the day of Judgment and then to rise again with the Body to receive the reward of good or evil They were as good tell us in plain terms the Soul dies with the Body for this sleep is so like death as I know not how to distinguish it from Death How a pure Spirit as the Soul divided from the Body is can fetch a sleep of one or two thousand years I cannot understand and I believe they as little Let them shew us what kind of sleep this is and some warrant in Scripture for it and then I shall willingly hearken to them and submit my Soul to sleep with theirs not otherwise For I shall not easily quit the comfort St. Paul gives us at death That we shall depart hence and be with Christ for which he desired to be dissolved not to enter into so dead a sleep as would make his condition no better than of a dead block He tells us also he was in a streight betwixt two Whether to stay and preach the Gospel to others or to depart and be with Christ which was far better for himself Surely he that had so passionate a zeal to gain Souls unto Christ would never have thought it far better to sleep a thousand years than to gain a thousand Souls Thus to dye was a dull stupid gain much disagreeing with his Active Soul and as much disagreeing with the clear current of Scripture What can be clearer than those words of our Saviour unto the Thief on the Cross This day thou shalt be with me in Paradise Which must needs be understood of his Souls living after the death of his Body on the Cross For sure our Saviour took not the Thiefs Soul into Paradise to sleep with him but to rejoyce with him there Had Christ intended sleep he would rather have said This night thou shalt be with me in Paradise I suppose the main cause that moves them to this sleepy Imagination is Their Wisdom thinks it not reasonable that the Souls of men should at death receive the Recompence of Good or Evil in Heaven or Hell and thence come out again to the General Judgment having before past their Particular Judgment I wish these over-wise men would leave these matters to the Wisdom of God to determine for my part I shall determine no more than the Scripture plainly declares viz. That the Souls of good men after death have some happy being where with St. Paul they enjoy Christ frequently at least if not always The Souls of wicked men some miserable Being at a vast distance from the godly divided by an unpassable Gulf as Dives was from Lazarus but whether these places be the Heaven of heavens and the Hell of hells I will not now dispute but shall in a short time certainly know In the interim I rest satisfied with S. Paul's Assurance That death will be a gain and convey me to some place where I shall enjoy Christ my Blessed Redeemer We have yet another Generation of men who call themselves Christians and would be called Wits but I can call them neither they having no belief in the Promise of Christ for a future life but make a mock of this as an idle Dream 'T is strange that men who have so high a conceit of themselves should make use of their wit thus to debase themselves Certainly this is great folly God hath made Man but a little lower than the Angels by giving him an eternal Soul but they by denying the Eternity of the Soul make themselves as low as Beasts their Soul dying with their Body without hope of future life If you ask them a reason for their Opinion their Sense is their Reason they see no other life therefore they believe no other Really I could never yet hear any thing else objected Thus they believe according to Sense and live according to Sense very Beasts in all but stupendious Wits 'T is true when a Man dies and a Beast dies we see no more of man remaining than of the Beast But shall we be such Beasts as to make no use at all of our Reason Doth not our Reason evidently shew us that there is a vast difference betwixt our Soul and the Soul of Beasts by the many wonderful Arts and Sciences which man arrives unto of which Beasts are not capable in the least degree And we may farther urge the Metaphysical Speculations and Spiritual Contemplations of the Soul wholly independant of the Body which strongly proves the subsistency of the Soul independant of the Body as the Learned well understand For an Action presupposes the being of the Actor But this is an Argument too Scholastick for this Assembly therefore I shall not here enlarge upon it Though methinks these men who would be thought Masters of Wit and Reason should be ashamed of their Ignorance in this the Master-part of Reason But Beasts they would be and so let them be unfit to consort with knowing wise men who in all Ages all the World over had this belief of a future life which being so universal must needs proceed from the instinct of Nature which is nothing else but an inner light infused into the Soul of Man by God the Creator together with a feeling and pleasing expectation of future Felicity Thus far Heathens went But we Christians have a farther and much clearer light from our Saviour Christ who plainly taught this and evidently confirmed it by innumerable Miracles which he did in his life and chiefly by his rising again after death so fully attested Do not the Laws of God and Man in all Nations receive for truth whatever is witnessed by two or three But if twenty persons affirm upon Oath what they themselves have seen all twenty being men of unsuspected credit who then doubts the truth thereof Had any one of these perverse faithless Wretches an Estate to recover witnessed for them by twenty or ten or two sufficient Witnesses and should be deprived of it would they not make great out-crys of Injustice Have not we then most just cause to cry out against these unjust Judges that would deprive us of our heavenly Inheritance attested for us by twenty a hundred five hundred most credible persons who all at once were eye-witnesses of our Saviours being risen from the dead most whereof testified the same not with Oaths but with their Deaths and joyfully died in full assurance of this heavenly Inheritance And what these men were eye-witnesses of they declared unto others and so from hand to hand conveyed it for many hundred years together and in every year downwards from the Apostles hundreds and thousands continually attested the same by suffering many grievous Torments and cruel Deaths Was there ever any thing so attested in the whole World or was there ever any thing so perversly so madly denied Are not these men as St. Austin saith Miracles of Unbelief For really it seems impossible in nature that men should so unnaturally deny a thing attested by
and found honey in the jaw thereof So far was Death from being a terrour to St. Paul that it was his delight and could endure to be killed all the day long as he expresses Rom. 8.36 And after all crys out We are more than Conquerers We not only overcome but rejoyce in that we are thought worthy to suffer for Christ Christ is the Prize his heart is set upon to that he hastens Death it self stops not his course And now I come to that which far surpasses all I have yet said Such was the transcendent love of St. Paul as that Christ's glory might be encreased and many Souls gained unto Christ he was content to give up not only his Body unto Death but his Soul also even to eternal Death and become Anathama a Curse for them So high a pitch of Divine Love and Charity as never any man before but Moses arrived unto nor ever any man after as we find Hic terminus esto Had it not been for this the Jews might have out-bragg'd us with their great Captain and Deliverer from Egypt Moses who for the good of his People was content to be blotted out of the Book of Life How would they have triumphed could they have out vyed us with a Saint of the Old Law boasting his Charity as far above any of ours as Saul was by the head and shoulders above all the People and insultingly cry Toto vertice supra est But God hath taken away this Reproach from us to whom he hath given not only a Chief Captain and Saviour Christ Jesus far to surpass their Deliverer Moses but another also to equal him this great Apostle of the Gentiles St. Paul who deliver'd more thousands from a far more miserable Thraldom captivated under Satan and brought them to the heavenly Jerusalem For the Salvation of whose Souls he was as ready as Moses to give up his own and be blotted out of the Book of Life And now if you please we will erect here two Tabernacles or two Pillars with a Ne plus ultra one for Moses and one for Paul But I pray let us take care to build them according to St. Paul's Directions who would have all done to Edification that these may be not only Trophies to them but Instructions to us to the end we may in some measure follow their godly example For I fear that many look on these stately Pillars of God's Church as we now a days look on the Ancient Colossuses of Egypt They at first as Pierius and other Writers relate were erected full of Figures and Emblems to teach the People Morality and Divinity but this Emblematical Science being now antiquated and forgotten we gaze on them as Wonders only not one jot the better or the wiser by them And just so these goodly Pillars of the Church we much admire but learn very little from them and not at all endeavour to imitate them That 's beyond our power And why beyond our power Were not Moses and Paul men of the same flesh and blood with us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 men of like passions subject to the same infirmities with us Did not St. Paul Rom. 7.18 confess That in his flesh dwelled no good thing And 2 Cor. 12.7 did he not complain to the Lord of a Thorn in his flesh and Satan given to buffet him sharp Temptations and great oppressions But what did the Lord answer him My Grace is sufficient for thee Let not thy weakness make thee despond and cause thy fall My strength shall be made perfect in thy weakness and shall bear thee up against all opposition And Paul confiding in this Promise of the Lord was kept up and overcame the Temptation surmounted all Difficulties whatsoever and no man ever met with more Therefore in another place Phil. 4.13 he boasts THAT through Christ he could do all things Why then may not other men of the same corrupt flesh and weak infirmities with Paul through Christ do the same things which Paul did Do all things Is the Grace of God infeebled that it cannot strengthen Is the Arm of the Lord shortned that it cannot save Or is the hand of the Lord closed that he will not give Ask and it shall be given you seek and ye shall find knock and it shall be opened unto you Mat. 7.7 said the same Lord that enabled Paul to do all things And can he deceive Will He fail to make his Promise good No certainly But we do ask and seek we daily pray yet we continue as frail and weak as ever And why Because we do not ask in Faith We do not believe God is now so bountiful to confer such wonderful Grace Why not now Is not God the same yesterday to day and for ever God is no Changeling but we are we are turned aside from the holy Commandment we do not love God with all our heart nor with half of it the World hath three quarters at least God but a small pittance the Pomp and Glory of this World the carnal desires of the Flesh have wholly possest our hearts Would God freely ask us as he did Solomon what we desired whether we would have Dignity and Wealth or Grace and Vertue whether we would be Croesus or Paul Croesus Croesus would be the loud cry and carry it clear from Paul a hundred for one Can we then expect that God will pour down his precious Grace on us to make us Pauls who care not to be Pauls but would cast away his heavenly Grace for worldly Wealth Really I fear there are not three persons here of all this Assembly that would be Pauls if they might No no the Pleasures the Riches which Paul chearfully abandoned and counted as dung we eagerly pursue and highly esteem the Sufferings and Afflictions which he rejoyced in we tremble at We are a faithless and faint-hearted Generation we will not fight the good Fight of Faith there is not one spark of Christian Ambition in us we are no way worthy to bear the name of Christian Souldiers much less of Captains and Pauls but deserve rather to have our names quite blotted out of the List It was handsomly said of Henry the Fourth of France Did he know any Souldier in his Army that did not hope to be a Captain or any Captain that did not hope to be Captain-General he would presently cashier him But all can't be Captains 't is true but all may aim at it and then as Tully saith Honestum est prima sequentem in secundis tertiisve consistere 'T is honorable for him who aims at the Chief if he arrive to the second or third degree and there sit down This was the way St. Paul took as he tells us Phil. 3.13 Forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forth unto those things which are before I press towards the mark for the prize of the high Calling of God in Christ Jesus Christ was the mark he aimed at not that he hoped
to come up fully to it yet pressed towards it But alas we have no such aim not a thought that way we press not towards Christ our Captain-General nor towards this Great Captain St. Paul nor any thing like it we had far rather be Pioneers to dig and moyl in the Earth to cast up Banks and raise Bulwarks of earthly Riches that we may skulk under them and avoid all Gun-shot or be Wagon-Drivers to attend on the Carriages of Provision Like the base Israelites that drew back and would not follow their Noble Captain Moses but still hanker'd after the Flesh-pots of Egypt the Belly-comforts as most of us do Our Ambition reaches no higher than to arrive to a full measure of those lustful sordid delights which the meanest and foulest Beasts enjoy as fully as any man can do What wretched thoughts are these for Men of Honour The steam of these Flesh-pots have so blinded our eyes so stupified and besotted our brain that like men bereft of common sense we can't discern betwixt Light and Darkness Vertue and Vice Honour and Shame but all is turn'd into a Chaos of Confusion For shame let us rouse up our selves out of this deadly Lethargie let us shew we have some sparks of Honour and true Nobility in us Nobilitas sola est atque unica virtus Vertue is the only true Nobility a Heathen said it Consider then the high price of our Calling far above Heathens We are called Christians Sons of the Ever-living God Fellow-heirs with Christ Heirs of the Kingdom of Heaven Let us walk worthy of this Vocation wherewith we are called not in Rioting and Drunkenness not in Chambering and Wantonness not in Strife and Envy worse then Heathens But in Sobriety Chastity Charity as good Christians If we can't walk with St. Paul Passibus aequis and keep up close with him yet let us Corde fervido hasten after and press towards him We serve a gracious God who will accept of desires for deeds A bruised Reed shall he not break and the smoaking Flax shall he not quench but rather enflame it Take a Candle newly put out and yet smoaking bring it near a flaming Candle the flame of that will descend by the smoak of the other and set it on fire So would we but with hearts like smoaking Flax draw near unto God his Holy Spirit would descend and set them a flaming Oh then let us earnestly desire at least and endeavour with St. Paul to live to Christ and the infinite mercy of God will accept us and enable us to live to Christ and then doubtless our death will like St. Pauls be gain unto us whereof I am now to treat To die is gain Many in times of Paganism considering the small and momentary pleasures men enjoy in this life the grievous and durable miseries men suffer all which death delivers them from did thereupon conclude death to be a great advantage and a wonderful gain 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So Plato in Apo. Socr. And Cicero de Fin. who in all things followed Plato called death Portum malorum perfugium aerumnosae vitae A Haven and Shelter from a tempestuous miserable life But Zeno the Stoick-master shall make answer to this affirming That there is no misery in this life but as we make it so and that a wise Philosopher is always happy in all conditions And a Disciple of his Seneca discourses the same at large shewing how the riches of the mind are much improved by noble Sufferings and these being of a far greater value than any earthly riches the noble Sufferer is happy by enlarging these though his Body or Estate suffer detriment And then the Conclusion must be That death can be no gain First because it deprives a man of life which is a good thing of its self and secondly it robs us of the opportunity to encrease the riches of the Soul which true Philosophers improve by Sufferings I doubt Plato and Cicero and such Academicks would be foully pusled to answer from Natural Reason these Arguments of Zeno and Seneca and the rest of the Stoicks But I will leave them to canvas and justle one another in the dark for truly I can't approve the Opinions of either party or their Principles For life being a natural pleasing thing I can't think it any gain to quit it without the assurance of a better life which Philosophers had not Nor can I think there 's any happiness merely in Sufferings though ever so gallant 'T is true a man should bear them like a man but this makes not a happy man if no recompence follow And though the Stoick Anaxarchus pun'd in a large Morter affirm'd he was there happy and defied the Tyrant Nicocrean saying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Bruise the Case of Anaxarchus thou canst not bruise nor touch the hidden Jewel therein my Soul Yet I believe could he have leap'd out of the Morter and escaped the Tyrant he would not hastily have leapt into it again to renew that happiness These are brave flourishes of the Pen whilst men sit at ease in their study or a good face put on the matter when a man is so fettered in an evil as he sees no possibility to escape then 't is better to brave it gallantly like a Lyon than to dye sneakingly like a Cur. But let us now see St. Pauls Philosophy we shall find it much better Thus far he agrees with the Stoicks that there is no such misery in this life but that men may receive benefit by it All things work together for good Rom. 8.28 But to whom To all men No But to them that love God who for God's sake bear it patiently and by God shall be rewarded liberally and thus all things work together for good to them that love God But not to them who know not God much less love him For if there were no gracious God to recompence our Sufferings no other life after this to receive the reward then saith St. Paul were we Sufferers of all men most miserable 1 Cor. 5.19 Sure very miserable to be made the filth of the World the off-scouring of all things 4.13 And though St. Paul agrees likewise with Plato That death is a wonderful gain Yet not in it self as in putting off this house of Clay for any house is better than no house but as death is a passage to a better house A house not made with hands eternal in the Heavens 1 Cor. 5.1 And he desires to depart not so much to be rid of the present Misery as to be with Christ the only true Felicity And though life here be good yet To be with Christ is far better Phil. 1.23 Thus you see how much wiser and better Christianity is than Heathen Philosophy which at best is but Gallant Folly But we have some Christian Philosophers who endeavour to lessen much our gain by death telling us a fond Dream of their own Brain viz. The Souls sleeping at death till
A SERMON Preached in LENT before the KING AT WHITE-HALL By the Right Reverend Father in GOD HERBERT Lord Bishop of Hereford LONDON Printed for Charles Harper at the Flower-de-Luce over against St. Dunstan's Church in Fleetstreet 1676. PHIL. 1.21 For to me to live is Christ and to dye is gain HE that ponders well this saying and the Author of it will stand amazed at the strange and miraculous Operation of the Grace of God To me to live is Christ c. I have no other thought no other delight but Christ As the Hart desireth the Water-Brooks so longeth my Soul after Christ My life without him is worse than death and death with him is a gain beyond life A very passionate and wonderful Affection And who is this so passionately in love with Christ 'T is Paul the Apostle Where 's then the Wonder Who more full of fervent Expressions towards Christ Wherefore I tell you 't is Saul the Persecutor he that but even now breathed nothing but Wrath and Vengeance against the Servants of Christ now breathes nothing but the love of Christ Is not this a wonderful change But the manner of this change is yet more wonderful For how was he reconcil'd and so firmly united to Christ Was it after the manner of men by Gifts Honours Advancements Possessions c. This is our way especially with men of Spirit and Resolution violent and compulsary ways do but exasperate and harden such and the Rule is general Oderunt quem timent Men hate whom they fear But let us see how Christ deals with Saul who was riding on as furiously as Jehu to Damascus to oppose Christ and destroy his Disciples Christ at first dash tumbles him down to the Earth strikes him blind And though afterwards he restored him his sight yet 't was as a Worldling would think on very hard Conditions to forsake all Wealth Honour Friends Country and go preach the Gospel to Infidels And what 's his Reward for his great Labour and Travel Reproaches Fetters Whips Stones And is this the way to beget Love or rather to convert great Love into great hatred Is it not then very true which the Lord said Isa 55.8 My thoughts are not your thoughts neither are your ways my ways Christ casts Saul's body to the Earth but elevates his Soul to Heaven covers his corporal eyes with blinding scales but takes the darkening veil from his spiritual eye discovers unto him the infinite Love and Goodness of his Saviour whom he so blindly persecuted and giving him a ravishing taste of his Divine Sweetness Saul is become Paul the Persecutor an Apostle and so zealous a Disciple as he knows no other delight no other joy but Christ for his sake he gladly quits all gladly suffers all And now to him to live was Christ and to die for Christ was a gain beyond all To me to live is Christ c. I have hitherto by way of Preface shewed you the wonderful love of St. Paul to Christ which was not a languishing idle Passion but Amor efficax An efficacious operating Love like active Fire which converts every thing into the same nature So this Divine Flame infused into the breast of Saul converted the whole man into a new Creature His earthly carnal Nature is now become spiritual and divine for so St. Peter expresses it That by Grace we are partakers of the Divine Nature 2 Pet. 1.4 This seems to carnal men a thing wonderful and incredible and yet we have daily before our eyes effects in some measure as wonderful but the frequency of them takes away the wonder and instead of admirable renders them scarce considerable Do not we see the same earth converted into various substances by the diversity of Seed cast into it and from thence spring up Corn Tares Flowers Weeds Grass Thistles all out of the same Earth Such is the efficacious power of the little Seed as each one works such a total change in the Earth that our Brain would never conceive it possible were not our eyes daily convinc'd of this Truth Should any man come and tell us That in the Indies 't is common to file Iron into dust and to sow it and from thence in a short time to spring forth a plentiful Crop of Iron-bars should not we esteem him a large talking Traveller and let this pass for a mere Fable And I pray why Is it not more probable from Iron-dust to spring up Iron than from a little dry black Kernel to sprout forth a tall moist green Twig thence bud forth Leaves then curious Blossoms then lovely pleasant fruit Certainly this in appearance is a much more improbable change and would be less credible were it not daily visible So should I come to some carnal covetous Wretches or to some debaucht lustful Youths and tell them That would God be so gracious as to sow in their corrupted earthly hearts the Seeds of his Divine Grace there would spring forth from thence most vigorous Branches laden with rich and lovely Fruits of Temperance Chastity Meekness Mercy Charity the money they now hug so close they would then scatter abroad among the poor the Epicurean delights they now greedily hunt after then offer'd they would reject the painted Beauty they now adore they would then contemn and in fine it would work so strange a Transformation in them as to make them love Lowliness and Poverty Hunger and Thirst Cold and Nakedness Imprisonment and Stripes any thing for Christ's sake and to rejoyce more in these than in any carnal Pleasure they ever enjoy'd Think you would they not rank me with the large talking Travellers and think this the veriest Fable in the World No doubt on 't Yet blessed be God such is the powerful Operation of his heavenly Grace as it hath often wrought these wonderful Conversions in men of the foulest carnal temper Zacheus a Publican to give half his Goods to the poor Matthew the Publican to forsake all Mary Magdalen the Sinner of the City made the Saintly Penitent of the World the furious Persecutor Saul the most fervent Apostle Paul who did neither care to enjoy nor so much as know any thing saving Christ and him crucified 1 Cor. 2.2 And to gain Christ how readily did he quit all even in the Infancy of his Conversion yea counted all but as dung so he might gain Christ As dung which with loathing a man hastily casts from him far from affectionately seeking them This was the first step of his Giant-pace wherewith he began his course towards Christ At the next stride he passes over Kindred and Friends his Brethren according to the flesh they are all now become his Enemies they daily plot mischief and muster up all their Forces against him and though Death like a Cannon planted in the Rear stands ready with open mouth to devour him yet he is less terrified with that grim Visage than Sampson with the Lyon which he rent in pieces like a Kid