and imprisonment they were stoned they were sawn asunder were tempted were slain with the sword Heb. 11.35 36 37. Thanks be to God which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ 1 Cor. 15.57 They overcome by the blood of the Lamb and love not their lives unto the death Rev. 12.11 They fear not them that kill the body and after thâ—t have no more that they can do Luke 12.4 They trust upon his promise that haâ—h said I will ransome them from the power of the grave I will redeem them from death O death I will be thy plagues O grave I will be thy destruction Hos 13.14 Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his Saints Psal 116.15 Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth yea saith the spirit that they may rest from their labours and their works do follow them Rev. 14.13 SECT IX Vse 7. MOreover from the Enmity of Death we may be directed which way to bend our cares and seeing where our difficulty most lieth we may see which way our most diligent preparations must be turned Death cannot be prevented but the malignant influence of it on our souls may be much abated If you let it work without an Antidote it will make you live like unbelieving worldlings It will deter your hearts from heaven and dull your love to God himself and make your meditations of him and of your Everlasting Rest to be seldom and ungratefull to you And it will make you say It s good to be here and have sweeter thoughts of this present life then of your inheritance It will rob you of much of your heavenly delights and fill you with slavish fears of death and subject you unto bondage all your lives and make you die with agony and horror so that your lives and deaths will be dishonourable to your holy faith and to your Lord. If it were meerly our own suffering by fears and horrors or meerly our loss of spiritual delights the matter were great but not so great But it is more then this For when our joyes are overwhelmed with the fears of death and turned into sorrows our love to God will be abated and we shall deny him the thanks and cheerfull praises which should be much of the employment of our lives and we shall be much discomposed and unfitted for his service and shall much dishonour him in the world and shall strengthen our temptations to the overvaluing of earthly things Think it not therefore a small or an indifferent matter to fortifie your souls against these malignant fears of death Make this your daily care and work your peace your safety your innocency and usefulness and the honour of God do much lie on it And it is a work of such exceeding difficulty that it requireth the best of your skill and diligence and when all is done it must be the illuminating quickning beams of grace and the shining face of the Eternal Love that must do the work though yet your diligence is necessary to attend the spirit and use the means in subserviency to grace and in expectation of these celestiall rayes And above all take heed lest you should think that carnal mirth or meer security and casting away the thoughts of death will serve to overcome these fears or that it is enough that you resolve against them For it is your safety that must be lookt to as well as your present ease and peace and fear must be so overcome as that a greater misery may not follow Presumption and security will be of very short continuance To die without fear and pass into endless desperation which fear should have wakened you to prevent is no desirable kind of dying And besides resolving against the Terrors of death will not prevent them When Death draws neer it will amaze you in despight of all your resolutions if you are not furnished with a better Antidote The more jocund you have been in carnal mirth and the more you have presumptuously slighted death its likely your horror will be the greater when it comes And therefore see that you make a wise and safe preparation and that you groundedly and methodically cure these fears and not securely cast them away Though I have given you to this end some Directions in other writings in the Saints Rest and in the Treatise of Self-denyal and that of Crucifying the world yet I shall add here these following helps which faithfully observed and practised will much promote your victory over death which conquereth all the strength of flesh and glory of this world DIRECTION I. IF you would overcome the danger and the fears of Death Make sure of your Conversion that it is sound and see that you be absolutely devoted unto God without reserves Should you be deceived in your foundations your life and hopes and joyes would all be delusory things Till sin be mortified and your souls reconciled to God in Christ you are still in danger of worse then death and it is but the senslesness of your dead condition that keepeth you from the terrors of damnation But if you are sure that you are quickâ—ed by renewing grace and possessed by the sanctifying spirit and made partakers of the Divine nature you have then the earnest of your inheritance Eph. 1.14 2 Cor. 1.22 5.5 and the fire is kindled in your breast that in despight of Death will mount you up to God DIRECTION II. TO Conquer the Enmity of Death you must live by faith in Jesus Christ as men that are emptied of themselves and ransomed from his hands that had the power of death and as men that are redeemed from the curse and are now made heirs of the grace of life being made his members who is â—he Lord of life even the second Adam who is a quickning spirit The serious believing study of his design and office to destroy sin and death and to bring many sons to glory and also of his voluntary suffering and his obedience to the death of the Cross may raise us above the fears of death When we live by faith as branches of this blessed Vine are righteous with his righteousness justified by his blood and merits sanctified by his Word and Spirit and find that we are united to him we may then be sure that death cannot conquer us nothing can take us out of his hands For our life being hid with Christ in God we know that we shall live because he liveth Col. 3.3 John 14.19 and that when Christ who is our life appeareth we shall also appear with him in glory Col. 3.4 And that he will change our vile bodies and make them like to his glorious body by his mighty power by which he is able to subdue all things to himself Phil. 3.20 21. In our own strenâ—th we dare not stand the charge of death and with it the charge of the Law and of our Consciences How dreadfully should we then
Be not deceived God is not mocked A mock-Religion and the name of Christianity will never save you Do you know how near you are to judgement and will you fearlesly thus heap up wrath and lay in fewell for the everlasting flames Do you know how speedily you shall wish in the bitterness of your souls that you had heard and prayed and laboured as for your lives and redeemed your time and obeyed your Teachers and yet will you now stand loytering and quarrelling and jeasting and dallying in the matters of salvation â—nd will you live as if you had nothing but the world to mind when you are even ready to step into the endless world O Sirs do you know what you are doing You are abusing the living God and wronging the Lord Jesus and trampling upon that mercy which would comfort you in your extremity a drop of which you would then be glad of You are grieving your poor Friends and Teachers and preparing for your endless grief Aâ—as what should a faithfull Minister do for the saving of your souls He seeth you befooled in your security and carelesly passing on towards Hell and cannot help it He sees you posting to your misery where you will be out of the reach of all our exhortations and where mercy will not follow you to be accepted or rejected and though he see you almost past remedy he cannot help you He knoweth not when he speaks to you whether ever he shall speak unto you more and whether ever you shall have another call and offer and therefore he would fain speak effectually if he could but it is not in his power He knows that the matter sticks all at your own wills and that if he could but procure your own consent to the most reasonable and necessary business in the world the work were done and you might scape the everlasting flames And yet this is it that he cannot procure O wonderfull that any man should be damned yea that many men and most men should be damned when they might be saved if they would and will not Yea that no saying will serve to procure their consent and make them willing That we must look on our poor miserable neighbours in Hell and say they might have been saved once but would not they had time and leave to turn to God and to be holy and happy as well as others but we could never prevail with them to consent and know the day of their visitation O what should we do for the saving of careless senseless souls Must we let them go Is there no remedy Shall Ministers study to meet with their necessities and tell them with all possible plainness and compassion of the evil that is a little before them and teach them how they may escape it Why this they do from day to day and some will not hear them but are tipling or idling or making a jeast of the Preacher at home and others are hearing with prejudice and contempt and most are hardned into a senseless deadness and all seems to them but as an empty sound and they are so used to hear of Heaven and Hell that they make as light of them as it there were no such States Alas that while millions are weeping wailing in utter desperation for the neglecting of their day of grace and turning away from him that called them our poor hearers at the same time should wilfully follow them when they are told from God what others suffer Alas that you should be sleepy and dead under those means that should waken you to prevent eternall death and that ever you should make merry so near damnation and be sporting your selves with the same kind of sins that others at the same hour are tormented for And is such madness as this remediless in people that seem as wise as others for worldly things Alas for any thing that we can do experience tells us that with the most it is remediless Could we remedy it our poor people should not wilfully run from Christ and lie in the flames of Hell for ever Could our perswasions and entreaties help it they should not for ever be shut out of Heaven when it s offered to them as well as others We bewail it from our hearts before the Lord that we can entreat them no more earnestly and beg not of them as for our lives to look before them and hearken to the voice of grace that they may be saved And a thousand times in secret we call our selves hard-hearted unmercifull and unfaithfull in too great a measure that speak no more importunately for the saving of mens souls when we know not whether we shall ever speak to them any more Is this all that we can say or do in so terrible a case and in a matter of such weight as mens salvation The Lord forgive our great insensibility and awaken us that we may be fit to waken others But yet for all this with grief we must complain that our people feel not when we feel and that they are senseless or asleep when we speak to them as seriously as we can and that tears and moans do not prevail but they go home and live as stupidly in an unconverted staâ—e as if all were well with them and they wâ—re not the mâ—n we speak to O thaâ— you knew whaâ—â— fearfull judgement it is to be forsaken of God because you would have none of him and to be given up to your hearts lustâ— â—o walk in your oâ—â— Counsells beâ—â—sâ— you woâ—ld not hearken to his voice Psâ—l 81.11 12 13. and to have God say Let those wretches be ignorant and careless and fleshly and worldly and filthy still Rev. 22.11 O that you knew but not by experience what a heavy plague it is to be so forsaken as to have eyes that see not or seeing do not perceive and to have ears that hear not or to hear and not understand and so to be unconverted and unhealed Mark 4.12 and to be hardened and condemned by the word and patience and mercies that do soften and save others and should have saved you Take heed lest Christ say I have lent them my messengers long enough in vain From henceforth never fruit grow on them because they would not be converted they shall not Take heed lest he take you away from means and quickly put an end to your opportunities You see how fast men pass away but little do you know how many are lamenting that they made no better use of time and helps and mercies while they had them O hear while you may hear for it will not be long Read while you may read and pray while you may pray and turn while you may turn and go to your Christian friends anâ— Teachers and enquire of them what you must do to be saved before enquiâ—ing be too late Spend the Lords Day and what other time you can redeem in holy preparations for your endless Rest while you have such a
all this Enmity in Death we may see what it is that sin hath done and consequently how vile and odious it is and how we should esteem and use it Sin hath not only forfeited our Happiness but laid those impediments in the way of our recovery which will find us work and cause our danger and sorrow while we live And Death is not the least of these impediments O foolish man that still will love such a mortal Enemy If another would rob them but of a groat or defame them or deprive them of any accommodation how easily can they hate them and how hardly are they reconciled to them But sin depriveth them of their lives and separates the soul and body asunder and forfeiteth their everlasting happiness and sets death betwixt them and the Glory that is purchased by Christ and yet they love it and will not leave it Though God have made them and do sustain them and provide for them and all their hope and help is in him they are not so easily drawn to love him And yet they can love the sin that would undo them Though Christ would deliver them and bring them to everlasting blessedness and hath assumed flesh and laid down his life to testifie his Love to them yet are they not easily brought to love him but the sin that made them enemies to God and hath brought them so near to everlasting misery this they can love that deserves no love A Minister or other friend that would draw them from their sin to God and help to save them they quarrell against as if he were their enemy but their foolish companions that can laugh and jest with them at the door of Hell and clap them on the back and drive away the care of their salvation and harden them against the fear of God these are the only acceptable men to them O Christians leave this folly to the world and do you judge of sin by its sad effects You feel if you have any feeling in you in some measure what it hath done against your Souls the weakness of your faith and love the distance of your hearts from God your doubts and troubles tell you that it is not your friend You must shortly know what it will do to your bodies As it keeps them in pain and weariness and weakness so it will ere long deliver them up to the jaws of death which will spare them no more then the beasts that perish Had it not been for sin we should have had no cause to fear a dissolution nor have had any use for a coffin or a winding-sheet nor been beholden to a grave to hide our carkesses from the sight and smell of the living But as Henoch and Elias were translated when they had walked with God even so should we as those shall that are alive and remain at the coming of Christ shall be caught up together in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air and so shall they ever be with the Lord 1 Thes 4.17 Use sin therefore as it will use you Spare it not for it will not spare you It is your murderer and the murderer of the world Use it therefore as a murderer should be used Kill it before it kills you and then though it kill your bodies it shall not be able to kill your souls and though it bring you to the grave as it did your Head it shall not be able to keep you there If the thoughts of death and the grave and rottenness be not pleasant to you let not the thoughts of sin be pleasant Hearken to every temptation to sin as you would hearken to a temptation to self-murder And as you would do if the Devill brought you a knife and tempted you to cut your throat with it so do when he offereth you the bait of sin You love not Death Love not the cause of Death Be ashamed to stand weeping over a buried friend and never to weep over a sinning or ungodly friend nor once to give them a compassionate earnest exhortation to save their Souls Is it nothing to be dead in sins and trespasses Ephes 2.1 5. Col. 2.13 Yea it is a worse Death then this that is the wages of sin and the fruit which it brings forth Rom. 6.21 23. 7.5 Surely God would never thus use mens bodies and forsake them soul and body for ever if sin were not a most odious thing what a poyson is this that kils so many millions and damneth so many millions and cannot be cured but by the blood of Christ that killed our Physitian that never casted it because he came so near to us 〈◊〉 O unbelieving stupid soâ—ls that smart and sin and groan and sin and weep and lament our bodily sufferings and yet sin still that fear a grave and fear not sin that have heard and seen and felt so much of the sad effects and yet sin still Psalm 78.32 Alas that murderers should be so common and that we should be no wiser when we have paid so dear a price for wisdom SECT V. Vse 3. FROM the Enmity of Death we may further learn that Man hath now a need of Grace for such exceeding difficulties which were not before him in his state of innocency Though Adam was able to have obeyed perfectly without sin and had Grace sufficient to have upheld him and conquered temptations if he had done his part which by that Grace he might have done yet whether that Grace was sufficient to the works that we are called to is a doubt that many have been much troubled with It is certain that he was able to have done any thing that was suitable to his present state if it were commanded him And it is certain thaâ— much that is now our duty would have been unsuitable to his state But whether it belonged to his perfection to be able and fit for such duties that were then unsuitable to him or supposition they had been suitable and duties this is the difficulty which some make use of to prove that such works cannot now be required of us without suitable help because we lost no such grace in Adam But this need not trouble us For 1. Though Adam was put on no such difficulty in particular as to encounter death yet the perfect obedience to the whole Law required a great degree of internall Habituall holiness and to determine the case whether our particular difficulties or his sinless perfect obâ—dience required greater sâ—rength and help is a matter of more difficulty then use For 2. It is but about the Degrees of Holiness in him and us and not about the Kind that the difficulty lieth For it is the same End that he was created for and disposed to by Nature and that we are redeemed for and disposed to supernaturally But yet it is worthy our observation what a difficulty sin hath cast before us in the way of life which Adam was unacquainted with that so we may see the nature
for that great destruction of the universal deluge Should men live now but to the age of three hundred or four hundred years I fear it would so tempt them to overvalue the world and so embolden them to delay repentance that one would be as Wolf to another and the weak but be a prey to the strong and wickedness would overwhelm the world despising the reins and bearing down Religious and civil opposition But when we stand over the grave and see our friends laid in the dust how mortified do we seem how do we even shake the head at the folly of ambitious and covetous worldlings and are ashamed to think of fleshly lusts So far are men from owning their vanities when that silent teacher standeth by It is Death that helps to humble the proud and abate the arroganâ—y and obstinacy of the wicked and make them regard the messengers of Christ that bâ—fore despised them and their message It is death that allayeth the ebullition of distracting thoughts and passions and helpeth to bring men to themselves and fixeth giddy discomposed minds and helps to settle the light and the unsettled and to restrain the worst As we are beholden to the Gallows for our purses and our lives so are we to the grave and hell for much of the order that is in the world and our peace and freedom procured thereby But it is a greater good that it procureth to believers If you ask How is all this to be ascribed to Christ I answer many wayes 1. It is he that hath now the Keyes or power of death and hell even he that liveth and was dead and that liveth for evermore Rev. 1.18 and therefore is to be feared by the world 2. It is he that hath by his Blood Covenant brought us the Hope of everlasting life which is it that gives the efficacy to death Without this men would be but desperate and think that it is better have a little pleasure then none at all and so would give up themselves to sin and desperately gratifie their flesh by all the wickedness they could devise 3. And it is Christ that teacheth men the right use of death by his holy doctrine having brought life and immortality to light by his Gospel 4. And it is Christ that sendeth forth the holy Spirit which only doth so illuminate the mind and quicken and dispose the heart that Death may be savingly improved The poyson is our own but it is his skill and love that hath made a Soveraign antidote of it And let our bodies die so our sin may die If the foresight of Death destroy our sin and further our sanctification and the hour of death doth end our fears and enter us into the state of glory though we will love death as death never the better for this much less the sin that caused it yet must we admire the love of our Redeemer And it is not only the Peril but also the Terrors of Death that we are in part delivered from Though Christ himself was in a bloody sweat in his agony before his death and cryed out on the Cross My God why hast thou forsaken me because he bore the sins of the world yet death is welcome to many of his followers that drink of his cup and are baptized with his baptism For they taste not of these dregs which he drunk up and they are strengthened by his supporting grace He that doth comfort them against sin and Hell doth also comfort them against Death So great is the glory that he hath promised them and so great is his comforting confirming grace that dreadfull â—eath is not great enough to prevail against them As it was too weak to conquer Christ so is it too weak to conquer his Spirit in his peoples souls Without Christ we could not live and we durst not die but through him we can do and suffer all things and can boldly pass through this dark and shady vale of death yea we can desire to depart and to be with Christ as best fâ—r us for to Live is Christ and to die is gain Phil. 1.21 23. For we know that if our earthly house of this Tabernacle were dissolved we hâ—ve a building of God an house not made with hâ—nds eternal in the heavens And therefore sometimes we can earnestly groan dâ—siring to be clothed upâ—n with our house which is from heaven And we are alwayes confident knowing that whilest we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord we are confident I say and willing rather to be absent from the body and present with the Lord and therefore labour that whether present or absent we may be accepted of him For we walk by faith and not by sight and it is God that hath wrought us for the self same thing who also hath given us the earnest of the Spirit 2 Cor. 5.1 to 10. Though we long not to die yet we long to see the face of God And though we lay down our bodâ—â—s with natural unwillingness yet we lay down our sin and sorrows with gladness and spiritual delight And though our hearts are ready to faint as Peters when he walked to Christ upon the waters yet Christ puts forth his hand of love and soon recovereth us from our fear and danger Melancholly and impatience may make men weary of their lives and rush upon death with a false conceit that it will end their sorrows But this is not to conquer death but to be conquered by a lesser evil and it is not an effect of fortitude but of an imbecillity impotency of mind And if a Brutus a Cato or a Seneca be his own Executioner thâ—â— do but choose a lesser evil in their conceits even a death which they accounted honourable before a more ignominious death or a life of shame and scorn and misery But the true believer is raised above the fears of death by the love of God and the hopes of Glory and Death though ungratefull in it self is welcome to him as the way to his felicity Leâ— Tyrants and Souldiers take it for their glory that they can take away mens liver that is they have the power of a Serpent or of Rats-bane as if it were their honour to be their Countreys pestilence and a Ruler and a Dose of poyson were things of equal strength and use But it is the Glory of Christ to enable hâ—s Disciples to conquer Death bear the fury of the most cruel persecutors The Martyrs have been more joyfull in their sufferings then the Judges that condemned them in their Pomp and glory When we are pressed above strength and despair of life and have the sentence of death in our selves we are then taught to trust in the living God that raiseth the dead 2 Cor. 1.8 9 10. The Saints by faith have been tortured not accepting deliverance that they might obtain a better resurrection they have had tryall of cruel mockings scourgings yea moreover of bonds