe is me saith Isaiah for I am undone because I am a man of unclean lips The Lord saith the Church hath broken my teeth with gravel stones and covered me with ashes he hath removed my soul far off from peace and I said my strength and my hope is perished from the Lord. The Lord hath forsaken me saith Zion and my Lord hath forgotten me Job though for a good while he carried himself very fairly and demeaned himself very warily toward God yet when he began to be wet to his skin then he speaks foolishly and unadvisedly falleth to the cursing of his day not to the cursing of his God as Satan thought he would but of his day though that was too much and ill beseeming so holy a man The Saints I say are apt to mistake themselves this way and to over-shoot themselves in this case We should therefore humble our selves before the Lord for this distemper of soul and labour to keep down such unquiet thoughts and hard disputings that are apt to rise within us against God and his dispensations And consider that whatsoever our thoughts are yet the Lord knoweth his own thoughts concerning us as he himself speaks in Jer. 29. howsoever saith he you may think that I intend to cut you off for ever yet I know my thoughts that I think towards you even thoughts of peace and not of evil to give you an expected end Again secondly it may serve to comfort the godly concerning all the means and instruments of their sufferings whether they be men or devils Wicked men and devils whom God useth as a Rod to chastise his people their malice is great and their
rage violent and they march on with much fury against the godly they intend their utter ruin and devastation and purpose nothing less But O Assyrian saith God the rod of mine anger and the staffe in their hand is mine indignation howbeit he meaneth not so neither doth his heart think so but it is in his heart to destroy and cut off But saith the Lord whatsoever his meaning is I know what my intentions are he is but the rod in mine hand and I will give such stroaks with it as my people may bear and such as may be for their profit This I say should comfort us concerning all the instruments of our suffering whatsoever they be The Physitian you know applieth the horse-leaches to his distemppred Patient the Horse-leech intendeth nothing but the satiating and filling himself with the bloud of the sick party but the Physitan hath another aim even the drawning out of the putrified and corrupted blood God suffereth wicked men devils as Horse-leeches to suck his people to draw their blood but it is in order to their good it is no matter what wicked men think though Ashur think not so yet God purposeth it and aims at it and in conclusion effects it and then saith he it shall come to pass that when the Lord hath performed his whole worke upon mount Sion I will punish the fruit of the stout heart of the King of Assyria and the glory of his high looks Again in the third place Seeing this is Gods aim in all his afflictions whatsoever the instrument be how sharp soever the castigation be or of what nature whether it be in a spiritual way by sore temptations and buffetings of Satan or outwardly by losses in our estate or death of friends c. seeing I say this is Gods purpose and intent that his people may be profited Let us quietly and patiently apply our selves unto God and expect the quiet and peaceable fruit of righteousness that shall spring up in due time to those that are this way exercised by the Lord Look for it and press on to this quietly to wait on the Lord our God for a blessed fruit of such administrations An argument ab utili is an argument of great prevail what will not men do for Profit It is for profit that men rise up early and go to bed late and eat the bread of carefulness The Husband-man takes much pains and plows his ground endures many sharp storms and piercing winters the Merchant runs divers hazards abroad and all for profit so should we be willing patiently and quietly to submit to Gods dealing humbly to apply our selves to his wise and fatherly administrations seeing he intendeth by it our profit And take heed of murmuring and repining against the Lord this will make him indeed to lay heavier blows upon us an impatient Patient makes the Physitian deal more harshly and a strugling child procureth for himself the more and sorer stripes what though our potion be bitter so long as it is wholesome have we not reason to submit our selves But here is the main thing we stick at You may happily reply Indeed if we could see our corruptions subdued our hearts humbled the pride that is within us abated and that God would be pleased to bring us more neeââ¦er to him and make us more heavenly minded and wean our affections from the world If we could see the fruit of all our sufferings and temptations and crosses it would be an abundant satisfaction to our souls but alas alas we cannot see this profit our hearts are still full of many spiritual distempers and great prevailings of evil there is upon us notwithstanding all these Storms and Frosts and tempestuous hard Winters yet these weeds of wickedness grow and are marvellous lively this is the bitterness of the cup and this is that which sinketh the heart most under all those pressures which lie upon us To which I answer first we must judge rightly and wisely and consider well whether it be the time for the fruit of affliction to spring forth No affliction for the present seemeth joyous and no affliction it may be for the time of its working appeareth commodious But saith the Apostle they do bring forth the quiet fruit of righteousness Again secondly we may perhaps bear too much upon the physick alas afflictions and crosses of themselves they will rather drive us further then draw us nearer unto God we are therefore to submit our selves unto God in his way of administration and to intreat his blessing upon them that through that they may be made successful As every creature so every condition both of prosperity and adversity is sanctifled to us by the Word and by prayer And take heed of disputing against the Lord as we are apt to do he is wise above all that we can conceive he is wonderful in working and knoweth now to bring about the good of his people in a wonderful way what if he will plunge thee into the mire in order to holiness what if Christ will put clay upon a mans eyes in order to sight a medicine more likely to put out his eyes Considering therefore that God is wise and wonderful in his working let us apply our selves to him and in due time we shall see the fruit and benefit of all his administrations I should now have come to the third and last proposition and that was That this profit that God aimeth at in all his castigations of his children is to make them partakers of his holiness And this is profit indeed when God thereby draweth us from the world and makes us more heavenly minded and more dead to the creature purgeth away our dross and takes away that filth and corruption that is in us oh this will acquit all the cost and make amends for all the labour and pains and hardship we have been made to endure But I shall forbear to insist upon this So much for the Text. There is a word to be spoken according to custome with respect to the occasion of our meeting I have done the main part of my task which was to present to you a word of instruction and therefore for the occasion concerning this young gentleman disceased whose Funerals we now solemnize I shall but speak a few words and so conclude I need not to speak any thing concerning his parentage and discent nor much concerning his education I am cousident that that was religious and gracious and such as wherein there was a second travel in order to his spiritual birth that Jesus Christ might be formed in him For his own particular though I can speak nothing upon my own knowledge being a meer stranger yet I have such a testimony concerning him from those that deserve credence both of me and you as that I shall conclude that of him as may give us good hope concerning his final and eternal estate If so be contrition of
and greatly amaze us when out affection is placed and setled in a designed object in a person that we neerly love and now to take away that comfort and as it were to diverse the heart from the heart O this goes neer us this doth exceedingly trouble a person Fourthly the strength of a tryal may consist in the suddenness of it to enjoy a comfort and on a sudden to have it taken away as it were in a mans sleep such a thing that he did not dream of when he did not expect that such a thing would befal him if a man had heard something before hand he might have been better fitted for it When the Prophet saw the Cloud ascend out of the Sea being warned of abundance of rain he hastened to escape So if a person have fore-notice of such a cross that would fall upon him he might be somewhat armed and prepared he might in some measure be able to bear his tryal like a little Boat well mannaged may meet with lofty waves but when the affliction shall take a man at unawares when it takes us before we can gather our selves together before we can put out our selves in prayer for a man to go forth and come home and find a wife dead and for a Woman to go forth and come home and find her Husband dead for a tender Mother to kiss her child and lay it down to rest and the next turn to find her child dead this is a great tryal Fifthly the strength of a tryal is in the successiveness of a tryal the repetition of a tryal when Jobs messengers come with news of one affliction having scarse delivered their message and their errand but another comes when there is a course of tryal one after another Thou O Lord hast set me as a mark saith Job Why a mark why God had as it were singled him a man for sorrow and tryal one arrow had no sooner lighted on him but another comes and pierces him Now this doth deeply prove our patience and makes us sometime wonder that the Lord should give us no rest when one affliction shall succeed another without any Cordial when the handkerchiff shall no sooner wipe off one tear but presently another distills down Herein is a great strength of tryal the heart is wonderfully cast down Sixtly the strength of a tryal may consist in the strangeness of our obedience to it as when a matter is put upon us as a duty to be obeyed and hath some contradiction to the precept of God when a tryal doth cross the precept of obedience and jussle against the promise of God that a man can hardly obey God but he must make God a lyar Abraham could not have obeyed God in killing his Child but he must run against that other command forbidding murther he could not defer it but he must violate his faith Now this doth exceedindly distract the Soul with a great tryal the more contrary the tryal is to the precept of obedience the greater is the tryal and the more neer to the person But I proceed to the next question Why the Lord doth impose great tryals upon great Christians the reasons of it may be these First great grace will be obscure and will scarce shew it self unless there be great tryals and therefore S. Paul when he was lift up to the third heavens lest he should be exalted above measure there was given him a thorne in the flesh he is beaten down with temptation that the grace of God might the more appear God doth hereby prevent our fall and doth hold great grace in great conflicts that the soul might have little leisure to admire its own fulness Secondly great tryals for great Christians because who is more able to sustain grear tryals then great Christians God is wise in all his actions and as Paul speaks in another case there was milk for babes and meat for strong men so when he imposes any affliction he considers the person and so proportions the affliction he imposes the greatest burden upon the greatest Christian a little blast is enough for a tender oak but a well grounded one may endure the strongest winds a poor weak Christian a little tryal will cast him down but a well experienced Christian that hath inriched himself with the promises of God that hath hardned himself with the receit of singular comforts one that knoweth the life of faith that hath gotten singular patience he can endure a hard storm he can go through great tryals with great comfort He can say with Job though thou dost kill me yet will I trust in thee he will be able to go through many sad nights and great tryals his faith will make him conquer all I come to the second point and that is this that Faith will make a man acquit himself in great Tryals Though Abraham is put upon it in a great tryal in offering up his son yet by faith Abraham acquits himself and offers up his beloved son The meaning of the proposition is this that faith will inable a man to give back his dearest comfort again to God though Isaac lie in Abrahams bosome though Isaac lie at Abrahams heart yet Abrahams faith upon Gods call will take him thence and present him to that God who gave him Faith makes a man resign up willingly unto God his dearest comfort as Job did The Lord hath given and the Lord hath taken away blessed be the name of the Lord. Beloved remember this faith can take a mercy and be thankful and faith can part with a mercy and be content Paul he had learned how to abound and how to be in want and this lesson was the lesson of faith faith makes a Christian take from Christ what it injoyes like one of the blessed Martyrs his condition was if God gave him any mercy he was chearful if the Lord take away any mercy he fits down with contentment quieting his soul in patience if God give him any mercy he was not swoln with pride if God take away any mercy he was not cast down with sorrow Dost thou remember me O Lord saith faith Lord I am unworthy the least of all thy mercies and goodness Lord dost thou call for this blessing back again why here it is Lord do what thou pleasest like an honest debtor saith he if you can spare me a little I will thank you but if you will have it here it is as the blessing is a gift of Gods kindness so neither doth faith account of any mercy but a borrowed a lent good which God may require when he pleases There is a double acquitting of our selves one is a necessary acquitting and the other is a pious and Christian acquitting there is this difference between a godly man and another when God calls for any one of thy comforts it must be restored God is the Lord of life and whether we are willing or not when he calls the comfort and
we must part and in this respect a man who wants a lively faith may acquit himself in a tryal when he sees that floods of tears will not help him specially when he sees it is past recovery he resigns up a comfort when he can keep it no longer he will part with a blessing when he cannot avoid it But then there is a pious acquitting of our selves when God calls for a comfort back the hand of Faith presents the comfor to God again when God calls for Isaac Abraham presently resigns up his beloved Son again upon this ground God is the Lord who gave him and now the Lord calls for him back again I and the Lord shall have him thus Faith acquits the soul in great tryals and joyns with God against all our own contentments to set down with much patience in great losses to submit to Gods call and Gods appointment Now the reasons why Faith can acquit a man in great tryals may be these First Faith can exalt Gods will above all and submit our wills to Gods will remember this God is the Author of mercy when he will he gives us and when he pleaseth he takes it away again It is well to have abundance saith nature and sence we cannot be without it no saith Faith I will yeeld to Gods will it is good to enjoy this saith Sence it is better to part with it saith Faith when God calls for it Secondly Faith can give God the glory of all outward comforts this is a great occasion of stilling our souls to find out the right owner of our comforts if a man did once discern that by faith that God is the Author of all comfort and that all mercies come from God this would make us submit in the day of tryal this is certain God is the God of our bodies and of our souls and of our comforts who hath more right to a possession then the owner all our comforts are but Gods servants God is the great Land-Lord of heaven and earth the God of all our possessions what if he be pleased to gather a flower we are but tenants at will and whatsoever our outward estate is Faith over-looks all and submits all to God and receives it by Gods permission and doth as it were hear the Lord say I must do what I will with mine own Faith makes a man say nothing is mine own my Child is not mine own my Wife is not mine own it is Gods possession when God calls for it Faith resigns it up as Gods due faith renders unto God the things that are Gods Thirdly Faith can make the soul acquit it self in great tryals because faith finds no loss by obediencial submission for all our unwillingness to resign up and to part with any comfort it doth arise from infidelity or from the stubbornness that is in a person when a man haves and holds his comfort contrary to Gods will or else it doth arise from a conceit that some dammage will redound to our selves ââ¦parting with such a blessing but faith sees safety enough to yeeld up all into Gods hands who is the Father of mercy and God of all consolation Thus we see Abraham being put to it about his only son he gives up his child his Isaac and God bestows Isaac upon Abraham again nay a further degree of blessing confirmed with an oath In blessing I will bless thee and in multiplying I will multiply thee and will multiply thy seed as the stars of heaven This is ever true faith makes a man give back a blessing with this conclusion either God will continue the comfort to a person or else he will give him more or a better for it Fourthly a fourth reason why Faith can make a man acquit himself in great tryals because Faith can find all losses made up in God alone Faith can find God as a most ample and universal good Faith doth look upon God as a particular good and such a good that answers all again that abundantly makes up all losses There be many broken peeces of comfort that must concur to make up our outward good for our good here below is a compounded good the Wise is a part that makes up our good below and our children are a part that makes up our good below and our health and our riches and our friends many of these concur together to make up our good here below is a compounded good the Wife is a part that makes up our good below and our children are a part that makes up our good below and our health and our riches and our friends many of these concur together to make up our good below but God is all this in himself and much more whatsoever good whatsoever comforts are in a Child a Wife a Husband or in friends in riches in health all that is in God and much more to faith what is that thou seest in a Husband or in a Wife or in a Child that thou mayest not see in God What is that thou findest in a friend that thou mayest not find in God and what is there in riches that thou mayest not have much more in God the Husband can do thee no good without God who can do thee so much good as God the Husband can comfort thee who can comfort thee so much as God a friend may counsel thee and direct thee but he cannot deliver thee Faith sees more in God than in riches more in God then in all outward blessings bring all the outward comforts together they cannot make up a Christians comfort Faith is never satisfied with these things it is not a Child alone nor a Husband alone nor a Wife alone nor a friend alone that makes up a Christians comfort but God alone can do it whatsoever is in any outward comfort Faith find it much more in God God and his favour God and his gracious countenance these make up a Christians comfort this alone supports the Christian and in the want of all things Faith can comfort it self in the favour of God in the loss of all things Faith can find all again in the favour of God This is a fourth reason why Faith makes a man acquit himself in great Tryals A fifth reason why Faith makes a man acquit himself in great troubles because Faith knows upon what terms we possess all these outward comforts upon what small grounds we possess them upon moveable and changeable titles Faith looks upon all these things as upon things that he must part from we have here no abiding City our place and being here is but for a short time and remember this God never bestowed any comfort upon thee and me with an assurance of an immortal possession all the assurance that he hath given thee is nothing all the creature is but vanity it is of a shifting nature and therefore it is said of riches that they do take to themselves wings they skip away honour is soon
this a meeting for the solemnization of a Marriage I might further descan upon this plain-song that ariseth from the inference of Mens honouring of Women What have I said if it were a Marriage solemnity surely howsoever here be before our eyes the eyes of our bodies a visible object of mortality yet notwithstanding here is before us an invisible occasion of rejoycing as at a Marriage solemnity to the eye of our soul understanding and faith for while here we live in the world Jesus Christ our Spouse he hath his friends friends of the Bridegroom his Ministers and messengers that in his name come to us woo us use all the means that may be to move us to accept of Christ for our Lord and Husband When a man accepts of this offer there is then the contract consummated in regard of the Mutual consent that passeth between the one and the other Christ having his Proxies here we the Ministers being for him and every believing soul for himself This contract continueth so long as here we remain in this world when we depart the body is laid in the Bride-bed quietly to rest and sleep till the Bride-groom be pleased to come and awake his Spouse and it will be a blessed voyce that he shall come withal Come ye blessed of my Father receive the kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of the world As for the soul that goeth immediatly to Christ and is in his Fathers house with him the Spouse in that part with her Husband the Lord Christ enjoying an eternal inviolable communion and sweet society But howsoever this is thus to the invisible eyes of the soul we now must look upon the object here before us and answerably order out matter and therefore with this touch I let pass the inference and come to the substance of the Text. You heard the sum you heard the parts But we must hear proceed Huesteron and Proteron and clean invert the order of the words as I hope your selves will discern if you do but well mark the order and method Life is in the last place grace before it the right that cometh before it and the extent of that right before all I suppose therefore you will think that first it is meet to lay forth the priviledge it self Life and then to speak of the ground of it then of the right that we have and then of the Extent of that right and this order I purpose to follow First therefore concerning the Priviledge it self Life For brevities sake I forbear to speak much of the divers acceptations of life and distinctions thereof as it is in the Creatour the only true God Father Son and holy Spirit or as it is the invisible and glorious creatures the Angels or as it is in men who are animated by a reasonable soul or as it is in those creatures that are guided only by sense Beasts Fowl Fish or otherwise as it Trees and Plants that come forth out of the earth having a vegetative life only The life here meant is that we call eternal life consisting in our communion with Christ our Spouse and this is a life proper to the Saints proper unto them because coming from the grace of God extended unto them alone proper unto them because they are heirs of it And in this extent there is a restraint howsoever the extent be in divers considerations yet a restraint a qualification only believers only found true Christians to them it is proper And this life is to be considered either in the Inchoation and beginning thereof or in the consummation and accomplishment thereof In regard of the Inchoation of this special life of the Saints it is here begun in this world I now live faith the Apostle speaking even of this life by the faith of the Son of God And the Just shall live by faith This life it is by Christs dwelling and living in us I now live yet not I but Christ liveth in me faith the Apostle in the place before quoted The other it is in the world to come and it is by a sweet feeling and fruition it is by our abiding with Christ and living with him in which respect faith our Lord Christ to the penitent believer upon the Cross This day the very day that he dyed shalt thou be with me in Paradise and so Saint Paul saith of himself I desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ implying that upon the dissolution immediatly there is a fruition a communion with Christ And the same Apostle speaking of those Saints that shall be upon the earth at the very moment of Judgment when the dead faith he are raised then shall we also that are alive and remain be cought up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the ayr and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Now then mark here you see the soul hath present communion with Christ upon the dissolution of the body and the body also shall have communion with him at the great day of the Resurrection of all flesh Now this life and communion with Christ is proper to the Saints by vertue of their union with Christ A mistical union For Christ the Son of God he is life originally in himself for as the Father hath life in himself so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself He is also Life communicatively communicating life unto us therefore he is said to be the Bread of life and in this sence because he is that Bread which cometh down from heaven and giveth life unto the world The Use of this point my brethren is manifold I will but touch it First it doth instruct us in the great love and good respect that God beareth to us children of men that of his own good pleasure hath written our names in the book of life and hath sent his Son to purchase life for us and to bring us also to this life Beloved what love the Father hath shewed to us in Christ Secondly this is a demonstrrtion of the woful plight wherein naturally men are in this world they may seem to be of some account they have a life that is far different from the life of Plants and also from the life of Beasts they have a reasonable soul to animate them Oh but this this is not the life Natural life indeed is a death compared to this life that is here noted to be proper to the Saints which cometh by grace wherof we are heirs and therefore of all natural men it may be said as the Apostle said of the wanton Widdow she is dead while she liveth even so are all such dead while they live dead in sins and trespasses and if so be those that are in this kind dead continue so till the death of the body seize upon them wo wo wo to them upon this followeth an eternal death endless easeless
gift that he doth give and the freeness of it For who can give life but the God of life that hath life in himself And then again to do this altogether upon meer grace upon his own good pleasure it is a divine property And this is it that doth encourage us to come unto God notwithstanding our unworthiness And in this respect in the second place we have here a Use of instruction to acquaint our selves with God with the freeness of his Grace to plead it unto God when we come unto him and notwithstanding our unworthiness and our wretchedness yet to press this Lord what thou dost thou dost for thy own sake out of thy meer grace this makes me bold to come unto thee Specially upon the consideration of that greatest evidence of Gods free grace and rich mercy in giving his Son to do whatsoever is requisite for the satisfaction of his Justice so that here Grace Justice do sweetly go together for the strengthening of our Faith Grace in regard of our unworthiness Justice in regard of our rebellion God doth what he doth for his own sake his own Son hath made full satisfaction to his Justice And finally this should the more enlarge the heart to God again a gift the freer it is the more worthy of praise it must needs be the more acceptable to him that receiveth it when he receiveth it from meer Grace and he that giveth it is thereby the more worthy of praise so that lay these two together life and the grace of life and then tell me what sufficient thanks can be given to him who out of his Grace doth bestow this life Thus from the priviledge in the second part thereof come we to the partakers of this priviledge And first of the simple consideration of it Heirs so that we come to a right unto that eternal life by inheritance as we are Heirs So do the Texts before-noted expresly set it forth We are justified by his grace that we should be heirs of eternal life Tit. 3.7 And Saint Paul giveth thanks to God for the Collossians that he had made them partakers of the inheritance of the Saints in light And our Lord when he doth give us possession hereof inducts us thereunto with this inherit the Kingdom prepared for you Mat. 25.34 take it by inheritance here is your right Now we may not think that this ground of right to our eternal inheritance cometh by our natural generation for so we are heirs and children of wrath as the Apostle noteth in Eph. 2.3 It cannot come by nature for so it is Christs prerogative the true proper natural Son of God and thus as the Apostle faith God hath appointed him heir of all things Heb. 1.2 but it is by another grace whereby we are made children A double grace in this respect a grace of Adoption and a grace of Regeneration A grace of Adoption for God giveth to us the spirit of Adoption whereby we are moved to cry and call Abba Father and by this grace we are children and being children we are heirs Co-heirs not only one with another but as it is there noted heirs together with Christ Co-heirs with him by vertue of this grace of Adoption So likewise by the other grace of Regeneration we are qualified hereunto Saint Peter in his first Epistle chap. 1. verse 3. blesseth God Blessed be the God saith he and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again to an inheritance incorruptible c. We are begotten to this inheritance This might again be pressed as a further Argument against the fore-mentioned presumptious Doctrine of Merit that that cometh by Inheritance cometh not by Desert But I pass it over This doth afford to us matter of consolation for this Text is full of consolation every word of it against the baseness whereunto in this world the Saints seem to be subject that are scoffed that are despised howsoever they appear here in mortal mans eye yet notwithstanding in truth they are Heirs they have an Inheritance And as it doth administer to us matter of comfort and a ground of holy boasting and glorying in the Lord so it affordeth to us direction to carry our selves as becometh Heirs not to set our love too much upon this world not to dote upon it but to be lofty minded to have our heart and affection where our inheritance is namely in Heaven to wait with patience for it Be followers of those saith the Apostle that through saith and patience inherit the promise And likewise to make sure to our selves our inheritance look to our evidences Give all diligence saith the Apostle to make your calling and election sure Do but make your Calling sure that you are truly and effectually called then it solloweth by just and necessary consequence you were elected before the foundations of the world and shall be saved Many other Meditations do arise out of this right we have to that life which by Grace is conferred upon us Consider we the extent hereof Heirs together joynt-heirs so as all of all sorts have a right to the life of Saints I speak here of outward conditions whether they be great or mean rich or poor free or bond whatsoever they be they have all a right they are joynt-heirs they are heirs together As it is with us in some places there is a title of Gavil kind that giveth a joynt-right to all the Sons that a man hath and so for Daughters all Daughters are co-heirs so this tenour is as I may say Gavil kind all have a right thereunto no exception of any because God is no respecter of persons This my Brethren serveth as an admonition to those that are great or may seem to be higher than others here in this world if they be Saints let them not despise others who are Saints too they are Co-heirs with them they are fellow-brethren there is not an elder Brother among them Christ only is the Elder Brother There may some have a greater degree of glory there may some have greater evidences thereof in this world and greater assurance yet not withstanding they have all a right to the inheritance they are all Co-heirs And this again is another comfort to the meaner and weaker sort that howsoever there may be some difference in regard of outward condition here yet notwithstanding in the greatest priviledge there is no difference at all and therefore to conclude concerning these and other consolations ministred to you I will use the Apostles words Comfort your selves with these things 1 Thes 4.18 And particularly concerning the Female Sex because the Apostle here applyeth it to them and saith of them as well as of men that they are Heirs Co-heirs of the same inheritance this therefore is to be applyed to them for when the Apostle makes distinction of outward conditions in Gal. 3.28
he putteth in this Male and Female and of these he saith All are one in Christ no difference for the Female at first were made after the same Image that the Male were He made them Male and Female in his own Image Gen. 1.27 Both sorts have the same Saviour and are redeemed by the same price A Woman said My soul rejoyceth in God my Saviour Luke 1.47 they are both sanctified by the same Spirit the Apostle saith that when an unbelieving Husband is knit to a believing Wife The Husband is sanctisied by the wise as well as in the other case the Wife is sanctified by the Husband And this my brethren giveth a check to the undue the unjust consure that many do give to this weaker vessel that this Sex is as it were the imperfection of nature and I know not what I will not stand upon it as most unworthy the confutation But for the Sex it self it is a particular consolation against that matter of griese which it might conceive through Eves first sin not only in sinning her self but in taking Satans part to tempt her Husband whereupon followed subjection to the Man and likewise pain in travel and bringing forth of children But notwithstanding saith the Apostle of that Sex they shall be saved if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety So that you see they have a right too And the truth is that God hath graciously dealt with them in making them the means of bringing forth the principal ground of this right of the one and of the other which is the Lord of life the Saviour of the world who was born of a Woman Now this Sex is to comfort themselves in this that notwithstanding there be some differences in outward condition yet they are made partakers of the greatest and best priviledge alike joynt heirs of the grace of God I find but two things that in Scripture are exempted from that Sex two priviledges one to have jurisdiction over the Husband another publickly to teach in the Church of God But yet notwithstanding mark a kind of recompence made for this The former is but particular between Husband and Wife but in lieu therefore a Woman may reign over many men yea over Nations Queens shall be thy nursing mothers saith the Prophet Isaiah to the Church And for the latter to recompence that they may be and have been endued with the gift of prophesie so that we see how God doth every manner of way incourage them One word more concerning men and so I will conclude this point Namely admonition to them answerably to respect the other Sex as those that are Co-heirs with them and therefore while they live according to their places according to their gifts according to the bond of relation that is between them to respect them and to shew the same when they are dead by a decent comely Funeral and maintaining their credit and giving of them their due praises Thus much for the Text. And now my brethren give me leave I beseech you to step a little further and to speak a word concerning this object before me Howsoever I am not over-forward at any time to speak much on such occasions yet at this time I suppose I should do much wrong to the party in concealing those things that are meet to be made known to the honour of that God who bestowed those excellent endowments upon her and also injury to those that knew her I do not fear to be accounted a flatterer by any that hear me and if any else shall imagine any such thing it may it must needs be their envy in that they censure what they know not My fear is lest those that did know her should think that wrong is done to her by that little that shall be spoken for enough cannot be spoken of her You see here a black Herse before you a body in it deprived of life and within these few dayes animated by a divine soul now as we have just cause to believe glorified in heaven The body of Mistris I. R. in regard of Marriage being the Daughter of Master I. B. a Gentleman in C. It seemed that as God endowed her with excellent parts every way so she had good education She was married to Master I. R. a grave prudent man that lived in the fore-named place who had been twice Major there and long continued Alderman still relyed upon when any matter of employment was to be performed and therefore oft chosen to be a Burgess of the Parliament out of that Corporation In the beginning of her marriage she attending to the Word as Lydia did God was pleased to open her heart and that specially under the Ministry of a reverend Pastour now some years with God faithful painful powerful in his place while he lived who yet liveth in the many works he published in his life-time I say by his Ministry being wrought upon she wonderfully improved the grace that was so wrought in her and used all means for the growth thereof by continual applying her self to the publick ministry of the Word conscionably on the Lords day frequently also on other dayes both in that City and in this also whither she came often times upon sundry imployments both while her Husband lived and likewise since she hath been a Widdow which hath been about the space of five years Now I say as she did thus help on the growth of grace by this publick means so also by private diligently reading the Word not contenting her self with a coursory reading it over by task as some do but she had a Paper-book by her and in reading would note down particular points note specially duties that belonged to such and such persons to Magistrates to Ministers to Husbands to Wives to Masters to Servants General duties that belonged to Christians as they were Christians and that in such a manner as if so be they had been the Common places of some young Divine And here by the way let me tell you what my self have seen of an Alderman of this City some while dead who left behind him Volumes of books written with his own hand his manner was first he would read and after that he would walk up and down and meditate upon what he read and write down the sum and particulars of it as he conceived by which means he made himself excellently skilful as in Divine so in humane learning Thus did this grave Matron hereby she came to much knowledge she gathered also many signs whereby she had evidence of the truth of grace and there yet remain divers such heads noted by her with her own hand signs of grace signs of the truth of it of the growth of it of the effects of it means to grow in grace c. An excellent course Thus she shewed piety in reading of the word of God the like she did in prayer hearing others perform that duty in her Family but
and hindred by it from doing the good which thou shouldest certainly death will be to thee the biginning of thy thraldome and after it thou shalt be a perpetual bondslave unto Satan in the kingdome of etetnal darkness Mark this all ye that take delight in evil to whom it is a pastime to do wickedly and who seek rather how to satisfie then how to suppress your own corruptions who repute it a kind of happiness to follow the swing of your own lusts and to have liberty to do as your own hearts do lead you when you die this shall be your reward even a most miserable and endless captivity under Satan him have you served in the lusts of sin while ye lived his slaves shall you be without hope of releasement world without end This is the right Application of this Doctrine death is a day of enlargement to the godly it is a dismission The next particular is that it is a dismission accompanied with peace the lesson we are taught hence is that The servants of God have at their going out of the word a comfortable quiet and peaceable departure Thus Simeon here he prayed for no other thing but that his end might be as the end of the Righteous is ever wont to be even a departure hence in peace Hence is that general rule of the Psalmist Mark the perfect man and behold the upright man for the end of that man is peace Agreeable whereunto is that of Solomon that the righteous hath hope in his death And memorable to this purpose is that which is storied of old father Jacob shewing unto us the quiet end of the Righteous He gathered up his feet into the bed and so gave up the Ghost It was the blessing promised to Abraham that he should go to his fathers in peace And the same was made to good Josias There is a twofold reason hereof First the assurance which they have of the favour of God in Christ This must needs breed quietness when I am perswaded in my soul and conscience that all cause of danger after death is removed and that God is and will be gracious unto me in his Son What cause of fear is here lest what occasion of perplexity If any man shall doubt whether the servants of God have this assurance I prove it thus that all of them first or last have it in some good measure If any man faith the Apostle have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his Hence it necessarily followes that all that are Christs have the Spirit of Christ but now the office of the Spirit is to bear witness with our spirit So that all that are the Lords as they are endued with Gods Spirit so they feel this Spirit bearing witness to their souls of this Adoption Secondly the comfortable Testimony of their own consciences touching their former care to glorisie God by a Religious and godly conversation Hence came Saint Pauls peace I have saith he fought the good fight I have kept the faith Therefore I am sure there is laid up for me a Crown of life Hence Hezekiahs I have walked before thee oh Lord in truth and with a perfect heart Not that they do ground their hope upon the desert of their fore-ran courses but because they know good works to be the way and do understand by the Scripture that a holy life here is the first fruits of a glorified life hereafter Thus we see the truth of this point and the reasons upon which it is grounded Now here some may object first We see many worthy men that have made a great and an extrordinary profession of Religion in their lives and which have also carried themselves unblamable yet to give appearance of much anguish and perplexity and even of a kind of despair in their death How can we say then that all good and holy persons have a peaceable departure I answer first We ought to remember the Rule our Saviour gives not to judge according to the outward appearance It is a very weak argument to say that this or that man dyeth without peace because to the standers by he makes not shew of peace Certaine it is that as a man may have peace with God and yet himself for a time by reason of some tentation not feel it so a man being sick or going out of the world may feel it and yet others that behold him cannot perceive it Secondly we must know that these outward unquietnesses which do many times accompany sickness do happen as well and as ordinarily to good men as to the most wicked such as are ravings and idle-talkings and strange accidents in the body in this sence all things come alike to all God hath made no promise in Scripture that those that serve him shall be freed in their deaths from violent sicknesses Therefore these things must not be thought to be any abridgment of their peace Thirdly we must consider that with the best servants of God Satan is most busie when his end is neerest and when he is as it were out of all hope of prevailing The red Dragon in the Revelation had greatest wrath when he knew his time to be short When the evil Spirit was commanded once to come out of the child then it rent him sore Now these temptations though for the time they be very violent and extream so that the party may happily utter out some words and speeches of dispair yet be they no final prejudice to the inward peace Interrupt they may but utterly quench it they cannot because the power of God is made perfect through weakness And so even in death Satan receives the greatest foil when he thinks to get the greatest victory Thus then I answer in one word The peace of Gods servants at death is not ever in the like measure felt by them but yet it never dieth in them they which behold their death do not alwayes see it yet they themselves sooner or later are sure sweetly and secretly to feel the same My reason for my assertion is grounded first upon that of the Apostle God commands light to shine out of darkness He brings his servants to Heaven by the gates of hell out of sorrow and anguish and tentation he raiseth out their greatest quiet Secondly because the love of God is eternal and unchangeable Whom he loves he loves to the end It is impossible that the Lord albeit he try and that sharply yer should finally for sake those that are his in their greatest extremity But again secondly if you make a peaceable death to be the reward of the Righteous what say you to this There be many that in all their life gave little evidence of any Religion or grace but of the contrary rather yet in their death were very quiet and still and seemed to all that were by to have in them no manner of vexation no
it is you do not know when your consciences a little awaked shall make report of your life past how in matters of God you have been ignorant superstitious careless neglecting his worship despising his Word blaspheming his Name mispending his Sabbaths in dealing with men you have been cruel false unmerciful oppressing in the usage of your own bodies unchast vicious lustful proud wanton wallowing in excess what peace can your souls have when these things be thought upon what calmness of spirit what hope of entring into rest how can you think that the end can be comfortable when the life hath been abominable What answer made Jehu to Joram when he demanded Is it peace Jehu What peace said he so long as the whoredomes of thy mother Jezabel and her witchcrafts are so many So when Death comes like Jehu marching furiously against you and you enquire of him whether he comes with peace or no he will answer what peace when your whoredoms and your gross and crying sins are yet in great number What peace when these make a partition betwixt your souls and the Lord Certainly there can be no peace but a fearful expectation of judgement and violent fire to devour Suffer me then to conclude this exhortation as Daniel did his speech to Nebuchadnezzar O King break off thy sins by righteousness and thine iniquities by shewing mercy to the poor So say I break off your sins by repentance your ignorance by seeking after knowledge your contempt of Gods word by a reverent yeelding to it your security by a standing in awe of God your neglecting the exercises of Religion by careful using of them your whoredom by chastity your drunkenness by sobriety your malice by charity your oppression by mercy your falshood by fidelity this is the way that will bring peace at the last thus and thus only you may find rest for your souls THE VITALL FOUNTAIN OR LIFES ORIGINAL SERMON XXXV JOHN 11.25 26. I am the Resurrection and the Life he that believeth in me though he were dead yet shall he live and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die THese Words that I have read to you they are part of the conference between Martha and Christ when Christ was coming to Bethany to awake Lazarus from the sleep of death The conference is laid down from the beginning of the 21. Verse to the end of the 27. and Martha meeting with Christ begins the conference as we may see verse 21 22. Then said Martha to Jesus Lord if thou haddest been here my brother had not died but I know that even now whatsoever thou wilt ask of God God will give it thee Here Martha manifests her affection to her dead brother and her faith in her living Master she manifests the strength of her natural affection and the weakness and imperfection of her faith The strength of her natural affection appears in this that she was perswaded if Christ had been there present her brother Lazarus had not died he would not have suffered Lazarus to have dyed which for ought we know is more then she had sufficient ground for Then the weakness and imperfection of her faith appears in this that she rested too much upon the corporal presence of Christ that she ascribed no more power to Christ then that by his prayer he could attain at Gods hands as much as ever any holy man did namely the life of her brother I know saith she that ever now whatsoever thou askest God will give it Whereas Christ being true God was able to work any miracle by his own power Now the answer of Christ is laid down verse 23. Jesus said unto her thy brother shall rise again Christ to comfort Martha passeth by her infirmity and promiseth to her that he will restore her brother to life again that she shall enjoy her brother again but this promise is only laid down in general and indifinite termes Thy brother shall rise again Christ doth not say expresly I will raise up thy brother to life but he speaks only in general terms Thy brother shall rise again which we are to ascribe to the modesty and humility that alwayes may be observed in the speeches of Christ Thy brother shall rise again Then we have the reply of Martha laid down in verse 24. Martha said unto him I know he shall rise again in the Resurrection at the last day Martha was not satisfied with this promise of Christ for it seems she durst not take it in the full extent of it therefore she replies that as for the last Resurrection she knew indeed that her brother and all others that were dead should then rise again this did comfort her but for any other matter of comfort she could not gather any from the answer of Christ and his promise therefore Christ replies again in the words of my Text And Jefus said unto her I am the Resurrection and the life he that believes in me though he were dead yet shall he live and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die Christ would have Martha know that he was true life yea the fountain of all life and such a fountain of life that whosoever did believe in him and cleave to him nothing should hurt him no not Death it self Thus you see briefly the coherence and the scope of the words We come now to shew you the meaning of them In these words we may observe these two parts First here we have laid down a compound proposition And then the distinct Exposition or explication thereof First here we have laid down a compound Axiome or Proposition a copulative Proposition wherein Christ affirms two things of himself First I am the Resurrection Secondly I am the Life I am the Resurrection I am the Life Now the difference between these two we may conceive with reverend Calvin to be this I am the Resurrection That is I have all quickning power in me I am able to restore and give life to those that are dead And then I am the life I have such quickning power in me that I am able to preserve and continue the life that I have given or restored to any I am the Resurrection and the life And then follows the Exposition of this Proposition and of the several members of it for the truth of a copulative Proposition depends upon the truth of both the parts and members of it therefore there followes the Explication and confirmation of both the parts of this Proposition First of the first part I am the Resurrection this is explained and comfirmed in these words He that believeth in me though he were dead yet shall he live I have such a quickning power in me faith Christ that I am able to restore spiritual life to that soul that is dead in sins therefore I am able to raise up the body that is dead in the grave I am able to give spiritual life to the soul which is greater
passion and she cryed to her Husband give me children or else I die but nothing of all this prevailed till she sought it of the Lord and then she was fruitful that is the first Secondly it is recorded of her that she was not only fruitful but that with this fruitfulness of hers there came an increase of Gods people she built up a great part of Israel and what else were the Isralites but Gods peculiar people A right christian indeed is called a true Israelite and the elect are termed by Saint Paul Gal. 6.16 the Israel of God So then hence you may infer that The desire of having Children must aim at the increase and ealargement of Gods Church This is a blessing indeed when the wife by her off-spring builds up Israel not Babel Bethel Gods house not Bethaven the house of iniquity This was the desire of holy people of old when they prayed that their children might be as corner-stones couched into the wals of the Temple meaning thereby that they might grow into the Temple of the Lord to be a habitation of God by his Spirit Blessed is the man saith the Psalmist that hath his quiver full of them it is of such children that are as the arrows of a strong man Whence it follows that they must have more in them then nature for arrows are not arrows by growth but by Art so they must be such children the knottiness of whose nature is refined and reformed and made smooth by grace Ishmael the son of the bond-woman had twelve sons and all Princes in their Nations but what did all these titles of dignity do them good as long as they were out of the promise Questionless Hanna's drieft in desiring a son of God was that out of her might come one by whom Gods glory might be advanced among men therefore she vowed him to the Lord all the daies of his life The Angel told Zachary that he should have joy and gladness at the birth of his son why Because he should be great in the sight of the Lord and silled with the holy Ghost and turn many to the Lord Luk. 1.50 He that begets a fool that is an ungodly irreligious son for that is one of Solomons fools he gets himself sorrow and the father of such a one shall have no joy but he shall be his very calamity and his meer vexation It is a rule set down in Scripture that whatsoever is done should be done to the glory of God therefore our desire of having children must aim at this that out of our loyns may come such by whom Gods glory may be promoted and the number of the godly increased in the world Thirdly she is recorded to have yeelded in all willingness and readiness to the desire of her Husband When Jacob was warned by an Angel from God to return from Laban to the Land where he was born he made his wives acquainted with the matter and discovered to them his whole intent and purpose they forth-with gave him this yeelding and respective answer Whatsoever God hath said unto thee that do Gen. 31.11 The like is to be seen in Sarah she was no hindrance to Abraham in his removal from his own Country to Canaan no nor at such time when she was ignorant whither he went she was no hindrance to him in the speedy circumcising of his son No nor she did not go about to hinder him in the very sacrificing of his son Out of all doubt if she had been a clog to him in any of these respects the Spirit of God would never have concealed it because the wrestling with her unwillingness and gain-saying had been a strong evidence of Abrahams faith that the Scripture is very careful to set out to the full for his credit and our instruction There are two Women storied in the Scripture above others as examples of Gods judgment upon the untowardness of Wives not joyning with and incouraging their Husbands in good-doing The one is Lots Wife whose love no question was a great delay to Lot in his departure from Sodome that when she should have gone on with her Husband in hast to the place which was appointed for their refuge without looking back she drew behind still lingring after her wonted home but what was the issue she was turned into a Pillar of salt The other was Michal the wife of David when she looked out and saw David dance before the Ark she despised him in her heart and was so far from approving his zeal that when he returned she entertained him with a frump saying to him What a fool was the King of Israel this day but what was the issue of it a punishment was inflicted on her for her fault that she had no child all the dayes of her life 2 Sam. 6.23 I remember a policie of Saint Paul in his Epistle he wrote to Philemon he writes to him for the re-entertainment of a runnagate servant that he had begotten to God in his bonds and for the better effecting of it in his inscription he not only writes to Philemon but joyns with him Philemons wife To Philemon our dearly beloved and to our beloved Apphia Philem. 1 2. Wherefore was this For nothing else I beleeve but to warn her of her duty that when the receiving of Onesimus was manifested to her Husband as a needful duty and a thing pleasing to Almighty God she should not put in her spoke to withstand the motion but further it by all the means she could It was to this end that the woman was created that she might be a help to her Husband in all honest offices to joyn with him to incourage him to provoke him and assist him in the performance of them Fourthly and lastly to omit many other things recorded of her that I might here relate to you and to come to that that more neerly concerns this present occasion it is said of Rachel she died in travel God had commanded Jacob to rise and go up to Bethel and dwell there he obeyed and erected a Pillar in the place where God talked with him thence he journeyed a little further to Ephrath and there Rachel travelled and had hard labour in the sufferance of which which might be some ease she received a great deal of comfort from her Midwife who bad her not fear for she should have this son also but it came to pass as her soul was departing for she died that her sons name was called Benoni that is a son of sorrow as we see verse 18. Who can express the woe of that day and the bitterness of that loss to Jacob who was now berest of his dearly-beloved Wife by the fruit of whose wombe he had reaped such increase of blessing before the children had the care of two watching over them now only of one and that such a one as was not accustomed to interest himself in training up young Children but left it to her and she took
others with whom she had long and private intimacy of many years acquaintance I must and will speak That which I told you was recorded of Rachel that she was fruitful in procreation of Children may in a great measure be spoken of her for if the Scripture account bearing but of two children fruit certainly it will make an extraordinary fruit in bearing of twelve which she did It is a certaine token of a true and faithful servant of God to frequent his house to pray unto him to praise him in his Church earnestly to labour to be instructed in his will out of his Word then and there read and preached to them all which evidences of a good Christian were found in this our Sister For her constant coming to Church I my self can now speak upon my own knowledge I have seriously and strictly examined my self and I profess ingeniously before God that knows my heart and you that here me speak that I cannot call to mind that ever she mist coming to Church twice a Sabbath day since I came which I would be heartily glad I could speak as well of others of this Parish as of her For some of them have got such a fisking trick up and down to go to other Churches as if there were no rellishable food at their own that I fear at the last they will come to none at all I pray God they amend this fault It was a vertue in her that deserved commendation and it is a vice in them that deserves reprehension When she was in Gods house she did not as too too many do imploy her time in sleeping or some such ill course but I ever observed her to listen very diligently and attentively to what was delivered for the nourishing of her soul I confess I do not remember that ever I saw her take any notes in the Church of Sermons that were preached for it seems she did it when she came home for since her death going to her house accidentally I met with a book of hers wherein she had written many texts of Scripture with notes the day when they were preached and the persons by whom most of those which I have preached I saw and perused and others of strangers that I my self have heard these qualities are not to be past over in silence but are worthy of your serious imitation Neither did she think it fit barely to set them down for her own instruction only but what she heard upon the Sabbath day that she constantly practised upon the week dayes She catechised her children in those points spending some time in training them up in the knowledge of God and putting them in mind of their duty to him in whom we live and move and have our being by repeating Gods word delivered by hearing them read Gods word printed and by singing Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs That she was a most provident and careful Wife and a most indulgent and loving Mother all that knew her can best testifie and some of them have informed me And this let me speak and I have it from the mouth of some that prehaps did not think I would have mentioned it at this time and would have had it concealed but for reasons best known to my self I hold it very fit to relate she was ever held to be of a most sweet nature and of a very loving disposition that she was very charitable and inclined to relieve the poor It is likewise testified of her she was liberal alway but more liberal now then usually having had a consideration of the hard and needy times to which end as if she had prognosticated her own death she laid some money according to that ability that God had blessed her with for the relief of the poor Let no man censure me for speaking these things I do for if I should not have given her her just and deserved praises some that now hear me and knew her from her cradle might justly have censured me for too much remisness Thus for her life As for her death I can say little touching it It pleased God not to give her any long time of sickness but to take her away though not unprepared yet on a sudden with a short warning When her bitter pangs first came upon her she called to her Husband and desired him to joyn with her in hearty prayer to Almighty God that he would be graciously pleased to extend his mercy towards her that he would be pleased to let her live longer that she might repent of her sins and beg mercy at his hands for them that she might amend her life And if he would not grant this for her yet for those many poor Children that were young that she was to leave behind her she desired him to be a careful Father over them all she prayed to God devoutly to send a blessing both upon him and them Much she could not then speak because of her pains that now began still to increase upon her When she was in the extremity of her labour he being absent as it was fitting she sent down to him to desire him to pray to God on her behalf that he would ease her of those grievons pains and preserve her in the great pain and peril of Child birth The propitious God it seemed heard him and granted his request for presently to the thinking of the standers by she was well delivered Not satisfied with this having received so great a blessing from God she sent down again to desire him to give God thanks for her safe delivery But God that had determined to take out of this miserable life quickly turned that hope of the standers by into a fear and suddenly she changed which perceiving as long as she was able to speak she cried Lord Jesus have mercy on my soul Lord have mercy on me Lord pitty me poor miserable wretch and when she could not speak she held up her hands to heaven as desirous to make her peace with that God whom she knew she had highly offended I make no question but God hath translated her from the valley of tears to the Mount Sion of blessedness whither God of his infinite mercy bring us all THE DEATH OF SINNE AND LIFE of GRACE SERMON XXXVII ROM 6.11 Likewise reckon ye also your selves to be dead unto sin but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. THe intent of this Chapter is to take off an abuse of the Doctrine of the Gospel which publisheth the free Grace of God to great sinners The Apostle had said in the latter end of the 20. Verse of the former Chapter where sin abounded Grace did much more abound From hence some did infer that therefore under the Gospel they might take liberty to sin the more their sins were and the greater they were the more they should occasion God to manifest his abundant Grace upon them This the Apostle answers in this Chapter and he answers it two wayes
the Saints in Heaven that live in the fruition and sight of God wherein they are blessed such a life we perswade you to A life infinitely above this if this life had all the contentment the earth could give it it were not worthy to be compared though a man might live a thousand years in the confluence and abundance of all prosperity it were not to be compared with one moment of the happiness of the spiritual life that we shall life in for all eternity with Christ Now consider take things and compare them together here is such a particular sin that I was given to to pride to covetousness to prophaneness to wickedness of this fort or of that fort if I go on in it I die eternally I lose God and heaven and my soul and happiness what shall I get by this when I have done it I gratifie Satan I destroy my soul I have lost my self and am undone for ever And what a madness is this for a man to venture the eternal ruin and destruction of himself and that for a thing of nothing for that that will make him miserable now and more miserable eternally Consider and know to whom I speak I speak to you that have heard the Word and many times received the Sacrament What did you when you received the Sacrament was it not a pledge to you of your interest in Christ and of your union with him and that Christ is as truly united with you as that you eat and drank Now let it appear make you account whatsoever you were before make you account reckon ye go not by guess and say I hope it will be better with me then it hath been no but reckon conclude made account I must be another man I may not be what I was I must leave those things that are ill I must apply my selfe to another course Indeed I walked in a way of enmity to the wayes of God in estraingement from God in worldly wicked wayes but it must not now be so I must make account now that Christ is mine I am now dead to sin and therefore dead to sin that I may live to God if there be any life of grace in me it will appear by my death to sin I must make account of this I must do this and this is the best way of making a right use of the Sacrament Why are men as bad after the Sacrament as before because they reckon not they make not account for themselves that they are dead to sin Make account you have received life from Christ and you must act that life and now set your selves to it reason with your own hearts why do I thus and thus As Ezra reasons Ezra 9.13 Lord since thou hast kept us from being beneath for our iniquities should we sin more So consider hath the Lord kept me from hel and admitted me to his Table where he hath spoken peace to me he hath spoken reconciliation in Christ shall I return to sin against him certainly he will be more angry now then ever he was before the sins that I commit now will be greater then all the sins I have committed hitherto for now I sin against more grace and against greater mercy for God hath again renewed the Covenant of peace whereas he might have cast me off for my former breach and shall I provoke him again hath the Lord washed me and shall I defile my self again God forbid Reason with your selves I must not be as I was it is not for me to do as others that know not God and that are not in Covenant with God or as I was wont to do before I know what it is to bind my self in covenant to receive the Sacrament I must be in another fashion and course of life then ever I have been Therefore when temptations come to sin for you must not think to be rid of all motions and temptations to sin and whensoever there comes new temptations not to conclude you have received the Sacrament in vain say not so but rather say now comes the tryal this is that whereby God will try what fruit comes of the cost and pains and mercies he hath bestowed on me here is a messenger sent for fruit If I can withstand the commands of sin and resist the motions and look on it as a hateful thing I make it manifest that I am indeed dead to sin as the Scripture saith here reckon that you are dead to sin Therefore as when a man is delivered from being a Galley-slave under the Turks and his ransome is paid if his old Master come and command him to the Galleyes he saith no my ransome is paid I am free and I will not any more be a slave So reckon thou art no more to be such as thou wert wont to be for now reckon your selves saith the Apostle if you be in Christ that you are dead to sin and alive to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. HOPES ANCHOR-HOLD OR THE HELMET OF SALVATION SERMON XXXVIII 1 COR. 15.19 If in this life only we have hope in Christ we are of all men most miserable I Will not detain you with the Argument of this Chapter nor in the Coherence of this Scripture The scope of it in a word is thus much If in this life in this World onely for the present we have hope and confidence in Christ and the aim of our confidence and the height of our hope reach no further then we we poor Christians we the faithful in the World we are of all men most miserable yea we are more miserable than any other men The words contain in them two parts of a Hypothetical Proposition of which the first is an Antecedent as we call it and the other is the Consequent You may call the first a Condition and the last a Conclusion The Antecedent or Condition is this If in this life onely we have hope in Christ What then then the Consequent or Conclusion is this then are we of all men the most miserable But now against the Antecedent there ariseth this Assumption to make up the sence to make it perfect But not in this life onely have we hope in Christ for that is the meaning of the Apostle therefore against the Consequent ariseth this Conclusion Therefore we are not of all men the most miserable nay we are not miserable at all You see here are terms in the Text of great consequence here is life here is hope here is Christ here is men here is misery and here is all things almost that can be said either concerning Heaven or earth Now mark it is not said If in this life we have hope we are miserable neither if we have hope in Christ in this life then are we miseable not so but if our hope be onely in this life and stick there and go no further then so then we are miserable There are two Emphatical terms in the Text we must take notice of and
because he will not have his creature worn out with a tedious misery and transitory vanity a vanity of misery that is in this vain miserable life of mortality I have done with the fourth A fifth thing that followeth in the Text that I may hast on we have Hope we have Hope in Christ we have Hope in Christ in this life our hope in this life is not upon the things of this life for if it were in this life only it were miserable Our life is a misery There is the fifth And this is a certain truth and it will plainly appear to us in many passages if we will believe either the Spirit of God or the experience of the godly I shall not need to stand to proveit You will ask me how it will be raised from this place Thus We are of all men the most miserable because that we are mentioned amongst the number of those that are the more miserable it implieth that all the rest are miserable more or less the very comparison that is used doth manifestly declare unto us that there is a measure of misery to every man living so then there is misery 2. It appeareth out of the Text because here and else-where you shall have man and misery made terms convertible Man is named Enoch and Enoch is misery Man and misery so joyned together that there is no pulling them asunder till death parts them for then there is no more misery 3. Because that misery here our being miserable in this life is mentioned even with the very best things of this life the very best things that are in this life and of this life so long as they look to this life I say they are stiled miserable but the best things even Christ himself our Hope it self say what you can here is Hope and here is Christ in the Text and yet not withstanding here is misery too Now then we reason thus that if the best things in this life be miserable then the rest are no better then so that the best are no better it is plain because let us have what we would have in all the World yet so long as we are here it is misery If this be so then we must come to the conclusion we have made and that is Jacobs conclusion Gen. 47.9 Few and evil have the dayes of the years of my life been it is Jobs conclusion too Mans life is full of misery It is Davids in the Psalms Mans life is full of labour and sorrow it is soon cut off and we fly away our dayes come to an end as a tale that is told they pass away as a shadow and the beauty the best of them withereth as grass It is Solomons he was the Preacher and here is his Text all is vain and vanity Vanity of vanities all is vanity one thing and other every thing under the Sun our life it self our selves so long as we are here we are under the Sun he calleth all vanity And faith the Apostle This I say Brethren the time of our life is short And what is our life saith Saint James But a vapour that appeareth for a little while and then vanisheth away it is a vapour that vanisheth a meoter of misery What shall we say of this now to speak it in few words home to our selves somewhat may concern our selves and somewhat as we respect and reflect upon others In regard of our selves it may have this double Vse First to wean us from the World Secondly to win us to the Lord. 1. To wean us from the World The World considered in it self is so full of misery that there is nothing to be delighted in there is so much bitterness that I warrant it will wean any Child from it that is not a worldling for he indeed is at his own breasts with his own Mother But consider the World as it is in it self and there is nothing in it but true bitterness and false sweetness certain pain and uncertain pleasure tedious labour and timerors rest nothing in the World but vanity and misery for saith Saint John Love not the World he that makes himself the friend of God makes himself an enemy to the World O you lovers of the World saith Saint Austin I wonder at you O foolish men who hath bewitched you for what wrestle why do you strive and contend so much what thing is there in the World that is worthy your labour there is saith he nothing in the World but that which is foolish and frothy and frayl and false and vain and full of danger full of disaster suffer your selves therefore to be weaned from the World And yet notwithstanding all that we can say we know there are some persons that will not be taken off from the Worlds breasts they have a better opinion of it than so Let such enjoy their own errour till they run to ruin and till their own overthrow take them off Yet not withstanding we know that which an Ancient hath that to whom God is once sweet the World must needs be bitter 2. On the other side the knowledge of this serveth to win us to the Lord that as the one draweth us off so the other may drive us on When I consider the mercies of the Lord and the goodness of God in the land of the living when I consider how infinite he is in his love I am ravished in spirit I am taken up in the mind and taken off in the flesh I have set my heart and affections on Heaven and on heavenly things And now when I think on the Lord there is my hope and there is my help and there where my help is there is my love and there is my life and there is my Lord there is Christ at the right hand of God He is the life of them that beleeve he is the resurrection from the dead he is the right hand where there is pleasure for evermore for there shall be no more pain no more death for the first things are past away saith Saint John in the Revelation and all things are become new Oh he that did but know the joyes that are reserved for such as are received to the Lord would soon be taken up from all conceits of the things of this life Think you but of that great convocation house of Heaven that high Court of Parliament that great place of Majesty and honour where all the spirits of just men made perfect are where all the Saints departed live where there are all the blessed Patriarchs godly Prophets the glorious Apostles the blessed Kings and the godly fellowship of Martyrs and Confessors where there are the holy Angels and Arch Angels Thrones and Dominions Seraphims and Cherubins in those glorious Orbs Where there is God the blessed Trinity the King of Glory whose Glory is more then can be seen be said conceived to be where the joy of the Saints is such as eye
enjoy life by it Again mark on what terms he requires it 't is but to belent and to be lent upon Usury too Many covetous earth-worms would be glad to hear of the most advantage by Interest of mony yet no Usury is lawful except this and this is spoken in this phrase to no other purpose but to convince the world of sin that seek gain to their own loss and procure their profit a wrong way He that gives to the poor he lends to the Lord upon Usury It is the confession of the Usurer that to receive ten in the hundred is great gain and he concludes that much advantage doth acrue to his Coffers and accounts it a prosperous profession Miserable trading when we exchange our Souls and expose them to eternal destruction for the procurement of a little wealth of this world which hath not a minutes subsistance But This is the trade of advantage not ten in the hundred but a hundred for ten nay a hundred for one To enjoy a hundred for one here and in the world to come eternal life is advantage far above the comparison of any gain the earth can afford us Further mark who it is that asks this at thy hands even he whose favour thou must one day seek for whose countenance thou wouldest give all the world it is he before whose seat thou must appear that calls for this duty of doing good with thy estate while thou enjoyest it deny not this small courtesie to him lest his favours being abused turn into anger and thou become a miserable instance of his heavy displeasure No man desiring the favour of a Prince or Judge in some business of importance but would gladly embrace an occasion of doing him a pleasure before the tryal of his cause that so the Judge may take notice of his good will and gratifie his kindness Beloved we have special use for the favour of Christ and must all appear before his Judgment seat Now we have opportunity sufficient Christ in his poor members of the houshold of faith comes to you expecting favour at your hands he wills you to do good to them and to him in them What you bestow on them he accounts as a courtesie to himself In as much as you have done it to these it extends unto him and what is denyed them he takes it as an injury to himself Inasmuch as you have not done it to those you have not done it to him Therefore look how you extend mercy here to enjoy it hereafter and as you expect the favour of the Judge make way for his kindness by the performance of his will in a seasonable contribution during this life he that useth not mercy here shall find none hereafter and Judgment shall be merciless saith the Apostle to them that shew not mency Nay look that such mercy be shown as God expecteth you that are wealthy according to the wealth and riches you possess God will accept of no beggarly present from a wealthy man neither will he receive a poor reward from the Coffers of him that hath hoarded up much red clay where he hath sown liberally he will reap leberally Look to it for Christ looks for it Wouldest thou reap liberally in that day then sow liberally in the mean time Do according to your several abilities and opportunities and when you meet with advantage to do good take it chearfully and make use of it willingly it will much commend thy love to Religion and improve thine own good in the conclusion So much shall serve now for this point You see in a word the meaning and intent of the Apostle is this that every man according to his estate and ability while he hath time and means should bestir himself to do good A word for the occasion in Hand Funeral Sermons faith Saint Austin are not comforts to the dead but helps to the living It is for their sakes that survive that God hath given us these occasions and for your sakes that are yet living that I have chosen this Text where you have the rule and the example concurring together The life of our deceased Sister was but a commentary upon this Text She hath been amongst those that knew her in her life a lively pattern and example of the performance of every duty that we have now spoken of It pleased God to translate her as a choice Plant from a far Countrey a Nurcery amongst the Churches in other parts into his Vineyard into his Garden into his Orchard his Church here in England Since she came hither and hath been planted here She became no fruitless nor dead tree but according to the blessing promised to that man which meditates in the law of God day and night She brought forth fruit and had a green lease among us She brought forth abundance of good fruit and is laid in the earth with the green lease of a good name and flourisheth now as a good example to those that live even being dead After it pleased God when she came to England to reveal to her the way of salvation more fully then she knew before to make her understand more clearly of the power of godliness and what the practice of Christianity meant which she before had received only in the Theory in forms of doctrines but not so heartily and serously looking into them She grew very covetous of good company and the benefit that comes by that good conference and example She made great advantage of her time in the large sense of doing good She took her opportunities to do good to her self and her soul by the obtaining of the knowledge of God in Christ and yet nevertheless even towards her latter end not being perswaded that she had done enough that way she promised to act Maries part more lively if God would spare her longer time on earth and exceed her former vertues by her latter endeavours and to refrain from Martha's troubles Those opportunities she embraced in health by the providence and goodness of God were managed by her with such care and respect that success followed their conclusions with much advantage She increased in love that radical grace as the sap doth increase in the root extending that love to Christ and to the servants of God ever delighting in their company prizing them at a high rate as the only excellent ones and some very poor and weak Christians naming them according to the phrase of our Saviour worthy persons and such a one was a worthy man or a worthy woman being the tearms wherewith she expressed her honourable esteem of those that seared the Lord. Besides in the whole course of her life she exercised the Scriptures I have seen notes of her own gathering out of the Scripture wherein it seemed she desired to become a profitable reader in making use of such particular places as struck against such corruptions which she was more especially desirous to take notice of and such directions
quasi ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã from ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã or quasi ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã supple ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã either from a word signifying to stretch because death stretcheth out the body or from words signifying to tend upwards because by death the soul is carried upwards returning to God that gave it In Latine Mors either quasi ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã our fatal portion or as Saint Austin will have it a morsu because the biting of the Serpent caused it The letter or word is but like the bark or rind the sence is the juyce yet here we may suck some sweetness from the bark or rind From the hebrew Muth we learn that our tongues must be bound to their good behaviour concerning the dead we must not make them our ordinary table talk or break jeasts upon them much less vent our spleen or wreak our malice on them we must never speak of them but in a serious and regardful manner de mortuis nil nisi bene From the Greek ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã as it is derived from ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã mutando ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã tenuem in ãâã aspiratam we must learn to extend our hands to the poor especially near death which stretcheth out our bodies and to send our thoughts ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã to the things that are above whether if we die well the Angels shall immediately carry our souls From the Latin mors so termed quasi ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã or ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã a ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã divido we are to learn to be contented with our lot and bear it patiently considering first that we brought it upon our selves secondly that we gain this singular benefit by it that our misery shall not be immortal O Death to which Death speaketh the Apostle for the Scripture maketh mention of the first and second death and Saint Ambrose also of a third The first Death with him is the death of nature of which it is said they shall seek death and not find it The second of sin of which it is said the soul that sinneth shall die the death The third of grace which sets a period not to nature but to sin The Death here meant is the first death or the Death of nature which the Philosophers diversly define according to their divers opinions of the soul Aristoxemis who held the soul to be an harmony consequently defined Death to be a discord Galen who held the soul to be Crasis or a temper Death to be a distemper Zeno who held the soul to be a fire Death to be an extinction Those Philosophers who held the soul to be ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã that is as Tully interpreteth it continuam motionem Death to be a cessation The vulgar of the Heathen who held the soul to be a breath Death to be an expiration Lastly the Platonicks who held the soul to be an immortal spirit Death to be a dissolution or separation of the soul from the body and this is two-fold 1 Natural 2 Violent 1 Natural when of it self the natural heat is extinguished or radical moisture consumed for our life in Scripture is compared and in sculpture resembled to a burning lamp the fire which kindleth the flame in this light is natural heat and the oyle which feedeth it is radical moisture Without flame there is no light without oyle to maintaine it no flame in like manner if either natural heat or radical moisture fail life cannot last 2 Violent when the soul is forced untimely out of the body of this Death there are so many shapes that no Painter could ever yet draw them We come but one way into the World but we go a thousand out of it as we see in a Garden-pot the the water is poured in but at one place to wit the narrow mouth but it runneth out at 100 holes Die Some 1 By fire as the Sodomites 2 By water as the old World 3 By the infection of the Ayre as threescore and ten thousand in Davids time 4 By the opening of the earth as Corah Dathan and Abiram Amphiraus and two Cities Buris and Helice Some meet with Death IN 1 Their Coach as Anteochus 2 Their chamber as Domitian 3 Their bed as John the Twelf 4 The Theater as Caligula 5 The Senate us Caesar 6 The Temple as Zenacherib 7 Their Table as Claudius 8 At the Lords-Table as Pope Victor and Henry of Luxenburge Death woundeth and striketh some With 1 A pen-knife as Seneca 2 A stilletto as Henry the Fourth 3 A sword as Paul 4 A Fullers beam as James the Lords Brother 5 A Saw as Isaiah 6 A stone as Pyrrhus 7 A thunderbolt as Anustatius What should I speak of Felones de se such as have thrown away their souls Sardanapalus made a great fire and leaped into it Lucretia stabbed her self Cleopatra put an Aspe to her breast and stung therewith died presently Saul fell upon his own sword Judas hanged himself Peronius cut his own veines Heremius beat out his own brains Licinius choaked himself with a napkin Portia died by swallowing hot burning coals Hannibal sucked poyson out of his ring Demosthenes out of his Pen c. What seemeth so loose as the soul and the body which is plucked out with a hair driven out with a smell fraied out with a phancy verily that seemeth to be but a breath in the nostrils which is taken away with a scent a shadow which is driven away with a scare-crow a dream which is frayed away with a phansie a vapour which is driven away with a puffe a conceit which goes away with a passion a toy that leaves us with a laughter yet grief kild Homer laughter Philemon a hair in his milk Fabius a flie in his throat Adrian a smell of lime in his nostrils Jovian the snuff of a candle a Child in Pliny a kernil of a Raison Anacyeon and a Icesickle one in Martial which causeth the Poet to melt into tears saying O ubi mors non est si jugulatis aquae what cannot make an end of us if a small drop of water congealed can do it In these regards we may turn the affirmative in my Text into a negative and say truly though not in the Apostles sence O Death where is not thy sting for we see it thrust out in our meats in our drinks in our apparel in our breath in the Court in the Country in the City in the Field in the Land in the Sea in the chamber in the Church and in the Church-yard where we meet with the second party to be examined to wit the Grave O Grave ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã In the language of Ashdod it signfied one thing but in the language of Canaan another The Heathen writers understand by it First the first matter out of which all things are drawn and into which they are last of all resolved So Hippocrates taketh the word in
for the Lord so they Others will have the words not to be restrained to Martyrs only but to belong to all that die in the fear of God and the faith of Christ And they alledg for themselves also a parallel Text 1 Cor. 15.18 where to fall a sleep in the Lord is spoken generally of all true believers departing this life Besides Saint Bernard and other of the Ancients apparantly distinguish these phrases mori in Domino mori propter Dominum to die in the Lord and to die for the Lord mori pro Domino martyrum est mori in Domino omnium confessorum si beati qui in Domino moriuntur quanto magis qui pro Domino moriuntur to die for the Lord is the glory of martyrs but to die in the Lord the glory of all Confessors if they are happy who die in the Lord how much more they that die for the Lord Thirdly the reward here promised is common to all believers and not peculiar to the Martyrs for all true believers when they die rest from their labours and their works follow them If the Spirit had meant Martyrs only he would rather have said they have ease from their torments then rest from their labours and their trophies and victories follow them All that die for the Lord die also in the Lord but all that die in the Lord do not necessarily die for the Lord we deny not that the Martyrs have the greatest share in this blessedness but all Confessors have their parts also the Martyrs Crown is beset with a Rubie or some richer jewel then ordinary their Garland hath a flower or two more in it to wit some red flower as well as white yet the Crown and Garland of all Confessors are compleat And therefore not only Beda and Bernard and Richardus and Andreus and Primasius and Haymo and Ansbertus and Ioachimus but also the Greek and the Roman Church yea and the reformed also understand these words of all that die in Gods favour for they read these words at the Funerals of all the dead and not only at the Funeralls of Martyrs Yea but how can any be said to die in the Lord that is continuing his Member sith Christ hath no dead Members I answer that the faithful die not in the Lord in that sense in which they live in him but ãâã ther they die not spiritually nor cease to be his mystical Members but naturally that is they continuing in Christs faith and love breath out their souls and so fall asleep in his bosome or die in his love laying hold of him by faith and relying on him by hope and embracing him by charity All they die in the Lord who die in the act of contrition as Saint Austin who reading the penetential Psalms with many tears breathed out his last gasp sighing for his sins Or in the act of charity as Saint Jerome who in a most fervent or vehement exhortation to the love of God gave up the Ghost Or in the act of Religion as Saint Ambrose who after he had received the blessed Sacrament in a heavenly rapture and a holy parley with Christ left the body Or in the act of Devotion as Aquinas who lifting up his eyes and hands to heaven pronouncing with a loud voyce those words of the Spouse in the Canticles Come my beloved let us go forth went out of this world Or in the Act of gratulation and thanks-giving as Petrus Celestinus who repeating that last verse of the last Psalm Omnis spiritus laudet Dominum Let every breath or every one that hath breath praise the Lord breathed out his soul Or in an Act of divine contemplation as Gerson that famous Chancellor of Paris who having explicated fifty properties of divine love concluded both his Treatise and his life with fortis ut mors dilectio Love is strong as death To kint up all six sorts of men may lay just claim to the blessedness in my Text. First Martyrs for they die in the Lord because they die in his quarrel Secondly Confessors for they die in the Lord because they die in his faith and in the confession of his name Thirdly all they that love Christ and are beloved of him for they die in the Lord because they die in his bosome and embracings Fourthly all truly penitent sinners for they die in the Lord because they die in his peace Fifthly all they who are engrafted into Christ by a special faith and persevere in him to the end for they die in the Lord because they die in his communion as being members of his mystical body Lastly all they that die calling upon the Lord or otherwise make a godly end for they die in the Lord because they die in the works of the Lord and happy is that servant whom his Master when he cometh shall find so doing From hence-forth ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Beza and some other render the word in the original perfectly because the dead obtain the blessedness they hoped for but this Exposition cannot stand unless we restrain this blessedness to the soul For the persect and consummate happiness of all that die in the Lord consisteth in the glorisication of their bodies and souls when they shall see God face to face and the beams of his countenance directly falling upon the soul shall reflect also upon the body and most true it is which Paraus observeth the deads blessedness far exceeds the blessedness of the living for here we have but the first fruits of happiness but in heaven we shall have the whole lump here we hunger and thirst for righteousness there we shall be satisfied To this we all willingly assent but it will not hence follow that they have their whole lump of happiness till the day of judgment blessed they are from the hour of their death but not perfectly blessed but not consummately blessed intensive as blessed as the soul by it self can be for that state in which it now is not blessed extensive not so blessed as the whole person shall be when the soul shall be the second time given to the body and both bid to an everlasting feast at the marriage of the Lamb. Others therefore more agreeable to the Analogie of faith render the original ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã from hence-forth and refer the hence-forth not to the time of the uttering this Prophesie as if before it none were blessed for before this prophecie all the Apostles Saint John only excepted and thousands of Saints and Martyrs had dyed in the Lord and were at rest from their labours but to the instant of their dying in the Lord they no sooner lost their lives for Christ then they found happiness in him So soon as Lazarus dyed his soul was carryed by Angels into Abrahams bosome So soon as the Thief expired on the Cross he aspired to paradise and was with Christ So Nazianzen teacheth concerning every religious soul I
telleth us that as the Spirit and the Bride say come so he that heareth saith come that is not only the Church of God that is now present here upon the face of the earth but the successive parts of the Church in all future Ages they are all of the same mind having received the same Spirit they all say come Whosoever heareth this Prophesie whosoever heareth of these promises in any Age or Country of the World all they having the same spirit they must needs say come he that heareth saith come he that is acquainted with the promises that cometh to the knowledge of them and doth mingle them with the faith of his soul this man must needs say come to the accomplishment of them And lastly He that is a thirst saith come too that is whosoever hath tasted of the sweetness of Christ in any measure whatsoever and thereby hath wrought in him a vehement thirst after more this man will say come Whosoever hath such a sense of Christ in his promises as to taste of the sweetness of these never so little as he that hath tasted a drop of hony wisheth for more so he that hath tasted of the sweetness of Christ a drop of his grace and mercy this setteth upon his spirit a heavenly thirst he saith come he would have more he is never quiet till he have the promise accomplished to him These are the persons every particular member of the Church that hath the Spirit the whole Church in general not only the particular part of the Church now in the World or in any Age but the several parts of the Church in several Ages whosoever is a thirst that hath tasted of Christ must needs say come Even so come Lord Jesus These are the persons The second thing is the matter of this acclamation of the Church First the matter contained in it it is a vehement and earnest desire of the people of God after Christs most happy return in these words Amen even so come Lord Jesus The matter of it therefore is either infolded and implicite in the word Amen even so or unfolded and explicite in the latter words Come Lord Jesus It is infolded I say in the word Amen This word signifieth in the Scripture either the Author of the truth himself or else it is an affirmation of the truth In the Revelation thus saith the Amen the faithful and true witness here Christ himself is called Amen because he is the Author of all truth and verity the faithful and true witness Sometime this word is used and most frequently in Scripture for the affirmation of the truth either witnessing of the truth or wishing the truth For the witnessing of the truth as in all those vehement speeches of our Lord and Saviour Christ Amen Amen I say unto ye or verily verily I say unto ye this is a vehement asseveration and a witnessing to the truth which a man ought to believe or would have to be believed Or otherwise for a wishing and earnest desiring of the truth to be accomplished So in the conclusion of the Lords prayer and all our prayers we add this word Amen that is so be it or Let it be so we wish it with earnestness of affection and desire and with a confidence and faith of our hearts we hope and believe that this shall be so This is that we profess when we say Amen In this place this word is used both for affirmation and witnessing of the truth and likewise it is a vehement wish and desire of the accomplishment of these promises with an earnest and certain hope and expectation of faith that all these promises and good things shall be accomplished to the soul of a Christian Again the matter of this Acclamation is unfolded and explained in the latter words Come Lord Jesus Where there is both the Action and the person to be considered The Action Come Christ cometh to his Church many wayes He cometh in his Word He cometh in his Spirit He cometh in his mercies He cometh in his Judgments and Justice None of these are here meant But he cometh to his Church in person and appearance even in the appearance of his body and humane nature Thus Christ cometh two wayes to his Church in person First in his Incarnation he appeareth to the world in the similitude of sinful flesh he came in humility he came to suffer to die That is not here meant for that was past when as the Evangelist Saint John wrote this prophesie But the Second coming in person of our Lord and Saviour Christ is his coming in the flesh in glory in exaltation to judge the quick and the dead to shew himself a mighty God from heaven This is the coming which is here meant Christs second coming to Judgment in glory That is the Action The person is described by these two Titles Lord Jesus Wherein the Church desireth that he may come both as a Lord and as a Jesus That he may come as a Lord to vindicate the Church and revenge him upon his enemies to destroy the kingdome of darkness the kingdome of the Devil the kingdome of Antichrist which hath been a great argument in this book of the Revelation And not only come thus as a Lord but as a Jesus to save his Church to vouchsafe to her comfort and peace and joy that he would come to cloath her with immortality and glory which she cannot expect on earth in a mortal state This is the sum and substance of this Petition and request that the Lord would come in majesty and glory both as a Lord against the enemies of the Church to destroy them utterly and as a Saviour to bestow upon the Church even all saving mercies especially that great mercy of everlasting blessedness that is not mixed with sin and corruption that is not mixed with any infirmity and defect whatsoever This is the sum and substance of the Text which I have in few words shortly explained to ye Whence the point I observe wherein we will insist by the grace of God at this time is this That it is the nature and property of every true member of the Church of God earnestly and longingly to desire the second coming of Christ for the full redemption of his Church The Spirit saith Come and the Bride saith Come and whosoever heareth saith Come whosoever is a thirst saith Come therefore every godly man that hath the Spirit of God that is a part of this Bride that is partaker of those promises that hath a caste of Jesus Christ every one of these must necessarily say Come Even so Come Lord Jesus This is so proper to believers and to every one of them as they are all of them described by this property in Scripture 2 Tim. 4.8 The Crown which the righteous Judge shall give me at that day and not only to me but to all them that love his appearing The Apostle he might have said to all saints
how to live and how to die while we live let us desire of God so to steer our course as that we may lead the lives of holy and devout Christians We desire to live and have we no desire to live well what 's this life without godliness what is it to live and to have our hearts all the dayes of our lives void of grace and piety Life without grace is like beauty in a woman without discretion Pro. 11.22 Non est vivere sed valere vita It is no life but a living death alwayes to live and to want health and strength which sweetens life and makes it comfortable So it is no life a Christian leads where there is a want of piety in the heart What is this to live unless we know how to live well and to make a right use of our time We must consider wherefore we live even to improve our time to the best advantage for the saving of our Souls otherwise we live like Beasts not like Men not like Christians These silly brutes live in time but know not the time in which they live so careless Christians run out their time but know not how to make use of their time they consume their time but they do not increase it Like Bankrupts that waste their stock but never seek to improve it We make a decoction of our time as water is boil'd away from a fourth part to a third and from a third to half so we waste and consume our time till we have no time left even till we come to the last minute of life why then while we have time let us pray to God to teach us to use it aright to give us grace to consider the time we spend that we may make the best improvment of it and as Esan did Jacob hold time by the heel and not suffer it to slip from us without giving a good account to God that we have imployed that time and space of life which is allotted us here for the advancement of Gods glory and the purchasing of our own Salvation We proceed to the third particular that we go to God by prayer to teach us the right use of our time in a right manner So teach us that is Teach us so efficaciously so powerfully so constantly as that we may attain to the true wisdome and knowledg of saving of our Souls We must pray to God to teach us effectually Psal 119.33 Teach me O Lord the way of thy statutes and I shall keep it unto the end We can know nothing of heaven unless the Spirit of God instruct us There is a great Light in us the Light of Nature and this light is enough to condemn us if we walk not according to this Light this Light of Knowledg imprinted by God in our hearts and by this Light all Heathens are condemn'd but this Light is not able to carry us half way to heaven The Light of Nature cannot save us but the light of Grace must bring us to the light of Glory Esther was fain to stand a loof off in the Court till the King reach'd forth his Golden Scepter to invite her nearer to him Nature only leads us to the outward Court of Heaven but Grace holds forth the Scepter to bring us into Heaven Nature like the faint heat of the Sun draws up the vapours but a little way it hath not strength enough to master our Corruptions but the heat and power of Gods grace is only able to dispel and vanquish them It is only the work of Gods Spirit to shew us the right way to Heaven and to guide us in that way All lies in the Grace of God and unless we are continually assisted and carryed on by his gracious Spirit we are never likely to come near the sight of Heaven We have indeed many helps and furtherances to carry us to heaven but none of these will avail us without God The word of God is constantly preach'd in our ears the Ministers of God are daily pressing us forward to heaven but what can the frail voice of man work upon the heart without the powerful influence of Gods holy Spirit We Ministers without God are but as Gehazi's staff laid upon the dead Child we are no wayes able to raise the Soul from the death of sin to the life of righteousness unless God first breath upon it and infuse the life of Grace into the dead heart of the sinner Let this teach us not to rest in our selves or any outward means for the purchasing of the joyes of heaven but place our whole trust and confidence in the living God What 's all the Light of Reason but darkness it self to bring us to the Light Everlasting All humane wisdome is but a false Light which will lead us in the end to the pit of destruction It is a good caution the Apostle gives us Col. 2.8 Beware lest any man spoil you through Philosophy and vain deceit If we follow the false Light of Reason it will deceive us and misguide us in our way to Heaven Natural Reason haply may see the heavenly Canaan afar off and have some stragling thoughts of the happiness of another world but it shal never be able to get possession of heaven The horns of this Altar shall never save any man that flies unto them As the light is hid under a bushel so nature is clouded and darkned with many mists of errour and cannot reach the sight of heaven In the second place let us fly to God by prayer that he would teach us effectually and shew us the right way to heaven Before we hear the Word of God let us fall upon our knees and beg of God to make it profitable and useful to our Souls What makes the word of God so ineffectual how come we to gain so little comfort by the preaching of the Word Is it not because we do not pray to God to open our hearts and make it useful to us that we may attend to the word of Truth and obtain Salvation by it The people before the Law was published to them were cleansed and sanctified by Moses to receive it Exod. 19.14 So ought we to Sanctifie our hearts by prayer and desire of God to purge our Souls of the many pollutions of our sins that we may gain a blessing by the Word of God and return with joy and comfort from the house of God It is prayer that makes the word of God profitable to our Souls it is like the Salt which Elisha threw into the waters to heal them So does prayer make the word of God beneficial to us and causeth us to relish the sweetness and comfort of it The heart is like that Book sealed with seven Seals which no man can open but God himself Therefore let us pray to God to open our hearts that we may receive instruction from the Word of God There is no man can teach us
safety be confest by the hearers then exprest by the Preacher in his place Answ I have three things to return in answer hereunto First grant the Objector speaketh very much of truth herein yet if the times be so bad as he complaineth their badness will serve for a toyl to set off his goodness and render it the more conspicuous making him Phil. 2.15 to shine the brighter as a light in the World in the midst of a crooked and perverse Nation Alas thy little faith would have made no show hadst thou lived in the age of Abraham thy Patience would have seemed but a dwarf to the Gyant patience of Job hadst thou been his contemporary thy meekness had appeared as nothing if measured with the meekness of Moses had you been partners in the same generation Whereas now a little Faith Patience Meekness and so of other graces will make a very good presence in the publick if the Age thou livest in be so bad as thou dost complain and others perchance do believe Secondly I suspect this to be nothing else but a device of thy deceitful heart thereby to cozen thine own self The Objection speaks the state of thy soul to be much like the temper of the Scribes and Pharisees Mat. 23.30 If we say they had been in the dayes of our Fathers we would not have been partaker with the blood of the Prophets Yet these pretended pittiful persons were indeed more cruel then their Ancestors Their Fathers killed the Men they the Master their Fathers the Servant they the Son their Fathers murdered the Prophets of God they the God of those Prophets so far forth as he was murderable in his humane nature and it is vehemently to be suspected that if thou beest bad now thou wouldst not have been good had the time of thy Nativity answered thine own desire It is a shrewd presumption that he who behaved himself as a Woolf in his own generation would not have been a Lamb in what Age soever he had lived Lastly Beggars must be no choosers thou art not to serve the generation before thee nor the generation after thee nor any other of thy own election but thy own generation wherein Divine Providence hath been pleased to place thee Saint Paul saith Ephesians 5.22 Wives submit your selves unto your own Husbands Some will say had I such an one to my Husband I could willingly obey him he is of so meek mild and sweet a disposition but mine is of so morose and froward a nature it goes against my nature to be dutiful unto him However though she hath not the same comfort she hath the same cause of submission obliging in conscience to Gods command husbands must love their own wives wives obey their own husbands husbands and wives with David must serve their own generation But now that my sword may cut on both sides as hitherto we have confuted such who are faulty in their defect and will not serve their generation so others offend in the excess not being only servants but slaves and vassals to the age they live in prostituting their consciences to do any thing how unjust soever to be a Favourite to the Times Surely a cautious concealment is lawful and wary silence is commendable in perilous times Amos 5.13 It is an evil time therefore the wise shall hold their peace And I confess that a prudential compliance in Religion in things indifferent is justifiable as also in all civil concernments wherein the conscience is not violated but wherein the will of the times crosseth the will of God our Indentures are cancelled from serving them and God only is to be obeyed There is some difference in reading the precept Rom. 12.11 occasioned from the similitude of the words in the original though utterly unlike in our English tongue some reading it serving the Lord others serving the time I will not dispute which in the Greek is the truer Copie but do observe that Davids precedent in my Text is a perfect expedient to demonstrate that both Lections may and ought to be reconciled in our practise He served his generation there is serving the times but what followeth by the will of God there is serving the Lord this by him was by us must be performed Saint Stephen Acts 7.2 began his Sermon to the people with these words Men Brethren and Fathers which words I thus expound and apply By Men he meant young folk which had attained to the strength and stature of men and were much younger then himself By Brethren those of his own standing and seniority in the world probably forty years old or thereabouts and therefore he saluted such with a familiar Appellation as a badge of equallity Thirdly Fathers being aged people more ancient then himself as appeareth by his term of respect addressed to persons distanced above him This distinction will serve me first perfectly to comprise then methodically to distinguish all my Auditors in this Congregation I begin with you men which are of the Generation rising it being bootless for me to address my self to children not arrived at their understanding concerning whom I turn my preaching to them into praying for them and wish them good success in the name of the Lord. It is your bounden duty to omit no opportunity to inform your selves both in Learning and Religion from those that living with you are of more age and experience and demean your selves unto them with all reverence and respect O let them go fairly their own pace and path to their graves Do not thrust them into the pit with your preposterous wishes Filius ante diem O when will he die and his name perish rather endeavour to prolong the dayes of your Parents by your dutiful deportment unto them stay but a while and they will willingly resign their room unto you in earnest whereof those superannated Bazzilbaes do contentedly surrender the lawful pleasures of this life 2 Sam. 20.37 to you their Chimchams their sons and successors to be by you with sobriety and moderation peaceably possessed and comfortably enjoyed You Brethren who are pew-fellows in the same Age with my self who are past our vertical point and are now entred into the Autumn of our life give me leave to bespeak you with becoming boldness familiarity beseeming those of the same form together there is a new Generation come upon let us therefore think of going off the Stage endeavouring so to Act our parts that we may come off not so much with applause from man as approbation from God If we live long we shall be lookt upon as the barren fig-tree that combereth the ground we must make room for succession as our fathers have done for us And set this be our greatest care to derive and deliver Religion in all the foundamentals thereof in as good a plight and condition to our sons as we received it from our Fathers O let us leave Gods house as tenantable as
we found it let it not be said that we willingly let the fair Fabrick of Faith and good life to run to ruine in our so that the next Age may justly sue us for Dilapidations When our Saviour said unto his Disciples Mat. 26.21 Verily I say unto you that one of you shall betray me they were exceeding sorrowful and began every one of them to say unto him Lord is it I yea Judas himself lagging at last with his Is it I Lord and was returned with Thou saist it Thus at the last day of judgment shall all generations be arraigned before God But to confine our Application only to those three within the last sixscore years if God should say unto them One of you have betrayed my truth how would it put them all upon their particular purgation Is it I Lord saith the first generation in the reign of King Edward the sixt surely they shall be acquitted who in the Marian dayes sealed the truth with their blood Is it I Lord saith the second generation lasting all the Reign of Queen Elizabeth to the middle of King James That also will be cleared as publickly preserving the purity of true Doctrine in the thirty nine Articles What a shame shall it be if when our age shall ask with Iudas Is it I we shall be returned thou hust said it Yours is the Age that hath betrayed my Truth to Errour Unity to Faction Piety to Prophaness sad when such a Fact shall be so clear that it cannot be denied and yet so foul that it cannot be defended However this my too just fear may consist with hope of better things of you and such as accompany salvation I must conclude with you Reverend Fathers whom my loyalty cannot pass by without doing my due homage to the Crown of your Age especially if it be found in the way of truth Give me leave to tell you belong to that generation which is passed out of this world not only the Van or Front and also the main body and battel of your Army are marched to their graves and their souls I hope to heaven whilst Divine Providence for reasons best known to himself hath reserved you to bring up as I may say the very rear of the rear of your generation O do not mistake this Reprieve for a Pardon and here give me leave to use a plain but expressive Similitude Have you never seen a wanton child run a firebrand against the Hearth or back of the Chymney and so on a suddain make a skie of sparks of which sparks some instantly expire others continue a pretty time and then go out others last a little longer whilest one or two as having a greater stock of soot to feed them hold out a good while but at last are extinguisht Man is born to labour as sparks do fly upward some presently go out wasted from the womb to the winding-sheet others live to ripe men others to be old men some whose temper and temperance are more signal then in others to be counted wonderous old but all at last die and fall to the earth We read Rev. 10.2 of an Angel who had his right foot on the Sea and his left on the earth This may seem a strange stride save that it abateth the wonder because Angels when pleased to assume bodies may extend themselves to a vast though finite proportion But you though meer men and weak men must stride a greater distance having your left foot already in the Grave endeavour to have your right foot in Heaven and waving all love of this world set your minds and meditations alone on God and godliness In a word whatever our Age be rising shining or setting Men Brethren or Fathers let us endeavour with David in my Text according to the will of God to serve our own Generation Come we now to the sad occasion of our present meeting to perform the last Christian Office to our Deceased Brother well known to many of you and to none better then to my self A child is like a man in the similitude of parts though not of degrees and in some measure he did sincerely with David serve his Generation He was a dutiful Son unto his aged Mother as she cannot but confess and will I hope as occasion is offered remember and reward it to his wife and children A loving Brother a kind Husband and I doubt not but his widdow will discharge her mutual affection to him in his relations Bathsheha thus describeth a good wife Pro. 31.12 She will do her Husband good and not evil all the dayes of her life It is not said all the dayes of his life but of her life What if he should chance to die and she to survive him yea after to marry again as God forbid any should be debarred marrying in the Lord especially for their own and childrens advantage yet still she would do good unto him all the dayes of her life To him that is to his memory mentioning with respect to him that is to his children and friends careful over the one and curteous over the other He was a tender Father and faithful Friend witness the many volunteer mourners an unusual proportion for a person of his quality who at their own charge have habited themselves that the outward sadness of their cloaths might express the inward sorrow of their hearts He was an excellent Master having bred many good workmen in his Vocation and I hope they will prove good husbands too Let me add he was an excellent subject for according to that which his conscience with many others conceived to be loyalty he lost much of and hazarded all his estate Lastly and chiefly he was a good Saint having more piety then he shewed and as daily he consumed in his body he was strengthened in his soul in Faith through Christ whereof he gave many testimonies before towards and at his death What shall I speak of his parts of Nature so far above his education and profession that he might have past for a Scholar amongst Scholars for his wit and pleasant expressions But God now hath made him his free-man and paid him his wages for so well serving his Generation THE CROVVNE OF RIGHTEOUSNES OR The glorious Reward of FIDELITY In the Discharge of our DUTY SERMON LIII 2 TIM 4.7 8. I have fought a good fight I have finished my course I have kept the Faith Henceforth there is laid up for me a Crown of Righteousness which the Lord the Righteous Judge shall give me at that Day and not to me only but unto them also who love his Appearing I Shall not detain you by any impertinent Preface sith the shortness of time for this Service together with the indulgence of this so Learned an Auditory anticipates an Apology and gives hope of much Candor under so manifold Imprââ¦parations And so I address my self to the serious business of my Text The scope whereof amounts to
of each of these Schoolmen have given them distinct names or Titles being called by them either Obrepentes or Ascendentes or Immissoe Those which are from the World seem full of flattery and creep one after a sort insensibly and deceive us Those from the flesh ascend as it were out of our selves therefore the more dangerous because the less preceptible they being so pleasing to Corrupt Nature and a self-snare Those from the Devil are sent from without with more vehemency therefore called ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Darts ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Ephes 6.16 because cast into a man for in very deed the Devil knows no mans Heart onely deales at first till after further experience by Conjecture all which if I had time it were easie to enlarge upon 3. In a Warre there must be Armes and Weapons and to furnish our selves with these we have a full Armoury or panoply in the Holy Scriptures The whole armour of God we have for all sorts of Weapons whether Offensive or Defensive in Ephes 6.13 14. c. 4. There must be policies or stratagems in War meanes to Circumvent disappoint over-reach overthrow the Enemy c. These and many the like are the parts to make up this spirituall warfare all which must of necessity if as it ought to be spoken to fully willingross more time than I have left to go through with my other business Wherefore waving that so copious a Theame at this present I proceed on now to the second general part of my Division which is the Remuneration or reward of Saint Pauls fidelity in the discharge of his trust in the Dispensation of the Gospel Henceforth is laid up for me a Crown of Righteousness c. Much but that I study Brevity might be said of the Dignity of this reward it being stiled a Crowne and largely also I might discourse of the certainty thereof proved and assuredly to be made good partily from the promise of God of that faithful God who is ever mindful of it and never disappointeth a true believer of performance namely so as he promiseth Esau 40.10 Behold the Lord God will come with a strong hand and his arme shall rule for him behold his reward is with him See also Isa 62.11 and Psal 31.19 The Psalmist seemeth after a sort ravished and in a kind of extasie transported out of himself in wonder at the meditation O how great is thy goodness 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 And elsewhere Psal 58.11 Verily there is a reward for the righteous doubtless he is a God that judgeth in the earth And Heb. 6.10 God is not unrighteous to forget c. nor was ever any mans labour maugre the blasphemy of all those Infidels Mal. 3.14 in vain in the Lord 1 Cor. 15.58 See also Rom. 2.7 And this is partly also to be made good from the meritorious expiation of the Lord Christ the vertue whereof extended not onely to a deliverance from all paine and misery which he purchased by his Passion but also to the opening a way to everlasting happiness by his all-glorious Resurrection and Ascension Rom. 8.32.2 Pet. 1.11 Joh. 14.2 And lastly this may be collected likewise from the present afflictions of Gods servants 2 Thes 1.5 for else as the present case now stands with them they are in this life of all men else most miserable 1 Cor. 15.19 Now the Schoolmen have reduced the sum of all the future Blessedness and Reward unto two main heads which they stile Dotes animoe Corporis as it were the Dowries of the Soul and Body both which as they have been sharers in obedience so shall they also be in the Compensation of the just reward Those of the Soul are these 1. The clear Vision of God which they say is tota merces beholding him face to face namely so far as a finite Being for so our Humane Nature continues still though glorified may be capable to apprehend of that Majesty which is Infinite in this advanced condition the Soul which is here clogg'd and drossy and much praegravated by the Body subject to corruption shall beatifically see God as he is in the full splendor of his immortal glory whereas beneath it seeth onely in part and knoweth but in part nor can the greatest part of our sublunary knowledge make up the least part of our Ignorance the discovery that we have now of Heaven is but ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã as by reflexion from a glass Darkly being changed into the Image of God by degrees from one glory to another 2 Cor. 3.18 but then all clowds shall be dispelled the Intellectuall eyes fully cleared up into a perfect and bright serenity and withall enjoy a sweet oblectation Contentation and Delight accompanying that inexpressible and blisseful Vision 2. In the will perfect fruition of the Divine glory tention and for the measure of the Creature Comprehension a compleate assimilation and likeness to that glorious Majesty in Holiness and Righteousness In those new Heavens dwelleth nothing but righteousness 2 Pet. 3.13 3. In the whole Soul Joy unspeakable and full of glory 1 Pet. 1.8 In the Body 1. Impassibility it is not nor can be subject there to any Ach Ague or Paine no discontenting or agonizing vexations whatsoever All Tears shall be wiped away from our eyes Rev. 7.17.2 Agility expedite quickness free from all manner of Lumpish ponderosity or defatigration whatsoever Yea moreove perfect Charity and glorious splendor such as the Sun it self in its full Brightness partakes not of Here below the Beauty of the Saints is shadowed and much clouded partly by the interposition of Hypocrifie Copper often passing before weak eyes for Gold Formality for Reality eclipsing that ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã and simplicity which would both adorn the Gospel and grace the purity of profession partly also by afflictions to which the godly are appointed in this life where Christianus is quasi Crucianus and that Baptisme of blood Suffering is made the character of a true Believer as that of Water is of an outward visible Member of the Church And partly also by Corruption which like spriggs or suckers sprouting forth even under the choycest grasse will sometimes be shewing of it self in the defection of our best actions yea in some particulars of Exorbltancy so that whereas in these several regards the Beauty of the Saints is much obtenebrized and obscured yet then shall they shine forth ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã even as the Sun from out of a Clowd in full clarity and refulgent glory which was praefigured after a sort in that shining transfiguration of our Saviour upon the Mount Mat. 17. When the vision was so glistering and resplendant that Peter could have been contented though but from that glimpse of glory to have erected a Tabernacle for a farther
sight and Contemplation he found it so sweet that it was good to be there longer 3. Lastly To all this may be added Immortality as the Diamond set in the ring of all the rest their Mortality hath put on Immortality the Body never more after it is cloathed upon therewith being subject unto Corruption Death it self is then struck dead and swallowed up in a final Victory unto all Eternity To which purpose ye may do well to meditate at leisure those very apposite and pertinent Scriptures 1 Pet. 5.4.2 Cor. 5.1 Rev. 2.11.1 Cor. 15.54.55 compared with Hos 13.14 and to this purpose the places of blisse are styled c mansions or abiding and resting places John 14.2 And this is the reward couched under this Metaphor of a Crown the Bliss whereof indeed transcends the skill and tongue even of Angels themselves to express Saint Paul speaking of the excellent goodness was treasured up but in the gifts and graces of Regeneration in this life saith even of them that the natural eye hath not Seen nor the ear Heard nor hath it entred into the Heart of an unspiritualized man to conceive the things which God hath prepared for them that love him 1 Cor. 2.9 Much less surely can this be done Excellent glory above in Heaven Wherefore the joy thereof being so incomprehensible as it is when it could not enter into the faithful servant mentioned in the Gospel then he was bid to enter into it even into that joy of his Master Mat. 25.21 And thus far of the remuneration it self at large both in the Certainty and the Dignity thereof It is a Crown of Rightiousness I come next to consider the Donor or the Bestower of the same the Lord set forth unto us here under the periphrasis of being ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã The Righteous Judge Where note saith the Roman Catholique that the Reward is a Reward of Justice not of favour rendeââ¦ed as a due debt not given as a gratuitous benevolence so Cajetan on the Text Dicendo reddet Justus Judex debitum jus significate and so by consequent the good works to which its rendered are properly meritorious and God shall be unjust if he deny them his due reward even due of debt But whilest these overweening spiders suck poyson the Humble Bees draw honey from these fragrant and sweet flowers To Cajetan though none of the meanest Schoolmen we may oppose Primasius who hath this more solid expression quomodo ââ¦st acââ¦rona bebita redderetur nisi prius illa gratuita donaretur How can that Crown be said to be rendered as due unless first it was bestowed as free and again oper a Bona sunt Dei bona The Lord in crowning our good deeds doth but reward us with his own gifts in this case we must be all constrained to say as David on another occasion 1 Chron. 26.14 All things come of thee and of thine own have we given thee Wherefore Saint Paul the great Assertor of free grace hath styled most fitly life eternal it self wherein consisteth the absolute consummation of all graces ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã a free gift Rom. 6.23 a word not used in any Heathen Author but peculiarized to the inspired penmen of Holy Writ besides the manner of the Apostles expression is very remarkable even in this very Text where the word ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã is laid up and the other of ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã shall give both these expressions imply a free donation no meritorious purchase at all elsewhere our reward in heaven is called an inheritance Ephes 1.14 Act. 26.18 which is a thing comming freely by descent unto the rightful Heir Moreover works meritorious according to the determination of the Patrons of merit themselves They must be 1. Nostra our own works wrought out of our own strength and done by our own power whereas the Evangelical Prophet hath otherwise assured us Isa 26.12 Thou O Lord faith he hast wrought all our works in us He means gracious works Alas we are not such Silk-worms as to spin a thred of Felicity out of our own bowels we must remember that the highest style which the Scripture gives the Saints is but to be Vessels of Salvation to receive the graces of God distilled into them from above Not Springs or Fountains to derive them to our selves and by the very Schoolmen themselves the graces of the Spirit are called Habitus infusi Habits not acquisite by frequent Acts as moral vertues are but infused by God into the Heart Every good and perfect gift descending from above as Saint James saith Jam. 1.17 Yea it was the positive assertion of our Saviour himself John 15.5 Without me ye can do nothing He means Acceptably He doth not say as Saint Austin observes sine me difficulter potestis or non potestis persicere without me ye can hardly do any thing or ye are not able to bring any act unto perfection but simply and expressely thus Without me that is without leaning upon me having my special and gracious assistance Ye can do nothing at all that is good and gracious and our Apostle also elsewhere professeth that all our sufficiency namely in things supernatural is meerly and solely of God alone 2 Cor. 3.5 Therefore we may well conclude that whatsoever good works there are in us they be none of our own Secondly As they must be our own so likewise are they in the sense of those grand Impostors of the Christian world to be perfect as in which nothing is to be found defective nothing redundant whereas all our righteousness as it is inhaerent in us Alas it is but as a defiled nasty and polluted menstruosity Isa 64.6 the highest pitch or ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã of perfection that whilest we are clad with the raggs of our vile flesh we the very best of us all can attain to in this life is as I have shewn elsewhere but to see and to acknowledge our imperfections as in the clearest serenity of the Firmament some speckling cloud may be discovered so in our most accurate and exact performances either in the Matter or in the Manner or in the Degree measure or end of doing we all prove some way defective even the very best things that we do have enough in them to be pardoned if the Lord should discusse them without mercy in a rigorous severity and be so extream as to mark what in them is done amiss To this effect the forementioned School Divines have styled the greatest Saints as they are yet Members but of the Church militant on earth but Viatores walkers in the way whose motion is but only progressive not Comprehensors till actually instated Members of the Church Triumphant above in glory in the mean while that maxime in Divinity is Orthodox and solid Successivââ¦rum non simul est esse perficere Those things which admit of a succession in their motion or degrees of growth their being
and perfection is not all at once nor altogether wherefore our very Apostle elsewhere Phil. 3.12 15. professeth though he were perfect in regard of sincerity and uprightness yet not so in regard of the full measure He was so in respect of Parts he was not so in respect of Degrees therefore he said that he had not as yet fully apprehended Fuit perfectus spe future glorificationis Fuit Imperfectus ââ¦nere Corruptionis Fuit perfectus expectatione muneris Fuit Imperfectus fatigatione Certaminis as most appositely to our present purpose p Fulgentius perfect he was in the Hope of future Glorification he was imperfect under the burthen of present corruption He was perfect in the expectation of his reward but yet imperfect being tyred under the great conflict and encounter that he had with the opposers of the Gospel of Truth compleat perfection he professed not much less may others so far inferiour unto so great and most illustrious a Saint as Saint Paul was 3. Works meritorious as they must be our own and perfect so also in their sense Indebita more than due super-erogatory transcending the Command whereas proud Catharists and brittle pot-sherds as they are they might observe what the great Law-giver hath declared in that Case Luke 17.10 When we have done all that we are able to do we remain still most defective and most unprofitable servants and have at the utmost if we could reach to that done but duty 4. Lastly Works meritorious must be proportionata ad mercedem exactly proportionable unto the just Reward but surely if as they cannot our Passions and Sufferings cannot equal the Reward much less can our Actions or our imperfect doings sweetly singeth the Psalmist God Crowneth indeed but it is in his own meer mercy and loving kindness not for any possible desert in the primest Creature yea it 's a maxime in the very Schoolmen themselves That Principium meriti prius est merito and that principlum is Gods free Grace Mercy favour So then yeild all this But How then is it free and yet a Reward of justice Answ Some answer thus namely by understanding Justice in this Text of Gods Fidelity and faithfulness in keeping promise as in that Text 1 John 1.9 where ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã are joyned together if we confess our sins God is faithfull and Just to forgive us our sinnes And in this sense rightly apprehended its true indeed to say that its Debita merces A reward of Debt because God hath after a sort bound himself by his own promise to give it unto us Promittendo se fecit Debitorem faith Augustine he hath made himself a Debtor to his Church by promise in which only regard it is that we may exigere Dominum as he speaks urge and press the Lord upon his word so we read the Church under affliction did Jer. 14.21 Remember break not thy Covenants with us ãâã are herewith Neh. 1.8 Deut. 9.5 Others more directly give us this answer AEternal life is in respect of us ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã a meer Gratuity or free gift But in respect of the personal merit of Christ it s a reward of Justice The Lord Christ Jesus having purchased unto all his true Believers by his Humiliation and Obedience this Crown of their Imputative righteousness how imperfect soever their own personal Righteousness was And from this title of the Lord his being a righteous Judge all his faithful Servants may assuredly rest upon the Infallibility of the reward of their Service and Fidelity sith the Lords own word Equity and faithfulness is ingaged for it surely he is faithful who hath promised Heb. 10.23 nor can he fail or deny himself 2 Tim. 2.13 Yea he himself is our shield and our exceeding great reward Gen. 15.1 and indeed in enjoying God we enjoy all happiness and soul-satisfying Contentation wherefore it s not impertinently observed by the Hebrews that in the Essential Name of God ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã all the letters are Literââ¦e quiescentes Letters of Rest to denote and without God there can be no solid joy or quietness of Soul which will still be tossed in a kind of restless inconsistency till it do indeed terminate at last in him which made that man so much after Gods own heart as in a flame of servent zeal experimentally to put the question Psal 73.25 Whom have I in Heaven but thee and there is none upon earth that I desire besides thee The next particular that fals under my consideration is the time of donation when this Reward is to be actually conferred expressed to be in that day and at the Lords appearing These latter times into which the ends of the world are fallen abounding as men in old age with variety of phancies have given us occasion to enquire what day of the Lords appearance it is which is here meant whether it be the great and notable day of the last general Judgment or else of some other manifestation of the Lord Christ upon earth before that last day of all doth come There are some otherwise abundantly knowing whose wits have herein proved more wanton than their Judgment sollid whose apprehensions have led them to conjecture if not to believe an appearance of the Lord Christ personally in a way of raign and triumph to be manifested upon earth a thousand years before the last day of the General Judgment such in the Greek expression are called Chiliasts and by the Latines Millenaryes some have fetched the name and conceit so high as from Cerinthus a Blasphemous Heretick even in the dayes of the Apostles themselves who daringly avouching the Lord Christ to be no more than a meer man and born after the common way of humane generation which gave occasion to Saint John that soaring Eagle to write that his so sublime Gospel wherein in the very entrance of it He proves his Divine Nature He gave out that after the resurrection there should be in the great City Jerusalem an outward way of pomp and a kind of voluptuous indulgence to corporal vanities and delights during the terme of a thousand years which opinion he was thought to have sucked from the breasts of the Jewish Synagogue that people mistaking the nature and quality of Christs Kingdome thinking it to be after an external glory and not as it is indeed consisting within in the soul after a spiritual manner ruling and raigning over the spiritual part of man but this Blasphemer being exploded and cryed down by all the Primitively-Orthodox Fathers and Christians as the Histories of those Times inform us The next who most clearly speak of it or was indeed supposed the first who more directly vented the opinion was one Papias Bishop of Hieropolis as Eusebius acquaints us a man of a weak and slender judgement who if not utterly neglecting yet but slightly valuing the Authority of the Holy
Scriptures pretended for his conceit Apostolical Traditions and by reason of the venerable name of Antiquity it is not to be denyed but that some of the ancient Fathers received some tang of the same opinion from him as may be seen or collected of Justin Martyr and in the end of Trajans time Apollinarius Tertullian too much misled by Montane and Lactantius who were in part spiced with this Millenarisme so perilou a thing it proves to the Supine and out of a secure or careless disregard to suffer Humane Tradition to become a Diotrephes and to have the preheminence above the infallibity of the undoubted Scriptures which sacred and unerring written Word of God doth hold forth as of certaine credibility inspired by the Divine and first verity that can never deceive no such clear truth that the Lord Christ shall in Person before the General Resurrection come visibly and corporally upon the earth and as by a first resurrection cause all those who died in and for him to arise and with him in a peaceful tranquility and glory to reign and to beare sway over the wicked as Vassals for a thousand years which date of time being expired immediately shall ensue the General Resurrection and the day of the last Judgement No such evidential verity is demonstrated in Holy Writ as of Absolute Necessity to be believed unto salvation But whatsoever is alledged out of the propherick Scriptures for the stablishing of that opinion is to be understood either of the first coming of Christ in the flesh or of the state of the N.T. in general or else of the glorious estate of the Church triumphant to be expected hereaster in the eternal Kingdome for ever in Heaven as Gerard judiciously I have not time to alledge or you patience to hear on this occasion the several Texts cited by the Chiliasts or of the Orthodox many reverend and renowned Divines have eased us all of that labour let it suffice at the present to take notice from our Saviours own lips that his Kingdome is not of this world John 18.36 but within us Luke 17.21 and from Heaven and besides we find in our Creed which is founded on the Scriptures and may in every article thereof be proved by them we find I say in our Creed mention made but of two visible comings of Christ the first in Humility to suffer and to be judged the other at the end of the world but not before in the glory of his Father to judge the world both quick and dead in righteousness and unto them that look for him faith the great Apostle shall he appear the second time without sin that is without suffering any more as a sacrifice for sin unto salvation Heb. 8.28 Leaving then those Millenarian conjectures to such as abound with leisure rest we in the solid determination of Orthodox and stable judgements who resolve by the day and by the appearing here mentioned in this text to be meant the last great day of the general Judgement according to that Scripture Acts. 17.31 and the Lord Christ his second coming upon that day in glorious Majesty unto the judgment of all the world so that however those who labour in the Word and Doctrine meet often with so great discouragements that they seem to labour all in vain and spend their strength for nought as the Prophet speaks Isa 46.4 yet surely their Judgement is with the Lord and their work that is the reward of their work is with the Lord his goodness is laid up for them O how great Psal 31.19 In the mean time let it be our delight and contentment that we do our Masters work not as by constraint but willingly sith indeed such a vertuous service ever carryeth its own reward with it as being a thing to be desired and embraced for its own worth and certainly that sweet comfort and complacency that a righteous soul findeth in the sincere discharge of this duty within its proper station in conscience of God is infinitely more valuable than all the treasures the earth can afford without it only as the Husbandman we may not anticipate the season of the Harvest but we must wait and then in due time we shall reap if we fant not Gal. 6.9 Heb. 10.36.37 and when the reward actually cometh it being so large will abundantly recompence all our work yea end all our patience too sith the manner of it will be the more manifest and conspicuous before all in that great day when all of all sorts both great and small shall upon the general summons stand before the last Tribunal and then upon the appearance of the Chief Shepheard we shall raceive a Crown of Glory that fadeth not away 1 Pet. 5.4 Hereof S. Paul had a particular assurance in his own person when he faith Henceforth is laid up for me a Crown of Righteousness and if for him why may it not be also possible for others to be in like manner assured of the same especially provided that we are such as do love his appearing This question I confess is solid yet such as wanteth not its intricacies The Roman Catholicks in this controversie are wont to resolve thus that indeed for so great a Saint as S. Paul was this assurance might be possible yea was attained to by Revelation extraordinary by means of his sides privilegiata his special and priviledged faith which as an Apostle and a chosen vessel of honour he was endowed and adorned withall from Heaven for that God had a great service for him to do who was selected as it were to take up the Gauntlet in the quarrel of the Gospel against the manifold fierce and potent Adversaries of the same so that as I said in the beginning to steel his resolution with the greater courage he was fortifyed before-hand and armed with an extraordinary assurance of a glorious reward after his work and warfaring therein was over But now whether this assurance be possible for an ordinary Christian by the use of ordinary lawful means to attain is the next disquisition To which the resolution is affirmative the thing is possible though confessedly very difficult and this possiblity is both Certitudine Objecti and also Certitudine Subjecti both as it is sure in its self as it is determin'd by God and likewise in the particular evident and special experience of the same in the soul of a true believer and this is proved partly from those Scriptures which exhort unto a diligent endeavour after it 2 Pet. 1.10.2 Cor. 13.5 Now the nature of Evangelicall precepts and exhortations in a contradistinction to those of the Law is that they carry a spirit a secert energy vertue and power with them inabling through grace unto observation therefore the Gospel is called life and spirit 2 Cor. 3.6 and I can do all things
this experiment and cannot secure a corps from mouldering into it first matter Dust For proof hereof let us suppose first that which I may call an healthful corps viz. of one not weakned and wasted with a long lingering and languishing disease but of one cut off suddenly in the prime of his youth Secondly Suppose an Artist expert in his profession of Embalming no whit inferiour to them who made the last bed for the repose of King Asa's corps 2. Chron. 16.14 of sweet oders by the art of the Apothecary Thirdly allow him the most and best of spices not only a mixture of Myrrhe and alloes about an hundred pound weight the proportion assigned by Nicodemus for our Saviours body John 19.39 but as many as India and Arabia doth produce the Embalmer being stinted to no number but his own pleasure Lastly because moist Countries be accused to invite corruption let us lay the scene of this experiment in Egypt it self where the dryness of the clymates may contribute something to the affecting of the work The premises thus provided in matter and manner in kind and degree to the Chyrurgions full desire let him not begin his opperation and fall on working according to the rule of art Here I suppose he will with his instruments first take out the brains and bowels of both which conclamatum est it is granted on all sides that they cannot be preserved from putrefaction and juditious art will not adventure on a labour in vain Next I conceive he will curiously incorporate his spices into those vacuities and concavities out of which the brains and bowels those hags of corruptions were taken out Thirdly after the using of much art in order to his design he will build the body many stories high in perfumed Sear-cloaths Lastly he will deposite it in some dry place perchance where no earth shall touch it lest as ill company often solicite good natures to badness the corps may be tempted by contiguity to the earth the sooner to return to dust Now when all this is done all in effect is still undone as to the thing undertaken I deny not but that a corps may thus be preserved some hundreds or perhaps for some thousands of years And yet give me leave to say of such a body minima est pars sui ipsius there is the least of flesh and body in that flesh or body the matter thereof insensibly resolving into dust and that dust vanishing into nothing that doth appear so that the most of what remaineth is the substance of spice and flesh and that at last passeth to dust as its general matter Yea such prodigious cost of Embalming bestowed on bodies hath accedentally occasioned their speedier corruption Many a poor mans body hath slept quietly in his grave without any disturbance whilst the corps of some Egyptian Princes might justly complain with seeming Samuel to Saul 1 Sam. 28.15 Why hast thou disquieted me to bring me up their Fingers and Hands and Armes Toes Feet and Legs and Thighes and all their body tug'd and torne out of their tombs tumbled and tossed many hundred miles by Sea and Land bought and brought by Drugists for Mummy and buryed in the bellies of other men they it seems being canibals who feed on mans flesh for food though not for Phisick all which may seem a just judgment of God on the imoderate cost and curiosity in their embalming as if endeavouring thereby to defeat and frustrate Gods sentence and to consure the truth in my Text. Dust thou art and unto dust thou shalt return In a word as a loving child which is violently kept from his tender Mother will wait and watch his first and best opportunity to return to his Mother again So every mans body is a child of the Mother Earth and though the vigilant eye and powerful hand of art endeavoureth its utmost to detain this child from the arms of its Mother maugre all obstruction it will make its way unto her for dust thou art and unto dust thou shalt return First Use this teacheth us what to think of Popish Reliques their Priest pretending many of their Saints bodies to remain in their shrines at this day uncorrupted thus they fabulously report that the hand of Saints King Oswald Nullo verme perit nulla putredine tabet Dextra viri c. That no worm or putrifaction tainted his right hand which had been so abundantly bountiful to the poor If so he had far better success then he who was a better Kind and Saint even David himself Acts 13.36 Who after he had served his Generation was laid to his fathers and saw corruption But most of these Popish forgeries were discovered at the desolution and such bodies found as rotten as their superstition who adored them Second Use Seeing it is impossible to preserve our bodies from returning to dust let us labour to keep our souls from being turned to damnation Eccles 12.7 Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was and the Spirit shall return to God that gave it Wherein observe all Spirits both good and bad after death return to as to the Father of Spirits to do their homage unto him I say they all instantly return unto him from him alone to recerve new orders and instructions how and where he will have them for the future disposed of in an eternity of weal and woe God grant that our souls may so return to God as never to return from him but abide with him in endless happiness O consider the worth of your soul and value them accordingly Saint Matthew saith 16.26 What is a man profited if he shall gain the whole World and loose his own Soul But Saint Luke Chap. 9.25 hath it if he gain the whole World and loose himself His body is without him only an appendant and that seperable but his Soul is his very self loose that loose all There lived lately in the City of Exeter a person well known generally remitted by all a right religious man though in my mind more to be commended for his devotion then discretion his custome was to apply himself to strangers in all companies and sequestring persons by themselves demanded of them If you die at this instant what assurance have you of the eternal salvation of your Soul A question which hath posed many a great Scholar to give a good answer with truth and comfort thereunto I confess his Christianity was better then his civility in surprizing people with so sudden an Interrogatory However it is a question if not fit for him to ask of others fit for every man to demand of himself the Preacher in the Pulpit the People in their Pewes the Taveller on his Horse the decumbent in his bed every one at all times in all places Now it is not the least part of Gods mercy unto us that before our bodies after our deaths finally return to dust they even whilst we are living begin for to ungive and to
dispose themselves for their dusty dissolution David saith Psal 19.7 I will bless the Lord who hath given me warning my reins also instruct me in the night season He speaketh this in relation to his mortality it following soon after my flesh also shall rest in hope God gave David warning that death should not surprize him of his mortal condition his reins that is some inward wastings and secret weakness of nature minded him that he must return to his first original God in like manner gives us warning and may we have wisdome to take it some years before our eye-strings break our eyes are blind as to small prints our ears deaf as to love sounds evident monitors that our bodies are ungiving to return to dust God of his goodness sanctifie unto us all decayes in nature that they may effectually mind us of our mortality it is said of Sampson when his hair was cut off Jud. 1.6.20 He awoke out of his sleep said I will go out as at other times before and shake my self but he quickly found the case was altered with him Thus we in our declining age think to rise as early go as late run as fast travel as far do all things as actively as twenty years ago when we were young but it will not be age hath clipt our strength God make us sensible thereof that we may remember our end and apply our hearts unto wisdome AMEN THE PATRIARCHAL FUNERAL GEN. L. 10. And he made a mourning for his Father seven dayes THere are two great names concealed in this Text but express'd by the Prophet David in a peculiar and eminent manner Thou hast with thine arm redeemed thy people the Sons of Jacob and Joseph Great was the name of Abraham but all his Sons were not accepted only Isaac was in the Cevenant Great was the name of Isaac but his Son Esau was rejected Great then must the name of Jacob be who had twelve Sons and all accepted The whole people of God descended from him and were called Israelites and the Sons of Jacob as his by generation from his loins One of these twelve was Joseph and the rest did equally descend from him and might be called his Sons by preservation from his care and power Howsoever he is exempted from the number of his Brethren and that he might be styl'd a Father two Sons of his are numbred with his Fathers Sons and ranked with the Patriarchs Thus were all the people of God the Sons of Jacob and Joseph and Joseph while the Son of Jacob the Father of the Sons of Jacob. These are the two concealed in the Text Jacob the Father and that Father dead Joseph the Son and that a mourning Son for he made a mourning for his Father seven dayes These words contain a brief relation of a Patriarchal Funeral in which two general parts are presented to our view The Solemnization of the Obsequies and The Continuation of the Solemnities In the description of the Solemnization there are four particulars observable The Connexion The Person The Action The Occasion The Connexion in the conjunctive particle And the Person understood in the following pronoun He the Action represented what He that is Joseph did he made a mourning The Occasion expressed for whom he mourned for his Father The Connexion of the Text is double in reference to the Person and in relation to the Action The Connexion of the Person And he the Connexion of the Action with the precedent actions of that person And he made a mourning I shall begin with the Connexion of the Person and in my whole discourse exactly prosecute the method of the Text. When aged Jacob yeelded up the Ghost and was gathered unto his people the Physitians embalmed Israel and the Egyptians mourned for him threescore and ten dayes They were not as yet the apparent enemies of God they had their tears for Jacob who afterward would have drowned all his Sons they preserved and prolonged the dayes of his life and when those were cut off they continued the dayes of his weeping But there is a difference between a formal and a real sorrow between a solemn and a serious grief between a popular and a filial sadness Wherefore Joseph is not contented with the Egyptian mourning he hath a nearer relation then those strangers had and therefore more of affection is expected from him his filial sympathy must go beyond their accustomed civility the Egyptians mournned and he made a mourning for his Father This is the Connexion in respect of the Person that of the action followeth When Jacob was near the time of his dissolution Joseph put his hand under his thigh and sware unto him that he would deal kindly and truly with him that he would bury him in the burying place of his Fathers When he gathered up his feet into the bed and dyed Joseph fell on his Fathers face and wept upon him and kissed him and so paid the first fruits of a Funeral with his eyes and with his lips After this be commanded the Physitians to follow with Spices and embalm him desirous to preserve that body to the utmost possibility from corruption from which he had received his generation Then he entreated and obtained leave of Pharaoh to perform his Oath which he sware unto Jacob he went up to the Land of Canaan to take possession with his Fathers body and laid him in the field which Abraham bought There they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife there they buried I saac and Rebekah his wife there Jacob buried Leah and there Joseph buried Jacob. And having thus fulfilled all the duties belonging to a Son there remaining but this one fitter to be performed then required he made a mourning for his Father This is the Connexion of the Action The Person or chief mourner then is Joseph he which once was dead in the thoughts of Jacob and desires of his brethren survives his Father to attend his Funeral and to preserve his Brethren alive His coming into Egypt cost aged Jacob many a tear and he must pass into Canaan to demonstrate his gratitude and pay that debt unto his Father there This eminent Person is proposed for an example unto all ages of the world what he here performed was no legal Ceremony he was a Patriarch and long before the Law he was a singular and signal type of Christ and hath done nothing which may misbecome the most retired and sublimed Christian And this will readily appear if we joyn the Action to the Person He made a mourning I call 't an Action which may as well be term'd a Passion as a mourning so a Passion as he made it so an Action a passionate Action or an active passion The internal grief of his mind and sorrow of his heart as an inward passion of his Soul was voluntarily rais'd within him by resolved and continued thoughts of his Fathers death and at the same time the expression of