that in the other world I may stand among thy Sheep on thy right hand and hear that blessed heart-chearing voice Come thou blessed of my Father inherit the Kingdom prepared for thee before the foundation of the World For I was hungry and thou gavest me meat I was thirsty and thou gavest me drink I was a stranger and thou didst take me in I was sick and thou visitedst me when my soul shall be above all sin and my body above all sickness and both blessed in thy favour and fruition for ever and ever Amen CHAP. VIII How a Christian may exercise himself to Godliness on a Dying Bed SIxthly and Lastly Thy duty is to exercise thy self to Godliness if God give thee opportunity on a Dying Bed The work of a Saint is to glorifie God not onely in his life but also in his death The Silk-worm stretcheth out her self before she spin and ends her life in her long wrought clew The Christian must stretch out himself on his dying Bed and end his life in the work of his Lord. Every Man by his death payeth his debt to nature He is earth in regard of his Original creation and must be earth in regard of his ultimate resolution Dust thou art and to dust thou shalt return Gen. 3. 19. The Sinner when he dyeth payeth his debt to Sin Satan and the Law To sin as he is the servant of unrighteousness and so must receive its wages which is death To Satan as he hath sold himself to work wickedness at his will and so must have his tempter to be his eternal tormentor To the Law as he hath violated its precepts and commands and therefore must undergo its punishment and curse The Saint when he dieth payeth his debt to God for he oweth him honour as well by his death as by his life Hence we read not onely of their living in the Lord and to the Lord but also of their dying in the Lord and to the Lord Rom. 14. 8. Rev. 14. 13. Which though some expound in that place of the Revelations to the cause for which they died they did not dye out of humour or obstinacy or any carnal selfish interest but purely as Martyrs at Gods call and for Gods cause They loved not their lives to the death for the testimony of Iesus Yet the words may as clearly speak 1. The state in whiâ—â— they died They died in the favour of God reconciled to him through the death of the Mediatour The Castle of their souls was not taken by storm or in a state of emnity and opposition but by a quiet voluntary sâ—rrender or in a state of peace and amity 2. The manner of their deaths They died in the fear of God they exercised grace as well in sickness as in health and when dying as when living their spiritual motions were quick when their natural motions were slow Plutarch reports of Lucius Metellus high Priest of Rome that though he lived to a great old age his voice did not fail him nor his hand shake in his sacrificing to the Gods It s said of Moses when he was a hundred and twenty years old and dyed that his natural sight did not fail him neither was his heat abated So it may be said of the Christian that though he die old his spiritual sight doth not fail him nor his divine heat abate As Caleb he is as strong in regard of grace his inward strength when he is entering into the promised Canaan as he was when he first went forth as a spie by faith to search the land flowing with milk and honey The Heathen counted him happy that dyed either in the midst of the goods of fortune hence they say if Priamus had died a little before the loss of his Town he had died the greatest Prince in all Asia or in the exercise of their moral vertues Hence they so highly extol Seneca and Socrates who seemed to dare even death it self out of resolution and fortitude Though those seeming vertues were but as Austin terms them Splendida Flagitia Famous Vices and their confidence arose not from any grounded knowledge of their good estates but from their blindness and ignorance of their depraved wicked and woful estates He is the happy man indeed that dieth in the faith that sleepeth in Iesus that goeth to his grave in the exercise of grace The Master of Moral Philosophy commendeth that Pilot whom a Ship-wrack swalloweth up at the Stern with the Rudder in his hand The most high God commendeth that person whom death seiseth doing the work for which he was sent into the world Even the blind Mole if Naturalists may be credited opens his eyes when he comes to dye and the crooked Serpent stretcheth out her self straight when she is going to fetch her last breath and shall not the Saint be best at last Reader Observe how careful the Saints have been to do their last work well and to go out of the world like some sweet spices perfuming the room in which they fetch their last breath with holiness and leaving a sweet savour behind them Jacob when dying worshipped leaning on his staff Heb. 11. 21. What a Character doth he give of the Angel of the Covenant and what blessings doth he pray for and prophesie to come on his children when he was going from them How was his heart enlarged in pantings after the Lord Christ Gen. 48. 16. and 49. per tot The living waters of his graces ran with the greater strength when they were emptying themselves into the Ocean of glory Moses like the dying Swan sings most sweetly being to go up to Mount Nebo to dye there What excellent doctrines reproofs instructions doth he deliver to the Israelites How pathetically rhetorically divinely doth he dictate his last legacies to his Political children who can read and not be ravished with wonder and delight Deut. 32. 33. Ioshua like the morning star shines brightest at last He gives his people so strict a charge to serve the Lord such gracious counsel when he was going the way of all the earth that it could not but be remembred many days after Dying Ioseph will lay his bones at stake for Gods faithfulness and that he will visit Israel and deliver them out of Egypt Sampson did the Church of God much service in slaying more of her enemies at his death then in his life Iulius Caesar among the Romans and Olympia the Mother of Alexander among the Grecians were famous for their care to die handsomely and not to commit at last any ill beseeming action whereby their memories should have been rendred inglorious But the Christians care hath always been to die holily and to do their God most service when they are going to that place where they shall do him no more in a proper sense Philosophers tell us that the soul upon deaths approach is more divine and supernaturally inclined certain it is the soul of a Saint onely doth then more
to his breast Hic sat lucis Hâ—re is abundance of light of joy He asked one of his Friends What news His Friend told him None Then saith he I will tell you some news I shall presently be with my Lord Christ. I shall give thee two or three quickening Motives and then direct thee about the workâ— of exercising thy self to Godliness on a Dying Bed and because its the last time of a Christians working for his God I shall in the third place annex some brief helps to this duty In reference to the Motives Consider First What a serious thing Death will be to every Man and Woman in the World It s ill and dangerous for any to cozen themselves and undertake to mock God in their health and life but it s worst of all and desperate for any to do this on a sick and dying Bed The Heathen hardened in sin and wholly under the power of Satan ignorant of the evil of their hearts and lives and of the sad consequence of a wicked end made light of death Flavius Vespasian none of the worst of the Roman Emperors died as Sir Thomas Moor with a jest in his mouth Vt puto Deus fio Methinks I am going and growing to be a God Augustus Caesar esteemed the best of them whose death the people so much lamented that they said Vtinam aut non nasceretur aut non moreretur Would he had never been born or never dyed went off the Stage of the World with a Complement Livia Nostri Conjugii memor Vive Vale Farewel and Live Wife mindful of our Marriage Galba dyed desperately crying out Feri si ex re sit Populi Romani Strike if it be for the common good Tiberius dyed dissemblingly of whose death Tacitus wittily Iam Tiberium vires corpus non dissimulatio deserebant Now strength and life hath lest Tiberius but not dissimulation But Christians who understand the holiness and justice of God the infinite demerit of sin the certainty of an unchangeable condition in the other World either in joy or torment know that death is no jesting matter that to dye is one of the most serious searching things that they can possibly do Two or three Particulars will shew what a serious thing death is 1â— Death will try men When the Bridegroom comes it will appear who have Oyl in their Vessels and who have noneâ— As soon as ever thou takest thy leave of temporal good things thy spiritual riches will be known A scorching Summer discovers what streams are fed with Ponds and what with Springs The Wind sheweth which Clouds have Rain in them and which have none Death will anatomize every soul and reveal all that is in it Conscience will then bring in a true Verdict in despight of all those bribes and frights which formerly kept the Bill in suspense or caused it to write on it an Ignoramus There are marks by which Saints and Sinners may be distinguished whilst they live as great mens servants are by the Liveries that they wear but these characters being most inward and known to none but themselves and the Lord they serve it is their dying onely that will reveal infallibly what they are and to whom they belong This World is as a common Inn wherein all are lodged and no difference is made between the good and bad onely that the worst men have the best usage but the very moment of mens dissolution makes a plain and vast distinction Death is the way of all the earth according to Ioshua's Periphrasis of it but this way hath two turnings one on the right hand to joy and bliss another on the left hand to misery and horror now as when the attendants of two Lords travail together on the road their servants cannot easily be distinguished especially if the Servants of the one counterfeit the livery of the other but when they come to the Bivium the parting way then it s clearly known who belong to the one and who to the other for each then followeth his own Master waits on him to his house stayeth and abideth there with him So though whilst men live all professing themselves Christians and most for a shew at least putting on the livery of Christ it is not known who belong to the Prince of Life and who to the Prince of the powers of the Air but death will discover it to themselves and the Elect Angels 2. It will appear that Death is a serious thing in that Eternityâ— When thou diest thy condition will be like the Law of the Medes and Persians such as cannot be altered At death thou goest the way that thou shalt never return David speaking of his dead Child saith I shall go to him but he shall not return to me And Iob by asking the question denyeth it If a man dye shall he live again God will never trust thee with a second life or give thee leave for second thoughts or better purposes or more serious and sober actions when thou art once landed in the other world He will not offer thee a Christ and Grace and Heaven when thou art gone from this earth Think of it seriously is not that work to be done well which can be done but once Shouldst thou not use thine utmost care and strength and diligence to dye well when thy everlasting making or marring dependeth on it Ah Friend If thou failest now thou failest for ever if thou dalliest now thou art undone eternally There is no wisdom nor knowledge in the Grave whither thou art going Eccles. 11. 7. 3. Death will appear to be a serious thing in that all the powers of Hell will then assault thee Thou mayst say of it in some respects as Christ did to wicked men and the Wicked one This is your hour and the power of darkness The Devil its observeable is most busie at the conclusion of a duty as of prayer that the Christian might be hindered and distracted when he closeth up all in the name of Christ and so all his desires be frustrated so he is most busie in the conclusion of our days adding fearful dreams to our slumbers strong distractions to our fancies increasing our pains with terrors driving the good if possible to despair and intoxicating the bad with presumptuous conceits and all because his time is little The Devil is come down having great rage knowing that his time is short Rev. 12. 12. At the approach of death through pain of body and perplexity of mind men are least able to resist and therefore this cowardly enemy will then be most ready and fierce to assault When the Christian is down then if possible he will â—rample upon him The last persecutions of the Church under Dioclesian and Maximinian were the soarest The last messenger the Devil sent to Iob concerning the sudden violent death of all his Children pierced his heart deepest The subtle serpent reserved that great Ordnance for the last hoping the former small
Beasts he often wished by the way that he were in the midst of those Beasts that were to devour him and that their appetites might be whetted to dispatch him fearing lest it should happen to him as to some others that the Lyons out of a kind of reverence would not dare to approach them being ready he said rather to provoke them to fight then that they should suffer him to escape Bradford being told by his Keepers Wife that his Chain was a buying and he was to die the next day pulled off his Hat and thanked God for it When some wondered that Adam Damplip could eat his food so well when his end was so near he told them Ah Masters Do you think that I have been Gods Prisoner so long in the Marshalsey and have not yet learned to die Yes yes and I doubt not but God will strengthen me therein Ann Askew subscribed her Confession in Newgate thus Written by me Ann Askew that neither wisheth for death nor feareth his might and as merry as one that is bound towards Heaven Indeed it s said of a wicked man that his soul is required of him and that God takes away his soul Luk. 12. Job 27. 10. but of a godly man that he giveth up the Ghost and he cometh to his grave Gen. 25. 8. Job 4. ult Nature will teach the Heathen that death is the end of all outward miseries to all men hence some of them drank of its cup with as much constancy and courage as if it had been the most pleasant Julip but grace will teach the Christian that death is not onely a remedy against all his bodily and spiritual maladies as Sir Walter Rawleigh said of the sharp Ax that should behead him this will cure all my infirmities but also an inlet into fulness of joy and felicity Reverend Deering said on his death-bed I feel such joy in my spirit that if I should have the sentence of life on the one side and the sentence of death on the other side I had rather a thousand times chuse the sentence of death since God hath appointed a separation then the sentence of life Tiâ—us Vespation the mirror of mankind being a stranger to Christ was very unwilling â—o leave the world being carried in an Horse-litter and knowing that he must dye lookt up to Heaven and complained pittifully that his life should be taken from him who had not desired to dye having never committed any sin as he said but onely one Socrates and some of the wiser Heathenâ— comforted themselves against the fear of death with this weak Cordial that it is common to men the way of all the earth Hence it was when the Athenians condemned Socrates to dye he received the Sentence with an undaunted spirit and told them they did nothing but what nature had before ordained for him But the Christian hath a greater ground for a holy resolution and a stronger Cordial against the fear of death even his hopes of eternal life and surely if he that exceeds others in his Cordials be excelled by them in Courage he disgraceth his Physitian Aristippus told the Saylers who wondred that he was not as well as they afraid in the storm Ye fear the torments due to a wicked life and I expect the reward of a good one It s no marvail that they who lived wickedly should dye unwillingly being frighted with the guilt of their past sins and with the fears of their future torments therefore the holy Ghost saith of such a one The wicked is driven away in his wickedness as a Beast that is driven out of his den to the slaughter or as a Debtor driven by the Officers out of his house wherein he lay warm and was surrounded with all sorts of comfort to a nasty loathsom prison But that the righteous who hath hope in his death should even dye almost with fear of it before-hand is matter of wonder Lots soul is exceedingly vexed with Sodom yet he is loth to leave it This world is a wilderness a purgatory a step-mother a persecutor to all the Saints and yet some of them when called to leave it sing loth to depart and would linger behind partly from nature which dreads a dissolution and partly from the weakness of grace To fear death much argueth sometimes wickedness always weakness 3. Repentance It s said of St. Augustine that he dyed with tears in his eyes in the practice of repentance and Posidonius saith of him that he heard him often say in his health that it was the fittest disposition for dying Christians and Ministers Laudatos saith he Chistianos sacerdotes absque digna competenti paenitentia exire de corpore non debere We dye groaning iâ— regard of our bodies why should not our souls sigh that ever they sinned against so good a God! Beasts bite their enemies with more venome and indignation when they are ready to dye Maxime mortiferi solent esse morsus morientium animaliâ—m The Christian should give sin his most deadly bite his greatest abhorrency and grief and shame when he is dying and shall never see sin or sorrow or shame more As its noble and excellent to dye forgiving sinners so also taking revenge upon sin Moses a little before his death is commanded to avenge the Children of Israel of the Midianites and then he is gathered to his people Numb 31. 1 2. Samuel takes vengeance on Agag when he was old and knew not the day of his death David could not dye with comfort till he had charged Solomon to execute that justice on Ioab which he had omitted The last time the Judge seeth the Felon he passeth sentence of death upon him O how should the soul of a dying Saint be inflamed with anger against sin when he considers the rich love that it abuseth the glorious name that it dishonoureth the blessed Saviour that it pierceth and that vast happiness which he is going to possess of which without infinite grace and mercy it had deprived him Some persons when they have been to take their last revenge on their enemies have done it to purpose The beleiver on his dying bed takes his last revenge on sin he shall never have another opportunity to shew his love to his God and Saviour in his spite at and hatred of sin therefore then he should do it to purpose as dying Sampson put forth all his strength and beg divine help that he may utterly destroy it and be avenged on it for all the defilement and bondage it hath brought on his soul and dishonour to his Saviour Dying Iacob cursed the sins of his own Sons Cursed be their wrath for it was fierce and their anger for it was cruel O my Soul enter not thou into their secrets The dying Child of God should curse his passions his pride his unbeleif his selfishness even all his lusts for disobeying such righteous Laws and displeasing such a gracious Lord. When David Chrytaeus
lay a dying he lift up his head from his Pillow to hear the discourses of his friends that sat by him saying I shall dye with the more comfort if I can dye learning something The Christian both by his painful sickness and approaching death may learn something of the evil of sin and certainly he may dye with the more comfort for godly sorrow and joy may be contemporaries as the Heavens shine and showr at the same time if he dye in a flood of tears for his unkindness to Christ. 4. Charity in a double respect 1. In forgiving them that have wronged thee If the natural Sun should not go down upon our wrath muchless should the Sun of our Lives It s bad to bear anger or malice one hour in our hearts against any but it s worst of all to carry it with us into the other world How can he expect to dye in peace with God who dyeth in war with men when God himself hath said Except ye forgive others their trespasses against you neither will your heavenly Father forgive you your trespasses Amilcar the Father of Hannibal when he was dying made his Son take a solemn Oath to maintain a perpetual War with the Romans Edward the first adjured his Son and Nobles that if he dyed in his expedition against Bruce King of Scotland they should not inter his Corps but carry it about with them till they had avenged him on that Usurper But certainly its a desperate thing to leave Children Heirs to the Parents wrath and rage as well as to his riches O how dreadful is his estate who takes his enemy by the throat when God by death is taking him by the throat and ready to thrattle him for ever If thou hast wronged others either in name or goods or body seek reconciliation and make satisfaction for this is righteous and just If thy brother hath ought against thee thou hast never more need of reconciling thy self to him then when thou art approaching the Altar of death there to offer up the last sacrifice to God in this world If thy Brother have wronged thee in any sort remit it this is charity to do otherwise is to give place to the Devil Eph. 4. 16 17. and thou hast least cause to give him ground when his rage is greatest and his barteries strongest in thy last conflict with him O! imitate that blessed Martyr Stephen and the incomparable Saviour in begging Gods love for them who hate thee Act. 7. 60. Luke 23. 34. 2. In remembring the poor and afflicted if God hath made thee able its best to be merciful in our life-time to make our own hand our Executors and our own eyes our Overseers for the payment of our Gifts and Legacies to our spiritual Kindred for such have a particular promise that God will make all their bed in their sickness but its good to be charitable when we are dying True friends show most love at parting Though justice must be blind not to see persons yet charity must be quick-sighted to pick out the fittest objects viz. the poor and the pious poor in the first place Our Goods will not extend to God therefore they must to the Saints When Ionathan was beyond the reach of Davids charity he doth for his sake manifest it to his Son God is beyond all our gifts therefore for his sake we must bestow them on the Godly that are his Children Make you friends of the Mammon of unrighteousness that when that faileth ye may be received into the everlasting habitations Hereby men lay up a good foundation against the time of need Godly Parents are ignorant how their Children may imploy the estate they leave whether as fuel for corruption or as oyl to keep the Lamps in Gods sanctuary burning its good therefore for themselves with prudence to dispose of what they may to Gods Servants and Service Some men have estates dropping on them out of the clouds as it were large inheritances fair patrimonies like Canaan both in regard of their fruitfulness and abounding with all sorts of comforts and in regard of their easiness of obtaining them without sweat or labour they inherit aâ— the Israelites Houses which they built not Wells which they digged not and Vineyards which they planted not upon both these accounts such persons are engaged to do good and distribute and to be rich in good works God expects a return of his Talents with advantage How liberal nay lavish have many Papists been upon their death-beds to Friars and Monks even to the wronging their Wives and Children that some States as Venice have been forced to make Laws to restrain men lest the Church should in time swallow up all the revenues of the Common-wealth and all this upon a foolish vain conceit that they should the sooner pass through Purgatory It is certainly a great disgrace to the Disciples of Christ and no mean dishonour to Christ himself that so many and such large gifts have proceeded from the false faith of Merit-mongers when the faith of his most glorious Gospel doth not work the like in true beleivers How will Christians answer it that an idle Dream and fancied Fear of an imaginary Purgaâ—ory should do more them the sure perswasion of the love of God and the certain hope of eternal life 4. Patience and Submission to the will of God both as to our death or life and also as to our pain or ease in sickness As to our life and death we must know God is wise and will never gather his fruit but in the best season None ununless a fool but will be willing God should chuse for him It s excellent for a sickâ—person to be wholly at Gods disposal as knowing that whilst he is here God will refresh him with the first fruits and when he goeth hence receive him into that place where he shall enjoy the whole harvest It was the speech of dying Iulian he that would not dye when he must and â—e that would dye when he must not are both of them Cowards alike To desire to live when one is called to dye is a sign of Cowardise for such a one is afraid to enter the list with the King of terrors To desire to dye when one is called to live speaks a faint-hearted creature for such a man dares not look an affliction or disaster in the face therefore would take shelter in deathâ— Cato Cleombrotus Lucretia shewed more cowardise then courage in being their own Executioners The Romans commended Terentius for his resolution to live after his Army was routed by Hannibal He is the most valiant person that can dye willingly when God would have him dye and live as willingly when God would have him live He that is weary of his work before the evening is an unprofitable servant and is either infected with idleness or with diseases When Dr. Whitaker was told death was approaching he answered Life or Death is welcom to me which God pleaseth Mr.
ready by him The loving Husband let him come when he will is ever welcom to a faithful Spouse The actual unpreparedness of some holy persons hath caused their Petitions for a longer stay when God seemed to call them hence Psa. 39. 13. As a Nobleman who is a Loyal Subject and affectionately desires his Princes presence and company at his house may wish that it may be deferred when his house is out of repairs till it is in a better order The habitual unpreparedness of sinners I mean their predominant impenitency and unbeleif hath made death cutting to them indeed The Pismire fears not the Winter having laid in her provision against that season but the Graâ—hopper being unprepared is starved therein Let thy whole life be but a preparation for death He that would dye but once I mean escape the second death must dye daily live in a constant expectation of it and preparation for it Pliny calleth a sudden death the greatest fortune of a mans life Iulius Caesar the day before his death in discourse with Marius Lepidus upon that point what was the best end of a mans life preferred that which was sudden and unlookt for which was his fate the next day Augustus his Successor was of the same judgement and desired Mortem celerem insperatem But the Christian findeth by experience that death to be the best which was most expected and prepared for Meditatio mortis vita perfectissima The Meditation of death is the holiest life â—aith the Father Tota vita meditatio mortis discendum est mori The whole life is but a learning to dye saith the Philosopher Wise Princes lay up ten years for one days Battel A wise Christian will lay up every day somewhat for his last day knowing that if he win that combat he is made for ever Invasions or Insurrections like a sudden breach of the Sea carry all before them when pitcht Battels give equal advantage and cause less terror on each side Evils premeditated are often prevented always mitigated the mind gathering reason and strength together wherewith to encounter them But unthought of troubles like fire in the night are most frightful startling the secure sinner from his quiet repose In order to this preparation I shall mention two or three particulars but briefly having spoken to them else-where 1. Keep a clear conscience in thy health Remember that sin is the sting of death therefore be afraid of sin if thou wouldst not be afraid of death T was Nero's answer to Seneca when he advised him to desist his wicked courses that he might please the Gods Verâ—or ego deos cum talia facio Do you think I fear the gods who dare run upon such actions But he who did not dread the Gods found death dreadful to him for the Historian observeth that he cried pittifully like a Child when he was called forth to be killed T is the righteous onely that is bold as a Lion because the rigâ—teous onely hath a conscience sprinkled with the blood of the Lamb and a conscience void of offence towards God and Man When Hilarion was nigh death Depart my soul saith he depart what dost thou fear thou hast served Christ almost seventy years and art thou afraid of death Bernard observeth of Gerrard I beheld him exultantem in morte hominem insultantem morti exulting in death and insulting over death St. Ambrose undauntedly encountred his last enemy saying I have not so lived that I am afraid to live any longer neither do I fear to die because we have a good Lord. The Testimony of a good conscience was the great Apostles comfort in the midst of his trials and troubles 2 Cor. 1. 12. T is guilt which makes us shie of a severe and Holy Gods presence It is no marvail that Alexander the Conqueror was struck almost dead at the sight of Cyrus Tomb that Sigismond when dying should forbid his servants to mention the word Death that Lewis the eleventh should while in health enjoyn his Courtiers not to speak of Death and when sick prohibit the naming it upon pain of death I do not wonder that Saul upon the news of his approaching danger and death falls groveling on the ground and hath no strength left in him nor that Belteshazar upon the tidings of this Serjeants coming to arrest him fell into an Ague Quaking and Shivering so violently that all the wine which he drank so plentifully in his golden Bowles could not chear his heart nor fetch blood into his cheeks The Malefactour may well dread the thoughts much more the approach of an Assize knowing that he is bound over to it and must appear to be arraigned condemned and executed The entry of death may well be forcible upon them whom it ejects out of all their happiness and whole lives have been made up of unholiness T is vice that paints death with such a formidable countenance with a whip and flames in its hand Friend let thy conversation be pious if thou wouldst dye in peace Such as a mans life is usually such is his death An unholy life is ordinarily followed with an unhappy end A filthy Adulterer mentioned by Luther expired in the armes of an Harlot So also Tigillinus Cornelius Gallus Ladislaus King of Naples one of the Popes died in the embraces of strange flesh A great swearer when he came to dye saith Mr. Bolton swore apace and as if he had been already in Hell called upon the standers by to help him with oaths King Henry the second on his death-bed cursed his Sons the day wherein he was born and in that distemper departed the World saith the Historian which himself had so often distempered We read of one who lived well that died ill and of but one in the whole Book of God who lived ill that dyed well A sinner may presume upon peace at death and bespeak in the language of Iehoram to Iehu Is it peace Jehu Is it peace death or as the Elders to Samuel Comest thou peaceably but the Answer will be the same with that of Iehu to him What peace can there be so long as the whordoms of thy Mother Jezabel and her witch-crafts are so many What peace can there be so long as thy lâ—sts and atheism and ignorance and prophaness abound and thy abominations are so many It s no wonder that such persons like Owles are never heard but at night the close of their days and then they screech horribly What shall we call a mocking of God saith a learned person if they do not mock him who think it enough to ask him forgiveness at leasure with the last drawing of a malicious breath these find out a new God make one a leaden one like Lewis the eleventh of France And again Let us not flatter our immortal souls to neglect God all our lives and know that we neglect him trusting upon the peace we think to make at parting for this is no
of the rich Glutton can prevail to avoid it No time no place no company no houses no lands no relations no youth no strength no power no preferments can priviledge me against the arrest of death God hath decreed it Sin hath deserved it and I must expect it It is so searching that it will discover all the Children of men both to themselves and Angels Though ships are usually distinguished by their Flags yet that is no sure sign for Mariners when in sight and fear of their enemies will ordinarily hang out the colours of other Nations and say they belong to them but when they come to their Haven to unload their vessels it appears to what Country they belong Though men are usually distinguished by their outward behaviours yet many for their own ends put on Christs livery who are of Satans family but when they come to be searched and unladen at the end of their lives t will be known to whom they belong When I come to dye then the great controversie between Christ and Satan concerning my soul will be determined whose it shall be for ever O my soul that thou couldst but conceive what it will be to be sent by death into an unchangeable estate either of bliss or misery If thou diest in thy sins thou art killed with death Shouldst thou now live without conscience thou wilt dye without comfort and remain comfortless for ever Ponder a little with thy self the fearful death of a sinner that thou mayst flie his wicked acts as thou wouldst his woful end In the midst of his jollity and mirth when he is in an eager pursuit of carnal pleasures and posting in the way of worldly delights and running to all excess of riot he is on a sudden by deaths harbinger sickness commanded to stand and proceed no further This cuts him to the very heart His former prosperity like Oyl hath suppled his body and makes him more sensible of his present pain And his immoderate love to those fleshly delights doth abundantly greaten his grief and increase his loss Now the man is thrown whether he will or no upon his sick bed that must be his death bed In this his extremity his Companions and Friends and Wife and Children and Honour and Places and Preferments and Silver and Gold and Houses and Lands and costly attire and dainty fare are all dry things and unsavoury to him no creature can afford him the least comfort If he look into his Chamber his Wife is weeping and wringing her hands his Children are sighing his friends are lamenting and wailing but all this doth increase not mitigate his vexation and misery If he look into his Conscience he finds that taking courage and telling him to his face that though formerly he would not suffer it to speak yet now it must tell him the truth that death and hell and wrath are the wages of his ungodly works It will bring to his mind the time he hath mis-spent the talents that he hath mis-improved the day of grace that he hath despised the great salvation that he hath neglected his secret and private and publick sins the sins of his Childhood of his youth of his riper age those sins which he had forgotten and thought should never have been remembred are all set in order before his eyes His heart which was before harder then the neather Milstone is now pierced though not with an evangelical contrition yet with legal terrors and torments His sickness will allow no rest to his body and his sins will afford no ease to his soul. In the evening he cryeth Would God it were morning in the morning Would God it were evening because of the anguish of his spirit His bones are filled with a painful disease and his body with unquietness The Arrows of the Almighty are within him the poison thereof drinks up his spirit and the terrors of God do set themselves in array against him His review of his past actions his remembring of his slighting Christ for a brutish pleasure or a little fading treasure or a base lust and provoking God and continuance in sin against mercies judgements warnings the light of conscience the motions of the spirit are as so many envenomed Arrows sticking in his side and piercing him through with many sorrows but the thoughts of his necessity of dying and his fore-thoughts of the consequent of death how hell rides upon its back and eternal torments attend it how he must fry in unquenchable flames and take up his everlasting lodging amongst roaring Lyons frightful Dragons and the hellish crew sink him quite down To add some more Gall and Wormwood to his cup of bitterness the Devil now steps in and sheweth him his sins in their black hew in their bloody colour and countenance to make him hopeless and desperate The poor creature in this miserable plight and plunge knoweth not what to do whether to go for releif Dye he would not but must live he would but cannoâ— Now he wisheth that he had prayed and served God and minded his soul and salvation more and gratified his flesh and embraced the pleasures and honours of the World less Now he desireth that he might live a little longer and thinks O how would I redeem time and follow after holiness and walk with God what would I not do and suffer to lay up some comfort some cordial against such an hour But whilst he is thus in the midst of his vain wishes Death tells him by the violence of his distemper that the time of his departure is at hand His eyes now begin to sink his speech to faulter his breath to shorten and his heart to fail him and a cold sweat to seise on his whole body He strives and struggleth with all his might to continue here but Death like a Cruel Serjeant drags him to the bar of God whence he is immediately with frowns and fury dismist and haled to the dreadful and eternal Dungeon of Hell O the howlings the screeching the groans the grief which possesseth this poor soul when he is attached by Devils those merciless Officers and carried by them to the lake that burns with fire and brimstone for ever The Spirit being now gone the Body remains a cold lump of Clay forsaken of its dearest friends loathsom to its nearest relations sit for no company but the wormeaten congregation amongst which it must abide till the last day when it shall be joyned to the soul and partake with it in unconceiveable and endless torments Ah who can read such a souls estate with dry eyes or think of such a condition without sorrow O my soul what are thy thoughts of such a death Wouldst thou for the most prosperous Worldlings life dye such a death Doth not thine heart ake whilst thou art musing on it If thou wouldst not meet with the end of such men avoid their ways Lord I confess my self a great sinner and thou mightest justly leave me to walk
of Christ do all give thee daily occasion to mingle thy bread with ashes and thy drink with weeping What is this world that thou art so fond of it Thy God calls it a Sea of glass mingled with fire Rev. 15. 2. A Sea for its turbulency it s never at rest but ebbs and flows continually though sometimes more sometimes less Its work is to bubble up mire and dirt especially on them who are chosen out of the world A Sea of glass for its fragility All its pomp and pride on a sudden vanisheth Glass is both easily and irrecoverably broken in peices A Sea of glass mingled with fire for the fiery and dreadful miseries that befal men in it All its apparent comforts are mingled with real crosses In Heaven there is solace without the least grain of sorrow In Hell there is mourning without the smallest dram of mirth but on Earth there is no estate without mixture The Saints have joy in God but if need be they are in heaviness through manifold tribulations 1 Pet. 1. 6. The merry sinners in the midst of their pleasures have their hearts heavy Some of the wiser Heathen were so sensible of humane miseries that one of them when Ancient told his Scholar that if it were offered him to be young again he would not accept if Saints of all men must expect a large draught of sufferings The world is their enemy and raiseth all its forces against them If I be a Disciple I must look to follow my Master in bearing his Cross O my soul why shouldst thou hug that which hates thee and doat on this world which is neither a fit match for thee as being unsutable to thy nature nor if she were can be faithful to thee being made up of wavering and inconstancy Or secondly Is it the pain of death that thou art so frighted at Surely the fear of it is the greatest torment How many have felt greater pain in divers diseases as in the Stone or Strangury or Collick then in a dying hour Some of Gods Children have felt very little pain in the judgement of those that have seen them dying The waters of Jordan though rough to others have stood still when the Ark was to pass over But though I were sure my pain should be sharp yet I am as sure it shall be short In a moment in the twinckling of an eye I shall be transported over the gulp of misery into endless glory My pangs will be almost as soon gone as come Sorrow will endure but for a short night joy will come in the morning If I were assured of a great purchase made for me in Spain or Turky which upon my first comming over I should enjoy would I not adventure a passage through the boistrous Ocean to take possession My Saviour hath made a larger a better purchase for me in Heaven He is gone before to prepare a place for me My passage thither though it may be more painful is less perillous It s impossible for me to miscarry in it O why am I so slothful to go in and possess the good Land Surely the pleasures of the end may well sweeten the ways to it were they never so bitter With what chearfulness do some women undergo their sharp throws and hard labours supported with this cordial that a child shall thereby be born to them O how infinitely inferiour is the joy of a man child brought forth into this world to the joy of a sanctified soul brought out of this world into Heaven Again I have a tender Father who knoweth my frame and will lay no more upon me living or dying then he will enable me to bear He hath said it I will never leave thee nor forsake thee O my soul thou hast little reason to dread a contest with this enemy for this cause Thou mayst contentedly undergo a little pain to go to thy dearest Lord when many a sinner hath suffered greater to satisfie his hellish lust Thirdly Is it thy future condition that makes thee unwilling to dye Dost thou not know that death is thy portal through which thou shalt pass into the true Paradise It s the straight gate through which thou shalt enter into life Though its the wicked mans shipwrack which swalloweth him up in an Ocean of wrath and torment yet it s the Saints putting into harbour where he is received with the greatest acclamation and richest welcom imaginable Travellers who have met with many dangers and troubles in their journeys rejoyce when they come near their own Country I am a Pilgrim here and used or rather abused as a stranger shall I not be glad when I come near my blessed home my eternal happy habitation Children in some parts when they first behold the Stork the messenger of the Spring testifie their joy with pleasant and loud shoutings O why shouldst not thou lift up thy head with joy when sickness the fore-runner of death is come to bring thee tidings that the Winter of thy misery and cold and hardships is past and the Summer of thine eternal light and joy and pleasure is at hand Thy death may well be a Free-will-offering considering that though the ashes of the sacrifice thy body fall to the earth yet that divine flame thy immortal spirit shall ascend to Heaven In death nothing dyeth of thee but what thou mayst well spare thy sin and sorrows When the house is pulled to peices all those Ivy roots in the wall shall be destroyed The Egg-shell must be broken that the little chick may slip out Thy body must be dissolved that thy â—oul may be delivered Yet thy body doth not dye but sleep in the bed of the grave till the morning of the resurrection That outward apparel shall not be utterly consumed by the moth of time but lockt up safe as in a chest to be new trimmed and gloriously adorned above the Sun in his greatest lustre and put on again when thou shalt awake in the morning never never to put off more O that I could so live that I might not only be always ready but also when God calls me desirous to dye If I borrow any thing of my Neighbour I pay it back with thanks My life is Gods he lends it me for a time Why should I not when he calls for it restore it with thanks that he hath been pleased to lend it me so long Lord thy Children love thee dearly and believe that when they come home to thee thou wilt entertain them kindly yet their flesh like Lots Wife is still â—ankering after the Sodom of this World and loath they are to leave it though it be for their exceeding gain Give thy servant such true faith in thy Son that I may neither love life nor fear death immoderately but as the heart of Jacob revived when he saw the Wagons which Joseph sent to fetch him to Egypt so my heart may leap for joy to behold the heavenly Chariot which the Son of
home when thou art neither Master of thy time nor reason nor of thy natural abilities much less of supernatural grace which is indispensably requisite to this great work O that since I must dye once for sin I might dye daily to sin and as the Philistines that they might the better deal with Sampson cut off his Hair wherein his great strength lay so that I may the better deal with death I may by faith and repentance daily cut off and destroy sin wherein the strength of death lieth May I not say to thee O my soul as Joshua to Israel Prepare ye victuals for within three days ye shall pass over this Iordan to go to possess the Land which the Lord your God giveth you Prepare the spiritual food the flesh of Christ which is meat indeed and the blood of Christ which is drink indeed an heart weaned from the world longing to be with God for within a few days thou shalt go in to possess the land of promise Lord I know nothing more certain then death Sin hath deserved it my brittle body inforceth it thou hast decreed it and none can prevent it I know nothing more uncertain then the time when or the manner how Thou hast many ways and means to bring me to my grave not onely ordinary distempers of my body but thousands of casual dangers I cannot promise my self freedom from it in any place or condition Death may seise me abroad at home in company in solitude at bed at board Why should I not always provide for that extremity that enemy which I cannot avoid Why should I not ever be ready for that which may come at any time and will come at some time or other Surely I do not hasten my death by preparing for it but sweeten it exceedingly I â—hall not dye a moment the sooner but infinitely the better Should death overtake me in my sins alas where am I what will become of me for ever I may well salute it as Ahab Elijah with Hast thou found me O mine enemy for t will come to me as the Prophet to that King with doleful dreadful tidings T will bring me news of a dismal dungeon of darkness to be my habitation of Lyons and Scorpions and Dragons to be my companions of a never dying worm an unquenchable fire pure wrath without mixture full torments without measure to be my portion for ever and ever O teach me so to live above this vain empty life so to be crucified to this world so to make my peace with thy Majesty through the great peace-maker and Prince of Peace my Lord Iesus so to set my heart and house my spiritual and temporal concernments in order that I may be delivered from the paw of the Lyon from the teeth of this monster from the sting of this Serpent and though my body be destroyed yet my soul may escape as a bird out of the snare of the Fowler and mount up to thy self to enjoy that happy life which shall know no death I Wish that all the days of my appointed time I may exercise my self herein to keep a conscience void of offence towards God and towards all men There are but two which can afford me real comfort in a dying hour which always take the same side and joyn together God and my conscience Humane friends often stand afar off when they should be most near and I have most need Some of them are loth to come to a sick mans chamber Mournful objects must not disturb their jollity and mirth They are sworn enemies to sorrowful occasions and baniâ—h such foes their quarters or themselves from such coasts Others if they come to visit me love not to see my gastly countenance like not to hear my deep and deadly groans But be they never so full of pity they can onely sympathize with me they cannot relieve refresh me The most they can do is to accompany me to my grave and there they leave me But O the comfort which a loving God and a conscience sprinkled with the blood of Christ and purged from dead works will afford me in a dying hour The smiles of a God and chearings of a good conscience will be musick indeed to welcom me to the shoar after all my tumblings and tossings in this tempestuous Ocean They will make my bed in my sickness help me to lye easie hearten me in my sighs and groans be my feast at my funeral bid me Be of good chear for my sins are forgiven me tell me that my Redeemer liveth and because he liveth I shall live also lodge my body in a grave as in a Bed of Spices and convey my soul into my Saviours Bosome and Embraces when my Houses Lands Honours Friends Wife Children leave me they will cleave to me nay when my breath life heart flesh forsake me they will not fail me yea when faith hope patience repentance shall bid me farewel weeping as Orpah did Ruth these like Naomi will stick to me go with me and seek rest for me O that my heart may be so upright in the service of my God that when I â—hall receive the sentence of death I may be able to say with good Hezekiah Remember now I beseech thee O Lord how I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart and have done that which is good in thy sight O my soul what a friend shouldst thou be to thy God thy conscience how faithful to their warnings now in life if thou wouldst have them thy friends at death Hereby thou mayst be able to triumph in that hour of temptation to defie death it self and bid it do its worst Though it be the common gate through which the sinner goeth into prison where he meets with Chains and Fetters and cold and all sorts of miseries yet thou shalt go through it into the Kings Pallace where thou shalt have rivers of pleasures and 〈◊〉 entertainment If Jacob went down so joyfully 〈◊〉 Egypt when God had said to him fear not to go down for I will go down with thee and I will bring thee up again What needest thou fear to go down into the Grave when thy God hath undertaken to go down with thee thither and to bring thee up again Thy body may be turned into dust but thy God is in Covenant with thy dust and thy head the blessed Redeemer will not suffer one muscle or nerve or artery or vein of any of his members to be lost With what chearfulness mayst thou take thy leave of thy body Farewel sweet body thou hast been in some measure faithful to thy soul in the service of thy Lord Farewel I must bid thee goodâ—night till the morning of the resurrection Be thou content to go to bed and sleep in the dust and rest in hope for though after the skin wormes destroy this body yet in my flesh â—hall I see God Whom I shall see for my self and mine eyes shall behold him and
man in this world The greatness of the price the blood of God doth to every rational understanding fully speak the preciousness of the pearl Now how clear and plain is it in the word of truth that the Redeemer gave himself to redeem us from all iniquity and to purifie unto himself a peculiar people zealous of goodworks Tit. 2. 14. That being delivered out of the hands of our enemies we might serve him in holiness and righteousness all our days Surely Reader that which the Son of God who thought it no robbery to be equal with God thought worthy the taking on himself the form of a servant and the suffering the spite and malice of men the wrath and rage of devils and the frowns and fury of his father to purchase for thee doth deserve to be minded and regarded by thee as thee onely thing thou followest after and setst thy self about during thy pilgrimage Alas All the pains and labour and watching and working and time and strength and lives of all the men in the world are not equivalent to one drop of the blood of Christ or the least degree of his humiliation and wilt thou deny to make that thy business for which he shed so much blood and laid down his life 6. Is not that worthy to be made thy business which is the peculiar work of the Holy Ghost and for which the Spirit is infused into the hearts of men The worth of the Father doth speak the desert of the Child Though men who pretend to honour the Father for his work of Creation and to admire the Son for his work of Redemption blasphemously deride and wretchly slight sanctification which is the work of the Spirit yet undoubtedly the work of the Spirit is no whit inferiour to either nay is the beauty and glory both of Creation and Redemption as being the end and perfection of both The Father created the world in order to the new creation by the Spirit as that choice work man ship which he resolved should bring him in the largest revenue of praise and honour T is the new heavens wherein dwelleth righteousness that doth most declare the glory of God and the Firmament of sparkling graces that sheweth forth his most choice and curious handi-work Sanctification is the travel of the Sons soul a spiritual sacred life the great end of his death The Son redeemed man from slavery to sin and Satan and unto the service of righteousness by layino down the price thereof his own most precious blood One of the Sons main works was to purchase the re-impression of Gods Image on man the actual performance of which is the peculiar office of the Spirit hence he tells us Ioh. 14. I go away that the comforter may come and again Ioh. 6. The Spirit was not yet given i. e. so plentifully and universally because Iesus was not yet glorified And therefore we read that in few days after his ascension to acquaint us what was one main end and fruit of his death and suffering he powreth down the holy Ghost in an extraordinary manner and measure So that Creation the work of the Father doth as it were provide the matter the wax Redemption the work of the Son buyeth the Image of God the Seal and Sanctification the work of the Spirit stampeth it on the soul. Now Reader doth not the Sanctification of the Soul deserve to be thy main business when it is the curious work of the holy Spirit as that which the Fathers eye was chiafly on in thy Creation and the Sons in thy Redemption Is not that worthy to be made thy business which addeth a real worth to every thing and without which nothing is of worth or value Every one will grant that what is so richly excellent as to ennoble and add an intrinsick value to whatsoever it is affixed and the lack of which maketh every thing be they in other respects never so precious low and mean must needs deserve to be our business Truely Friend such is holiness it makes the word of God a precious word more to be embraced then gold yea then much fine gold The Ordinances of God precious Ordinances the people of God a precious people the excellent of the earth What is the reason that some in the account of him who is best able to judge though they be never so rich or beautiful or high and honourable in the world are called Dross Chaff Stubble Dust Filth Vessels of dishonour and counted Dogs Swine Vermine Serpents Cockatrices but want of holiness What is the reason that some though poor and despised and mean and houseless and friendless are esteemed by him who can best discern true worth The glory of the World the glory of Christ a Royal Diadem a Royal Priesthood higher then the Kings of the earth more excellent then their Neighbours Princes in all lands such of whom the world is not worthy but because they are godly persons an holy people Why are some Angels advanced to the highest Heavens waiting always in the presence of the King of Kings honoured to be his Ministers and Deputies in the Government of this lower world when other Angels are thrown down into the lowest Hell for ever banished the Celestial Court and bound in chains of darkness as prisoners to the day of execution but holiness in the former and want of it in the latter 8. Is not that worthy to be made thy business which will and can refresh and revive thee in an hour of death and enable thee to sing and triumph at the approach of the King of terrors The Master of Moral Philosophy tells us that its worth the while for a man to be all the time he lives learning how to dye well The unerring spirit of God acquaints us that it ought to be our great work to be wise for our latter end Doubtless it must be a rich costly cordial indeed and deserves not a little time and pains and charge to prepare which can keep a man from fainting in such a day of extremity wherein our honours and treasures friends wives children nay our flesh and hearts will fail and forsake us That cannot be of mean worth which can make a man encounter his last enemy with courage and conquest at the sight of which Kings and Captains and Nobles and the greatest Warriers have trembled as leaves with the wind and their hearts melted as grease before the fire Now Reader Godliness is that wine which will cause thee to sing at the approach of this Goliah and enable thee as Leviathan to laugh at the shaking of his spear when whole hosts of others without Godliness flie like Cowards before it and would give all they are worth to avoid fighting with it Heark what a challenge the godly sends to this adversary daring it to meet him in the field O death where is thy sting O grave where is thy victory the sting of death is sin and the strength of sin is the
evil Company consisteth First if thou wouldst exercise thy self to Godliness in evil society Labour to keep thy self unspotted from their sins Ungodly men are called filthy and compared to Swine that are apt to defile all that have to do with them They as the Night are dark and full of unwholsom vapours it concerns thee therefore to be well fenced that thy spiritual health may not be impared by them Be careful that they hurt thee not either inwardly or outwardly Thou art in a double danger amongst sinners thou art in danger of having thy soul wounded and also of having thy name and estate blasted There is a necessity therefore of a double guard of a guard upon thy soul that it may not be wronged and of a guard upon thy tongue that thy outward comforts may not be ruined I say 1. Be watchful over thy soul that thou contractest no guilt It s hard to be near those that are dirty and defiled and yet to keep our Garments unspotted and clean Wicked men as Diers and Painters who use colours are usually besmeared themselves in their hands and habits and they also besmear others The Lake of Sodom is called Asphaltides or the Dead Sea because of the venemous vapours which arise out of it insomuch that Birds which flye over it fall down dead and beasts that drink of it sicken and dye Some men have found evil society as poisonous to their souls as brutes have found the Dead Sea to their bodies Pope Nicholas the thirds Concubine by looking on a Bear frequently was brought abed of a Monster Thy frequent vision of their wicked actions may cause too great a likeness in thy conversation But the Saint should resemble the Carbuncle which being cast into the fire is nowhit defiled or impaired thereby but therein shines most brightly If it be closed fast say some in a ring of Lead and cast into the fire we may see the Lead molten but the Carbuncle not so much as mollified or in the least blemished Thy watchfulness friend must be great if thou wouldst keep thy self unspotted from the World Jam. 1. ult Rust will fret into the hardest steel but not into the Emerald Sin will fiâ—d speedy acceptance with a prophane sinner but not with a preciouâ— Saint Ioseph kept his Chastity though often in the company of his wanton Mistress Lot did not lose his sanctity though he dwelt amongst ungodly Sodomites The Arch-Angel disputed with the Arch-Divel yet was not infected by his poisonous breath Satan did set upon the blessed Saviour but could not fasten the least sin upon him Naturalists tell us that the Diamond if true will lie in the â—ire and not consume the Herb Narcissus or Yellow Crowbellies flowreth in February and keepeth its Flower under the Snow The Olive Tree in the midst of the Flood kept its branches green The Christian ought so to converse with the wicked that his grace may neither waste nor his conscience be wounded Thy Duty is as Cloaths well dyed to keep thy colour in all Weathers and as a good constitution to retain thy spiritual health in the most unwholsome Aires The Apostle writes to the Corinthians 1 Cor. 5. 11. Not to company with any that are called brethren and are fornicators or covetous or idolaters or railers or drunkards or extortioners The word in the Original is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 both in the 9 and 11. verse which signifieth not to mingle with them They may be amongst them but they may not mingle with them that which mingleth with any filthy thing receiveth of its filth and though it were pure before is polluted thereby The people of God ought not in this sense to mingle with the world but to keep themselves though not untoucht yet untainted It s storied that the Rivers of Peru run into the main Sea twenty or thirty miles and yet are not mingled with the Sea but continue fresh water So the River Rodanus is said to run purely through the Lake Lemanus without mixture of waters It s also reported of the River Dee in Merionithshire in Wales that running through Pimbe Meer it remaineth entire and mingleth not with the waters of the Lake Thus should the people of God those Chrystal streams though they are necessitated sometimes to meet with keep themselves entire and not mingle with the puddle water of unclean persons Pliny reports of a Family near Rome that could walk on live coals and not be burnt It s honourable to keep thy self pure among them that are evangelically perfect but to preserve thy self from pollution amongst them that are prophane is Heroical It s the excellency of a Christian to hold on his course without slipping or falling when many rubs and hinderances are laid in his way And it s the glory of grace to keep its beauty and lustre notwithstanding the attempts of the World and the Wicked one to soil it It was a notable speech of the Souldier that Erasmus speaks of who being told of a numerous Army coming against him answered Tanto plus gloriae referemus quanto sunt plures quos superabimus The more famous our opposition the more illustrious our Conquest That Great Commander had never been so renowned if he had not eaten his way over the Alpes that were supposed inaccessible The greater our difficulties and the more greivous our enemies the greater our valour and the more glorious our victory That expression concerning Asia hath some worth Though it be no praise never to have seen it yet to have lived soberly and temperately in it is praise-worthy indeed The Holy Ghost giveth thee wholsom counsel Be not partaker of other mens sins keep thy self pure 1 Tim. 5. 22. It may be Reader thou art called sometimes amongst Swearing Drunken and Ungodly persons Well thou art in more danger then in a Pest-house therefore look well to thy self Satan thinks though he could not conquer thee amongst the Saints that now he hath caught thee amongst a Company of venemous Serpents one or other of them will sting thee and then he hopeâ— to overthrow thee Watch thy self narrowly if thou wouldst be safe Be not partaker of other mens sins It may be as bad to have communion with others sins as to commit sin in thy own person He that is Surety for another is as liable to the debt as the Principal and we count him most foolish that takes anothers debt upon himself Indeed Satan hath this for his comfort that hereby he hath the more in bonds to the Laws Curse Three ways thou mayst partake of those sins which are committed in thy Company I shall not speak of thy commanding men to sin so David was guilty of Vriahs death though the Sword of the Ammonites slew him â— Sam. 12. 3. Nor of counselling men to sin so Ionaciaâ— was guilty of Ammons incest 2 Sam. 16. 21. Nor of comâ—ending others for sin so a man may be accessory 〈◊〉 the fact Rom. 1.
of fire be kept from consuming and as Gideons fleece be moyst when all the earth about it is dry O that I might as Fish retain my freshness in the saltest waters and never savour others vices or follow their steps who depart from the Commandements of my God Lord whose promise is to thy Disciples They shall take up Serpents and if they drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt them Mark 16. 18. Is it not thine own hand writing and canst thou fail of fulfilling it O let thy powerful presence accompany me whithersoever thy providence calleth me Let thy preventing grace preserve me from receiving harm and thy quickening mercy enable me to do good that whereas thine enemies are apt to speak evil of me as an evil doer they may be ashamed who falsly accuse my good conversation in Christ 1 Pet. 3. 16. I Wish that I may be so far from receiving prejudice that I may be profited by the worst of those with whom I associate As my God created nothing in vain so he permits nothing but to some good purpose T is true wicked men are Dogs Mat. 7. 12. prone to faun on me that they may defile me but even of Dogs there may be a good use The Flock is the more safe from Wolves and the House from Theives through their watchfulness They are dust apt to breed vermine but some creatures live upon it as their Aliment and in it as their Element and the basest rubbish may be serviceable about the foundation of a building The Guts and Garbage of some beasts are food to others Doth not experience teach us that many Fowls draw nourishment from unclean and filthy Carcasses Why may not my stomach be so good and my spiritual constitution so strong as to concoct such unwholsom food Lycurgus taught the Lacedemonians vertue not onely by the pattern of their Sober Ephori but also of the drunken Helots their slaves Poisons are as necessary as the best diet if they be in the hands of him who is able to improve and prepare them Beer is the better the more lively and brisk for the grouns that are in the same vessel with it O that my graces might be the more quick and active for the lees of others vices that their sins might increase my sanctity both in making me more thankful to him who maketh me to differ and more watchful over my self lest I fall from my own stedfastness The Mariners are directed in their sailings by Rocks and Shelves as well as by the Northern star My God instructeth Jonah by the shadow of a Weed Go to the Pismire thou sluggard consider her provident ways and be wise to follow them Observe the men of this world O my soul consider their wicked ways and be wise to avoid them Ask these beasts of the earth and they will teach thee nay shame thee How unwearied are they in the pursuit of the world how diligent about their works of darkness how often do they lose their sleep to do mischief and neglect their food and callings to indulge their fleshly lusts whilst thou whose Master is the Lord of Glory whose service is the onely freedom and whose recompence will be infinite art loytering and lazing upon the bed of security O that thou mayst learn industry about the concernments of heaven and eternity from others industry about the affairs of this earth for a few days and take shame to thy self that Satans Servants should be more forward to gratifie their Soul-destroyer then thou art to please the blessed Saviour Lord it is thy prerogative to cause light out of darkness and to bring good out of evil teach thy servant to gather figs from these thistles and to be the better because others are so bad Because the wicked forsake thy law therâ—fore let me love thy commandements above gold yea above much fine gold I Wish that though in pursuance of my calling I do afford my â—ompany to sinners I may never bear them company in their sins True Gold will not change its colour or nature for the hottest fire The Rock keeps its place and is immoveable notwithstanding the continual dashing of the water The earth is not hurt either by the heat of Summer or cold of Winter Though much dirt be flung at a post well oyled it will not stick My God hath enjoyned me Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness Whence I learn these three things 1. That sin is a work of darkness The Prince of darkness is its Father It s his natural off-spring therefore called the work of the Devil Iohn 8. 44. A dark heart is its Mother there it s conceived thence it s brought forth In dark holes these vermine breed and swarm Ephes. 4. 18. Hos. 4. 1 2 3. 2 Cor. 4. 4. It s portion is utter darkness blackness of darkness for ever all its inheritance lieth in darkness and the shadow of death 2. I learn that the works of darkness are unfruitful The sinner makes a sad market of all his wicked wares He soweth vice and reapeth vanity promiseth himself much pleasure and sindeth it wholly unprofitable What fruit had ye in those things whereof ye are now ashamed for the end of those things is death O what a frightful monster is this miscreant It hath fruitlesness in the beginning shame in the middle and death in the conclusion 3. I learn that I onght not to have fellowship with these unfruitful works of darkness Indeed I have little reason if I consider the two former particulars yet how prone am I to it either by my silence when they sin or by my secret complyance with them in their sin My corrupted heart is like Touch-wood ready to take fire by the least spark When others are bold to blaspheme God I am apt through an ungodly bashfulness to hold my peace little considering that I must one day answer as well for my sinful silence as for every idle word It s my duty to hold the jewel of my faith fast lest Satan steal it from me to hold my profession to the end lest by leaving my Colours I lose my Crown but not to hold my peace in the quarrel of truth lest by suffering sin in others I wrong my own soul Where is my love to others if I stand still whilst they destroy themselves It may well break the strings of my tongue as of the Son of Cyrus when sin like the Persian is ready to kill my Father or Brother or Neighbour Evil men are like Traytours with whom if we act or conceal we are guilty Where is my love to my self if I take others intolerable burthens on my own back Sin is a load too heavy for the stoutest for the strongest to carry Should I by my silence give consent to others Oaths or Lyes or Ieers at godliness and godly men I become a party in their bonds and liable to make satisfaction for their debts and may
as never to reproach the sinner when I reprove the sin lest I break their heads instead of their hearts and make them flie in my face instead of falling down at Gods feet Bone-setters must deal very warily and Physick is given with great advice and in dangerous diseases not without a consultation I would distinguish between crimes and not fall upon any as the Syrians did on Gilead Amos. 1. 3. with a flail of Iron when a small wand may do the work nor as Jeroboam threatened Israel chastise them with Scorpions who may be reformed with Whips It was not the heat but the cool of the day when my God came down to reprove Adam The wrath of man workeâ—h not the righteousness of God It s in vain to undertake to cast out Satan with Satan or sin with sin I must turn anger out of my nature but I must not turn my nature into anger Yet let me be serious not light in all my admonitions It s ill playing or jesting with one that is destroying and damning himself Would it not stick close to me another day should I laugh at them at this day that are going into the place of weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth My frothy carriage would as Hazaels cloth dipt in water instead of recovering stifle my brother to death Physick works best when its warm I must love my Neighbour as my self True self-love will throw the first stone at its own sin I may not suffer sin in my self therefore not in my neighbour Lord thou hast commanded me in any wise to rebuke my neighbour and not to suffer sin upon him I confess it s an unpleasing work to rake into sores and ulcers If I lance festred wounds I make the Patients angry by putting them to pain and O how averse is my wicked heart to such a task I am prone to fear their ill-will more then thine and rather to let them rot in the hony of flattery then preserve and save them by faithful admonition How backward is my cowardly spirit to undertake the work how many excuses will it plead for its neglect When through grace I have overcome those lets and hinderances how flatteringly and unfaithfully do I go about it rather stroaking the sinner then striking the sin O pardon my omissions of this duty and all my falseness in the performance of it Let thy Spirit so encourage me that I may not fear the faces of men so direct me that affectionately prudently and zealously I may admonish them that go astray and O do thou so prosper and bless that I may bring them home to thy flock and fold I Wish that I may unfaignedly bewail others wickedness and lament that dishonour to my God which I cannot hinder It s an ill sign of my Sonship for others to blaspheme the name of my father and me to be insensible Adoption is ever accompanied with filial affection If I expect the priviledges I must ensure the properties of a Child Nature will teach me to be troubled for affronts that are offered to the Father of my flesh and will not grace enable me to be greived at the dirt which wicked men throw in the â—ace of the Father of Spirits Again I must not look for freedom from others sufferings unleâ—â— I lay to heart their sins The mourners in Sion are those that in a common calamity are markt for safety Ezek. 9. The destroying Angel will take me to be as guâ—lty as others if it fixd me without grief and so wrap me up in their punishments my God himself judgeth me infected with those sins for which I am not afflicted and can I then think to escape O that my head were water and mine eyes fountains of tears that I might weep day and night for the iniquity and misery of dying gasping sinners Lord thou canst fetch water out of this rocky heart and open the sluces of my eyes Break my heart because others break thy Commands When others kindle the fire of thine anger help thy servâ—nt to draw water and poure it out before thee Let me be so far from seeing others provoke the eyes of thy glory without sorrow that when ever I remember the transgressours I may be greived because they forsake thy statutes Let rivers of tears run down mine eyes when the wicked forsake thy Law I cannot for my life so carry my self but I shall sometimes fall amongst wicked men Whilst I am amongst them I endanger my soul either by complying with or conniving at them in their evil actions There is no safety in evil society Such Pitch is apt to defile my conscience Who can expect to come off without loss from such Cheats and Juglers It is the peevish industry of wickedness to find or make a fellow Besides they are Children of the world whose friendship is enmity against my God they are Children of disobedience therefore contrary to my new nature and so must needs be uncomfortable to me Children of the Devil therefore Traytors against Christ and so abominable to my God I cannot be certain not to meet with evil companions but I will be careful not to be their consorts I would willingly sort my self with such as should either teach me vertue or learn of me to avoid vice And if my Companion cannot make me better nor I him good let me rather leave him ill then he should make we worse Though if I depart from â—hem the world will judge me proud yet should I stay with them needlesly my God would count me prophane and is it not better that men accuse me falsly then God condemne me justly What need I care what men think so God approve T is to his judgement that I must stand or fall for ever It is likely that those who cannot defile my conscience will injure my credit and publish to their fellows that I am a precise fool But this is my comfort there is a time coming when innocency will cause the greatest boldness and freedom from sin will do me more service and be infinitely more worth then the highest renown that ever mortal acquired Lord thy people in this world are as Lillies among Thorns The Canaanites of the Land are Thornes in the eyes and Pricks in the sides of thy true Israelites Wo is me that I dwell in Meshech and my habitation is in the Tents of Kedar My soul hath long dwelt with them that hate peace They like not me because I am not like to them and count my Company not good because it is not bad and I dare not sin with them They are mine enemies because I follow the thing that good is O how black are their tongues with railing and their hearts with rage against them who dare not provoke thee as much as themselves I am ready to say now upon the view of their abominations and the hearing their Oaths and Curses and Blasphemies Cursed be their anger for it is fierce and their rage
of a good name is above all wealth Eccles. 7. 1. A good name is better then precious Oyntment What a great theif is he then that robs his Neighbour of it Our rash judging others like the Rams-horns before Iericho may blow down that with a blast which we cannot build up again while we live An ill report is soon raised but not so soon laid It usually like the Crocodile groweth whilst it continueth Our tears should be the grave to bury our Neighbours failings in and not our mouths a grave to bury their names in That one act of Alexander merits eternal memory who having read a Letter with his favourite Hephestion wherein his mother calumniated Antipater he presently took his Signet from his finger and oppressed Hephestions lips with it conjuring him as it were to seal up his lips and not once to open them in revealing anothers disgrace Suppose the person I censure be really evil yet my duty is to do what I can to amend not to divulge his errors But if he be good I dishonour God by disgracing his Friend and shall be sure to pay for it either in tears or torment How shall I be able to stand in that day when men shall give an account of all their hard speeches and what shall I answer when God shall ask me as once he did Aaron and Miriam Wast thou not afraid to speak against my Servant Moses 3. Take heed of back-biting the bad When Men speak evil of others that are absent before many purposely to defame and disgrace them this is back-biting and condemned by God though what we speak of them be true Doeg spake nothing but truth of David and Abimelech yet the Scripture calls him a lying and deceitful tongue Psa. 52. Somtimes it may be a duty to reveal others deeds of darkness as when these two things concur 1. That we have cause for it When what we mention is naked truth and the sin not any ways rendred more ugly and deformed by misconstructions or aggravations And 2. When we have a call to it as when we are desired to mention what we know of others by them that have good ground to enquire after them or when through ignorance of such things others may be deceived in them or when we are lawfully required before a Magistrate to testifie our knowledge of such persons or actions I may add a third and that is When our desires and ends are purely to get our hearts affected with the dishonour that is done to God by their wickedness and the danger and misery of their own souls This is supposed to be the subject matter of the Saints discourse Mal. 3. 16. when in evil days they spake often one to another But for men to make it their business to publish others prophaness this is prophane Thou shalt not go up and down as a Tale-bearer among thy people Lev. 19. 16. The word for Tale-bearer in the Hebrew is Bakel and signifieth a Pedlar which fitly sets forth the property of a Back-biter The Pedlar goeth up and down the Country offring his wares at every door very willing to put them off he takes them up at one place and never ceaseth travailing till he hath sold them at another So the back-biter catcheth up an evil report of a man at one house and cannot rest till he is at some other house to tell it again offering to vend it at a very low rate to any man that will take it off his hands Nay he is so full that he is ready to burst if none will allow him vent He is bigg with child and can find no ease till anothers ears be the Midwife to deliver him of such a deformed Monster But this is opposite to the rule by which we should walk Tit. 2. 3. Our God commandeth us Speak evil of no man Not of good men for they are Gods portion not of bad men for so is Gods precept This unchristian course of some professors hath procured them many a mischief and brought up an ill report upon them all The sinner is apt to say of such as Ahab of Micaiah I hate him for he never speaks well of me And thus instead of saving their neighbours souls which ought to be the work of every Christian they harden them in their sins and help to deepen their condemnations Without doubt that time which men spend in reporting others wickedness would be far better imployed in confessing and be wailing their own It will prove at last but an evil means to raise our own names higher by pulling down others and building on their ruinesâ— and to relate their vices as a foil to render our vertues more beautiful and glorious Let not the evil speaker be established in the earth Evil shall hunt the violent man to overthrow him Psa. 140. 11. He that plotteth to pluck up others names doth it with an intent to plant his own the surer but he shall not be established in the earth saith God He judgeth himself safe because others cannot stand before him or are disabled by reason of the disgrace he hath brought on them to oppose him But evil like a pack of ravenous hounds shall with open mouth bunt this butting Stagg and sooner or later overthrow him It was wise counsel which Diogenes gave the Emperour Take heed saith he of two sorts of beasts in thy Court both which bite dangerously the tame Beast the Flatterer and the wild Beast the Back-biter Well might he call them Beasts for a Man-like Spirit scornes to be so brutish as to claw the itching eares of others with flatteries and hates to be so currish and cowardly as to bite them behind their backs David would have no such to be his Servants Psa. 101. 6 7. The Back-biter hath this sad unhappiness that he wounds three with one Arrow of his viperous tongue Himself his Hearer and his Neighbour he speaks of 1. Himself for such weapons recoyl and flie upon him that dischargeth them The Holy Ghost compareth a back-biting tongue to a sharp sword and indeed like Sauls sword it may be the death of the owner God joyns this sin with Murder Lev. 19. 16. to note saith one that the Back-biter is a Man-slayer and surely such a one shall not escape vengeance 2. His Hearer The Receiver is as bad as the Thief If there were no Tale-hearer there would be no Tale-bearer Some are fitly compared to Brass Pots though they are great you may carry them by the ears which way you please It s an excellent expression of Solomon As the North-wind drives away Rain so doth an angry countenance a Back-biting tongue Prov. 25. 23. It s a memorable saying of Bernard The Detractour and willing hearer of it do both carry the Divel aboâ—t them the one carrieth him in his tongue the other in his ear It was the wish of Plautus that there were a Law for the hanging of Tale-bearers by the Tongue and Tale-bearers by the
3. Think he did it ignorantly that had he known the consequence he would not have been guilty of such a crime Surely the man thought no hurt he spake on a sudden such words came out of his mouth before he was aware or he would never have spoken them I my self in an heat might have been as harsh When high winds blow storms will follow 4. If thou canst not be perswaded but the injury was wittingly offered then think He was overcome with some great temptation There were extraordinary fumes at that instant flying up into his head which made him talk idly and of which now he may be repenting before the Lord. The strong man was too hard for the weak Christian. Flesh and blood was easily conquered by Principalities Powers I may well forgive him his sin will cost him sorrow enough before his Father smile on him III. The Natural burthen as I may call it though it hath a relation to spiritual but not fully in the former sense of their infirmities Some by reason of bad instruments are but bunglars at their work They have naturally understandings very dull to receive and memories very slow to retain spiritual things They have ill constitutions of body and thereby the worse frames of soul and the more apt to be peevish and fretful Now we exhort you brethren that ye support the weak and be patient towards all men 1 Thes. 5. 14. All the persons in Gods family are not of the same height and strength though some are Old Men and Fathers and others are Young and strong yet some are little Children Babes in Christ some can go alone or with a little help if you hold them but by their leading-strings but others must be carried in arms and will require much love and patience to overcome their childish frowardness Christ winks at their weaknesses who hath most reason to be moved with them though his disciples were raw and dull and slow to believe and understand yet he bears with them Nay though when he was watching for them and in his bloody sweat his whole body being in a goar blood under the weight of their and others sins on his back and they lay sleeping and snoring and could not watch with him one hour he doth not fall fiercely upon them but calmly asketh them Could ye not watch with me one hour and afterwards excuseth it for them First From the natural cause There heads were full at that time ofâ— fumes Their eyes were heavy with sorrow They were full of grief for their dear Master and their sorrow hindring the digestion of their food filled them with vapours which ascending to their brains inclined them to sleep Secondly From the Moral cause they would but they could not The Spirit indeed is willing but the flesh is weak there better part would move more swiftly and do any thing at my call and command but their flesh draweth back and makes them drive heavily It s no wonder that their pace is so slow when like the snail they have such an house such an hinderance upon their backs The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak Who can think of this infinite grace of the blessed Redeemer in making such an Apologie for them whom he had such cause to be full of fury against and not be incited to imitate so admirable a pattern There is another famous instance in the Old Testament and that is Gods patience towards peevish Ionah by which all may see how much he bears with his froward children First Ionah runs from his business God sends him to Niniveh he will go to Tarshish here was plain rebellion against his Soveraign One would have expected that the jealous God should have given him a Traytors wages and when he was at Sea have suffered the Ocean of waters to have swallowed up his body and the Ocean of fire and wrath his soul but loe he cannot permit his Ionah to perish he will rather whip him to his work then let him wander to his ruine But how gentle is the rod God cannot forget the love of a Father though Ionah forget the duty of a childe but will rather work a miracle and make the devourer his Saviour then Ionah shall miscarry T is true he was tossed with a violent tempest and thrown over-board but God provided him a shelter before the storm and prepared a Whale to swallow him down not for his destruction but his deliverance And the Lord spake to the fish and it vomited up Jonah upon the dry land Well now the childe is brought home you will look that he should make some recompence for his former disobedience by his faithfulness and diligence for the future that the danger he had been in the death he had so narrowly escaped the miracle which had been wrought for him and the extraordinary mercy he had so lately received should have melted him wholly into Gods mould and have made him like Abraham to have come up wholly to Gods foot But alas he addeth sin to sin and neither mercy nor misery prevail with him to know himself Indeed he undertakes the journey and message he was called to upon a second command but as unwillingly as the Bear goeth to the stake After he had pronounced a sentence of death upon the Ninivites and shewed them a warrant under the high Gods hand and seal for their speedy execution how ill doth he take it that upon their humble petition a Reprieve should be granted them he frets inwardly against God and through the exceeding heat of his heart his tongue blisters with casting Gods mercy in his teeth He was wrath for that in which he had cause to rejoyce His love to his brethren might have made him glad of their escape and his love to his God should have quieted him in all his wise and holy proceedings But it displeased Jonah exceedingly and he was very angry and he prayed unto the Lord O Lord was not this my saying in my Country for I knew that thou art a gracions God c. Therefore O Lord take away my life He quarrels with Gods providence and he doth as it were twit God with that which is the glory of all his Attributes and actions and the best friend the poor children of men have his Grace and Pity desiring rather the destruction of above sixscore thousand persons then that himself by the blind ignorant world should be reckoned a false Prophet Behold impatience in its largest dimensions Ionah will dye because so many thousands are allowed out of infinite kindness to live O what a nest of vermine was in the womb of this disobedience Here is pride both in preferring his own will before Gods and in his unwillingness to suffer a little in his repute in the eye of the people Here was passion to the height and that against God himself Here was murmuring against sparing mercy and the Divine pleasure Here was unbelief as if God could not repair his
Itenerar Sacr. But reprove a wise man and he will love thee Austin notes it as a sign of grace in his friend Alipius that he received his reproof so well Paul rebuked Peter sharply and that before a considerable Company of Peters friends yet he loved not Paul the less for it for in his Epistle which was written some time after that contest and after the Epistle to the Galathians which records it he makes honourable mention of Pauls writings and of that very Epistle among the rest 2 Pet. 3. 15 16. and calleth him his beloved brother As they who love their sins hate the reprover so they that hate their sins love him When Isaiah had declared from God a dreadful threatning against Hezekiah for his pride he doth not flie out into a passion against the Prophet but submits with Good is the word of the Lord which thou hast spoken T is said of Gerson the great Chancellour of France that he rejoyced in nothing more then a friendly reprehension And it is storied of our Richard the first that he would be admonished by a poor Hermit Alphonsus King of Arragon being asked what company he liked best answered Books for they saith he without fear and flattery will tell me my faults faithfully Faithful are the wounds of a friend but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful A loving reproof is a wound in love the wound of a friend and therefore we must bestow our anger upon our faults that deserve the reproof not upon our friends that give the reproof How foolish is he that breaks his own head then rageth at his friend for endeavouring to cure it Ahab quarrels with Elijah as the Incendiary of Israel for reproving their Idolatries when alas like AEtna that flame arose out of their own bowels which threatned to reduce them to ashes Some of the Heathen were so sensible of their proness to erre and to be partial in their own cases when they had erred that they both kindly accepted reproofs and earnestly desired a Reprover It is reported of Alexander that having had a Philosopher a long time with him he should say to him Recede a me prorsus consortium tuum nolo quod cum tanto tempore mecum degeris nunquam me de vitio aliquo increpasti Be gone from me I will have none of thy company for thou hast lived long with me and couldst not but observe some failings in me yet thou hast not reproved me of any And Augustus Cesar for this cause did much lament the death of Varro because thereby he was deprived of one that would deal faithfully with him when he offended Yet as they say some roses are too tender to endure the strength of the smell of Wormwood so some Christians that its hoped are sound cannot without wry mouths and angry faces drink down this bitter liquor Asa was a good man yet time was when he imprisoned a Prophet for bringing him an admonition from God One would have thought that the King would have bid the servant welcome for his Masters sake but truly a prison was all the reward he had for his pains It was the speech of a wise and experienced Christian That he never was acquainted throughly with any one but first he displeased him by admonishing him of his faults But as light stuff and rubbish kindleth sooner then solid and more substantial wood so they are the weaker and less wise Christians that are so soon fired into a pet and passion if but told of their errors T is childishness to be unwilling to take bitter medicines A prudent person will rather permit cupping-glasses and corrosives to be applied to his body then suffer his distemper to reign and kill him The sharpest fruit is most profitable and wholsom The Lemon is more tart yet is more excellent then the Orange which delighteth the taste Reader is it not better to be awakened by a rousing reproof then to sleep the sleep of death and wilt thou be angry with thy friend for doing thee that courtesie Is it not better for thy familiar companion to tell thee meekly of thy miscarriages and call thee to repentance then for God to reprove thee and set thy sins in order before thine eyes When God uttered his voyce the Heavens thundered the mountains smoaked and Moses himself trembled The voice of the Lord is powerful the voyce of the Lord is full of majesty the voyce of the Lord breaketh the Cedars yea the Cedars of Lebanon the voyce of the Lord shaketh the wilderness yea it shaketh the wilderness of Kadesh How wilt thou then endure the thundring of such a Cannon a reproof for thy sins from the Almighty God at whose rebuke the earth quakes the rocks are rent in pieces and the foundations of the world are moved The Israelites said unto Moses Speak thou to us and we will hear but let not God speak lest we dye Exod. 20. 19. Truly so mayst thou say to thy companion Speak thou to me of my offences deal plainly with me about any thing that thou seest amiss in me and I will hear thee but let not God speak to me lest I dye lest his voyce strike me down strike me dead There is an absolute necessity of thy sense of and sorrow for thy sins This ordinarily must be wrought in thee either by admonition from man or by some severe rebuke from God Consider seriously therefore whether it be not easier to take a faithful check from thy fellow creature then to be called to repentance by some dreadful judgement from the jealous God O t is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God for our God is a consuming fire One thing more Reader is considerable It is not enough to take a reproof with patience but also to be awakened by reproof to repentance It s a dreadful aggravation of sin to continue in it after thou art convinced of it Such impudence is followed with fearful vengeance He that being often reproved heardeneth his heart shall suddenly be destroyed and that without remedy Pro. 29. 1. Fourthly Christians if they would exercise themselves to Godliness in good company must rejoyce in each others grace and good True love will rejoyce in the welfare of another as its own Peter beholding those eminent Graces in Paul did not repine that a brighter star was risen which would eclipse his splendour but glorified God in Paul and gave him the right-hand of fellowship It s a prophane Esau that hates a Iacob for having obtained his Fathers blessing beyond himself Envy is from the evil one Saul who was without God eyed and hated David for slaying more of Gods enemies and obtaining thereby greater renown then himself could Yet alas the spirit which dwelleth in the best lusteth to envy Corrupt nature will shew it self if it be possible at this window There are some Countries as Candie that have Naturalists tell us no poison but there is not any
for the least of their offences how he hath manifested his justice in the deluge brought on the old world in the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah in his carriage towards Apostate Angels rebellious Israelites his own chosen people and the Medâ—atour his own Son when he took upon him mans sin in the instruments of eternal death which he hath prepared in Hell for sinners and the solemn triumph which justice shall have at the great day and to all eternity in the other world 5. His holiness how he loaths sin with the greatest abhorrency cannot behold the least iniquity shoots the arrows of his vengeance against its actours and authors will be sanctified in or upon all that approach him is terrible in his holy places forbiddeth the least complyance with sin though but in a sudden thought and makes it his end in his providences ordinances the gift of his Son his Spirit to make men holy I might shew how it exalteth him in all his properties but I pass on It glorifieth him in every part of it Its precepts and commands speak his purity and dominion its promises and covenant speak his boundless mercy and compassion its threatnings and comminations speak his justice and jealousie its prophesies and predictions speak his wisdom and omniscience The Scripture tendeth also to the eternal good of men It is helpful to beget a soul to Christ Of his own will begat he us again by the Word of truth The Word of grace is instrumental for the conveyance of grace Act. 2.37 Rom. 10. 14. It is helpful to build the soul up in Christ as new born babes desire the sincere milk of the word that ye may grow thereby 1 Pet. 2. 2. Grace is increased by the same means by which it is generated as the same Sun that begets some living creatures is helpful for their growth The Word of God of stones raiseth up children to Abraham and of Children maketh Young men and Fathers It is so penned that all sorts of persons all ranks of Christians may be directed into the way of truth and guided by it in the way of life It is able to make us wise to salvation To shew the path of life 2 Tim. 3. 15. Psa. 16. 11. As Ioshua it leads the Israelites into Canaan All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable 1. For Doctrine Where Scripture hath not a tongue to speak I must not have an ear to hear Scriptura est regula fidei Scripture is the rule of faith Hence the Doctrine of the Apostles and Prophets is called a foundation Ephes. 2. 20. 2. For reproof It is the hammer of Heresies Ignorance of Scripture is one main cause of error Ye err not knowing the Scripture By this sword of the Spirit Christ vanquished Satan Mat. 4. 4. and the Jews Ioh. 5.45 and Sadduces Mat. 22.29 Lapidandi sunt haeretici sacrarum literarum argumentis Hereticks are to be stoned with Scripture arguments saith Athanasius The Word of God hiâ—s that unclean bird in the eye and wounds it mortally 3. For correction of manners The sword of the Word pierceth the sinners conscience like Christ to the woman of Samaria It tells him all that ever he did and makes him smite upon his thigh and say What have I done Scripture is a glass which sheweth him the spots that are in the face of his heart and life 4. For instruction in righteousness It is the way in which we should walk the rule of our spiritual race What is written on some Psalms may be written on every Psalm and Chapter in the whole Bible Maschil or Psalm for instruction Its precepts teach us what to follow its prohibitions tell us what to forsake Its promises are to allure us to sanctity its threatnings to affright us from sin the good example of the Saints speaketh as Christ to Peter Follow thou me the wicked actions and ends of sinners cry aloud as Abner to Ioab Knowest thou not that it will be bitterness in the end 5. For comfort There is no such cordial for a fainting spirit as a promise in the Word The Gospel in the Greek is glad tidings and not without cause This is my comfort in my affliction for thy word hath quickned me When souls have been ready to despair under the sense of their wickedness and to sink in deep waters the Word of God hath held them up by the chin and preserved them from drowning Vnless thy law had been my delight I had perished in mine affliction 6. For salvation the Word is called the Kingdom of heaven partly because it revealeth Gods thoughts of such an inestimable happiness to the children of men The celestial Canaan was terra incognita till that discovered it He hath brought life and immortality to light by the Gospel partly because it prepares the soul for heaven the Word sanctifieth and so saveth precious souls By filling us with grace it fitteth us for glory Rom. 1.16 Ioh. 17.17 Partly because it is the seed of heaven As the Harvest is potentially in the seed and a tall Oke potentially in an acorn so heaven and eternal life is potentially in the Word of life It is called The grace of God that bringeth salvation It bringeth salvation to men and it bringeth men to salvation Secondly Consider it O my soul in its properties they will also speak its preciousness 1. It is pure and holy there are some dregs that will appear in the exactest writings of the best men when they have been shaken by a critical hand but none could ever justly fasten the least filth upon the holy Scriptures The Word of Christ is like the Spouse of Christ There is no spot in it The Alcoran of Mahomet alloweth Polygamy promiseth sensual pleasures as the reward of his servants but the Scripture winketh not at the least sin no not so much as in a motion of the heart or a glance of the eye and its promises are also pure and spiritual The Doctrine of the wisest Heathen and Philosophers were a mixture of good and bad Theft was no fault amongst Lycurgus Laws but if done slily commended highly Aristotle permitted revenge and obscene jesting which Scripture expresly forbids Thy word is very pure The words of the Lord are pure words as silver tried in a furnace of earth purified seven times There is not the least dross of evil or error in it 1. It s principal Author is the original and exemplar of all holiness his nature is the pattern and his will the rule of purity Exod. 15. 4. Isa. 6. 3. 2. The Scribes of it were holy men moved and actuated by the Holy Ghost 3. It s effect is to sanctifie and make holy Ye are clean through the word that I have given you 4. The matter of it is holy Its commanding part is holy The Law is holy just and good Rom. 7. 12. It s assertory part is holy what it affirmes to be is what it denyeth to
but God forbears none upon any such grounds His goodness is the onely string that tieth his hand from striking Yea many years didst thou forbear them for thou art a gracious and a merciful God Neh. 9. 30 31. The Final Cause is manifold 1. That he might exalt his great name It s light straw that upon the least spark takes fire The discretion of a man deferreth his anger and it s his glory to pass by infirmities Mean and low spirits are most peevish and passionate Sickly and weak persons are observed to be the most impatient God makes his power known when he endureth with much long suffering the vessels of wrath fitted for destruction He intendeth the advancement of his praise in the lengthening of his patience For my names sake will I defer mine anger for my praise will I refrain for thee that I out thee not off Isa. 48. 2. That sinners might amend He is patient that men might not perish The Lord is not slack as some men count slackness but is long suffering to us-ward not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance He defers their execution that they might sue out their pardons The Lord waiteth not that he might be blessed in himself but that he may be gracious to sinners 3. That impenitent sinners might be left without excuse If sinners that are turned out of the womb into hell will justifie God surely those upâ—on whom he waited twenty or thirty or forty or fifty years for their conversion will condemn themselves if all mouths shall be stopped then they that tasted so largely of forbearing mercy may well be silent O how little will they have to say for themselves upon whom grace waited so many years knocking hard at the door of their hearts for acceptance and they refused to open to it or bid it come in How justly will they suffer long in the other world to whom God was so long-suffering to no purpose in this world Rom. 4. 2. How fully O my soul doth the Scripture mention this patience of thy God! The Lord passed by and proclaimed his name the Lord the Lord God gracious long suffering Though sinners trie his patience by their heaven-daring provocations yet the Lord is gratious slow to anger and of great kindness Oftentimes they do their utmost to kindle the fire of his anger but many a time turned he away his anger and did not stir up all his wrath What monuments of his patience hath he reared up in his word It is also written in broad letters in his works He bore with the Iews after their unparalleld murder of his own Son above forty years The old world had larger experiences of his â—orbearance My Spirit shall not always strive with man yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years The Egyptians though cruel persecutors of his own people that were as dear to him as the apple of his eye yet were suffered four hundered years He beareth with men till he can no longer forbear The woman with child is forced though she hold out long to fall in labour at last I have long time holden my peace I have been still and refrained my self now will I cry like a travailing woman Isa. 42. 14. O thou dear friend of mankind that thou wert imprinted in my thoughts engraven in my heart and always before mine eyes O my soul Consider this long suffering of thy God till thou tastest some rellish of its sweetness This name of thy God is as oyntment poured out which yeildeth a refreshing fragrancy Hath it been all thy days so near thee and done so much for thee and wilt thou not give it some warm entertainment within thee Hast thou not infinite cause to cry out God! As soon as thou wast conceived thou wast corrupted before thou wast born sin wâ—â— brought forth in thee thy God might have turned thee out of thy mothers belly into the belly of hell divels might have been the Midwife to deliver thy mother of such a monster and their dungeon of darkness the first place in which thou didst breath yet he who might have caused eternal death to have trodden upon the heels of thy natural birth spared thee Had he then suffered the roaring lions his executioners to have dragged thee to their own den he had got himself glory and prevented much dishonour which thou hast since brought to his name As thou didst grow up sin grew up in thee and patience grew up with thee Numberless haâ—â— thine iniquities been and his advantages for thy destruction yet he hath forborn thee What hath he got by all his long-suffering towards thee He might have ruined thee to his eternal honour but his forbearance hath seemed to impair the revenues of heaven Wicked men question his power and good men quarrel with his providence and all because of his patience When some sinners are hanged on Gibbets as spectacles of his justice others are kept in the more awe but if judgement be not speedily executed the hearts of the Sons of men are set in them to do mischief The thanks that are usually paid him for his patience are indignities and affronts The sleeping of vengeance occasioneth the awakening of sin Besides their thoughts of him are the more prophane as well as their actions If he be patient towards the sinner he is judged a party in the sin These things thou didst and I kept silence thou thoughtst that I was altogether such a one as thy self Because he is silent they judge him consenting O my soul may not thy God be well called the God of all patience when he aboundeth so much in it though he be so great a loser by it Was not the patience of thy Redeemer on earth wonderful in bearing such mockings smitings on the cheek spittings in his face scourgings on his back But thy Redeemer in Heaven endureth more affronts every moment against his divine nature then he did all his time of abode in this world against his humane nature O why art thou no more warmed with it and wondering at it Even a Saul was so affected with the forbearance of David that he should spare his enemy when he had him in his hands and might as easily have cut his throat as the skirt of his garment that he lift up his voice and wept And art not thou affected with the patience of thy God in whose hand is thy life and breath and all thy comforts who can with a glance of his eye turn thee into the fiery furnace against whom thou art an open traytour and profest rebel that he should spare thee so many years and instead of heaping up judgements on thee lade thee with his benefits Consider 1. He is not patient towards all men as he hath been towards thee Some have found justice arresting them immediatly upon their contracting of new debts and haling them presently to hell upon the
with fear Didst thou receive thy meat as in Gods presence and hadst thou an eye therein at his praise How didst thou behave thy self in thy Particular calling Did it no way incroach upon thy general Was thy conversation in heaven whilst thy dealings were about earth Wast thou diligent in the exercise of it righteous in thy dealings in it depending on God for a blessing on it What was thy carriage in company was thy life holy spotless exemplary profitable to others Mightest thou not in such a place have done thy God more service and thy Brothers soul more good May I not say to thee as God to Jonah Didst thou well to be angry at such a time upon no cause what were thy thoughts in solitude how wast thou imployed Had God any true share in thy thoughts hast thou watched thy self this day and kept thy heart with all diligence Hath none of thy precious time been lavisht away on unnecessary things Answer me faithfully to all these particulars that I may be able to return an answer to him that sent me O that I could but imploy one half hour every day with seriousness and uprightness in such soliloquies Lord thou didst create the world in six days and thou wast pleased to loâ—k back on every days work and behold it was very good and then ensued thy Sabbath Cause thy â—ervant to be a follower of thee as a dear child in minding every day the work thou hast given me to do that I may every night review it with comfort finding it good in thy Christ at the end of all my days looking back upon all my works I may see them very good through the acceptation of thy grace and with joy enter into my eternal Sabbath I Wish that I may end every day with him who is the beginning and first born from the dead That I may every night go to bed as if I were going to my grave knowing that sleep is the shadow of death and when the shadow is so near the substance cannot be far off Though lovers cannot meet all day yet they will make hard shift but they will find an opportunity to meet at night Should my devotion set with the natural Sun I may fear a dreadful night of darkness to follow That bed may well be as uneasie as one stuft with thorns that is not made by prayer If the soul lye down under an heavy load of sin the body can have no true rest Jacob could sleep sweetly upon an hard stone having made his peace with God when Ahashuerus could not though on a bed of down I cannot sleep unless God wake for me and I cannot rationally expect his watchfulness over me unless I request it My corruptions in the day call for contrition in the night How many omissions commissions personal relative sins heart life wickedness am I daily guilty of and â—hould I lye down under their weight for ought I know they may sink me before morning into endless wo. Whilst blood is in my veins sin will be in my soul. The weed of sin may be cut broken pulled up yet it will spring again I shall as soon cease to live as cease to sin Though I should be free all the day long from presumptuous enormities and onely defiled with ordinary humane infirmities yet these if not bewailed are damning The smallest letters are most hurtful to the eyes and far worse then a large Character Those sins which are comparatively little if not lamented are far more dangerous then Davids Murther and Adultery which were repented of When the soul like Thamar hath notwithstanding its utmost endeavours to preserve its chastity been ravished and by force defiled it must with her lift up the voice and weep If the Sun may not go down upon my wrath against man much-less may I presume to lye down under the wrath of God Besides how can sin be mortified if it be not confessed and bewailed Arraignment and Conviction must go before Execution The favours of the day past are not to be forgotten but to be acknowledged with thankefulness I receive every day more considerable mercies then there are moments in the day and when I borrow such large sums the principal of which I am unable ever to satisfie shall I be so unworthy as to deny the payment of this small interest which is all my Creditour requireth Whatsoever gain I have got in my calling whatsoever strength I have received by my food whatsoever comfort I have had in my Relations or Friends whatsoever peace liberty protection I have enjoyed all the day long I must say of all 〈◊〉 Jacob of his Venison The Lord hath brought it to me Surely the hearer of my morning prayers may well be the object of my evening prayses Aâ— how unreasonable is it that I like a whirl-pool should suck in every good thing that comes near me and not so much as acknowledge it Should any one be the thousandth part so much indebted to me as I am to God how ill should I take it if he should not confess it If a Beggar at my door receive a small almes from God by my hands I look for his thanks How often have I complained of the baseness and unworthiness of some that are engaged to me O what tongue can express what heart can conceive how much I am indebted to my God every moment though I am less then the least of all his mercies and doth not all his goodness merit sincere thankefulness Lord I confess there is not a day of my life wherein I do not break thy Laws in thought word and deed Sin is too much the element in which I live and the trade that I drive I find continually a law in my members warring against the Law of my mind and captivating me to the Law of sin and death Ah wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from this body of death Since I am no day innocent make me every night penitent As my sins abound let my sorrow abound and thy grace much more abound Though I can never requite thy favours help me to admire and bless the fountain of them Suffer me never to go to bed till I have first asked thee my heavenly Father blessing Let the eyes of my soul be always open to thee in prayer and prayse before the eyes of my body be shut And O be thou always pleased so to accept my confessions petitions thanksgivings my person and performances in thy dear son that I may lay me down in peace and sleep because thou Lord makest me to dwell in safety Finally I Wish that every day of my life may be spent as if it were the day of my death and all my time employed in adorning my soul in trimming my lamp and in a serious preparation for eternity Whilst I am living I am dying every moment my sand is running and my Sun is declining I am as Stubble before the Wind and as
discern and discover the secret lusts which are hugd in their hearts Besides their consciences being defiled as well as other faculties are not so true to them as to convince them powerfully of that pride hypocrisie unbelief impenitency atheism and ungodliness which they are guilty of And Satan hath a strict watch over them to keep them asleep in sin not caring so men go to hell whether they go thither in the dirty road of scandalous and crying crimes or in the cleanly path and through the fair Meadows of Civility Whether the person be scandalous or civil it will be needful to let in light at some crevice and not to leave the sinner wholly in the darkness of despair The good Samaritan poured Oyl as well as Wine into the wounds of him that fell among Theives A little hope may melt that heart which despair would harden Sturdy Theives have wept at the news of a Reprieve that have stormed and raged at the sentence of Condemnation But this is wisely to be done lest the sinner be encouraged to presume Lenity is to be joyned with Severity Let there be love but not emboldening them to sloth let there be terror but not driving them into a fury saith Gregory If the sick person be one that is judged a true member of Christ then speak to the excellency of Grace and Christ and Heaven to the certainty and worth of those promises that are entailed on beleivers to make his passage into the other world as comfortable as thou canst It will be fit also to speak to those graces of Faith Patience Love Heavenly-mindedness and Ioy in God which should be minded and exercised in a time of sickness how the time of affliction is the spring the special time wherein those graces should shoot up and shew themselves that God expecteth some service from him under his fickness and that his last works should be better then his first If he be under doubts and fears for Satan will take the advantage of his sickness to assault him with his fiery darts and Saints are too apt to Question Gods love when they feel his hand the weakness of the body discomposing the mind and denying it the free exercise of spiritual judgement then advise him to review his former experiences of divine goodness and trials of divine grace within him to hold fast on Jesus Christ and to consider that sickness is common to men good as well as bad that though they differ vastly in the other world yet not at all in their passage thither Singular Saints have been afflicted with the sorest sickness Iob was a none-such for sanctity yet full of sores It s a question whether he were more eminent for corporal distempers or spiritual health Hezekiah David Asah Paul Epaphroditus were all thus chastened of the Lord but not condemned with the world Whatsoever the sick person be whether gracious or graceless it will not be amiss to mention the three great lessons which God would teach every one by affliction 1. The emptiness of the world appearing in its inability to afford the least ease to the body or comfort to the soul of the sick how little worth is that which fails a man in his greatest need 2. The preciousness of Christ and Grace and the Promises of the Gospel which can enliven and encourage a dying person that can cause light in darkness joy in sorrow and life in death that can enable a Christian to rejoyce in tribulation and to welcome pain and sickness nay and the very King of terrors and to look into the other world with comfort and confidence 3. The sinfulness of sin which is the original of all diseases and aches and greif and separation of friends and losses and miseries whatsoever The Rabbies say that when Adam tasted the forbidden fruit his head aked T is clear sin is the original of sickness The body is the instrument of unrighteousness therefore the subject of diseases For this cause many are weak and sick 1 Cor. 11. 30. All the evil in this and the other world are the issue and off-spring of sin Ah! what a root of bitterness is that which brings forth such bitter fruit Be sure to take the thoughts of the sick off from resting in Physitians or any means used for their cure Thâ—s was the fault of good Asah 2 Chron. 16. 12. Let them know that it is God that wounds and he onely that can heal and therefore he must not be tempted either by despiâ—ing those helps which his providence giveth or by relying on them Hippocrates gave this counsel to all Physitians that when they went upon any occâ—sion to visit their Patients they should consider first of all whether there was not divinum aliquod in morbo something of God in the disease if so he held the Patient to be desperate and his recovery impossible Cujus contrarium verum est If it were the hand of God that smote them the same hand can help them for with him nothing is impossible Let them understand that sickness hath a supernatural as well as a natural cause That all diseases are like the Centurions Servants at the command of God He saith to one Go and it goeth to another Come and it cometh to a third Do this and it doeth it God would have the Israelites know that not onely Sword and Famine and Captivity but also Pestilence Consumptions Feavers and Burning Agues are sent from Heaven Deut. 28. 21 22. He causeth those stormes and tempests and quarrels and contentions that are between the humours in our bodies to their disturbance and destruction therefore Moses beholding the whole body of the Jews except two renowned members corrupted for he lived to see all that came out of Egypt besides to die cryed out Thou turnest man to destruction and â—ayst Return ye children of men SECT V. 3. DEal closely and faithfully with him Let not fear of giving distaste or hope of some advantage to thy self make thee false to the soul of the sick Do not play the part of a Mountebank in using palliating medicines to allay the distemper or Anodynes to stupifie the patient and neglect the root of the malady Alas carnal wretches are prone enough of themselves to deceive and flatter their own souls till it be too late for second thoughts and the wicked one will be at their beds side to hinder if it be possible all means from awakening and undeceiving them be careful therefore lest thou shouldst be any way accessary to Satans design Sin is like the little Serpent Aspis which stings men whereby they fall into a pleasant sleep and in that sleep die sinners need all the rouzing and affrighting considerations that may be He that gives a potion which instead of furthering health procureth death is a Murderer The Flatterer is like the worm Terendo mentioned by Pliny in Nat. Hist. as soft as Silk in the feeling of the hand but it biteth so hard with the
of others do speak aloud in thine ears that health and rest are mercies O how shouldst thou adore that God who distinguisheth thee thus graciously from others Mayst thou not think with thy self Here is a person full of pain the day is full of darkness to him and wearisome nights are appointed to him Lo his Wife and Children and Friends are weeping about him but cannot relieve or redress him all the comforts of this life are unâ—avoury to him His aches and grief and diseases hinder him much in spiritual performances and in the prosecution of a better life how much aâ— I bound to the Lord that it is not so with me I can relliâ—h outward mercies and am refreshed with bodily comforts I have no such distemper or pain to take me off from prayer or Scripture but I may be as frequent and as urgent as I will about my soul and eternal concernments Bless the Lord O my soul and all within me praise his holy name Surely health is the Prince the first-born of outward blessings Though foolish men deprive themselves frequently of it for the satisfaction of a sensual wanton appetite yet it s more worth then a thousand of those brutish transitory delights A Stomach is of more value then meat and a good digestion then raiment Men think not much to part with much of their wealth in their sickness for a little health O it deserves thy prayers to God for it with submission to his will when thou wantest it and thy praysing of God for it with enlarged affections when thou hast it 3. In observing the necessity of a timely repentance and its difficulty on a dying bed How unfit is a man to begin to live when he is wracked with pain and going to die The dolour and trouble of his body are great impediments to the good of his soul. When the outward man is in great distress and the inner man sympathizing with it the best words are often wasted and thrown away and the mind is unfit either to receive counsel or comfort Further How irrational is it to give Satan our prime our health or strength and God our weak and consumptionate and dying parts to present our enemy with our quick and nimble and active faculties and members and to put off our best friend with a body full of sores and a soul full of sin Besides the longer men continue in sin the more difficult their conversion will be He that hath wandred or travelled out of the right way all day will hardly be perswaded to go back all the way and set out again at night Where Satan hath dwelt long he will hardly be removed A Ship the longer it leaketh the harder it is to be emptied The fâ—rther a nail is driven in the more trouble to get it out The longer my soul continueth in disobedience the harder it will be to bring it to repentance The more sin is riveted and habituated in me the more pains and toyl and grief it will cost to get it subdued and slain 4. In learning more the excellency of grace and an interest in Christ and God which will do a man good in a day of â—ickness and an hour of death He is a friend indeed that is a friend in a day of adversity The sinners folly in neglecting durable riches teacheth the Christian wherein true wisdom consisteth and the worth of it That it consisteth not in heaping up such treasures or getting such friends as will be useless and unprofitable in a time of need but in laying up a treasure in Heaven and ensuring eternal comforts Cold â—harp weather sheweth the value of an healthy constitution A storm will speak the worth of a sure Anchor and a skilful Pilot. The excellency of grace and holiness and Christ and God are not fully known till we come into the other world where all sublunary comforts are wanting But the more any condition in this world resembleth that and the nearer we approach that the more visible is the value of divine and lasting blessings A Cordial is not esteemed till we come to fainting fits A soul that in time of health and wealth and outward prosperity made the fear and ways of God and the estate of the godly the object of his scorn and contempt when he comes to be awakened by the alarum of death and to look into the other world will make them the object of his choice and give a world if he had it for them A Good Wish about the visitation of the sick wherein the former heads are applied THe righteous Lord and God of all grace who for sin afflicteth man with sickness yet in the midst of judgement remembreth mercy intending his instruction not his destruction by it having designed such afflictions as rods to whip men to himself to make them out of love with sin the spring of all their sufferings and sorrows and to wean them from the earth who otherwise would make it their Heaven and hath also appointed men to be the means through which these mercies shall be conveyed and sicknesses sanctified to them I Wish in general that I may never omit to visit those Neighbours with pity whom God hath visited in fury muchless insult as the Edomites over the afflicted Israelites and persecute them whom God hath smitten drawing blood from those wounds which are already blew with the blows of the Almighty but may be faithful to the precept and purpose of my God in this particular and adopt my second table duties into the Family of the first table by visiting the sick not out of common civility but out of charity and in obedience to the God of my health It is my priviledge that my Almes may become Sacrifice my Courtesies worship and in paying that debt of love which I owe to my Neighbour I may pay that duty which I owe to my Maker O that in all my common transactions I might move upon principles of reason and especially in works that have a tendency Godward act upon grounds of Religion Lord thou hast an eye to my good in all thy providences and dealings why should not I have an eye to thy glory in all my practices and actings Cause thy fear so to possess my heart that I may visit the sick out of conscience and let thy grace so assist and accompany my endeavours that thou mayst visit them to their eternal comfort I Wish that the Command of my God may be a sufficient Motive and warrant to make me set about the practice of this work It is my duty to visit them that are sick as I am the Lords Servant I disown his authority I deny his Image if I do not sympathize with others in misery Nature it self commandeth me to be affected with the conditions of such as are afflicted All creatures will commiserate those of their rank and order that are in misery Bees will rather stay and starve with those of their kind that
for vengeance what will the blood of a murdered soul do Why should I to humour any mans lust injure his soul hinder my own peace and incur the anger of the Lord. O that no foolish pretences whatsoever may keep me off from acquainting sinners with thâ—â—â—â—il and end the nature and danger of their sins It s Gods order first to cast the soul down and then to lift it up The ground must feel the Plow before it receive the Seed Sorrow must precede comfort and they must sow in tears who would reap in joy God must shake all Nations before the desired of all Nations will come to him We come to Sinai the Mount that burneth with fire and to blackness and darkness and a tempest which makes even a Moses to fear and quake exceedingly before we come to Mount Sion the City of the living God the Heavenly Ierusalem and to Jesus the Mediatour of the new Covenant and to the blood of sprinkling that speaketh better things then the blood of Abel The Law is a School-Master to drive us to Christ. Austere Iohn with his Ax laid to the root of the Tree threatning the fire to those that bring not forth fruit prepareth the way for the sweet alluring Iesus Mourning and Grief is the Midwife of true mirth Penitential tears are the streams that lead to the Rivers of Pleasures Even the doleful sound of the Trumpet attendeth the Iudge when he is going to acquit a Prisoner by publique Proclamation Violence must be offered to corruption or there will be no acceptance of the Lord Christ. The building of holiness is the more strong for having its foundation of humiliation laid deep The safety of the soul doth depend like Jonahs upon his being cast over-boord and utterly lost in his own apprehension The blessed Iesus himself is brought into a desolate Wilderness before Angels are sent from Heaven to comfort him O that I might follow my God in his usual way and never prophesie smooth things to rugged and â—â—â—â—ed men but endeavour to break their hearts on â—â—th who have persisted in the breach of his holy Laws that their backs may not be broken in Hell Yet I would not instead of beating down the rotten Paper walls of presumption drive any into the Dungeon of desperation but as the good Nurse have the breast of consolation as well as the rod of correction in readiness for such Children Moses and Christ met together upon Mount Tabor The Gospel must be Preached to heal those wounds which are opened and discovered by the Law The Lord sendeth me to proclaim liberty to the Captives and the opening of the Prison to them that are bound Lord thou killest and makest alive bringest down to the grave and bringest up It s easie and ordinary with thee to break those bones which thou intendest to rejoyce and to perplex those Rams in Briars and Thorns which thou intendest to accept of as a sacrifice Teach thy Servant to know how to speak a word in season both to the wicked and to the godly how to divide thy word aright both in its minatory and consolatory parts that as occasion shall â—e I may awaken the wicked out of their deadly slumbers and quicken the godly to their spiritual watchfulness and help to sweeten that bitter cup which thou hast put into their hands O that thy blessing might water my labours for both their welfares Alas poor sick unregenerate ones are dropping into boundless and endless sorrows and yet are without sense Though they are dying they know not what they are doing nor whither they are going Their eyes are shut by the god of this World that they see not that unspeakable misery to which they are liable every moment their hearts are hardened through custom in sin that neithâ—â—â—â—reatnings nor promises prevail with them to feel their wounds and sores O thou great Physitian thou Lord of life thou God of health open their eyes send some Ananias to them that they may receive their sight and be filled with the Holy Ghost enable them so to mourn now that they may be comforted when the time of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord and help thy servant to deal so faithfully with those whom thou callest me to visit that I may never give thy Majesty cause to say of me as once of the Prophets of Israel They have healed the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly saying Peace Peace when there is no peace I Wish that I may be close and home in my Applications to sick persons and speak what is proper to their estates with ardency and affection to their very hearts It s ill dallying with edged tools O how sad is it to toy and trifle to be formal or customary in counsel or reproof or comfort to immortal souls that are launching into the Ocean of eternity Death is a serious thing and that which they never did before nor shall ever do again Sin is a serious thing as the damned find in Hell by woful experience Though there they are in blackness of darkness yet they have light enough to see sin to be the evil of evils and altogether sinful Christ was serious when he took upon him my nature and therein did offer up himselfâ— a sacrifice for sin God is serious in commanding faith and repentance and in promising Heaven to the faithful and holy and Hell to unbeleivers and atheists And shall not I be serious and in earnest when I am dealing about matters of eternal life and death and about the concernments of God and Christ and souls and eternity O with what earnestness should I perswade the wicked to turn from their wickedness and live If ever their souls would draw near to the Lord of life it concerns them to do it when their bodies are drawing nigh to the Chambers of death It is but a very few hours and their condition will be past all amendment all alteration In this poor pittance of time all must be done upon which the Scales must turn for their salvation or damnation They are going to make that change which will admit them into endless joy or torment and render their estates unchangeable Their time is hastening that they must struggle with dreadful pains and strong distempers and death the King of terrors and must review that life which is ending and look back upon all that they have done and judge their persons and actions impartially whether they will or no that they must take their leave of all their friends and food and sleep and lands and houses and honours and pleasures and riches and step into eternity and appear before God without their Relations or Possessions or any worldly comforts to help or encourage them that they must be tried by an holy Law and an holy Judge for their everlasting lives or deaths and can my expressions be too full of weight and reason or my affections too full of bowels and pity
other then a rebellious presumption and a contemptuous laughing to scorn and a deriding of God his Laws and Precepts Unquestionably such will be grosly mistaken at last in falling from their heights into Hell As the Daughter of Polycrates dreamed that her Father was lifted up that Iupiter washed him and the Sun annointed him but it proved to him but a sad prosperity for after a long life and large prosperity he was surprised by his enemies and hanged up till the dew of Heaven wet his cheeks and the Sun melted his grease Reader Let me bespeak thee as Iotham did the men of Sechem Hearken unto me that God may hearken unto you Hearken unto me in this day of thy health and life that God may hearken unto thee in the day of thy sickness and death Make thy peace with God now give a Bill of divorce to sin strike an hearty Covenant with Christ keep thy conscience clean every day allow not thy self in any known sin if thou wouldst leave this world in favour with God in the love of good men and to thy eternal gain Nihil est in morte quod metuamus si nihil timendum vita commisit saith the Antient Death hath nothing frightful but what a prophane life makes so They who flie from the holiness of God in life may well fear the justice of God at death A sinner indeed is every day carrying more Faggots to that pile in which he must burn for ever and always twisting those cords with which Devils will eternally scourge him and therefore the guilt of his wicked life and fear of his dreadful wages may well represent death to him in a frightful vizard But he who makes it his constant business to please his Maker to mortifie his earthly members to crucifie the flesh to serve the Wills of God in his generation and to dress his soul against the coming of the Bridegroom shall finde his latter end comfortable and the day of his death better then the day of his birth O Friend if thou wouldst dye comfortably live conscienciously An happy death is the conclusion of an holy life God hath joyned them together and none can part them asunder It s reported of the Dardani that they never Wash but three times when they are Born when they Marry and when they Dye The true Christian must be daily washing his soul by faith in the blood of his Saviour and bathing himself in the tears of repentance and hereby his soul will be fit to be commended into the Hands of God by well dying 2. Clear up thine evidences for Heaven Be not contented to leave thy salvation at uncertainty They who walk in the dark are full of frights and fears The comfort of thy death will depend much upon the clearness of thy deeds and evidences for eternal life The want of diligence about this hath caused many of the Children of God to go crying to Bed and wrangling to their eternal rest They dye and know not how they shall speed in the other world they fall into the hands of their enemy Death as the Lepers into the hands of the Syrians expecting nothing but cruelty and misery trembling every step of the way though they find good chear and all sorts of comforts 3. Dwell much in the thoughts of Deaths Cicero said of Fencing Fortissima adversus mortem dolorem disciplina It was the strongest fence against the fear of death So I may say of entertaining death frequently in our meditations it s a good guard against the terror of death Custom diminisheth the dread of things which to nature are so frightful Marius before he would bring out his Souldiers to fight with the Cimbres caused them to stand upon the trenches to acquaint themselves with the terrible aspect of those Savages and so brought them to contemn them which at first sight they so amazedly feared When we are on a sudden surprized by an unexpected adversary we want time to unite our strength to resist the assault but what we expect we provide for and so are the better able to encounter with it The old people that lived near the Riphaean Mountains were taught to discourse much of Death and to converse with it and to speak of it as of a thing that will certainly come and ought so to do hence their resolutions were strengthned to undergo it with patience and courage As Cordials lose their vertue so even Poisons their venome by frequent use Mithridates by constant use of it made it so far from being mortal that it was nourishing to him Though Death in its own nature be venemous the Christian by frequent meditation of it and application of the blood of Christ to his soul may make it profitable to him 4. Wean thy heart from the earth They who love the earth as their Heaven will be unwilling to leave it though for Heaven Canst thou bear the loss of some worldly comforts when God takes them from thee if not how wilt thou be able to bear the loss of all worldly comforts in a dying hour If running with Footmen weary thee how wilt thou be able to run with Horsemen If a little loss a little load be ready to break thy back what wilt thou do under the weight of a great one Paul was martyred in his affections before he was martyred in his body and dead to the world before he was slain by the world hence he came to dare even death it self and to bid it do its worst I protest by your rejoycing which I have in Christ Iesus I dye daily Should a Messenger have come to Paul and told him you must dye to morrow and leave all the good things of this life He might have said That is not now to do for I died yesterday and this day and every day and I have already taken my leave of this world and all its vanities Those that like Eeles lye in the mud of worldly pleasures are unfit to be sacrificed to God as being unclean creatures and unwilling to part with their present delights though for those that are more excellent The immoderate love of sublunary vanities makes men say as Peter at Christs transfiguration It is good to be here albeit like him they know not what they say 5. Set thy house in order After the heart is set in order the next work is to set the house in order according to Gods counsel Isa. 38. 1. Abraham was careful before his death to settle the affairs of his houshold as appeareth by his providing a fit spouse for Isaac and his giving gifts to the Children of his second Wife and sending them away Gen. 24. 1 2. and 25. 6. This ought to be done in the time of our health and strength partly because we are uncertain whether we shall have time and ability in sickness to do it or no. How many have died suddenly and why not thou and I as well as others Some who had a
answerable to my peril and my danger Lord when that day and hour draweth near that I must go hence and be no more seen do thou draw near in boundless mercy to my poor soul When I must enter into the Chambers of death and make my bed in the grave save me from the paws of Satan and the power of Hell that the bottomless pit may not shut her mouth upon me and give me to triumph in that hour of tribulation as knowing that neither tribulation nor persecution nor principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come nor life nor death can seperate me from thy love which is in Christ Jesus my Lord. I Wish that when I am going to the place of silence I may speak the excellencies of my God and make his praise glorious It is the unhappiness of worldlings and wicked men that they cannot when they dye commend the principles whence they have acted nor the vain pleasures which they have minded and pursued How many of them whose lives have been nothing but a bundle of false-hood and lies when God hath called them to leave the world have spoken truth and told their Friends and Relations that sin is an evil and bitter thing that carnal pleasures are guilded poisons that the greatest and choicest of worldly comforts though they may have honey in their mouths have a sting in their tailes and what a vain empty nothing the whole creation is How often have they complained how the world hath deceived them the flesh deluded them and Devil beguiled and destroyed them It is my priviledge as well as my duty to extol my Master whom I have served to commend the sweetness of his ways the pleasantness of his worship the reasonableness of his precepts the richness of his promises and the vastness of that portion which he hath laid up for his Children when they come to age I have sometimes tasted his work and ways to be sweeter then the honey and the honey comb I have viewed by faith his reward to be vastly glorious and beyond all apprehensions excellent O why should I not diswade others from their eager pursuit of foolish fading shadows and perswade and encourage them to earnest endeavours after real substance and durable riches The sinner who hath wallowed all his life time in the mire of filth and wickedness will when he comes to dye and begins to return to his wits from his own experience of the emptiness and unprofitableness of his ungodly courses and from the convictions of his natural conscience acknowledge a sober sanctified conversation to be safest and the ways of God to be most gainful and upon these accounts advise his friends and relations to forsake and abandon the lusts of the world and flesh and to follow after holiness as they would be happy eternally And have not I much more cause to shew my abhorrency of sin and love to my Saviour and his image when I am entering into my Fathers house The sinner hath onely found at last a fleshly life to be vain and fruitless and is like to pay dear for his learning but I have known the paths of piety to be paths of pleasantness and rejoyced more in them then in all riches The sinner hath onely the dim light of nature to shew him the loathsomness of vice and the loveliness of grace but I have the holy Spirit of my God to enlighten my mind in the knowledge of both The sinner hath only a carnal love to his Neighbours and Kindred he knoweth not what it is to love them in Christ and for Christ I have some knowledge of the love and Law of Christ of the worth of their souls of the price paid for them by the Lord Iesus and their unchangeable conditions in the other world O that my language to them might be somewhat answerable to the love of Christ to me Lord It is unrighteousness to die in debt to man and not to endeavour to make them satisfaction according to my power I am sure to dye in thy debt for I am less then the least of all thy mercies and unable to requite thee for the smallest of thy favours It is my comfort that all the recompence thou expectest is a thankful acknowledgement and hearty acceptance of thy grace and good will O what injustice and ingratitude were I guilty of should I deny thee so small a request Be pleased to help thy servant in his last hours both to accept unfeignedly of thy grace for his own good and to acknowledge thy good will and bounty and faithfulness to thy glory for the good of others I Wish that my lost breath may be drawn Heaven-ward I mean that I may enter praying into the house of blessing and praise I am no Christian if I do not give my self to prayer whilst I live It is one choice piece of my spiritual Armour whereby I have often assaulted and conquered my soul-enemies It is the Ambassadour which I have many a time sent to the heavenly Court that always received a favourable Audience and obtained his errand It is the Vessel which hath brought me food from far and ever returned richly laden if it were not my own fault It is the element in which I live the aliment by which I subsist the pulse the breath of my soul without which it must needs dye On my death-bed I have as much need of its succour as at any season My adversaries will then imploy their greatest power and policy to rout and ruine me I am but weak flesh and blood altogether unable to combat with Principalities and Powers and how can I expect supplies from the Lord of Hosts unless I send this Messenger to intreat it My wants and weaknesses at such a time will be more then ordinary Faith must then be acted in spight of all the frights and fears which a malicious Devil and an unbeleiving heart from the number and nature of my sins the strictness of the law and the justice of God may put me to Repentance must then be exercised and my sins lye nearer my heart then my sharpest diseases In patience I must possess my soul under all the pains and pressures which the wise God shall lay upon me I must then chearfully submit to the divine pleasure and by my willingness to leave all the world to go to Christ shew that I hate Father Mother Wife Child House Lands Life and all for Christ. Those graces and many other must be put forth at suâ—h a time none of which I can do by my own power and therefore have abundant cause to fetch help from Heaven by prayer Besides the distempers of my body will discompose my soul and unfit it in a great measure for all holy service Again my Benefactors my near Friends and Relations the poor afflicted Church of God do all call aloud to me to pray for them as the last kindness I shall ever do for them I profess
evil thoughts Matth. 15.19 that is the nest in which those Hornets breed The heart is the original of sinful words as well as sinful thoughts Out of the heart proceed false witness blasphemies Matth. 15.19 They were in the heart before ever they were in the tongue It s faid of the Weasel that it conceives at the ear and brings forth at the mouth Every sinner conceiveth at the heart what he brings forth at the mouth Such stinking breath comes from rotten inwards The heart is the â—â—â—sel of poisonous liquor the tongue is but the tap to broach it Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh The heart is the Forge also where all our evil works as well as words are hammered out Out of the heart proceed murthers and thefts and adulteries and fornicaâ—ions Matth. 15.19 You will say that murthers and thefts are hand-sins and that adulteries and fornication belong to the eye and outward parts of the body but alas the heart is the womb wherein they are conceived and bred the outward parts are but the Midwives to deliver the mother of those monsters and to bring them into the world An evil man out of the evil treasure in his heart bringeth forth evil things There is no sin but is drest in the withdrawing room of the heart before it appear on the stage of the life Apollidorus dreamed one night that the Scythians had taken him and flea'd off his skin with an intent to boil him and as he was lifting into the Cauldron his heart said unto him It s I that have brought thee to all this There is a real truth in this that the heart brings men both to all their sins and all their sufferings As the Chaos had the seed of all creatures and wanted nothing but the motion of the good Spirit to produce them so the heart hath the seed of all evil and wanteth nothing but the motion of the evil spirit and a fit opportunity to bring it forth It is in vain to go about an holy life till the heart be made holy The Pulse of the hand beats well or ill according to the sâ—ate of the heart and the inward vital parts Our earthly members can never be mortified unless the body of sin and death be destroyed The foul bird of sin must be killed in the nest the heart or it can never be thrown on the dunghil die in the life Therefore the Holy Ghost calls on men to take away the cause if they would have the effect to cease O Ierusalem wash thy heart from wickedness Cleanse your hearts ye sinners and purifie your hands ye double-minded first the heart cleansed then the hands Ier. 4.14 Iames 4.7,8 If the chinks of the ship are unstopt t will be to no purpose to labour at the Pump It is not rubbing or scratching will cure the itch but the blood whose corruption is the cause of it must be purified When the water is foul at the bottom no wonder that scum and filth appear at the top There is no way to stop the issue of sin but by drying up the matter that feeds it As Moses cast the tree into the bitter waters and sweetned the Springs And as Elijah cast salt into the fountain and thereby healed the waters so the salt of grace must be cast into the Spring the fountain of the heart or the streams of the life will never be sweet Till trees are grafted and their nature altered all the fruit they bring forth is wilde and harsh and little worth Till the Christian is grafted into Christ and a new and another nature be infused into him all his fruit is unsavoury and unacceptable to God vain and unprofitable to himself Such a one is like a Cypress tree fair to look on but barren Like a Painter he may make a great stir about the colours and shadows of things the form of Godliness and shew all his wit and art and skill in expressing the outside but wholly neglecteth the substance and contemneth the inward parts the power thereof There be several things which may help to make the life fair in the eyes of men but nothing will make it amiable in the eyes of God unless the heart be changed and renewed Indeed all the medicines which can be applied without the sanctifying work of the Spirit though they may cover they can never cure the corruption and diseases of the soul. The best man without this is like a Serpent painted as it were without but poysonous within As the herb Biscort he may have smooth and plain leaves but a croked root Or as a Pill be guilded on the outside when the whole mass and body of it is bitterness It is one thing to be angry with sin upon a sudden discontent as a Man may be with his Wife whom he loves dearly and another thing to hate sin as that which we abhor to behold and endeavour to destroy A filthy heart like a foul body may seem for a while to be in good plight but when the heats and colds of temptations appear t will bewray it self Some Insects lye in a deep sleep all the Winter stir not make no noise that one would think them dead but when the weather alters and the Sun shines they revive and shew themselves So though lusts may seem dead in an unregenerate man they are only laid asleep and when opportunity is will revive Shame may hide sin but it will not heal â—â—n Corruption often lyeth secret in the heart when shame hindereth it from breaking out in sâ—abs and boâ—ches in the life Some court holiness as hard in shew as Saul did Samuel to be honoured before the people when like him they hate it in their hearts Fear may do somewhat to curb a vitiated nature but it cannot cure it The Bear dares hardly touch his desired honey for fear of the stinging of the Bees The Dog forbears the meat on the Table not because he doth not love it but because he is afraid of the Cudgel Many leave some sin in their outward actions as Iacob parted with Benjamin for fear they should starve if they kept it who are as fond of it as the Patriarch of his Child This inward love of sin is indeed its life and that which is most dangerous and deadly to the soul. As an imposthume is most perillous for being inward and private Rocks under water split more vessels then those that appear above water so sin raigning onely in the heart is oftentimes more hurtful then when it rageth in the life Such civil persons go to Hell without much disturbance being asleep in sin yet not snoring to the diâ—quieting of others they are so far from being jogged or awaked that they are many times praised and commended Example Custom and Education may also help a man to make a fair shew in the flesh but not to walk after the spirit They may Prune and Lop sin but never stubb it up
cometh such pride and carnal confidence in prosperity but because men beleive not the meanness and vanity and emptiness of riches and that divine mercy not the merits of men are the original of them There is no sin so monstrous but unbeleif will venture upon it He that beleiveth not will never be allured by divine promises nor affrighted at divine threatnings nor obey divine precepts nor submit to divine providences As Cicero said of Parricide I may say of Unbeleif It s a teeâ—ing vice a well of wickedness many sins are bound up in it No wonder the Apostle gives such a serious warning and so strict a charge against Infidelity as the mother and nurse of all Apostacy Take heed lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbeleif whereby ye depart away from the living God Heb. 3. 12. The superstitious Pagans thought that their Idol Vibilia kept them from erring out of their way The religious Christian knoweth by experience that his faith keeps him within the limits of his duty Faith ingrafts the soul into Christ and into the fellowship of his death by which the old man is crucified and the body of sin destroyed that henceforth we should not serve sin Rom. 6. 5,6,7,8 For therefore did Christ bear ouâ— sins in his body on the tree that we might become dead to sin 1 Pet. 1. 24. Faith enableth the soul to conquer sin by enabling it to overcome the three grand provocations to sin The World the Flesh and the Wicked one There is neither of these enemies but Faith hath wounded mortally 1. Faith enableth to overcome the World the World indeed hath conquered millions the greatest Souldiers have been slain by it Alexander could subdue the Nations in it but could not subdue his Affections to it As great a conqueror as he was over it he was its slave and vassal for his ambition was still larger then his Dominions But faith cloathing the Christian with the Sun helps him to trample this Moon under his feet This is your victory over the world even your Faith 1 Joh. 6.4 The World hath two faces the oneâ— ugly and deformed toâ—affright the Saint the other comely and painted to allure him to sin but Faith seeth how pittiful onely touching the body her threatnings are and how poor onely skin-deep her promises are and makes the soul to disdain both It was by Faith that Luther could say Contemptus a me Romanus favor furor I scorn both Romes favour and Romes fury The worlds Furnace and Musickâ— are much alike to a Beleiver he is blind and deaf nay dead to both The special object of Faith is the Cross of Christ whereby saith the Apostle I am crucified to the world and the world to me Tickle a dead man or lance him it s all one he is sensible of neither As Fabricius the Noble Roman told Pyrrhus who one day tempted him with Gold and the next day sought to terrifie him with Elephants I was not yesterday moved with your money nor to day with your beasts So Basil when first offered preferment and afterward threatened with imprisonment if he would not deny Christ and turn Arrian to this purpose answered the Messenger Such babies of preferment are fit to catch Children with and such bug-bears of bonds and imprisonment may fright your tender Gallants and Courtiers Faith enableth the Christian to mount up to heaven and thereby secures him from the baits and shots the snares and lime-twigs which attend him on earth Homer saith Vlisses caused himself to be bound to the Mast of the Ship and every one of his fellows ears to be stopped with Wax that they might not hearken to the Songs of the Syrens and so be drowned in the Sea Faith fastens the soul to Christ and so ravisheth iâ—s ears with the glad tidings of pardon and peace and eternal life that it is deaf to the worlds musick 1. Faith enableth the soul to overcome the affrightments of the world Faith like blown bladders keepeth the soul from sinking in deep waters It s a Target under which a soul is free from the hurt though not from the smart of evil It s the Ark wherein he rides triumphing when the windows from above are opened and poure down and the floods from beneath are broken up In this strong Tower the soul finds shelter Faith like Ioseph layeth up in a time of plenty against a time of scarcity in a day of prosperityâ— against a day of adversity and so feareth it the less Faith sheweth the Christian a place of refuge in the time of trouble He shall hide thee saith Faith in the secret of his presence i. e. cover thee with the warm wings of his providence he shall keep thee secret in his Pavilion An allusion to Princes retiring rooms which are sacred and secure places for their Favourites Nature teacheth all creatures to run in distress to that which they count their defence The Conies run to the Rocks the Goats to the Hills the Ravenous Beasts to their Deâ—s the Child to his Mothers Armes This grace discovereth to the soul a Rock a Refuge a Fort a Fortress an High Tower which makes him fearless of the worlds threatnings and bugbears The lame and the blind those most shiftless creatures when they had got the strong hold of Sion over their heads scorned the Host of David 2 Sam. 5. 6 7. The Egyptians that dwell in the fens are much troubled with Gnats therefore they sleep in High Towers whither those Insects cannot flye The Name of the Lord is a strong Tower the righteous run unto it and are safe Prov. 15. Such a soul is like a strong Tree which no wind can shake or like Mount Sion which cannot be moved Therefore he can sing when unbeleivers quake and tremble Though the Earth be troubled though the Mountains be carried into the midst of the Sea though the Waters roar and the Mountains shake yet we will not fear The Lord of Hosts is with us the God of Jacob is our refuge Psa. 46. 56. and 91. 2 3. Faith is like the Cork in the Net when the Lead wound sink the Net the Cork keeps it above water This Faith is the Anchor of the soul both sure and stedfact entering into that within the vail and so stayeth the Saint against all the winds and waves of affliction Faith or beleif of the resurrection and that happiness which then should be enjoyed was that which enabled Paul to dye daily and to fight with Beasts at Ephesus 1 Cor. 15. 30. In the greatest distress Faith can see deliverance and when it is at the greatest distance salute it as Abraham did Christs day afar off When the weather is cloudy it can see the Heaven begin to clear and notwithstanding his present pain and poverty cause the Christian to rejoyce in his hope of bliss and glory The eye of Faith looking to the recompence of reward seeth afflictions with the Israel of
God much more eligible then the pleasures of sin Symphorianus a Christian young man after he was almost scourged to death being draged to Execution at Augustodunum met his Mother not crying or tearing her hair but like an Holy Lady thus comforting him Son my Son I say Remember life eternal look up to Heaven Life is not taken from thee but exchanged for a better At which words of his Mother he went on willingly to the Block and exposed his Throat to the fatal Ax One of the Dutch Martyrs feeling the flame coming to him said O what a small pain is this to Heaven Our blessed Saviour had an eye to the joy set before him and thereby was encouraged to endure the Cross and despise the shame Indeed if Faith spring a leak then the waters break in and the Christian sinks apace as we see in Peters denial of his Master As Faith in the Promises so also Faith in the Threatnings makes the Christian a Conquerour over the worlds affrightments where the World threatens Bonds and Whips and Dungeoâ—s and Death if the Christian will not sin against God and begins to stagger the soul. Take heed what thou dost saith Faith for God threateneth Fire and Brimstone and Chains and Blackness of Darkness for ever as the wages of all sin Is the Wrath of an Infinite God not more to be feared then of weak dying Men Is the pains of a violent death which will quickly be over and the most the World can do against thee comparable to the pains of eternal death And thus Faith by the terror of this great Ordinance drowns the noise of those small peices that the soul is deaf to their report 2. Faith enableth the soul to overcome the allurements of the world If the world cannot terrifie the Saint with its fiery Furnace to disown and deny his Saviour it will seek to inchant him with its Musick and thereby to make him deaf to the Call and Commands of Christ. Thus it served Ioseph When it could not prevail on the left hand by selling him for a slave it tryeth him on the right hand by setting a Dalilah to tickle him with pleasure but by Faith he saw the Hook under the Bait and durst not nibble at it much less swallow it Though the world like Iezabel painteth her face and tireth her hair to render her amiable and lovely and as a Srumpet sheweth her naked Breasts of pleasure and profit to entice the beleiver to go a Whoring after her yet he vieweth by Faith the deformity of her person under all her dawbery and the dregginess and deceitfulness of her pleasures notwithstanding their shew of clearness and so rejects them with scorn and disdain Pliny saith of Cato that he took as much pleasure in the Honours he denied as in those that he enjoyed The beleiver can glory more in his refusal of glory for Christ then unbeleivers in all their preferments Indeed if the Christian did consult with sense or carnal reason he would take the worlds present money but the beleiver doth not consult with flesh and blood like wise Abigal knowing how much it will conduce to his advantage he can part with his estaâ—e for God and never make those Nabals privy to the design lest they should hinder it Besides Faith discovers pure Rivers of pleasures more noble and excellent delights to be the portion of those that refuse to grate their teeth with such kennel water As man is a rational creature he would sell his wares to them that will give most Now Faith sheweth how infinitely God out-bids the world Sense saith The world offereth fair it offereth comforts sutable to thy flesh such as they desire and it offereth ready money present possession But saith Faith God offereth thee better The comforts he offereth are more excellent being sutable not as the Worlds to a carnal brutish nature but to an heavenly divine soul and more durable being eternal when the pleasures of sin are but for a season He that hopes for no better market will take the present money offered him But he that is assured of greater gains will refuse the lesser An unbeleiver who expects no better bargain then what this life affords him may well take up with present pay what ever it be but the Beleiver who seeth the glory to be revealed and fulness of joy in Heaven and is assured that if he be faithful unto death he shall receive that eternal crown of life turns his eyes off the honours and comforts of this beggarly world Those stars of creature joys do all disappear in the presence of this Sun Gold bears little sway with the soul that knoweth his title to the new Ierusalem that is paved with Gold in which gold is trampled under foot Those birds that flie aloft in the Firmament are not so easily snared by the Fowlers Gins Though the things of this world were glorious in his eyes during his estate of unbeleif yet now he hath discerned a world beyond the Moon and sent Faith as a spie to search and coast that Country which hath brought word back that its a good land flowing with Milk and Honey and in it there is want of nothing they have no glory by reason of that glory that doth so infinitely exceed When a man is below things above seem small the great Stars that are bigger then the Earth seem not so big as a bushel and things below seem great but when a man is above as upon the top of a Steeple then things below seem little he beholdeth men like Grashoppers Were he conveyed to the highest hill in the World men would not be discerned great Kingdoms would be but small Cottages Unbeleif sets a man below here on earth and so the things of Heaven are little in his eye but Faith soars aloft it carrieth the Christian up to Heaven and then the whole earth is but a small spot in his eye Ioseph bids the Patriarchs Regard not your stuff for the good of all the Land of Egypt is yours So saith Faith to the Christian Regard not the lumber and rubbish of this world for all the great and good things of the other world are thine Faith gives the soul a taste the first fruits of Heaven And as no man having drunk old wine desireth new for he saith the old is better So no man having tasted the wine of Heavens pleasures desires carnal delights A Pilgrim travelling to Ierusalem saith one came to a City where he saw a goodly Training and Mustering there he had a mind to stay but that he remembred that was not Ierusalem He came to another City where he saw gallant sports and pastimes there he had some good will to abide but that he remembred it was not Ierusalem He came to a third where were goodly buildings Fair Ladies curious Musick c. where also he had some thoughts of setling but still he remembred it was not Ierusalem So the beleiver when the
is by Faith that Water is turned into wine temporal mercies into spiritual advantages Faith worketh by love and draweth men with the Cords of love T is by faith that men are so fruitful in their lives Heb. 11. 32 33. and so chearful in their deaths Rom. 8. 37 38. O Reader above all thy gettings get faith and above all thy keepings keep faith For it must be faith that must keep thee from falling in an hour of temptation and from fainting in an hour of persecution The unbeleiver is fitly called an unreasonable man because its unreasonable that the God of truth should not be credited and that he to whom it is impossible to lye should be distrusted and also an absurd man because its absurd for a workman to go without his tools which he shall every moment have need of It s said of the Serpent that of all her parts she is most careful of her head well knowing that though she be mangled and cut never so much in her body yet if her head be whole that will cure the wounds of all her other parts Let thy great work be to â—ecure thy faith if that be whole all will be well what ever decays there may be in other graces this will help them to shoot forth again Thirdly If thou wouldst exercise thy self to Godliness set God always before thine eyes Subjects will carry themselves handsomly and loyally when they are before their Soveraign They who walk before God will be upright His eye is the best Marshal to keep the soul in a comely order Let thine eye be ever on him whose eye is ever on thee The eyes of the Lord are in every place beholding the evil and the good Prov. 15. 9. Seneca perswaded his friend Lucilius for the keeping him within compass to imagine that some grave man as Laelius did still look upon him Reader couldst thou walk ever as in Gods presence thou wouldst keep close to his precepts Consider therefore that in all places in all companies at all times the eye of God is on thee and he takes exact notice of all thy thoughts words and actions that he knoweth thy natural parts In his book were all thy members written which in continuance were fashioned when as yet there was not one of them that he knoweth all thy moral passages thou understandest my thoughts afar off and art acquainted with all my ways There is not a word in my tongue but thou O Lord knowest it altogether There is no drawing a curtain between God and thee He seeth thee thorough and thorough far more perfectly then thou canst the clearest Chrystal Darkness hideth not from thee but the night shineth as the day to thee the darkness and the light are both alike The darkness of the air may hide thee from men and the darkness of thine understanding may hide thee from thy self but there is no darkness nor shadow of death where the workers of iniquity can hide themselves from him Neither the ring of Gyges nor the helmet of Pluto can hide thee from Gods eye Observe how strict God is in observing thy ways Thou numbrest my steps dost thou not watch over my sin Job 14. 16. By steps is understood inward Motions and outward actions whatsoever is done either in the retiring room of the heart or common hall of the life To number the steps notes an exact account we say of a man that goeth very leasurely and softly Such a man telleth his steps God is said to tell or number our steps because he is so exact in his observation of and so severe in his inquisition into all our thoughts words and deeds He is supposed to be void of shame that doth not fear to sin before many witnesses Though thou art in secret consider conscience is present which is a thousand witnesses and God who is a thousand consciences The Italian was somewhat conceited who wrote a supplication to Candle light to disclose to him the secrets of his Kingdom It s thought the light of the Candle seeth more wickedness then the light of the sun but to God the day and night darkness and light are both alike he seeth all things in all places and at all times It was a prety fancy of one that would have his chamber painted full of eyes that which way soever he lookt he might still have some eyes upon him and he fancying himself according to the Moralists advice always Sub custode Paedagogo under the eye of a keeper might be the more careful of his carriage And it was a wise answer of Livius Drusus when an Artist offered him so to convtrive his house that he might do what he would none should see him No saith Drusus Contrive it so rather that all may see me for I am not ashamed to be seen If the eyes of men make even the vilest to forbear their beloved lusts for a while that the Adulter watcheth for the twilightâ— and they that are drunk are drunk in the night how powerful will the eye and presence of God be with those that fear his anger and know the sweetness of his favour Moses forsook the sinful pleasures of Pharaohs Court not fearing the wrath of the King for he saw him that was invisible A good commander causeth good government in a Town or City This truth wrought home and set close to the heart would cause good orders good government in it The thought of this Omnipresence of God will affrighten thee from sin Gehezi durst not ask or receive any part of Naamans Presents in his Masters presence but when he had got out of Elisha's sight then he tells his lye and gives way to his lust Men never sin more freely then when they presume upon secrecy They break in peices thy people O Lord and afflict thine heritage They slay the Widow and Stranger and murder the Fatherless yet they say The Lord doth not see neither shall the God of Jacob regard it Psa. 94. 5 6 7. Eliphaz though falsly accused Iob as guilty of the same crime upon the same account Iob 22. 5 6 7 13 14. They who shut God out of their hearts shut him also out of the world through their atheism and then are at liberty for all manner of wickedness They who abounded in abominations said The Lord seeth us not the Lord hath forsaken the earth Ezek. 8. 9 10 12. The wise man diswadeth from wickedness upon the consideration of Gods eye and Omniscience And why wilt thou my son be ravished with a strange woman and embrace the bosome of a stranger For the ways of a man are before the eyes of the Lord and he pondereth all his goings Prov. 5â— 20 21. Ioseph saw God in the room and therefore durst not yeild but his Mistris saw none but Ioseph and so was impudently alluring and tempting him to folly I have read of two religious men that took contrary courses with two lewd women whom they
so often to remember his latter end because the meditation of it is so gainful to him The first day man was made he was called to think of his last day God minded him of death in the Tree of Knowledge and the threatning annexed to the Prohibition that he might thereby keep him from sin Satan could not prevail with Eve to taste of that killing fruit till he had prevailed with her to distrust that threatning of death ye shall not surely dye Gen. 3. 4. After the fall God reneweth this meditation by turning the conditional into an absolute commination Dust thou art and to Dust thou shalt return and though the Holy Ghost omitteth many particulars about Gods carriage with the long-lived Patriarchs and their holy conversation before him yet he is exact in registring their deaths And he died and he died of every one Gen. 5. to quicken us to fear God because we are but dying frail men There is hardly any thing about which we deal but God gives us by it a Memento of Death Our Cloaths are all fetcht out of Deaths wardrobe our food out of deaths shambles The Sun is an emblem of lifes posting the night of the chambers of darkness the year hath its autumn the day its night Our candles should mind us of the wasting of our days the evening of the shadow of death our undressing of our putting off our earthly tabernacles and our lying down in our beds of our lying down in our graves If thou wouldst make Religion thy business and main work think often and seriously of thy death and departure of this world He that guides and steers the ship aright sits in the stern or hinderâ— most part of it He that would order his works his way according to God must be frequent in the meditation of his end The end of his days must be at the end of all his thoughts Zeno Cittiaeus consulted with the Oracle how he might live well and received this answer If he would be of the same colour with the dead Reader if thou wouldst live much and well get thy heart as much affected with godliness in health as it will be in sickness Have the same thoughts of it the same seriousness about it the very same carriage towards it whilst the world salutes thee with its smiling face and bewitching features which thou wilt wish thou hadst had when thou shalt come to take thy leave of it and lye upon thy dying bed Be of the same colour with the dead O what thoughts have the dead of godliness and of making it ones business The dead in Christ and the dead out of Christ have both other manner of thoughts of Religion and making it ones occupation then thou canst possibly imagine Those who while they live delay repentance and dally about Religion minding it as if they minded it not who neither in their dealings with men nor duties towards God nor in their relations nor vocations make it their business but mispend their precious time misimploy their weighty talents neglect God and their eternal welfares as if they had not been made to mind either when they come to dye and perceive in good earnest that that surly Serjeant Death will not be denyed but away they must go into the other world and fare well or ill for ever according as their hearts and lives have been godly or ungodly good or bad here good Lord what thoughts have they then of godliness How hearty are their wishes that they had made it their business What Worlds would they give that Religion had been their principal work What prayers and tears do they poure out for a few days to mind it in What sighs and sobs and groans that they have neglected it so long What purposes do they take up what promises do they make if God spare them to follow hard after holiness and make it their onely business A Philosopher asking Euchrites which of the two he had rather be Craesus one of the richest and most vicious in the world or Socrates one of the poorest and most vertuous Eucrites answered Craesus vivens Socrates moriens Craesus while he lived and Socrates when he dyed The Cuckoe when wearing away changeth her noat The worst men when they come to dye alter and change exceedingly It is worthy our observation that those who are greatest strangers to death are most familiar with the works of darkness No place abounds more in Wolves no person in wickedness then where this Mastiff is wanting Jerusalem hath greivously sinned her filthiness is in her skirts she remembreth not her last end therefore she came down wonderfully 1 Lamen 8. 9. Jerusalem hath greivously sinned hath sinned sin Heb. Hath committed a great or greivous sin so the Chaldee Behold here the colour of her sin is was not of an ordinary dye but of a black a bloody an heinous nature Her filthiness is in her skirts Lo here her carriage after her sinning she made of it an open shew so far was she from shame It is a term taken from prostituted Strumpets or monstrous women saith Diodat The outward looks of the former bewray her inward lusts and the marks of the latters defilement are visible on her garment thus the shew of Ierusalems countenance did publiquely evidence her crime She did as clearly by her skirts proclaim her filth as if it had been written on her face and engraven on her forehead Here was impiety in her practice Ierusalem hath greivously sinned and impudency to purpose Her filthiness is in her skirts But what dust was that which bred such vermine what polluted seed was that which begat such a poisonous serpent Reader if thou wouldst know the Mother which brought forth and bred up this ugly Monster She remembreth not her last end therefore she came down mightily It was her forgetfulness of death which nourished and cherished her wicked deeds They who mind not their reckoning care not how much they riot and revel They who put far away the evil day cause the seat of violence to come near Amos 6. 3. The further we drive death from our thoughts the nearer we draw to sin They who fancy their foe to be very far off will not prepare and make ready to fight Men that are young do not consider that the old Ass often carrieth the skin of the young to the Market that death comes like a Thunderbolt and Lightning and blasteth the green corn and consumeth the strongest buildings if they did they would flee youthful lusts He who seeth death at his door will be most diligent about his duty A serious consideration of the death of the body will be a soveraign though a sharp medicine to kill the body of death The Naturalists tell us that the ashes of a Viper applied to the part which is stung draweth the venome out of it They who look on themselves as Pilgrims and strangers will abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the
he denied the Faith but siting at the Court Gate when Simeon an old Bishop and holy person was leading to prison he rose up to salute him but the good Bishop frowning on him turn'd away his head with indignation upon which Vsthazanes fell a weeping went into his chamber put off his Courtly attire and burst out into this speech Ah how shall I appear before the great God of heaven whom I have denied when Simeon but a man will not endure to look upon me If he frown how will God frown when I come to appear at his Tribunal Upon these considerations he repented of his Apostacy assumed courage and be-became a glorious Martyr for Christ. If Felix an Heathen trembled when Paul reasoned of judgement to come nay if the very Devils so far believe that day as to tremble at the thoughts of it well may the consideration of that day make Christians tremble at the thoughts of sin and not dare thereby to treasure up wrath upon their heads against that day of wrath and the declaration of the righteous judgement of God Reader At this day think much of that day of judgement hereby thou wilt be stirred up to judge thy self to repent of sin to ensure an interest in Christ the Judge to keep a good conscience and so to think speak and act as one that must be judged by the Law of liberty 1 Cor. 11.31 Act. 3.19 and 17. 31. 2 Pet. 3. 11. Eccles. 12. ult Iam. 2. 12. Act. 24. 16. Eighthly If thou wouldst exercise thy self to Godliness Call thy self often to account This is a special help to holiness I considered my ways and turned my feet to thy testimonies saith David Psa. 119.5 A man that goeth out of his way will continue wandering if his mind be occupied about other things and he consider not what he is doing and whither he is going The Christian that is careless of his carriage and seldom compareth his heart and life with the divine commands to observe how they agree or disagree will never order his conversation aright When a clock is out of order we take it to peices and search where the fault lyeth knowing that one wheel amiss may hinder the going of the whole Clock Our hearts are every day out of order our work must be to take them to peices by Examination and to see where the great fault is Seneca's sober young man Ita laborat ita ludit ita caenat ita potat ita loquitur ita vivit ut qui ephemerides Patri est approbaturâ—â—â— so labours so playeth so eateth so drinketh so speakâ— and so lives as one that is daily to be accountable for all to his Father He that would keep his spiritual estate must keep his Account-books well The neglect of this hath been the breaking of many Tradesmen When Shop-keepers live high far above their incomes and for want of searching into their Books are ignorant whether their gains will allow such large expences it is no wonder if they prove worse then naught They who expect the coming of great and severe strangers who will observe narrowly how their house lyeth and how their vessels are kept and publish it either to their credit or discredit according as they find will keep their houses in order sweep them clean have their pewter bright and clear and all things exactly in their places When the Christian looks every night for the coming of Gods Deputy his conscience to spy and search into his heart and life how clean and holy both have been kept all the day it will be a special means to make him watchful over his ways and exact in his carriage and conversation Bee-Masters tell us that they are the best hives which make the greatest noise So that conscience is the best which makes the greatest noise in daily reasonings and debates before its own bar Examination is the quickest way to bring the erring sheep home to the fold Honest men will examine their weights and measures by the standard that if they be defective they may be mended The honest heart will examine its thoughts its words its actions by the Royal Law that their unsutableness to its strictness and latitude may be repented of and to the utmost of its power reformed Let us search and try our ways For what cause What will be the issue of such a scrutiny And turn again to the Lord Lam. 3.39 What man will seek to a Physitian or accept his advice or take his prescriptions who doth not know himself distempered and feel his disease T is examination of our hearts and lives by the holy and pure Law of God that gives thee knowledge of our spiritual sickness and helpeth us to feel it to prize our Physitian and thankfully and heartily to accept his directions for our cure It s observed of the Dutch-men that they keep their banks notwithstanding the threats of the insulting Ocean with little cost and labour because they look narrowly to them and stop them up in time If there be but a small breach they stop it presently and hereby save much charge and trouble Frequent examination will do this courtesie for the Christian it will maintain his peace with little charge and trouble comparatively As soon as any breach is made by sin that Arch-make-bate between God and the soul it will help the Christian to run presently to Christ to heal and make it up in Heaven by his merits and in the soul by his purifying and pacifying spirit The counsel which the Philosopher gave the young men at Athens may sutably and profitably be applied to Christians That they should often view themselves in a glass that if they were fair and well featured they should do such things as were beseeming their amiable shape but if soul and ill-favoured that then they should labour to salve the bodies blemishes by the beauties of a mind accoutred with the ornaments of vertue and good literature Examination is a special preservative against sin No Children are more bold to defile themselves and to play with dirt or rake in kennels then those who know their Parents are so foolishly fond like David of Adonijah that they never displease them at any time in saying Why hast thou done so The Child that expecteth to be reckoned with at night will be careful how he dirtieth his cloaths in the day Examination will help the Christian if not to hinder a coming disease yet to prevent its growing and increase The Ship that leaketh is more easily emptied at the beginning then afterwards The Bird is easily killed in the Egge but when once hatcht and fledged we may kill it when we can catch it A frequent reckoning with our selves will pluck sin up before it is rooted in the soul. Examination will help the Christian that hath fallen and bruised himself to heal the wound whilst it is fresh before it is festered This one advantage if there were no more is extraordinary As the sting of
a Bee though the Bee be fled works it self into the flesh deeper and diffuseth its venome more strongly causing the greater pain that every man unless foolish will speedily pull it out lest he encrease his own anguish Truly so doth sin though the honey the pleasure of it be gone yet the sting remains and the longer it is before it is pulled out by Faith and Repentance the deeper it works it self into the soul and the more sorrow it will put us to in this or the other world T is examination at night that brings the soul to mourn for and repent of its failings in the day T is like the tree which Câ—esias speaks of in describing India that besides fruit distilleth certain tears of which are made Precious Amber or as the drops of the Vine its excellent against the leprousie of sin Ephesus would never repent till they examined and considered whence they had fallen When sin is admitted into the soul and as a Theif in the night stole in at unawares when the eye of the souls watchfulness was fallen asleep Examination will light the Candle of the word and search the house narrowly and find out this ill guest and before it hath done so much mischief as it intended apprehended it indict condemn and execute it Examination every day is like purging the body at the beginning of a distemper which takes it before it hath habituated it self and so is much the more easily repelled An enemy may much sooner be forced out of his holds when he hath newly taken possession then when he hath continued so long as to cast up his banks make his ditches placed his Guns and fortified them After we have been foiled by our spiritual enemies and by examination find out the cause it will make us more watchful at that gate at which they enter'd and careful of that particular wherein they got the advantage of us As when David had received intelligence that the Amonites had given his Army some small defeat he sends Ioab word of the reason they went too near the City and wisheth him to make the battel more strong against the place 2 Sam. 11. So examination finds out the reason of a Christians defeat by Satan either it was through self-confidence or want of spiritual watchfulness or love to some known sin and helpeth the Saint to bewail the cause of his defeat and directeâ—h him how to provide better against the next onset Frequent examination keepeth the conscience raw and tender that the least touch of sin will be offensive and troublesom to it When the heart is used to yeild at a small Willow it will never be quiet under a great Oak Searching into our souls makes sin more loathsom to us Whilst these filthy sinks are unstir'd they do but little disturb us or annoy us with their filthy savour but when by examination we rake into them their noysom stench offendeth us extremely and shews us what need we have of cleansing Examination every night will help the Christian to a good nights rest How comfortably may he lye down who hath made all even with his Maker and heard his everlasting Father bidding him Good-night How quietly may he sleep who hath his pardon under his Pillow he needs not fear any Officer to call him up at midnight and attach him for any treasons or misdemeanours It s said of Cato that constantly at evening he would call to mind what ever he had seen read or done that day It was Pythagoras rule to his Scholars That they should no night suffer sleep to seise their senses till they had three times recalled the accidents and passages of the day O what a shame is it that Moralists who had no true sense of the benefit of such a duty should out-go the Christian in the performance of it That many persons should know the Chronicles of other Countries or Kingdoms some ages past and yet not know the passages of their own souls one day past Reader If thou wouldst walk closely with God and keep even with him reckon daily with him Call thy self to a strict scrutiny What do I how live I where am I is the work I do warrantable by the word or no is my life the life of Faith of Holiness or no am I in Gods way under his protection or no Have I truth of grace the power of godliness or do I please my self with the form of it Do I thrive and increase in grace or do I decay and decline Suppose I were to dye this night what ground have I to hope for Heaven what assurance that I shall escape the power and rage of frightful Devils What evidences have I that I am a new creature engrafted into Christ and thereby entitled to life and bliss Thus feel the pulse of thy soul enquire into its state visit it often and see how it doth Call thy self to an account for thy sins Let heart and life sins open and private sins omissions commissions personal relative be all reckoned for Ask thy soul as Rebecah Why am I thus Why am I so false to my God so unfaithful to my Covenants The heart is like a Ditch into which filth is continually running and therefore it behoveth thee by examination to be always emptying it The Stable that is daily fowled must be daily cleansed The hands that are daily contracting dirt must be daily washed Our souls are more polluted and diseased then our bodies we have always a filthy issue of sin running which we must be daily searching into and dressing or our stench will make us loathsom to and unfit for any communion with God or his people Call thy self to an account daily for thy mercies Ask thy self How much am I indebted to my God what privative what positive mercies do I partake of what old what new what night what day mercies what mercies at home what abroad what personal what domestical what national mercies do I enjoy or am a sharer in what bodily what spiritual mercies do I receive what time what talents have I to trade with and reckon for This will help the soul to be speedy and hearty in thankfulness and force it to Davids Interrogation What shall I render to the Lord for all his benefits What hot love should I return what an holy life should I lead Do this daily It is much better to pay sums when they are little then when they are large Wise men that are able find it the best way to pay ready money for their wares Neglect herein causeth many mistakes and inconveniencies and many times differences amongst friends Having spoken to this particular in the sixth Chapter I shall say no more to it here though indeed I judge it next to a new nature not inferiour to any means of godliness Ninthly If thou wouldst exercise thy self to godliness Avoid the occasions of sin he that would avoid the commission of sin must avoid the occasions of sin If we
shine brightly with grace and holiness they do not they will not know it They consider their greatest light and lustre is but a reflection from the Father of lights and therefore they have no reason at all to boast of borrowed goods The worm of pride breeds soonest in rotten wood The proud Pharisee who justified himself had nothing in him but matter of condemnation When the poor humble Publican affected with his own vileness and baseness had something of worth in him even his sense of his own unworthiness Brass makes a greater sound and is heard farther then Gold but every one knoweth there is no comparison between them Chaff is seen above the Wheat not because it is better but because it is lighter Alas what is man what hath man that he should be proud He is but enlivened dust moving earth refined clay that which beasts trample under their feet He hath nothing that good is but what he hath received He lives wholly upon the alms and charity of another A proud heart and a beggars purse do not agree As he is a sinner he is more vile and base more noisom and loathsom then any Toad or Snake or Serpent and hath he any reason to be proud Reader be cloathed with humility learn of thy Redeemer for he was meek and lowly in heart Though he thought it no robbery to be equal with God yet he made himself of no reputation and took upon him the form of a servant Phil. 2.7,8 When pride cometh then cometh a fall As a Wrastler if he can lift his fellow from the ground quickly gives him a fall so the Devil if he can lift up with pride doubts not but to throw them Physicians observe that the Dropsie and Consumption are usually together when once thou swellest with this Dropsie of pride expect a Consumption of thy godliness He walks but dangerously who walks on high places as on the ridges of houses and on ropes he that walks below is more safe Angels Adam David Hezekiah Peter and many others in Scripture confirm the Wisemans Proverb Pride goeth before a fall Trees that are set on mountains are easily shaken and torn up by the roots when stormy winds arise Indeed t is no wonder that a proud man should fall into sin for he relieth on his own strength which is but a broken reed Peter had not fallen so fouly if he had not undertaken to stand upon his own legs which were too weak to bear his weight But before honour is humility The lower the foundation the higher the building A proud man hath a great infelicity in that he is his own enemy and makes all others his enemies God is his enemy there is no sinner whom he proclaims such open war against in such express terms as the Proud God setteth himself in battel array against the proud T were better Earth and Hell should unite their force against him then one God Ah who knoweth the power of thine anger Men are his enemies he disdaineth others for their meaness or poveâ—ty or want of parts and they disdain him for his pride He that over-valueth himself shall soon be under-valued by every one Pride makes him scorn friends for familiarity would deprive him he thinks of that reverence which he deserves and therefore all must be his enemies but he is his own enemy most in cutting such a gash in his soul by his pride and making way for all other sins to fall on He that is lifted up with pride quickly falls into the condemnation of the Devil Satan had found this vice Pride by experience so prevalent to draw the creature from God that he knew no better bait to catch Adam with Ye shall be as gods and when afterwards he encountred David 't was with this weapon he tempted David to number the people Yet alas though it be so prejudicial how natural is it to us Pride is a weed a worm that gets into the best Garden It was a witty taunt which a proud Cardinal had from a friend of his that upon his election went to Rome on purpose to see him where finding his behaviour stretcht to nothing but pride and state he departed and put on a mourning suit and the next day comes in black to visit him The Cardinal asking the cause why he was in mourning he answered It was for the death of Humility which fetcht its last breath in him when he was elected Cardinal Most of us have cause to put on mourning upon the same account Eleventhly If thou wouldst exercise thy self to godliness Suppress sin in the beginning This foul Bird is easiest kild in the egge When a fire is first broke out in a Chimny it may with much less labour be quenched then when it hath seised the Timber of the House What small beginnings had those fires which have conquered stately Pallaces and turned famous Cities into ruinous heaps An Hair is but a little thing yet some have been choaked with it If the Tetter be not killed it will come to be a Ring-worm Passion at the first kindling may be quenched but if let alone sends such a smoke into the understanding which thickens into a cloud and hinders us from the sight of our selves and our duties The Tree may soon be pulled up before it hath taken root but then it may be too hard for the strongest man A prick with a Pin or a Thorn being let alone hath sometimes caused the cutting off of a limb nay the loss of life Minutes to sin are like Cyphers to a figure which quickly increase it to vast sums Sin increaseth by degrees Iam. 1. 14 15. First it surprizeth the heart in a thought then it stealeth into the affections for approbation then the affections plead with the will for its consent and then that commandeth the act of it and frequent acts cause an habit and custom in sin causeth despair despair causeth men to defend sin their defence of sin a boasting and glorying in it and the next step is Hell Sin is therefore fitly by the Prophet compared to a Chain for one link draweth another As the Ivy by little and little creepth upon the Oak till at last it doth destroy it so doth sin cling about the soul and by degrees over-run and undo it When the water begins to freeze it will hardly bear a peny weight let it alone a little longer and it will bear a shilling then a pound weight then a man then a horse then cart and load and all As the cloud which Elijahs servant saw was at first no bigger then a mans hand but afterwards it spread till it covered the Heavens Peter first denyeth his Master then sweareth then curseth and forsweareth himself Cain first haâ—bours envious thoughs of his brother then murdereth him in his heart then kills him with his hand then quarrelleth with God and despaireth There is no staying when we are once down the Hill till we come to the bottom If this
Giant of sin get in but a limb he will quickly get in his whole body Wanton thoughts if not stifled bring forth actual uncleanness Sin is like water if we give it the least way run it will in spight of us If we get not the conquest over it in its infancy we shall not overcome it when it is brought to maturity He that cannot put out a spark will be much more unable to put out a flame The smallest of these twigs will prove thorny bushes if not timely stubbed up The Horse must be broken when a Colt and the Lion tamed when a Whelp It s best to deal with sin as Iocasta with Oedipus to cast it forth in its infancy The Israelite must dash these Babylonian Infants against the wall if he would be a blessed man Isa. 13.18 The Christian that checketh and curbeth sin when it first appeareth doth as David to the Philistine wound it in the forehead and so slayeth it certainly As the Snail by little and little creepeth up from the root of the tree to the top consuming the leaves as it goeth and leaving nothing behind it but filth and slime So sin gradually infecteth the whole man This poison if not presently vomited up as soon as taken down flieth to and destroyeth the vitals The Apostle calleth it a Canker and truly so it is in regard of its spreading nature both as to persons from one man to another and to parts from one faculty of the soul and member of the body to another How dreadful was the effect of a few boys joyning with Massianello in Naples anno 1647. whom the officers and people laughed and jeered at instead of subduing What murders and burning Palaces and Churches did ensue and arise from so contemptible means Therefore as wise Princes will be heedful to suppress riots and petty insurrections knowing that if they be let alone they will break out into open rebellion and cause much bloodshed and mischeif So Reader do thou stifle and kill sin in the womb before it be quick lest thou like the young Serpents if brought forth it tear out thy bowels and its birth cause thy death Twefthly If thou wouldst exercise thy self to godliness study the knowledge of God T is ignorance of God that is the original of all sin Did men know the sad fruits of his fury they durst not by sin provoke him Did men know the sweetness of his favour they would do they would suffer any thing to please him It is in the mist of ignorance that they lose their way and wander from him who is the chiefest good The Devil is bound in chains of darkness and so are all his Children They who know God most love him most and fear him most and trust him most It is life spiâ—â—tual and the seed of life eternal to know thee the onely true God and Iesus Christ whom thou hast sent Joh. 17. 3. All godliness all grace is seminally in the knowledge of God and floweth from it They who with open face behold the Lord though but as in a glass are changed into his image from glory to glory from one degree of grace to another â— Cor. 3. 18. They who know the infiniteness and immensity of his being cannot but despise all things for him esteem all things as nothing to him as nothing without him look on the whole creation as less then nothing in comparison of him Ah what admiring reverent thoughts of that being of beings of him whose name is I am have they who lanch a little for 't is but a little that they can here into this Ocean All Nations before him are as nothing and they are counted to him less then nothing and vanity they cannoâ— but desire and labour to enjoy so boundless a portion They who know the power of God cannot but fear him and stand in awe of his presence and threatnings They fear him who is able to cast soul and body into hell Heb. 12. 27 28. They will depend on him because there is no want which the Almighty cannot supply no weakness which he cannot remove no danger which he cannot prevent or support in Acquaintance with him who is mighty in strength makes the Christian resolute in Gods cause and as bold as a Lion at his call and command They who know the eternity of God will chuse him before temporal vanities What are the pleasures of sin for a season in his eye who seeth the pleasures at Gods right hand for evermore What are the honours on earth to him who knoweth the eternal weight of glory What are temporal relations in comparison of the everlasting Father Nay what is his natural life to eternal life no good is little that is eternal how great then is the infinite and eternal God They who know the wisdom of God will submit to his Providences and acquiesce in all his dispensations He is wise in heart his understanding is infinite and he knoweth what is best for thee and me and all others and therefore there is all the reason of the world why I should rest in his will and be satisfied in his pleasure It is the Lord saith the soul in his greatest afflictions who is infinite in wisdom and knoweth what will do me most good Let him do what seemeth good in his eyes They who know the faithfulness of God will credit his word and make him the object of their Hope and Faith They that know thy name will trust in thee Psa. 9. 10. His truth commandeth our trust We will rely on faithful men who will not lye but the Christian seeth infinitely more reason to rely on the faithful God who cannot lye They who know the mercy and love and goodness of God will love and admire and trust and praise him The knowledge of his love to us will call out our love to him as one that deserves it being infinitely amiable in himself and the more deserving of our love for his love to such loathsom ones as we are It will cause us to rely on him for infinite love joyned with infinite strength and faithfulness will not cannot deceive us It will help us to see the odious nature of sin in that it is an abuse of infinite love The goodness of God will lead the soul to repentance They who know the holiness of God will sanctifie him in their approaches to him and walk humbly and watchfully with him They know that sin is loathsom to him because contrary to his holy nature and therefore they hate it they know that holiness is lovely as it is his Image and Excellency and therefore they follow after it They are upright and serious and zealous and humble and reverent in their holy performances because therein they have to do with such a holy God They who know the anger of God will stand in awe and not sin They know that God is not to be mocked for it is a fearful thing to fall into the
and smiling but his conscience is red and fiery But the godly mans inside is his best side though his full sacks of joy and delight are not opened till he comes to his Fathers house yet the blessed Jesus gives him as Ioseph the Patriarchs sufficient provision for the way The Law gave the first fruits of the earth to God the Gospel gives the first fruits of Heaven to men which are both an earnest and a taste of their glorious and everlasting harvest All sorrow proceeds from sin As the shadow followeth the body so doth grief follow guilt Lust like rotten flesh or wood will breed worms to gnaw in the sinners bowels Therefore it s no wonder that Nabal Saul and Belshazzar when their lusts flew in their faces dyed or were ready to dye with horror If a godly man sin wilfully and wound his soul it s no wonder if he feel the smart and pain of it When David steps awry and slips with his feet and falls dangerously he may well keep his bed and water his couch and cry out of his aches and broken bones yet the very sorrow of a Saint for sin against his God hath more real joy and delight in it then all the skin-deep pleasures of gigling Gallants Crates could dance and laugh in his thread-bare coat and his wallet at his back which was all his wealth The Saint can rejoyce in his saddest afflictions though he seldom live in Palaces yet he always lives in a Paradice having if he be careful to keep a good conscience a constant youth of joy and perpetual spring as that place they write of under the AEquatour The tears of those that pray saith Austin are sweeter then the joys of the Theatre It s true godliness doth abridge men of sinful pleasures but it s the more pleasant for seperating it self from that which is worse then poison Agesilaus could taste by a natural appetite that such pleasures are more fit for Slaves then Freemen Averroes and the rest of the Arabian Philosophers are ashamed of that sensual and beastly Paradise which their Mahomet provided for them as most unworthy the soul of man and infinitely shoâ—â— of true delight Godliness doth not deny us our natural delights onely rectifie and regulate them lest we should surfeit on them It doâ—h not deny us drink but drunkenness nor meat but gluttony Nature even in things in themselves lawful would run out unlawfully if she were not restrained Grace onely keepeth the reins in its own hands least that skitâ—ish Colt should through its wantonness break its own nâ—ck It is as the Pale to the Garden to preserve the flowers in it from Beasts or as an hedge to a Field to keep what is in it within bounds As Leonidas the Captain perceiving that his Souldiers left their Watch on the City Walls for the Ale-houses commanded that the Ale-houses should be removed to the City walls that they might both enjoy their pleasure and discharge their duties together Godliness alloweth men the comfort of their Relations and Possessions only it so limiteth our delight in them that we may not by them be hindered from working the work of God and minding our eternal salvations Godliness brings more noble and excellent pleasures Others are puddle-water those pleasures which godliness giveth are pure and clear streams such as flow from God himself There is more sweetness in one drop of the Fountain then in all the waters of the Sea There is more joy more comfort in a little communion with God then in the greatest confluence of creature-enjoyments Austin saith How sweet was it to me on a sudden to be without these sweet vanities thou Lord who art the true sweetness didst take them frem me and enter in thy self who art more pleasant then all pleasure and more clear then all light The world as they say of Fairies deprives of true children and puts changelings in their room deprives men of true substantial joy and gives them shadows in the room but godliness on the contrary deprives oft painted poisons and gives them wholsome and real pleasures All the comforts of this world to a person void of grace are but as a sack of perfumes and medicines and cordial drugs to the back of a galled horse which may vex and inrage his sores with their weight but do not ease or abate his pain with their vertue A Saints life notwithstanding his greatest sufferings whilst it is blessed with the smiles of his father is an heaven upon earth but the sinners life notwithstanding his honours and pleasures and riches and relations whilst under the wrath of an infinite God and anguisht with the gripings of a guilty conscience is little less then an earnest and taste of hell Grace is sugar to sweeten all our crosses and sin is vinagar to sower all our comforts The iron seems to embrace the load-stone with great delight and to be rapt with an amorous extasie So as Thales thought it animal and yet that motion is void of the least sense of pleasure The wicked man seems by his smiling face and gigling countenance to be the onely merry man when he is as far from true pleasure as from true piety The least Bee finds more delight in making and tasting a little honey then the great Sun and all his glorious attendants in their high and perputual courses The meanest Christian hath more comfort in making sure his salvation and tasting the sweetness of his Saviour then the Kings of the earth and their Courtiers in their abundance of all earthly comforts The Wiâ—e man tells us concerning the ways of wisdom wherein a Christians daily walk is Her ways are ways of pleasantness and all her paths are peace Pro. 3. 17. And the Saints find them so by experience The word of God which is the rule of their work is sweeter to them then the honey and the honey comb and they delight to do the will of God The sinners life is an uncomfortable life beâ—ide those inward gripes and horror which sin causeth in the conscience at present and its end the sting in the tail which is the eternal fire there is trouble and fear and shame and vexation in the very act or commission of many sins To forgive an injury which is one peice of Christianity is pleasant and delightful but to revenge an affront what heats and colds what passions and perturbations doth it cause To love our neighbours and wish their wellfare is a sweet thing a reward in it self it hath meat in its mouth but to envy my neighbour because he is richer or more honourable or hath larger gifts and more friends then my self is as rottenness to the bones it wasteth and consumeth the inward parts as rust eateth out iron according to Solomons phrases A Contented man hath an heaven upon earth all the year with him is spring-time or summer like a child he takes no carking care for food or raiment or houseâ—rent but minds
wife and children and flesh and heart faile thee and forsake thee godliness would say to thee and stand to it also as Peterâ—o â—o Christ though all forsake thee yet will not I. Wâ—en the worlds Trinity Credit Profit and Pleasure serve their lovers and worshippers as Rats and Mice do an house leave it when it is on fire flye from them in their need and extremity godliness would stick to thee as close as fast as Ruth to Naomi where thou goest it would go where thou lodgest it would lodge nay it would follow thee into the other world and abide with thee a cordial a comfort for ever It would give thee cause to say to it as she to her daughter in law thou hast shewed more kindness to me at the latter end then at the beginning What canst thou have to object against godliness that sets thee at such a distance from it Wilt thou believe a lying world a deceitful flesh a destroying Devil or the God of truth Who is thy greatest enemy God or they Who will do thee most good God or they If thou wilt be tryed by the confessions of the greatest enemies that godliness hath even they in their hours of extremity will tell thee grace is of infinite worth godliness is the best of all Ah how happy had we been at this hour had we been as faithful servants to Religion as we have been slaves to foolish lusts and pleasures If Reason may be heard thou wilt not defer one moment the entering thy name in this society and binding thy self Apprentice to thy Saviour thou mayst see plainly that it is thine interest as well as thy duty and all thy happiness for this and the other world dependeth on it If Scripture may be heard thou wilt quickly set about thy general calling and make Religion thy business it calleth loudly to thee to turn thy back upon earth and face about for heaven to forsake the flesh before the flesh forsake thee It telleth thee plainly under the hand of thy Maker that if thou livest after the flesh and sowest to the flesh thou shalt dye eternally If the Conscience within thee may be heard thou wilt presently give a bill of divorce to thy carnal bruish delights and strike an hearty Covenant wit Jesus Christ It often warneth thee of thy duty and danger and terrifieth thee with the forethoâ—ghts of that fire and fury which thou art hastening to â—eel If thy friends and relations who have any sense of a jealous God and eternal estate may be heard then thou wilt immediately hearken to the counsel I commend to thee from God and exercise thy self unto godliness They advise and perswade and intreat thee to turn over a new leaf and lead a new life and to mind in thy day the things of thy peace If the God upon whom thou livest by whom thou movest from whom thou hast thy being may be heard thou wilt now wink on the world crucifie the flesh loath thy self for thy filth and folly and devote thy heart and soul to his fear He commandeth thee by his dominion over thee and thy obligations to him he threatneth promiseth affrighteth allureth and all to make thee mind thy allegiance to him and the work he hath given thee to do in this world If thy Saviour who humbled himself for thy sake and took upon him the form of a servant and in thy nature was buffeted scourged and crucified may be heard then thou wilt immedately take the counsel that is given thee and turn to the Lord with all thy heart and loath thy self for all thine abominations He pleads with thee most pathetically presenteth to thee the stripes and wounds which sin caused in his blessed body the blood which he shed the ignominy he endured the agony the death he suffered and all to satisfie for sin to make himself Lord both of the dead and living he tells thee he gave himself for thee to redeem thee from all iniquity and to purifie thee to himself a peculiar child zealous of good works If the daily and nightly and hourly mercies that thou injoyest if the sickness or pain or loss or disgrace or afflictions which sometimes thou sufferest may be heard there would not be so much ado to perswade a wretched creature to be blessed and an ungodly person to be holy and happy If the inanimate and irrational creatures the earth beneath thee the heavens above thee the beasts and birds about thee might be heard thou wouldst whilst it s called to day now after so long a time attend to the call and command of him in whose hand is thy life and breath and follow after holiness without which thou shalt never see the Lord. Shall a Centurions servant go when he bids him go and come when he bids him come and wilt not thou go and come at the voice of God Did Balaams Ass speak at Gods command and reprove the madness of the Prophet Did Ravens at Gods command feed Élijah Did Cater-pillars and Locusts and Frogs and Lice execute Gods judgements upon Pharaoh Do fire and hail and snow and vapours and stormy winds fulfil his word Doth the earth open the rocks rend the stars fight in their courses waters stand up in heaps as a wall the Moon stand still the Sun go backward wildernesses tremble things cross the course of nature to obey his pleasure and wilt not thou obey him O man bethink thy self wilt thou be worse then these irrational and inanimate creatures are not thy engagements to God infinitely above theirs what wilt thou have to say for thy self when every stone in the street as well as star in the heavens when every biâ—d and beast and fowl will condemn thee O where wilt thou appear I must tell thee that a perillous time a day of extremity an hour of trouble and anguish is hastning upon thee which thou canst no more escape or avoid then thou canst flye from thy self when the pleasures and delights and honey and beautiful countenances of those Scorpions thy fleshly lusts will all be past and gone but the sting remain to pierce and torment thee when those dreggy waters in which thou bathest thy self now will all be dried up when all thy possessions and preferments and friends and relations will serve thee as women their flowers when they are dead and withered who throw them away or as sinking floores that will fail men when their weight is on them And then O then what wilt thou do Thou wilt wish that religion had been thy business and call and cry to it as the Elders of Gilead to Iephthah when the children of Ammon made war with them Come thou and be our Captain and save us from our enemies Come thou and be my Captain to save me from the curse of the law the terrors of my guilty conscience the wrath of the Infinite God and the torments of the eternal fire But godliness will answer thee as Iephthah did them
teeth that it eateth out the heart of the strongest timber Flattery is to sin what Oyl to Fire it makes it flame the more O t is dangerous to speak peace where God speaks war shouldst thou do so the blood of such a soul would be required at thy hands Ezek. 33.8 Jer. 23. Faithful dealing will bring thee in most comfort at present and most credit hereafter as also be most advantagious to the sick person When the great day comes the man that hated flattery and scorned for a little profit or favour to disown his duty or prove false to the soul of his Neighbour will hold up his head with courage but the cowardly and fearful wil hang down their heads with shame Rev. 21. 8. 4. Pray with him and for him Sick persons are often full of pain and grief and are more then usually assaulted by Satan whereby they are the less able to pray for themselves and have the more need of the prayers of others It s observable that though the Holy Ghost commandeth men in other afflictions to pray themselves Is any afflicted let him Pray yet when he mentioneth sickness he saith not Is any sick let him Pray But Is any sick let him send for the Elders of the Church and let them pray over him Jam. 5. 13 14. i. e. A sick man is not so fit to pray himself he wanteth others to pray for him and with him The soul sympathizeth in the sufferings of the body and the inner man is seldom at rest if the outward man be distempered and disquieted The mind is unfitted for duties by the diseases of the flesh Paul calls his bodily weaknesses a temptation Gal. 4. 13 14. Afflictions on the flesh are temptations to the spirit and sickness is a piercing Arrow in Satans Quiver of temptations If the person be carnal what Motives hast thou from his misery to quicken thee to the duty The poor creature is going to Hell and knoweth it not His destruction is near and he is not aware How should the thoughts of that extremity and eternity of torments which he is every moment liable to stir thee up to be earnest and instant with God on his behalf It may be thou wouldst sit up a whole night to watch with him for the comfort of his body Dost thou not know that the soul is infinitely more worth O watch and pray that he enter not into eternal condemnation Thou art not ignorant that God hath made promises of grace as well as promises to grace and canst not tell but that grace waiteth in heaven for the â—ick person onely thy prayer must be the messenger to fetch it thence God hath shewn mercy at the last he can do it to this man therefore thou mayst have the more hopes Besides it may be his sickness shall not be unto death but onely to heal his diseased soul and so to give him a new life both natural and spiritual The Question before thee is whether that poor sick creatures soul shall be Christs or the Devils for ever and wilt thou not plead hard with God that it may be thrown in to Christ whose title is unquestionable and that the Grand and Arch-enemy of Christ and Men may be frustrated and disappointed in his expectation Zeal to the advancement of thy Redeemers interest and love to the soul of thy Neighbour should actuate and animate thy requests and put life and fervency into thy Petitions If the sick man be godly thou hast the more encouragement to pray God hath promised as much to him as thou canst rationally desire for him He hath hopes to speed that goeth to an honest able man and sheweth him his Bond for what he demands God is infinite both in righteousness and power so that there is no fear of a repulse if you can shew his hand for your request He delights to hear his promises pleaded in prayer and to see his Children so full of affection as to be fervent in their petitions for each other Thou mayst send the same message by prayer to Jesus that the Sister of Lazarus did Lord behold he whom thou lovest is sick and mayst be confident of the like gracious answer This sickness is not unto death eternal but for the glory of God that the Son of God might be glorified thereby Next to thy endeavours for the good of thy sick Neighbours spiritual estate it will be fit to advise him about his temporal estate that he may dispose of his worldly affairs and his wealth if God have given him any with wisdom and settle things so firmly that his Relations may not be wrangling for his goods when his body is at rest in his grave Secondly The exercising our selves to Godliness in visiting the sick consisteth in getting good to our own souls by it Though it be forbidden us to enquire of the dead and ask their counsel yet it s commanded us to enquire of the dying and to learn of them Sick men may teach them that are in health many excellent lessons Some say that ground covered with Ashes is made thereby the more fruitful The Dust of the dead falling upon a right soil an honest heart will make it the more abundant in holiness A Christian findeth walking in Hospitals or Church-yards among the sick or dying much conducing to the health and life of his soul. He that was cast dead into his Grave by touching the bones of dead Elisha he was ravished to life That which Elias said to Elisha when he begged a double portion of his spirit If thou seest me when I am taken from thee it shall be so unto thee may fitly be alluded to in this place The sight of others sickness and death and their departures from us is a great means to increase the spirit in us and to double our care and diligence in preparing for such an hour 1. In laying to heart thine own frailty He is but a cold clod of clay and dead already who doth not see his own death in the death of others Sickness is but one remove from death the sick bed is the way to the coffin therefore when thou visitest the sick or dying reflect upon thy self and consider This will be my case or a worse a violent stroak The same enemy that encountred my Neighbour is upon his march towards me and will certainly overtake me The feet of them that carry my friend to his grave are ready to carry me also what need have I to be always in a dying frame and ready for death The very next arrow that death shoots may be levelled at me and shall not I stand always upon my guard in expectation of it and armed for it O how deep will the head of that Arrow pierce me if it find me naked 2. In considering Gods mercy to thee and blessing him for the health thou enjoyest The pain of others will tell thee that ease is a mercy the racking sickness and restless nights