get ready that we may not have cause to desire its stay Thirdly Though they be gone yet it was not before they were fit to go Some of thm liv'd but a little time but they liv'd much in a little time and how are they to be commended and the grace of God to be admired in them who do happily dispatch that work in twenty years or less which others and those holy Souls too are threescore or seventy years about Some die young it is a sign they ripened apace The Husband man careth not when he plucks up his Weeds because they are either for the Furnace or the Dunghil but his Corn shall be white to the Harvest before he puts in his Sickle So a wise man will let the Fruit of his Orchard hang till it be ripe and when it is so he gathers it So doth the wise and ever-blessed God as for wicked men he is not so curious about them they only cumber the ground they bring forth wild Grapes down with them saith Justice it will be a good riddance let better be planted in their room but he doth otherwise with the Trees of Righteousness the souls of holy persons are prepared for glory by that time their bodies drop into the Grave The marriage of the Lamb will not come before his Bride hath made her self ready Now is not this enough to satisfy you give one good reason if you can why any should remain upon earth after they are once truly fit for Heaven why they should have their days prolonged when their work is finished they shall not die before it why should they live here after it why should they not receive the Crown of Righteousness when they have fought the good fight and finished their course and kept the faith To what purpose I beseech you should they live when they have no more grace to get here and no more good to do To such an one as loves God dearly and is set for his glory an useless barren and unprofitable life would be an heavy burden and a great deal worse than death Such an one in such a case would not know how to enjoy himself an hour but would long and pine and cry out for the coming of death as the Mother of Sisera did for her Son Why is his Chariot so long in coming why tarry the wheels of his Chariot Fourthly As they are gone to God so they had excellent company by the way It is not a little distance between this earth which the Saints now inhabit and the highest Heaven unto which at death they go the habitation of God and seat of the blessed and tho the holy Soul be exceeding swift in its motion when it is once freed from the heavy clog of dull flesh and got upon the wing yet will it be some time before so long a Journey can be dispatch'd and it arrive at its desired home At the beginning of Daniel's supplication the Commandment came forth and the Angel Gabriel was caused to flee swiftly yet he came not to him till the time of the evening oblation And there is an innumerable number of wicked spirits in the way Legions of Devils in the Regions of the Air which envy the happiness of those who are to have an everlasting abode in those places out of which they themselves were cast and therefore will be sure to do their utmost for the disturbing them in their ascent But for the preventing of it the great and holy God hath appointed them a strong Guard in Hebr. 1. 14. the holy Angels are said to be initistring spirits sent forth to minister for them who shall be the heirs of salvation and they take pleasure in doing so Little do we know the obligations we lie under to them how much we are beholden to them how they watch over us and pitch their Tents about us and are Assistants to us Many and many are the good offices which the good Angels do for the Saints while they live and when they die they are a strong Convoy to their Souls that will keep off from them all Enemies and Dangers and bring them with safety and honour into the King's Palace the Presence-Chamber of their God and Father Upon all these accounts I counsel you not to lay the reins upon the neck of your passions nor to mourn over them who died in the Lord as those who have no hope for they are blessed When they lived they were the habitations of God through the Spirit when they died they died in the Lord and their bodies sleep in Iesus their Souls upon dissolution are the charge of Angels It was they that carried the Soul of poor but precious Lazarus into the bosom of Abraham tho the rich Glutton suffer'd him to lie in his Rags and Sores starving at his door neglected and despis'd and both their souls and bodies at the Resurrection of the Just shall have a consummate happiness in the full uninterrupted and eternal enjoyment of God Therefore I say again mourn not for them there is no cause they are in a far better condition than you turn your Grief into another Channel and as our Saviour directed weep for your selves and for your children on the score of what you have lost and what you may feel in this world of sin and uncertainty The second Branch of this Use of Exhortation will be this Be you willing to go to God also whensoever he shall please by death to send for you You I mean who have been indeed made partakers of grace who love God and have made him your choice and have good hope yea assurance of your interest in him It would be a shame for any of you to be unwilling and loth to die God may very well take that unkindly at your hands and you for it have reason to be displeas'd and angry with your selves What is there upon earth that should make you unwilling What is there in Death that should affright and scare you Have you great affliction and trouble here would it not be better for you to be out of it to exchange a tempestuous Sea for an Haven of Peace Do you now swim in Delights and abound with Creature comforts shall you not find better in Heaven than those you leave behind you Would you stay yet longer that so you might provide for your Children and see them setled well and comfortably in the World Will you not commit them to the care of your heavenly Father who is their God in Covenant as well as yours Can you trust God with your Souls and will you not trust him with your Seed Do you think it is an hard thing to die cannot God strengthen you for it Is there a bitterness in it cannot God sweeten it to you Cannot he make it easy to you as he hath made it to many of his People Cannot he by the light of his Countenance and the witness of his Spirit and the shedding abroad of his love
cloathed with a glorified Body as for other holy Ones tho they see Death yet they are translated too carried from Earth to Heaven from Creatures to God The Body must descend into the Grave and there lye putrifying corrupting crumbling until it return to Dust as it once was but the Spirit returns to God that gave it I desire you all frequently to call this to mind and consider it with the greatest seriousness and see that you have sanctified Souls Souls rightly prepared brought into such a frame as may be fit to appear in so glorious a Presence and converse with so pure and holy a Majesty that when they return to God they may be welcome to him and being come into his Presence for ever dwell and abide there and not afterwards cast out and banisht as the Object of his loathing Thirdly Holy Souls may very well be willing yea glad to go to God As a Bride is to go to her endeared Husband and as a Child at School under severe Discipline is to go to his most affectionate and tender Parents from whom instead of hard Blows he shall meet with soft Embraces Some Saints upon record in Scripture we find were in such a frame Good old Simeon was in haste and prayed for his Dismission Luke 2. 29 30. Lord now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace according to thy word for mine eyes have seen thy salvation Having seen Christ he would sain see the Father too Having got Christ in his Arms he would have the World on his back He reckon'd that he had liv'd long enough here and would needs be gone He had now got his full freight and therefore desired to set up his Sail for the other World Having beheld so great a sight as the Lord of Glory tho but in his Infancy and Swathing-bands he was loath that his Eyes should be embased with the beholding of earthly Vanities any more Paul likewise had the same thing in his desire so he told us in Phil. 1. 23. I have a desire to depart and to be with Christ. He would go from all that he may go to him and leave all that he might be with him and he understood himself and acted rationally in this desire for it is saith he in the next words far better Heaven is inconceivably better than Earth when it is in the greatest Peace when it expresseth the greatest Kindness He very well knew what he said he was a competent Judge having been an Eye-witness of the Felicity and Glory above taken up into Paradice into the Third Heaven And tho others have not been partakers of that Priviledge not so rapt as Paul was yet they are of the same Judgment and have the same Desires working in them therefore he speaks of it as a Spirit and Disposition common to all the Saints while they are in this Tabernacle Their hearts stand Heavenward as the Needle doth to the North-Pole when it hath been once touch'd with the Loadstone as you may see in 2 Cor. 5. 2. In this we groan earnestly desiring to be cloathed upon with our house which is from heaven They had not only some small Inclinations that way and languid faint Desires but earnest Groans And again verse 8. We are confident I say and willing rather to be absent from the body and present with the Lord. We are willing not only out of necessity because this is a thing must be but out of choice we had rather leave the Body that we might go to God But now we are to enquire why it is thus And you will find there is sufficient yea abundant reason for it if you do consider these four following Particulars First In going to God they go to their Father This was the comfort and joy of our Saviour's heart with this he comforted himself and with this he comforted his Disciples looking upon it as a Cordial strong enough for them all John 20. 17. Go to my brethren and say unto them I ascend unto my Father and your Father and to my God and your God Mine by Nature yours by Adoption I am now going to one that I am most nearly related to and most fully interested in And in Iohn 17. we find him insisting and dwelling upon this as that which he took singular delight in and suckt a great deal of sweetness from verse 1. Father the hour is come Verse 5. O Father glorify thou me with thine own Verse 11. I come to thee Holy Father Verse 21. Thou Father art in me and I in thee Verse 24. Father I will that they whom thou hast given me be with me where I am Verse 25. O righteous Father the World hath not known thee but I have known thee c. It is certain that when wicked Men the worst and vilest of them dye they go to God Did I say Go Rather they are forc'd and drag'd against their will they cannot help it It is to a God that many of them did not believe but laboured with all their might to obliterate the Notion of his Being because troublesome and tormenting to them Psalm 14. 1. The fool hath said in his heart there is no God It is to a God that none of them cared to know and be acquainted with Job 21. 14. They say unto God Depart from us for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways Neither of his ways nor of himself They go to God as their Righteous Judge but not their reconciled and gracious Father They are brought before his Tribunal as Malefactors to receive their Doom but they do not enter into his Kingdom as Children to take Possession Whereas those that are truly gracious go to him as a Father as a Father of Mercies yea and as their Father in Christ to him as a God yea and to their God in Covenant to a God and Father by whom they were begotten of whom they were born whose Spirit they have received and whose Image they bear Wicked Men go to God to give an account of what they have done in the Body and when once Sentence is past upon them and they adjudged to their Place and eternal State they go to Devils Matth. 24. 41. Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels You followed his Conduct you did his Drudgery now take your Wages with him Where he is there shall his Servants also be When the Saints go to God they go to stay and to take up their everlasting abode with him Rev. 3. 12. Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God and he shall 〈◊〉 no more out As they shall be exalted so fixed their Happiness shall never be abated their Glory never eclipsed Once in Christ and ever in Christ there is no total and final falling from Grace they that are indeed planted in the house of the Lord shall never be pluckt up and so in the present case once in Heaven and in Heaven
in your hearts mitigate and abate the sense of pain Look to it that you do not leave him while you live and then rest confident of this that he will not forsake you when you come to die David could say Psal 23. 4 Tho he did walk through the valley of the shadow of death he would fear no evil for God's rod and staff did comfort him I am apt to think the pains of Death are worst at a distance and not seldom more terrible to the Spectators than to the Patient And I do not in the least question but the throws and agonies of many poor Women in Child-bearing and those Pains also which are caused by the Cramp the Gout the Stone or Strangury are far greater and more severe than the Pains of Death usually are But however we may be sure of this those Pains be they what they will are but short if compared with that blessed Eternity which shall succeed them and so light as not worthy to be mention'd the same day with that far more exceeding weight of glory which shall be graciously bestowed upon them that overcome So the holy Apostle Paul saith Rom. 8. 18. I reckon that the sufferings of this present life take them altogether from the first to the last moment are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us Therefore by Prayer earnestly beg of God a willingness to go to him and take pains with your own Souls in order to the working of them up thereunto Humbly and freely leave it to him who is infinite in wisdom to chuse the time when it shall be to him who is love it self and whose compassions do not fail to order out the manner how it shall be only be you careful to prepare and get ready labour to be fit to die and meet for the inheritance of the Saints in light and when that grim Messenger comes bid him welcome and let your hearts be glad and your glory rejoice Do your Souls now at any time wander from God call them in and chide them home and when you come to die sing them home and the good Lord enable you by being with you while you walk in the valley of the shadow of Death comforting you with his Rod and Staff giving you to look within the veil and to see your Advocate and Mediator Jesus at the right hand of God ready to receive you that so you may as the Protomarryr Stephen did commend your spirit into his hand and besides what hath been already said before the time of your departure come lay your selves in with these comfortable meditations First God whom you go to is the best and dearest Friend In him there is infinite Fulness and everlasting Love As the Sun when up and shining forth in his Glory doth so obscure and darken all the Stars that in his Presence they hide their Heads and disappear so doth the Glory of God prevail and triumph over all the Beauty and Glory of the Creature He hath all Perfections and is pleasant for Delights It is his Glory to be Self-sufficient and All-sufficient He hath enough for himself and for the holy Angels who look no further and desire no more therefore he cannot but have enough for you And as there is All fulness in him so All-sweetness too Here indeed a gracious Soul may sometimes discover that in God which strikes a terror in it The Psalmist remembred God and was troubled Psalm 77. 3. The Prophet cried out I am undone for mine eyes have seen the King the Lord of Hosts Isa 6. 5. But in the other World where the sight will be clear and full you shall see nothing in him save that which will be your Comfort and Joy Then every sight of him will be ravishing and every thought of him precious He will then be in your Account altogether lovely You will then see he hath such a Glory as knoweth no blemish such a Fulness as knoweth no defect so that you cannot desire him better than he is nor would you have him other than he is for as all his Attributes are his own Glory so they will all contribute to and issue in your Satisfaction Secondly Heaven is the sweetest place that you can be in We have reason to conclude it must of necessity be so since God hath chosen it for his own Seat the place of his own Residence This World is but a Wilderness since Sin entred into it that is a Paradice far beyond the Terrestial one out of which our first Parents were driven This World is but a Dunghil that is a Mountain of Myrrhs there be the Beds of Spices There is nothing to pollute nothing to offend no danger of falling no fear of losing nothing to disturb the Spirit to break the Peace or damp the Joy Read and consider that excellent Description which is given of the New Ierusalem in that Rev. 21. 10 c. some passages whereof are these The foundations of the wall garnished with all manner of precious stones the twelve gates were twelve pearls the City yea the very street of it is pure gold the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it the Glory of God doth lighten it and the Lamb is the light thereof And if there be such a Glory in that great City which descends from God out of Heaven what do you think and how great is the Glory of that great City which is in Heaven What words are big enough to express it What mind large enough to conceive it Deus Coelum non patiuntur hyperbolem God and Heaven are incapable of an Hyperbole our most raised and inlarged Thoughts will be too narrow short and low I will add but one thing more and shut up this Discourse Lastly When once you come to Heaven you will never be weary of being there Here indeed we are quickly weary and tir'd out at the best of our comforts A Man may lie in a Bed of Down till he is weary and his Bones ake He may sit at a noble and sumptuous Feast till he is weary and would be glad of a dimission We may pray and preach and hear till we are weary tho we should not be weary of Gospel-Ordinances and Religious Duties yet we may be weary in them But there is no such thing as this in Heaven no nothing like it throughout Eternity The Saints there will neither be weary of God nor of Heaven nor of themselves nor of one another Their Eye will not be weary of beholding God and contemplating his Glory nor the Tongue weary of blessing and praising him nor Soul and Body weary of maintaining a close and intimate converse with him As there will be a compleat Enjoyment so constant and fresh Delight A Fulness and All fulness of Joy and that will infallibly afford Pleasures for evermore God hath made a great Breach among you who meet in this place by taking away his Servant who labour'd in the Word and Doctrine It is above Fifty years since our first Acquaintance we having been of the same College and under the same Tutor He was a Learned Man and as I am persuaded truly Godly one that denied himself and suffered much for Conscience-sake I came hither to do you good not to commend him for that is needless you having known his Doctrine and manner of Life His Course is finished and God hath call'd him home so that you shall see his Face no more I beseech you to live the Truths he brought you and since you are taken with the goodness of this Air and the pleasantness of this Place for the health of your Bodies see that you neglect not you Souls but chearfully allow to the procuring and setling one among you that may feâ—d you with sound Knowledge and Understanding by your Liberality therein manifest the value you have for the Gospel and the good Lord send one in whose Light you may rejoyce FINIS