habitations The Lord could take your souls from you before ye depart this place if ye depart in safetie before ye come into your houses or before you goe to bed or before you rise in the morning but if you injoy to day and to morrow and the next day despise not the riches of his bountifulnesse and patience and long suffering knowing that his bountifulness leadeth you to repentance Be not like to the wicked Iob 21. which take the Tabret and Harpe and rejoyce at the sound of the Organs and spend their dayes in wea'th and then suddenly goe down into the Grave Nor like those in Eccles 9. 12. which do not know their time but like fishes which are taken in an evill net and like birds that are caught in a snare so they are snared in the evill time which falleth upon them suddenly nor like the evill servant in the Gospel which saith in his heart my Master doth deferre his coming and begins to smite his fellow-Servants and to eat and to drink with the drunken lest death come upon you in a day when ye look not for it and in an houre that you are not aware of and cut you off and ye receive your portion with Hypocrites in the Lake that burneth with fire and brimstone where shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth Blessed is that man whom the Lord when he cals him from hence shall find waking but woe yea thrice woe be to that man whom the Lord when he cometh shall find sleeping verily I say unto you it had been good for that man if he had never been borne wherefore once again I say use this golden opportunitie to the honour of your God redeem the time because the dayes are few not for a day but even all your dayes which is the fourth note and which I can but touch let it be your care not how you may be rich in this world but how you may be rich unto God not rich in goods but in goodnesse let your chief study in this life be how he may be saved in the life to come Alas it was but a cold comfort to Adrian the Emperour when he was readie to dye to jest with his soul doubting what should become of it Animula vagula blandula hospes comesque corporis quae nunc abibis in loca Pallidula rigida nidula nec ut soles dabis jocos What speeches but this or worse then this can any expect will proceed from you in your sicknesse when you are ready to leave the world if in your health you have not studied to make your election sure if in your life ye offer to God nothing but dregs there is little hope you will set forth good wine at the houre of your death late repentance is oftentimes counterfeit never so accepted with God we must blossom in the spring if wee will bring forth fruit in harvest it is no commendation to offer to the world and Satan the flower of our youth and sacrifice to God the withered stubble of old age to turn to God when we can scarce turn our selves in our beds and to leave this world when it is ready to take a farewell of us wherefore have your loynes still girded about and your lights still burning and you your selves waiting and expecting nay desiring not only for that time when your souls and bodies shall be separated but much more for that great day when they shall again be united and conjoyned let these and the like be each of your meditations and prayers How long Lord how long holy and true as the heart desireth the water brook so longeth my soul after thee O God my soul is a thirst for God even for the living God when shall I come to appeare before the presence of God into thy hands I commend my spirit for thou hast redeemed me O Lord God of truth yea thou art my helper and my redeemer O my God make no long tarrying but come Lord Jesus come quickly The 5th and last thing which was observed out of these words was this That death to the Children of God is but a change to a better and more blessed state for so with Mercer and other learned Divines I take the meaning of the words to be when it is said my changing and not to be meant of the resurrection as some would have it Death is the wages of sinne saith the Apostle Rom. 6. 23. not only a temporarie death which is a separation of the body from the soul but an eternall death which is a separation both of bodie and soule from God for so it was told our Grand-father before he tasted the fruit of the forbidden tree whensoever thou shalt eate thereof thou shalt dye the death seconded after the fact with this iudiciall sentence dust thou art and unto dust thou shalt returne Gen 3. and so by the transgression of one death reigned over all unto condemnation Rom. 6. 14. But behold the abundant Ocean of the riches of the mercie and bountifullness of our God who by the balme of Christs blood hath so tempered this popson that like Treacle which is made of venemous wormes it becomes a preservative against poyson and hath broken the teeth of this Lyon that we may say with the Prophet the Lyon and the Lamb may dwell together hath taken the sting from this Scorpion that we may even now in some sense say O death where is thy sting thus by the grace of God the punishment of sin is to us turned to a freedom from sin it was said to our first Parents saith Austin thou shalt dye if thou sinne now it is said to a Martyr dye lest thou sinne then it was said if thou transgresse the commandement thou shalt dye the death now it is said if ye refuse to dye ye transgresse the commandement that which then was to be feared that they should not sin is now to be undergon lest they sin then death was gotten by sinning now justice is fulfilled by dying Behold the great difference of death in the godly and the wicked to the wicked it hath the same force which before it had to the godly it is like a sleep which resteththeir bodies and makes them more lively then before to the ungodly it brings a taile or sting with it and that is condemnation to the godly it is as it were a Bee without a sting to the godly it is terminus a quo of miserie and vexation to the wicked it is the beginning of sorrow and damnation to the ungodly it is Sathans Cart to carry them to Hell to the righteous it is like Elisha's fierie Chariot to mount them to Heaven to the wicked it is Sathans Serjeant to carrie them to Tophet which is prepared for them to the godly it is the Lords Messenger to remove them to their expected home let then the ungodly feare and tremble when they heare of death and let them
winnow it and shall blow the chaffe and scatter it away from the face of the earth The reasons hereof first respect the wicked and that is to make them more inexcusable in that conversing with the godly they do not learne godliness but as those which walk in the sunne though they change their outward colour yet they still retaine their inward nature so these though they receive an outward tincture of godlinesse yet they still keepe their inward corruption Hereupon it is that Corazin and Bethsaida are more inexcusable then Tyrus and Sidon that the men of Nineve and the Queen of the South shall rise against the Jewes and shall condemne them that it shall be better for them of Sodome in the day of judgement then for Capernaum 2. The Lord by this meanes effecteth the conversion of some which are not yet called For as the Aramits by walking with the Prophet were at unawares brought unto Samaria so many who are not as yet called by walking with the righteous are catched at unawares and brought to Christs sheepfold 3. The Lord doth hereby exercise his children and keeps them still fighting wheras otherwise they would be ready to fall asleepe in the cradle of carnall securitie The coldness of devotion that is in the worldlings doth by an Antiperistasis oftentimes stirre up the heate of zeale in Gods Children While the winds strives to blow out the fire it increaseth the flame and while the wicked doe indeavour to consume the heate of zeale in Gods Children and to make them as cold as they themselves are they often blow it up and make it farre greater then it was before I told you before what Tully saith of Muraena that his chastity was more seene in living among the effeminate Asians then ever it was at Rome And I am sure Lots continencie did farre more appeare when he lived amongst the Sodomites then when he was in the mountaine with his two daughters If Gods Children should have none but such as Moses and Elias to converse with them they would say as Peter did unto Christ when he was transfigured upon the mountain Master it is good for us to be here let us here upon this mountain build us Tabernacles They would never say with the Psalmist Lord who shal dwel in thy tabernacle and who shall rest upon thy mountain Whereas now being vexed with these Cananites that dwell amongst them and are thorns in their sides and pricks in their eyes they are wearie of the earthly Canaan and long for another which floweth with better things then milk and honie They cry out as Rebeccae when she felt the two twinnes strugling in her wombe if it be so why are we thus 12. To leave then the conclusion and to come to some application thereof Are the wicked intermixed with true and zealous professors What shall wee then say to the old Donatists and the Brownists and Anabaptists which separate themselves from the true Church and say with those in the Prophet Come not near us for wee are holier then ye Methinks I may say unto them as Constantine said to Acesius a Novation Bishop Let them make a Ladder for themselves to ascend into heaven here is no place for them on earth as long as this world shall last the Lords wheat shal grow up with the tares Christ hath spoken it and Christ is truth if there be in them any charitie they will assent to this veritie yea but light hath no communion with darknesse nor bitternesse with honie nor life with death nor the unbeleever with the infidell It is the objection of Petilian the Donatist against Austin But his answer is that when they eschew the darknesse they forsake the light when they flee from death they flee from life also Attendis Zizania per mundum triticum non attendis cum per totum utraque sint jussa crescere Attendis semen maligni quod ad finem messis separabitur non attendis semen Abrahae in quo benedicentur omnes gentes Dost thou marke the darnell and dost thou not remember the wheat Dost thou thinke upon the seed of the Serpent whose head shall be crushed and dost thou not thinke upon the the seed of Abraham in whom all the Nations of the earth shall bee blessd when thou fleest from the chaffe thou forsakest the good wheat which is mingled with it When thou separatest thy selfe from the seed of the wicked thou separatest thy selfe from the seed of Abraham When thou thus dividest thy selfe from the Hypocrites that are in the true Church thou cuttest thy self from the Church and a member taken from the whole must needs perish If thou wilt thinke upon this with that heedfulnesse that thou shouldst thou wilt not forsake the greene pastures of the Lord that are besides the waters of comfort because of the goats nor leave Gods house because of the vessels of dishonour nor runne out of the Lords floore because of the chaffe nor separate thy selfe from the wheat because of the tares which shall at length be bound in a bundle and cast into the fire nor burst the unitie of the Lords net because of the bad fish which swimme in it which when the net is brought to land shall be cast away but as a father speakes tolerare potius propter bonos commixtionem malorum quam violare propter malos charitatem bonorum rather for the good to tolerate the bad then for the bad to forsake the good But before I leave this point I must give thee this lesson and I beseech thee marke it well though of necessity thou must live amongst the ungodly yet thou must not walke in the counsell of the ungodly much lesse standing stand in the way of sinners and least of all sit downe in the seate of the scornfull Though thou dwell among Wolves thou must not ululare cum lupis howl with the wolves though thou accompany with the fornicators of this world and with the coveteous and with extortioners and with idolaters for else thou must goe out of this world yet be not partaker with them in their sinnes least thou be partaker with them in their punishments Though a corporall separation cannot be had yet in spirit thou must separate thy selfe for let every one that calleth on the name of the Lord separate himselfe from iniquity Thou seest what is thy lot if not with Lot to dwell with Sodomites or with Naaman to be amongst the Aramites or with Joseph to live among the Aegyptians if thou canst not say with David Woe is me that I am constrained to dwell in Meshech and to have my abode in the Tents of Kedar Yet mayest thou say with Esay Woe is me for I dwell in the midst of a people of polluted lips With Christ and his Apostles thou must converse with a Judas with the Hebrews thou
the threatnings of the law would not mollifie his stony heart When the High Priests and Elders send Officers to apprehend Christ Judas goes with them as their captain and brings them to the place where Jesus was and though the barbarous Souldiers and pittilesse Officers and cruel servants were so appaled and daunted with his speech that when he told them that he was the man whom they sought they were so farre from apprehending him that presently they started back veluti qui sentibus anguem pressit humi nitens as a man doth when he treads upon a snake and were beaten down with the breath of his mouth For the text saith they went backward and fell to the ground John 18. 6. and moreover were struck into such amazement and astonishment of heart that when Peter drew his sword and smote off one of their eares they scarce or as it is probable not at all observed it For when they were come into the High Priests hall and Peter amongst them though they could say this is one of them and sayth his speech betrayeth him yet none could say this is he that cut off Malchus his eare yet all this wind shakes not Judas Is seu dura silex stat vel Marpesia cautes all the thunderbolts of the law will not make a breach in his flinty heart whereby repentance might enter in For all this when hee heares that Christ is condemned then he begins to repent The conscience is of marvellous great force saith the heathen Oratour and that two wayes for those that have done well are not afraid poenam ante oculos semper versari putant qui peccaverunt and those which have done amisse think that God is alwayes shaking his rod over them The righteous is bold as a Lyon his conscience hath passed upon him and found him not guilty but the wicked flieth when none pursueth his own guilty conscience hath condemned him He may perhaps be hid from the eyes of men but he can never assure himselfe that he cannot be catched as Epicurus in Seneca speaketh Suppose his sinne be hid from the eyes of men let him think that the Angels that are about him do not take the least notice of it let him imagine that he hath drawn a curtain before the eyes of God so that he cannot behold it let him say with those Epicures in the Psalmist tush God doth not regard it there is no knowledge in the most highest He hideth away his face and he will never see it yet there is one within him that noteth it in the table of his heart as it were with a pen of iron and with the point of a diamond it is a witnesse to accuse him a bayliffe to arrest him a prison to contain him a jury to convince him a judge to condemn him an hangman to kill and torment him The Poets fable of Prometheus that he was tied to the mountain Caucasus and had an Eagle still gnawing upon his heart for offending Jupiter me thinks it is a fit embleme of a sinner who for offending his God is as it were tied to a stake and hath the worme of conscience as a hungrie eagle still gnawing upon his heart Plutarch compares it to a boyle or impostume in the flesh For as a boyle pricketh and eateth the flesh so doth a sinners conscience his mind Now as those that have cold or hot agues within them are more troubled then when they are made cold without by the frost or heated by the beams of the sunne So those grievances which happen by some external cause are farre easier then this inward sting of conscience and therefore saith he a mind void of sin were more to be wished for then houses then lands then dignities then riches then any thing which this greedy world doth so much gape after The saying of Diogenes is notable for this purpose who seeing his host in Sparta making great provision for a feast what needeth all this said he for an honest man hath a feast every day meaning that an honest man hath a good conscience and a good conscience is a continual feast Prov. 15. 13. Those that were to be crucified amongst the old Romanes did beare the Crosse upon which they were to suffer So the wicked do carrie with them the crosse of a guilty conscience which though for a little they may lay it down yet can they never cast it from them till they come to the place of execution indeed they willmake a goodly shew outwardly as though nothing did trouble them within they laugh they jest they quaffe they play but all this is but from the teeth outward they are like theeves saith one in aprison which are condemned to death who will sometimes play at dice or cards to put out of their mindes the cogitation of their future execution but all in vaine for haeret lateri laethalis arundo It is so rooted in their hearts that no spunge of oblivion can wipe it out they are in Damocles his case they see Gods sword of vengeance still hanging over their heads readie to fall upon them and to hewe them in pieces that deep wise man saith Tacitus said not without cause that if Tyrants hearts and what he spake of Tyrants is true of all such as sinne with a high hand were laid open a man should see them torne and rent asunder for as the body is torne with stripes so their minds are rent with the sting of conscience for their cruelties their lasciviousnesse their oppression and such other sinnes as they have committed for the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the conscience of a sinner doth whip and scourge his soule therefore saith the Poet Turpe quid ausurus te sine teste time When thou art about to doe any unlawfull act feare thy selfe though thou want a witnesse for thou art not alone Nocte dieque tuum gestas in pectore testem Thou carriest a witnesse withthee thy bosome and that is thy conscience which is as good as a thousand witnesses wretched and desperate is thy case if thou make not account of this witness 3. Examples will make this point plaine begin with the first man that ever sinned and the first sinne that ever he committed Our great Grandfather Adam had no sooner transgressed Gods commandement by eating of the forbidden tree but presently his conscience accused him and made him ashamed for when he heard the voice of God walking in the garden in the coole of the day he hid himselfe from the presence of the Lord among the the trees of the garden Why was Adam so afraid of Gods presence had he not been with him before He had made him he had made a helper for him he had made him Lord over the whole world and put all things in subjection under his feet all Sheep and Oxen yea and all the Beasts of the feild the fowles of the aire and the fishes of the seas and therefore a man would thinke that
and their knees to smite one against another But to leave these and to make an end of this point Seeing that sinne is such a burden unto our consciences let us take head that we do not load them too much if we were fully perswaded that such and such meats would cause an ague we would willingly abstain from them Now sinne causeth a greater sicknesse unto our soules then is an ague unto our bodies viz a troubled conscience and a wounded spirit who can bear how then dare wee commit it when Rebecca felt the strugling of Esau and Jacob in her wombe she wished she had been barren and said if it be so why am I thus Sinne may be pleasant in getting but it is bitter in bearing better we were barren then feel the pains and throwes before we be delivered of it And if it be so why are we thus Turpius ejicitur quam non admittitur alter Better to give this guest no entertainment at all then discredit our selves with God for harbouring it Therefore before thou do any thing consider with thy selfe whether it be a sinne or no examine it by the law of God if it be a sinne see thou do it not lest afterward thou feel the pain when it shall come into thy bowels like water and like oyle into thy bones When the remembrance of it shall burn within thee like fire and gnaw like a worm upon thy heart perchance thy conscience is so heardned that thou canst not feel nor call to remembrance thy sinnes which if it be so miserable and wretched art thou for without a feeling of sinne and repentance for the same there is no remission to be expectedyet there will a day come when God knowes but certainly it will come when thou shalt find them to be heavier then lead upon thine heart When thy master shall call thee to a reckoning and the day of thy departing cometh then will the book of thy conscience be laid open and thou shalt read such a Catalogue of thy sinnes therein that even then thou sha't plainiy perceive the never dying worm to gnaw upon thy soule and the unquenchable fire to beginne to burn within thee unlesse the Lord in merey shall give thee grace to repent that so thou mayest be saved therefore strive alwayes to hav a good conscience and if thou wilt be carefull that thine eye because it is the most tender and precious part of thy body be not troubled with the least mote Be much more careful of thy conscience the eye of thy soul that it be not troubled with beams of great and horrible sinnes Wilt thou never be sad live well this is the best means to gain the joy and peace of conscience Happy is that man who when his fatal hour approacheth can say with Paul I have in all good conscience served God until this day Verily this will more availe him then if he should conquer the whole world and have all the Monarchs of the earth to cast down their scepters before his footstoole Thus much of the first point his condemnation I proceed to the second his mortification or imperfect repentance He repented himself c. THis repentance was an extreme grief of heart arising from the curses of the law and apprehension of Gods wrath which as it was in Judas so was it in Pharaoh and Ahab and the Ninevites and many of the heathen Orestes and Nero when they had killed their Mothers were exceedingly troubled and wished to be clensed and Hercules in the Tragedy when he had kill'd his wife and children runnes up and down like a madman and cries out that if the whole sea should runne through his hands it would not wash him from that bloudy fact So that this is no part of true mortification yet it is a preparative thereunto The wheat must be threshed with the flayle before it be fanned from the chaffe with the wind and a natural man must be as it were threshed with the terrours of the law before he be fanned from his corruptions with the wind of the Spirit In natural mutations before a substantial forme be corrupted andan other educed è potentiâ materiae certain alterations or previal dispositions are required as necessary for hastning of this change So in a Supernatural mutation when a sonne of wrath is to be made a sonne of God the terrours of the law are required as necessary precedents for hastning this change The law like the shoomakers elson pricks the heart legal sorrowes and fears like the bristle come after and true mortification like the thread comes in the last place Take the elson and the bristle from the shoomaker and he cannot use his thread take legal sorrow and compunction of heart from a natural man and he cannot be brought to true repentance So that Judas goes well thus farre he goes yet further he makes confession of his fault first in general I have sinned then in particular I have been a traytour I have betrayed and which is worst of all I have betrayed the innocent blood If Judas this repentance notwithstanding be damned to hell merciful God what shall become of thousands amongst us which go under the name of Christians and come short of Judas in repentance They are seldome touched with any sorrow for their sinnes but say they be surely not half of that sorrow that Judas was in admit they be come they to the next step do they make confession admit this too come they to a third do they make satisfaction doth the sacrilegious Church-robber bring back again that which he hath wrongfully taken from the sonnes of Levi and say I have sinned doth the bloud-sucking Usurer restore that which he hath wrongfully taken from the poor by sundry practises of covetousnesse and say I have sinned is there any who after that he hath done wrong is sorry for it and confesses his fault and is ready to make amends and say thus and thus have I done thus and thus have I sinned all these are necessary to salvation but these are not all that are necessary to salvation We must go thus farre with Judas but we must not here stay with Iudas Iudas by stepping a foot short got a break-neck fall and is tumbled into the pit of hell We must go a step further and fasten our feet upon the corner stone by a true and saving faith and then our sinnes be they never so many never so grievous shal not bring us to condemnation but though they be as Crimson they shall be made white as snow though they be red like scarlet they shall be as wool We read in the Gospel of 3 whom our Saviour rased from death to life the first was Iairus his daughter she was dead in the house and Christ raised her in the house The second was the widowes sonne of Naein he was dead in the way they were carrying him to the place of burial and Christ raised him in