mad merrimemt he is a mad man that rejoyceth in that for which except he betake himself to serious and bitter mourning he cannot be saved Thirdly the inordinateness of the joy of young men may appear in this because they rejoyce excessively in lawful things for any joy when it is inordinate and excessive it is carnal It is lawful to rejoyce in recreations a whetting is no letting as the Proverb goeth But for a man to let out himself to the hinderance of the service of God to the disturbance of his duty to men it is unlawful It is lawfull to delight in the blessings and comforts of God that he affordeth us we read of the Joy of harvest in Isa 9. But for a man to delight in the gifts of God more then in the giver it is unlawfull Now if young men examine themselves they shall find their hearts mount not up to God in their joy and jollity and that they are excessive in the joy of the creature but altogether cold without joy of the Creatour Fourthly the carnalness of the Joy of young men may well appear in this because they terminate and conclude not their joy in God This followeth on the former for it is impossible that what beginneth not in God should end in God Now when Joy beginneth in sin it cannot end in God but in the Divel Secondly let young men take notice of themselves how they walk after their own hearts The heart that saies Come put away pensive thoughts trouble not your self about the day of reckoning and Judgement enjoy the time present what need this strictness of conversation zeal is but rashness there is no need of it take thy sill of pleasures thou hast goods laid up for many years Thus they Judge and thus they walk after their carnal heart This heart is as no heart as we read of Ephraim in Hosea 7. He was a silly dove that had no heart Certainly the heart that doth not guide men in the right way and direct men to the fear of God it is no heart For as the eye that will not lead us in the right way that performs not its office is no eye so the heart that leadeth not men to God and to goodness it is like the heart of Ephraim it is as no heart Again in the third place Let young men take notice of themselves how they walk after the sight of their eyes That is they stand gazing on things temporal and neglect things eternal they see a beauty and lustre in these outward things and perceive no glory and brightness in Christ Jesus and in his precious Ordinances Beloved if we follow our own heart and our own eyes it will be thus We should rather labour with Job to make a covenant with our eyes Oh how few young men are there that make a bargaine and agreement with their eyes that they Oh how few young men are shall not be as open Casements to let sin into the soul there that like Jeremy have their eyes as fountains of water to weep day and night for the afflictions of the people of God Oh how few yonng men are there that with Moses have an eye to the recompence of reward that they may suffer affliction with the people of God rather then to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season Now I beseech you take a survey of your selves in these things These are the vices and sins and deformities of young men to be seen and lamented by all those that hope to dwell in Gods holy Hill The second use of this point is for exhortation to young men they should labour to be reformed in their affections and hearts And away away with this carnall joy we ought to cast it out of us Carnal Joy will you know what the event of it will be It will end in carnal sorrow and without repentance in hell it self Wo unto you faith our Saviour Christ that laugh now you shall weep and mourn The triumphing of the wicked saith Zophar in Job is short and the joy of the hypocrite but for a moment though his excellency mount up to the heavens and his head reach unto the clouds yet he shall perish as his own dung they which have seen him shall say where is be He shall fall away as a dream and shall not be found yea he shall be chased away as a vision of the night But not to give you this only in Precept but also to shew you how to reform your selves in these vices that Solomon speciâ—…eth bo bear sway in young men let me lay you down these few directions First you must betake your selves to mourning for you sins as Saint James saith Be afflctied and weep and mourn let your laughter be turned into heaviuess If we be not reconciled to God if we have not assurance that we are interested in Christ there is no time for us to rejoyce we should rather betake our selves to bitter mourning for the wrath of God is due unto us and we know not how soon it may fall upon us In the second place Consider how vain all things are in which youthfull persons rejoyce If young men rejoyce in human wisdome and understanding this is a vain thing For first it is gotten with a great deal of trouble and vexation of spirit so faith Solomon Eccles 1.13 I gave my heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all things that are done under heaven this sore travel hath God given to the sons of men to be exercised therewith And verse 18. in much wisdome is much grief and he that increaseth knowledg increaseth sorrow God doth so punish the pride and boldness of the wit of men even from the fall of our first Parents Secondly this human wisdome it must needs be a vain thing for Eccles 1.15 that which is crooked cannot be made straight and that which is wanting cannot be numbred by human wisdome The meaning is this that the natural wisdome of man cannot supply the defects of nature which are innumerable much lesse can it furnish the soul with grace or salvation Thirdly it is but vexation of spirit Solomon though he had gotten wisdome and understanding and had experience more then all the Kings of Jerusalem that were before him yet faith he Behold this is vexation of spirit Again God will abolish this human wisdome 1 Cor. 1.19 I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent Where is the wise where is the Scribe where is the disputer of this world Hath not God made foolish the wisdome of this world Besides all your human wisdom it shall not go down to to the Grave it shall leave you when you die There is no work nor device nor knowledg nor wisdome in the grave whether thou goest Eccles 9.10 This is the first thing in which young
of doing holy duties Would you be found praying pefunctorily and carelesly Would you be found coming to the Sacrament unprepared What though you do holy actions that are good for the matter would you be found doing of them with unfit and unprepared hearts You see what the Apostle saith 1. Cor. 11. For this cause many are sick and weak and many sleep they slept they were dead for this even because they came unworthily to receive the Sacrament of the Lords Supper Would you therefore be found doing of holy duties and not in a right manner The serious consideration of this that Death is the end of all men with the particular application of it to a mans selfe that as it is the state of all men so it is mine in particular I must die and I may die now it hath an influence into all the actions of a mans life To conclude In the last place This point is of use to us also in the death of others First to moderate the mourning of Christians for the death of others Why It is the end of all men it is that that is the common condition of all men it should not be too grievous not too doleful to any man We would not have our freinds to be in another condition in their birth then others we would not have them have more fingers or more members then a man and would we have them have more dayes Let this serve as a brief touch upon that Secondly it teacheth us to make good use of our fellowship while we are together Not only we may die but those that are useful to us may die also let us make good use of one another while we live therefore This will make the death of others bitter and will be worse than the death and losse of our freinds the guilt upon a mans conscience that he hath not made that use of them while they were alive that he might have done let us therefore make the death of our freinds easie by making good use of them while they live It did smite the heart of those Ephesians that they should see the face of Paul no more specially above the rest it grieved them that they should see him no more how would it have grieved them think you if they had alwayes hardned themselves against his ministry before Think with your selves seriously here is such a Minister such a Christian freind that husband and wife that parent and child a time of parting will come let us make it easie now by making good use of one another while we live that when freinds are took away we may have cause to thank God that we have had communion and confort of their fellowship and society the benefit of their graces the fruit of their lives and not sorrow for the want of them by death So much for that I come now to the second and principal reason why it is better to go to the house of mourning then to the house of feasting it is this because the living shall lay it to his heart What shall he lay to his heart That that is the end of all mèn he shall lay the death of all men to heart The point I observe from hence is thus much It is the dutie of those that live to lay to heart the death of others That is seriously ro consider and make use for themselves of the death of others You see the Text is clear for the point And there is good reason why it should be so First in respect of the glory that cometh to God Secondly in respect of the good that cometh to our selves by it First God is glorified by this when we lay to heart the death of others there is a dishonour to God to slight any of his actions this is one of Gods works in the world the death of men this is a thing wherein Gods hand is seen he saith to the sons of Adam Return The spirit returneth to God that gave it It is he that hath the power of life and death If a sparrow fall not to the ground without the providence of God much lesse the servants of God the precious ones upon the earth the excellent ones as David calleth them I say God is seen much in these works and it is a great dishonour to God when men do not consider the works of his hands David by the spirit of prophesie in Psal 28.5 wisheth a curse upon ungodly men and for this reason among the rest because they consider not the operation of his hands this is that that puts men into a curst estate and exposeth them to the wrath of God when they regard not the works of the Lord. The actions of Princes and great men upon earth every man considereth of them and weigheth them It is that wherein we give God the glory of his wisdome and of his truth of his power of his justice of his mercy of his soveraignty and dominion and Lordship over the whole earth when we labour to draw to a particular use to our selves the works of God in the world specially the death of men of all men good and bad for we must give it the same latitude and extent and scope that the Text doth here he speaks here of the death of men in general and he saith of all men that their death shall be laid to heart by the living Secondly as their is reason that we should take to heart the death of others in respect of the glory that cometh to God thereby so in respect of our selves also much benefit cometh to our selves by laying to heart the death of other men There be three special things considerable in the death of any one that is matter of profit and benefit to those that live and survive after them Therein we see the Certainty of Death Therein we see the Nature of Death Therein we see the Cause End of Death First therein we see the certainty of death For now we have not only the word of God that tels us that we shall die but the works of God taking others before us that as the Sacraments are called visible instructions because they teach by the eye and the outward senses so the death of others are visible instructions to the living it teacheth by the eye a man is guided by the eye to see his own condition and as it were in a glasse there is represented to him his own state what we are they were once the time was that they converst with men as we do that they spake for Gods glory upon earth as we do and what they are now we shall be there will come a time when our works shall cease as theirs do when we shall be in the place of silence as they are I say it confirmeth to us the former certainty and assurance of our death when we see others fall before us And there is great profit and benefit that
be upon us and we pine away in them how shall we then live The Prophet had incouraged them notwithstanding their great sins to return by true repentance and they should not perish nevertheless they are muttering discouraged with fear breaking their spirits withdrawing themselves from God the judgements of God are begun upon us the hand of wrath is gone out against us we are pining away in them though we are not wasted yet yet we are like a man in a consumption that wasteth by degrees how shall we live certainly we shall die Saith the Lord say not thus among your selves but know if ye turn ye shall live As I live saith the Lord I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked but that the wicked turn from his way and live turn ye turn ye from your evil wayes for why will ye die oh house of Israel Beware of discouragment therefore it is Sathans device that when once he hath drawn men from God by a path of sin to hold them under discouragement that so he may ever after keep them from turning to God again It was his device whereby he would have kept Adam from turning to God after he had committed that great sin in eating of the forbidden tree He thought of nothing but hiding himself from God and so he did hide himself amongst the bushes of the Garden I heard thy voyce and was afraid and I hid my self Mark here was a fear of discouragement in Adam that whereas he should have come and fell down before the Lord and have begged mercy and said as David here Who knoweth whether the Lord will be gracious to me He run clean away from God There is a fear of reverence that keepeth a man with God and there is a fear that draweth a man to God but this fear of discouragement driveth a man from God and that is the temptation of Sathan to keep a man from God when once he hath turned aside from him Therefore that is the first thing take heed of such inward discouragements as may drive you quite off Secondly Take incouragement then to seek the face of God in his own means and way He hath threatned judgements against others for the same sins that ye find your selves guilty of when they have returned to him they have found mercy Return ye to him in truth and seek his face aright and ye shall find the same mercy In the prophesie of Joel ye shall see there that though God had threatned judgements nay though he had begun judgement for that was the case of those times judgement was begun upon them yet neverthelesse the Prophet calleth them to fasting and weeping and telleth them that the Lord is gracious and merciful and ready to forgive and who knoweth if he will return and repent and leave a blessing behind him Therefore let us do our parts and seek God in truth amend our lives and then no question of this but that God will return It is an old device of Sathan to draw men instead of Gods revealed will to look to Gods secret will whether I be absolutely rejected or cast off or not But this is not the thought wherein a Christian should exercise himselfe his main business is this to make his calling and election sure by all the evidences of it hy a holy life walk obediently to Gods revealed will and be certain thou shalt not be rejected by Gods secret will He never rejecteth those by his secret will and purpose and decree to whom he giveth a heart to walk obediently to his revealed will So much for that Who knoweth that the Lord will be gracious to me that the child may live The incouragement is this That the child may live But mark his expression Whether the Lord will be gratious to me that the child may live If he had said no more but this Who knoweth whether the child may live A man would have thought this would fully enough have expressed his mind but there is more in it that could not be expressed without this addition Who knoweth whether the Lord will be gracious to me that the child may live The life of a child is a mercy to the father David expresseth herein both his Pitty and his Piety His pitty He accounteth all the good or ill that befalleth his child as his own if death befalleth it he accounteth it as a misery that befalleth himself if sickness befalleth his child he accounteth it as an affliction upon himself This is his natural pitty that some natural affection of a father to his Child See such an expression of the woman of Canaan have mercy on me thou son of David my daughter is miserably vexed of a divel The Daughter was miserably vexed and the mother cryeth out Have mercy on me There is such a simpathy ariseth hence from the natural and free course that love hath in descending from the Father to the Child There are not only moral perswasions that may invite and draw on love but besides that there is a course of affection that floweth naturally and kindly from the Father to the child as it is with those rivers that fall downward they fall more vehenently then those that are carried upward so the more natural the affection is the more vehement it expresseth it self in the motion to such objects Now when the Father expresseth his affection to his child this is more vehement because it is more natural there is more strength of nature in it I cannot stand upon this only a word by way of inference and application to our selves First are natural parents thus to their children Then here is a ground of faith for the children of God that he is pleased to stile himself by the name of Father and to receive them into the adoption of sons and daughters This was Davids expression of God As a father hath compassion of his children so hath the Lord on those that fear him And the Prophet Isaiah expresseth it fully In all their affliction he was afflicted and the Angel of his presense saved them in his love and pitty he redeemed them and he bare them all the dayes of old he bore them upon his wings This giveth confidence and boldness to Gods children in making their requests known to him This was it that incouraged the Prodigal I will arise and go to my father and say Father I have sinned against heaven and bofore thee c. God saith S. Barnard alwayes grants those petitions that are sweetned with the name of father and the affection of a child I should hence speak somewhat to children to stir them up to answer the love of their Parents but other things that follow forbids me any long discourse of this Secondly here is Davids piety expressed in this Who knoweth whether the Lord will be gracious to me He exprest not only the Pitty and affection of a natural father to a child but piety
and now will be finished in a time of Mortality certain And that there should be no part of correspondency wanting this latter part of the Verse is answerable to the former it is but the same again in other words In the former part there is mention of the righteous man here of the mercyful man they are both one In that he is said to perish here to be taken away they are both the same There No man is said to lay it to heart and here no man is said to consider it both the same So that look upon the whole both parts joyn together they walk on by pairs two and two as the living creatures into the Ark Male and Female The first pair sets forth to you the state and condition of a godly man he is righteous and merciful those are the male and female of Piety The second sets forth to you the state and condition of a dying man he perisheth and is taken away those are the Male and Female of death The third sets out the state and condition of a worldly man he layes it not to heart he never takes it into consideration those are the Male and Female of carnal security And that all the pairs should now be made up the former part was handled at the burial of a good old Man this latter now at the burial of an old and vertuous Gentlewoman those are the Male and Female of nature The former part that is a complaint that the Prophet made and so is the second and this second is set as a Commentary to the first this latter part is as Eve created as a help to Adam for every word in this latter helps to expound some word in the former The first word in the latter part tâ—… us of the merciful man that is the Exposition of the first word in the former part the righteous man Lest any man should make question who this righteous man was that the Prophet speaks of how we should know him and define him and find him find me a merciful man and he is truly a righteous man The second word in the latter part is taken away that hath reference to the second word in the former and it is a qualification of the harshness of the former there it is said The righteous man perisheth but lest any man should scandal at this word shall we think that he perisheth whose life is hid with Christ in God Shall the Scripture say that he perisheth whose name is in the bundle of life written in heaven To lay aside therefore the rigour of the word here is the Qualification he is taken away The third word of the latter hath reference to the third of the former too No man considereth it If any man ask the reason how it comes to pass that people should be without natural affection that they take it not to heart that they are not grieved for Joseph that they are not striken with any sense of their own losses what should be the reason of it The reason is in this word they take it not into consideration They trouble not their heads therefore not their hearts with it That it may make an aggravation of that They were so far from taking of it to heart that they never propounded it to the examination and scanning of their judgment they consider it not So every word in the latter part is serviceable to the first I shewed concerning the first part who this Righteous man is how great the dignation of the Spirit of God is that he will stile holy men that are so imperfect in holiness yet because of their holy endeavours to walk in the wayes of God blamelesly the Spirit stiles them Righteous men Secondly I shewed how this Righteous man is said to perish and it what sense and how it is impossible they should perish and why the Holy Ghost chooseth this word which is more then death to set out to us the death of the Righteous man And then the last considered in particular how it is lawful to 〈◊〉 for the departure of those that are gone how that God alloweth that how that God blameth for the neglect of it Men are to lay it to heart to grieve How 〈◊〉 this griese is to extend These were the heads of those things that concerne the first part I now go on forward to the second And that is a complaint as the former was that the Prophet takes up over the people of the Jewes for their great stupidity in that they considered not any work of God toward them And it hath these two parts There is the complaint he takes up over the dead Merciful men are taken away from the evil to come And the other complaint he takes up over the living those that are living and survive them they care not though heaven and earth be mingled together though they lose all their props whereby the earth is supported they never consider it I begin with the first of these And that is The complaint that is taken up over the Righteous mans departure In that I consider two things First looke to the meaning of the words And then see what were the motives that made the Prophet take up this complaint and lamentation that whereas others wanted it the Prophet should supply it and should give testimony to their departure The righteous are taken away First for the meaning of the words It is a proposition and there are three parts of it The subject of the proposition Merciful men The Predicat Are taken away The Affix anexed to it from the evil to come Briefly look upon the meaning of all these and they will all afford us some instruction The First is the subject of this proposition It is said here and it varieth from the former Merciful men A man would wonder why he should alter the stile except it were because the Spirit of God delighteth to set out godly men according to the multitude of their titles the righteous and mercyful men Otherwise the same terme might have been kept in the latter part for they are both the same in effect He that is a merciful man is a Righteous man and he that is righteous will be merciful yet the Prophet varieth it righteous men perish and merciful men are taken away There is some special reason of the variation I conceive it is one of these three or all The first reason why he useth this word merciful men in the latter part is For the greater conviction of their stupidity They were such as were not affected with the condition or loss of righteous and holy men nay they were so stupid that they were not affected with the loss of mercyful men that is more If there were any sense of piety they should for Gods cause grieve at the loss of godly men but if their were any sense of their own good there should be grief for the loss of merciful men Generally
there will be no mercy there is no mercy where there are the fruits of uncharitableness and if there be no mercy there will be no piety Let this therefore be the touch-stone of piety love and peace with men as the Apostle speaks As much as is possible have peace with all men I will speak no more of the meaning of the first part Marciful men are taken away It is the Commentary upon the former The second is the Predicate of the Proposition they are taken away that hath reference to this they perish It is great wisdom in the Spirit of God thus to expound one word by another That as in the body of a man those parts that are of most use God in wisdom hath made them double hath made them pairs two eyes two hands two ears c. because these are parts of great use that if one part fall away and miscarry the other part may supply if one eye be out a man loseth not his sight he hath another and so in other parts so it is in the Scripture if we mistake one word here is another that is more plain to lead us right in the meaning of the Scripture for else men would have been offended Godly men perish That is more then to die that that perisheth is lost But it is plain they are not lost in death Perishing is one step beyond death If it had been predicated of merciless impenitent unrighteous men it might have been said so they perish they not only die But what hath the righteous done who ever perished being innocent Who ever suspected and dreamed that it was possible for merciful men to perish Here cometh in the interpretation No be not deceived It is a word frequently used in the world carnall men think so but they perish not they are but took away Ye see how one word helpeth the other so this word giveth us assurance of the meaning of this Scripture and of the state and condition of a merciful man he perisheth not though the Atheists of the world think so he perisheth not to himself for then beginneth his happiness when death cometh though they perish to mens memorial and remembrance there is no remembrance of the wise man more then of the fool saith Sollomon that is worldly men that mind the world and their bellies they take no more to consideration when a righteous man a wise man dieth then a fool that is an impenitent man though I say they perish to the memorial of the world they perish not to God not to the fruition of his happiness for Death is but a porter a bridge to everlasting life then beginneth their glory Heaven that was begun before in a mistery then it is set open to them literally and personally They perish not because they are taken away there is the proof of it A man that is removed only from an Inn no man will say that he is lost That that is transplanted from one soil to another doth not perish A grast or syens though it be cut off and it is to have a more noble plantation It is so far from perishing that it is more perfect it is stablished in its nature it is set into a better There are but one of these two interpretations of perishing and neither of them can befal a godly merciful man Either it is a passage from a beeing to a not beeing and so the Beasts when they die perish because their souls are mortal as well as their bodies it is no more a living creature there is no more life it it it resolveth to its first principles the soul it is nourshed as well as the body there was a beeing before but now there is a nullity of beeing in respect of a living creature there is nothing liveth Here is a perishing from a beeing to a not beeing Again perishing may be a passage from a beeing to a worse beeing so an impenitent man when he dieth he passeth from life to death yea to an eternal death to a worse beeing that is a perishing and a proper perishing that is worse then to be lost It is better to have no beeing then to have either of these But in neither of these senses the righteous man perisheth he hath a beeing and a well-beeing after death His soul hath a eral beeing with God in happiness his body hath a beeing of hope though it be in the grave Nay it hath a real beeing of happiness as it is a member of Christ in regard of the mystical union So in no sense he perisheth he is but took away he is but removed it is but Exodus but transitus his death is not a going out of the Candle it is but a translation a removing of it to a better frame it is set upon a more glorious table to shine more bright The word is well expounded in Heb. 11. concerning Enoch whereas in the fifth of Genesis the Scripture saith Enoch walked with God and God took him in the Hebrews it is said he was translated In the one he was took away that is in respect of the world In the other he was translated that is in respect of heaven They are tock away that is from the place of misery the Dungeon the prison to a place of glory and happiness They are took away from the house of clay to the house Eternal not made with hands in the heavens they are translated upward that is meant in this So that there are two observations in this First That Piety and Mercy excuseth not from death Godliness it self freeth not a man from death Death it is that end that is propounded to all men The bodies of godly men are of the same mould and temper of the same frame and constitution as other men their flesh is as frail their humours as cholerick their spirit as sading their breath as vanishing they owe the same debt to nature to sin to God to themselves and their own happiness They are bound under the weight of the same Law the statute law is It is appointed to all men to die once It is well said to die once for the impenitent man dieth twice he dieth here by the separation of his soul from his body that is the first death and there is the second death that succeedeth that the death of the soul by a separation of it from God which is far worse But righteous and merciful men die once the first death seizeth upon them It is appointed to all It is the end of all flesh In one place It is the end of all the earth in another place It is the end of all living the end of all men even merciful and godly men are brought within the compass of this law of Nature to yeeld up this debt and due Righteousness excuses not it frees not It is a law that bindeth one as well as another As Basil of Seuleucia observeth though Adam was the first that finned
they that die in the Lord. There is the Restriction Thirdly you have the Time from whence this blessedness beginneeh From henceforth blessed are the dead that die in the Lord. Fourthly you have the Particulars wherein this blessedness consists It is in a Relaxation of their labours and a Retribution of their works they rest from their labours and their works follow them Lastly you have a Confirmation of all this It is confirmed first by a voyce from heaven A voyce from heaven said write And then it is confirmed by te Spirit of God Even so saith the spirit they rest from their labours You must not look that in this shortness of time I should go through all these And I do not intend it It may be only the first and second I pray let me take some time to speak of the occasion of our meeting I would do all within the hour I begin with the first Dead men are blessed Blessed are the dead Blessedness is a thing that every man desireth He is no man but a monster that would live wretchedly Every man desireth to be blessed But that thing which we all desire in common when it cometh to be determined most men mistake it Some place blessedness in riches And some place it in honours Some place it in pleasures And some place it in health of body And some place it in civil vertues What need I tell you more S. Austin in his 19. book DeCivitate Dei telleth us of no fewer then two hundred fourscore and eight several places of blessedness All determined in this life To let them passe Blessedness consisteth in the enjoying of the soveraign good That same soveraign good is God We enjoy God both in this life and in the life to come From hence there is a double Blessedness Distinguish them as you will Whether you call one Beatudo vioe the other Beatudo patrioe as some do The Blessedness of the way and the Blessedness of the Country Or whether you call one Beatudo spei the other Beatudo rei The Blessedness of expectation or the blessedness of fruition Or whether you call them as usually you do The Blessedness of Grace here and the Blessedness of Glory hereer It mattereth not in what terms yon distinguish them but so we know this have one and you are sure of both There is none have the Blessedness of Glory but such as were first Blessed in the state of Grace And there is none Blessed in a state of Grace but shall be Blessed in the state of Glory There is a threefold condition of a Blessed soul It is here in the body as long as God pleaseth But then it is from the Lord. It is with the Lord but then it is from the Body There is a third Condition when it shall be in the body again and with the Lord for ever Then is the full consumation of blisse when this same body of ours shall be raised up and made like the glorious body of Jesus Christ But our Blessedness in this life though we have here a comfortable fellowship with God yet because that it is not per speciem it is not by sight it is but by faith we walk by faith and not by sight Because while we are here though we do see the face of God in the Mirrour or glass of the Gospel yet because we are absent from him as he is objectum Beatificans Because here the tears are not all wiped from our eyes and we have not yet a full rest from our labours nor a full reward for our services Therefore our Blessedness here it is nothing to speak of in comparison of that Blessedness which we shall have hereafter when the soul is separated from the body and is with the Lord. Therefore saith the Apostle I desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ and this quoth he it is melius it is better Better Yea it is multo melius it is much better Yea it is multo mag is melius you must bear with Saint Pauls incongruity of speech it is much more better to be with him If our hope were only in this life of all men beleevers the children of God were most miserable But the hope of our immortal life is the life of this mortal There was some little glimpse of this light even amongst the Gentiles such as did beleeve the immortality of the soul One of the heathen Poets could say No man is blessed till death Cressus the Lybian a man happy in his great achievements asked Solon Pray quoth he tell me what man dost thou think happy He named one to him Tellus a man that was dead But quoth he whom else dost thou think haypy He named two btethren more that did a worke of piety to their Mother it were too long to tell you the particular story and they were dead I think them happy quoth he Cressus began to be angry that he himself should not be thought a happy man Am not I happy Oh quoth he I take thee for a great King but I accont thee not happy before death Cressus grew to misery and then he cried out Oh Solon Solon c. Here we have a word a voyce from heaven and the Word confirmed by the Spirit and we have testimonies of Scripture and we have some little glimpse of this light from the Gentiles yet notwithstanding flesh and bloud will not be perswaded of this that dead men should be happy that there is a happinesse in death There are many things they have against it First say they Death is an enemy It is very true Death is is an enemy the Apostle calleth it so The last enemy that shall be destroyed is Death And say they it is a terrible enemy It is very true and of all terrible things the most terrible yea and nature abhorreth it exceedingly See it in any creature that liveth Mark if every creature would not use leggs wings hoofs horns tusks beaks or whatsoever thing it is wherewith God and nature hath armed it to preserve life Solomon saith it but he saith it in the person of a carnal man as he doth many things by Metaphors in his book of Ecclesiastes That a living dogg is better then a dead lyon Sathan is a lyar and the father of lies but yet notwithstanding that word of his was a truth Skin for skin yea all that a man hath will he give for his life Vita dum super est benè est said Moecenas when he lay grievously sick of the Gout So long as life remains it is well enough You have one man that liveth in extream poverty eateth no bread but the bread of affliction yet he would live You have another man that carrieth about him a diseased body the arrows of God sticking fast in him and the venome of them drinking up his spirits by some sickness yet he would live You have another man that hath a
be greater then I can give warrant for they that die thus die eternally And we had need beseech God with all earnestness of spirit to keep us from such a fearful temptation as this for they that die thus die not in the Lord and therefore cannot be blessed for my Text saith it of no other but of those Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord. This is the first point I come to the Restriction Die in the Lord. It may be construed two wayes the preposition is Ambiguous for the preposition many times in Scripture signifies In Domino or propter Dominum As Rom. 16.1 I commend unto you Phebe our sister that you would receive her in Domino in the Lord that is for the Lords sake as becometh Saints And in the twelfth verse of the same Chapter Salute the beloved Persis which laboured much in the Lord that is laboured much in Gods cause for the Lord. So again Say to Archippus look to the ministery that thou hast received In Domino that is for the Lord for the Lords service for his work I might give you many more instances There is one place most pregnant Eph. 4.1 I Paul a prisoner in Domino so saith the vulgar Latine and so is the Greek interpretation In the Lord. What meaneth Saint Paul A prisoner in the Lord what is that A prisoner for the Lord a prisoner for the Lords cause And thus you may take the word here in the Text Blessed are they that die in Domino that is such as die in causa Domini and thus Judicious Beza to whose judgment I attribute much in translations he readeth it so Blessed are the dead qui moriuutur causa Domini and then in his Annotations propter Dominum And if you take it thus then the Martyrs only are blessed That Martyrs are blessed the Church of God is so far from making a question that they set it down as a Rule Injuriam facit Martyri qui orat pro Martyre A man doth wrong to a Martyr that prayes for a Martyr their blessedness is so sure for He that loseth his life for my sake and the Gospels shall find it saith Christ If he loseth a temporal life he shall find an eternal If he lose a life accompanied with sorrow he shall find another life that is with joy such joy as cannot be conceived such joy as shall never be ended Precious in the eyes of the Lord is the death of his Saints There are two things saith S. Bernard that makes the death of a Saint precious the one is a good life before the other is a good cause for which he dieth A good life will make it a precious death but a good cause will make it a more precious death But that is the most pretious death that hath both a good life before it and a good cause coming next The Matyrs are blessed but they must be such Martyrs as suffer for the Lord be sure of that or else they are not blessed There be some that would be accounted Martyrs a great company of such we have had of late that have died for broaching of reason and some for sowing of sedition some for absolving subjects from the oath of Alleageance some for attempting to blow up Parliament houses Such as these are not Martyrs It is not the punishment it is the cause that makes the Martyr Our blessed Lord himselfe that never did evil was crucified between two evil-doers there was an equal punishment there was not an equal cause It must be the cause that we must look to if we look to be blessed But I cantot stand upon that Here is the first interpretation To die in the Lord is for the Lord. But there is a second and that is more large die in the Lord that is die in the faith of the Lord. Salute Andronicus and Junius my fellow prisoners which were in the Lord before me Saith S. Paul that is that were Beleevers that were in the faith before me And to let pass many other places if there be no resurrection of the dead saith the Apostle then we that are asleep in Christ c. If we beleeve that Jesus died then those that sleep in Jesus shall he bring with him c. and Again He shall descend from heaven with a shout and they that are dead in Christ shall rise first Now what is it to die in Christ in a large sense I will tell you He that would die in Christ first he must die in obedience There are many works of obedience that we are to doe Our last and greatest act of obedience is to resign up this same spirit of ours willingly chearfully into the hands of God that gave it If we have not attained to that strength that some have done that is to live patiently and die willingly yet we should labour to attain to thus much strength to live willingly and to die patiently So as Christ may be magnified in my body saith the Apostle I pass not it makes no matter let it either be by life or by death When we have done the work that God hath set us to do we must be gone and thus must every one say with himself Lord if I have done all the work thou hast appointed me to do call me away at thy pleasure Here is the first In obedience Secondly Die in repentance I remember what Possidonius said of Saint Augustine a little before his death that it was necessary that men when they died they should not go out of the world absque digna competenti resipiscentiâ without a fit competent repentance He himselfe did so for he caused the penitential Plalmes to be written and they were before him as he lay upon his bed and he was continually reading those penitential Psalmes and meditating upon them with many tears he died even in the very act of contrition I do love to see a man chearful upon his death-bed but I do more love to see a man penitent There is a day indeed when God will wipe away all tears from our eyes When that cometh then he will wipe away these tears of repentance too these tears of godly sorrow But the Lord grant he may find me with tears in mine eyes Thirdly Die in faith Indeed if ever Faith had a work to doe it bath then a work to do when all other comforts in the world fail us and freinds go from us then faith to lay hold on the promises I know that my Redeemer liveth and that I shall rise again at the last day and be covered with my skin and shall see God with these same eyes Thus faith And then fourthly Die with Invocation calling upon the name of God Thus have all the Saints of God done continually commending of their souls to God in prayers Saint Paul would have us commend our souls to God in well-doing And it is a necesary thing every morning
they may avoid the punishment when being incouraged by the promise of a reward they performe the actions of obedience do they not herein seek themselves they seek the avoyding of evil to themselues and the obtaining of good for themselves and doing thus they live to themselves To this we Answer We must consider our selves two wayes First in subordination to God Secondly in competition with him or oppositon against him Consider a mans self in subordination to God so a man may seek himself that is he may seek his own good though not as the uttermost end wherein his thoughts rest yet he hath this incouragement Self-love is a plant of Gods own planting in the heart of man and he will not have any man root out that that he hath planted Grace drieth not up the fountain of nature It doth but turn the stream into a new channel it guides it the right way When a man is renewed by grace and sanctified he is the same man in his faculties he doth his actions better then he did before and all that he did before he doth them to a better end It is impossible that the will of man should incline to any thing but as he conceiveth it good and good for me now there is no man can conceive a thing as good for him but he must conceive it as good and sutable to him sutable to his welfare and condition The law of God forbiddeth not this but establisheth it and commendeth it if it be rightly ordered Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy soul and with all thy strength that is the cheif notwithstanding thou shalt not hate thy self thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy self subordinate to the love of a mans self must be the love of his neighbour and subordinate to his love of God must be the love of himself Thou maist love thy self but in a degree inferiour to God Thou must love thy self in God and seek thy good in God and not in thy self therefore it is that God in the Scripture hath set promises and threatnings one opposite to the other Now it is lawful for a man to be drawn to obedience or driven from sin by any argument that God useth in his Word When God threatneth punishment shall not men be awakened the Lyon roareth and the beasts of the Forrest tremble When God promiseth here is the act of faith to receive this promise and to believe it Herein Jesus Christ the Author and finisher of our faith is set as a patterm for us he set before him the joy It is lawful for a Christian herein to imitate Christ I speak this for their sakes to allure them by incouragements from the Word that howsoever the avoyding of sin by threatnings is an action of self-love without the love of God yet these two may stand together in a due subordination one to another a mans love to himself and love to God to love God more then himself and so to seek all good in God and in the way leading to him Secondly take man as he standeth in competition and opposite to God in matter of will and desire In this case a man must not love and seek himself but God When a man seeks good to himself in a way displeasing to God herein he must not seek himself for he must live to God and not to himself when his thoughts and desires and affections are carried for himself principally this is against the rule this is not the state of a Christian of a beleever thus to seek himself in any thing contrary to God or in any thing above him Thus you have the opening of it And it shall appear to be a truth by these reasons For a man to live to himself that is to do the actions of life with respect to himself not to others and to God It is First a dishonour to God Secondly injurious to Christ Thirdly dangerous and hurtful to a mans self Eirst I say it is dishonourable to God It is the greatest dishonour the creature can do to the Creatour to exalt himself to make himself his end in the actions he doth It is to make a mans self a God and to make God an Idol For what is that incommunicable glory that God will not give to another but this to make himself his end It is a glory proper only to God He made all things for himself Prov. 16.4 Mark how these two agree well together that that that is the efficient cause should be the final cause too that as God is the maker so he should be the end of all things and as that that giveth Being to the creature it is our of it self so likewise that that should quicken and act the creature should be out of it self When a man therefore propounds himself as his end he is said in that to make himself God Those false Apostles Phil. 3.20 it is said of them that they made their belly their God because this they propounded as their end how they might advantage themselves in the world how they might feed and delight themselves and exalt themselves and serve not God This is to bring God below a mans self making God an Idol and himself God I say therefore it is the highest dishonour that the creature can do to God Secondly it is the greatest injury that he can do to Christ to live to himself Christ may say truly and more properly and fitly to us then Saint Paul could say to Philemon thou owest thy self to me We owe our selves to him by all rights especially by that great right ofpurchase he bought us to himself he redeemed us to himself You are bought with a price saith the Apostle therefore glorifie God in your spirits and bodies for they are Gods They are his and not your own because he bought them bought them when you were slaves and had inthralled your selves therefore you owe your selves to him he hath purchased you to himself In the old Law the rule was that if a man had bought another either out of captivity or the like he was to demand all the work and service that this man could doe all his time and strength belonged unto hm that bought him for he was his money therefore he might exact of him the uttermost he could do for his service for he bought him Much more Christ that hath bought us from a worse slavery from a slavery under the power of darkness and bought us with the greatest price even with the effusion of his own bloud He hath redeemed us saith Saint Peter not with silver and gold but with his own precious bloud a price far above that if a man should give all his wealth Now when Christ hath bought us for himself we are become not his money but his bloud therefore all that we have and are is due to him because we are his If we have any good in the world in things present
comfort if he have carried it well and much sorrow and griefe if he have carried it ill Thus a religious heart carrieth it self in this duty Now a worldly man doth the duty too but how as if not that is he hath none of this care before he cometh to it he hath none of this trouble when he is at it he hath none of this perplexity when he hath done if he have miscarried in it if he be able to come off it is well enough though it be performed in never so ill a manner Why his mind is after other things he intends greater matters as he thinks The Minister hath taught him to pray and he can say his prayers and so he doth the duty but still as if not Or again suppose a man whose heart is set upon Mammon put this man to recreation he may perhaps find time to play at Bowles or Cards or Tables with a friend but how he cares not whether he wins or loses he whiles away the time but this is not the thing his heart is set upon that giveth him contentment but that which his mind is on is his commodities his trade his merchandize his business in the world Just thus beloved it must be with every true beleever in the using of all the things of this life that is without care without fear without perplexity without distraction and if they come on so if they go so he must be pleased if he have them and content if he want them and howsoever his thoughts must be carried higher and better To think thus I am the servant of God I have a Calling here I will follow it in obedience to God I have a Wife I will use her as a wife should be used I have children I will have a care of their education But I must not come to be distracted about my calling about my wife and children and servants and good name or any thing that is here below I am here to day it may please God I may be gone to morrow my hearts desire must be to be content with this that God is my all-sufficient portion if I be in prosperity to be as if not if in affliction to carry my self so that in the middest of sorrow and trouble to be as if God freed me from all remembring still that my portion is in another life Thus you have seen both the lesson arising from the Text and what that is that in it is required of every true beleever And this point I am now to prove and still I must use the compellation of the Apostle Brethren for as for others I have little hope of I will as I promised make it plain out of the Scripture That a true beleever that would have comfort of it that he is a true believer must be as if not in all the things of this world There is one eminent place for this purpose viz. 1 John 4.10 Saith the Apostle there Love not the world nor the things of the world if any man love the world the love of the Father is not in him Hence I argue thus He that must so use wife children credit freinds good name prosperity without loving of them it is likely he useth them as if not for love is the great wheel that setteth all the faculties awork Now the Spirit of God doth directly forbid all Christians to love the world or the things of the world as they do the Scripture absolutely injoyneth that we should not love them that is that our hearts must not be fixed on them Another place you have likewise in Colloss 3.1 Set not your affections on things below Now as I said before if any man do any thing that his affections are not upon that he doth not love and joy and delight in that he doth not take care for and the like certainly that man useth it as if not but so must every true beleever use the things of the world so as that he must not set his affections upon them Other Scriptures I might give you to make good this point but I am somewhat afraid to be straitned Two or three arguments I will add to make it plain Why every true beleever must be as if not in all these things First because all the things in this world which are contained in the Text they are all but empty poor things to a beleever To another man who makes them his God in his conceit they are full but to a true beleever these things are well known to be but empty things I need give you no better proof to make this evident then that which followeth in the Text For the fashion af this world passeth away The fashion of the world What is that That is a thing that is a shew without a substance Nay the world signisieth such a fashion as is in a Comedy or stage-play where all things are but for a while to please the eye A man it may be acts the part of a King that is no better then a begger or a varlet so all things in the world are no better then shadowes and empty like a piece of a stage-play and no marvel if beleevers that know this use them as not Secondly another argument why beleevers must in all these things use them as if not is because they are none of a beleevers and being none of his it is a meer folly for him to set his heart upon them How are they none of his you will say First for the truth of it these things below they belong to the men of this life but the treasure and estate of a Beleever is laid up in another life he is but as a stranger and pilgrim here below and therefore they are none of his And then likewise they are none of his because he hath resigned them all up to God in the day when he made the bargain for Christ For when we come to be Christs we must sell all to buy that Pearl and in selling all we sell not only our corruptions and lusts but wives and children and pleasures and credit and all we have them not now to have and to hold to do what we will with them but now that we have Christ we return all to him and have them as Coppy-hold to be tenants at will to that great Land-lord we have only a little time in them And if it be so that every beleever hath no more to do in this world but thus that he is meetly at the pleasure of God and can properly call nothing his own but God and Christ then certainly he must use all these things as if not Conceive it thus A Traveller goeth a long journey hee cometh at night to his Inn when he is there he is woundrous glad of his table of his bed of his fire of his meat and drink and every thing and he is woundrous welcome but he doth not so delight in them as the
OR THE DESIRE OF THE FAITHFUL SERMON XV. ISAIAH 26.8 9. Yea in the way of thy Judgements O Lord have we waited for thee the desire of our soul is to thy Name and to the remembrance of thee With my soul have I desired thee in the night yea with my spirit within me will I seek thee early for when thy judgements are in the earth the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness THis Chapter is a sweet Song of the Prophet if I mistake not concerning the restauration of the Jews And the words of the Text are the sweet Swan-like Song of our deceased Sister which she desired might be her Funeral Song her Funeral Text at this time and desired it long ago before any thing that is now fallen out came to pass And I have accordingly pitched upon it not onely to satisfie her desire in a just thing but especially because I approve her choice of a fit Text there being not in the whole Scripture a portion that will afford a fitter Character in my apprehension for her person as you shall understand in the close to which therefore I shall deser the speaking to the present occasion The truth is I have handled a good part of this chapter formerly and in this place but now we shall clean go another way than then I did and than I usually do I shall only desire to present so much one of these words without any curious observation or division as may represent to us a perfect character of a sweet Christiin-minded man or woman which may be of singular use and very profitable There be only two things that I shall observe in the whole words I shall but go them over briefly taking out the main points as I conceive for that purpose I shall mention them We have here propounded to to us the compleat duty of a Christian And we have here some effectual motives intimated to stir Christians up to the preformance of that duty There is a general duty to begin with that first that belongeth to Christians at all times And there are some special duties which concerne Christians in some special times Both contained here The general duty I shall not as I said handle it in my former way of observation but only explicate the very words of the Text and that will be enough for me The general duty I say of a Christian and what should be the temper of his heart and spirit at all times we may find expressed at least intimated very sweetly with some excellent directions in the Text in the so thâ—…e circumstances First we may see here what is the true Object upon which a Christian soul should be fixed Secondly we may see the Latitude of the Acts which a Christian must exercise upon that Object Thirdly we may take notice of the manner and of the degree in which every one of these Acts must be exercised I shall but touch these briefly out of the words and then come to the special duties belonging to special times First to begin with the Object The desire of our soul is toward thee and to the remembrance of thy Name God and the name of God is that which should be printed in the heart of a Christian 〈◊〉 should be that to which the Byâ—… and stâ—…am of his whose soul runs First I say it should be fixed upon God We are here in the world placed as it were between heaven and earth Now all the manner is how our Byas is set which way that turns As the Byas is of the heart so the man is Our hearts may be turned downwards to the earth and to earthly things and so we shall run a course of ruin and destruction our hearts again the Byas of them may be settoward heaven and heavenly things and so we shall run the right course that we ought It is God that our souls should breath after Fecisti nos Do nine propter te faith a Father thou hast made us O Lord for thy self and our souls are restless till they return again to thee As they say of Circles The Circle the round figure is the most perfect figure and the most capacious figure because there the line that beginneth in one point goeth round till it return into the same again So this is the greatest perfection of a man when he returneth to his beginning he had all from God and when he reflects himself altogether back again unto God he attaineth his greatest perfection And indeed there will be no more rest for the soul in any thing out of God then there is for a stone or a weighty body in the liquid ayre Hang a stone in the Ayre and do but once remove the force that holds it there will it nill it give but a way to it and it will cut through and never rest till it come to a sollid substance till it come to the earth if it may to the Center of the earth It is so with the soul of man try it in all the fortunes and states and conditions in the world as a great Emperour said I have run through all things and my spirit will rest in nothing and as Solomon giveth us this observation out of all his travel and experiment that he had made Vanity of vanity all is vanity and worse then vanity too vexation of spirit this is the sum of all fear God and keep his commandenents as he concludeth This is the Object upon which our soul should be set we should have an eye to God labouring to approve ourselves to him making our approaches and adresses and returns to him that our soul may rest with him that we may enjoy the light of his countenance here and the fulness and brightness of his glory hereafter This is the first thing in the Object Now if a soul be carried toward this Object toward God and we can out-go and out-grow these worldly things look above them and look down upon them with scorne then the very name of God will be sweet and precious to us To thee and to thy name Every thing which is a memorial a remembrance of God Every thing by which God may be known will be taken notice of All his Attributes his Word and Ordinances and all other things which come within the compass of his Name as I suppose there are not many here but know according to the ordinary explication of Divines of the third Commandement Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain and the first Petition hallowed be thy name What is meant by the name of God When the heart I say is set upon God it even will leap for joy at the very name of God the very name of God will be sweet to him To enjoy God is sweet and to have but a glimpse of him to have him but represented by name is sweet too As it is reported of a
a mans resting on Christ as his Saviour and Lord. The third is the change of the body which shall be in the great day when the soul and body shall be united together Who shall change our vile body and make it like his own glorious body c. But the main fruit whereof we are now presently possest is a heavenly Conversation And so I come to the second particular included in the observation before propounded viz. That nothing is so effectual to settle a man and to dispose him to a holy and heavenly Conversation here on earth as the right looking for the second coming of Christ That this is true you shall see it brefly how the Saints of God upon this very ground have been wrought and incouraged to a heavenly conversation in all the parts and degrees of it First of all yee shall see that this is that which mortifieth the secret lusts and corruptions of the heart A man will never set soundly and in truth to the mortification of his inward corruptions that doth not in truth out of love to Christ look for his second coming And the very reason why many are so dull and dead and backward to this work for want whereof they cannot lead so heavenly a conversation upon earth is this because they do not with love to Christ look for his second coming And that this is so it will appear by divers places of Scripture Set your affections saith the Apostle on things that are above where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God And he doth not only say so but Mortisie therefore saith he your earthly members Wherefore should they mortifie their earthly members because Christ sitteth at the right hand of God upon whom ye look upon whom the eye of your faith is fixed mortifie your members For what is that that makes a man in truth to dispose and frame his heart to be fit to stand in the number of those that are clothed in white Robes at the second coming of Christ but even this consideration that none shall appear then with comfort but such as now walk in holiness of conversation Certainly that man that doth with delight expect his second coming he will be most careful to fit himself for the receiving of Christ and most diligent in setting himself to the mortifying and subduing of his corruptions that so he may walk before him in all holiness of life A man that expects the coming of a King to his house will he therefore be secure and do nothing because he knows certainly that the King will come No surely he will therefore because he is sure that he will come make ready and furnish his house that it may be fit to receive him when he doth come Even so because I expect the coming of the great King the King of glory as he is called in Psal 24. I will now open my everlasting gates I will now labour that he may possess my soul I will now cleanse my self from all filthiness and pollution of flesh and spirit Therefore the Apostle Saint John having said We are now the Sons of God and it doth not yet appear what we shall be but we know that when he shall appear we shall be like unto him for we shall see him as he is He presently inferreth Every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself even as he is pure He that hath this hope that he shall be with Christ that he shall see him as he is he will be careful to purifie himself as Christ is pure This is the dispositton of a man that truly longs and rightly looks for the coming of Christ he will be careful to purifie himself A man that expects to be raised to some great and eminent place in the Court he will be careful to fit himself with those necessary requisits that may make him capable of it and enable him to go through it with credit and comfort So he that expects to have this great honour of the Saints to be of the number of those that receive glory and happiness and comfort by the second coming of Christ he will be careful to purge his heart from all corruption that it may be capable to receive that comfort What daunts a man at the apprehension of death and makes him have no delight in thinking of Judgment to come but the guilt of secret sins with which he hath been and is so unwilling to part It is impossible for any man to look with comfort upon the approach of Death and to take delight in and desire the second coming of Christ but he who upon this ground is careful to purge his heart of all secret corruptions and lusts whatsoever This is then the first thing wherein it doth appear that the looking for the coming of Christ is a special means to work us to a holy and heavenly conversation Secondly as this is that which mortifieth the secret lusts and corruptions of the heart so it is that also which mortifies our worldly affections For what is it that will subdue in the heart and purge out of it the love of the world and worldly things but this the looking for and expectation of a better estate to be had in Jesus Christ at his second coming What is it that makes men hold the world so fast What makes them so gripple of the earth and to cleave so close to the things of this life But because they have no comfortable perswasion and expectation of a better estate afterwards Certainly he that on a right ground and upon good warrant can expect with comfort the second coming of Christ he careth nothing for the things of this life Therefore faith the Apostle If you be risen with Christ seek those things which are above where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God because Christ sitteth at the right hand of God therefore set your affections there But how shall we come to set our affections there Set them not saith he upon the things of the earth It is necessary that the soul of a man should have something or other to fasten upon some object to take up its delight and joy and he that cannot have joy and delight in better things in things above he looks for it in things below and the reason why he so cleaves to and clasps and huggs with delight the things below is because he hath no better things to think of to hope after He that hath a better inheritance to hope for will easily let fall these things and his affection to them because his hope is in Christ who shall make him glorious at his second coming You see then the necessity of it in this second respect But to go further it is necessary also for the avoyding of any evil of any sin in the act What is it 〈◊〉 makes a man regulate and square his course of life according to the rule of 〈◊〉 so that he
overcoming of all sin and by the vertue of Christ he shall prosper in this I beseech you therefore set your selves awork about this great business to get Repentance and Faith and New Obedience it is much more needful then sleep then meat then attire there is nothing in the world so requisite for thy welfare as these things Scrape thou riches together in the same quantity that Solomon did and ten thousands times more yet thou shalt see Death once within a hundred or half a hundred years Get wisdome yet thou shalt see Death after a few years Take pleasure with as much greediness as he did once when he forgat himself for a space yet thou shalt see death These things that the foolish world hunts after with so much earnestness of desire will not secure thee from the sight of the King of feares Death as Job calleth it But if thou once get Faith and Repentance and new obedience then thou hast obtained that that all the riches and honour and pleasures and learning or whatsoever seemeth desirable in the world will not help their possessors to What will you do brethren Grovel still on the earth and still be mad after back and belly Or will you now begin to think I must die I must shake hands with that dismal enemy pale-faced Death that is able to strike terrour into the strongest heart and amazement into the stoutest soul that is not well confirmed and if this Death find me destitute of true Repentance and Faith and New Obedience it will seize upon me and dragg me before the Judgement seat of God where I shall be Henced away with a malediction and curse and be forced to take my place with the Divel and his Angels in unquenchable flames Oh what shall I do then to secure my self from the great from the strong arme of death I will repent now I will begin Lord draw me help me that I may do it I will beleeve now Lord do thou work Faith that requirest it I will obey Lord inable me to preform such needful duties as thou commandest me Shall this be your practice when you come home Will you thus study to practise Repentance and Faith and Obedience and study to cry and call for it and use all your endeavour Or what will you do will you be as idle and careless as negligent and slothful in making after these graces as before Will you be as greedy of the transitory vanities of this life as in former times Oh abuse not the word of God If thou go out of the Church without a full purpose to apply thy self from hence forward either to begin or to proceed in the practise of the saying of Christ Cursed be thou in thy hearing cursed be that hour that thou hast spent and cursed be thy misbestowed labour thou dissembling hypocrite But if thou labour to practise this of Christ namely to keep his sayings the Doctrine of the Gospel to repent to beleeve and to obey blessed art thou in thy hearing and in thy doing and in thy obedience happy is the time and the place and all things that concur together to draw thee to so needful a work I pray Brethren set not your labour upon gold and silver and money and trash not upon the pleasures and delights and contentments of the world not on any other thing but mainly and principally above all things let your chief care be for Faith and Repentance and Obedience If you strive for these things earnestly and heartily and constantly as sure as the Lord is in heaven he will bestow them upon you and with them the benefit of benefits Freedome from Death And now I shall speak comfort to those few that are in the world that keep these sayings of Christ Let them be of good comfort if their capital enemy the King of fears and the King of Afflictions be held from a possiblity of doing them harm nothing can harme them He that Death cannot hurt paine cannot hurt poverty and disgrace cannot hurt nothing can hurt him You know if the King of an Army be reconciled to a place he will keep his Souldiers from spoyling and burning and destroying that place If Death be put out of power to do thee hurt and God be reconciled in Christ because thou keepest the saying of Christ nothing can hurt thee thou art the happiest man under the Sun Why should the poor sad afflicted grieved mourning lamenting Saints of God envie them that are rich and jolly and merry worldlings any of their pleasures and profits any of those things wherewith they like Idiots make themselves laugh at What hath not God given thee better things then he that thou shouldest murmure and whine and weep for want of them art thou still complaining for want of them Remember what Saint James faith Let the brother of low degree that is abased and dispised in the world rejoyce yea rejoyce with great boasting and glory in his Exaltation This is the exaltation of the Saints Christ writing his sayings in their hearts and inclining them through the operation of his Spirit and the powerful work of his Word to repent and beleeve hath freed them from the danger of Death and interessed them into eternal happiness and that blisse that no tongue can expresse nor no heart conceive This is thy happiness it is not to be rich or to be great for these cannot deliver the owner from the hurt of Death natural nor from the danger of Death eternal But to have Faith and Repentance and Obedience this is riches and exaltation for he that hath them shall not alone escape the Dungeon of eternal darkness but be advanced to the Palace of everlasting felicity The Saint is the happy man the penitent beleever and true practiser of Christian obedience he is the sole and only happy man under the Sun for whatsoever storme he suffereth in this present world he shall certainly escape Death and obtaine Glory Blesse God and bless thy self in God magnifie him rejoyce in him take comfort in thy lot and portion Death that devoureth Kings that destroyeth Emperours that conquers Captaines and men of valour shall not be able to approach thee for thy hurt for thou keepest the saying of the Lord Jesus Christ Rejoyce I say in this magnisie him that is the Authour of it and account thy self happy that thou hast receâ—…ed from him so excellent a gift as to be in some measure inabled to keep his saying Yea if it were so may some Christian heart object then I should esteem my self the happiest man alive â—… but alas where is this Repentance you describe where is this New Obedience in me that still still find my self captive and thral to passion to this and that and the other lust and divers corruptions Where is I say that Repentance when I find so much fin Where is that Faith when I find so much wavering and quaking so much aptness to distrust and almost
am a stranger among you And being so as every Christian must profess himself it therefore followeth we must abstain from all fleshly lusts and worldly desires and carnal concupiscences and appetites for strangers use not to settle on their dregs in the Country they passe thorow but as men in motion they take that which is needful knowing that they have a Country in another place the blessed Jerusalem that is from above who is the mother of us all Secondly we are to consider here the humble conclusion that Abraham makes out of his pilgrimage out of his strangeness because he was a stranger therefore he will be no meddler as it is an old rule strangers must be no meddlers they must not take what they will not buy what they will strangers do not purchase land in a strange Country without the good will of the Natives Such was the nature of this holy man of God he would not so much as make bold with them for a burying place without their consent One would think it had been easie for him to have ventured upon this whensoever a man dies the common custome of nature and the law of Nations yeeldeth this priviledge to put their dead into the ground earth to earth there is none so barbarous as to deny by the light of nature but that a dead man should be buried strangers or Forreiners or native Inhabitants therefore I say a man would think that such a man as Abraham might safely have ventured upon this to bury Sarah and never told them and asked their good will But no the blessed man was of another mettal of a heavenly and sweet disposition he would trouble no man he would give no offence but carry himself as an Angel of God among them harmless to every one he desireth every mans love he was careful to avoid any mans displeasure and therefore he cometh to them as to great men and intreateth them as if it had been for a Lordship or a piece of a Province or some great matter of estate he cometh to beg a Grave he desireth a burying place This should teach us what ought to be our condition in this world not to be audacious and bold and presumptuous as commonly we are one upon another And even strangers themselves so forget themselves now adayes that they make no conscience of depraving and undermining and spoyling and putting Natives out of their possession they get to themselves such an impudency as is strange and none of the least reproaches they neither approve themselves to God nor men by this bold intrusion Let strangers be like themselves to know that nothing is theirs that they can challenge they must come to it by the good will and consent of the parties for strangers are not at home but to be sent home to their own place they must presume of nothing out of their place If men did consider this they would not shoulder out and in jure and backbite one another and all for base worldly pelse little better then a burying place then a Rod of ground to make them a Grave but men are so set on it as though all their hope were here as though they had no treasure in another place as though this were their home and they had no further motion to better things This is the Preface Now the Petition followes Give me I pray you Give me not Gratis the meaning is not as after the story sheweth he would not take it for nothing but give me for price for reasonable bargain as you shall deem it fit to give me Se here again the excellent moderation of this great man this great servant of God he confest it lay in their power to assigne and contract with him for any thing it must be their gift or else he would venture upon nothing I have lived among you and I would fain die among you too as you have given me leave to live with you I beseech you cast not away my dead my Wife is gone the way of all flesh and I shal follow her shortly cast us not away there is no further corporal living for us to gether I beseech you give me a burying place and then we shall be one corporation our bodies will moulder to nothing and not hurt you therefore give me that which is a common gift a gift that enemies will give to enemies and therefore a gift to strangers and it is natural to do good to strangers I beseech you give me What is this he would have For though this people were very liberal and would have given him a hundred times more then this he requested as we see afterward by their answer it would have been a great matter that Abraham should have been denyed yet this holy man asketh such a gift as they might well grant without harm Hereupon the holy man is to be commended as for the great beggars of the world they cry Give give all the whole Country is not sufficient to satisfie their desire but still when they have had this and that preferment they cry still Give This blessed man was of more moderation he had a more circumcised heart and desire he desireth no more then they might well forbear and part with and suffer him to have without hindrance And so it teacheth men their duty that they should not too much grate upon a friend not too impudently demand things that cannot well be parted with many men are of such good natures that they will give away at the first sight of a Petition that that shall be a great loss and dammage to them and after wish that they had not given it when they cannot recover it again There was no such spirit in Abraham nor should be in Gods children they should not be insatiable and extend themselves to unreasonable demands a thing that argueth one altogether glued to this world and one that hath no further expectation than of things below Give me What A possession of burial First A Possession He would have it so conveyed as no man might make claim of it but that it should be for him and his for ever Therefore it was as it were a Church-yard that he begged such a one as was capable and had sufficient scope and roome for his whole Posterity in the time to come in times of trouble and persecution for in this place were the Fathers and those Partiarchs though we read not of their Burial in this place in the book of God many of them yet notwithstanding it is likely that all the Patriarchs had their bodies conveyed to this place and that the great ones in Egypt that so demeaned themselves that they had favour from the Court were brought to this place For these and himself and his present Family about him whom it might please God to strike with Death he knew not how soon the holy Father desired a place separare that there might be no mingling of the select people of God with
Temple assuring us that we shall live there with him this is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 heaven before heaven the life of the Soul the keeper of Christ the keeper of God This is a second Gate There is another gate the gate of Charity by this we enter not but press in unto God and are not led but transported unto God and carried in a fiery Chariot By this grace we approach not neer unto God but forgeting the greatness of his Majesty we lay hold on him we hang upon him we imbrace him we familiarly converse with him we freely consult with him we inseparably cleave unto him more close then any Polypus doth unto the Rock Another gate is the gate of humility a low gate but a sure and certain gate the exaltation of the soul the honour the dignity of the soul that which subjects the soul immediately to God and so seateth it above all the creatures that gate whereby the soul steals into heaven though the gate be never so streight by crouching bowing bending pinching of it self At these gates if you knock earnestly by devout prayer and frequent Almes you may enter into this glorious and magnificent house with which the Saints desire to be cloathed upon and this is the first house which they desire There is another house which the Saints desire and that is the house of their bodies glorified while they are here in this life they have a cottage rather than a house a cottage seated in a low watery myrish place exposing the soul to Agues Feavers and variety of diseases so that she is sometimes down at the best but crasie and valetudinary scarse any vicissitude and change either of age or place or calling but the soul is dangerously affected with it and in great hazard a dangerous Cottage ready to fall upon the soul and crash it in pieces a cottage full of holes and rifts in every storm and tempest of adversity it rains through this cottage into the soul and makes the soul unhealthy in the Sun-shine of prosperity the beams of the Sun beat upon the soul and make it faint and weak many times a ruinous cottage so that the inhabitant is forced to spend almost all his time in repairing it in keeping it up in supplying the necessities of it distracted rent and torn with cares and sollicitudes for it so that little time is left for better duties for duties proper to the inner man and when the soul setteth her self to these duties then this Cottage is an impediment unto her taking off her mind from it by some sudden gust of a vain thought or hindring her by some indisposition or compelling her by some urgent necessity to break off before shee is willing These and the like incumbrances do much afflict the Saints therefore they desire to be cloathed upon with a pure house a pleasant house a lightsome house a healthful house a durable house a glorious house that might be a help and incouragement to the soul in holy and religious duties In this we groan earnestly c. You that are owners of the wonder are not ignorant what a wonder man is a composure of different natures Celestial terrestrial Angellical beastial corporal spiritual greater then the world less then the world the richest Pearle and the basest foyl the Image of GOD and a peece of clay you are not ignorant how these two are affected one to the other in the Regenerate man if the body be sound and well it kicketh against the spirit if it be ill it afflicts the Spirit How do I love my body as my fellow servant and eschew it as a mine enemie how do I hate it as my clogg and reverence it as my fellow-heir I buffet it as a slave and imbrace it as a friend I chastise it and keep it under and then I want a companion to assist me in the works of piety I cherish it and nourish it and then am I stung with the lusts of it it is a flattering enemy a treacherous friend Oh my conjunction and oh my alienation that which I fear I imbrace and that which I love I fear before I make war with it I am reconciled and before I am reconciled I am at variance what a strange mystery is this therefore the Saints mortifie and crucifie their bodies they gird them close with the cords of strong resolutions they macerate them with watchings and fastings and make them thin and pale and wan that so they may be serviceable to the Spirit they labour that their hands may be translucent with fasting as the hands of Elphogus were that their countenances may be living documents of humility that their bodies may be as transparent glasses wherein the thoughts of their hearts may be seen that their soules may have no more residence in the heart but may as evidently be seen in every part of the body as there This they aym at and when they have done all this yet they complain of the dulness deadness heaviness lumpishness of the body and are at enmity with it and cry out Oh miserable man that I am who shall deliver me from this body of death not that they are simply enemies to the body but to this earthly corruptible body this sinful body that depresseth the mind musing of many things and desire the deposition and laying down of the same that so they may receive a glorified a clarified an incorruptible spiritual body not made of a spirit but serviceable to the spirit they desire that these eyes may be so defecated that if they cannot behold the essence of God yet they may stedfastly behold the Empirian heavens the splendour of our Saviour and the lustre of the bodies of the Saints more bright then the Sun seven times they desire that these hands may be blessed with the contractation of that sacred body that redeemed them they desire that this body may be so transparent and lucid that the soul may sally bout freely not at the eye alone but at every part to contemplate those glorious objects that it may be so prelucit that the very thoughts of the heart and the divine fancies that are in the imaginative part may be seen through it that it may be so stript of corporal density and grosseness that like lightning it may be here and there that it may be fit for raptures and extrasies and the Soul no more doubtful whether she be in the body or not in the body This the Saints desire and long after And let me speak this of you oh triumphant Souls that are now in bliss without the least impeachment of your happiness This even you thirst after you esteem it an imperfect estate to be without your bodies though you glorifie and praise GOD in your souls yet you count it an imperfect work and say with the Psalmist In death no man remembreth thee and in the grave no man shall give thee thanks though your spirits do it without ceasing
him And in Levit. 24.11 The word there translated to blaspheme it is in the original that the man stabbed God or did pierce God he offered a kind of violence to the holy name of God Such sinful speeches as are forbidden in the third Commandment and do concern the name of God or any of his attributes or ordinances any thing that is spoken against them or without due reverence and respect to them they are there said to be a stabbing of God in the Hebrew phrase or a piercing of God a wounding of God doing some violence to God himself Now I say when such wrong and injury is done to God shall not God take a time to right himself of those that injure him Secondly it is an injury done to men You know it is a common thing in Law to have actions against men for speeches they make speeches actions they make them lyable to the penalty and censure of the Law for speeches So the Law of God proceeds according to the very speeches of men whereby they have discouraged his servants in any kind at any time in any duty of Religion and course of his worship or whereby they have brought an ill report on it As those spies did upon the Land therefore they might not be suffered to go into the Land So I say when men bring an evil report upon the duties of godliness they shut themselves out of the kingdom of God So likewise when men make that which is straight become crooked It is said of Simon Magus that he perverted the straight wayes ef God that is he did as much as lay in him to make the straight wayes of God to seem crooked that as a man that puts a stick in the water though it be straight when it is put in yet it seems crooked when it is in So when a man puts colours and shews upon good actions and courses as if they were folly and indiscretion and unadvised and hypocrisie and vain or whatsoever is ill this is to make the straight wayes of God crooked to make that that God accounts straight to be crooked this is a setting against God therefore Peter saith to Simon Magus pray if it be possible that the thought of thy heart may be for given thee So you see Saint Paul speaks to Elymas the sorcerer upon the same ground Act. 13. Thou child of the divel and enemy to all righteousness wilt thou not cease to pervert the right wayes of God Now I say here are the words and speeches that men speak against the wayes of God these are speeches that argue men in a state whereby they are liable and open to judgment and exposed to wrath therefore we should take heed of such words The use may be to condemn those that make light account of words they think they may speak it may be in rashness and hastiness and they may be excused for uttering them it is there hastiness and their passion and it was done unadvisedly c. I but the Law of God is transgressed the Majesty of God is offended the anger of God is provoked You know what old Eli said to his Sons My sons if a man sin against a man man may plead for him but if he offend against God who shall plead for him I say who shall take up the matter with God in such a case as this when the offence strikes against God and his ordinances and his worship Therefore take heed there is much evil there is life and death as Solomon saith in the power of the tongue that is a man may utterly destroy himself by the very words he speaks unadvisedly as he thinks and will plead for himself or passionately and rashly Again much more doth it concern those that proceed to other kinds of wickedness in the tongue we instanced in some particular instances then that we cannot now stand on We came to direct men to carry themselves in their speech as David to set a watch before the door of their lippes he prayed to God to do it And Psal 39. I said that I will take heed to my wayes that I offend not in my tongue And then he prayes to the Lord Psal 131. to keep a watch before the door of his mouth He knew well enough that there will be a time when the words that we think are sleight and vain shall be brought to judgement idle unprofitable frothy talk much more railing and reviling speeches most of all the highest blasphemies and execrations these shall most certainly be brought to a greater censure at the day of judgment But I will not stand on that I then handled Now there remains three things more The first is this that in the day of judgment God will proceed according to his Law So speak and so do as those that shall be judged by the Law I say In the day of judgment God will proceed with men according to his Law He will proceed according to his word written therefore labour that your speeches and actions may be such that they may be agreeable to that John 12.48 The word that I speak to you saith Christ shall judge you at that day There is not a word that Christ speaks but it shall judge he speaks not in vain he is the judge that speaks Now you know Christ speaks two wayes Either in himself Or by his Ministers In himself and so either that that he spake when he was on earth in his own person then all the words that he spake at that time are those words by which he will judge men as far as they concern morral actions by those words he will judge men at the great day for he spake nothing but what was according to his Law Or else that which he spake in his Apostles immediatly by a certain and infallible work of the Spirit directing them to such truth as that they could not err in speaking now in this Christ still spake in them The same way Christ hath in speaking to this day therefore saith he he that heareth you heareth me and he that heareth me heareth him that sent me That which he spake to them he spake in them concerning all the Ministers of the Gospel What we speak as Ministers that is as men that look to the direction of our Lord for we are but Embassadours and our words are so far of value and power as they are the speeches of our Lord and as we speak the word of him whose Embassadours we are Now I say look what the Minister thus speaks as the Embassadour of Christ to the people that Christ will confirm at the day of judgement Now it will appear what we speak as Embassadours if we speak nothing but what is agreeable to the text of Scripture rightly understood Therefore mark it whatsoever sin we denounce the judgement of God against and urge Scripture for it it is the very rule that Christ will observe in judging men Or
discouragements on him that he desires Secondly another advantage he hath for this end is this that is he wondrously prevails upon the heart of man by a careless neglect that is in men every man loves ease There is such a spirit in man such a disposition in the spirit of man that he avoids the things ordinarily that have great labour this disposition to ease and rest Satan serves himself on and makes great use of so when a man hath come from hearing the Word and reading the Scriptures whereas he should now be exercised and labour in meditation to work those things on his heart that now the root might fasten and things might settle on the soul he passeth by these easily now the heart of a man lies open as the high way you know the parable Matth. 13. when the seed fell on the high-way the Fowls of the ayr came and picked it up and it was gone presently where there is no pains taken with the heart of a man as there is none taken with the high way that the seed that falls there might grow as in the plowed ground when there is no pains taken with the heart now every notion every direction and every spiritual instruction it lies lightly there and is soon carried out this is the advantage that Satan makes of a mans love of ease But there is another thing concerning the way that Satan takes not only to steal it out of the mind by those two wayes but again by presenting the very truths of God to men in false glosses so as a man cannot discern them in their own shape and nature but in such colours as he presents them to them If the time would have served I might instance in several particulars I will but touch upon one or two and leave the inlargement to your own meditations Sometimes things that are great and of precious use shall be presented small and of no account and things again that are small and little shall be presented wondrous great The mercies of God the Attributes of God the promises of the Gospel the sufficiency of the merits of Christ these shall seem small things little to be regarded less then ever God intended them to be And on the contrary a mans own sins his own distempers shall be made exceeding great Worldly things shall be presented as things of the greatest consequence and spiritual things as meer accessories as things that depend upon them and that come in after Sometimes again things that are most necessary to be understood and known things that should be particularly applyed shall be presented obscurely and confusedly and sometimes things of lesser consequence the knowledge whereof is not so necessary shall be presented with more clearness and with strong perswasions to the study and knowledge of them But I will not stand on this this is enough to give you a taste of Satans subtilty this way whereby he wondrously prevails in bringing trouble upon the spirits of men Thirdly it is from our selves and so it comes to pass from that general corruption that is in our natures from whence all other sins flow that the spirits of men are troubled and disturbed by things that fall out from day to day And first it comes to pass that the soul of man is miserably in bondage and captivated and inthraled and is deprived of liberty as it were through the distemper of the body as in Melancholy and sickness we see how the soul is disâ—…urbed by the very diseases and distempers in the body it self and that by vertue of that simpathy in the soul with the body it riseth from the union of it to the body by the spirits but this I will pass by Sometimes we see the soul subdued with lusts and corruptions somestrong lust some strong sin or other prevails And then as it is with the Fowl that is now flying in the air it may be there is bird-lime cast upon the wings of it it falls down presently and can flie no further so it is with the soul somewhat presseth it down somewhat compasseth it about and coups it in as that expression is used Heb. 12.1 Let us cast off the sin that compasseth us about and that presseth so heavy down that we may run with patience the race that is set before us And sometimes the soul is disturbed by inordinate passions which arise from that general distemper that is diffused through every faculty and so the understanding looks upon things as through a mist it sees nothing clearly and in most common things it is blind and it is led by blind affections too and when the blind leads the blind both fall into the ditch saith Christ and so the memory that should retain the precious treasures the promises of the Gospel to relieve the soul in all cases it is like a leaking vessel that lets things run out as it is Heb. 2. Take heed that the things you have heard run not out saith the Apostle alluding to that Metaphor And the very conscience it self that should be conclusive it now rests in generals and uncertainties conscience should determin what my case is whether I be the child of God or no whether I be in the state of grace or no to put a man to bring things to particular now for the most part by mans own neglect it remains in doubt it may be I am it may be I am not it may be I have a right in the Covenant of grace it may be not c. And now because conscience is not come to that resolute conclusive act that a man may determine of his own particular case hence it is that every thing troubles and disquiets him Thus beloved you see the reasons of it We will briefly pass it over with a word of Application And first it should teach us compassion towards those whose spirits are troubled our Saviour Christ saith here Let not you hearts be troubled He considered of them in their weakness and doth not much upbraid them with it but helps to bring them out of it in much mercy and love and so should we There is such a disposition rising from the pride cruelty and uncharitableness of the hearts of men that they are apt to add to the burthen of the afflicted and to make their afflictions more by their censuring of their troubles You know the speech of old Eli a good man but yet he failed in that when he saw Hannah in great trouble of spirit uttering her heart before the Lord Lay away thy drunkenness saith he he thought she was drunk at lest with some passion and all came but from perplexity and disturbance of spirit and in that manner he rather added to her grief then eased hen So Jobs friends you see what they said they presently judged him in that case as one that God had cast off for hypocrisie and for his pride and covetousness or for some one
son and he that had received the promise offered up his only begotten son Now I cannot handle all these parts by several peeces as they lye therefore I will deliver to you the juyce and substance of all that I have to say in two Propositions there might be many more collected from these words but I will speak of no more the first is this That strong and great trials may befal strong and great Christians The second Proposition is this That faith will make a man acquit himself in great trials Now for the first That strong and great trials may befal strong and great Christians The Text clears it in Abraham about his son his only son a great trial there are ten remarkable steps in this trial of Abraham in oftering up his Son First had it been to part with a dutiful servant this had been something but to part with a Son this is much more this we know that the relation of a servant is much less then that of a child Again if he had been to part with a faithful friend such a one as Jonathan was to David this would have tried him but to part with a tender Isaac this is much more Again if it were an adopted son that he were to part with it were not so much but to part with a natural son one that was a part of himself a part of his own body Again if he were a son amongst many more but he must part with his only son his only son Isaac Again if Abraham had been young and might have enjoyed another son it had not been so much but he is the only son of his old age Again if it were the son of his old age if it had been an Ishmael this had not been so much but his only son Isaac a child of promise and of prayer a child of many tears Again if it had been a son wherein he took no great delight that his affections were not so much set upon it had not been so much but it was the son of his love he must not onely part with his only son and the only son of his old age but his only son whom he loved Again if it were but only to part from him to have him taken away this had not been so much but he must kill his son he must cut his son all in peeces and so offer him up to God wherein his heart might have disputed with that sinful act of murder Again if another had been to do it to cut his son in peeces but Abraham must do it himself the tender Father must take away the life of his tender child Again it had not been so great if Abraham had been to do it presently or neer to some of his friends that might have hindered him from this Act but Abraham must go three dayes journey and must go to an unknown place and there must pour out the heart and bloud and life of his Isaac In these many particulars we may see the greatness of Abrahams trial O the heighth and depth and bredth of this trial no one could impose such a trial but a God and none could answer such a trial but an Abraham Job may come in as another instance God gives Job this testimony that he was an eminent person None like him in the earth a perfect and upright man and one that feared God and eschewed evil He seemed to be the tallest Cedar and yet he had the sharpest winds his eminency in grace would not deliver him from trouble he is tried many wayes in the loss of his cattel and then in the loss of his servants and then in the loss of his children and in the loss of all his children at once and all on a sudden and at such a time the time of his greatest prosperity he is tried by his neer friends condemned for an hypocrite and by his own wife contemned and tempted to curse God and he was tried by God himself He wrote bitter things against him and fastened his arrowes in his spirit But to leave these instances let me crave leave a little to touch upon two things for the full and cleer opening of this point First I will shew you wherein the strength of a trial may consist And secondly I will shew you why God is pleased to lay strong and great trials upon strong and great Christians First wherein the strength of a trial may confist and I will observe six things which may make a trial great First one is the goodness and kindness of the agent that deals with us when any neer to us in a singular relation to us shall seem to turn against us and spoil us and persecute us when a dear friend shall prove a bitter enemy O this is a heavy trial no sword cuts so sharp as this nothing makes a greater wound then this when God himself shall seem to reject He who had said thus much I will be a God to Abraham and I will bless thee and multiply thy seed and yet now to command him a Duel with his son for a man to meet with a condition of trouble and sorrow when he expects all mercy and compassion and tenderness of love O this doth cause singular sorrow to meet with waves in the middest of the Ocean it is a common thing but to thrust the ship into some harbour and there to meet shipwark O this is very much for a Christian to find scorns and hard usage from the world this is but an ordinary thing but when he looks up to heaven and receives such looks and frowns from God that fetch tears from his eyes and from his heart this is much more Secondly the strength of a tryal may consist in the neerness of an object when the tryal is not that which rends the garment but rends the heart for a woman to lose her ring is not so much but to lose her husband this is much more for a man to lose an outward thing is something but to lose a child is much more this many times is the renting of the loyns a sunder for David to lose a servant is not so much but when David loses Absalom then he cries out O Absalom my son would God I had dyed for thee O Absalom my son my son God is pleased many times to try his servants by taking away the delight of their eyes and the joy of their heart and the hope of their lives Thirdly the strength of a tryal may consist in the neerness of a comfort a tryal is strongest when it seems to pluck away the thing that is neerest the heart when God plucks away a Child sucking at the breast when he takes away that whereon our delight is fixed when God on a sudden doth take away and cousume the Gourd that shadowed Jonah when he snatches away the thing that we take content in O this will enter to the quick
and hindred by it from doing the good which thou shouldest certainly death will be to thee the biginning of thy thraldome and after it thou shalt be a perpetual bondslave unto Satan in the kingdome of etetnal darkness Mark this all ye that take delight in evil to whom it is a pastime to do wickedly and who seek rather how to satisfie then how to suppress your own corruptions who repute it a kind of happiness to follow the swing of your own lusts and to have liberty to do as your own hearts do lead you when you die this shall be your reward even a most miserable and endless captivity under Satan him have you served in the lusts of sin while ye lived his slaves shall you be without hope of releasement world without end This is the right Application of this Doctrine death is a day of enlargement to the godly it is a dismission The next particular is that it is a dismission accompanied with peace the lesson we are taught hence is that The servants of God have at their going out of the word a comfortable quiet and peaceable departure Thus Simeon here he prayed for no other thing but that his end might be as the end of the Righteous is ever wont to be even a departure hence in peace Hence is that general rule of the Psalmist Mark the perfect man and behold the upright man for the end of that man is peace Agreeable whereunto is that of Solomon that the righteous hath hope in his death And memorable to this purpose is that which is storied of old father Jacob shewing unto us the quiet end of the Righteous He gathered up his feet into the bed and so gave up the Ghost It was the blessing promised to Abraham that he should go to his fathers in peace And the same was made to good Josias There is a twofold reason hereof First the assurance which they have of the favour of God in Christ This must needs breed quietness when I am perswaded in my soul and conscience that all cause of danger after death is removed and that God is and will be gracious unto me in his Son What cause of fear is here lest what occasion of perplexity If any man shall doubt whether the servants of God have this assurance I prove it thus that all of them first or last have it in some good measure If any man faith the Apostle have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his Hence it necessarily followes that all that are Christs have the Spirit of Christ but now the office of the Spirit is to bear witness with our spirit So that all that are the Lords as they are endued with Gods Spirit so they feel this Spirit bearing witness to their souls of this Adoption Secondly the comfortable Testimony of their own consciences touching their former care to glorisie God by a Religious and godly conversation Hence came Saint Pauls peace I have saith he fought the good fight I have kept the faith Therefore I am sure there is laid up for me a Crown of life Hence Hezekiahs I have walked before thee oh Lord in truth and with a perfect heart Not that they do ground their hope upon the desert of their fore-ran courses but because they know good works to be the way and do understand by the Scripture that a holy life here is the first fruits of a glorified life hereafter Thus we see the truth of this point and the reasons upon which it is grounded Now here some may object first We see many worthy men that have made a great and an extrordinary profession of Religion in their lives and which have also carried themselves unblamable yet to give appearance of much anguish and perplexity and even of a kind of despair in their death How can we say then that all good and holy persons have a peaceable departure I answer first We ought to remember the Rule our Saviour gives not to judge according to the outward appearance It is a very weak argument to say that this or that man dyeth without peace because to the standers by he makes not shew of peace Certaine it is that as a man may have peace with God and yet himself for a time by reason of some tentation not feel it so a man being sick or going out of the world may feel it and yet others that behold him cannot perceive it Secondly we must know that these outward unquietnesses which do many times accompany sickness do happen as well and as ordinarily to good men as to the most wicked such as are ravings and idle-talkings and strange accidents in the body in this sence all things come alike to all God hath made no promise in Scripture that those that serve him shall be freed in their deaths from violent sicknesses Therefore these things must not be thought to be any abridgment of their peace Thirdly we must consider that with the best servants of God Satan is most busie when his end is neerest and when he is as it were out of all hope of prevailing The red Dragon in the Revelation had greatest wrath when he knew his time to be short When the evil Spirit was commanded once to come out of the child then it rent him sore Now these temptations though for the time they be very violent and extream so that the party may happily utter out some words and speeches of dispair yet be they no final prejudice to the inward peace Interrupt they may but utterly quench it they cannot because the power of God is made perfect through weakness And so even in death Satan receives the greatest foil when he thinks to get the greatest victory Thus then I answer in one word The peace of Gods servants at death is not ever in the like measure felt by them but yet it never dieth in them they which behold their death do not alwayes see it yet they themselves sooner or later are sure sweetly and secretly to feel the same My reason for my assertion is grounded first upon that of the Apostle God commands light to shine out of darkness He brings his servants to Heaven by the gates of hell out of sorrow and anguish and tentation he raiseth out their greatest quiet Secondly because the love of God is eternal and unchangeable Whom he loves he loves to the end It is impossible that the Lord albeit he try and that sharply yer should finally for sake those that are his in their greatest extremity But again secondly if you make a peaceable death to be the reward of the Righteous what say you to this There be many that in all their life gave little evidence of any Religion or grace but of the contrary rather yet in their death were very quiet and still and seemed to all that were by to have in them no manner of vexation no
in the subject too not only a certainty that those that are in Christ shall live but it is certain to you make account of this make this conclusion for your selves build on it know it for your selves as he said to Job it is certain if you be in Christ you are dead with Christ and you shall live with Christ make account of this Lastly the efficient cause of this great change exprest in these terms it is Jesus Christ our Lord make account of this if you be in Christ there comes a vertue from Christ an effectual working of Christ by his spirit in your hearts such a powerful work as will conforme you to Christ dead and to Christ risen that you shall be dead to sin and alive to God not by any sttength in your selves or any excellent endowment in your own natures not by any natural inclination and ability but through the vertue and power of Jesus Christ our Lord working in you Thus you have the Text opened We will speak first of the Analogy and proportion the agreement between the metaphors here used and the things exprest by them That which the Apostle would express is that there is a marvellous spiritual real change in all those that are in Christ from what they were before Now let us see how sitly it is exprest in these words that he saith you are dead to sin and alive to Ged that he chuseth to express it by life and death Had it not been fit to have said thus much you are changed in your dispositions in your inclinations in your intentions in your actions you are changed in your conversations you are other kind of men in the inclination of your hearts you bring forth other fruit you lead other lives then you were wont to do But he expresseth it here yet more fully that is by that that includes all these and if there be any thing more may be added it includes that too ye are dead and alive Then we will consider First generally how death and life express the state of them that are in Christ Secondly consider them in their particular application how death expresseth the first part of a mans change in sanctification and life the second part First we take them in general and let this be the point that A man that is indeed effectually changed by vertue of his union with Christ he hath such a change wrought in him as in a dead and living man as in life or in death Now first take it in general you know life and death they imply first a general change when a man is alive or when a man is dead there is not a change in some part only but in the whole So it is here when a man is effectually changed from what he was by vertue of his union with Christ A member may be dead and yet nevertheless the man alive but if the man be dead there is a general change that goes throughout it possesseth every part every member so that now there is no member of him but death rules in it then he is a dead man So it is in this when a man is dead spiritually there is not a change in some particular actions only in some particular opinions only there is not an alteration of some of his old customs only but it is a general change so it goes through the whole man It is a change in the understanding he judgeth things otherwise then he was wont to do And there is a change in the will the inclination of it is to other objects then he was wont to be inclined to And thence there is a change in his intentions he propounds other ends to himself then he was wont So there is a change in respect of the whole the Word is the rule of all a mans actions There is a change from particular evils from one as well as another that when any thing is discovered to him to be a sin to be a transgression of the rule he is turned from it So likewise when any thing is discovered to him to be a duty agreeable to the rule according to the will of God revealed in his Word he is a vessel of honour prepared for it and that is it the Apostle especially means when he compares them to vessels and he describes them thus they are vessels of honour fit for the service of their Master prepared for every good work So that now as the Apostle saith there remaineth no more conscience of sin That is there remains not now any sin to cleave to the conscience to defile it to cleave to the conscience so as a ruling enemy would do that would take away all true and perfect peace all boldness and access to the throne of Grace there is no such conscience of sin This making conscience of every sin is that that frees conscience from being defiled in that sence with any sin so much for the first Well secondly it is expressed by death and life to shew the orderliness in the proceeding of this change When a man is changed by the efficacy and working of Christ to whom he is united it proceeds in such a manner as the change in death or life You know death or life begin within first it begins in the inward man in the heart first And as in natural death or natural life there is a dying first of the root and a quickning first at the root So likewise in spiritual death or life it is an orderly proceeding it begins first within Our Saviour Christ gives this direction First make the inside clean and then all will be clean against the hppocrisie of the Scribes and Pharisees that looked more to outward actions So this change it is not only a meer civilizing of a man a conforming of him to that society he converseth with in outward actions but renewing of a man in the spirit of his mind Rom. 12.2 So the change begins from within Hence it is that first he is good and then he doth good according to the speech of Christ make the tree good and then the fruit will be good we will not stand upon it you see the Analogie and agreement holds between these two in general Now we come to take them apart more specially First how this being dead to sin agrees with that change that is in a man that is in Christ from sin Reckon this saith the Apostle make account of this that you are dead to sin that is now there is such a change and turning from your evil courses from whatsoever it is that is truly and properly called sin in Scripture you are changed from it Now in whatsoever sence a man may be said to be dead in that sence a man in Christ is changed from sin there is somewhat in his change expressing that death Now there is a threefold death A Civil Death A Judicial Death A Natural Death We begin with the judicial first
dominion and rule that what it doth now is as a theef by stealth that surprizeth a man in his sleep And it hath its deadly wound whereupon it withers and decayes and at last in the sight of all men and at such a time when if there were any life it would appear at such a time it shall appear that sin is dead Thus you see the first expression opened the change from sin by death you are dead to sin Now take the second expression you are alive to God that expresseth the second part of sanctification that this the quickning of a man to newness of life It is with thee now as with one that was dead and is alive there is such a change in thee And how is this expressed by life Thus in three respects this change is fitly expressed by life The first is this you know life it consists in the union of a man with the principle of life when there is a union between the body and the soul here is life Now though there are bodies and spirits yet the bodies live not by those spirits except they be united with them therefore when the soul is separated from the body the â—…ody dies and the man is said no more to be a live so here in this fence when there is a union between the soul of a man and the principle of spiritual life then there is that change wrought whence he is said to be alive Now the principle of spiritual life is only Christ so you see here in the Text you are alive to God through our Lord Jesus Christ when there is a union between Christ and you And how is that It is by an influence from Christ into the soul and that is the mighty work of the Spirit of God as you see Joh. 6.63 It is the Spirit that quickneth saith our Saviour The great work that is wrought by the Spirit in quickning a man is the work of Faith Now I live saith the Apostle by faith in the Son of God that dyed for me Gal. 2.20 Now when there is such a union between Christ and a man then he lives there is such a change in him as there is in life Therefore beloved this change is not in any that profess the knowledge of Christ and have not yet union with Christ It is not enough that a man be called a Christian it is not enough that a man prosess that he hopes to be saved by Christ It is not enough that a man go on in some external actions as other Christians do unless that he doth and that he is in any spiritual a 〈◊〉 on it be by vertue of his union with Christ that it be by life received from him by a quickning vertue flowing from him to every member that is exprest Joh. 15.9 by the branches in the Vine they are quickned by union in the Vine cut the branches from the Vine and they die and wither So it is with men let hem be in the Lords Vineyard yet if they be not united with this Vine Christ they are but dead men dead in trespasses and sins Ephes 2.1 that is the first Secondly this change is exprest by life in another respect for look as in life there is not only an union with the principle of life but besides that there are those living actions and operations that naturally flow from that union in every living creature so in spiritual life there are spiritual actions and operations that flow from every man that is thus united to Christ As every thing is in being so it is in working take a natural man he doth naturalactions by vertue of a natural life Take a worldly man he doth live as a man may say in worldly actions by vertue of that worldly principle that is in him So take a spiritual man what is the reason he delights in spiritual things His delight is in the Law of the Lord as David saith and in that Law be meditates day and night What is the reason his delight is in the Saints and the more spiritual any one is the more he delights in them the reason is this because he lives a spiritual life therefore he doth actious agreable to that principle with which he is united therefore by this you shall know it Thirdly there are certain properties in life that hold in this too and we will instance but in two First wheresoever there is life there is a natural appetite and desire after all means that may preserve that life Wheresoever God gives life to any creature he gives also a desire to that creature to preserve that life it hath which is the best state of being Now it is so with a Christian all his desires are to preserve spiritual life and to increase it he rests not in what he hath but labours to be more yet and to do more yet to know God more to love God more to serve God better to live more fruitfully more profitably among men He delights in the actions of spiritual life therefore he would strengthen those habits by all actions and industry and indevour As new-born babes faith the Apostle desire the sincere milk of the Word that ye may grow thereby No sooner is there life in a new-born babe but there is a desire to â—…ourish that life You see there is a natural appetite even in the very trees that thrust their roots down into the ground to draw moysture below from the earth by an instinct to preserve that life they have in the stock and in the branches So it is in every man that hath a spiritual life he puts forth with all industry for all spiritual helps according to that strength he hath for the preservation of his spiritual life That is the reason why they are not content in the abundance of all outward things when they want spiritual helps and that is the reason that they are not satisfied nor solace themselves in dead worldly company that is the reason their hearts rest not in things below because these are not the food of their spiritual life these are not the things that preserve that life that is in them Secondly as there is a desire of the preservation of life so there is a desire of propagation and transfusion of it to others as much as may be So you see those things that have but a metaphorical life as we may say that are said to live by way of allusion and metaphor as the fire in the coal when it is said to live in the coal it is for this reason because it is apt to kindle another It is so in a Christian wheresoever there is spiritual life there is a desire to communicate it with as many as it can And this you see in all the servants of God Philip calls Nathaniel Joh. 1.44 when he bad gained the knowledge of Christ And the woman of Samaria goes to call in the City when she had
because he will not have his creature worn out with a tedious misery and transitory vanity a vanity of misery that is in this vain miserable life of mortality I have done with the fourth A fifth thing that followeth in the Text that I may hast on we have Hope we have Hope in Christ we have Hope in Christ in this life our hope in this life is not upon the things of this life for if it were in this life only it were miserable Our life is a misery There is the fifth And this is a certain truth and it will plainly appear to us in many passages if we will believe either the Spirit of God or the experience of the godly I shall not need to stand to proveit You will ask me how it will be raised from this place Thus We are of all men the most miserable because that we are mentioned amongst the number of those that are the more miserable it implieth that all the rest are miserable more or less the very comparison that is used doth manifestly declare unto us that there is a measure of misery to every man living so then there is misery 2. It appeareth out of the Text because here and else-where you shall have man and misery made terms convertible Man is named Enoch and Enoch is misery Man and misery so joyned together that there is no pulling them asunder till death parts them for then there is no more misery 3. Because that misery here our being miserable in this life is mentioned even with the very best things of this life the very best things that are in this life and of this life so long as they look to this life I say they are stiled miserable but the best things even Christ himself our Hope it self say what you can here is Hope and here is Christ in the Text and yet not withstanding here is misery too Now then we reason thus that if the best things in this life be miserable then the rest are no better then so that the best are no better it is plain because let us have what we would have in all the World yet so long as we are here it is misery If this be so then we must come to the conclusion we have made and that is Jacobs conclusion Gen. 47.9 Few and evil have the dayes of the years of my life been it is Jobs conclusion too Mans life is full of misery It is Davids in the Psalms Mans life is full of labour and sorrow it is soon cut off and we fly away our dayes come to an end as a tale that is told they pass away as a shadow and the beauty the best of them withereth as grass It is Solomons he was the Preacher and here is his Text all is vain and vanity Vanity of vanities all is vanity one thing and other every thing under the Sun our life it self our selves so long as we are here we are under the Sun he calleth all vanity And faith the Apostle This I say Brethren the time of our life is short And what is our life saith Saint James But a vapour that appeareth for a little while and then vanisheth away it is a vapour that vanisheth a meoter of misery What shall we say of this now to speak it in few words home to our selves somewhat may concern our selves and somewhat as we respect and reflect upon others In regard of our selves it may have this double Vse First to wean us from the World Secondly to win us to the Lord. 1. To wean us from the World The World considered in it self is so full of misery that there is nothing to be delighted in there is so much bitterness that I warrant it will wean any Child from it that is not a worldling for he indeed is at his own breasts with his own Mother But consider the World as it is in it self and there is nothing in it but true bitterness and false sweetness certain pain and uncertain pleasure tedious labour and timerors rest nothing in the World but vanity and misery for saith Saint John Love not the World he that makes himself the friend of God makes himself an enemy to the World O you lovers of the World saith Saint Austin I wonder at you O foolish men who hath bewitched you for what wrestle why do you strive and contend so much what thing is there in the World that is worthy your labour there is saith he nothing in the World but that which is foolish and frothy and frayl and false and vain and full of danger full of disaster suffer your selves therefore to be weaned from the World And yet notwithstanding all that we can say we know there are some persons that will not be taken off from the Worlds breasts they have a better opinion of it than so Let such enjoy their own errour till they run to ruin and till their own overthrow take them off Yet not withstanding we know that which an Ancient hath that to whom God is once sweet the World must needs be bitter 2. On the other side the knowledge of this serveth to win us to the Lord that as the one draweth us off so the other may drive us on When I consider the mercies of the Lord and the goodness of God in the land of the living when I consider how infinite he is in his love I am ravished in spirit I am taken up in the mind and taken off in the flesh I have set my heart and affections on Heaven and on heavenly things And now when I think on the Lord there is my hope and there is my help and there where my help is there is my love and there is my life and there is my Lord there is Christ at the right hand of God He is the life of them that beleeve he is the resurrection from the dead he is the right hand where there is pleasure for evermore for there shall be no more pain no more death for the first things are past away saith Saint John in the Revelation and all things are become new Oh he that did but know the joyes that are reserved for such as are received to the Lord would soon be taken up from all conceits of the things of this life Think you but of that great convocation house of Heaven that high Court of Parliament that great place of Majesty and honour where all the spirits of just men made perfect are where all the Saints departed live where there are all the blessed Patriarchs godly Prophets the glorious Apostles the blessed Kings and the godly fellowship of Martyrs and Confessors where there are the holy Angels and Arch Angels Thrones and Dominions Seraphims and Cherubins in those glorious Orbs Where there is God the blessed Trinity the King of Glory whose Glory is more then can be seen be said conceived to be where the joy of the Saints is such as eye
themselves and pay him So liberal a Patron he was that he not only freely bestowed all the Benefices that fell in his gift but was also at all the charge of institution induction composition first-fruits and whatsoever burthen fell upon the Incumbent Such patterns of Patrons we may rather wish then hope for after him what shall I need to add more concerning him whose birth was illustrious his education liberal his Patromony great his Matches sutable his life exemplary and his death comfortable Single vertues we meet with in many but such combinations as were in him such affability in such gravity such humility in such eminency such patience in such trials such temperance and moderation in such abundance as we have just cause to bless God for in him so we have great cause to pray for in others of his Rank In his tender years he was set as a choice Plant in the famous Nursey of good learning and Religion the University of Oxford where living as a Commoner in Corpus Christi Colledge under the care and tuition of Doctor Sebastian Wenfield he very much thrived and grew above his equalls both in grace and in knowledge gaining to himself as much love as learning After he was removed from thence he fell into very great troubles as well before as after the death of his Father but the Lord delivered him out of all These crosses and afflictions served but as Files to brighten those gifts and graces in him which shined afterwards most brightly in his more setled estate and eminent employments being chosen Deputy Lievetenant in Wiltshire Commissioner in three Shires Four times High-Sheriff and often Knight for the Shire in Parliament in all which places of important negotiations and great trust he so carried himself that all men might see in all his actions he had a special eye to the Motto in his Escouchion Jeay bonne cause for with Mary he alwayes chose the good part and stood up for the truth which he confirmed with his last breath You have heard what he was in publick but what was he in private we have seen him in the Sun how demeaned he himself in the shade True Religion is like the precious stone Garamantites which casteth no great lustre outwardly but semper intus habeat aureas guttus but we may discern as it were golden drops within Three of these after I have presented to your view I will then set free your patience and give your sorrow full scope to vent it self in tears The first of these was tenderness of conscience which is one of the most infallible tokens and marks of the Child of God so tender was he that he would undertake no business before he was fully perswaded of the lawfulness thereof both by clear texts of Scripture and the approbation of most learned and conscientious Divines he made scruple not only of committing the least known sin but of imbarking into any action which was questionable among those that love the truth in sincerity And therefore although God blessed him with great wealth and store of coyn yet he never put it to Usury or Intrest thereby to increase it for he held the tolleration of the Law in this Kingdome to be no sufficient warrant for any violation of the divine Law the destinctions lately coyned of toothless and biting Usury he no way allowed judging truly that all Usury according to the Hebrew Etymology is biting and hath not only teeth but Adders teeth envenomed for all Usury if it bite not our Brother as per accidens sometimes it may not yet it biteth the conscience of all such who have any remorse of sin The second aurea gutta was Christian compassion whereby he took to heart the afflictious of Joseph and misery of Lazarus whose fores he cured with the most precious balsamum he could buy for his money What Pliny writeth lib. 32. c. 8. Attalus usus est Thynni recentiores adipe ad ulcera on the Fish in Latin Thynuus that it is a soveraign remedy against many diseases and cureth all kind of ulcers was truly verified in him for he furnished himself with the best cordials and the rarest medicinal receipts and when he heard of any poor sick or hurt he not onely sent them money but Bezar and balsamum thinking nothing could cost him too dear whereby he might save the life or recover the health of the poorest member of Christ Jesus In the years of death and sickness he sent provision to all the Parishes about him and thrice a week relieved a hundred at least at his gate neither did his compassion die with him for in his Will and Testament confirmed by him the day before his Death he bequeathed divers Legacies to the poor whereof these following came to my notice To Saint Margarets in Westminster 10. pound To Kempsford 60. pound To Cosley 60. pound To Froome and the Woodlands 100. pound To Warmester 100. pound To Deverill and Mounten 100. pound The last aurea gutta which I shall present to your view at this time was his servency of zeal for the truth of the Gospel in all the Benefices which he bestowed he took special care to make choice of men sound in the Faith no way warping either to Popish superstition or schismatical seperation as he made greatest accompt of those Ministers of the Gospel who were servent in spirit zealous for the truth so he hated none more then temporizers and luke-warm Loadiceans he seldome spake of any Romanist without expressing a great detestation of their idolatry and superstition the night before he changed this life for a better after an humble confession of his sins in general and a particular profession of the Articles of his belief in which he had lived and now was resolved to die he added I renounce all Popish superstition all mans merits trusting only upon the merits of the Death and passion of my Saviour and whosoever trusteth on any other shall find when he is dying if not before that he leaneth upon broken reeds Here after the benediction of his Wife and Children being required by me to ease his mind and declare if any thing lay heavy upon his conscience he answered nothing he thanked God yet like an obedient child of his Mother the Church of England both heartily desired and received her absolution and now professing that he was most willing to leave the world he besought all to pray for him and himself prayed most fervently that God would enable him patiently to abide his good will and pleasure and to go through this last and greatest work of faith and patience and the pangs of Death soon after coming upon him he fixed his eyes on Heaven from whence came his help and to the last gasp lifted up his hand as it were to lay hold on that Crown of righteousness which Christ reacheth out to all his children who hold out the good fight of Faith to the end and conquer in the end Which
the Haven of death The Draw-net of the Gospel catcheth sweet and stinking fish in Gods field Tares grow with Wheat in his floar there is much Chaff with good grain But after death God taketh his Fan in his hand and purgeth his Floar After we depart hence God placeth and sorteth his Children by themselves and the Children of the World and the wicked are by themselves and so every man is exactly gathered to his own people every star is set in his own constellation every grain is put in his own heap every person and family is joyned to his own tribe we all pass by the same gate of death but presently after we are out of it some take the right hand and are ranked with sheep others the left hand and are ranked among his goats We are all like Plate worn out of fashion and we must all be altred and therefore of necessity must be melted that is dissolved by death but after we have run in the fire of the judgment of God of that which was pure mettal God will make Vessels of honour but of the drossy and alcumy stuff that is the prophane or impure person or hypocrite vessels of dishonour and these shall shine like the sun in the Firmament those shall glo like coals in the fire of hell for evermore By this it should seem may some object that the righteous have no prerogative in death above the wicked but only after death and consequently that God promised Abraham no blessing in these words thou shalt go to the fathers it had been rather a singular favour to have kept him out of the common track with Enoch and have translated him that he might not see death this objection is answered in the next words In peace it is no special blessing or favour to bring us to our fathers by death for statutum est omnibus haminibus semel mori the Statute provideth sufficiently to send us to the place where we were born but to send us thither in peace is a singular favor which God vouchsafeth his dear Children especially in such a peace as Abraham went in wherein a three-fold peace concurred 1 Peace of estate 2 Peace of body 3 Peace of conscience First thou shall go to thy fathers in peace that is in a peaceable time or the dayes of peace the storms I foreshewed the hanging over thy Posterity shall not fall in thy time but thou shalt die in a blessed calm thy house being set in order and thy friends about thee thy children shall close thine eyes and they whom thou broughtest into the World shall carry thee with honour out of the World Secondly thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace that is thou shalt have an easie and a quiet pass 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there shall be no great strugling at thy departure but a kind parting of soul and body thy soul shall earnestly desire to return to the Father of spirits and though thy body shall contend in courtesie to stay it a while yet it shall without much adoe yeeld thou shalt like a ripe Apple fall from the Tree without plucking or a violent blast of Wind thou shalt go out of thy self as a golden Taper when the waxe is spent and thou shalt leave a sweet smell a good name like a precious perfume after thee Thirdly thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace that is in peace of conscience and peace with God which passeth all understanding thou shalt have no trouble in thy mind at the hour of death no terrours of conscience no fearful conflict with despare no dangerous assault of Sathan or flashes of hell fire all thy sins shall be blown away like a cloud and the beams of Gods countenance shall shine brightly upon thee and dry up all thy tears non sic impij non sic it shall not be so with the wicked it shall not be so with them for there is no peace to the wicked faith my God neither in life nor death but as a ruff sea is ruffest of all and most foaming and raging of all at the shore so the life of a wicked man is alwayes unquiet but most troublesome at all near the end If he die not in some garboil as Sylla or in the act of uncleanness with John the Twelf or voyding his entrals with Arrius or rending his bowels with Julian or falling upon his own sword with Nero or rayling and raging with Latomus if he be not punished in body with some violent fit of sickness or unsufferable pang of torment yet he goeth not to his fathers in peace for there is sent a hue and cry after him to apprehend him and lay him in chains of darkness till the general Assises at the dreadful day of Doom when he shal not be found of God in peace but in wrath and reading in the look of the Judge of quick and dead his dreadful sentence he shall cry to the hils to fall apon him and to the mountains to cover him from the presence of God and wrath of the Lamb. And thou shalt be buried in a good old age Although the heathen Philosophers made little account of Burial as appeared by that speech of Theodorus to the Tyrant who threatned to hang him I little pass by it whether my carkass putrifie above the earth or on it and the Poet seems to be of his mind whose strong line it was Caelo tegitur qui non habet urnam which was Pompeys case and had like to have been Alexanders and William the Conquerours Yet all Christians who conceive more divinely on the soul deal moreh umanly with the body which they acknowledg to be membrum Christi and Templum Dei a member of Christ and Temple of God If charity commands thee to cover the naked saith Saint Ambrose how much more to bury the dead when a friend is taking a long journey it is civility for his friends to bring him on part of the way when our friends are departed and now going to their grave they are taking their last journey from which they shall never return till time shall be no more and can we do less then by accompaning the Corps to the grave bring them as it were part on their way and shed some few tears for them whom we shall see no more with mortal eyes The Prophet calleth the grave Miscabin a sleeping chamber or resting place and when we read Scriptures to them that are departing and give them godly instructions to die we light them as it were to their bed and when we send a deserved testimony after them we persume the room Indeed if our bodies which like garments we cast off at our death were never to be worn again we need little care where they were thrown or what became of them but seeing they must serve us again their fashion being only altered it is fit we carefully lay them up in deaths Wardrope the grave though a man after he
Saint Paul 1 Cor. 15.55 his words have no reference to this Text in the Prophet for the last Translation approved by our Church in the marginal note upon the 1 Cor. 15.55 sends us to this verse in Hosea and we find no other place in all the Scriptures of the old Testament to which the Apostle should allude but this And although Calvin endeavouring to untie this Gordean knot saith peremptorily that it is evident that the Apostle 1 Cor 15. doth not alledg the testimony of the Prophet to confirm any Point of Doctrine delivered by him yet Calvin hi◠evidence for it seems to me obscure and inevident his satis constat minime liquet for the express words of the Apostle 1 Cor. 15.53 54 55. are for this corruptible must put on incorruption and this mortal must put on immortality so when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption and this mortal shall have put on immortality then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written Death is swallowed up in victory O Death where is thy sting O Grave where is thy victory What shall we say then hereunto With submission to those who out of better skill in the original and upon more exact examination of all Translations may bring them to a better accord for the present I thus resolve First that Rabbi Iarchi his translation is utterly be to rejected for it is like the white of an egg that hath no taste what sense can any man pick out of these words ero verbo tua ô mors I will be thy words O Death unless we help them with our English phrase I will do thine errand Secondly Aben-Ezra is to go packing with his fellow Rabbin for his interpretation is a manifest contradiction to the former words of the Prophet I will ransome them from the power of the grave I will redeem them from death he that will redeem them from death can in no sense be said to be the cause why they die but why they die not Besides both he and Iarchi stumble at the same stone to wit the word Deborica which they derive from dabar signifying verbum or causa whereas they should have derived it from Dever signifying pestem or a plague Thirdly for Saint Jerome his translation though it differ somewhat from the original yet it is no Antithesis to the Text but an elegant Antanaclasis or at least a Metonymie generis pro specie mors pro peste I will be thy death for I will be thy plague Fourthly for the translation of the Septuagint which Saint Paul most seemeth to follow because writing to the Gentiles who made use of that translation and understood not the original he would not give them any offence nor derrogate from it which was in great esteem among all in regard of the antiquity thereof and it stood the Christians in those dayes in great stead to convince the unbelieving Jewes It well agreeth with the Analogie of faith and the meaning of the holy Spirit and the Hebrew letter also will bear it for Ehi as Buxtorphius the great Master of the holy tongue out of David Kimchi observeth signifieth ubi where as well as ero I will be and a venemous sting and pestis the plague differ but little so that although the words in the original seem to be spoken by an affirmation but in Saint Paul and the Septuagint by an interrogation in the one by a commination in the other by an insultation yet both come to one sense and contain an evident prophesie of Christ his conquest over Death and Hell I have pluked away the thorn and now I am come to blow the flower and open the leaves of the words O death I will be thy plauges that is I will take away from Death the power of destroying utterly and from the Grave the power of keeping the dead in it perpetually If we take the words as spoken by way of insultation ô mors ubi est aculeus tuus O death where is thy sting thus we are to construe them as a hornet or serpent when his sting is plucked out can do no hurt to any other but soon after dyeth it self so Death is disarmed by Christ and left as good as dead for as David cut off Goliahs head with his own sword and Brasidas ran through his enemy with his own spear so Christ conquers over Death by death in as much as by his temporal death he satisfied both for the temporal and the eternal death of them that believe in him And as he conquered Death by his death so he destroyed the Grave by his burial for suffering his body to be imprisoned and afterwards breaking the gates and barrs of the prison he left the passage open to all his members to come out after him their head These sacred and heavenly mysteries are shrined in the letter of this Text for although the Prophet speaketh to the Israelites and maketh a kind of tender unto them of redemption from temporal death and deliverance from corporal captivity yet to confirm their faith therein he bringeth in the promise of eternal redemption from whence they were to infer if God will redeem us from eternal how much more from temporal death if he will deliver us out of the prison of the grave how much more out of common Goals what though our enemies have never so great a hand over us what though they exceed in their cruelty and put us to all exttemity and do their worst against us their cruelty cannot extend beyond death nor their malice beyond the Grave but Gods power and mercy reacheth farther For he can and he promiseth that he will revive us after we are dead and raise us after we are buried he will pluck deaths sting out of us and us out of the bowels of the Grave Death hath not such power over the living nor the grave over the dead as God hath over both to destroy the one and swallow up the other into victory For therefore the Son of God vouchsafeth to taste death that Death might be swallowed up by him into victory Although Death swallow up all things and the Grave shut up all in darkness yet God is above them both therefore when we are brought to the greatest exigent when nothing but death and torments are before us when we are ready to yeeld up the buckler of our faith and breath out the last gasp of hope let us call this Text to mind O death I will be thy plagues neither Death nor the Grave shall be my peoples bane because I will be both their bane and change their nature which destroyeth all nature For to all them that believe in me Death shall not be a postern but a street-door not so much an out-let of temporal as an in-let of eternal life and though the grave swallow the bodies of my Saints yet it shall cast them up again at the last day Thus the words yeeld us
are required at our hands we may be sure that we have spiritual life in us we may build upon it that Christ dwelleth in our hearts by faith and that we live in him by grace 3. Our benefit by them is manifold in this life and the life to come In this life peace of conscience their soul shall dwell at ease 2. Good success in all we undertake what soever we do it shall prosper 3. The service of the creatures for all things work for the best to them that love God Lastly a comfortable pass out of this world we are sure our end shall be peace In the life to come the benefits are such as never eye hath seen nor ear hath heard nor ever entred into the heart of man God grant therefore our heart may enter into them quia Aristoteles non capit Eurispum Eurispus capiat Arist otalum because we cannot comprehend the joyes of heaven let them comprehend us You expect something to be spoken of our dear Sister deceased and much might be said and should by me in her praise but that one of her chiefest commendations was that she could not endure praise Laudes quia merebatur contempsit quia contempsit mag is merebatur becanse she deserved praise she desp ised it and because she despised it she the more deserved it Silent modesty in her was her crown in her life and modest silence of her was the charge at her death Her life was well known to most of this place and her death was every way answerable to her life all that visited her in her sickness might behold with sorrow a pittiful anatomy of frail mortality and yet with joy a perfect pattern of Christian patience and a heavenly conversation and though she were full of divine conceptions and she had a spring by her of the waters of life in the devotion of her dearest helper especially in the best things yet when I came to her she desired she might be partaker of some of my meditations they were her own words and when I prayed with her and for her she joyned not so much with me with her tongue as her affections and answered more in sighs and tears then in words often she complained of her tuff heart that would not yeeld to her dissolution and long long she thought it till she should come to appear before the God of Gods in Sion Her last words were sweet Father help me and she had her request for presently he helped her both by the zealous and most feeling prayers of her Husband and by the holy spirit assisting her in her own prayers with sighs and groans that cannot be expressed and immediately her sweet Father released her of her pangs and received her to himself on his own day On the Lords day morning before the morning watch I say before the morning watch she entered into her rest and began to keep her everlasting Sabbath in heaven where she reapeth what she sowed and seeth what shebelieved and enjoyeth what she hoped for and is now entred into those joyes which never entred fully into the heart of any living on earth nor shall into ours till we with her be made perfect and all of us come to Mount Sion and the heavenly Jerusalem and innumerable company of Angels and to the Congregation of the first-born whose names are written in heaven and to the spirits of just men and women made perfect Whither the God of peace bring us in our appointed time who brought again from the dead the great shepheard through the blood of the everlasting Covenant To whom with the holy Spirit c. FAITHS ECCHO OR THE SOULES AMEN SERMON XLVI REVEL 22.20 Amen Even so come Lord Jesus THese words they afford to us a comfortable and sweet argument to be conversant in From the sixt verse of this Chapter is set down to us the confirmation of the whole Prophesie and Book of the Revelation partly by the affirmation of God as likewise of Jesus Christ and of John himself that heard and saw all these things and likewise of the Church of God in verse 17. It is likewise confirmed by the promise of Blessing and Happiness pronounced upon them that shall do all these things and shall faithfully expect the accomplishment of them This Verse a part of which I have read to you is the Repetition in few words of all that matter that goeth before from verse 6. to it and hath in it First an attestation of our Lord and Saviour Christ in the former part of the Verse Behold I come quickly Secondly an acclamation of the Church in the latter part these words I have read to ye Amen even so come Lord Jesus In the attestation of Christ he promiseth he will come to his Church he will come shortly both for the accomplishment of all his promises and likewise for their safety and deliverance from all enemies and all miseries and molestations whatsoever To this the Church makes an acclamation and saith Amen even so come Lord Jesus In this acclamation of the Church to which we must now come we are to consider First the person of the Speaker whose words they be Secondly what is the matter or substance contained in them Ye shall see whose words they be if ye look back but to the 17. verse of this Chapter there ye shall find that first it is said the Spirit saith Come By the Spirit is not meant the third Person in Trinity the holy Ghost because he is not subject to these passions to these desires but he resteth himself in the execution and present disposing and dispensing of things according to his own will and pleasure Neither by Spirit here is meant any wicked spirit or Angel for they do with fear and horrour expect the same coming of our Lord and Saviour Christ because his coming shall be the accomplishment of their misery and eternal infelicity But by Spirit here is meant the spirit in all the Elect and holy people of God in whomsoever the Spirit of God is that Spirit doth say come and doth wish the accomplishment of all these most gracious promises For this is not the desire of the flesh or of nature but an earnest and vehement desire of the Spirit of God in the Elect that saith come Again secondly the same verse telleth us that the Bride saith come That is the Church of God in general the Catholick Church the whole Church of God being now hand-fasted to Christ and entred into a spiritual contract with him She desireth the consumation of the Marriage the solemniation of the Marriage which is already begun in the contract of it and not only every particular member of the Church in whom the Spirit of God is saith come but the Church of God in general the Bride saith come the whole Church saith come wishing and desiring the accomplishment of the Marriage which is already begun In the third place the same verse
of the Benediction If Esau lift up his voyce and wept because he was defeated of the blessing while Isaac lived Joseph might well have made a mourning had he been prevented of the Benediction by an unexpected or a distant death But Jacob blessed them and with his blessing gave order for his burial and with that blessing and that order dyed And as his death was no way prejudicial to the spiritual so was it not at all disadvantageous to the temporal condition of his Son He suffered loss of no enjoyments by his Fathers death Jacob had lived long by the favour and the care of Joseph his filial gratitude alone preserv'd his life but no such narrow thoughts abated the freeness of Joseph's forrow And he made a mourning for his Father If none of these considerations which work so powerfully on other persons did move this Mourner to express such sorrow what were the Motives then which caus'd so deep a sense what meditations wrought so powerfully on the heart of Joseph I answer they were but two Mortality and Paternity the one supposed the other expressed in the text Jacob was the Father of Joseph and that Father dead and therefore Joseph mourned for him Mortality is a proper object to invite our pity and privation of life alone sufficient to move compassion in the living Weep for the dead faith the Son of Sirach for he hath lost the light If for no other reason yet because a man is dead and by death deprived of those comforts which those that live enjoy they which survive may providently bewail their future privation in his present loss Thus every Grave-stone bespeaks or expects a tear as if all those eyes which had not yet lost their light were to pay the tribute of their waters to the dead Sea This Fountain Nature never made in vain nor to be alwayes sealed up that heart is rock which suffers it never to break forth and be it so yet if the rod of Moses strike an affliction sent from God shall force it Let us therefore be ready with our sorrowful expressions when we are invited by sad occasions especially when a Father who may command them calls for them as that Wise man did My Son let tears fall down over the dead And if paternal authority demands them at the death of others it is no filial duty which denies them to attend upon a Fathers Funeral Joseph a man of a gracious and a tender heart moved with common objects of compassion had a vulgar forrow arising from the consideration of mortality Joseph a Son full of high affection and of filial duty and respect was touched with a far more lively sense by the accession of paternity And he made a mourning for his Father he made a mourning for his Father which begat him for his Father which loved him for his Father which blessed him for his Father which had mourned for him for his Father which came down to die with him First he made a mourning for his Father who begat him had there been no other but that naked relation it had carryed with it a sufficient obligation There is so great an union between the Parent and the Child that it cannot break without a deep sensation He which hath any grateful apprehension of his own life received cannot chuse but sadly resent the loss of that life which gave it If the fear of the death of Croesus by a natural miracle could unty the tongue of his Son who never spake before that man must be miraculously unnatural the flood-gates of whose eyes are not open'd at his Fathers Funerals though he never wept before The gifts of grace do not obliterate but improve nature and it is a false perswasion of Adoption which teacheth us so far to become the sons of God as to forget that we are the sons of men Joseph a person high in the esteem of Pharaoh higher in the favour of God great in the power of Egypt greater in the power of the Spirit yet he forgets not his filial relation yet he cannot deny his natural obligation but as a pious Son he payes the last tribute of his duty to Jacob And he made a mourning for his Father who begat him Secondly he made a mourning for his Father who loved him Love when in an equal commandeth love and this is so just that fire doth not more naturally create a flame In this the similitude is so great that there is no difference in the nature of the love produced and that which did produce it But when it first beginneth in a superior person the proper effect which it createth in an inferior is not of a single nature but such a love as is mingled with duty and respect The love of God to man challengeth love from us but that of such a nature as cannot be demonstrated but by obedience and that of a Father to his Son is of the same condition though not in the same proportion The Father loveth first with care and tenderness with a proper and a single love the Son returns it with another colour mingled with duty blended with respect Now Jacob had many children and as an eminent example he lov'd them all but among the rest there was one clearer and warmer flame for be loved Joseph more then all his children the off-spring of Rachel the Son of his old age the Heir of his Vertues the Corrector of his Brethren the Beloved of God had a greater share in Jacobs affection then the rest of his issue He did not so much prefer his wives before his hand maids he did not so highly value Rachel before Leah as he did esteem Joseph before the off-spring of them all This was the paternal love of Jacob and this was answered with as high a filial respect in Joseph which after death could not otherwise be expressed then in tears And therefore he made a mourning for his Father who loved him Thirdly he made a mourning for his Father who had blessed him Blessing is the soveraign act of God and the power of benediction like the power of God He delegateth this power unto his Priests who stand between God and Man and bless the Sons of men in the name of God He derives the same upon our natural Parents that children honoring them may expect his blessing upon their desires and prayers And what greater favour could we ask of God then that those persons who have the most natural affection toward us should also have the greatest power to bless us Now when the time drew nigh that Israel must die when his body drew nearer to the Earth and his soul to Heaven when his desires were highest and his words of the greatest efficacy he called unto his Sons and blessed them every one according to his blessing he blessed them But as he loved Joseph more then all his Brethren so he blessed him above them all he made one Tribe of every