then other things so will it be a brighter demonstration of the wisdom and power of God and that in which he shall be more admired then in other things When I have opened your graves and brought you out from them and put the spirit of life into you that looked upon your selves as dry ones past all hope of life saith God to the house of Israel Ezek. 7.11 12 then shall you know that I am the Lord then emphatically then more fully and clearly so as to acknowledge and to admire it and give glory to me c. 4. That they might not be alwaies under evill he orders this for their good as well as for his own glory for his glory in their good and great mercy and goodnesse it is to them to be taken away from the face of evill as the phrase is in Isa 57.1 2. Mipna baragna◠2 Pet. 2.7 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a facie mali here they live amongst an evill generation of wicked men that vex and disquiet their righteous souls as the Sodomites did righteous Lot men that oppose and blaspheme God in his way truth spirit c. and daily plot and conspire the ruine of the just and these evill men make the times evill and dangerous partly by corrupting the truth of God and bringing in dangerous errours and partly by their oppressions cruelties malice fraud and other enormities which provoke God to send plagues pestilences famine and sword and such like sore judgements for such things the godly mourn and sigh and their lives are full of bitternesse now though God see it good to try and exercise his people with these things as in a furnace yet these are not his peoples portion out of very love and faithfullnesse therefore he will take them from the face of these evils either before judgements come that they may not see and be perplexed with them as he intimates unto Hezekiah 2 King 2.28 2 when he threatned sore judgements upon the people he would first take him away and he should have peace in his daies or else out of them that they be not overburthened with them here they are tossed too and fro with troubles hated reproached persecuted wearied out almost with labours and sorrows in and for the Gospel and name of Christ and for their just conversations with men and therefore God out of compassion will take them away by death in due season and give them rest as it follows they shall enter into peace Isa 57. ◠they shall rest in their beds each one walking in his uprightnesse Should any man be here alwaies continued his life would be a very unsupportable burthen to him how much more the righteous who have usually a deeper share in troubles here then other men 5. He orders death to them that putting off this earthly mashy tabernacle they might be brought to a more full enjoyment of Jesus Christ and so of himself in him here their enjoyments of God are lower and more intermixt they are letted by this bodily grossenesse from seeing or receiving so much of him as their spirits in more spirituall bodies are capable of no man can see God and live and yet the happinesse of the soul stands in the sight and fruition of God which that they might have more fully he takes them out of these bodies to his Son 2 Cor. 5.6 while we sojourn in the body we are absent from the Lord we are here as strangers in a forraign countrey where we have no city to continue in Heb. 13.14 2 Cor. 5.8 but when we are taken out of the body we shall be at home we shall be nearer to Christ and have a greater enjoyment of him whence death is great advantage to the righteous and Paul desired it rather then life I desire saith he to be dissolved and to be with Christ Phil. 1.21 23. for that is far better for me c. For these and such like good and gracious ends God hath ordered death to the righteous which I have but briefly spoken to desiring to passe to the main thing in the text the second thing observed which is indeed the full expression of the text it self viz. That the righteous hath hope in his death Propos 2. That is he sinks not under it but lives in death his spirit lives when his body dies he is saved from the terrour of death by the hope he hath of a better life and so not only sees not the second death or comes not into it but misseth also the sting and bitterness that many through ignorance and unbelief meet with in the first death he feels a spirituall life in the midst of a spirituall and in the midst of a corporall death too When his spirit dies to himself and to the world so that it findes nothing in the one nor in the other to support comfort or chear him but sees all in himself polluted and sinfull his very works of righteousnesse too short and scanty to cover him from wrath and vengeance and all in the world vain yea vanity it self and full of bitternesse and vexation in both nothing but death yet even then in Christ he findes sweetnesse life and satisfaction he findes him living bread and feeds upon him as the most ample glorious witnesse and manifestation of Gods love and in feeding there he lives I am crucified with Christ saith the Apostle that is to himself and to his own best endeavours though after Law and to the world with all its excellencies and yet saith he I live and yet that was passively he not actively but Christ lives in me and the life that I live in the flesh is by the saith of the Son of God c. As for other men take away their comforts in the world and confidence they have in themselves and you undoe them they die despair and perish but the just shall live by faith and so it is with him in the midst of dangers and of bodily death he hath such a hope as saves supports him and bears him up in the worst times and conditions he hath hope in death and in that he hath hope he differs from two sorts of people as in the nature and quality of his hope he differs from others from these two 1. From those that are driven away in their wickednesse with wrath Pro. 14 3◠as in the former part of the verse such as the guilt of sin in their consciences and sence of vengeance hurries away to desperation and makes them like the chaff driven away with the winde Psal 1.4 so that they cannot stand in death when they apprehend Gods hand lifted up against them but sink down into hell unbelief and terrour 2. From those that though they are not so hurried away in a tempest as being past hope yet when they die they are like stones as was Nabal or as it 's to be ferred some do that the people use to say die
their visitation and be turned unto God and every one that so beleeveth the testimony of God concerning Christ in his heart that he therein receiveth Christ for his wisdom righteousnesse holinesse and redemption and is brought to rely upon him and God in him for pardon peace life spirit and whatsoever may concern his happinesse and therewithall is framed to the minde of Christ to live to him and to God in him as hath been shewn he is the truly righteous man here to be understood in the text one whom God approves and holds for righteous Every through cordiall and sincere beleever he is the righteous man here spoken of and that is the first thing propounded for explication who is this righteous man in opening which I have been the larger because that 's of most weight and men are aptest therein to be deceived resting either in morall or Pharisaicall conceited righteousness in stead of the true righteousnesse which is according to God or else to rest in a form and carcasle of faith that receives nothing but propositions of truth into the head but receiveth not Christ into the heart to be it's righteousness from all which the righteousnesse of God doth greatly differ beyond all which kinde of righteous men the man that 's truly righteous doth very much go as is declared having cleared that let us now come to the second thing propounded to be explained and opened Quest 2. viz. What the hope is that such a righteous man hath in his death In opening that I shall consider this his hope both in it's object and ground This hope may be considered according to it's object and that first Objectum in quo The object unto which the heart is led and carried and in which it hath it's expectation and that is not any vain empty creature either it self or any other thing in the whole world for the righteous man is crucified to them with Christ and knows there is nothing to be met with from them that can help or satisfie and that God hath pronounced a curse upon him that trusteth in man and maketh flesh his arm Jer. 17.5 His hope therefore is set upon God in Christ from him is all his expectation according to that of David Psa 62.1 2. Truly my soul waiteth upon God from him cometh my salvation and that in Lam. 3.24 The Lord is my portion saith my soul therefore in him will I hope God as he hath discovered himself to the soul in Christ so he himself is the object in which it hopeth and from whom it expecteth what it hopeth for 2. The Objectum propter quod the object for which it hopeth it hopes for something as well as in something as to instance he hopes for support and preservation through death Though I walk in the valley of the shadow of death yet will I fear none ill for thou art with me thy rod and thy staff doth comfort me or support me Psa 23.4 Psa 37.25 2. The enjoyment of Christ and God in Christ more fully in his Spirit after the dissolution of the body thence Paul Phil. 1. I desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ 2 Cor. 5.6 8. knowing that when we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord walking by faith and not by fight we desire to be rather absent from the body and to be present with the Lord the righteous man hopes for a more full enjoyment of Christ then here he was capable of 3. He hopes that God will yet take care of his people and preserve his Church and carry on his work in the world for the glory of his name and will not be wanting to his posterity if he leave any behinde him Deut. 33.26 29. 4. His resurrection out of death and the full possession of eternall glory which Jesus Christ in the re-union of the soul and body as is at large declared in 1 Cor. 15. and in 1 Thes 4.16 17. c. He that raised up the body of the Lord Jesus Christ shall also raise up the beleever and give him acrown of life and glory that shall never fade where there shall be no mixture of grief or misery with his joy or happinesse but he shall be fully and for ever satisfied with the glorious enjoyment of God in Christ Jesus This is the hope that a righteous man hath in his death the object hoped for 2. This hope may be considered too in the ground or motive of it whence it springeth or what that is that gives a man encouragement and boldnesse to hope in God and Christ for such happinesse yea even in death when God seems to be about co cut him off for ever and that is properly the Lord Jesus Christ as he is the gift of God the manifestation of the Fathers love and grace the Mediatour and Saviour of the soul declared to the soul in the Gospel and received by faith whence the Apostle stiles him our hope Paul an Apostle by the commandment of the Lord Jesus Christ our hope 1 Tim. 1.1 and again Christ in you the hope of glory Col. 1.28 for it 's in the gift of him for and to the soul that it apprehends the love of God to be such towards it as that it hath good cause for ever to hope in him and thus to reason concerning him If when we were enemies we were reconciled unto God by the death of his Son how much more being reconciled shall we be saved by his life Rom. 5.10 Now because it is this love of God shed abroad into the heart by the holy Ghost that springs up this hope in God as Rom. 5.5 6. therefore the Apostle cals it good hope through grace that is sprung up through the apprehension and appearance of the grace or favour of God towards us as in another respect viz. because this grace is declared in the Gospel and therethrough discerned by us it 's called also the hope of the Gospel Col. 1.23 2 Thes 2.16 a lively hope that puts lively chearfull thoughts into the soul and makes it live in the midst of death in expectation of a crown and inheritance incorruptible and immortall c 1 Pet. 2.3 and that grounded upon the resurrection of Christ from the dead thence it 's also a good hope not only because it doth good to the soul in saving preserving and supporting it in trials and afflictions so as that it saints not nor turns away from God 1 Joh. 3.3 but is kept in dependance on him or in that it also purifies the soul or leads the man to purge himself through the grace of God beleeved that he may be meet for such a hope or glory hoped for in the view of which it also gives the soul strong consolation making it in death to trample upon death and rejoice over death because of the glory to be revealed and enjoyed after it but also it 's good because of the foundation whence it
be with his Lord Jesus which he longed for far above life even from the begining of his sicknesse so that some being desirous to pray for him he would by no means that they should pray to preserve his life here any longer but that he might go to his Lord Jesus and be taken from that state of estrangement and absence from him that he was in while in this body to be at home with him that he might in his spirit more fully see and enjoy him whom he had seen by faith or whom not seeing yet he beleeved in and loved for that good report of his love in the Gospel declared to him as he had wrought righteousnesse or done righteously in his life in receiving the testimony of the Gospel the record of God concerning Jesus Christ and was not ashamed of it though spoken against and rejected by men nor of those that brought it though weak and vilified by most so went he not without the fruit of it in his death the word of God wrought effectually in him both in life and death In his life time it wrought in him to desire the true and lasting riches although he was blessed here with a good and large portion of these outward riches which often prove such snares and intanglements to mens hearts that they cannot attend to God for the true yea and whereas commonly rich men are high minded as it is intimated in that charge given them not to be high minded 1 Tim. 6.21 and prove great hinderances of mens entring the strait gate because men are apt to swell in their mindes up to the largenesse yea and often far beyond the largenesse of their estates and to despise so low and contemptible a way as the Gospel is It was not so with him the goodnesse of God so wrought in him as for the enjoiment of Christ he condescended to them of low degree to bear the reproach of Christ with them and to professe the despised Gospel amongst them A rare thing to finde a rich estate and a poor humble spirit together riches and pride and loftines usually accompany each other and so choaking all motions or desires of goodnesse that they come not out to perfection In all this he did righteously but above all in that he received not only the sound but the substance of the Gospel the truth into his heart so as to set his hope in God therethrough and to expect his salvation as also his brother had done before him however opposite at first as many others yet are which accompanied him to his death as hath been expressed which hope also suted with the hope of the righteous man in this that it was founded upon the love of God in Christ to mankinde and so to him The death resurrection ascension mediation of the Son of God for him according to the Gospel declaration as appears by this ensuing confession of his faith which he penned with his own hand when he first began to grow sick and weak and caused to inserted into the preface of his Will whence also as I was requested I copied it out word for word to publish it to you as here followeth I bequeath my soul into the hands of God as into the hands of a faithfull Creator who hath made heaven and earth and all things therein and to Jesus Christ the second person in the Trinity God blessed for ever who hath redeemed me and all mankinde for the Scripture that I do faithfully beleeve saith That he by the grace of God tasted death for every man and St John saith That God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever beleeveth in him should not perish but have everlasting life And the same John saith in his Epistle He is the propitiation for our sins and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world and other such like Scriptures which I here forbear to insert And this I do declare because so many do deny the truth of these Scriptures and some others deny all Scriptures and many now in our daies deny the Lord Iesus Christ to be the second Person in Trinity and so account the written Scriptures as a History and the mystery in their hearts they give for Scripture But I do faithfully beleeve as it is recorded in the word of God that that Iesus who died for all men is risen free and acquit of all that was against them for to this end he both died and rose again that he might be Lord of all and is ascended up on high and hath received gifts * Or In the man for men to send forth even to the rebellious that the Lord God might dwell amongst them and that they might come to the knowledge of the truth and be saved such provision hath God made for all in and through his Son that be invites all to come and saith all things are ready his trible is furnished and he bids them eat of his bread and drink of his wine that he hath mingled Thus far is the love of God in his Son set forth to all and more fully and of his fulnesse have we all received and grace for grace And further it is said To so many as received him to them he gave power to become the Sons of God to them which beleeve in his Name Which makes it plain that whosoever is found to receive and accept what is declared in the Scriptures of what Jesus hath done for all it is as much as to say they receive him that is to own God for their father in the righteousnesse of his Son so that he that is Gods righteousnesse is their righteousnesse who presents them in himself unto the Father and for them be hath a further businesse with the father as in 1 Joh. 2.1 is declared We have an Advocate with the Father Jesus Christ the righteous making good our cause and not suffering our evils to come up before him and it is through what he hath done by dying rising and ascending and continuall advocating that I have all my hope that when I depart this life I shall live with him according to that Scripture which saith Because I live ye shall live also c. Thus he exprest himself In the last expression of which you have the confession of his hope to agree with what I said before of the righteous mans that it sprung from a good bottom the death resurrection and advocation of Jesus Christ as with that of the Apostle Peter who saith God hath begotten them to a lively hope through the resurrection of Christ from the dead 1 Pet 1.3 So that as this our Brother did righteously to beleeve the Gospel of the grace of God and therethrough to beleeve in God so had he a good hope in his death a hope for good and glorious things and a hope well grounded And thus we have seen the explication and confirmation Come we now to the third