Tim 1.6 Heb 1.9 2 Joh 2 2. ungodly sinners and enemies 1 Pet. 3.18 Rom. 3 6 8 10. that whosoever beleeves on him should not perish but have everlasting lift that the Son of God gave himself a ransome for all and tasted death by the grace of God for every one is the propitiation for our sins and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world Well then if thou beleevest the testimony of God by his Apostles and surely that is to be credited before what men say then maiest thou see that this appertains to thee if thou beest a man or one of the world then God gave his Son for thee and the Son of God came down from his Father into the world to be a Saviour for thee and died and gave himself a ransome for thee and is the propitiation for thy sins this is thou feest the language of the Scripture and of the testimony that God hath given of his Son that he died for sinners for men for all and there is none but will confesse that it 's meet that we should beleeve Gods saying as that which is in it self undoubtedly true Why then it 's meet that thou believe him in this particular too else thou dealest unrighteously with him and givest him the lie and if thou faiest ah but thou wouldst have some sign or token of the truth of this as concerning thee from him in something to be done by him to thy soul before thou canst or wilt give credit to it and judge it true then dost thou Mâ—tâ—h 12.33 as that adulterous generation which Christ reproveth seeking signes and tokens when God himself witnessed in his word concerning him and if thou shouldst persist in that way thou maist be given up to delusion to beleeve a lie and to be drawn from the truth asserted in the word by lying signs and wonders such as God sometimes orders to those that receive not the love of his truth that they might be preserved and saved by it 2 Thâ—s 1. 〈…〉 〈◊〉 Parath in Râ—n 9. If thou wilt not beleeve Gods word thou art in a dangerous way of miscarrying It 's a good counsel that Erasmus gives in such cases Desine disceptare incipe credere ita citius intelliges Leave off disputing and questioning about Gods word and opposing thy vain reason against it offer up thy reason as * Hoc est juge illud sacrificti vesperâ—â— ii matuâ—â—…um Novi Testamentâ— Vespertinum mortificare rationeâ—â— matutinâ—â— glorificare Deuâ— luâ—h in Gal 3.6 Luther advises as an evening sacrifice let that be mortified in whatsoever it sets it self against the word of God and instead thereof do thou begin to beleeve and give credit to what God saith and so thou shalt soonest come to understand which counsel I the rather commend because it sutes with the word of God it self it agrees with that of James 1.19 Be swift to hear slow to speak slow to wrath ready to listen what God saith in his word of truth but slow to be putting in thy glosses and corrections upon it and slow to wrangle with it or to be offended at what is said therein and so in Isa 7.9 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Tertullian renders thus Iâ—â—o taamiâ—â— Kâ— lo reamenu Tertul advers Marciod 4 c 32 Nisicredideritis non intelligetis unlesse ye beleeve ye shall not understand God would have us take his word and then he will let us see the truth and faithfullnesse of his word Man is apt to look the wrong way in first desiring to have his reason satisfied before he will beleeve but if thou wouldest prove and experiment the truth and certainty of his word to thy soul and have the profitable understanding of it do thou first receive it and close with it holding it for true and certain and then beleeving it to be true thou wilt judge it but a meet and righteous thing to commit thy soul to him and betrust thy self with him that hath prevented thee with so much goodnesse and declared such love to thee before-hand that thou mightest be perswaded to beleeve in him and that it 's thy great sin and evill that thou art so diffident and distrustfull of him yea in closing with that word of his grace in which he hath testified such love towards thee in Christ Isa 50.2 thou shalt in due season finde and feel the power of God put forth to save thee from distrusting him and so enabling thee with thy heart to beleeve on him so as it shall be imputed unto thee for righteousnesse Christ himself shall be made thy righteousnesse and thou accounted and accepted as righteous in him And now to bring thee again to the businesse where Christ is so received by faith as that the soul depends upon him and he becomes it's righteousnesse and presents him righteous to his father thence he will be operative in the soul too by his Spirit teaching the soul to walk righteously and act forth righteousnesse both to God and man For the faith that so receives Christ is not a bare dead notionall apprehension of a proposition sloating in the brain but such a cordiall closing of the heart with the word of God as that it closeth with loveth prizeth and leaneth on Christ held forth therein and ascendeth up to God by him loving admiring panting after and cleaving to God in him the Spirit of life that is in Christ Jesus working effectually in the soul and filling it with divine and heavenly vertues and operations as to devote it self to God for his great love towards it to expect further good from him to submit unto him c. and so be filled with peace and joy in the manifestation of Gods accepting it and witnesse thereof bearing to it with love and charity to men inward desires of their good and readines really to endeavour it as opportunity is offered as knowing that God would have them to be saved and that what Christ hath in his death and sufferings procured into himself it is free for any to come to him for whosoever will may take freely of the waters of life as also that it is acceptable to God that they should so walk towards others as he hath walked toward them and indeed faith as it gives a sight to the soul of the glorious grace of God so is it a means of the souls being transformed through that glory seen into his similitude to love as he hath loved pity where he shews pity and to delight in that which he delighteth it teacheth us to deny all ungodlines and worldly lusts and to live godly righteously and soberly in this present world to hold forth the word of life and work the works that are acceptable to God and profitable to men not in any thing to injure or wrong them but in all things to seek their commodity as occasion is presented to them that they might glorifie God in the day of
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
beleeve and close with his sayings that they being intertained Christ himself to whom they bear witnesse and whom they set forth may be beleeved on come to and received into the heart he may be entertained into the fouls affection desire delight confidence c. that so he that is Gods righteousnesse provided for us and given unto us being received and entertained thou mai'st in him be presented righteous to God and filled with the fruits of righteousnesse both toward God and men that so thou having of the spirit of Christ within thee it may lead teach support and comfort thee and in the midst of dangers yea and of death it self fill thee with a lively hope of life and glory Friends do righteously in beleeving the word of God and looking to Christ by faith be not enemies to your selves by heeding lying vanites put not away from you your own mercies run not desperately through a spirit of envy or malice or through worldlinesse pride presumption Atheisme loosenesse into your own destruction What good will you get to your selves in the issue by being wicked by being envious against the Gospel and grace of God by quarrelling against and resisting the truth by scorning contemning hating and reproaching them that out of love and good will preach and hold it forth to you by rejecting the testimony of God and closing with every vain phantasie by which you think your selves strengthened against it whom do you fight against in opposing the word of God is it not against God himself and is it not against your own good Do you not endeavour thereby to pervert your own waies to make his grace and goodnesse questionable as concerning your selves and so put your selves from having the word of God the ground of your faith to fetch the ground of it from some blinde conjectures and good conceits of your selves Oh stand not in your own light neglect not so great salvation as is set before you nor rest in such a notion all profession of truth as leaves the soul destitute of the power of truth such a consent to it and profession of it as yet leaves the soul unrighteous brings it not into Christ nor receives not the power and Spirit of Christ into it Let not love of the world and worldly vanities keep you out either from attending to and receiving truth nor from submitting to and walking out in the power of truth perhaps you are rich some of you and injoy much in the world you can fill and satiate your selves with the profits advantages and delights of it you finde a great deal of satisfaction in your own waies some in coveteousnes others in pride and others in voluptuousnes c. But oh consider the emptinesse and vanity of all these satisfactions will the world and the things thereof last for ever is not God even now powring out whole vials of his wrath upon it and is he not staining the pride of all glory and bringing to contempt all that 's honourable in the earth Is he not marring the form of it and casting bitternesse into all the comforts of the earth and what will your riches profit you if God come to plead with you with sword famine and his sore judgements do you think to bribe his wrath or make an agreement with hell and death do you think that his hand will not finde you out or do you think your riches honours pleasures accomodations in the world will then fill your souls with hope O no beloved these things will then prove more empty vanties you may live as richly and sumptuously and in as great pleasure as the rich man in the Gospel Luk. 16. yea and perhaps to have as honourable a buriall and yet the next news may be that that was his unhappy portion that you are in hell tormented what then will all these things you here set your hearts upon advantage you what will it profit you could you get and enjoy the whole world and to lose your souls in the getting it die like stocks or blocks without God and without Christ and without hope or to die howling out with vexation and despair Alas what good would all his riches and places or great funerall c. have done this gentleman if he had died without faith in God and without the hope of his glory and so before his body had been interred his soul had been in hell Be you willing to follow his steps in owning the truth of God and the grace of God therein declared and in so laying down your selves to the Crosse of Christ and cordially desiring the knowledge and enjoyment of Christ that so your end may be as hopefull as his you may not be afraid of death and faint under it but hope in it and rejoice over it for the righteous man is he that hath hope in his death 3. To conclude let me speak one word to you that do follow after righteousnesse even the righteousnesse of God you that have received the record of God concerning his Son beleeved his love and therethrough are brought to appreach unto him to have good thoughts of him and have cast your souls upon him and set your hope in him what hath been said may be usefull unto you for your encouragement and consolation I shall say this to you my brethren hold fast your integrity follow on yet after righteousnesse Rev. 22.11 be not weary of well doing nor saint in the way he that is righteous let him be righteous still and be that is holy let him be holy still let him continue and increase in holinesse and righteousnesse serving God in them all the daies of his life abide in Christ and in his way attending to the grace of God and submitting thereto to be acted and led thereby to deny all ungodlinesse and worldly lusts Tit. 2.11 12. Heb. 13 1â— 16 and to live soberly righteously and godly in this present world looking diligently that none fail of the grace of God that none be prophane as Esau to sell the hope set before him the birthright given you for a messe of pottage for any worldly carnall transitory vanities take heed of consulting with flesh and bloud lest you be turned aside from the word of God to other doctrines or to be corrupted to worldly waies and evils take heed that the cares of this life and the deceitfullnesse of riches or love of other things in this world do not by little and little steal in upon your spirits to cheak the good seed of the word of God and so to make you content your selves with a barren profession of Christ without power and fruitfullnesse Hold fast your hope and confidence in Christ Heb. 10.35 and hold fast your good conversation according to Christ knowing that your confidence hath a great recompense of reward 1 Cor. 15 18. Gal. 6 7. and your labour shall not be in vain in the Lord in due time ye shall reap if ye faint