again the first Visit they make is to their old Good-fellows as they call them and they are welcomed into the jolly Company with full Bowls and with loud Huzzaes but let us go to such as will entertain us with Praises to God for our deliverance and not drink our healths but seriously pray for them Eightly When God has brought us from the Grave let us by all means see that so sore an Affliction and so great a Deliverance may be sanctified to us And we may know that they are so when they produce these following effects First When they take off our hearts from the World and the Creatures and drive us more to God Secondly When they make us more frequent and fervent in our Prayers Thirdly When they produce those holy ends for which they were sent upon us Fourthly When they make us to acknowledge God and to see his disposal and his hand in all that is come upon us Ruth 1. 20. The Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me Ver. 21. The Lord hath testified against me and the Allmighty hath afflicted me Fifthly When they make us to humble our selves and to lay our Mouths in the dust knowing that tho our troubles were very severe yet they were very just Ezek. 16. 63. That thou mayest remember and be confounded and never open thy mouth any more because of thy shame when I am pacified towards thee for all that thou hast done saith the Lord God And Job 42. 5. When they fill our Hearts with Admiration and our Mouths with his Praise Seventhly When the Mercies we receive carry our Affections with more flame towards the Benefactor from whence they came As the warmth of the shining Sun causes a new fragancy and a sweeter smell among all the Flowers of the Garden Eighthly When they bring us to more knowledge of God and to more true calmness and joy in him These are glorious Effects of a sanctified affliction and of a sanctified escape from it and a sign that they came not by a common but by a special Providence and by a right of the Covenant of Grace by which all things are ours I might add in the ninth place when we taste his Fatherly Goodness and Love in all that we enjoy if we find these things within us 't is a sign we have both heard the Rod and him that did appoint it Mich. 6. 9. Oh how happy are we if God by taking away our health has given us himself and if by sending sharp sickness and pain upon us he has prepared us for a sweeter relish of his Love Happy are we if our Temporary Sickness tend to an Eternal Health and our short Sorrows to an Everlasting Joy Happy yet again are we if he have not only Commanded us to take up our beds and walk but also said unto us that our Sins are forgiven if we can say with Hezekiah Isa. 38. 17. Behold for Peace I had great Bitterness but thou hast in Love to my Soul delivered it from the Pit of Corruption for thou hast cast all my Sins behind thy Back It must be our great endeavour that after we have been tryed we may come forth like Gold and that we do not as the three Children in another case come out with our old Garments and with the same Sins upon us Let us earnestly beg of God that we may have a compleat Salvation and a total Recovery That as our Bodies are supplied with new strength so our Souls may prosper also For to be diseased in our Souls whilst our Bodies thrive is as if the House in which one lives were very well repaired and adorned to all advantage and the Man that dwells in so fair an Habitation were forced to go in raggs so fine a dwelling and so ordinary an Inhabitant would not agree well together Oh let us take care that whilst God has healed our Diseases we be not inwardly distempered with the Plague of our own Hearts That Man is not to be called healthful that let him look never so well has a Disease in his Vitals that by slow Degrees preys upon his Life Neither can that Man be truly said to be recovered whose Soul is either void of Grace or that having had it in some measure languishes and decays He is composed of Contradictions of Life and Death at the same time he is alive and well as to his Body but his Soul is dead in Trepasses and Sins The most excellent and valuable part of himself does remain under the power of Death and whilst it is so is an Object more unpleasing to God than a dissolving Carcass in the Grave would be to us The Welfare and Recovery of our Souls is what we ought more to seek than the Welfare of our Bodies Both indeed are Mercies but the former is much the greater of the two What is Purple and fine Linnen and soft Raiment that sets off a Man to the Eyes of others to that Faith and Love and Patience and Hope and those other Graces of the Spirit that beautifie the Soul and render it amiable in the Eye of God What is all the Meat and Drink that refresh our Bodies to that Heavenly Manna that Celestial Nourishment that an healthful holy Soul feeds upon The prosperity of our Bodies their ease and capacity of performing their several Actions is one of the greatest Ternporal Mercies but alas this will signifie nothing at all if we do not prosper in our Souls There is a way indeed whereby we may gather Grapes of Thorns and Figs of Thistles i. e. Refreshment and Comfort from those Afflictions that peirct us to the quick and that Sorrow which was at first unwelcom to us may prove an Angel of Light and strike off our Chains if we can say with David It is good for me that I have been afflicted that I might learn thy Statutes Psal. 119. 71. Ver. 67. Before I was afflicted I went astray but now have I kept thy Word His was a very blessed Cross that flourisht into such fruit as this I think I should not say amiss should I say that God has as it were brought every person here from the Grave and saved him from going down into the Pit from a Grave and a Pit which has been often digged for us by the Plots and Designs of our Enemies and into which we had long ago fallen had not God mercifully saved and helped us God has very lately done great things for our Brethren in Ireland whereof I do believe your Hearts are glad for as you mourn'd with them in their Sorrows so t is fit you participate with them in the Joys that they now have by the quick advances of their increasing Deliverance and from the dangers that so nearly threatned them And God has not after the mighty wonders of his Providence left us here in England when destruction has been coming towards us with hasty paces when it has from the proud Fleet of our Enemies threatned
PRACTICAL DISCOURSES ON Sickness Recovery IN Several SERMONS As they were lately preached in a Congregation in London BY TIMOTHY ROGERS M. A. After his Recovery from a Sickness of near two years continuance LONDON Printed for Thomas Parkhurst at the Bible and Three Crowns at the lower End of Cheapside Jonathan Robinson at the Golden Lion in St. Paul's Church-yard and John Dunton at the Raven in the Poultrey MDCXCI To the Right Worshipful Sr. WILLIAM ASHURST AND Sr. THOMAS LANE Knights And Aldermen of the City of London Most Honoured AFter I had once resolved to let the following Discourses see the Light in hope that they might be some way serviceable to the Glory of God and the Good of Men especially of the Sick or such as are recovered I had no doubtful Thoughts to whom they should be address'd You were the Persons that I first thought upon and it is to You that I am obliged in a more than ordinary manner Therefore I take this occasion to make my Acknowledgments and to testify my Gratitude It was from your Kindness that in troubled and uneasy Times I did obtain many a pleasant and quiet Retreat In both your Houses in the Country I always met with a chearful Entertainment and had there an opportunity of Study which together with the benefit of your Conversation and a leisure to think without being diverted by the noise and burry of the disagreeing World made me to relish a very sensible Delight in being there It is to me and others a thing very observable that the Honours which you have received both from the King and your Fellow-Citizens have made no Alteration in your former ingaging Tempers and Carriage You are still as free as pleasant and as affable to your meaner Friends as you were before Whereas we daily see many Persons whom a little Honour or Advancement changes from all the good Qualities they once possess'd to Loftiness and Pride whom an high Station fills with as high Thoughts and who cannot from their more exalted Condition look upon such as are below them without Contempt and Scorn And tho this may not cause them to lose some outward Civilities from those that are dazled with their shining Grandure yet they do thereby lose all that Reverence and Esteem in the Minds of Men which other wise they might expect You are for the great Zeal you have manifested to the Good of your Country and more especially to the Liberties and Priviledges of this City justly beloved and the more so because you were always steadily resolved to promote the true Interest of both even in such a Season when some that had either no English Blood in their Veins or no true Love to their Country in their Hearts were willing easily to part with those excellent Rights which cost their Forefathers very dear who were in some sense worse than Esau for he sold his Birthright but they were willing to surrender and to give theirs away for nothing It comforts us when from our low Ground we look up to your higher Sphere and see you so well to fill your Orbs with Light And we daily pray that you may long shine there for the Common Good and that we may long be refresh'd with those Influences which have already been so comfortable to us You have now through the Providence of God an honourable Station but before that you were most honorably descended You derived your Birth not only from Families that had done worthily in Ephratah and were famous in Bethlehem but from such as were the Friends of God of a strict Piety and of an unblamable Religion some of which are now Citizens of a better Corporation even of that which is in Heaven What a Comfort is it to the Children of good Parents that they can pray to their Fathers and their Mothers God In Yours you have beheld the Amiableness of Religion represented to the Life in their good Example and the Holiness of their Conversation You may fire your Souls if at any time they begin to cool by the pleasant remembrance of that which they did for God You can remember with what Constancy and Fervour they prayed with what Reverence they read the Word and heard it preach'd with what Seriousness and Frequency they spoke to you of heavenly Things and of the Life to come with what watchfulness they managed their Prosperity with what Patience they bore Afflictions with what Meekness they forgave their Enemies with what Readiness they entertained all those whom they judged sincerely to name the Name of Christ. You see those who are yet alive worshipping and serving God and you can though not without sorrow for your own loss remember those who are dead and gone with what Faith they lived and with what Hope they died Give me leave humbly to desire you to continue to set often before your Eyes their heavenly Example and to keep the same good Order in your Families that they kept and to read the Scriptures with as much Frequency and Seriousness as they read them to be as conscientious in all the Duties of Religion as they were that so They and You may meet with Joy in the Great Day The Thoughts of Death as it is an Entrance into an Unalterable and Eternal State will very much promote all this It will help us to have our most delightful Conversation with those Persons with whom we desire and hope to be found when our Lord comes It will regulate our use of lawful Things and guide us in the management of our Pleasures and our Recreations it will keep both our Bodies and our Souls in a readiness for private Prayer the serious and reverent and lively performance of which will greatly promote our Growth in Gracê We give to our Friends large Portions of our Time every day and we should devote some part of it to converse with God and that not in a cold manner but endeavour to warm our Souls with a deep sense of our Wants and with some suitable foregoing Meditations This is that Duty to which you are no Strangers and You and all others that are in earnest for your Souls will preserve this as a strong Defence against all your spiritual Enemies and the manifold Snares and Temptations of the World for it brings to our Assistance the Help of God and of our blessed Redeemer There is no Pleasure that we have in our Friends or in our Diversions that is comparable to that Joy which an holy Soul finds in its humble and reverent Approaches to the Throne of Grace where God and the Soul meet together where God by his Spirit kindles heavenly Desires and where the Soul upon the Wings of those Desires takes its flight from this lower World when the Soul complains of the burden of Sin and God by his free and gracious Pardon takes the Burden off when the Soul pants and breaths for the living God and he is pleas'd to meet and to satisfy the
brings them to Glory even by such unlikely wayes He will have them to be train'd up with difficulties to strive and to wrestle with them that so their Fervour may shame the coldness and indifference of others who take no pains for their Salvation He will have them to go laden under the sense of their Corruptions that so finding their daily need of Christ they may still remember him who is their help and finding so much guilt in themselves they may apply themselves to his unspotted Righteousness for Justification and to his Word and Spirit for new degrees of Holiness that they may have experience of his Goodness and he of their Obedience and Love that they may know the Loving-kindness the Care and the Wisdom of that God that Pilots their Ship when it is covered with waves and stormes for stormes are the Triumph of his Art and he steers even the sinking Vessel to the Port. Secondly By being brought from the Grave a Man may be enabled to do much good to himself as well as to others that so he may at last with joy give an account of his Stewardship that he may increase his own reward and by Gods Grace make his Crown of Happiness more sparkling and more full of weighty Glory As no man ought to be satisfied with the lowest degrees of grace so every one may and ought by an Innocent Ambition and a multitude of good Works to indeavour to sit near to the Throne and not only to save himself but to carry others with him to heaven that may be his Joy and his Crown in that Day Reason 6. and Lastly There are several circumstances that may enlarge the kindness of being brought from the Grave and which ought to render us more thankfull for it Those that are good may have their iniquities visited with stripes and it cannot but be a terrible thing to fear that they shall be snatcht away whilest they are punisht with the rods which their own Sins have made As the Prophet was devoured by a Lion for his Disobedience to the command of God 1 King 13. 21. It is a great Mercy to live to see the good of his Chosen and it is a punishment to be taken away just when some great deliverance is coming to the Church It was a thing which Moses greatly desired to see the Promised Land and to go thither to see it indeed was granted him but to enjoy it was denied him because of the provocation at the Rock It is a Misery to see Plenty for others and not to taste thereof our selves like that Lord of Samaria who perished for his unbelief 2 King 7. 2. 17. 18. It is a great Mercy to be delivered after we have been afflicted and ready to dye when the terrors of God have amazed us and his fierce wrath has gone over us Psal. 88. 15. How sad a thing is it to dye under a sense of the weight of sin and to have no prospect of a Pardon to feel as it were the very scorching flames of Hell and to have no hope that these will ever be cool'd or remov'd but rather grow more hot and scorching to have no Comfort from Heaven or Earth no rest for the Body no composure for the Soul to be sinking and to have nothing to lay hold upon to stand shivering on the brink of destruction and to see no way of escape to be compassed in with sin behind and with Miseries before to be in darkness and to see no light not to know where our Lot will be fixt not to know but that it may be among the damned To be near to the Judgment Seat of Christ and to be afraid of appearing there This is a state in which no man would chuse to dye for it is inexpressably terrible and it is a most wonderful mercy to be delivered from a Case so sad as this For how uncomfortable is it to a mans self to be roaring in the disquietness of his soul not to be able to live because of the insupportableness of his Pain nor to dare to dye because of the greatness of his sins that are always before him and that are like to lye down with him in the dust How uncomfortable is it to the Relations and Friends of the sick and dying that see him strugling and crying under pains which tear him to pieces How uncomfortable is it to them to hear his doleful Expressions about his Eternal state to see the anguish of his soul and the arrows of the Almighty sticking in it which makes him a terror to himself and to those that are round about him How woful a thing is this and if a man get to Heaven at last by the mighty Grace of God yet it is a thing very undesireable to go thither as by the very gates of Hell for a man to have his days shortned and his strength weakned in the way Psal 102. 23. and to have his Sun go down at noon looks like the displeasure of God and no man would dye by the frown of God A man cannot be blamed who is loth to dye till he save some Hope that it shall go well with him for ever 'T is a sore Evil to be thrown aside as a broken vessel in which there is no pleasure Jer. 22. 28. It is a great mercy to be kept from raging violent distempers and to be deliver'd from such after we have long groaned under them It is a great Mercy to have such a sickness as will allow us time to exhort and direct and counsel others and 't is very desireable that we may by a Christian Carriage set our Seal to Religion and shew its Power and Reality 'T is a most glorious thing to dye in the Lord i. e. as one Paraphrases it in the Spirit of our Lord Jesus Christ in the Spirit of Faith and Love in a Spirit of Elevation towards God which makes the dying believer to go towards Heaven with all his force and like his Saviour commit his soul with joy into the hands of his heavenly Father Du Bosc Sermons p. 354. We ought to pray that we may not be like the wicked in our death and that we may be found of our Lord in peace and that we may say with old Simeon when after long expectation he saw the Messiah and embraced him in his arms Lord now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace according to thy word for mine eyes have seen thy salvation Luk. 2. 29 30. This we may beg of God for it is not only for our happiness but for his Glory when we can trust him tho' we go into a state which he has promis'd indeed but which we never saw What a glorious thing is it when we are drawing near to the end of Life to be able to wait and not only to wait but to long not only to believe and hope but to rejoyce and triumph in the thought of seeing God To give to those that
God but as Chaffe before the Wind but as Thorns and Briars before a Consuming Fire but by a reverential awe of him we may lay hold of his Strength and be at Peace Look up to his Heavens and that vastly extended Firmament that is above and then reflect and think how great is he that made all this Creation with a Word Look to his Law and consider how holy he is in his Precepts and Threatnings and then look to your selves and consider how Sinful and how Vile you are Look upon the strange punishments and miseries under which many of your Fellow-creatures groan and be not high-minded but fear because the God that afflicts them may perhaps very shortly do the same to you and let it fill you with the most awful thoughts when you consider how great is his power how severe his Justice and how unspotted is his Holiness How easie is it for him to bring you to the Grave if he do but withdraw sleep from your eyes so that you have no rest for three or four nights or for one Week Then there is a stop put to all your present projects and then all the Comfort of the World is gone For all Affairs depend upon Activity and Vigour and this will cease when sleep does no longer refresh your Spirits as it us'd to do All your apprehensions will change when you have lost this support of weak nature this onely prop of Comfortable Life God can make the strongest and most healthful persons quickly to feel Sickness and Diseases He can quickly turn a pleasant fruitful Land into barrenness and the most beautiful Habitations into Dust and Ashes We should greatly beware of provoking him of whose Mercy we stand in need and whose Wrath we cannot bear He can quickly change all our Joy into Mourning and our Day into Night and our Light into the shadow of Death When he frowns all the stateliness of Buildings all the Glory of Nations all the Pomp and Splendour of the World is gone How soon can he lay waste a flourishing Countrey with War or Plague or Famine he can quickly turn the house of Joy into an house of Mourning and deprive us of what is most pleasant in our Eyes and blast all our hopes You have seen that by letting loose an unruly Element of Fire he turn'd this City in two or three dayes into an heap of Ruins and by filling the Air with contagious Vapors sent many thousands in a very little time into the Grave and he can by letting loose any one Humour in your bodies make you a burden to your selves and to be weary of a World in which you can no longer live as you us'd to do Inf. 3. There is great Reason that under any Sickness or Distress that befalls us we should submit our selves to this God that brings even to death and back again If you be plagued all the day long and chasten'd every morning Psal. 73. 14. whilest others are in no trouble and if you feel your strength decay whilest theirs is firm let no murmuring thoughts fill your Minds because you are the Creatures of God and he may do with you what he will Keep a remembrance of his absolute Soveraignty alwayes imprinted on your Hearts Job 33. 12 13. God is greater than man why dost thou strive against him for he giveth not account of any of his matters Whatever he doth is therefore good and holy because he does it And when he chastens us very sore we should lay our Mouthes in the dust and bear with Patience his Indignation because we have sinned against him We must not yield our selves to our Miseries but to him that sends them and that you may submit in Great and Heavy Trials you must have recourse to the Promises of the Gospel the Mercy of God and the Righteousness of Christ the Merit of his Sufferings and the Efficacy of his Intercession and if you believe you will be established for without Faith in Christ there is no Hope and without Hope no Submission How can this be done if a man have no prospect of advantage by it either in this or the next World for no man can possibly submit to be for ever Miserable It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the Salvation of the Lord Lam. 3. 26. Inveigh not therefore against the Rod though it smart very much but look to the hand in which it is to that Wisdom that has the disposal of it and to those sins that have deserv'd it Look not upon your Evils as the product of Chance or Fortune but as the effect of an Holy Providence which though it is many times very severe yet is alwayes very just Adore this Providence with an humble Silence and Veneration You do not know which is better for you Health or Sickness Affliction or Deliverance he onely knows that knows all things and it will be very grateful to him if you give a chearful entertainment to his Order and Decree If he please who is your Gratious Creator and your Father he can therefore afflict you that he himself may be your Cordial and revive your fainting spirits from the very Grave but if not your Religion should teach you to approve of all the messages he sends you and by a quiet Resignation to put your Souls into his hands when he signifies by the Progress and Increase of your Distemper that your Race is finisht and that it is now your time to die And in order to this you must lay up a good store against that Evil day For you may be warned from the World with long Chronical Diseases that by their Acuteness and Violence may be as so many several Deaths complicated together And then when you have no hope of bodily ease any more then will be the great Tryal of your Faith Several Men will with great hardiness and resolution bear very great pains so long as there is the least hope of Life but to be patient and submissive in the deepest Sorrows and in the view of certain death this is what none can rightly attain to but those that Believe and not all those neither but such whose Faith is deeply rooted has for a long time flourisht and Conquer'd overwhelming doubts and so is of more than an ordinary growth This is that which rendred the Patience of our Blessed Redeemer so very remarkable that when he was lead to the slaughter where he knew he was to suffer violent and great pain from barbarous and cruel men yet even then he opened not his mouth and when he knew there was unspeakable bitterness in that Cup which he was going to drink yet notwithstanding all the Wormwood and the Gall that was in it and though his Innocent Nature did recoil a little yet he drank it off saying with an entire freedom of Choice and a full Acquiescence Father not my Will but thine be done And this was the fruit of a mighty trust
DISCOURSES OF Sickness and Recovery SERMON II. PSAL. 30. ver 3 4. O Lord thou hast brought up my Soul from the grave thou hast kept me alive that I should not go down to the pit Sing unto the Lord O ye Saints of his and give thanks at the remembrance of his holiness Reason 4. DEliverance from the Grave is a great Mercy and greatly to be acknowledged because by that means a man has a longer time in which to prepare for another World And this is more a Mercy because it must go with us for ever according to what we have done in these bodies whether good or evil This Life is our onely state of Tryal and so shall it fare with us hereafter as we now behave our selves There is no knowledge nor invention in the Grave whither we are going None of those things can be performed there which to perform now is our most seasonable and necessary Duty If a man were to have a Tryal for his Estate or Life he would take it for a favour to have leisure given him wherein to make ready for it and to put his Affairs into the best posture that he could it ought to be reckoned a much greater kindness to have notice and time afforded us wherein to prepare for the Last determination of the State of our Souls which is vastly more weighty and Considerable It is a Mercy to have Sickness or some tollerable Affliction sent to summon us before the Arrival of the King of Terrours and to bid us put our Houses and our Minds in Order lest by sensual Enjoyments or the pleasing Enjoyments of the Flesh that Day come upon us unawares and left we be in a slumber when the Voice shall say Behold the Bridegroom eomes go ye out to meet him There is no question at all but that 't is very Lawful with submission to pray against Sudden Death for though it be a Mercy to those whose Grace is eminently strong and who are alwayes ready to dye without Lingring Pains and a Complication of acute and violent Diseases which make Death much more a Death than it would be without them yet to the most the danger of Surprisal is so very great and of being hurried to the Bar and judg'd to an Eternal Condition before we have done what we ought to do in time that we may esteem it none of the least Mercies of God that he does by some shaking blowes warn us before he give the last stroak and cut us down It is not onely the practise of an Holy Life and an Habitual Readiness which Believers have by Faith and the renewing Operations of the Spirit by the uprightness of their Carriage and the Constancy of their Prayers but a more particular preparation that they need 'T is necessary for them not onely to have Oyl in their Lamps but their Lamps burning not onely the Graces of the Spirit but those Graces in the fullest brightness and strength to which they can attain in this Mortal State The best can never be so much prepar'd for Death but they may be more so They never have proceeded so far in their Mortification but they are sensible that they have still more sins to mortifie they have never so much warmed their Hearts with the love of God but that they may still glow with a purer and an hotter Flame It is very desireable to the best to have their Faith more strong their submission more calm and their hope more lively 'T is very desireable to have more Acquaintance and Familiarity with God before they appear at his Tribunal to receive their final Sentence They know well that it is a great Work impartially seriously and constantly to search their own Hearts and to judge themselves aright that they may not be judged of the Lord. As also to discharge all the duties that they owe to God to themselves to their Neighbours and their Countrey and they cannot but be very thankful that they are allow'd more time to do it in That they may purifie their Consciences raise their Affections and review their Lives with exactness and Care when they are shortly to be lookt into by an Omniscient and unerring Eye They know it is a Mercy to be able to loosen their Hearts from the World which they are too much apt to love and in a weanedness from what is sensible to dye before they dye The most Religious have the clearest Apprehension that to appear before Christ is no sleight or Common thing that they must be such in whom he may take delight and be as a Bride adorned for her Husband They know that the Celebration of the Lords Supper and the hearing of the Word and Fast-dayes and extraordinary Seasons of Prayer are such duties as require the preparations of Humbling Sorrows lively Desires awful Reverence Meekness and Self-denial because God will be sanctisied of all that draw nigh unto him They dare scarcely go to the Lords Table without Fear and Trembling much less dare they go to the Lord himself without a most solemn Preparation What Care do men use if they are but about to Transplant themselves into some Foreign Countrey what Inquiries do they make about it What laying in of all necessary Stores that they may not be destitute of suitable accommodations when they come to the new place where they design to fix And 't is not to be wondred at that such as are to be removed into another World are very solicitous about it and very thankful that their season and their day of Grace is lengthned out Whoever Considers the many duties which the Scripture requires of those that believe what obligations they are under to their Saviour what to their Fellow-Christians and to those who are yet strangers to the Faith How many Omissions and Commissions they are guilty of and what need there is of running watching and striving with all their might that they may not loose Heaven and Glory whoso thinks of this must account it a Mercy that they have opportunity wherein to do what is so great and so indispensable And as the Apostle speaking of the new Heavens and new Earth inferrs What manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy Conversation and Godliness 2 Pet. 3. 11. So in this Case we may say what manner of persons ought they to be who must quickly go into Eternity How should they labour to increase with all the increase of God to have suitable Promises laid up in their Hearts from which in the sorest Distresses they may fetch Relief What need have they of manifold Expersences and of the Compleat Armour of Righteousness which may enable them to wrestle with and to subdue the various and unknown difficulties and Tentations of a dying Hour to have their Evidences for Salvation clear and unquestionable to know that they are in a state of Grace and that they have finished the work of their Generation Indeed the Careless part of Men think that the
Prolongation of Life is not in this respect so great a Mercy For they think that it is a most easie thing to be ready for Death and Judgement they think that a few Prayers at last a few Tears and Cryes to God with a Confession of their Miscarriages and a few Resolutions against what they once did amiss will put them into a good frame and serve their turn and so the time that was given them wherein to prepare for another World is lost and unimproved because they understand not the greatness of their Work nor the preciousness and value of that Time which is given them to do it in They ought to Remember if they have been near to death how that nearness changed their Thoughts and that they then found by the hurry and confusion of their Apprehensions that Sickness was no proper season wherein to begin an holy Course or to repair the disorders of an ill one Of all men in the World those who are recover'd from a Sickness that found them in their Impenitence have most Reason to be thankful because had they died in that Condition they had died for ever what thanks owe they to God that they are under Hope in the use of Means yet upon his Earth and not in Hell And there are two things with respect to our dying which render the Continuance of our Life a great Mercy First The small Acquaintance which we have with the Future state and the necessity we are under to get as lively apprehensions of it as we can There are many strange Vicissitudes in this World many changes that we see in Countreys when Kingdoms pass from one to another in Families when the number is either increased or diminished and we suffer many changes in our Bodies from Sickness to Health and from Health to Sickness again but there is no change that is so great as this by Death It is a thing of which we know but little and none of the Millions of Souls that have past into the invisible World have come again to tell us how it is All that go hence remain fixed in their own state some expecting and others fearing the Resurrection and the Great Day We have but very obscure apprehensions of that separated state we know but little of the Great All-comprehending Spirit and little with clearness and full satisfaction of our own Souls When we know something of Spirits by their effects and the discoveries they make of themselves and would more fully know their nature and have adequate Conceptions of them we are like little Children that see the Image and Representation of some delightful object in a Glass and then turn the glass hoping to see it in its full dimensions but by that means lose the sight of it altogether so it is with us in our most Critical Inquiries into Spiritual and Immaterial Substances Nevertheless it is very desireable to know in what condition our Souls will be when they leave the Body and what is the nature of that abode into which we must go but which we never saw Into what Regions we must then take our flight and after what manner this will be done When that Soul which touch't and wrought by our hands spoke by our tongue and heard by our Ears shall have her present Organs taken from her and pass from sensible objects on Earth to a spacious unseen World When as in the twinkling of an Eye our spirits will go from this lower state through the Aiery Region and the visible Heavens soaring till they come to the Throne of God All the Animal Actions of Nourishment and Growth all the Sensations that arise from outward and Material objects will cease and these spirits will be more vigorous and Active than now they are When Death comes it leaves the body though far different from what it was yet still in our view We see where it is and what Qualities it is invested with how it is disposed of we know and are able to give some exact Account of its Condition of this we have a more distinct Apprehension but none of a separated Soul but what is very imperfect 'T is certain the Soul will then preserve the Faculties that are natural to it viz. to Understand to Will to Remember as 't is represented to us under the Parable of Dives and Lazarus So long as 't is lodged here it sees and perceives Corporal things by the Organs of the Senses and reasons upon the Images that are labour'd in the Phantasie but there are in our Souls Idea's purely intellectual and which have in them nothing Material as the Contemplations of the Nature of God and of his Attributes We little know how the People of the disembodied Societies Act and Will and Understand and communicate their Thoughts to one another What Conception can we have of a separated Soul but that 't is all thought and that either in the Calmness of an elevated Joy or the bitterness of overwhelming Anguish according to the state in which it is and the sentence that is past upon it When a Mans Body is taken from him by Death he is turn'd into all Thought and Spirit either infinitely more pleas'd or more amaz'd than he could be in this World How great will be its thoughts when it is without any hinderance from these material Organs that now obstruct its operations In that Eternity as one expresses it the whole power of the Soul runs together one and the same way In this World the soul sends out Parties of it self divers wayes or to several ends the Judgment may be pleased in the main and yet the Affections disturbed or these more still and yet the Judgment dissatisfied and disturbed One thought goes out in high discontent another flyes after it recalls and reconciles it On the other side one thought leaps out of the Soul with pleasure another reproves daunts and dejects it with a correction of its haste But in Eternity the soul is united in its motions which way one Faculty goes all go and the Thoughts are all Concentred as in one whole Thought of Joy or Torment Beverley Great Soul of Man pag. 292. These things cannot but occasion great variety of thoughts in every Considering Man and the soul especially when it looks toward that World and thinks it self near it can no more cease to be Inquisitive about it than it can cease to be a soul. We may indeed be too curious in this matter though it seems to be a Curiosity that is most excuseable because it concerns a mans self his own soul and his own Eternity and when we have searched as deep as we can we must confess our Ignorance and say with the Prophet upon another occasion Lord thou knowest In these Contemplations we must make the Word of God our onely Guide and it is a Mercy greatly to be acknowledged that God allows us time wherein to Converse with that Gospel that has brought life and
live an Example of dying well which is the most difficult thing in the World What a mercy is it when a man after many long and weary steps on Earth is going stored with Experiences and a well-grown Faith to his Journeys end When a man arrives at Heaven like a vessel well fraighted and richly Laden that after a long and dangerous Voyage is coming home To shine all his Life with the beauties of Holiness and when he dies to set like the Sun in beams to rise again Oh what a pleasant thing is it to a Believer to have the sweet foretastes of heaven here and hereafter to enter into the joy of his Lord To be blown along with a full gale of assured and undaunted Hope To be able to say I know whom I have believed I have fought the good fight of faith I am going to that God whose I am and whom I serve to that God who has loved me and whom I have loved who will be my own God for ever and ever What a glorious thing is it when a Christian by the assistance of the blessed Spirit has mortified all inordinate desires after any thing in this life when he can say Let me arise and go hence to a better place when the Affections and all the powers of the Soul are on the wing to meet its Saviour on the way when it is in an actual readiness and as soon as ever it hears the voice saying Come up hither will freely go and with such holy haste as if it would prevent Christ in his coming to fetch it It is a thing greatly to be desired and prayed for that when our last hour comes we may not onely in the General be prepared to dye but that we may be in a dying Frame and a man is so when he is very submissive to God and his blessed Will when he is pleas'd with that order of his Providence that calls him hence When by Faith he is intirely loosen'd from the World and Worldly things and in assurance of Salvation can yield up his Life with this Lord Jesus receive my Spirit Inf. 1. If being brought from the Grave be so great a mercy and for which we ought to be thankful then what cause have those to be thankful who are delivered so as never to be in danger of dying any more Happy are they who are deliver'd so as ever to be deliver'd never to feel the same bitterness which they once felt nor to groan under the same Miseries and Calamities We praise God here on Earth but alass how low and how weak are our Praises to what he deserves for his own Excellencies and for his Mercy to us How cold are our warmest praises to theirs above who are all in admiration Extasie and Love And well may they praise him in the most elevated manner that certainly know that all their diseases are heal'd and their Iniquities forgiven That by their nearness to God see his Face and how well-pleas'd he is with all they do they praise the riches of his Grace in pardoning so many sins and so great they praise his power and his Wisdom that guided their poor trembling Souls to his own Glory their hearts are full of Love and 't is that which produces Praise and Joy Oh what a chearful Society is above in Heaven where so many Milions of Angels and so many Saints joyn together in the same blessed work and all their several Anthems meet in one loud and pleasant Hallelujah how vastly different is their Assembly from such an one as this Here we are with our unbelief with our fears with our strong Corruptions and with our many sins whereas they are all perfect and compleat in Holiness Here are we liable to manifold Calamities the very thoughts of which may be justly afflicting to us but in their World they have no change nor variation They have one continued and unalterable Felicity after a long and doleful sickness it is a pleasant thing to behold this World again it looks as a new World to me who have dwelt for so many Months on the very borders of the Grave But alass what is this World that at the best is a Region and a state of death to that above which is a Region and a state of pure and undisturbed Life The deliverance which God has been pleased to give to Me is in many respects as a Resurrection but it is such an one as that of Lazarus after which I must be sick again and dye for Recovery is but a delay of certain death And indeed our praises for our escape from death are very much damp'd and allayed by this thought that we must for all the deliverances we have at present yet in a little while go into the Grave The remembrance of those fore and dreadful Calamities that surrounded me and this Consideration that I am whilest in this body obnoxious to many thousand more distresses makes me to rejoyce with trembling It is a very sad Consideration when a man looks upon such a number of people as is here this Evening to think how many several sorts of miseries may be our Lot before we dye All of us are born to trouble as the sparks fly upward We can no more avoid affliction then we can run away from our selves What vexations may you Parents meet withal in disobedient Children that may send you mourning to the dust What Curses may come to you who have careless Parents that suffer you to wander in the way of death What disappointments and losses and decayes may you that are Tradesmen meet withal or if you avoid all these yet that which is worse may come upon you I mean sharp and violent diseases and these I call worse because a man will better bear any inconvenience without him then that which fills his body with uneasieness and pain and his Soul by its sympathy with its dear Companion with Anguish and Vexation In how little a while will all who are now alive be dead In how little a time may the most strong and healthful person here be taken off by sickness from all Employment and business How does it trouble us many times to see the Tears and Sorrows of our nearest Friends and we cannot mitigate them with what earnest looks do they move our pity when they are in great pain but we cannot help them their shrill Cryes and their doleful groans may pierce our hearts but we know not how to remove them We stand by their Bed-sides and see their Agonies but by being sorrowful we do but for the most part add new grief to theirs We see their Countenances change and how at length they pass away and that shortly in such a case shall we our selves be But oh what a welcom and glorious day will that be when we shall see those very friends alive again whom we once saw in the most dreadful Agonies of death When though we parted with Tears yet we shall
in all our other Actions to be regulated by the Will of God and not by our own But indeed when a Man that has been very faithful and laborious in his Generation is by Pain rendred altogether unfit for Service when the Strength and Vigour which he laid out for God is wasted and decayed by old Age or a tedious Distemper when his Candle that has long burnt to enlighten others burns with a feeble and almost undiscerned Light he may then desire to die as a poor weary Man to go to Bed But the Saints of God do even then desire it with Calmness and Deliberation if they be not in a raging Disease for then it is impossible they have much ado to bring their Hearts to be sincerely and freely willing to depart Their Fears and Temptations and remaining Inclinations to the Body and their Friends on Earth render it a Work of Difficulty There are great Strugglings in that Moment between Nature and Grace between Faith and Sense though at last their Grace gets the Victory and so they long to be with Christ. If Deliverance from the Grave be so great a Mercy then Self-murther is a very great Sin The Law that forbids us to kill does extend to this as well as to the Murder of another Man this is a violating of that Soveraign Power that is in God and a taking upon us to dispose of our Life which is not our own but his 'T is an usurping upon his Providence which has determined when and after what manner we are to die and though 't is very likely there are several Accidents of Life that are worse than Death it self yet it is that Eternity that comes after Death that is most formidable and into which no Man ought to throw himself and when we are reduced to such a condition that to live seems to be far worse than to die yet even then the Unalterableness of our State afterwards should be a most powerful Restraint especially if we are uncertain where we are then to go It is against that Patience and Trust which we ought to repose in God It is a woful sort of dying to die in the doing of such a thing as this which he has most severely prohibited to tear our Souls from our Bodies with our own hands in such an ignominious and shameful manner and because of our Distress to pass Sentence upon our selves as not fit to live and then to be our own Executioners A Soul at Death should be in the Exercise of Grace and in a quiet and humble Resignation but in this case 't is in Fear and Horror and Discontent and what the Romans magnifi'd so much for Gallantry and an Heroick Spirit was the real Effect of Weakness and Cowardise as it is much more Heroical to sustain and meet a coming Danger than to retreat and fly from it It was from a Meanness of Spirit that Cato chose to kill himself because he could not see the Empire flourish under Cesar whom he did not love and however such Acts may be extoll'd by Heathen Historians they are not so by that Scripture which is the Rule of our Faith and the Guide of our Actions and which furnishes us with no Examples of those that did this Samson only excepted whose case had several things in it very singular but such as were very bad Men as Saul and Achitophel and Judas and as we would not have our portion with them in the other World so it is to be wish'd and endeavoured that our end may not be like to them in this But so great is the Love of Life and so strong the fear of Death in the most so dark the Knowledg of Futurity and so great our Unwillingness to go from a World with which we are well acquainted to that which we never saw that few Men are in danger of Self-murther till some great Affliction and overwhelming Pain and by the means of that some great Perplexity seize their Spirits I think few are in danger of it till their Griefs are unspoakably great or their Minds in that Anguish that is as the sad Foretaste of Hell till all their Thoughts are in hurry and Confusion and as then they are no way capable of being bettered by those Advices that seem proper to restrain them so it concerns you that are at ease and are able to pursue the Business and Affairs of Life and of Religion to pray earnestly to God that he withdraw not his Protection and the Guard of his Providence from you that he do not leave you to thick and gross Darkness nor to the Power of Satan who will push you forward to things that are most sinful and unwarrantable Pray hard that violent Tentations and overwhelming raging Pains may never overtake your for how evil soever Self-murther seem to you now you know not what you may be then prest to do pray earnestly that you may never be without the sense or hope of the Divine Favour for if which God forbid you once lose that woe unto you then you will be like a Ship without Sails or Rudder in a Storm you may be swallowed up or driven on the Rocks and broken to pieces It is Distress and violent Sorrow that exposes Men to the Commission of this Sin Saul fell not upon his Sword and killed himself till God had forsaken him and till he knew not what to do though it was his own Sin that brought him so low Cicero tells us indeed of one Cleombrotus who reading the Discourse of Plato concerning another more happy Life after this which could not be attained but by Death did thereupon kill himself to attain that Happiness but if that be true it is a thing that most rarely happens that any that have either hope of Heaven or Assurance of going thither are so impatient of being absent from it as to kill themselves to go thither And it may be you will be ready to ask me If they have no hope of being better when they die why do they long for Death or attempt to kill themselves They should rather strive to live that they may be better prepared for another World It is a Question that has been ask'd me by some People and seeing it is perhaps what you seldom have met withal I will give you an Answer to it and if it do not appear very rational yet I am sure it will contain that which has been the real Apprehensions of People under those Temptations I say then Men may desire to destroy themselves though they have no well grounded Expectation of Happiness after Death 1. Because of that Pain of Body and that Anguish of Soul which is intolerable to them they have no natural nor spiritual Rest nor Prospect of either and this fills them with Amazement and Horror and in that Amazement there is nothing which they will not dare to do 2. Because they may reckon that they are already as in Hell and that if they
the Gift that he has given us for there is none more excellent among all natural things than the Gift of Life and whilst we hug and embrace this dear Enjoyment let us not forget the Donor of it Let us remember God who is the Fountain of our Life and lets us also remember that gracious Mediator by whose Death this and all other Mercies were purchased for us and by whose effectual Intercession they are bestowed and made our own Could they that were cured of Fevers Palsies Blindness Lameness and other Distempers by Christ here on Earth ever forget so skilful and so tender a Phisician doubtless where-ever they came they spake of him where-ever they met him they gave him Thanks and we should be no less thankful than they seeing his Goodness his Power and his Compassion has been the same to us that it was to them for as one says he shews his Power in the Greatness his Wisdom in the Seasonableness his Truth in the Constancy his Grace in the Freeness the Riches of his Mercy in the Fullness of his Blessings and Deliverances How great is the sum of all his Thoughts and his Benefits to us they are altogether innumerable and too many for us to remember but however we ought to suffer nothing to make us forget such as are greater and more eminent There are two great Changes that we ought always to remember when we are changed from a Death of Sin to a Life of Grace and when we are brought from the Grave to the Health and comfortable Enjoyment of this natural Life for in the Beginning and in the Consummation of our Deliverances there is nothing on which we should with more delight fix our Thoughts than on the Goodness and the Power of God who alone is able to save us from our Distresses and who is most willing to do so when we call upon him The End of the Third Sermon The Fourth SERMON PSAL. 30. ver 3 4. O Lord thou hast brought up my Soul from the Grave thou hast kept me alive that I should not go down to the Pit Sing unto the Lord O ye Saints of his and give Thanks at the remembrance of his Holiness I Now proceed to enquire after what manner we must remember our Deliverance from Sickness and Death And this we may do three ways 1. Remember them with an Admiration of God that he should be so good to you Admiration is the first of all the Passions next to Pleasure and Pain When an Object is perceiv'd that hath nothing new in it we consider it indifferently and without any commotion of the Soul but the Mercies that we have from above are new to us every Morning and to be admired for their being so Lam. 3. 23. When we are intent upon the Creature we may be guilty of an excess of Admiration which by immoderate fixing of the animal Spirits in the Brain may hinder their usual Influx into other parts of the Body and be very hurtful to the Health Natural History of the Passions p. 90. But when God is our Object and Things Divine raise this Motion in our Souls there is no danger of Excess There are two things that may cause us to admire the Goodness of God that he will bestow any of his Mercies upon us 1. The vast and immense Distance that is between him and us his unspeakably glorious Majesty and Greatness and our own poor mean being that is in it self very low and does appear much more so when compared with him When we consider the large extent of his Dominions the splendor of his Court the numerousness of his Attendants the glory of his Heaven the brightness of his Sun the beauty of his Earth and the largeness of the whole Creation and then from the sight of these behold our little selves have we not cause to say Lord what is Man that thou art mindful of him or the Son of Man that thou visitest him Psal. 8. 4. Is it not a wonderful thing that so great a God will take care of us when he needs not our Services nor all the Duties we are able to perform If we were to set in Darkness for ever he would shine with a Light as bright and clear as he he now does It is a mighty Condescension in him to pity our Distress to help our Weakness to cure our Wounds to solace our Hearts to pacify our Souls and refresh our Bodies and when we are dying to revive us and to bring us from the Grave So that we may say with David 2 Sam. 7. 18. Who am I O Lord God and what is my House that thou hast brought me hitherto Ver. 19. Is this the manner of Man O Lord God How freely dos he do us good when we could lay no Obligation at all upon him 2. Another thing that causes us to admire him for the Mercies that he bestows upon us is Not only that we are inconsiderable Creatures but guilty too and have deserved the contrary at his Hands We are not only as Jacob says less than the least of all his Mercies but we are worthy of his greatest and most severe Punishments We not only deserve to be plagued all the day long and to be chastned every morning Psal. 73. 14. but we deserve to be the Objects of his Fury for evermore We murmur and think it hard to be laid upon a Sick-bed but alas we have all deserved to be laid on a Bed of Flames We groan and with impatient Complaints express our Sorrows when he for holy and gracious Ends casts us into a fiery Furnace Whereas were not the Lord infinitely merciful to us our milder Sufferings might have been our Hell Every medicinal and gentle Stroak of our Heavenly Father might have been the Lash of Devils that would have shewed us no Mercy Alas where had you and I been long ago had God dealt with us according to our Sins I should not have been speaking to you nor you hearing me in this Place with hope We should have been all silent in the Grave or all in Torments in a worse Place 'T is our Self-love and our heinous Pride that makes us to be so impatient in our Sickness and so unthankful when we are recovered We think we are injured when we are afflicted and that we have but what we merit when we are delivered But what Miseries and Desolations have our Sins deserved our Original Corruption and all that impure Offspring that has descended from it How many thousand times do we sin every day How much Evil do we commit that we ought to forbear and how much Good that we ought to perform do we let alone Who is there among us that hath those serious and abiding and lively Thoughts of God that he ought to have Who is there that in his Trade and worldly Business maintains his Commerce with Heaven and with spiritual and pious Ejaculations Who is it that by constant Exercises of Religion makes
us at our Coasts and at our own Doors this gracious God has kept it off And if we repent we shall not perish You in London have seen your Civil Liberties rescued from the Grave in which they might have laid very long had not he raised up our present Protestant King to be that glorious Instrument that should give them a Resurrection Our Country after a long Sickness and Indisposition under which a few years ago we were afraid it would have languisht quite away has begun to recover and it is our Wish and Prayer that by the same Goodness and Power of God that has turned our Captivity it may at length flourish with a perfect and compleat Recovery For indeed it is not so as long as there are still so many Blasphemies and execrable Oaths to be heard in our Streets as long as there is so much heedlesness and irreverence in our Assemblies so much Injustice and Deceit in our Shops so much Omission of Prayer in our Families so much Luxury and Riot at our Tables so much Profanation of this Holy day But to this we hope the Zeal and the Care of our Magistrates will at length put a stop But whilst these things continue tho blessed be God we are much better than we once were yet still these will be ill Symptoms upon us What cause of Joy should we have if the Mercies we have already received were sanctified and improved Oh what a Joy would it be if God would save England with a Spiritual Deliverance if he would save us from those Sins that expose us to his Wrath And if we would in our particular stations do all we can to promote such a Salvation which would be much more glorious than what we have yet seen Then indeed we should have cause to turn our days of Humiliation into days of Praise If we would forsake our strange Sins we need not fear in the least to be punisht by People of a strange Language and which we understand not We need not fear all the powers of the World nor all our Enemies if we did not cherish the worst Enemy of all in our own bosoms I mean our Sins and if which God avert we should still continue to cherish these they will rout us without another Enemy Let us obey and love that God that has so wonderfully preserved and continued our Peace that so there is no crying out nor complaining in our Streets That has made all things to be still with us while the Nations round abound have heard the Voice of Spoilers and the Noise of bloody Wars Let us take heed lest we forget our Deliverer lest we abuse his Goodness lest we forsake our own Mercies There are no Judgments so severe which we have not all deserved and which we may not fear but yet there are no Mercies so great for which we may not hope if the large Experience that we have of the Goodness of God in our frequent Deliverances have their due influence upon us and if he be for us as he will then be who can be against us Jer. 3. 22 23. Return ye backsliding Children and I will heal your backslidings Behold we come unto thee for thou art the Lord our God Truly in vain is salvation hoped from the Hills and from the multitude of Mountains truly in the Lord our God is the Salvation of Israel The Fifth SERMON Psal. 30. ver 3 4. O Lord thou hast brought up my Soul from the Grave thou hast kept me alive that I should not go down into the Pit Sing unto the Lord O ye Saints of his and give thanks at the Remembrance of his Holiness ANOTHER Way whereby you are to improve your Recovery from Sickness is to take heed that you do not overmuch value your Bodies Look upon them as still obnoxious to great Pains and let that abate your too great Indulgence to them This I know is not a very pleasant direction because as there is nothing for which our sensible Nature has a greater abhorrence than Pain so there is nothing of which we are more unwilling to think and when by any ways 't is brought to our remembrance we endeavour to turn it off by turning to some other Discourse or avoiding those places where by the Groans or Tears of the Sick we shall be forced to remember it whether we will or not Few People care to talk of Sickness till they are sick or of dying till they come to dye They make much shorter Visits to the diseased than to those in health not only because they are afraid of troubling their Friends by their Discourse which is likely enough but principally because this is more unpleasant than their other Visits It is very advisable therefore that we render those Evils which we cannot avoid familiar to us by frequent Meditations and this will diminish their formidableness and violence tho indeed when a Man has thought never so long pain will be pain still a thing that whenever it comes will cause indelightful sensations in our Spirits The Body by its near alliance will communicate to the Soul a perception of all the Meseries it suffers and when the one half of a Man is ill the other half cannot fare very well It was the peculiar Vanity of the Stoicks as some observe That they would be philosophizing after the rate of Angels and discourse without considering that their Bodies are one half of their Natures and that their Souls are not disengaged from Matter and by consequence have sensual Appetites too gross to be satisfied by bare Thoughts and Reflections and sensitive Pains too sharp to be allayed with Words and Subtilties When we consider what Evils our Sickness brought upon these poor frail Bodies of ours surely we should never too much doat upon them when all the Care we can use will not preserve them from the Grave He that is proud of his Body is as foolish as if he should doat upon a Flower which an unseen Storm may deprive of all its Glory or which if it be let alone and meet with no accident will of its self wither and deay Or as if he should admire a Stream of Water and the Bubbles that are upon it which in the very moment of our Admiration slide away and stay not for our Praise or our Love Or as if he should fall in Love with some of those brighter Clouds which roul above our Heads and which for all their taking Brightness will quickly disappear It would abate that tenderness and delicacy wherewith we treat our Bodies if we did but leisurely consider what strange Miseries may afflict them before the period of this mortal Life It is a sad Reflection as one says to consider that when Life is so short and so fading so much of so little should be worn away in Misery and Torment Some indeed by a particular Dispensation and a most favourable Providence are allowed to pass into the other World without