his Lungs spent his Breath macerated his boâ—y beating his brains and eating his bread in a worse â—â—eat than that of his brows breaking his sleep burning as in a Feaver of Zeal for God's Honour and the Gospels furtherance and bringing in of stubborn and gainsaying Sinners to Christ weeping in secret and vexing his righteous soul for the evil conversations and froward dispositions of men surely such a one may sadly yet safely say I die daily Or yet again is it Paul the chosen Vessel once a notorious Persecutor now an eminent Saint once a Blasphemer a cruel blood-sucker under whose Tyrannous Agitations many died daily Martyrs for the Truth of Christ once mad against the Church with too much zeal again reputed mad with too much Learning sometimes a Boanerges in his thundering Comminations then a Barnabas in his Consolatory Rhetorick such an one as hath experienced all the methods of the Christian Calling and the perils and persecutions attending that envied Cause such a one as had been in the Deeps by Soul-affliction 1 Cor. 12.2 and in the heights of the third Heaven by Rapture and Revelation one who might glory to the utmost even to the degree of his Apostolate or Saintship as to his excellency in Labours Faculties Gifts or Graces This is he who affirms of himself I even I die daily Now if we find him in this mortified posture considering his Eminency which might be so far doubted as that it put this holy man upon his Oath to attest it sans dispute he may be believed he died daily in his meaner and more ordinary capacities if he was so busie about dying as an Apostle we conclude him so too as a Tent-maker If he died daily as a Saint as the chief of Sinners much more It is enough to ground a President in the case and to render it an acquirable faculty and to determine it the Epitome or Brief of Practical Christianity To die daily But is not this Durus Sermo may we not with Nicodemus in such a case 〈◊〉 60. â— say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 How can these things be Can a man die whiles he lives Such sayings are Spirit not Letter Mystery not Demonstration This is a kind of dying which consists in Action not in Cessation in labouring not in rest from Labours Such as in Jacob's expression Gen. 48.21 Behold I die yet he had much to do and 't is the story of another Chapter before he gave up the Ghost noting there is a way of dying for good men before they expire To die in the Text may have a five-fold sense 1. To be in continual jeopardy of death in the foregoing Verse for we are subjected to death every moment by sentence on Adam's sin vers 22. we are under the statute of Mortality in our best and most vigorous strength and sufficiency whiles our Breasts are full of Milk and our Bones full of Marrow we have the sentence of death in our selves and through fear of death Job 21.24 are all our life time subject to bondage we live but as condemn'd persons under reprieve and life being but a span every Inch and Barley-breadth of time is but a respite of the divine patience protracting the Date for our better perfecting our Duty we are sure we carry deaths enough within us as to give our Bodies themselves the denomination of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as being incident to deaths stroke as open to deaths sting every moment Nor youth nor strength Rom â— 24 nor wisdom nor wealth nor power nor parts nor sufficiency nor sanctity can exempt nor prevent nor redeem from it And in weakness sickness and old age we are so under the sentence as we are not far from the season of death Thus because of the daily Incidencies it is prudential and pious to reckon upon the daily event And if the Heathens defined life to be continua mortis contemplatio the continual meditation of Death Christians with S. Paul should turn it into diurna expectatio a daily â—â—ing expectation and that 's one sense of the Text. 2. I die imports the vicinity of death Gen. 50.24 Jos ph said I die i. e. I must shortly go hence So Joshua This day I go the way of all the earth Josh 22 â—â— He reckoned his death for that day which happened not long after So Job computes to day Job 16.22 When a few years come I shall go to the place from whence I shall not return Our years which are the largest measure of man's time are but few by Moses his cast Psal 90.10 yet he makes days the Dividend though seventy years be the Quotient of man's life And David reckons by days noting that the longest life is but a day of life the Morning of Youth and Noon of Strength Job 9.25 Job 7.1 and Night of Age. Lord how swift is the revolution As a Post or the swift Ships as the day of an Hireling This holy David thus expresseth I am afflicted and ready to die from my youth Psal 88.15 3. I die is as much as to say I am willing to die It is my indifferency as to the time or manner or place but if it were left to my choice I would desire to be dissolved that I might be with Christ The present Tense is rendred in the Optative Mood In matters of Faith by faith things hoped for are made present Heb. 14.1 and become the matter of Prayer and Option A good Christian is a Voluntier for the Grave Phil. 1.23 'T was S. Paul's choice and Simeon's Prayer Luke 2.29 Having Christ in his Arms who had been so long in his hopes the old Expectant thought it a burden to live longer our Apostle always longing to go hence and seeming long first that which is so much in his expectation is frequent in his Option and that which is so much in option is in daily action and such actions as have a direct tendency to fruition Death naturally considered cannot be the object of Election because it is enmity to nature and no man rationally desires his own dissolution nor death penally considered cannot be the object of man's choice but as the dying Jesus hath unstung it and conquered its Malignity and destroyed him that had the power of death and consecrated Interitum into transitum a passage from earth to Heaven and Introitum the dark Entry to the Mansions of Bliss so to die bodily is a desireable benefit and Grace turns its necessity into election and brings inevitable destination into daily exercise We look for death and so with submission to God's will we long for it not only as a cessation from sufferings and sin and sorrows but as our Translation to eternal life our Convoy to Christ our Change our Removal and we daily labour and give all diligence to be found of Christ Jesus in peace And Job 14.14 all the days of our appointed time we wait till our change come 4.
I die imports the Apostles fitness for death Then is a Christian fit to die when he is furnished for a better life and daily practice breeds promptitude and the exercise of dying is a tuning and timeing us for the dying day that we may be made meet to be partakers of the eternal Inheritance It is with Christians as with tender and precious Fruits they are daily upon some incremental change till they come to be mature and mellow and fit for use and then they are every day falling to the earth as ready for the owners hand In Job 5.26 ye have an allusion to this in that Parabolical Speech of Eliphaz to Job Thou shalt come to thy grave in a full age as a shock of corn cometh in in its season This was a promise of Honour and Comfort in death As a shock of corn in its season notes a readiness and ripeness for that season Thou shalt come notes a willingness and chearfulness in dying In season notes the ripeness and fitness for death Now that the allusion may fully bear our Apostle helps us to the apprehension of it in the thirty sixth Verse of this fifteenth Chapter to the Corinthians he increpates the dullness of ignorant Atheists about the Resurrection Thou fool that which thou sowest is not quickened except it die Dying is in order to quickening and Growth until the Corn come to a full Grain in the Ear and be ripe for Harvest and the Ears are bound 〈◊〉 in the Sheaves and the Sheaves gathered into the Shock and the Shocks into the Barn And in this sense though a Child of God die in his Youth in the Flower and Spring of his days yet his death is as the Harvest Season to his hopes and the gathering of his Soul to God and his Body to his Fathers though in his natural capacity he be cut down whiles he is green and cropt in the Bud or Blossom yet in his spiritual capacity he never dies till he come to ripeness God ripens his Servants speedily when he intends to take them out of the world speedily he can and doth let out such warm Rays of his Spirit upon them as shall soon maturate the Seeds of Grace into a preparedness for Glory This is S. Paid's and every good Christian's profession so to live as to be daily ready for death 't was holy Job's cast of his state Job 17.1 My breath is corrupt my days are extinct the Graves are ready for me And I am ready for the Grave I am undressing my self daily to lie down in dust and sleep in death there is nothing now for me to think of I lay all aside and attend this business alone and 't is a business indeed of great necessity and no small difficulty daily to cast upon it and contrive how I may lie down in peace and rest in death I have fought a good fight I have finished my course I have done my work 2 Tim. 4.7 and am going to my Bed I have nothing to do but to die and this is my daily care to sequester my Soul from this world as one that hath life and portion and Inheritance in a better I die daily Lastly And so daily dying notes a continual Exercise of Mortification for in the Christian Dialect and Scriptural Style to die daily is a spiritual sanctified Habit made up of many Acts and quotidian Exercises of suppressing and destroying the old man and the whole body of Sin and this is meant in those Scriptures which speak of putting off the old man Eph. 4.12 â— Cor. 9. â—â— beating down the body and keeping it in subjection the Spring of Grace is a living Fountain always cleansing away the dead Sediments of Dirt aâ— Mire The expression of the Holy Ghost about this 〈◊〉 worthy of our serious consideration Rom. 6.6 Known that our old man is crucified with him Christ that the bâ— of sin might be destroyed that henceforth we should not sâ—◠〈◊〉 For he that is dead is freed from sin Lo here 〈◊〉 Appellation and its execution the old man partly in respect of Antiquity as old as the eldest of men partly in respect of the Renovation 1 Thess 5.23 which is universal of the whole man Body and Soul Then 't is called the body of Sin partly because mans corrupt nature Coloss 3.5 like a body or stock brancheth forth into divers actual enormities as so many Members partly because of its strength and for that men are as much naturally in love of their Sins as of their Limbs and are as impatient of Amputation But if ye take notice of Sins execution This old man is crucified Crucifixion is made up of many deliberate Acts and these bring on exquisite Torments and the Torments cause successive decays every hour so doth Sin by this crucifying Discipline grow weaker and weaker and nearer to its Grave and utter Abolition Regenerative Acts give Sin many wounds though as those that are crucified it dieth lingringly yet it dieth certainly Sin in the mortifying Mystery like a man in a Consumption is always wasting and dying till at last it is quite dead and the dying day of the Regenerate is the utmost date of Sins being Thus if as long as we live we give Sin a daily wound it may sprawl and move for a time but afterwards giveth up the Ghost For while Saints live though Sin be mortally wounded as the creature that hath lost its sting it may rage and stir but it abateth in strength and malignity and dieth with them In Psalm 88.4 Heman complains Thus My soul is full of troubles and my life draweth nigh to the grave I am accounted with them that go down into the pit I am as a man of no strength free among the dead The surest Interpretation of that sweet Singers Style and State is That he was much exercised in this sin mortifying austerity he was a great Proficient in it as we say of one that hath served a rigid Apprentiship he is his Crafts-Master he hath got the knack of it he is a Freeman at the Occupation And in this sense death is not to be looked on as a Saints expiration but as an accumulative Mystery and an high Improvement in the Faculty of Sin-slaying And some Ancients have been rare at it and some skillful Christians still are as well versed in it and they know how to encounter with Soul-Enemies as tryed Champions having been long conversant in the Artillery and Fencing-School of Christ as that they have been able to teach it by certain Rules and Rudiments and so it is one of the Gospel-Mysteries in which by frequent exercise we may grow Graduates and S. Paul had it seems commenced Doctor in it even in this rare Accomplishment of Dying Daily So then we are resolved upon the Question what this kind of Dying is It is not a natural dying consisting of many gradual Tendencies unto the Dissolution of this our mortal Body though
in this sense every living person is daily dying Nor a providential Dying which consists in the daily vicissitudes of Crosses Tryals and Discomforts though this is the portion of every living Saint and is in part the assertion of our Apostle concerning himself but a spiritual and practical Dying consisting in the frequent and renewed exercise of mortifying Duties as Repenting Self-denying Self-judging self-humbling dying unto Sin mortifying our Members crucifying our Flesh subduing our Lusts being crucified to the world beating down our Bodies and bringing them into subjection subjugating our wills captivating our understandings submitting our reason to the righteousness of God governing our passions devoting our lives for the testimony of our Lord Jesus Christ and if need be and God so order to die for our Lord and so to live as to die in our Lord and so to die as to die unto our Lord that whether we live or die we may be the Lords These and many more such like are but the several Rules and methods and quotidian Exercises through which good Christians must pass before they come to the degree of Masters in this Gospel-Art To this S. Paul had eminently attained so as it fell into his daily practice I die daily Which brings me to the third part of my Text. The Diuturnity of the Apostles Practise 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 notes the Frequency Assiduity Succession and uncessancy of Action And with reference to what is done supposeth time of life to do it in To day Joh. 9.4 Eccles 9.10 whiles it is called to day for the day of life is the working day 't was so with Christ in our flesh and the Church-man Solomon tells us There is no work nor device nor knowledge nor wisdom in the grave whither thou goest If we would then set on this work this rare device of Christian Knowledge and saving wisdom it must be before we go to our Graves And it is not the work of a single day neither but the singular work of every day to be daily doing as if daily dying Nulla dies sine lineâ is the laudable industry of a Christian and without doubt there is no Particle of Life allowed for Idleness even Paradise and Perfection the place and state of Innocence and Bliss allowed not a space wherein to do nothing and Heavens Paradise though it be the Saints everlasting Rest yet hath its business for Eternity But this is to be understood of positive Acts but to be daily dying sounds harshly and uncomfortably to living Ears Death is a privation and to die a privative act and how can an habit grow out of Privatives Nay but this kind of dying is a positive duty in the Cristian Divinity 1. As it is an Act of the new Creature to die to sin and live unto God Christ purchased this Estate to us and preferred us to this capacity Rom. 6.10 In every birth there is something generated and something destroyed says the Philosopher so in our New Birth there is the production of Grace and the destruction of Vice the Life of Righteousness and the death of Sin And by dying daily we set up the Ark and throw down Dagon The Sinfulness of our Souls by our first birth consisted in our aversion from God and Grace and our being perverted to the Devil and his works in the defacing of God's Image and the imprinting of Satan's Now the sanctity of the Soul that is its recovery by the second birth consisteth in its conversion to God and aversion from sin to have the Image of the evil one rased out and the Impress of the Saviour re-ingraven and the Acts that appertain to these Issues must be in our daily Exercise 2. As it is the Answer unto the Divine Ordination Romans 8.29 which is our conformableness unto the dying Saviour our conformity to Christ is here our positive Duty in Grace as it shall be our everlasting Dignity in Bliss and the Elect are sent into the world to be planted into the likeness of Christ in his Death and Resurrection to this end baptised into Christ that we may follow his Steps Phil. 3.10 as well as bear his Name and so be found in the fellowship of his Graces and sufferings and all his life was a continued dying until his hour came that he died once for all There is a pertinent but difficult Text for this in S. Paul's case Coloss 1.24 I fill up that which is behind saith he of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his bodies sake which is the Church The personal Sufferings of Christ which he endured in his own body as the Mediator are once for ever finished but his general Sufferings which he endures in his mystical Body the Church are yet behind and must be filled up by S. Paul and his Fellows and Followers Not in way of Office as meritorious and satisfactory nor in proportion of weight and measure but in respect of their Cause and Managery and Issue Thus in dying by way of Resemblance Rom. 6.10 11. And the likeness is in these Instances voluntarily our daily dying must be spontaneous Though there be a great Reluctancy between Flesh and Spirit Grace and Nature the pure will of God and the perverse will of Man yet the superior powers of the 〈◊〉 carry the Mastery 〈◊〉 ◠2◠sanctified reason consents to mortifying Acts. To die daily is as irksome to Self-love as the Cup was to Christ's Flesh in the day of his Agony yet he willingly drank because it was his Fathers will he should Yet Christ's Death was violent he died not of nature but of force So should our self-mortifying be voluntary in respect of us but violent in respect of sin And herein is the life of daily dying that we lay violent hands on our corruptions pluck out the right Eye cut off the right Hand smite the sinful Breast break the perverse Heart and kill and destroy sin in its Flower strength and vigour many leave their sins who never mortified them He that dies daily never stays till his sins die for Lusts like Weeds if let alone will destroy all the good Seeds and then wither of themselves The old Adulterer hath left his Lust because his Body is dead And the griping Mammonist is angry with the world but it is because he can enjoy it no longer Eccles 12.1 O remember thy Creatour in the days of thy youth before the days come when thou shalt say I have no pleasure in them is a pertinent Caveat 'T were good to condemn and execute sin without Reprieve let not Lust live till to morrow bring your vicious Habits forth speedily in the sight of God arraign condemn crucifie them now mortifie them whiles they might yet live Yet the Death of Christ was lingring Matth. 27.45 he hung divers hours upon the Cross our Dying is daily sin cannot be destroyed all at once cut a Serpent in pieces yet every part will stir Sin
will dwell in us long though it have not Dominion Like a rebellious Tenant Rom. 7.17 it keeps possession in spight of the owner till the House be pulled down ever his Head True the Body of Sin hath in the Regenerate received its deaths wound but it is not quite dead there is not the most sanctified Soul but hath some remainders of Corruption left in it enough to require our daily Conflict which God in his wise providence permits for the trying and exercising and humbling of us and for the making his own rich Grace in renewing his pity and multiplying his pardons so much the more exceeding glorious You find now that dying is a Duty and it is as necessary as our Bread this is daily in our petition as it is daily in our need Dying ought to be daily in our practice as it is daily at our Doors We had need to set death before us under the easiest most familiar and feasible considerations as the days of a mans life come about quickly and one of those days is the Boundary of our Cares so let it be of our diligence so to number them as to apply our hearts to this wisdom of dying daily That which must be of necessity once should be admitted into our frequent account and exercise Let us look upon dying as the Christians Business and not as the Creatures Curse and labour to attain the Art oft that we may bear the painful stroke the better The day will come ere long when it will be in vain to say I have no mind to die or I have no leisure or I am not ready not yet I 'll think on 't What if Esay's Message to Hezekiah were sent thee â— King 20. â— Set thine house in order for thou shalt die and not live Wouldst thou not rather live and die too Heb. 2.13 Luke 12. â—â— 'T is possible you see but what if it should be said Hâc nocte then Donec cognominatur hodie had sounded better Die whiles it is called to day thou fool for this night thy soul shall be taken from thee To die once is our Destiny and to die daily our Duty why should we not bring them into our familiar acquaintance the day of dying is not far from us by dying daily we bring it to our hand 't is in our natures why should it not be so much in our expectations as to be daily in our exercise The spirit of God every where speaks of it in reference to the Saints in the most comfortable and grateful expressions as of that which we have daily in our use and observation We ascribe this to the influence of the dying Jesus who hath so embalmed yea and cloathed Mortality by the dress of Holy Language that there is even a Sweetness Beauty and Blessing in it when a man hath worn a Suit of Apparel a great while even until it be thread-bare or it becomes foul and unseemly would he not be glad to put that off and get a new Garment on his Back therefore death is called an uncloathing 2 Cor. 5.2 3 4. a putting off the Flesh and in answer to that corporal Divesture the spiritual disapparelling is so also called Eph. 4.22 a putting off the old man with his deceivable lusts and there is no hurt in that we are willing to change and shift daily When a man hath tired himself all the day at his work would he not gladly go to Bed and our sinful course is so laborious and wearisome as that it is never well with us till we come to our rest and that 's no where to be had but in Christ Matth. 1â— 28 Do we not betake our selves to our rest every Evening therefore our death is called our sleep and if we daily need our sleep 1 Cor. 15.20.51 why are we not daily solicitous for our rest and refreshment in Jesus under these apprehensions the Holy Spirit would have us bury all hard thoughts of Dying and that we would familiarise it into our daily endeavours so to practise how to die to day that we need not fear to die to morrow the main reason of the terribleness of Death is that Mortals look on it at a greater distance than it is and it is of a more ghastly and formidable aspect to those that are strangers to it And indeed what Israelite is not apt to run at the sight of this Goliah the fear of dying is natural and so far from being evil that it was incident unto the Son of God who was heard in that he feared Christianity serves not to destroy but rectifie nature and Grace regulates this passion in us and corrects its exorbitances never intending to root it out And this is the method of Grace by daily exercise to master this fear though we cannot avoid it Whiles my fear apprehends â—ust terror in the face of death let my Faith carry me to the crucified Jesus who hath both overcome and sweetned it let me in the exercise of that Faith daily set my self against sin and world and flesh and Devil and the terrors of Death disband It is an excellent Christian Temper always to dwell in the Voysinage of the Grave as we do in our frailty so should we in our faith and hope and humble preparations lie at deaths door and though nature is loath to long for the Grave because she holds dissolution her greatest enemy for what can she abhor more than a not being yet Faith perswades that to die is gain Would we not carefully trade every day in that which is lucrous Phil. 1.21 and profitable Let us therefore come into S. Paul's practice of daily living so as dying may be advantageous we have fair respite given us in life which at best is but a span God might shorten it into an Inch but that he lengthens the day in order to further our work and that which is sanctified by the dying Saviour for our cessation is required as our uncessant Employ 'T is a woful Conversion that we read The sting of death is sin and again The sting of sin is death both meet in man to make him miserable death could not have stung us neither had it been at all in the world had it not been for sin and sin though in it self extremely hainous yet were not so dreadful if it paid not so horrible Wages How do we owe our selves to the Mercy of our Saviour who hath freed us from the evil of both having pulled out the sting of death that it cannot hurt us and having taken such course with the sting of sin which is death that instead of hurting it shall be exceeding helpful and is translated into our daily duty and benefit Into what a safe condition hath the Lord of Life put us as that we may daily be exercised about sin and death without dread or danger O let not the patience and sparing Mercies of God be longer abused by us