it at a better rate my sins stare me in the face my conscience tells me I am not ready for such a Trial I have lived a stranger to such thoughts as now I cannot refuse and which should have been admitted sooner But if to such a state any hope of mercy may be granted tho it be unspeakably little yet I cannot promise my self any such warning by sickness The sleeping virgins were called at Midnight and so may I. where can I pitch my Tents on Earth to be secure against a sudden remove Lord make thes thoughts effectual to prevent my loss of precious Time which at such a season will be esteemed precious tho now it be not O how swift how short my Time of Trial in order to Eternity how difficult how important a work is it to prepare for an Everlasting state what is all this world how little how meer a nothing to a departing soul and shall I after such reflexions continue to pursue shadows and pleas my self with empty dreams when being so near my final Judgment the common wisdom of a man requires me to mind it in good earnest and be more sollicitous about it then for any Thing Temporal O in what manner will Death open mine eyes by shutting the windows of sens how shall I then see the nothingness of what is but Temporal and the reality of what is Eternal We sometimes laugh to see the vanity of little Children who are greatly pleased with painted toys and busily imployed about trifles It extorts a smile to see them eager and industrious and mightily concerned in their childish sports to see them fight or weep for little things which we despise to observe with what sollicitude and care they l raise a little fabrick which three moments after they themselvs pull down or would otherwise tumble of its own accord We laugh at thes but should weep over our selvs as the greater and Elder Fools who are every whit as Silly yea infinitely more so that considering we know the frailty of our present Life and can look beyond the Grave to another world should yet mispend our precious Time on things which cannot profit and pleas our selvs with what is so unsuitable to our Age and State and suffer our passions to work with violence for a thing of nought and our greatest diligence care and zeal to be exercized on things impertinent and vaine that are perishing in in themselvs and can contribute nothing to our Eternal wellfare And is it not thus with reference to all that men toyl and labor for with the neglect of an immortal State The voluptuous Sadducee will not refuse the present gratification of his sensual appetite because he is uncertaine of another day Let us eat and drink for to morrow we dye Should not the same motive quicken my diligence in a better work and because my Lord may come suddenly as a thief in the night immediately prepare to meet him Let me now therefore o my soul look forward to the end of Life and Time and so let me esteem and seek and choos and do every thing in the first place which then I shall wish I had Let me do nothing now which I verily believe I shall then be ashamed or sorry to reflect on that by thinking what a condition I shall then wish to have my soul in I may now provide my self much better then I have done thitherto That while I am in the greatest probability of living I may suppose my change to be near and so not dare do any thing but what I would or might do if I were in the present expectation of Death To this end let me goe down to the Potters house descend to the consideration of my mortality and dwell among the Tombs remembring the Aegyptians built themselvs better Tombes then Houses because they were to dwell longer in them Let every nights repose serve me as a memorial of my last sleep and let my Bed stand for the model of my Coffin This is the only way to be dead to this world to be able to judge of things now as we shall do after death according to immutable Eternal Truth X. The Brevity of Life considered as the fruit of sin There are but three ways of leaving this world as Abel Adam or Enoch A diligent improvement of Time farther prest and the neglect of it bewailed THe shorting of our Days is the fruit of sin We dye because we have sinned and yet we should not sin as now if this were not forgot that we must dye From the First Transgression of Adam we derive our death and therefore some of his Posterity lived longer then he Which proves that the lengthning of our Days is the peculiar Gift of God and yet 't is such a Gift as was more desired formerly then since the apearance of Christ for we read of none in the New Testament since Life and Immortality is brought to Light by the Gospel who desired a long continuance here on earth Were we delivered from sin the sting of Death by having made our peace with God in the Bloud of Jesus Death would not be frightfull or put on such a ghastly vizor as to most it doth But we are uncertaine of our Justification we waver between hopes and Fears as to our Final Sentence and are conscious to our selvs that we are not ready for our great Acount This makes Death â—o terrible Considering with all that it is inevitable the way of all the Living For tho the curs be removed and the sting be taken out by our H. Saviour so that the Souls of Believers are safe and shall not be toucht by the second Death yet God hath not taken away the stroke of it from the Body tho a Christian is assured of deliverance from Hell he is not exempted from the Grave as his passage to Heaven Prepare me Lord by the free Remission of all my sins and make me meet for the Blessed Inheritance by sanctifying grace and then thy Time is best Thy Holy will be done No matter then wither my Death be violent or what we call Naturall It will be one of the two for I can't expect to be Translated by a miraculous change as Holy Enoch was and as they shall be who shall be found alive at the world when our Glorious Judge shall come againe There are but those three ways of leaving Earth and the Three First Men of whose departure we read in Scripture are Instances of all Three Abel of a violent Death Adam of a natural one and Enoc of a Translation The variety and order of their Departure as one observes is very admirable and deserves to be considered For all mankind must follow one or other of those three Examples Every man or woman that is born into the world must leave it by one of those three ways Either be cut off by a violent Death as Abel the first man who dyed or dye a Natural Death
Thank fullness shall Believers then contemplate the unskearchable Riches of his Grace in all the parts and instances of his Humiliation from his conception to his Crucifixion and Burial in all the Evidences and discoveries made of it from the first Promise to it's completion yea from before the foundation of the World in the Covenant of Peace between the Father and the son untill his second Coming to Judge the World and deliver up the Kingdom to his Father How shall we then admire and adore his Powerfull Grace which snatcht us as fire brands out of Everlasting Burnings that effectually shin'd into our minds by Heavenly Light conquer'd the opposition of our Stubborn Wills Sanctified our Carnal Hearts rescued us from the tyranny of Satan and the dominion of lust giving cherishing and preserving the holy Seed of Grace and making it Spring up to Eternal Life defeating the malicious and subtle endeavors of the Devil to destroy it inabling us to indure Tribulation and persevere to the End giving us victory over Death conducting us thro the dark valley raiising our Bodies reviving and reuniting them to our Souls and rendring them glorious like his own Body and at length raising our imperfect Services with Eternal Life yea tho our best services were mixt with sin our holyest duties spotted our most couragious sufferings mixt with unbelief yet rewarded with a Blessedness that hath no alloy of Evil but all the ingredients of a perfect Felicity and nothing to lessen and interrupt it How shall we then admire the Bounty of our Gracious Lord the freeness tenderness riches and the exceeding Greatness and Glory of his Infinite Goodness and Grace to poor Believers With what extasies of Joy and Gratitude may we imagine that our Lord will be then admired by all his Redecmed ones Saying This is He who made our peace with God and reverst the Sentence of Damnation which we were under who bought us with the price of his most precious Bloud bore the Wrath of his Father and submitted to an infamous and cursed Death for us he assumed our nature that we might pertake of his became the Son of Men that we might be made the Children of God for our sakes he became poor that we thro his Poverty might beeome Rieh stoopt to bear the greatest Ignominy and reproach to conferr honour on us was for a time forsaken of his Father that we might not be so Eternally felt the stroke of his Anger against sin that we might not perish under it Was a man of sorrows and acquainted with griefs that we might rejoyce his agonies and bloudy sweat were for our Refreshment and by his stripes we are healed he bowed his head on the Crosse that we might lift up ours in Triumph and because we had eaten of the forbidden fruit he hung on the accursed Tree 'T was for us that he suffered the frowns of Heaven the enmity of Hell the rage of Devils the hatred and persecution of the world He was judged that we might not come into Condemnation he was crucifyed that we might be glorified and he is now Come againe finally and fully to effect it O the height and depth and length and breath of the Love of Christ which passeth knowledg but calls for admiration and Everlasting Gratitude This is the Blessed Day we long'd and waited and prayed for This is our Gracious our Glorious Lord whose love melted our Hearts whose Promise was our Support whose Word was our Rule whose Spirit was our Comforter whose Crosse was our Crown and the hope of his Appearance our chief Consolation Lord what am I what was I that the ever Blessed Son of God should do and suffer and purchase all this for me I can remember when I was ignorant of God a Stranger to him at Enmity with him under the power of Darkness and the Devil serving divers lusts and Pleasures hastening to Hell and liable to his Wrath. But he chose me out of the world stampt his Image upon me pardoned my Sin and imbrac't me in the arms of his unchangeaâ—â—â— Love. O Happy Change aâ—â— yet how little did I prize his Grace admire his love and express my own or pomote his glory and honour him in the Eyes of others how did I dishonor my profession and holy Calling as his Disciple by agravated Apostacy but he recovered me by Repentance and healed my Backslidings and received me graciously because he loved me freely O admirable Grace to pardon and save and bring to Glory such an unthankfull Wretch as I have been to make such a difference between me and others whom I knew on earth that the same Power which makes them Miserable now makes me Blessed that when they are banisht from his Presence into Everlasting Destruction I am admitted to behold his Glory and shall dwell with him for ever O how much â—â—â—e do I now see and find then ever I believed of the Love of Christ and his promised Salvation how much more glorious is the Person of my Redeemer how much more Excellent is the Heavenly State then ever I thought or expected I could not have imagined the thousandth thousandth part of that which I now see and feel I cannot but admire and spend an Eternity in admiring and praising the Incomparable Grace and Glory of my Blessed Redeemer Such holy admiration will certainly produce the most thankfull Adorations of our Lord Jesus Saying one to another I Bless the Lord of Love and Glory who humbled himself so low as our Mediator and hath exalted us so high as the blessed fruit of it how can we ever enough adore and praise him who condescended so far and hath done and sufferd so much for us See how the Holy Angels worship this King of Glory and have not every one of us more reason to do so O let all the Quire of Heaven celebrate his glorious Love and let us his Redeemed his Glorified ones say continually Let the Lord be magnified who hath loved us and washed us from our sins in his own Bloud and made us Kings and Priests unto God his Father and thro him ours O Mercifull Saviour O glorious Change O Happy Society with whom we shall Eternally adore our Common Lord. We can some of us remember when we lived together on Earth how we wept and praid and fasted and mourned together when we suffered and complain'd and sin'd together O the Marvellous change our Redeemer hath now wrought for us and in us These Bodies these Souls this Life this Place this Company these Injoyments are not like those in yonder World. But alas who can describe what Believers shall then think and say to extol their Saviour how smal a portion is it we understand of that World How little can I conceive and much less express Blessed be God we know so much as the matter of our joyfull Hopes and forever Blessed be God who hath promised and provided such a Glory for us as cannot now be fully known
Falls and become stronger by the discovery of your weakness and better establisht for the future But take heed that you pervert not the Grace of God and encourage your self to sin againe by the supposition that if you should Fall 't is but to Repent and renew your Resolutions and all will be well This is a subtle Artifice of Satan but such methinks as should take with none who have ever known by Experience what it is to Repent Luke 23. c. 30 17. â—â— 2. Who have felt the burden of Sin to be heavier then a Millstone then the weight of a Mountaine Who have tasted how evill and bitter a thing it is to depart from God. Who have loathed and abhorr'd themselves with deep Remorse and sorrow and Anguish of Spirit wishing with all their Hearts that they had not sinn'd and if it were in their power would give all the world to retrieve it and would rather dye then commit that Folly again they then repented of Let those who have not their own Experience to confirm this read over and consider the case of David when he wrote the Penitential Psalms How many like him have roar'd and cryed out under the sence of sin of stings and furies in their Conscience of the poison'd Arrows surrounding them wherever they went from the weight of sins Malignity the apprehensions of God's Anger and the consequent Fears of his Wrath. Serious Repentance after great Transgressions is another Thing then most imagine it When their aggravated Sins shall besett them behind and before be placed in order before their eyes and set in array against them 'T is allways a work of Difficulty as well as Importance to crucifie corrupt affections to tear a beloved Lust from the Heart with self-indignation to abhorr and cast away what before you lou'd and delighted in How did David's sin stare him in the Face it is continually with me it is ever before me saith He. It haunted him like a Spectre or like Belshazar's handwriting on the wall it still appear'd before him in some horrid shape How ever Sin may smile in its first address and bespeak us in flattering language and promise Pleasure and Profit and great Advantages and Satisfaction These are but fair Appearances This is but the outside of the Cup and the colour of the Liquor it will prove Gall and Wormwood and a mixture of deadly Poison if ever God set it home upon the Conscience and awaken us to a true sence of it And the Continuance of dayly Repentance for Sin Which all Christians are called to is no such easy matter neither Constant self-abasement and Humiliation before God from a sence of his Majesty and Holiness and of our many Sins and pollution therby the imperfection of our best duties continually to be bewailed inordinate affections to be still mortified always resisting and opposing Sin in its Root and branches conflicting against the whole Intrest of the Flesh the world and the Devil seeking after more Holiness to be deriv'd unto us by the Grace of Christ to be wrought in us by his Spirit and maintain'd by his power and making dayly applications to the Fountaine of all Grace for spiritual strength to continue our warfare against Sin in all Instances of outward duty and inward Actings of Grace even as long as we live all this is included in it Due Apprehensions concerning Repentance would teach us to beware of Sin. XXVII The necessity of Christian Resolution to Vpright Persevering Obedience how Full and extensive it ought to be and yet Humble By what means we may be assisted to perform that which we Resolve HAving acknowledg'd my Transgressions unto God and beg'd forgiveness and experimentally learnt the Evil of Sin by the bitterness of Repentance I resolve for the future to watch against it more narowly and against every thing that leads to it endeavoring to please and honour my God and Saviour by an upright obedient Heart and Life And for the Remission of my former contracted Guilt I trust to J. Christ according to the Revelation made in the Gospell of what he is hath done and suffer'd and continues to do in Heaven for the salvation of Repenting Sinners who desire to come unto God by Him. But how often o my Soul have I mockt God and deceiv'd my self with formal and faint Purposes of amendment my good Resolutions have been all of them as the morning cloud and the Early dew which quickly passed away One fresh assault of Temptation hath swept away all my good Purposes as a spiders web I have falsified so many and broke my word so often that I dare not trust to any thing I now resolve or rely on any promise I should farther make Succor me therfore o Lord by thy Powerfull Grace that what was defective in my former fruitless Resolutions may be now rectified Let me be more Humble in the sense of my weakness more dependant on thy Grace and more heartily seek it from time to time Strengthen me with Strength in my Soul with might and power in my inward man that I may so resolve and purpose as to perform that I may not be one day hot and the next cold zealous in the Beginning but faint and lukewarm in the Progress fervent and serious only in Resolving but weak and impotent in the Execution Having chang ' my Master my End and my Hopes by returning unto God from whom I had gone astray I firmly resolve thro the assistance of his Grace to change my course of Life That old things being done away all things may become new that being made free from Sin by pardoning Mercy Rom. 6. c. 22. and become the servant of Christ I may have my fruit unto Holiness that my End may be Eternal Life In the interim wither I live or dye let it be unto the Lord resolving both in Life and Death to be absolutely His. And to that purpose O my Soul let me seek for continual supplies of Grace from Christ my Head to inable me to yeild ready obedience in the most difficult hazardous painfull and humbling duties In vaine do I resolue it without the assistance of his mighty Power to strengthen my Heart and hands when ever I am called to such a Trial of my sincerity Without it I shall never recover my Liberty or break a sunder those bonds and cords wherwith I have formerly been held Captive as the Servant of Sin and Satan such is the weakness and treachery of of my own Heart the influence of ill Examples and the subtlety and cunning of the Tempter that otherwise I shall quickly change my mind and return to Folly as the Dog to his vomit The Spirit is so weak and the Flesh so frail the snares of the World so many the power of remaining Corruption so strong and of my self I am so unsetled and wavering fickle and unsteady and prone to Backsliding that all my strongest Purposes will not be sufficient without dayly
who loveth Righteousness will clear my Integrity if it may best subserve his own Great and holy ends at least he will stand by and help me when all forsake me and if he speak Peace and give inward Consolation who can speak Trouble and his final Judgment which is near at hand will distribute rewards and punishments to all according to their works Suppose farther that I should want a sepulcher after Death There is nothing I could better be without If God receive my Soul and will raise my Body at the last day wither it putrifie and consume under ground or above it is no great matter They who are alive will be more concern'd in that then I shall be Graves are for the sake of the Living rather then the Dead The Sun the Raine the Air Birds Beasts Worms will all contribute to give me Burial if men deny it The only difference is that it will be a little longer ere I am buried If my soul rest in the Bosome of my Saviour and by persevering in the love and practise of the Truth I have secured my Reputation with wise and Good men I need not be sollicituos what become of my Body My Almighty Judge will raise me a glorious Body like his own and reunite it to my soul As easily as certainly as for any of those whose Bodies were preserved in Caves and Vaults in Proud Sepulchers and under stately Monuments I may dye this year and shall not then have the satisfaction to see my Children or nearest Kindred educated provided for setled and disposed of But is not the Everliving God the same cannot he as well take care of them when I am gone as now answer all my prayers after my deceas and exercise that Fatherly care wisdom and love which shall dispose of their conditions save them from Temptations and supply all their wants and exceed all my desires in reference to them and fullfill his Covenant promise from generation to generation to the Childrens of them that fear him O how weak is my Faith that cannot trust God in so common and plaine a case Lastly I may dye this year and not live to see the Ruine of the Antichristian Kingdom and Interest and the accomplishment of many Excellent Promises which concern the Rest and Peace and Purity and Glory of the Churches of Christ on earth in the latter days But have I not deserved by my provoking unbelief Ingratitude and Disobedience to dye in the Wilderness and not behold the promised land or see the Peace of Jerusalem and will not the strugglings of Satan to support Babilon infer a dismal night of darkness and distress before the expected morning of deliverance so that it may now if ever be truly said Henceforth Blessed are the Dead who dye in the Lord. And if God will take me to himself in the other world I cannot possibly be a looser tho I should not see the Beginnings of a New Heaven and a New Earth in this However I rejoice in Hope and pray incessantly for the Resurrection of the Witnesses and the rebuilding of Sion and the more plentifull Effusion of see the H. Spirit the great comprehensive promise of the Latter Times to effect a glorious Kingdom for Christ on earth and my Faith assures me I shall hereafter the Son of God revealed from Heaven clothed with Majesty sitting on a cloud leading the Heavenly Host raising the Dead by his powerfull voice summoning all the World to appear to Judgment gathering his Elect and finally destroying death and him that had the power of it the Devil condemning the wicked to Everlasting Destruction but acquitting honouring and rewarding his poor members with infinite and Eternal Blisse XV. Of Dying in a Forreign Country and of Dying Young. Considerations proper to Reconcile the mind to both I May not live to the end of this year God in his Providence having called me abroad I may never see my Native Country more Let me still remember o my Soul that wherever I am I am travelling towards the Grave and passing to another world that I may live in all Places as a Pilgrim and Stranger here on Earth with Affections suited to my condition becoming one who is travelling in a Strange Land. Let me bear the Inconveniencies I may meet with in this world as Strangers in their Travells are wont to doe Let me not repine at the ill accommodations of an Inne where I am to lodge but a night or two but encourage my self with the assurance of better Entertainment at home when my Pilgrimage is ended and my Journey over One of my dearest holy Friends Mr. Thomas Bent who dyed at Geneva May 10. 1683. and Fellow Travellers whose memory will be ever precious with those who knew him quickly arrived to his Journeys end and is entred into Rest betimes Which of his Companions shall next follow we know not or how soon Lord make me apprehend the nearness of my change in every place and if I am prepared for dying no matter where it be There is no one Country farther from the Presence of God then another The whole world may be considered as one Great House and the several Kingdoms and Countries of it but as different Apartments in the same house and they who tarry at home are no more exempt from Death then they who Travell abroad The Presence of my Gracious Father is every where the same in some measure Blessed be my God I have hitherto found it so And may I not rejoyce in God in a desart in a Wilderness tho all the World should forsake me tho all the world should be against me Should I have no other Friend or Helper is not God an infinite God Enough and without his favor and Presence what can all this world do for me If I am sick and in danger of Death among my Relations and Friends if the comforts of the Allmighty do not refresh and delight my soul they cannot and if I want not these in my last agonies no matter in what part or corner of the Earth I breath my last If the word and promise of God be my Foundation an holy Hope my anchor Christ my Pilot and Heaven my Country I shall not fail of being landed there at last Suffer me not to forsake thee o Heavenly Father while I live and do not thou forsake me in my last Hour and let it come when and where thou wilt If my Blessed Saviour will receive my departing soul at death I am not sollicitous in what Country or part of the Earth it be And that I may not be unwilling in the flower of my Age and Time in Youth and Strength to leave this world let me think often that no one age or part of Life is more privileged against the stroke of Death then another If I have done my work betimes as my deceased Fellow Traveller had is it not better to receive the Blessed Recompence then to tarry longer
in a world of sin and suffering absent from the Lord Shall I not thereby escape a multitude of Temptations sins and sorrows which others by living longer are exposed to If my Peace be made with God what should make me willing to live at this distance from him what shoul render this world so desireable where God is so dishonored where I am so often tempted to displeas him and so often yeild to such Temptations and may I not fear least I should fall into such scandalous and greivous sins that may bring a publick reproach on the Gospell of Christ and sadden the Hearts of all my Aquaintance who love the Lord Jesus in sincerity And tho I should maintaine my Integrity yet in this world my highest love and obedience to God and my sweetest communion with him is but imperfect How many Impediments and Diversions do I dayly meet with that deaden my Heart to Heavenly contemplations and affections what disapointments and sorrow full disasters to convince me this is not the place of Rest and Happiness what smart Afflictions may some of my Relations prove what dangerous snares may attend me in the remaining Portion of my Time what opposition and hatred from men may the stedfast professing of the Truth and fidelity to God expose me to what publick national calamities may I have my share in c. But if I consider old Age it self which we doe desire to reach what and how many are the Infirmities and Griefs and troublesome Circumstances which attend that state which dying young will prevent are not most men who reach a very great old Age helpless objects of Pitty a Burden to themselvs and to all about them And which commonly happens may I not then be as unwilling to dye as at present as loath then to leave the world as now tho in a manner it will have left me for how many old men past the relish of sensual Pleasures are yet inordinately fond of a longer Life Have I not been told by Heathens as well as Christians that 't is not the length of Time but its improvement that doth really make a Long Life If I have anfwered the ends for which I were born 't is not too soon to dye No man ever miscarried as to his Everlasting Intrest because his Life was short but Evill He that is prepared for Death hath lived long enough and should thank God for a speedy call to the possession of that Felicity which the Holiest Saints on Earth desire and breath after Gideon lost nothing by returning from victory while the Sun was yet high If I have wrought but a few hours in the vineyard and done but a little service for my Lord and Master and yet am dismist and rewarded before the Rest of my Fellow Laborers shall I repine and think my Lord doth not be friend me If he hath any farther Service for me he will prolong my days and make me diligent I hope and contended Otherwise I pray he would make me ready to dye and make me willing and desirous to depart this Life For to be only content to dye that I may be perfectly Holy and fully Blessed is me thinks too low for a Christian who acts like himself believing the Certainty of his anowed Principles and Hopes and knowing that while we are present in the Body we are absent from the Lord. XVI The contemplation of our approaching change may assist us to mortifie the Lusts of the Flesh the Lust of the Eyes and the Pride of Life to cure Ambition and promote Contentment AL that is in the World saith the Apostle is the Lust of the Flesh the Lust of the Eyes and the Pride of Life The dust and ashes of our own mortality duely considered and applied will help to dead and extinguish each of thes By Pride of Life we lift up our selvs against Heaven and despise our Maker by the lust of the Flesh we overlove and indulge the body and study to gratifie the sensual Appetite by the lust of the Eyes our Desires are immoderate after Temporal and External Goods The thought of our approaching End hath a tendency to oppose and mortifie these Lusts to humble us before God to take us off from the inordinate love of the Body and to moderate our passions to Earthly Things It may help us against Pride by showing us the infinite distance between the Eternal self-sufficient God and such poor Dust as we who are but of yesterday and if he uphold us not and maintaine our souls in life shall be laid in the dust to morrow It will mind us of his Justice against Sin the Parent of Death and of all the miseries of our mortal state and convince us of our weakness to resist his will or avoid his wrath As to our fond affection to the Body it may instruct us that it deserves not to be so much accounted of it will open our eyes to discern the preference of our Immortall souls and what concerns them to the interest of a perishing Body It may convince us that we are cruel and unkind to our very bodies by overloving them because we thereby contribute to their Eternal sufferings and so teach us to love and use our bodies as Servants to our Souls in this world and as expecting to share in Glory with them after the Resurrection It may also help to moderate our desires after Earthly Good and so cure the Lust of the Eyes by letting us see the vanity uncertainty and short duration of these things and their insufficiency to make us Happy and give us true Content The Thoughts of an approaching change may if any thing will do it damp the mirth of the Luxurious Epicure and strike him into a fit of trembling as did Belshazzar's handwriting on the wall It may discover the distraction of living in pleasure and of care to please the senses and the fleshly appetite when the End is so near If may likewise check the folly of Ambitious Designs that men should make so much a doe to get into slippery places from whence they may so easily fall Where being puft up with vaine applause they forget themselvs and their latter end till their Life and Glory expire together Where are now the Great and Mighty and Honorable who have made such a noise in the world what is now the difference between the dust of an Alexander or Caesar and that of their meanest slaves or Captives Could their dignities and earthly Glory preserve any of them from the stroke of Death or the Judgment of God or without Repentance from his condemning Sentence Think o my Soul how little it will shortly signifie wither I have been known and honoured among men or no any farther then God may be glorified by it How should it suppress vaine Glory to think of being one day esteemed and worshipt reverenced and applauded by dying men and laid in the Grave the next Let me rather seek that Glory and Honour