is no place of pious inclination among all the damneds cries there is not one penitentiall groan God may say to all the damned what he said concerning Sodome and yet yeeld no relief to them to wit if there be ten righteous among them he will save the whole body of them So that I say there is no rationall foundation can be conceived that annihilation should be found in eternity but not only so but if we peruse the Scriptures which are the established rule of our faith we shall not finde the least footsteps or prints give light to any such imagination In Eccles 12. 7. the wiseman The soul upon its separation must return to receive sentence and judgment God sent it into the body and he may recall it and judge it for what it hath done in the body Pemble speaks of the souls return to God but makes no mention of the soules returning to nothing Death indeed opens the window of the cage for the soul to flie up to her Creatour to receive a sentence of absolution or execution But That there should be a time when the persons that are cast upon eternity shall be buried in a totall abolition or wither into a finall extinction the Scriptures are wholly silent Arg. 1 Moreover how would this clip the wings of a Saints zeal in his pious pursuites after the honour of God And how would this prompt the presumptions of wicked men in all sinfull abomination should the Lord after the passage of some spaces of time extinguish and put out the beings of the glorious Saints and calamitous sinners The sinner would grow audacious upon this account that his miseries shall be but pro tempore for a certaine time and duration Arg. 2 Nor would this be a supervacaneous argument should it be urged that God in the very Originall copy of his intention in creating man created him either to be his everlasting Creasti nos propter te irrequietum est cor nostrum donec veniamus ad te Aug. favorite to be partaker of those honours and beatitudes he should shed upon him or else to proclaime his justice in undergoing the torment and woe of his eternall vengeance It is inconsistent to the wisdome of God to create man to communicate himselfe unto and then annihilate him to vote a designe and to crosse it God is an eternall being and must be enjoyed by an eternall being which of all the creation is Men or Angels Nor is this to be overpast in silence Arg. 3 That this is one observable and specificall distinction that God hath put between Man and other Creatures Psal 49. 20. that when other creatures die and evaporate into nothing Man only survives to all eternity In Rev. 14. 13. the Spirit saith there the Saints die and their works follow them what to do unlesse as a Jury to give in their verdict for the Saints that he may be enthroned in everlasting felicity What need was there for the gracious actions and holy life of a Saint to follow him as a goodly train to Gods tribunall if this glorious inhabitant in heaven shall be taken asunder into its primitive nothing That is a very pregnant place Dan. 12. 3. And they that be wise shall shine as the brightnesse of the firmament and they that turn many to righteousnesse as the stars for ever and ever observe for ever and ever Arg. 4 And I might put the question without inpertinency What reason is there more for the annihilation of man after the transiency of certain ages then for the annihilation of Angels the glorious Saints are as pure as the good Angels shining in as much royall perfection Luk. 20. 36. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the damned sinners cannot embrue themselves in more guilt then evill Angels do Now that the Angels shall be annihilated in Scripture we find not the least conjecturall probability And for the close of this Argument Jud. v. 6. we are now upon let us but weigh that wish of Balaam mentioned Num. 23. 10. O that I might die the death of the righteous and that my latter end might be like his Now I say how vain frivolous and ridiculous would this wish be should the curtaines of eternity be drawn by an act of annihilation could extinction stop the breath of eternity and the vanity of this desire will appear in three things There would be no profit in this request Annihilation will bury all joy even the happinesse of millions of ages should the glorified Saint be resolved into nothing all his glory he did enjoy would be annihilated with him annihilation would be the grave of all his former blessednesse and what profit can there be in the death of the righteous if annihilation shall be the Sepulcher of that felicity that death ushers the Saint into There would be no wisdome in this request For annihilation will smother all fears too What need Balaam desire to shelter himself in the dissolution of the godly Annihilation would strangle all those feares Could an extinction befall eternity the fires of hell would be but a sharpe supper as the Martyr said in another case And could we fall into the tombe of annihilation trembling and fear would be buried with us This request would be ridiculous For Balaam seemeth in this petition to put a large distinction between the departure of the Saints and the sinner out of this world death dealing with the hypocrite and the believer as Pharaoh did with his Baker and his Butler the one he restores the other he executes But now annihilation Gen. 40. 21 22. puts no difference but makes all even alike Where was the difference between righteous Abel and bloudy Cain famous Sion and filthy Sodome before the Creation when all things were abortive in an empty nothing Colours differ not in the darke the most orient are not distinguished from the most pedantique and therefore some Philosophers make light to be the ratio formalis the specificall difference of colour And so all things are of the same value in the night of extinction or annihilation But let me only subjoyne at the foot of the argument these two things It is inconsistent to the promise of Christ who hath signed all his promises Fiet in resurrectione ut in singulis beatis resurgentibus mors abolebitur vita aeterna efflorescet Alap which he hath made to his converts and to believers with the seal of everlastingnesse that there should be any stop or close in eternity if Christ promise his Saints life it is everlasting life Joh. 3. 16. if an inheritance it is an eternall inheritance Hic est finis mortis redemptionis mediationis Christi totiusque novi testamenti a Christo instituti ut sc adipiscamur aeternam haereditatem a Christo promissam Id. Heb. 9. 15. Nay the Apostle amplifies this argument in a rare phrase 2 Tim. 1. 10. Who hath brought life and immortality to light
times shall be swallowed and drowned in that Ocean All persons then shall sail for ever upon the Sea of joyes or calamitous eternity After the day of judgement all ages and centuries shall be fledged and leave the world which shall be remaining and the particular parcels of Time shall be all summed up in the totall of Eternity So that now these emblems which represent eternity themselves shall have an end so that they are rather the shadowes then representations of eternity CHAP. XIII Concl. 13 Man 's eternall condition admits of no revocation THere is no sounding of a retreat after we are lanched into the Ocean of eternity then there is no setting us a shoar again to re-act a new life in the world When once the trap-door is let down upon us there is no breaking Fugit irrevocabile tempus that prison-door when we have once passed through that darke entry and shot that inevitable gulf there is then no more retirement back again from behind those darke hangings to visite the shoar of the world Eternity locks up all back-doores against them that are cast upon that condition and prevents all possibilities of flight or escape Christ and his Apostles raised Joh. 11. 44. indeed many from the dead but it was Act. 20. 12 in an extraordinary way and their graves were forced open by the petarre and engine of a miracle Eternity whether it lands its passengers upon the shoar of glory or locks them up in the dungeon of misery it makes their condition equally irreversible Death is not a dream or a swoon Facilis descensus Averni Sed revocare gradum c. Hic labor hoc opus est Virg. nor in this regard a sleep to be awakened again in this life but when once it hath closed the eyes of the departed patient the deccased bids an everlasting farewell to all things here below and enters upon a new but never ending condition Pythagoras and his disciples speake much of a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a transmigration of the same soul into many bodies and that death only causeth the soul to change its tenement and habitation but yet in this dream there is no mention made of the same body to be animated again and reflourish in this life by a new resurrection When the soul in death takes its flight and leaves its loving mate the body it shall meet no more with it till the day of the generall Assizes The arrest of eternity as it will not take bale so neither will it suffer any evasion Let not the voluptuous sinner please himself with a vain dream that after death he shall return again and gratifie his sensuall luxuries his palat shall be downe in the grave and being thrown into the Ocean of eternity he shall get up above water no more We may meet with Dives in the flames of death but no Luk. 16. 23. more at his banquets the Zelanders Psal 49. 19. motto Luctor emergo I strive and get up is a paradox in eternity And what should make eternity cast its captives again upon the shoar of the world 1. The sinners sinfulnesse cannot demerit a relaxation or a regaining of his liberty when the soul by death elapsed from the body and fallen into torment shall blaspheme God exasperated by that misery it is tormented in how can justice it self give that damned soul a dispensation for a re-entry in its body again And 2. So likewise the Saints when death hath broken the fetters of all their miseries here and the grave hath swallowed all their moans and feares how shall they return to react all those tragedies and martyrdomes they broak through in this life Psal 44. 22. Gods paternall indulgence will not suffer them to put to Sea again No Eternity is like that cave that whoever Soles occidere redire possunt Nobis cum semei occidit brevis lux Nox est perpetua una dormienda entered into it returned no more again When once we are within the gate of eternity the key is turned upon us and no ransome or price shall be available to turn the lock again And it must be so 1 In reference to the blessed Reas 1 They shall return no more to this life when once cast upon eternity Because their errand is then done and they have accomplished that taske that God sent them into the world for Indeed after death their workes shall follow them but they shall return no more to their work They Rev. 14. 13. Sancti in coelo requiesoent a laboribus suis nempe quia exexantlaâ—i sunt in stadio hujus vitae Par. have made all those prayers and shed all those tears performed all those services and underwent all those reproaches they have suffered all those wounds and broake through all those prisons God had allotted for them in this life The Israelites when they had undergone so many years of bondage God then made way for them to enter Canaan and the Saints when like the Sunne they have broak through so many clouds then they set sail on the Ocean of a glorious eternity And what Christ said when he was giving up the ghost so may all the Saints say It is finished Their work Heb. 4. 9. is over their taske is done their toyle is past and now eternity makes their bed in inexpressible glory and blessednesse the grave closeth the worke of the Saints and eternity gives them their wages and when once they have as when death seizeth upon them they have executed that message which their father hath sent them into the world to performe have brought so much glory to the name of God toyl'd so much with their own hearts scattered so many perfumes Sancti in aeternitate sunt milites emeriti in the Church of Christ then God gives them a dismission and they shall lean their heads in the bosome of Christ for evermore And therefore nothing Joh. 17. 24. can occasion the Saints re-entry into the world after once they have bid farewell to it when the very end and intention of their stay here is fully accomplished This would cast an insufferable dampe and discouragement on the services and sufferings of the Saints here should there be a revocation in their blessed eternity Should they be remanded to their prisons again after they have escaped their goal by death for indeed the world Hic via superne Patria as the Father speaks is but the Saints prison not his paradise not his delight but his dungeon and unkind lattice or wall between Christ and him Death is to the Saints but as the Jaylour to open the grate and set them free in everlasting liberty Now I say for Heb. 11. 13. them to be shackled in the world again after death had filed off their chaines what is this but to cast a languour and faintnesse on all their performances Indeed that is a rationall plea of the Apostle 1
die of it self unlesse it wither by the command of a superiour power but of it self it cannot die for in its own nature it is immortall its essence is eternall One cals the soul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and it is Eccles 12. 7. a bud of eternity the originall of the soul speakes it's immortall God still Mat. 10. 28. breaths into men living souls and our souls come from the father of lights God lights up souls in men they bubble 2 Cor. 5. 10. forth from the fountain of Spirits Act. 23. 8. that spirituall essence They are a Act. 7. 59. beam of the most glorious Sun Our Mors saepe somno in Scripturis comparatur Joh. 11. 11. 1 Thess 4. 13. sed sciendum quod hic somnus homini mortuo attribuatur non ratione animae quae est purus actus sed ratione corporis Chemn bodies were raised out of the dust but our souls are of a more noble descent and originall the soul runs parallel to all eternity There are strong and pregnant probabilities of the souls immortality to a naturall eye to a Philosophicall eye with common light And 2. To evidence the souls unperishablenesse we may but take notice how oftentimes in a languishing and consumed body you have a most vigorous well-complexioned and flourishing soul Sometimes the soul is so acute that it even cuts the sheath of the body in sunder the body is oft in the wane when the soul is in the full all which speakes the souls in mortality so that naturally the soul cannot die To this argument I might annex many more 3. As the testimony of conscience 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrys which discernes between good and evill and often rejoyceth in the one and trembles at the other even when there is no humane witnesse or fear of man to cause either What is the reason that oftentimes when the sinner hath committed some villanous act and the Sun it self hath not been conscious to it but it hath been perpretrated with admirable secresie yet then the sinner Multa argumenta probant animae immortalitatem 1. Dei cognitio qua imbuitur quia ad vitae sontem non pervenit vigor evanidus 2. Praeclaris dotibus quibus pollet anima divinum aliquid ei insculptum esse clamitat totidem essentiae immortalis testimonia quot recta justa honesta concipimus quae sensus corporis latent c. is broken upon the wheel and tortured upon the wrack of conscience doth not this clearly and pregnantly demonstrate that there is a future immortality and the soul shall be dragged to a fearfull tribunall why should the soul tremble at a sinfull if secret commission could it be ascertained of a safe impunity And happily the sin committed is a violation of Gods law and not mans or it may be so clancularly acted that the eye of man may be never privy to it This and many other arguments bring in their attestation for the souls immortality and that unfadingnesse is essentiall to it And therefore the assertion remaineth firme that there can be no conclusion in eternity by dissolution in reference to the soul for that is immortall And 2. Neither shall the body die after the resurrection this the Scriptures clearly affirme I shall only cast my eye upon one pregnant and full place 1 Cor. 15. 53. where the Apostle speaking of the manner of the Resurrection saith This corruptible must put on Memorandum est quod Apost dicit demonstrativè Hoc corruptibile hoc mortale sc corpus aperte sic indicans hoc non aliud sâ—bstantia corpus quod nunc mortale gestamus immortale tandem resurrecturum Par. incorruption and this mortall must put on immortality speaking of our bodies Then shall the persons of mankind be eternized in their subsistencies nor shall death or decay eat or worme out their beings But these shattered pieces of clay our bodies which here are but the sinke of diseases and have a thousand windowes in them for death to creep in after the resurrection shall fall asunder no more Gods decree shall infuse into them an essentiall immortality And if we consider the bodies of mankind after the resurrection as related to the Saints or sinners 1. As the rich cases of the soules Luk. 20. 36. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the glorified Saints they cannot die Let that clear text give in its verdict Phil. 3. 21. Who shall change our vil body that it may be fashioned like unto Cristus transfigurabit corpus in aliam figuram non essentialem sed accidentalem ut sc ex corruptibili faciat corpus incorruptibile ex passibili impassibile ex terrestri coeleste A Lap. his glorious body observe here a rare change indeed but no intimation of death the bodies of the Saints which here were the common subjects of pain torment and distemper when past the resurrection shall outvie the Sun in glory 2. Nor can the bodies of the damned die after the resurrection those deformed cages of more deformed soules shall never be blest with a dissolution Divine wrath shall make the bodies of the reprobates lapides 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 like those stones which naturalists speak of which do alwayes burn They shall be buts for the arrowes of Gods displeasure ever to be shot at the smoak of the lake shall not smother them nor the flames of hell consume them not the least member shall be turned into cinders by everlasting burnings The torments of hell are Mat. 25. 46. often called fire whether figurative or Mat. 3. 12. reall we shall not discusse the question Mat. 25. 41. but this we may conclude that the bodies of the damned are more proper fuell for fire then the souls Isa 33. 14. and everlasting burning will call for immortall bodies Nor shall eternity have an end by annihilation After the passage of millions of ages in eternity mans person shall not be annihilated the glorious Saints shall not be by divine power reduced into an empty nothing those crowned personages shall not be folded up in a confused Chaos Nor Poena infernalis est restis ex tribus câ—ntexta funiculis ex obscuritate tenebrarum acerbitate poenarum diuturnitate miseriarum Innoc. shall the tortured Hypocrites be reduced into their primitive and originall principles or blow themselves up into an aery conception a meer chimera for besides the absurdity of such a fond imâ—gination which hath no argument or reason to be founded or bottomed upon for what should cause the Lord to dash in pieces his vessels of honour or melt them into their materia prima their primitive vacuity heaven cannot harbour any sinfull provocation Or what should induce the Lord so Eph. 5. 5. far to draw out his pity to the damned as to command their torments to dispatch them or cause their souls to evaporate Hell is a Sodome which harbours no Lot in it it
the fruit of sin were turned by God into a blessing and had the stampe of Christ upon it how would the soul be unsatisfied till it saw death cloathed 2 Cor. 5. 8. with the armes of Christ as his Herald to go before him into the Court of glory till he observed death to be only the golden bark to bring the soul to the shoare of a blessed eternity And such meditations would make the soul to keep Court every day to call conscience to the bar and to arraigne irregular thoughts to put Job 14. 14. the heart upon more recluse searches and all to facilitate death and to sweeten the approaches of it When a soul seriously and in its coolest thoughts considers eternity how doth it look on death as its greatest Crisis Mors ultima linea rerum that which will turn the scale one way or the other either land the soul safe in an eternall rest or harbour or shut it Psal 49. 8. within the grate of everlasting imprisonment from whence there is no redemption Such seasonable contemplations Tota vita est meditatio mortis would fill the soul with cares solicitousnesse preparations for expectations of reckoning upon death as the Swedish King before the day of battell what ordering of his army incouraging his Souldiers multiplying his prayers powring out his teares before God he knew not but he might die the next day So eternity well contemplated would make us weigh dive into study the nature of death the originall the suddennesse the certainty and above all the consequence of it it kils or cures for ever In a word the study of eternity will make death More familiar to us we cannot study the Sea of eternity but we must contemplate on the wind of death which is but the stile over which we goe either into the wildernesse of misery or into the green pastures of happinesse Our dayly Contemplations of our everlasting condition would make death a houshold servant which is the common road to eternity as more hereafter Death would not be strange in its stroake were it not so in our meditations thoughts of eternity step beyond death And to familiarize death would be the wombe of these three great advantages 1. Were death familiar to us it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arist would breake the force of death and take away the horrour and terrour of it the stroke would not be so grievous so frightfull so full of execution dangers the more invisible the more intolerable the burden is the lightest that is well poysed before-hand Sinners that put farre off the evill Amos 6. 3. day as the Prophet speakes how tremblingly and with what horhour do they behold the ghost of death 2. Were death familiar to us it would arme us against death we prepare more rigorously for the enemy in the field then for the enemy in the ambush Men fight not a duell without a Second nor should we meet death without our armour a pardon in our bosome an interest in Christ the great seal for glory and heaven Therefore men so little prepare for death because they so little thinke of death it is so little in their provisions because it fals not in their contemplation But did we meditate on eternity those very thoughts would be a constant passing bell in our ears a deaths head before our eyes and alarme to our soules the thoughts of death and eternity being inseparable But this familiarizing of death it would uâ—â—â—ske the ambuscado of it and forâ—â—e us against it Have I found thee O my enemy as the 1 King 21. 20. King said And 3. Were death familiar to us it would strangle many fruitlesse and frothy thoughts and designes hear the passingbell when thou lookest upon the gaudy picture of the world cast an eye upon the deaths-head Remember that sentence Luk. 12. 20. This night thy soul may be taken from thee Had we a deaths-head in our study our coffin our winding-sheet it would smother many a carnall designe sinfull contrivance vain dream of the world peevish resolution and frothy Contemplation The thoughts of eternity would make death more expected We should not Mors sanctorum non interitus sed introitus Chrys only thinke of death but waite for it as the Prisoner for his keeper to open the prison-door as the Sentinell for the morning or the poor tyred watchman for the dawning of the day such thoughts look on death as the traveller doth on a muddy plash at the entrance of a famous City Observe Jacobs speech Gen. 49. 18. when waiting the good houre of death I wait for thy salvation O Lord. This is the foord the Felix ante obitum nemo supremaque funera Ovid. Christian is to passe over the narrow and slippery bridge The contemplative Christian whose meditations prey upon eternity doth but wait when the clock will strike when death will come that is the alarum to eternity Death is but a Watch with an Alarum Death is but the Rev. 6. 8. pale horse which carries every one out of this world into an everlasting state 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Dlato So the confiderate Christian winding up his meditation to this bottomlesse state is alwayes upon his watchtower when the postern gate of death will open as the passenger waites at the shoar side for the Packet boat so is death to mankind The thought of eternity would make death more facil and easie and pleasant 2 Cor. 5. 1. When mortall diseases batter this tabernacle of clay we carry about us viz. our bodies meditations of eternity look on Christ now storming the body to take the soul As one in an enemies Garrison rejoyceth to see his own party coming to storme the Town and release him All death pangs saith eternity well studied doe but lanch the soul into the Ocean of eternity these distempers open the gate to eternity they rend the vail of the temple of the body and let flie the soul to eternity death to the contemplative Christian is not so much his storme as his stile not so much his tempest as his triumph in death the Saint cries Victoria The wicked wretch whose cogitations have 1 Cor. 15. fled from eternity nor ever would sail on that sea with what difficulty doth he wrestle and struggle with death How is he dragged to dissolution as to execution how would he bribe stop suspend and divert the stroke of death could all his Quando impii moriuntur in inferno posiâ—i sunt mors depascit eos Ger. strength allies greatnesse and revenues purchase it There is nothing more terrible ghastly and frightfull to him then the dreadfull appâ—rition of death and the great reason is because he hath set the skreen of sin and the world between him and eternity this makes him he will not to the block he is arrested by death he is passively the patient of death the sinner I say who hath not
and a systeme of distempers about him who hath more diseases then veins so that if Galen had lost any disease to treat on he might finde it in him he courts and cals for death and waits for one issue more among all the rest an issue out of the world But doth such reumatique flegmatique decrepit frantique sinners suppose death will be a crutch to keep them from falling into hell Surely those diseases which attend nature in the socket in the declension of it if grace have not cured them death shall turne them into insupportable maladies 4. And the tired worldling who hath gone himself out of breath in the pursuance of world affaires he looks upon death as a quiet and retired chamber to rest in But let such a one consider if in all his pursuites he hath not followed an interest in Christ and made that the object of his sweat he shall take up his lodging in a bed of eternall flames Not to amplifie the argument further Death doth not strangle the sinner or stiffle the Saint but only serries them both over to eternity But it shall land them at a different place as may be manifest upon the review of these particulars And first let us observe what death is to a believer Death is the believers change his alteration not his execution his transplantation not his dissolution When Job 14. 14. a believer dies God doth but take a flower out of the wildernesse and plant it in his Garden or take a rose out of the field and put it in his bosome Josephs change from the Prison to the Gen. 42. 12. Throne from being a Prisoner to become a Prince and Jobs change from Job 41. 39. the dunghill to a reduplicated condition were but the pregnant prefigurations of the Saints change by death It doth only change the copy the state the countenance of a child of God and make him who looked pale with trouble and misery here look fresh with glory and beauty for ever Death to a Saint only turnes the scale 2 Cor. 4. 17. and makes it weigh down with a weight of eternall glory As the Moon after its change comes to its full so death it placeth the poor inconsiderable derided scoft Saint whose body it may be is covered with soares and soul beleaguered with agonies and name with reproaches and estate with losses in the throne of boundlesse felicity and sets the Crown of immortality on his head Death is the last day of a believers non-age whilest the Saints live here they live upon a Pension the allowance of providence they are under age but death brings them to receive their portion and therefore heaven is called an inheritance Death is the last day Si tanta tam suavis est aâ—â—ha quam deus hic suis largitur quanta erit hareditas ipsa quam suo tempore praestabit A Lap. of the Saints Apprentiship it manumits the Saint to eternall liberty Here all the Saints are like Jacob they serve for their Ruchels and death puts a period to their servitude to all their longings groanings sighs to all the harshnesse they endure all the toyles they sustain all the bread of adversity Observa quod Christus non dicit ut serviant mihi Sancti sed ut videant gloriam meam Musc and water of affliction they feed upon In a word Death frees the believer from all not only his labours but from his mean allowances as he is an heir under age an heir of promise observe the word promise and puts him in possession of the full transcendent revenues of everlasting never-dying honour and glory Death is the Saints Secretary to write his releases Death brings the Saint into the same presence-Chamber with Jesus Christ Joh. 17. 28. it opens the door for the Saint to come in to God and a conclave of Angels the life of a Saint here is but an unkind wall an injurious lattice between Christ and him now death breaks down this wall and opens the wall for the Saints entry to lie in the everlasting embraces of Jesus Christ it Cant. 2. 14. plucks up the hedge that the Saint may Mors piorum nihil allud est quam 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ad Christum laetabatur Patriarcha Jacobus cum videret currum a filio Josepho missum nos contristabimur quando coelestis Joseph currum nobis mittit quo in coelum evehamur Ger. goe over to his beloved it draws the curtain that the believer may have a full view of the beauties of Christ it doth as it were pluck the maske from the face of Christ to present him in his sweetest lovelinesse to the Saint Death takes away all obstructions and impediments of an absolute and entire fruition of the Lord Jesus while we are here we may receive a letter from Christ now and then in Gospell communion but death lodges us in the bosome of our pretious friend Death is the fiery chariot to bring us to the Court of Christ Death is the rest and cessation of a believer from all his disquieting and tumultuous disturbances in the world 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the quiettation of a Saint A learned man observes that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 rest is the same with that which the Hebrewes call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 refrigeration or refreshment And so death indeed is nothing but the unlading of a Saint of all his burdens the closing after the sun-set it layes the body of a believer in a sweet sleep for a while and brings his soul into the banqueting house of In altera vita deus sanctos ab omnibus miseriis liberatos in vera prepetua quiete laetitia gaudio gloria constituet Chemn eternall felicity Here the poor believer is scorcht sometimes with the heat of Gods wrath sometimes with the storming of Saints malice sometimes with the boyling of his own corruptions and sometimes with the toyles of the affairs of the world but death takes the Saint out of the heat Sed in Christo iis qui in ipsum credunt mors est somnus quies refocillatio Id. and brings him into the chearing shade of endlesse happinesse The Saints dissolution shall unchain him from all his distemperatures and oppressions he was fettered with here and shall lay him at rest in the refreshing ravishing bosome of Jesus Christ Death is the messenger of Christ to bring the Saint newes of an eternall victory the Herald Christ imployes to usher the Saint to the throne Here lies the indulgence of the Lord Christ and one pretious fruit of his bloud That death which was the effect of sin the monster from the womb part of the curse which sin drew upon the head of mankind is now blossomed into a rare blessing and is under Christ the Saints best friend the honourable Ambassadour of Christ to tell the Saint of an approaching crown But now let us traverse the darke side and see under
of no change THere shall be no telling of the quarters in heaven nor observation of the flitting hours in hell no transition or passage of time There shall be no time in eternity and durations Aeternitas nullam habet successionem Ambr. shall not be as the waves of the Sea one to follow upon the neck of another It is a pregnant description which Boetius layeth down though he describes only the happy eternity Aeternitas est interminabilis tota sunul ac perfecta possessio Eternity is an interminable possession perfect and all together And so the miserable eternity of the Aeternitas est indivisibilis non habet partes sibi juvicem succedentes necessario tota coexisti◠omnibus temporum differentiis ut asserunt Patres Scholastici Bonav damned is all together there is no division in eternity no priority or posterity it is a Sun that neither rises nor sets there is no lapsing of time one age doth not justle out another there shall be no maturity nor immaturity Eternity is time by the whole-sale here indeed our lifes are parcelled into so many years and retaild into so many months but eternity is an individuall indivisible possession Nulla est juventus senescentia in aeternitate there is no youth Aeternitas tota simul Scotus or declining age in eternity neither spring nor fall Time doth not slide away the duration is alwayes at the same length eternity admits only the present-tence the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there is no clock in eternity the hour-glasse runs not there when we are set upon the shore of everlastingnesse there shall be no progresse or regresse Eternity is no complex duration to be compounded of so many particular ages in this it is unlike the sands of the Sea and that comparison will not hold because the vast sands are but multiplyed particulars Falsum est aeternitatem virtualiter habere partes cum id suae simplicitati immutabilitati repugnat non enim sequiillud esse in aeternitate prius quod est in priori temporis parte sed totum tempus simul continetur quantum est ex parte aeternitatis Sadreva in Thomam Time if I may use the terme for there is no such thing in eternity doth pullulate as fast as spend and it sprouts out as fast as it is lopt off in eternity The womb of eternity shall be alwayes big with duration and shall never be delivered of one moment No centuries or successions shall be found in the state of eternity All arithmetick numbers in eternity are ciphers In this it is no Ocean for the Ocean is but a Sea drops particular streams in a greater body Astronomers speak much of the slow motion of Saturne and other celestiall bodies but in eternity there is no motion known no in fieries motion and succession are pure Anomalies And it must be so for 1. Reas 1 Were their succession in eternity there would be wast the taper would spend and the same decline could one age succeed another the succeeded age were then past we might reckon those durations that were melted away but there shall be no waste in eternity eternity is not a Summers day that spends and flies away as more fully hereafter 2. All succession implies a motion and all motion supposes imperfection while things are in motu they are not arrived at perfection then motion ceaseth and there is no further tendency but now the state of eternity is a perfect state The blessed shall be perfectly happy Heaven is a place of superlative perfection and the damned shall be fully and perfectly miserable 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there shall be no deficiency in their torment nor can there be further insufferably unhappy as before was hinted CHAP. IV. Concl. 4 Man 's eternall condition admits of no change or alteration THe throne of the Saints shall In aeternitate nulla est mutatio Aug. Nar. never be overturned the crown of glory shall not be changed into a Crown of thornes Nor shall the damneds bed of flames be altered into a bed of downe All things in eternity shall be everlastingly in the same state I exclude not the great change at the general assizes when the bodies both of Saints and sinners shall be reunited to their souls Eternity may well take up Q. Elizabeths In quo quemque invenerit suus novissimus dies in hoc eum comprehendit Mundi novissimus dies quoniam qualis in die ipso moritur quisque talis in die isto judicabitur August motto it is Semper eadem always the same As the tree falls so it shall lie for ever Taliter in every consideration and particular The darknesse of the damned shall never alter into day their groans shall never be transformed into smiles There shall be no impoverishment in glory and no enrichment in misery Here our state is the Chameleon of Providence the map of mutability but in eternity all things shall remain for ever in eodem gradu eodem statu in the same state and degree It was Origens opinion or rather dream that the damned at last should find a relaxation but this is an old exploded errour There is no variety or revolutions in eternity Identity is the characteristicall note of eternity In it neither teares shall be tuned into triumphs nor song turned into sorrowes All things for ever shall look with the same visage and aspect Weeping and wailing shall be the bitter and everlasting potion of the wicked triumph and honour the Mat. 8. 12. sweet and eternall portion of the blesed But more particularly There shall be no change in those persons who are set on the shoares of eternity the glorious bodies of the Saints after the resurrection shall no more be soyled with ragges or cover'd with soares those illustrious caskets of their souls shall never again endure Phil. 3. 15. either damp or disease those beautified and polished pieces shall no more be bloodied with wounds wrack'd with distempers or deformed with skarres Lazarus whose body here was but a lesser hospitall in eternity his body shall shine and be bespangled with glory which shall never be sullied or eclipsed with the least soare or disease Here Plato cals the body the soules prison Ergastulum animae Plato but in heaven in eternity the bodies of the Saints shall not be the curtaines but the rich cloaths of their soules their attire embroydered with glory which shall neither wear or soyle And so the souls of the Saints in glory they shall ever shine in the enamel of perfection without the least contrariant tincture It is only mans sin that distempers and incurvates the soul and Gods wrath the consequence of sin that as I may say maketh the soul look pale now neither of these have place in heaven The Israelites Deut. 29. 5. cloaths which wore not out in forty years together was a lively Embleme of this invariable felicity And so
on the contrary the bodies of the damned shall remain in their deformities not any spot shall be wiped away nor the least vaile thrown over their exulcerations They shall never throw off the ragges of their beleapered bodies but they shall ever be the darke prisons of their accursed souls the fires of hell shall wash away the paint of Absaloms beauty but his deformities shall never shed because the fountain of them shall never cease viz. sin as shall be shewed more fully And their souls those unclean birds in the unclean cages of their bodies shall wear the miserable livery of their sins to all eternity What should wash their souls Christs bloud they have no interest in it if so they had never been overwhelmed in their intolerable calamity and all their tears shall be but muddied water their wounded consciences their polluted hearts their impostumated souls shall lie in the sinke of their uncleannesses for ever So there shall be no change in the persons of those that are cast on the coast of eternity Nor shall there be any change of place in eternity The Saints shall be Joh. 17. 24. everlastingly resident at the Court of Rev. 3. 21. glory They shall never change their * Joh. 14. 2. Mansions where by the way Mansions not houses not tents to signifie the immutable duration of the Saints happinesse They shall be alwayes under the smiles and in the immediate presence of God They shall ever wait upon the Lord in the Presence-chamber and the Court shall never be removed And therefore heaven is call'd a Kingdome Luk. 12. 32. A City Heb. 12. 22. A Countrey Heb. 11. 13. To demonstrate the permanency of the Saints state in point of locality Heaven shall be the Jerusalem where shall be the perpetuall residence of glorified ones And so the dark dungeon of hell shall be the Reprobates everlasting gaole as the chaines shall never be loosned or filed off so neither shall they change their dolefull habitation but the same prison and wrack the same place as well as degrees of torment shall fetter them to all eternity They shall not change Mat. 18. 3â— their Tophet nor alter their bed of flames There shall be no change in the carriages of those persons who are cast upon the state of eternity the blessed shall be ever tuning their harpes in Hallelujahs they shall alwayes advance God and Christ in an uniforme joy Rev. 4. 11 12. Temptation the womb and sin the birth shall not be found in heaven There shall be nothing to prompt the Saints to stain their purity but they shall be ever breaking out into sacred admirations of God Here indeed there is a variablenesse and often a contradiction in the deportment of the Saints but in glory there shall not be the least titubation or fall Nor shall eternity Prov. 24. 16. dâ—â—ect the least eccentrick motion in a glorified Saint But Christ in Eph. 5. 27. heaven shall be Mediator sustentationis a Mediatour of sustentation to the Saints as well as Angels And so on the contrary there shall be as little alteration in the carriages of the damned they shall be ever belching out dishonours against the name of God and for ever be sick of the same surfet of blasphemy accusing the glorious attributes and holy name of God nor shall they in the midst of their woes weep out with a truly penitentiall frame the least retractation And the reason is because sin in hell shall be in the same and greater impetuousnesse then it was here Nor shall those punitive fires turne one lust into ashes those flames of misery shall not refine but exasperate the reprobate sinner shall irritate and feed not chase away sin Nor is hell a place for the influences of Gods operative grace nor can infernall fire be purificatory There shall be no change in the conditions of those who are in the state of eternity No promotions in misery no dejections in happinesse the same calamity shall be eternized to the caitiffe-wretch and the same glory entaild on the perfected Saint the wheele shall not turne in eternity No hopes of better times in hell nor Luk. 16. 26. feares of worse in heaven Mutation and change is obsolete in eternity And to shew you the impossibility of change in our everlasting condition First there can be none in reference to the blessed If there be any change it must either be First In meliorem partem for the better and then these inconsequences would follow 1. There were degrees of grace in heaven secundum eundem in reference to the same person contrary to Heb. 12. 22. the Spirits of just men made perfect For Gods justice is adequate and he rewards though not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for our works yet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according Rom. 2. 6. to our workes and so that grace rising to an higher eminency it cals for a greater promotion Now this would argue a falling short of perfection which heaven is uncapable of Could the glorified Saints grow in grace as they must if they rise to higher happinesse according to Gods justice then was there a deficiency in their grace before which is anomalus to consummate perfection and glory signifies no more but grace maturated to perfection And therefore there can be no change for the better because there can be no cause for this change especially after the resurrection when the Grand assises are over And 2. This inconsequence would follow a change for the better an imperfection in happinesse for now the Saint is advanced to greater blessednesse which likewise is consistent to the perfection of beatitude which the glorified Saint is infall'd in Or Secondly This change must be in deteriorem partem for the worse there must be a fall in the Saints glory which would â—nforce these two absurdities 1. The Saints in glory were capable of defaulting for what can indammage them but sin God who is pure justice inferres no prejudice upon the Creature but as provoked by some criminall miscarriage if otherwise then Gods justice might be impeached which is most blasphemous Now that no impurity can stain heaven is most Hos 13. 9. clear as from the immediate presence of God which glorifies the Saints not only with perfection of happinesse but of purity also or else perfection was Rev. 21. 27. but a titular perfection it were but nominall were it not spotlesse and so likewise from that consummate condition which the Saints are arrived at in glory which cannot retreâ—â— backe again to any the least prevarication For herein lies the difference between created perfection that which Adam was enricht with before his fall and the perfection of glory the one includes the other rejects all mutability And 2. Could there be a change for the worse in glory then heaven would be a place of punitive justice for all Rev. 7. 16. deteriority and dammage that befals man is the issue of
As they are insupportable so they shall be innumerable and inconceivable Here indeed God corrects in measure both the wicked Jer. 10. 24. and the godly he seemes here to proportionate his bounds but what boundlesse calamity shall swallow up the reprobate in eternity God will then draw his arrow to the head and screw his wrath to an unconfin'd degree What shall limit or be a banke to the inundations of Gods everlasting displeasure Thou canst not tell how many drams of poison God will put into the cup of trembling which the wicked must be drinking off for evermore there is no ultimum aut maximum quod sic as Philos speaks no stated or terminated height in those anguishes the element of fire hath its stated heat which it cannot flame beyond and if all the fuell and materialls of the Creation were cast into one conflagration yet there would be a termination in those scorching flames but what bounds or rampires hath the Anger of the Lord in eternity Eternity is a boundlesse estate in the fountain of it which is God he Duobus modis aliquid aeternum esse potest uno modis ab intrinseco alio modo ex influxu alterius aeterno Suarez shall stretch the future condition of man out to eternity he that is bottomlesse in power and justice and love he shall support the beings of men for ever The incomprehensible God shall break down all banks in eternity The originall and efficient cause of eternity is the unlimited Jehovah the infinite Majesty shall add fuell to his wrath for ever to the damned and fill the cup of the Saints joy for everlasting In the space of it What Arithmetician can number the ages of eternity or by an exact multiplication can sum up the infinite centuries in it Who can cast up the severall millions of durations what thousands multiplied can fill up one moment of eternity the duration of eternity as it is indivisible so it is unlimited there is no terme bound or stop in it Could we reckon up as many ages in eternity as there hath past moments since the Creation yet then we are not within view of any stoppage or period In eternity our thoughts may range as into a bottomlesse sea and cease in a non-plust admiration Our Contemplations and enquiries may sail for ever and see no shoare There are no Anno Dominies or Epochees or Hegiraes in eternity no term to reckon from and no time to reckon in but it is an inimaginable unconfin'd condition CHAP. VI. Concl. 6 Man 's eternall condition admits of no decay or Consumption THere is no decay in eternity no Autumnes nor in eternity shall the dayes grow shorter There shall be no wast or wearing out or moth to eate out in eternity All things shall subsist in the same force and vigour in the same state and strength The Sun of eternity shall not decline Nothing shall moulder away towards a conclusion Here all things are in a constant tendency to ruine and devastation the most excellent and flourishing pieces of the Creation are continually posting to abolition There is a moth in the richest garments a worme in the tallest Cedars rust in the finest gold Nor can our greatest care shed an immotality on our choisest enjoyments but duration and time dampes and soyles the rarest excellencie◠and every thing yeilds to the force and fury of age Continued and numbred years wrinckle and deface the most pleasing beauty and leaves it to the surprisall of a necessary deformity the freshest youth whether it be appropriated to man or be predicate of inanimate creatures here soon it loseth its splendor and goeth upon the crutches of decay But in eternity all things shall subsist in the same vigor and vivacity not any thing shall be overtaken with hoary age Heraelitus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his axiome shall be inverted Nulla erit in aeternitate seneseentia the pillars in eternity shall never shake nor moulder There shall be no fading leas or falling fruit though no such thing may be found in eternity but every thing shall be preserved in its full maturity without the least perishing or putrefaction The Suns motions Aepyptian Pyramids and other lasting Monuments of Antiquity are but the darker hieroglyphickes of the unperishable and undecaying estate of eternity But more particularly There shall be no waste or decay of time in eternity time shall not slide away or spend but of this more at large in a particular conclusion There shall be no waste seize on the persons of them that are set upon the shoar of eternity The souls of the Saints shall not undergoe the least dotage by long duration nor be impaired in their blessednesse or capacities Millions of ages shall not enfeeble the strength of their memories or cloud the brightnesse of their minds or incurvate their ordinate wills or depresse their seraphick desires The souls of the Saints in eternity shall not contract any debilitation or crasiness but their intellectuals shall remain pure and perfect untainted by the largest tracts or circuits of ages Here indeed in this life the very minds of Gods people seem to languish with their bodies and to be subject to the force and tyranny of age there is a decay in their intellectualls and the eye of their understanding groweth dimme but in eternity no hesitancies or doubts shall distract nor clouds of ignorance darken and obnubilate the sun of their Mind And so the bodies of the Saints admit of no decay in eternity no weaknesse disease or distemper shall ever batter or surprize them but they shall be preserved in the same resplendency and beauty for ever all the issues of infirmity which beset the bodies of the Saints here shall be dryed up in illustrious radiancy and their bodies shall shine for ever in a greater glory then the Sun when blazoned in its most vigorous light and irradiations as before was suggested And so on the contrary The souls of the reprobates in eternity shall not saint away in their torments nor shall they ever be blest with the happinesse of temporary swoon but they shall continue in their beings and existencies for ever and shall be preserved in their miserable immortalities They shall be spending vitam morientem August as the Father speaks a dying life for ever and so their bodies those cooperating Mar. 9. 48. instruments of sin shall not be scorcht into ashes by the infernall flames but like cursed Salamanders shall ever live in those fires their bodies shall be immortall capacities of torment while Gods justice and Satans malice shall make everlasting depredations upon them There shall be no decay or waste in the losses or possessions of eternity the Saints blessednesse shall not be impaired by duration nor wither by vast continuances They shall be cloathed with happinesse and their Deut. 5. 29. cloaths shall not wear And therefore the eternall felicity of the blessed consists in a fulnesse of joy
nihil addi potest Arist and cast into a nobler form fals short of perfection Now the Saints in glory enjoy a double perfection 1. A perfection in their persons They are perfect in all purity holinesse and unspotted transcendency their beings are refulgent with all rich and rare enoblements in all excellent capacities their natures shall shine with the diamonds of perfection as I may so say And 2. A perfection of inheritance the fulnesse of possession and therefore 2 Tim. 4. 8. heaven is alwayes represented by the Luk. 12. 32. most sublime enjoyments A Crown Joh. 3. 16. a Kingdome life a throne Now perfection Rev. 3. 21. that is the bound and bank to As they said of Cyrus Satia te sanguine Cyre So I may say Satia te gloria Sancte limit all expectation Our desires cannot sail beyond the pillar of perfection Nor fly above an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the top the firmament confines the eye of the body and heaven the ambition of the soul And thirdly There can be no further hopes in the blesseds eternity because the Saints in eternity enjoy God immediately which is Summum bonum in summo gradu the chiefest good in the highest degree God is comprehensively all inconceivable good As the Sun containes more light gradu eminentiori in a more eminent degree and consideration then all the candles in the world when lighted The beatificall vision is not all happinesse epitomized but enlarged in the most incomprehensible latitudes And when the Saints shall come to enjoy a free and full sight of God without the interposure of cloud or curtain then shall they say as the Queen of Sheba concerning Solomons glory 1 King 10. 7. Behold the one halfe was not told me All the expectations of the glorified ones shall be swallowed up in inexpressible admirations How sweet those glorious intuitions shall be that the Saints shall enjoy in heaven our most vast conceptions are not able to comprehend God being essentially whatever deserves the name of good And I need not by way of amplification of the Argument make mention of that glory that the humane nature of Christ shall shine in and how pleasing that pretious sight will be to the redeemed ones when arrived at the heavenly countrey And therefore to look for further happinesse is a solecisme in a blessed eternity And as eternity shall confine the hopes of the Saints so it shall bury all expectations of the sinner Hell shall be the grave of all the reprobates hopes Here indeed all hope was not smoothered and evaporated they had a reconcileable God Gods bowels 2 Cor. 5. 19. were not totally restrained but repentance might have enlarged them the treasury-door of mercy and grace was not lockt up but faith could have opened it and the oyle of grace might have procured the oyle of gladnesse and there was still a blanck in the lease for the sinners name to be put in upon conversion to God Mat. 25. 1. But in the eternity of the damned every door of hope is shut and lockt up and all expectation of change or compassion shall be silenced All longing for or looking after either 1. A totall extinction of the remembrance of them that ever there were such caytiffes in the World might cease Or 2. A releasment from their torturing extremities Or 3. An advancement to happinesse and change of the wrack into a throne I say all these hopes shall cease and evaporate in the damneds eternity Nay further the reprobates carnall hopes which was their pleurisie here and with which they were so elevated and rejoyced their hopes of pleasure and profit All their sinfull hopes that cursed tympany they did swell with here their hopes to satisfie their lusts the titillation of their sinfull hearts nay all their formall hopes that Christ would not blast a professed Christian shall all die and fade in their eternity And the damned shall be overwhelmed with cursed desperation as full of torment as void of comfort and hope for evermore the wretched despaire of Judas being the monster his exulcerate conscience brought forth was but a sad embleme of the Reprobates condition in eternity when they shall lie in an hopelesse helplesse endlesse easelesse condition of extremity to all everlasting And it must be so Because the Reprobate never had any true hope or rationall expectation in this life Indeed happily they were inflated with presumption here and their hearts were deluded into a vain dream of future glory but their soules were never winged with true hope it may be with the blaze of hope but not with the grace of hope They never were raised with the Heb. 11. 1. expectation of faith and the reason is because they never had any interesse in Christ which is objective objectively the summe of all true hopes Nor Col. 1. 27. was their hope fastned to or fixed upon a promise for they had no title to a Gospell-promise Indeed all the hopes and expectations of a sinner here they are but the ebullitions of fancy an anchor in the water both uselesse and ridiculous And if their hopes were but counterfeit coyne and alchymie expectation here what shall their hopes be in miserable eternity when they shall be out of sight of the land of promise And what should be a ground to the damned of hope 1. The greatnesse of their torment this is but commensurate to regular justice their inexpressible miseries are but the execution of Gods justice which is essentiall to the divine nature and which after this life is inexorable the very miseries of the reprobate shall be the glory of Gods righteous severity and the very flames of hell as I may say shall cast a light on divine justice Gods compassions in eternity are seal'd up to reprobate ones Or 2. Shall the duration of their torments fill the reprobate with hope Alas every sin they have committed deserves eternall calamity and that propter infinitam Majestatem offensam because of an infinite Majesty offended For sin being infinite ratione objecti in reference to the object the person incensed and because no punishment can be adequate to the deserving of sin in the greatnesse of it For how can a finite creature undergoe an infinite wrath what is abated in greatnesse shall be made up in the duration of the punishment So that the duration of misery shall be no argument to suggest the least hopes to the damned for eternall pain shall be proportionate to divine justice So that hope the last comforter of a wicked man shall leave him in eternity and everlasting despaire shall be as an ever corroding worme to him The Prophet Daniel speakes of an Angell coming down from heaven and saying Hew the tree down and destroy it cut off Dan. 4. 23. her boughs shake off her leaves and scatter her fruit abroad yet leave the stumpe of the roots thereof in the earth Upon which words Ambrose descants elegantly
ease and torment without end it would make us sound a retreat to all our darling inchantments of sin What benefit will it be to remember the amorous and adulterous bed when we shall take up our lodgings not our rest in a bed of eternall flames Will Belteshazzers Dan. 5. 2 3. riots and sacrilegious prodigalities sweeten or purfume the stench and torments of hell to him Nay the very thoughts of a blessed eternity would unriddle the poyson unmaske the infinite evill and chine up the multiplyed mischiefes of sin glory it self would be a looking-glasse 1 Cor. 6. 9 10. for us to see the deformity of sin in Sin that monster of evils which can shut heaven gates against and darken the beatificall vision to the soul which can raise a wall of separation between the soul and God Isa 59. 2. himself Indeed our future estate well weighed in the ballance of serious meditation would be as an Angell in the way to stop transgressours from travelling in the road of sin Ah! how would such thoughts as eternity Numb 22. 25 26. would engender raise a nausea and distast in the soul against the most pleasing cheates of sin Let us but observe the dismall effects of the hand-writing on the wall which sin procures sin which is now a rose in thy bosome will be a dagger in thy heart for ever Ah! remember the for ever Indeed sins sinfulnesse and contamination 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrysost ad prop. Antioch is best drawn by the pencill of eternity In all thy overtures with sin and pleas with temptation let eternity be the umpire What rage and holy passion would such thoughts produce and procreate Put but thy finger into the fire of eternall wrath by sacred and serious Contemplation and then sin if thou canst thou wilt then either throw away thy faith or thy sin I conceive the sinner rockes these thoughts asleep before he courts and embraces the offers of corruption A poor sinner upon second thoughts lest by sin he shall provoke an infinite Majesty with a two-edged sword Psal 7. 12. in his hand to make everlasting wounds Jer. 48. 2. in his soul will hardly adventure the gratifying his sweetest lust If thou wouldest at any time cast a chain upon thy corrupt heart to restrain its liberty in sin draw eternity into the counsels of thy soul Thoughts of eternity would allay and mitigate our inflamed desires after the delights and delicacies of the creature They would correct the inordinacy and distemper of our passions after them were these meditations greater inmates with us we should not grow sick for Naboths Vineyard 1 King 21. 4. and as Eve lose a world to gain an Apple Did we think of eternity we should fall upon such reasonings as these and plead with our souls in their strength viz. What advantage doth Dives reap now of all his delicate morsels his rich fare the elixars of all his banquets What taste hath Cleopatra of her dissolved jewels Or Heliogabalus of all those vast and various preparations those unheard of sensualities he drowned himself in Doth the sensuall and effeminated sinner Fallax felicitas ipsa est major infelicitas Aug. who is shut under the hatches of eternity relish any of those varieties which he sinfully pleased himself with here doth any delightfull smatch refresh him from all his luxuries and profusenesse in this life Do the rich Da domine ut sic possideamus temporalia ut non perdamus aeterna Bern. mans barnes now relieve him in his eternall famine How would such thoughts as these embitter the sweet dalliances of the world When we turn sensuall in our pleasurous enjoyments we remember not eternity What teares did Davids Adultery when he sinfully gratified his corrupt temptation squeize from him here how did he water his couch with his tears that he had defiled with his lusts The thoughts of eternity would Voluptatem vincere est voluptas maxima nec ulla est major victoria quam ea quae a cupiditatibus refertur qui enim hostem vincit fortior est altero qui cupiditates fortior est seipso Cyp. de bono Pud put a maske before all the beauties and blend bitternesse with all the luxuries and cast a rust on all the riches of the world would sowre all creature-satisfactions and take their tast from them nay such solemne thoughts would wrincle temptation it self Did we sometimes penetrate into the Sanctum sanctorum of such thoughts how much art paint imposture witherednesse and fugacity should we see in the complexion of the most flourishing contentments Then the very quintessence of the Qui amant voluptates non possunt affici dee rebus divinis Voluptates enim spirituales quae animum erigunt ad coelestia contrariae sunt carnalibus quae animum deprimunt effeminant Theoph. creature would grow stale and curdle into vanity The Dagon of all created excellencies would fall down before the thoughts of eternity These contemplations would anatomize the world in all its varieties and finde out all the veins and arteries of its cheat and delusion we should look then upon all our pleasures as what really they are phantastick but dangerous dreames Eternity ruminated on would soile the colour of the fairest courtships of the world it would draw off our hearts from all sublunary satisfactions Ah! my eternity my eternity What shall become of me for ever When the soul shall seriously aske it self what reall advantage what soul-satisfaction what stable or solid comfort is wrapt up in these creature-possessions but above all am I the more interessed in Gods favour assured of sins pardon or fitter for my eternity by these pleasing enjoyments Or rather are not these delights I enjoy the damps of my grace the infections of my desires the temptations of my soul the traitours without the wall of my heart Satans weapons and varnisht spies and obstructions to mysterious thoughts of eternity how would I say such a question as this put seriously and closely to the consciencience flat the taste of the most sweetned delicacies Serious and frequent thoughts of eternity would be cordials and counsellours in all our troubles This would sweeten 2 Cor. 4. 17. and take off the bitterest potion of affliction and calamity there is an Isa 54. 8. eternity to come Those flames I am Mat. 10. 28. now scotcht by shortly death will turn into a smoak and then I shall sail upon the pleasant sea of a glorious eternity This everlasting condition Melior est modica amaritudo in faucibus quam aeternum tormentum in visceribus to come it takes out the core of every affliction It doth as Edward the firsts Queen did to him it suckes the poyson out of the wound of every trouble it cuts every calamity of the stone The poor Saint thinking of eternity concludes I am passing through a sudden storme to an endlesse calme through
tremblings lest temptation draw thee into the snare of sin In glory temptation it self is spurious In aeterna felicitate similes deo erimus haec similitudo nunc incipit reformari quam diu homo interior de die in diem renovatur secundum imaginem ejus qui creavit eum sed ad illius eminemiae perfectionem quae tunc futura est quid hoc aut quantum Aug. and reprobate no sinfull suggestion lodges within the veil Unstained purity there is in an everlasting spring And therefore now study holinesse walke circumspectly act grace flame in love to Christ contract that rare and salubrious sicknesse to be sick of love with Jesus Christ Cant. 5. 5. and remember eternity is at the door and then all regulation of steps is at an end In hell there is no rectitude in heaven no obliquity In eternity there is no pendulousnesse or wavering or possibilities of this uneven walking but the Saints enshrined in glory shall flourish for ever in an unspotted beauty Now here dear Christian walke and watch till the Sun of this life be turned and then eternity shall put an end to all ambiguity What is one pace one step to a million ten hundred thousand millions of miles or what one severe modest serious pious glance to our whole life here no more is our holy life here to eternity A little short scene of piety here and then for heaven where Godlinesse shall put on the spotlesse and rich attire of glory for ever Phil. 1. 27. Thoughts of eternity will be our incouragement in conflicts against corruption Now thou fightest for eternity if this lust that corruption reign thou art undone for ever Observe the phrase of our Saviour Rev. 3. 21. To him that Rom. 6. 12. overcometh will I give to sit in the same throne with me to him that overcomes What life vigour rage against lust would eternity in the meditations of it infuse How would the tempted patient cry out Thou bloudy truculent lust seekest the life of my eternall soul the poor assaulted patient might assisted with grace strangle the most headstrong corruption with such meditations as these This barbarous lust may lose me an immortall crown maske Gods face to me for ever may cause to be pronounced a sentence of everlasting divorce 2. Tim. 1. 10. between Christ and my soul clap me in fiery and everlasting chains and leave me a prey to the dilapidations of eternall wrath Thou fightest dear professour against lust and the 2 Tim. 4. 8. conquest is of an everlasting concernment 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 R. J. Badresh the throne the crown the life the love the kingdom of eternity is the prize And now poor combatant is thy duel with lust if thou get the victory Gal. 5. 17 thou shalt wear the lawrel of blessednesse and triumph for ever thy losse or thy conquest is eternall It is with the battle between lust and the soul as it was in the fight between Caesar and Pompey Pompeyes losse was for ever and Caesars victory set him in the throne Let every fighting Christian remember eternity lies at the stake and let this be perpended there is no recruiting in the grave no rallying of thy scattered strength the battle ends with thy life What passion would the damned shew against those lusts that are now wormes and Scorpions in their consciences and shall be so for ever were they again to enter and begin the fight how would they as Samson in his anger against the Philistines Jud. 17. 30. summon all their spirits muster all their strength and gather together all their vivacities to pluck down the house upon the head of their corruptions The thoughts of eternity should be to a Christian as despaire is to a coward should make himself magnanimously puissant The Historian reports that the Roman Souldiers when they heard the word Quirites they received a kind of new life and they doubled the files of their valour the word eternity should double the guard of our force and wrath against corruption Is it not more noble manly Christian by a holy strength and in a pious resolution to tread down lust here then in an effeminate desperation to weep over it and curse it to eternity Do but see how bloud-thirsty and sanguisugous every lust is in the glasse of eternity Lust in the soul is but the Devils spie Satans ambush to betray the soul to a miserable eternity one of the truest glasses of all sin is everlastingnesse there ye may see it to be the Divels pander a sparke of Gods wrath Natures impostume which if not broken kills for ever the souls harlot and if not crusht and crucicified the wombe of never ending calamity And let me recruit the argument with these three considerations 1. Lust what a sordid prize for eternity Our Saviour makes it a piece of impolitick weaknesse to exchange the soul for the whole world Mat. 16. 26. and yet the world is a systeme and Quam stultus est qui cum aeterna jactura post hanc vitam pauxillum bonorum temporalium corradit retinent cum possessio rerum in hoc seculo obtentarum nihil ipsi post hoc seculum prodere neque animam semel perditam ternents bonis redimere possit Chemn large body of Gods creatures a masse of excellencies and varieties how fragrant the roses sweet the musickes savoury the delicacies glittering the honours and ravishing the adulations and applauses of the world and yet Christ brands this for inexprimable folly to purchase this glorious world with the losse of an immortal soul But how mean a prize for eternity is a base corruption which is as the Schoolmen speak totaliter malum all evill more bitter then wormwood destructive then poyson terrible then death tormenting then hell more deformed then deformity it self One sin acted in a moment could destroy a world which God himself was six days in the creation of it Wilt thou lose eternity for a lust which is a firebrand of hell the very incurvation of nature 2. Observe the very remembrance of a satisfied lust will adde torment to eternity how cutting will that speech of Abraham to Dives be Luk. 16. 25. Son thou haddest thy good things here Sinner thou haddest thy lustfull satisfactions here thy ambition thy Prov. 28. 8. Avarice was surfetted here thy sensualities were gratified here thou haddest thy stolen morsels and thy pleasant baits thy beloved checkred bosome-corrptions here in this life therefore now thou art tormented This will be Luk. 16. 25. oyle in the sinners flames the recollection of that poyson of Aspes viz. sin that they did so pleasantly and greedily drink up This then will be gravell in their belly a thorne in their eye a dagger in their heart and torment in their bones and fire in their bosome Olim haec meminisse dolebit Sin in the remembrance of it will be an everlasting ghost to the reprobate will keep
Our life is short in which we act for God fight against lust serve Jesus Christ Jam. 4. 4. and are as flaming torches of zeal Isa 2. 22. and light in the world and yet after Psal 39. 6. this transient exhalation the Saints are Nemo tam Divos habuit faventes Crastinum ut posset sibi polliceri Res deus nostras celeri citatas turbine versat Sen. in Thyest crowned to eternity Vnde bone Deus All this must be scored on the account of Jesus Christ He hath added eternity to our lease of happinesse what exertions of divine love should these considerations procure how should they melt and overcome the soul dissolve it into affectionate admiration wound it with wonderfull affection and make us not only his souldiers in magnanimous puissance but his spouses in conjugall embraces to use the phrase of the holy Ghost how should the thoughts of eternity makes us look on Christ as the fairest among women Cant. 5. 9 10 11. the chiefest of ten thousand whose head is as fine gold whose eyes are as the eyes of Sane Christus solus lacte lotus dici potest quia solus candidus albus inse alios dealbans candidans a nullo tamen nisi a seipso dealbatus Del-rio in Cant. doves by the rivers of waters whose cheeks are as the bed of spices as sweet flowers whose lips are like lillies droping sweet-smelling myrrhe c. and so forward as the Spouse there drawes the effigies and picture of our dearest sweetest most lovely most loving Saviour And always in the same beauty would Christ appear to our souls did they make eternity their study and contemplation Advant 8 The thoughts of eternity would swallow up our sollicitous care for the supplies of the creature What shall we eat or what Mat. 6. 31. shall we drinke or what shall we put on such thoughts I say would Quid sericum quae regum parpura quae pictura textricū via haec floribus comparari possunt Hier. drowne these impertinent questions they would indeed bring men in a better esteeme and liking of Providence for what are all our provisions here they are but corn for the way Gen. 42. supplies for travellers for to bring them to their journeyes end But the great Question is Am I provided for eternity to spend here and to starve for ever to have wine here and no water as Dives to eternity why do I wrack my spirit my candle will go out if not by want yet by disease and then comes eternity Our Saviour in Mat. Job 7. 1. 6. urgeth many rare arguments to Omnia si perdas animam servare memento stifle and smother the vain carking care of men and to those may be superadded this one more What are all these provisions to eternity there is my life this short breath here below is but a dying groan a giving up the ghost Man is in a consumption from his birth and all creature-comforts do but patch him up for a while piece a ragged piece of flesh and yet the frensie of men is strange how Luk. 12. 33. do they torture their spirits to finde a Mine for the present supplies but eye not nor take care for provisions for eternity Who layes up for the famine of the soul Our heads are filled with cares in pinching and necessitous times how we should live in the world when we should be more inquisitive how we should out of the world when death hath landed us in eternity for what matters it how short the stock of our preparations is here where we are breaking up house and departing every moment A man that cometh to an Inne if he meet with hard fare course lodging harsh and churlish usage he is not perplexed nor disquieted for it is but for a night and he shall away next morning Our securest and strongest habitations Jon. 4. 7. here below they are but as Jonas his goard but for a night Aeternis inhianti in fastidio sunt omnia transitoria Bern. But now the great question is What glory we have banckt up in heaven what treasures we have laid in there what riches what revenues we have stored up in unmouldring eternity what doest thou lay in for a tottering life or wrack thy thoughts to shoare up the falling sinking temple of thy body All thy cares are but as the putting in of a little pin into an inch of candle which will suddenly fall into the socket Carke for thy soul for an interest in Christ how thou shalt live to eternity that Mat. 6. 33. is a condition that understands not Primo spiritualia posterius temporalia omnes lahores actiones nostras a regno dei ordiamur Par. the language of death or a Sepulchre The life of man here is but a span long short and swift then turn the stream of all thy care to unmeasurable eternity Here in reference to eternity care as much as thou wilt summon all thy thoughts use all means contrive all thy designes torture thy intellectuals be as solicitous as studious as laborious as full of holy fear of spirituall tremblings as thou mayest rise as early go to bed as late as thou pleasest and all this is but rare policy and rich ingenuity In this to eat the bread of carefulnesse is the way to feed upon Manna for ever Did we but enlarge our Contemplations on our everlasting estate with what a holy indifferency would our souls be possessed whether our cruse of oil run or no no further then what might supplie our short journey our short step to eternity how light then would the heaviest gold weigh in the ballance of our judgments we do not usually hang our Arbours with Arras or Tapestry because the flourishing boughs which make them soon wither and decay And why should we spend our choysest strength our most vivacious spirits our most pretious time to preserve enrich and make delightfull that temporall life which every moment may be extinct and blown out All those creature-accommodations riches delights c. which are the bribes of our cares the tormentours of our thoughts the wracke of our mind they are but as the diet and the banquets of a condemned prisoner they only keep him alive till the sad day of his execution Like Belshazzars riotous banquet Dan. 5. 2 3 c. which was not so much the preparations of his festivall as of his funerall for as historians report he was slain that very night The thoughts of eternity would banish many unnecessary cares from the solicitous and unsatisfied soul And let this double consideration surprise your thoughts 1. Our care for the world is nothing to our errand into the world Thou wert not created to study the lumpe of clay thou carriest about thee but to glorifie thy Creatour to be the Gal. 2. 20. herald of his praise the engine of his glory the witnesse of
minded Psal 49. 14. his everlasting condition nor laid up for it he fals into the arrests of death But the Saints whose word all his life time hath been eternity and who hath been in all his conversation pronouncing this shibboleth he fals into the embraces of it he may be said as Christ was Joh. 10. 15. To lay Morte tabernas nostras pulsante non terremur down his life to lay down his head upon the cushion of the grave and sweetly to sleep being rockt to it by death Now what sweetens and facilitates death to a believer only he hath studied eternity and hath got the scarlet thread in the window eternity Josh 2. 18. is assured to them The Saint whose heart is landed at the staires of eternity before when he comes to die he doth but as the Sun breake thorough a cloud to shine both gloriously and eternally and indeed the body of a Saint is but the darke cloud the curtain drawn before his shining soul Rally therefore and muster up all your thoughts and let them meet with eternity this is the way to perfume the winding sheet to strow flowers on the coffin and to make death it self smile and become a pleasing presage to a more pleasing crown The thoughts of eternity would make death more welcome I long saith the Saint whose heart before is in heaven to come to the stage of eternity he Phil. 3. 20. is in a longing fit impatient as the longing woman and smiling with joy Rev. 22. 20. and triumph on approaching death cries welcome that parting blow that brings me into the everlasting embraces of my dear Redeemer CHAP. XVII Vse of Exhortation Branch 2 The next branch of the Use shall be That we would make sure of Eternity THere are two great ends Why the wombe delivered us into the world the one is to adore an eternall being the other to obtaine eternall life and where the first is rightly performed the second is infallibly accomplished It was a good question the young man proposed What shall I do to inherit eternall life Luk. 10. 25. And indeed the answering of this question cals for all our cares feares troubles time duties industry and what ever fals within the verge of our highest and most extended capacities Things that are most precious we most secure and expose to them to the least hazard our jewels are lockt up in our cabinets our gold seald up in the coffer Now the excellency of man is his soul the excellency of the soul is life and the excellency of life is eternity and with what ambitions should we graspe the diademe of a blessed eternity What artifices did Si peccandum est pro corona est peccandum Absalon use to secure his Fathers throne to himself he lies with his Fathers Concubines in the sight of the people 2 Sam. 16. 22. a most odious practise What 2 Sam. 13. 9. wayes did Ammon use to secure his beauteous Sister for his lustfull embraces he bolted out all that might interrupt his unnaturall incest What Luk. 12. 20 21. thoughts did the Rich man take to secure his plenties the overflowing abundance of his fruites he erects new barnes and leaves not his Corn either a prey for the birds or a morsell for the Gleaners And the Barbarous Turke he kils all his younger Brethren and sacrifices them to his bloudy ambition that he might secure the Crown to himself And shall we be Omnia ei salva sunt cui salva est aeternitas lesse solicitous in our fears cares our holy policies and sacred stratagems to secure etetnity that everlasting blessednesse which is the supreme gift of God the reward of Saints the honour of Angels the rich provisions of heaven and the totall of all Christs merits and bloudy passion How canst thou dear Christian be satisfied or thy heat chilled and ambitions surfeted till thou hast obtained the reversion of a glorious eternity and God hath entailed on thee a crown of 2 Pet. 1. 10. immortality Review with thy selfe the bowels of Gods pity the voice of Christs bloud the desperatenesse and activenesse of Satans malice the shortnesse and uncertainty of thy own life the accusations of thy guilt Nay the very present glory of the triumphant Saints all call upon thee to make sure of eternity Canst thou sleep on the main mast with the dreadfull Ocean under thee or take up thy lodgings in the enemies field What doest thou else when thou hast nothing to shew for eternity Consider thy danger and disadvantagein this Those who can clear up no propriety in a blessed eternity may be considered under a double notion I. As sinners and with what a multitude of dangers is every Christlesse soul encompassed He is but as a wanderer in the wildernesse who may be a prey for every beast he is out of all protection God may suffer 1. Satan to destroy him had not Job been a righteous man his disease Job 2. 4. probably had been his death and Satan had not only been his tormentour The danger that every wicked man is in but his executioner every wicked man is Satans prisoner and who knowes how soon he may be his prey 2. God may suffer the Creature to destroy him as the Lyon did the Prophet 1 King 13. 24. the Bears the children and the 2 King 2. 24. wormes King Herod in all his magnificent Act. 12. 23. pompe Every creature is up in armes against a wicked man and wants only the word of commission to fall on and destroy him Gods wrath and his wretchlesnesse can turne the persumes of the world into ponyards as the Pope who died with joy 3. God may suffer him to destroy himself as Judas did and to become his own assasinate It is only the untired boundlesse patience and infinite long-suffering of God that keeps the wicked mans knife from his own throat Every sinner did not Gods mercy throw a chaine over him he would make his grave in his own wounds he would with Saul fall on 1 Sam. 31. 4. his own sword or like the Jaylour Act. 26. 27. be ready to fall a sacrifice to his own bloudy distemper For God withdrawing his providentiall care from a sinner what should hinder but that nature it self should become a stepmother 4. God himself may destroy a wicked man by an immediate execution as he did Aarons two sons Lev. 10. 2. these unhappy brethren who were brethren not only in nature but in iniquity and misery who as they came from the same wombe so they found the same death I say these brethren offered up strange fire but once but a sinner is continually offering the strange fire of his lusts and therefore God himself may breake him in pieces as a Potters vessell 5. And lastly God may suffer good men to destroy him As Phinehas who quenched the lust of that adulterous couple
what wofull notions we must paraphrase upon the death of the wicked Death to the wicked is an inlet to eternall wrath it opens the sluces of divine indignation it powres out and unstops the vials of Gods displeasure upon the reprobate soul those drops of anger which here in this life sometimes blasted and scorcht the sinner death turnes into a perpetuall storme and sets the reprobate as a marke for God to shoot all his arrowes of displeasure against him Here indeed in this life the fiercest anger God drawes out Hab. 3. 2. against a sinner is full of mixtures of mercy and pity is attempered with bowels and compassion hath its intermissions and breathing times hath its pauses and stops but death shall cast Rev. 6. 17. the sinner into the furnace whose heat shall not be allayed by any mitigation Death to the sinner is his particular doomesday the firstday of his dreadfull account as soon as ever death divorces Heb. 9. 27. vorces the soul from the body and gives Seneca Philosophi aiunt Mors homini natura est non poena immo vero ipse dico mors homini poena est non natura Corn. A Lap. the parting blow God passeth an immediate sentence of eternall death upon the widowed soul and the Lord begins the execution of the deceased sinner which shall never be overtaken with a close or end Then the sinner shall begin to reape the fruit of all his evill wayes and passively discharge every particular debt Then all the wounds of a wicked mans conscience shall fester and ranckle with intolerable pain and Gods executions shall finde out every vaine thought and die it in the bloud of the soul death immediately Mors est peccati comes filia stipendium in its stroak summons the sinner to the bar to receive the sad sentence and doom which shall be to all eternity in the execution vengeance doth but wait for a sinner till the clock of death strikes and then it seizeth on him as an everlasting prey Indeed the soul being the nobler part of man and so the more blame-worthy as casting it self away upon the account of sin and likewise being the principall agent in all offences for the poor body is dragged and animated by the soul to all miscarriages that gives life and will and love to all corporcall iniquities the body of it selfe being but a dead piece of clay I say the soul being thus the grand agent in all sin it receives its doom first and fals under its wofull execution and death doth cast it upon the spikes of immediate and everlasting ruine Death to the sinner is the ultimate period of all his comforts all his good As the Poet saith Mors ultimalinea rerum and I may in reference to the wicked solaminum too dayes are buried in the grave with him No lightning of comfort followes the thunder of his death when once the sinner dies there is no hope left of ever enjoying again a smile from God applause from the world refreshment from relations supplies from the creature sweetnesse from ordinances or ever lying in the shade of any relaxation In dying the sinners sun is set with all its beams of mercy and consolation the darknesse of the night of death as Joh. 9. â— death is called sometimes shall bury all colour of satisfaction or ease to the sinner In a word to close this Chapter Death in the generall is not mans conclusion but his initiation to joy or torment rather the budding then the withering of his being In death the 2 Cor. 5. 8. soul is neither must out nor rockt asleep death is but the Alarum of the soul to triumph or tribulation Death is not a gulfe but a gale not to drown the dying patient in but for him to passe thorough it can no more bury the soul then the grave could detaine the body of Christ Finally it is mans summons which cites both Saints and sinners before God the courtiers to attend and waite on his throne and the prisoners to heer and undergoe their doom CHAP. XIX Vse 2. of Terrour AND if our future condition be eternall What terrour should it strike into the hearts of all wicked men What do ye mean fond sinners Can ye hang in fiery chains for ever Remember your everlasting Mat. 3 12. condition your eternity the unquenchable fire Can ye undergoe a fit of the stone for a thousand years Or lie upon the wracke for a million of ages Can ye lie upon the points of needles for more ages then there are atomes in the Sun or drops in the Sea Can ye suffer scalding lead in your wounds in the raw gashes of your consciences for such a duration And what is this cold picture of misery to the damneds eternity Look with amazement Eph. 3. 17. on your future calamity unlesse by faith you hide your souls in the Mat. 25. 41. wounds of Christ Pray consider how dolefully will thae dismall voice sound Go ye cursed into everlasting fire The Martyrs fire turned them into Quam tristis vox est judex cum dixerit Ite ashes but the damneds shall not they shall be scorcht with everlasting flames be ever in the act of execution Can O aeternitas aeternitas tu sola ultra omnem modum supplicia damnatorum exaggeras ye endure ye delicate soft effeminated sinners who now cannot endure the buffeting of gentle blast of wind I say can ye endure to be stung with Serpents for as many ages as there are haires on your heads or to drinke the poyson of Aspes for as many centuries as there are sands on the shoar if ye can goe on in your licentious vanities Tell Quis dicere valeat quae impiis male viventibus tormenta sunt praeparata Cassianus me sinner when thou hast spent millions of yeares in torment what an agony will it be to recollect thou hast not spent a moment Shouldest thou lie to eternity on a bed of down how tedious how wearisome would it be how then canst thou lie on a bed of flames How wretched sinner canst thou hear the dolefull knell of an Adesse intolerabile Abesse impossibile everlasting funerall And will those transient glances of sin and pleasure thou hast enjoyed here make eternity spend the more delightfully shall thy enjoyments the bed and the banquet thy lust and luxury in rumination of them be any pastime in hell Remember if thou art Christlesse thou art to be prest to death for ever for ever And therefore awaken ye drowsy and secure sinners lest suddenly ye fall into infinite death Is it not more noble and plausible to swimme in tears then melt in flames The Saints under Potior est pâ—â—nitentia quam poena the Altar cry How long Lord holy and true Rev. 6. 10 11. But they shall wear white garments but how dolefully shall the damned cry how long
Nec qui torquet aliquando fatigatur nec qui torquetur aliquando moritur Bern. Their tragedy shall never be acted their painfull wounds shall increase as fast as they are made Let those voluptuous sinners who please themselves with varieties of musicks and harmonies here and as the Prophet speaks who chant to the sound of the Viall and invent to themselves instruments of musick Amos 6. 5. aske themselves the question Whether they can heare the scrietchings roarings and cursed blasphemies of a damned crew for ever Now to prosecute this particular use I shall handle it under two generall heads 1. I shall open the extremity 2. The eternity of the damneds torment For the extremity of the sinners future misery it will be demonstrated if ye will cast your thoughts on these five things considerable Consider the universality of the damneds misery and that under a Duplex damnatorum poena est in gehenna nam mentem urit tristitia corpus flamma Bern. double notion There is a twofold universality in the Reprobates calamity 1 An universality of the Patient every part of the damned shall undergoe insupportable torment every artery and vein in their bodies every faculty and power in the soul shall be excoriated and tortured with the pincers of Gods wrath 2. The souls of the reprobate which have been chief in sinning shall be chief in suffering and as the joyes of the soul surpasse the pleasures of the body so shall the misery of the soul the calamity of the body But let me give you a more particular anatomie of the souls torment 1. The understanding shall be cruciated Poenae damnatis secundum corpus secundum animam infligentur Corpus poenis variis quoad omnes sensus afficietur anima secundum omnes suas potentias cruciabitur Gerson and wrackt in that now it more clearly sees its vanity observes the sweetnesse of Gospel-mercy and the pretiousnesse of the offers of grace Now the understanding observes too late how dreggish and drossie those lustfull embraces sinfull dalliancies worldly profits and delicacies were he hath lost heaven and the soul for Now it sees more clearly how beautifull Christ was how tender his bowels and melting his compassion against which he spurned with so much refractory stubbornesse Now it animadverts how much of hell was wrapt up in the pill of the most plausible sin too late it observes the hand of the Devill in every temptation and God in wrath shall wipe all dust away from the glasse of the Reprobates understanding And what Scorpions will such animadversions be to the perplexed and pained understanding 2. The Will too shall be upon the invill of misery how will it then macerate the wils of the damned that now it hath no pleasure to feed upon No sinnes to cherish or pursue no grace or favour to abuse or withstand The will of the Reprobate that here was too free in its embraces of sin and vanity in hell in eternity shall be fettered and chained to a necessity of despaire and blasphemy The damned shall will nothing but self-destruction and murder which yet shall be impossible and God-provocation how to un throne Christ crucifie the Angels and if possible drown the Saints triumphant in the same deluge of horrour and confusion with themselves The wils of the Reprobates shall be as so many vultures to make every thing a prey 3. The affections of the reprobates shall be tormented even in this in having Affectus animae pedes nothing desirable and they which have been the feet of the soul shall be the fiends and furies of it And although here they bathed themselves in the sweets of sin and the creature For ah How did Ammon 2 Sam. 13. love his Tamar Judas the bag and 2 Sam. 16. 1 2. Absalon the crown yet these very desires in eternall misery shall be the vermine the plague the horse-leeches of the soul With what horrour shall the understanding behold its cursed and viperous affections which drinke up the poyson that now causeth so much smart 4. And the memories of the damned those wofull treasuries of all opportunities lost all mercies slighted time mispent sins committed favours abused Infandum reginajubes renovare dolorem Virg. shall be scorcht and wrackt with the wrath of God those dismall registers and records of Gods justice and the souls owne folly shall keep fresh vigorous and lively the torments of the damned in a constant reviewing of the causes of them And then all things acted in the flesh shall come into mind and fall within the hold of this cursed repository the memory Nay those very sinnes that on course without study or artifice had been forgotten by the sinner here 5. So the conscience shall not only be a thousand witnesses but a thousand Devils to the damned shall be a perpetuall worme corroding lacerating Mark 9. 48. and branding the reprobate then its wounds and checkes and scrietches shall be scrued to the height It shall in eternity be awakened from 2 Tim. 4. 2. all its searednesse stupidity and Continuus erit conscientiae remorsus assidua peccatorum perpetratorum ruminatio in anima Chemn swoones and shall feed its own torments it shall not sleep in hell All those artifices and wiles that the unconscionable sinner hath used to bribe flatter and smother conscience shall cease and faile in eternity There the pangs agonies convulsion fits and Dan. 3. 19. perplexities of conscience which here as firebrands were a present hell to the ghastly sinner shall as Nebuchadnezzars furnace be turned into a hotter flame In the everlasting condition of the damned conscience shall neither be gagged nor charmed but shall be Vermis rodens est morsus conscientiae perpetuus continuus ex peccatorum recordatione or tus rabida quaedam displicentia infructuosa poenitentia angor cordis maximus nunquam interruptus Ger. an ever-killing Basiliske to the reprobate and its tempests shall never be blown over as earthquakes never cease The sinner which sinned away all conscience here and seared it by habituall and constant wickednesses shall finde it in hell and it shall be sensible and tender enough and the wounds of it shall be ever kept open to receive the impressions of divine wrath It shall reverberateâ— all the sins of the damned upon the raw soul And now here I am enforced necessarily to dilate my self something and to open to you what a corroding painfull worme the conscience shall be to the tormented reprobate I shall only paraphrase a little upon this morsus conscientiae aking tearing gnawing biting of conscience and delineate this rigorous disease in some few particulars Conscience in hell it shall remember all its sins those thousands and millions of evils which here it may Omnia mala in memoriam recipiet conscientia Orig. be never fell within the glance or eye of our strictest observation those thousands of ranks
of guilt shall appear not only those internall corruptions those vipers which lodged in our breasts here and never broak the prisons but those extrinsecall abominations deeds of darknesse which clouded the sun it self All then shall arraign the soul at the bar of a tortured Luk. 8. 17. conscience Here the caitiffe miscreant is sometimes eased by oblivion but then all his vanity and violence shall stand as so many ghosts before him Conscience shall be but as the clear glasse to see all his deformities One sin shall not be behind the curtain shall not be annihilated or concealed the Damned sinner shall not do to his sins as Rachel did to her Gen. 31. 34. Gods hide them with a lying excuse No conscience in eternity shall give up all the whole beadroll of sinne Those numberlesse numbers of evils which would silence all Arithmetick to give the totall sum of them shall particularly and singly not only be observed and animadverted by conscience but give fresh and everlasting wounds to the tortured miscreant Every wanton glance proud look loose gesture vain thought unprofitable word every transient if unholy imagination shall not only be within the sad prospect of conscience but be continuall tortures to it Conscience in the damneds eternity shall remember all its sins in their greatest aggravations Then conscience shall Luk. 19. 42. feel what it was to refuse Christ to neglect heaven to pride the body and lose the soul Every extravagant thought in ordinances those Terme times for the soul every mispent minute shall be scrued to the highest Then wil come in what funshines what Heb. 2. 3. showrs what offers what means what manna the prodigal and frantick sinner hath trampled upon The conscience shall see all its guilt in bloudy colours in their just amplifications not as here they are palliated by Satan and misrepresented Gen. 3. 5. by the world curiously and cunningly extenuated by the sinner self Every sinâ—â—â—â—ll then be known to the conscience to be able to damne the soul dishonour the infinite God and shut men out of glory and sin shall then be aggravated with two dreadfull examples 1. Of Satans Angels how sin and for ought we know but 〈◊〉 sin discoloured their glory and sanke them into perpetuall contempt and misery and this will lash the conscience with Scorpions 2. Of the misery of eating one apple by Adam and that it should ingulf all posterity in one common desolation this likewise will fetch bloud from conscience Then indeed shall all sins against Scholastici docent morsum vermis longe superare ustionem ignis Ger. mercy means menaces light love checkes chidings prayers protestations appeare in their genuine colours to the sacrificed and tortured conscience The Conscience viz. in eternity shall remember all its sins as mixt with Gods wrath All the sins of the Reprobate shall be as Samsons foxes having Jud. 15. 4 5 c. firebrands at their tailes Here the sinner remembers sin notionally and God seems to connivâ—â—â— them but in eternity every sin shal◠〈◊〉 remembred and it shall be big with vengeance Every sin shall fall on and storme conscience fired with Gods indignation shall be a granado a fireball in the soul All recollected sins as all the sins of â—â—e damned shall be recollected shall be envenomed with punishment every vain thought shall have its sting its bullet in it and every idle word edged with Gods wrath shall excoriate the soul Then conscience shall remember every sin as unpardonable as being for ever incapable of forgivenesse and remission Conscience shall then look upon every sin as died in grain that shall never Vermis conscientiae tripliciter lacer abit affiget memoria sera turbabit poenitentia to quebit angustia Innoc. lose its colour its blacknesse its bloudinesse as that guilt which shall never be entombed in oblivion Of all the sins the consciences of the damned shall be burdened with not one the least of them shall either fall out of the remembrance or the revenge of the Lord. The massacred conscience shall look upon all its guilt as unremoveable for ever Not one sin of ignorance shall ever be overpassed the close venereall sin shall never lose its poyson but the conscience shall see its self ever to be tortured with the vultures of its own sins Here indeed in this life the awakening of conscience is a singular mercy and a rich priviledge and it doth accelerate and hasten the sinner to flie to the City of refuge Phil. 3. 9. the bloud of Christ whereby he may be freed from his stinging Serpents his sins and cured of the intolerable wounds of conscience but the awakened conscience in the eternity of misery shall look on the deluge of its guilt as that not one prop of it shall fall or ever be dried up But I cannot yet put a stop to my Contemplation on this subject viz. What a worme conscience will be in Animus aeger â—ale sibi consciâ—s semper est â—nfernus Luth. â—i diabolus non â—aberet malam conscientiam â—sset in coelo Id. hell and the rather because it may be the discussion of the wofull misery of the conscience of the damned in eternity may awaken the Conscience of some Reader here Further to amplifie the misery of the tormenting conscience of the Reprobates let be considered The intimacy of these gripes The soul shall be put into an everlasting agony Conscience is a bosome friend Erinnys Et quantum spiritualia bona excedunt corporalia tantum spiritualia mala in corde a flame in the spirit It is the fury in the closet Oftentimes here the conscience is on the wracke when none but God is the spectatour of that misery but in eternity conscience shall be fire in the inward man a soul torment it is not supplicium carnis but supplicium cordis not the punishment of the skin but of the soul And this aggravates the torment of conscience it shall cruciate fester and wrack the more noble more spirituall more capable more sensible and apprehensive part of Man the soul can drink in more punishment and more fully feel the burden and weight of it Its capacities are more extensive which is easily discernible in that it can enjoy the beatificall presence of God himself Ah! what measures of torture can this sublime piece of immortality take in The conscience of the damned is to be considered in the continuednesse of its torment No sleeping moment Nec moâ—â—â—ur vermis nec mâ—ratur sed semper corrodit peccatorem It shall be an ever awaking Lyon alwayes devouring yet never killing No rest no ease no slumber no pause shall mitigate the pain of conscience in miserable eternity These Scorpions of sin and guilt shall be ever tormenting the conscience No intermediate quiet the storme is perpetuall no vacation In hell there shall be darknesse Quocunque aspicias obviabit peccatum Basil
mischief as the wiseman saith which Prov. 6. 18. have chaunted after the viall as the Prophet speaks which have often Amos. 6. 4. posted to execute the commands of the inordinate will and sinfull affections which have pleased the wanton soul in its measures and dances shall in eternity be fettered with the burning irons and bear the shackles of ever-flaming wrath and be copartners with the rest of the body in a common execution 4. The heart of the reprobate which here hath been desperately wicked hereafter in eternity shall be intolerably tormented Here it hath been the cage of uncleannesse and hereafter it Jer. 17. 9. shall be the furnace of misery and every lust it hath harboured shall be Jer. 5. 27. turned into a Scorpion an Aspe a Mat. 15. 19. Fury here it was the sink of all those venemous principles the sinner acted by and hereafter it shall be the Sodome which shall be ever consuming Gen. 19. per tot with fire and brimstone and those very corruptions which here checkered the sinner shall hereafter cruciate him and what here was his pleasure shall in hell be his torture And so all parts of the body shall be wrackt in a perpetuall conflagration Then all the haughty looks of a sinner shall be taken down How little will the flames of hell respect the lovelinesse and beauty of those bodies which here they were painted with but as death and the wormes did not reverence the feature of their delicate bodies so neither will the flames of eternity spare their comelinesse And let these three things be subjoyned to this Argument All the parts nerves arteries every parcell and member of the body of the damned after the resurrection shall be all tortured together not by way of succession of priority or posteriority Here indeed diseases run from one part of the body to another and as some parts are full of so others are free from pain But no part of the bodies of the reprobate shall escape the seisure of Gods wrath and hell flames the vengeance of God shall be searching Mat. 25. 41. and tear every vein of the damned In ignem aeternum est totaliter non tantum corpus sed totum corporis All the members shall suffer in a common destruction There shall not be one sinew unstretcht it shall not be with the members of the body as with the sentinels that one should relieve another but as there shall be no relaxation so no exemption All the parts of the body shall be tortured with the extremest pain Indeed happily here some parts of the body have been more forward and froward in sin then others but in eternity every part shall be pullied up and scrued with the extreamest rigour and in the most insufferable perplexity As the Father speaks Adesse erit intolerabile The most choise tender delicate parts of the body which here it may be should not suffer the discourtesie of a gentle blast shall in hell Nunquam dei oculos memoriam manus effugere posset pecator Theoph. be excoriated and unbowelled by unspeakable and inexorable severity Those sost and curious parts of the body which the mimick Dames and proud Gallants of the world have indulged and enshrined in so much bravery shall in eternity suffer the most bloudy tragicall and everlasting execution nor shall the Ladies vail or the Curtizans maske secure their beauty when they shall have no other looking-glasse to see themselves in but the glasse of Gods severe and eternall wrath but the bodies of the most dissolved and effeminated sinners shall be wrackt with a generall torture Here age and diseases can wrinckle their lovelinesse and in eternity wrath and vengeance shall take away all ease and mitigation All the parts and members of the bodies of the damned shall be tortured without the least consumption of them Miseries shall not wast them shall corrode them but not consume them Here diseases do not only tire the spirits but waste the body the face loseth its colour the stomach its appetite the knees tremble with feeblenesse and the flesh melts away But though every part of the body in eternity shall be parched and scorcht with consuming fire yet nothing of its Heb. 12. 29. strength or capacity to endure torment shall for ever be abated for could the parts of the body sinke and gradually consume the whole in time would fall into an extinction which is a felicity God will never give the grant of to the damned reprobate And as all the parts of the bodies and faculties of the souls of the damned shall be tortured with misery for ever so all the senses shall bear their part in the inexpressible doom Those galleries which men so delightfully walke in here those windowes and perspectives of the soul through which the sinner often espies the Bathsheba whose beauty enthrals him those senses which sinners have so studied to bribe and gratifie Esau his tast Gen. 25. 30. Herod his eare Act. 12. 23. Ammon his eye 2 Sam. 13. 6. c. I say these senses which have been the inlets of sin the eye of Pride the tast of drunkennesse the hearing of curiosity vanity and errour c. Those senses which have been the spies of temptation to finde out the bait the panders of the heart to gratifie its lusts and ambitions the Nihil est in intellectu quod non prins fuit in sensu Arist alii false and treacherous sentinels of the soul shall in the dungeon of eternity not only be imprisoned from their pleasant liberty and recreative satisfactions they here enjoyed but be filled and fed with those miseries and distasts which are most noysome and abominable to their susceptible capacities as more particularly 1. The sight shall be cruciated and afflicted with many ghastly and distastfull objects Nihil nisi tremendum Oculi cruciabuntur Daemonum aspectu Ger. nihil nisi horrendum nihil nisi eavendum objectum erit visus Nothing but tragedies and tragicall executions the wounds and wasts the torments and tribulations and terrous of themselves and others shall be the everlasting object of the damneds view The rowling Quoad visum est ibi luminis privatio quod delectabile est oculis videre Gerson eye of the wanton sinner which often fed it self here with beautifull objects whether complexioned in a face or painted in the rarest prospects of the creature shall see nothing but what shall be the fountain of horrour and amazement And the bloudshot eye which diseased hath looked upon every object with malignity and envy shall see nothing but the perpetuall slaughters of doomed malefactours And 2. The hearing of the damned which Quoad auditum est ibi sonus horribilis gemitus miserabilis blasphemia execrabilis Id. it may be here was often raised and ravished with exquisite musickes and pleasing harmonies which oftentimes committed sensuall idolatry with the the Viall and Lute
or happily the receptive of errours and blasphemies or other perturbant affaires for which soul-work was laid aside shall be everlastingly tortured with the groans frights cries moanes scrietches revilings and blasphemies of a damned society That delicate eare which was so curious in its musicall apprehensions will then take up Jeremiahs wish Jer. 9. 2. that it were in a wildernesse to hear nothing but the ruffling of a few leaves or the murmuration of a few streames How dolefully will those self-cursing accents of the reprobate crew sound How mournfully the pitifull yet fruitlesse lamentation of the cast and condemned sinner How tragicall the roarings which shall be drawn from their inexpressible torture And 3. The smell of the Reprobates which here was so choyce in singling out its fragrancies and oftentimes the nosegay was laid in the bosome I say that Rev. 14. 10. smell which sometimes perfumed it self in an odoriferous bed of flowers and roses shall everlastingly be offended with the sent of sulphur and brimstone and that distastfull and noysome smell which the imprisoned reprobates shall evaporate Heliogabalus that Sardanapalus Petrod ' Mexia in Imper. Hist of Rome who here could not bathe himself but in waters sweetned with perfumes shall have nothing in eternity to refresh that sense but the stench of Gods eternall wrath And 4. So for the taste the criticall palat of sinners which here was so rare in its inventions how to please and Quoad gustum ab synthium amarus cibus Item fel draconum potus uva illorum uva fellis potus amarissimus fel draconum vinum eorum venenum aspidum insanabile intoxicate it self which often hath been non-plust which dish in the feast which dainty in the banquet to seize and prey upon which sometimes hath been at a controversie whether it hath pleased the Drunkard or the Glutton most shall in eternity drink and taste nothing but the cup of trembling the vials of Gods wrath the poyson of Aspes the vomit of Serpents and the spirits of Satans malice And 5. The touch which here was gratified with softnesse and effeminacy and was indulged with the finest coverlets which could not endure the smart of a wound the unkindnesse of a storme or the intolerablenesse of a spark shall be tormented with the most penetrative Mar. 9. 48. and wracking torments with Quoad tactum ibi est ignis urens vermis corrodens aestus insuperabilis frigor intolerabilis Gers flames which have intolerable heat but no light and with all those tortures which with most exquisitenesse can afflict that sense That sense which the Philosophers call the most common shall in the eternity of the damned be the common capacity of insupportable misery And thus for the first universality that of the Patient But further to draw this Map of misery I shall unfold and fall upon a second universality viz. That of Punishnent Not only every artery of the body every faculty of the soul I speak in reference to the damned every exertion of the sense shall live in an everlasting execution and Martyrdome if I may use the word But every imaginable misery omnigenous De poenis excogitari non potest quod ibi non erit Greg. multifarious innumerable calamities shall seise upon every particular The soul in its full capacities shall drink in all soul-torment and the body all corporeall tortures Every division of both if the soul may be parcelled shall lie under multitudinous extremities Ah! Consider this Psal 10. 22. all ye that forget God But not to traverse only universals Non mihi si linguae centum essent oraque centum Omnia poenarum percurrere nomina possem Virg. and to glance only at the torments of the damned in generall the usuall allotment and division of these pains are cast by Divines into three heads 1. The punishment of losse 2. The punishment of sense 3. The punishment of separation But the first and the last may seem to be coincident The punishment of losse consists in the deprivall that the damned undergoe Mille gehennas ponai nihil tale est quale est excludi a gloria dei odio haberi a deo Chrysost in regard of the presence of God and the unspeakable joys of heaven and this Divines have called the worst punishment and so indeed it must be because the good the reprobates are deprived of is infinitely Absentia Christi quoad visionem omnia alia tormenta superat omnibus poenis intolerabilior est Aug. more valuable then the paines the damned undergoe can be considerable The losse of God is infinite in reference to the object but the torments cannot be infinite because a finite creature undergoes them But only to touch on this sad particular besides the losse of God the damned shall lose The blessed society of Angels those first essayes of creating power the masterpieces of the whole fabrick of Vbi non habet locum dei gratia ibi nec obtinet gratiosa Angelorum praesentia Luth. the world those pieces of purity which never were deflowred with a sin The Courtiers of heaven Dan. 7. 10. The comforters of Christ himself Mat. 4. 11. The ministring Spirits who Sicut fumus apes faetor columbas abigit sic Angelos 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Basil wait on the Saints here as the Spouse of the Lord Jesus And this is intolerable misery and one particular of the damneds calamity As the Angel was not here their ministration so not in eternity shall he be their companion Here the Angell did not officiate to them nor hereafter shall he associate with them The rare and rich society of the glorified Saints The damned shall not Mat. 8. 12. be blessed with that glorious association Mat. 22. 13. The joyes perfections and persons Justi in manu Dei erunt peccatores in loco Diaboli justi cum Deo peccatores cum Satana Cyril Alex. of the glorious Saints shall not yeild a happinesse to the imprisoned reprobates The glorified Saints which here were the derisions shall not in eternity be the companions of the wicked which here was their scorne shall not then be their society Those pieces of immaculate perfection shall not be overshadowed with the sight much more with the communion of one reprobate miscreant The sinner that here avoided shall not in eternity be blessed with the company of the Saints The joyes rest and quietnesse of heaven all those felicities which bespangle glory it self whatever blessednesse arches heaven they shall be excluded Mat. 21. 13. the feast turned out of the Court expelled the bride-chamber shut out of Mat. 25. 12. Paradise and the skreen of Gods Job 20. 26. wrath shall stand everlastingly between them and the festivities of glory The reprobates shall never see Paradise in Nec sol nec luna nec stella videbitur una Leon. the Landskip of a single glance unlesse it
When 3. Rev. 21. they have sate in the same throne with Christ for millions of centuries the entail of their honour shall be as firme as the first moment There shall no tediousnesse interruption or close deflowre or surprise their joyes for ever The smiles and light of God and of Christ gloriously arrayed with the humane nature shall spring everlasting Halelujahs in the saints And the Spirit The Comforter shall shed an eternall 14. Rev. 2. 5. Rev. 8. dew of refreshment and delight on them And the Angels shall joyn their harpes in their everlasting and sacred felicity In a word The saints shall enjoy their Being for ever They shall live for ever in the Armes 17. Hos 3. Quid vita illa beatius est quod illic pauperiem non metuas aut morbum Chrysost of Jesus Christ There are three things destroy the life of Man 1. Externall Violence 2. Internal distemper and 3. Sin in an extraordinary Manner as Herod and Aarons sons c. Now none of these shall surprise the glorified saint sin Satan sorrow that Cerberus of mischief shall be excluded the Bridechamber The saints in glory are confirmed in their existence and life nothing in misery shall Kill the damned nothing in Heaven shall destroy the blessed The Apostle ascribes incorruptibility to the bodies of the Blessed 1 Cor. 10. 53. And the soul claims right to immortality by descent upon the suit of its own Nature The life of the saints in glory John 17. 3. shall be an inextinguishable lamp The saints in heaven shall weep no more much Rev. 7. 16. less die no more The life of the saints is the stock on which all their felicity grows Resuscitati similes Angelis qua non nupturi quia nec morituri sed transituri in statum Angeli cum per indumentum incorruptibilitatis Tertul. Erimus similes Angelis fulgebimus sicut ipse sol And. and the main pillar of all their happiness by which it is supported and could that taper be put out all their enjoyments would be entomb'd in silence and darkness Their beings are the susceptive capacities of all their honours and beatifical fruitions and therefore they must be immortalized with a perpetual spring and Vivacity and in this the Saints shall run paralel with the Angels their lives shall be enriched with the same perpetuity and perennity The Saints the glorified Ones those Patterns of perfection shall inherit their joy for ever their ravishments The joys of the wicked here is like the crackling of thorns but the joy of the blessed hereafter Psalm 16. 11. shall be as the shining of the sunne excepting Eccles ◠6. its setting and eclipses It were not fulness but emptiness of joy was it not eternal The sight of God shall tune their hearts into everlasting rapsodies Their Revel 4. 8. praises and triumphancies shall be the births of their joy for ever The saints shall Psal 96. 10. rejoyce as long as God shall smile and ravish them with a pleasant countenance which shall be to eternity God shall be a perpetual spring of life and of joy to the Visio Dei omnium bonorum gaudiorum coelestium sons est Ger. Saints The Saints shall Everlastingly rejoyce for the indulgencies of God for the possession of the Husband for the society of the Angels those joyous and glorious Spirits for their escape from misery and Everlasting Calamity Every glance of Gods eye Every sight of his will every smile from Christs face every touch of the Angels harps every distillation of the Spirit 's Comforts shall spring fresh joys to the glorified ones And the joys of the Saints must be subscribed with Eternity if we either cast our eye on 1. the confirmation of the Elect in good Or 2. the duration of Gods mercy and love John 13. 1. Or 3. the perfection of their own Exultabunt Sancti in gloria videbunt Deum gaudebunt laetabuntur delectabuntur fru entur gloria in felicitate jucundabuntur aeternâ Non labescent non senescent non putrescent amplius Cypr. happiness which could not be attained unless the joys of the blessed were wound up to eternity Nay the very nature of our eternal condition which admits no succession no vicissitude no fading no wast speaks these joyes eternal and demonstrates them Everlasting The Saints shall enjoy their Father for ever John 14. 2. Christ saith he is going home to prepare us Mansions in our Fathers house And this is Enough we shall see our Father when we die as Jacob said concerning his sonne Joseph before he died we shall enjoy him for ever Elisha as Elijah was departing from him cries My 2 Kings 2. 12. Quando veniam apparebo ante faciem tuam O dies nesciens vesperam nuilum timens occasum Aug. Father my Father Now the saints shall ever lie in their Fathers bosome They shall see the father of all their mercies and they shall bee banisht his sight no more Then shall the Saints fully and perfectly see how tender the bowels of a Father are Isa 49. 19. how soft the compassion of their gracious wise indulgent careful and bountiful Father is And God shall unriddle to the Saints all the traverses and circuits of his own Providence and how fatherly his love and care was though often it had the mask of mysteriousness the reward of affliction before it And what a Ibi erit omne bonum non erit aliquid malum ibi erit quicquid voles non erit quicquid noles Erit gaudium super gaudium gandium vincens omne gaudium extra quod non gaudium fountain of blessedness will this be that the Saints shall no longer cry out Our Father in a penitential petition and prayer but shall everlastingly feed and prey upon Paternal Smiles and lie in Paternal Embraces They shall for ever converse with their Father not on their Knee in a strange Land but with their eye in their Fathers Court. The saints shall enjoy their husband for ever the bride shall eternally enjoy her Bridegroom the beloved of her soul 22 Rev. 17. here the saints were sick of love for Jesus Christ 5. Cant. 5. and that feavour shall be satisfied with his company for ever This life was an unkinde wall an injurious lattice between Christ and the Saint and death having broke down this discourteous wall of separation the saints shall alwayes bath themselves in the loves of 17. Jo. 24. Christs presence Eternity shall be the eternall wedding day of Christ and his spouse How doth the poor believer here Cant. 17. 3. complain 1. Sometimes of frownes and unkind looks the smile is clouded and vailed 2. Sometimes of absence Christ Cant. 5. 6. hath retired and withdrawn himself And 3. Very often of various and different behaviour now loves now distast But in Eternity Christ shall ever look pleasingly and ravish the
a tempest to an everlasting tranquillity through a rough Sea to an eternall harbour There are three things sweeten affliction 1. The pleasure of a promise Isa 43. 2. The promises are the believers bladders to swimme through the highest waters of Marah of miseries They are 2 Pet. 1. 4. pretious not only in their futurition as they shall be dissolved and melted into reward but as they are present balme in the wounds of affliction pretious balsame to a groaning and troubled Saint 2. The smile of a God that cannot only mitigate affliction and allay the pain of it but transforme the Serpent of misery into a blossoming rod of consolation the favour and smile Psal 119. 67. of Christ cannot only pare an affliction Psal 23. 4. take off the noxious skin of it and take out the sting the torment of it but can change the nature of it and turn a perplexity into a perfume into an advantage Can make the melancholy face of trouble it self look pleasant 3. The thoughts of eternity these contemplations Guttatim poend sumitur liquando bibitur per minutias transit In re muncratione torrens est voluptatis fluminis impetus inundans laetitiae flumen gloriae flumen pacis Bern. can carry up the soul above and make it look beyond trouble All the distresses of a Saint in the world they are but as one fit of the stone compared to eternity they are a little foul weather and plashie dirty way in his journey to a glorious eternity One moments fruition of eternall joy shall take away the smell of all our troubles here the very memory of these flashes of affliction shall not remain in eternity unlesse it be to enlarge the extasie of joy In all thy flames of trouble remember eternity what is this teare this sigh this single groan of misery to an Ocean of satisfaction when I shall sail upon a sea of boundlesse and endlesse mercy This moment as the Prophet speaks Isa 54. 8. this flash of lightning to an endlesse state When I have passed millions of ages in a blissefull everlastingnesse will this transient recollected What darknesse or woe doth Jeremiahs dungeon or Jobs Jer. 38. 6. dunghill cast upon their glorified souls Job 2. 8. now shipt upon the Ocean of a blessed eternity or doth the stench of either offend those enthroned Spirits Meditations on eternity would make the oil of gladnesse to swimme above the water of affliction There are four Questions one should aske his soul in the time of trouble 1. Quest 1 What is the spring of these bitter waters where is the fountain head Every one should then search for the Josh 7. per tot Achan What causeth this earthquake this perplexity Christians in affliction Psal 239. 23. should fadome their own hearts search their own wayes and observe what is it that jarres their prosperity and the harmony of it This is the first Question What is it that springs a leake in my happinesse 2. Quest. 2 What is the end of these thunderbolts these troubles which now are fallen upon me and seised upon me as an armed man What aime what errand have these miseries The rod speakes something as the Prophet Mic. 6. 9. hath it what is its language Every one should read the superscription of his trouble see the contents of his affliction and so answer Gods letter in it 3. Quest 3 What may be the improvement of this trouble how shall I refine it and make use of it to my spirituall good How shall I make it ancillari gratiae wait on my souls felicity How shall I turn this misery into gold by a rare Chymistry This should be another question As Manasseh 2 Chron. 33. 13. who turned his fetters into golden chains by holy and serious repentance But 4. Quest 4 What is this trouble to eternity this evaporating sparke to an everlasting condition How inconsiderable this gentle and short gale to a perpetuall estate Am I in Christ Is my everlasting estate sure Is the bond of God sealed to me Am I enrolled in the new covenant Hath Christ left me his bloud for a legacy Have I searched his will and found my name in it Is my name written Luk. 10. 20. in the book of the Lamb and transcribed in the volume of heaven Then what is this transient fit of misery this short-breathed affliction to my endlesse boundlesse and bottomlesse felicity Nay the very thoughts of eternity would yeild some comfort to the wicked in their calamities here in that they would re-inforce the industry of the sinner to get an interest in Christ that being tortured in present calamities he might find rest in eternity Thoughts of eternity would be Spirits in duty I hear for eternity I pray for eternity if I pray not my self into the sweets of Christs bosome I shall fall into the flames of Gods Joh. 9. 4. wrath what heat would eternity beget what zeal resolution invincible and unanswerable buldnesse in all our duties Now are my prayer-seasons Sermon-seasons and my everlasting estate depends on the good improvement of them How would this fire animate and awaken our soules in all ordinances and in all our services I now wrestle I now fight for eternity * Thalami in Sancta Ecclesia sunt illorum corda in quibus animae per amorem sponsae invisibili conjunguntur ut ejus desiderio mens ardeat praesentis vitae longitudinem poenam deputet Mens itaque quae jam talis est nullam praesentis seculi consolationem recipit sed ad illam quam diligit medul litus suspirat fervet anhelar anxiatur Vilis sit ipsa salus sui corporis quia transfixa est vulnere Amoris Greg. Hom. the crown lies at stake my everlasting joy and rest Mariners in a storme how do they pump work sweat throw overbord their lumber nay their richest Merchandise because their lives are concerned When thou hearest or prayest remember Thy eternity stands in competition Had those damned spirits who have tasted of the miseries of eternity but a renewed capacity of duty to pray and hear again how would they nail their eyes to heaven in holy contemplation chain their knees to the earth in prayer and turn their flesh into iron in a constant adoration as one in the Primitive times Eternity would make zeal leap in the wombe of duty And it is worth our considerations What a short breath would our duties be were our life but one constant service Did we seriously thinke of our future eternity it would be a good cure for all our frothinesse drowsinesse carelesnesse formality coldnesse indifferency infrequency extravagancy in duty Such thoughts would inflame the heart raise the minde fire the spirit set on worke the affection nay spiritualize and sublimate the body it self in holy services As Archimedes who was so intent on his Mathematicall studies that he heard not the Souldiers when they came
to his study-door to kill him Ah! what intention heat bent and abstraction of minde would these contemplations produce Doest thou complain poor soul of thy coldnesse and deadnesse in duty cast thy thoughts on eternity Canst thou sleep on the scaffold or on the block remember thou rowest and runnest for thy life nay for thy eternall life if thou givest God any rest now he will give thee no rest hereafter what sedulity diligence holy passionatenesse importunity and violence would these serious meditations fill and bespangle duty with Thou now actest soul for eternity storm heaven now or thou are undone for ever yet a little while and thou shalt pray no more for ever the thoughts of our everlasting estate would make us turne Anchorets in duty and scale heaven it self with holy and impetuons importunity There are four things are great spurres to duty 1. Obedience to our liege Lord. Cant. 2. 4. 2. Communion with our dear husband 3. Increase of our pretious graces And 4. Especially the thoughts of our everlasting condition These would wing our duties Ah! what hours do we spend in vanity But do we pray and cry as for our everlasting condition Serious and cool thoughts of eternity would easily cut the vein and wash off the paint of formality in our services and let this come in to re-inforce the argument Our communion with God in duty here is but glory it self in the swadling-cloathes and our enjoyment of God above is but communion sublimate With what irresistible force doth thirsty Samson Jud. 19. 18. send up his prayers to heaven that God would quench his thirst and not his life his life I say which was but a twinkling taper that would soon fall into the socket how should our prayers be plumed and fledged that wrestle for eternity Why stand ye idle Christians will not a few drops of holy sweat here be sufficiently compensated with everlasting delight Eternity well studied will be an invincible argument to seriousnesse and circumspection in life It is with men as with Mariners in the Ocean if they be thrown overboard there is no recovery here is a few paces to walk and then we come to an endlesse condition Observe the serious phrase of the Apostle Seeing then that all these things shall be 2 Pet. 3. 11. dissolved what manner of persons ought we to be in all holy conversation and godlinesse observe What manner of persons Can Beatos vocat Christus homines electos studio zelo gloriae fervidos ardore salutis flagrantes Par. in cap. 11. ver 12. Mar. not we tread even for a few paces now walke purely now act zealously now live fruitfully ye are going to eternity observe our lives what a narrow passage they are to eternity how narrow a ford how small a river to lanch over what not live piously a few houres I commend not the anchoret life of many for man is as the Philosopher saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a communicative and sociable creature and the capacities of doing good are especially to be found in a community yet certainly those deceived souls minded eternity they were willing by austerity to prepare themselves for their everlasting condition Ah! how severely should we live we are going to a bottomlesse estate Christ asketh the question to his drowsie disciples Will not ye watch with me one houre so Mark 14. 37. may I say Will ye not walke strictly for a few moments ye shall presently be on the shoare of everlastingnesse what not keep close to God for a little little time We walke not over a bridge but with great care and circumspection What is our life but only the short narrow bridge to eternity Indeed eternity might bribe our sanctity and holinesse upon this account We shall finde all our prayers and tears holy and close walking with Rev. 14. 13. God put to usury in eternity Our lives are but like candles in the socket and cannot ye watch worke weep pray act and live holy while this faint light is out Our life is compared to a race and those that run do neither stop nor sleep nor fall nor step aside because the race is but once the prize is for ever our race is but once and it is a short Ah! So run that ye may obtain The 1 Cor. 9. 24. thoughts of eternity would cause us to make a covenant with our tongue as David did Psal 39. 1. With our eyes as Job did Job 31. 1. with our palate and taste as the wise man counselleth us Prov. 23. 31. and summon the whole man to a grave and solemn deportment Our lives are but a short Winters day which will soon be shut in and cannot we a little follow the lanthorne of Gods word the Sun Psal 119. 105. of Gods glory the guidance of Gods Spirit the winter day will soon be buried in the darknesse of a night but eternity knowes no evening The poor sentinell watches carefully undergoes the terrors of the night the frightfulnesse of the darke the fears of an alarme the unkindnesse of the seasons cheerfully because he knowes he shall soon be relieved Ah! watch and pray keep your Luk. 21. 36. guards and shortly ye shall be relieved for ever and be swallowed up in eternall victory And this argument will receive strength if we consider but three things 1. If we miscarry we are lost for ever if we walke not holy live piously tread evenly non ratione perfectionis sed ratione sinceritatis not in reference to perfection but sincerity we are thrown overboard into a sea of endlesse misery and will the flames of eternall wrath and indignation be proportionable to a few transient miscarriages and let us remember we shall never react this life Yet 40 days and Nineveh shall be destroyed saith the Prophet yet a few moments Jon. 3. 4. and the miscarrying wombe of this life may not only be abortive and barren but in travell of pain and misery for evermore Now live according to rule lest ye die for ever according to justice 2. All our holinesse shall be rewarded for ever non ratione meriti sed ratione gratiae not of merit but of grace and every tear in the bottle every prayer on the file every accepted service Rev. 14 13. and every perfumed duty shall be remunerated with advantage the sacrifices of believers washed cleane in the bloud of Christ shall wear the laurell of everlasting felicity Every sparke of zeal every act of grace every regular pace that the Saint takes shall Psal 56. 8. come in for a childs part in glory why doth God bottle if he would bury the teares of a believer 3. In eternity we shall be incapable of unholinesse there feares of errour or fall shall be obsolute There can be no by-paths in Paradise In this life Erimus in coelo 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Naz. is the place of thy pious feares holy cares religious