but God himself that is called a Spirit And though the Name be fetch'd from lower things that is because that as we have no adequate positive conception of God or Spirits so we can have no adequate proper names for them but must take up with borrowed Names as answerable to our Notions Sometime the Word Spirit as Heb. 4. 12. c. is distinguished from the Soul And then it either signifieth the superior Faculties in the same Soul or the same Soul as elevated by Grace Do you ask What the Soul is You may also ask What a Man is And it is pity that a Man should not know what a Man is It is our Intellectual Nature containing also the Sensitive and Vegetative The Principle or first Act by which we live and feel and understand and freely will The Acts tell you what the Faculties or Powers are and so what the Soul is If you know what Intellection or Reason and Free-will are you may know what it is to have a spiritual Nature essentially containing the Power of Reasoning and Willing It is thy Soul by which thou art thinking and asking What a Soul is And as he that reasoneth to prove that Man hath no Reason doth prove that he hath Reason by reasoning against it so he that reasoneth to prove that he hath no Soul doth thereby prove that he hath a Reasonable though abused Soul Yet there are some so blind as so question Whether they have Souls because they see them not Whereas if they could see them with Eyes of Flesh they were no Souls For Spirits are invisible They see not the Air or Wind and yet they know that Air or Wind there is They see not God or Angels and yet they are Fools indeed if they doubt whether there be a God and Angels If they see not their Eyes yet they know that they have Eyes because with those Eyes they see other things And if they know not directly and intuitively that they have Rational Souls they might know it by their knowing other things which without such Souls cannot be known It is just with God that those that live as carnally and brutishly and neglegently as if they had no Souls to use or care for should at last be given up to question whether they have Souls or no. O woful Fall depraved Nature O miserable Men that have so far departed from God as to deny both themselves and God! or to question Whether God be God and Man be Man Return to God and thou wilt come to thy self Forget not Man thy Noble Nature thy chiefest Part Think not that thou art only Shell because thou seest not through the Shell It is Souls that converse by the Bodies while they are in Flesh It is thy Soul that I am speaking to and thy Soul that understandeth me When thy Soul is gone I will speak to thee no more It is thy Soul that is the Workmanship of God by an immediate or special way of Fabrication Isa 57. 16. The souls that I have made Gen. 2. 7. He breathed into man the breath of life and he became a living soul It is thy Soul that is said to be made after God's Image in that thou art ennobled with a capacious Vnderstanding and Free-will And it is thy Soul that is the immediate subject of his Moral Image even spiritual Wisdom Righteousness and Holiness God hath not Hands and Feet and other Members as thy Body hath How noble a Nature is that which is capable of knowing not only all things in the World in its measure but God himself and the things of the world that is to come and capable of loving and enjoying God and of seeking and serving him in order to that Enjoyment Christ thought not basely of a Soul that redeemed Souls at such a price when he made his soul an offering for sin Isa 53. 10. Were it not for our immortal Souls would God ever honour us with such Relations to him as to be his Children For he is first the Father of Spirits Heb. 12. 9. and then the Father of Saints Should we be called the Spouse and the Members of Christ Would he be at so much cost upon us Should Angels attend us as ministring Spirits if we had not Spirits fit to minister to God Would the Spirit of God himself dwell in us and quicken and beautifie us with his Grace Should a world of Creatures whose Corporeal Substance seems as excellent as ours attend and serve us if we were but an ingenuous sort of Brutes and had not rational immortal Souls Should such store of Mercies be provided for us Should Ministers be appointed to preach and pray and labour for us if we had not Souls to save or lose They watch for your souls as those that must give account Heb. 13. 17. Why should they preach in season and out of season and suffer so much to perform their Work but that they know that He that winneth souls is wise Prov. 11. 30. and that he which converteth a sinner from the errour of his way doth save a soul from death and hide a multitude of sins Jam. 6. 20. The Devil himself may tell you the worth of Souls when he compasseth the earth Job 1. 7. and goeth about night and day to deceive them and devour them 1 Pet. 5. 8. And yet can he make you believe that they are so worthless as to be abused to the basest drudgery to be poysoned with sin and Sensuality to be ventured for a thing of naught O Sirs have you such immortal Souls and will you sell them for a Lust for a beastly Pleasure for liberty to glut your Flesh or for the Price that Judas sold his Lord for Is thy Soul no more worth than Honour or Wealth or foolish Mirth Is thy Soul so base as not to be worth the care and labour of a Holy Life Is the World worth all thy Care and Labour and shall less be called too much ado when it is for thy precious Soul Alas one would think by the careless felshly Lives of many that they remember not that they have Souls Have they not need in the depth of their Security in the height of their Ambition and in the heat of Fleshly Lusts to have a Monitor to call to them Remember that thou art a man and that thou hast a Soul to save or lose What thinkest thou of thy negligence and carnal Life when thou readest that so holy a Man as Paul must keep under his body and bring it into subjection lest he should be a cast-away after all his Labours 1 Cor. 9. 25. 26 27. O live not as if the Flesh were the Man and its Pleasure your Felicity but live as those that have Spirits to take care for DOCT. 4 THe spirit of man doth survive the Body It dyeth not with it It is not annihilated It is not resolved into the essence of some common element of souls where it loseth its specifick form
this part of my application having to do with Souls that are ready to depart and are in so sad an unprepared state as is not to be thought on but with great compassion I am next to come to that part of the application which I chiefly intended to those that are the Heirs of Life II. O You that are members of Jesus Christ receive this Cordial which may corroborate your hearts against all inordinate fears of Death Let it come when it will you may boldly recommend your departing Souls into the hands of Christ Let it be by a lingring disease or by an acute by a natural or a violent death at the fulness of your age or in the flower of your youth death can but separate the Soul from Flesh but not from Christ Whether you die poor or rich at liberty or in prison in your native Country or a forein Land whether you be buried in the Earth or cast into the Sea death shall but send your Souls to Christ Though you die under the reproach and slanders of the world and your names be cast out among men as evil doers yet Christ will take your Spirits to himself Though your Souls depart in fear and trembling though they want the sense of the Love of God and doubt of pardon and peace with him yet Christ will receive them I know thou wilt be ready to say that thou art unworthy Will he receive so unworthy a Soul as mine But if thou be a member of Christ thou art worthy in him to be accepted Thou hast a worthiness of Aptitude and Christ hath a worthiness of merit The day that cometh upon such at unawares that have their hearts over-charged with surfeiting drunkenness and the cares of this life and as a snare surprizeth the inhabitants of the earth shall be the day of thy great deliverance Watch therefore and pray alwayes that you way be accounted worthy to escape all those things that shall come to pass and to stand before the son of man Luke 21. 34 35 36. They that are accounted worthy to obtain that world can die no more for they are equal to the Angels and are the children of God Luke 20. 35 36. Object O but my sins are great and many and will Christ ever receive so ignorant so earthly and impure a Soul as mine Answ If he have freed thee from the reign of sin by giving thee a Will that would fain be fully delivered from it and given thee a desire to be perfectly holy he will finish the work that he hath begun and will not bring thee defiled into Heaven but will wash thee in his Blood and separate all the remnant of corruption from thy Soul when he separateth thy Soul from flesh There needs no purgatory but his blood and Spirit in the instant of death shall deliver thee that he may present thee spotless to the Father O fear not then to trust thy Soul with him that will Receive it And fear not death that can do thee no more harm And when once thou hast overcome the fears of death thou wilt be the more resolute in thy duty and faithful to Christ and above the power of most temptations and wilt not fear the face of man when Death is the worst that man can bring thee to It is true Death is dreadful but it is as true that the arms of Christ are joyful It is an unpleasing thing to leave the Bodies of our friends in the earth but it is unspeakable pleasure to their Souls to be Received into the Heavenly society by Christ And how confidently quietly and comfortably you may commend your departing Spirits to be received by Christ be informed by these considerations following 1 Your Spirits are Christs own And may you not trust him with his own As they are his by the title of creation All Souls are mine saith the Lord Ezek. 18. 4. So also by the title of redemption We are not our own we are bought with a price 1 Cor. 6. 19. Say therefore to him Lord I am thine much more than my own Receive thine own Take care of thine own Thou drewest me to consent to thy gracious Covenant and I resigned my self and all I had to thee and thou swarest to me and I became thine Ezek. 16. 8. and I stand to the Covenant that I made though I have offended thee I am sinful but I am thine and would not forsake thee and change my Lord and Master for a world O know thine own and own my Soul that hath owned thee though it hath sinned against thee Thy sheep know thy voice and follow not a stranger Now know thy poor sheep and leave them not to the devourer Thy Lambs have been preserved by thee among Wolves in the world Preserve me now from the enemy of souls I am thine O save me Psalm 119. 94. and lose not that which is thine own 2. Consider that thou art his upon so dear a purchace as that he is the more engaged to receive thee Hath he bought thee by the price of his most precious blood and will he cast thee off Hath he come down on earth to seek and save thee and will he now forsake thee Hath he lived in flesh a life of poverty and suffered reproach and scorn and buffetings and been nailed to the Cross and put to cry out My God My God why hast thou forsaken me And will he now forget his love and sufferings and himself forsake thee after this Did he himself on the Cross commend his spirit into his Father's hands and will he not receive thy spirit when thou at death commendest it to him He hath known himself what it is to have a humane soul separated from the body and the body buried in a grave and there lamented by surviving friends And why did he this but that he might be fit to receive and relieve thee in the like condition O who would not be encouraged to encounter death and lie down in a grave that believeth that Christ did so before him and considereth why he went that way and what a Conquest he hath made I know an Argument from the Death of Christ will not prove his love to the souls of the ungodly so as to infer that he wil receive them but it will prove his Reception of Believers souls He that spared not his own Son but gave him up for us all how shall he not with him also freely give us all things Rom. 8. 32. is an infallible argument as to Believers but not as to those that do reject him Say therefore to him O my Lord Can it be that thou couldst come down in flesh and be abused and spit upon and slandred and crucified that thou couldst bleed and die and be buried for me and now be unwilling to receive me that thou shoulds pay so dear for souls and now refuse to entertain them that thou shouldst die to save them from the devil and now wilt leave
ambitious rebellious Absolom to molest us or to lament No sinful scandalous or impatient friends to be our grief And which is more than all no earthly sinful inclinations in our selves no passions or infirmities no languishings of soul no deadness dulness hard heartedness or we aknesses of grace no backwardness to God or estrangedness from him nor fears or doubtings of his love nor frowns of his displeasure None of these do enter into that serene and holy region nor ever interrupt the joy of Saints The great work is yet upon our hands to fight out the good fight to finish our course to run with patience the remainder of the race that is before us And as we must look to Jesus the Author and Finisher of our faith as our great exemplar so must we look to his Saints and Martyrs as our encouraging examples under him Put the case you were now dying and O how near is it and how sure What would you need most if the day were come That is it that you need most now Look after it speedily while you have time Look after it seriously if you have the hearts of men and sin have not turned you into Ideots or blocks What a disgrace is it to mankind to hear men commonly at death cry out O for a little more time and O for the opportunities of grace again and O how shall I enter upon eternity thus unprepared As if they had never heard or known that they must die till now Had you not a lifes time to put these questions and should you not long ago have got them satisfactorily resolved And justly doth God give over some to that greater shame of humane nature as not to be called to their wits even by the approach of death it self but as they contemned everlasting Life in their health God justly leaveth them to be so sottish as to venture presumptuously with unrenewed souls upon death and the conceit that they are of the right Church or party or opinion or that the Priest hath absolved them doth pass with them for the necessary preparation and well were it for them if these would pass them currantly into heaven But O what heart can now conceive how terrible it is for a new departed soul to find it self remedilesly disappointed and to be shut up in flames and desperation before they would believe that they were in danger of it Reader I beseech thee as ever thou believest that thou must shortly die retire from the crowd and noise of worldly vanity and vexation O bethink thee how little a while thou must be here and have use for honour and favour and wealth and what it is for a soul to pass into heaven or hell and to dwell among Angels or Devils for ever And how men should live and watch and pray that are near to such a change as this Should I care what men call me by tongue or pen Should I care whether I Live at liberty or in prison when I am ready to die and have matters of infinite moment before me to take me up Honour or dishonour liberty or prison are words of no sound or signification scarce to be heard or taken notice of to one of us that are just passing to God and to everlasting life The Lord have mercy upon the distracted world how strangely doth the Devil befool them in the day-light and make them needlesly trouble themselves about many things when one thing is needful and Heaven is talk'd of and that but heartlesly and seldom while fleshly provision only is the prize the pleasure the business of their lives Some are diverted from their serious preparation for death by the leastly avocations of lust and gâ—wdiness and meats and drinks and childish sports and some by the businesses of ambition and covetousness contriving how to feather their nests and exercise their Wills over others in the world and some that will seem to be doing the work are diverted as dangerously as others by contending about formalities and Ceremonies and destroying Charity and Peace rending the Church and strengthening factions and carrying on Interests hypocritically under the name of Religion till the Zeal that Saint James describeth Jam. 3. 13 14 c. having consumed all that was tike to the Zeal of Love and Holiness in themselves proceed to consume the Servants and interest of Christ about them and to bite and devoure till their Lord come and find them in a day that they locked not for him smiting their fellow-servants and eating and drinking with the drunken and cut them asunder and appoint them their portion with the hypocrites where shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth Matth 24. 49 50 51. O study and preach and hear and pray and live and use your brethren that differ from you in some opinions as you would do if you were going to receive your doom and as will then be most acceptable to your Lord The guilt of sensuality worldiness ambition of uncharitableness cruelty and injustice of losing time and betraying your souls by negligence or perfidiousness and wilful sin will lie heavyer upon a departing Soul then now in the drunkenness of prosperity you can think Christ will never receive such Souls in their extremity unless upon repentance by faith in his blood they are washed from this pollution It is unspeakably terrible to die without a confidence that Christ will receive us And little knows the graceless world what sincerity and simplicity in holiness is necessary to the soundness of such a confidence Let those that know not that they must die or know of no life hereafter hold on their chase of a feather till they find what they lost their lives and Souls and labour for But if thou be a Christian remember what is thy work Thou wilt net need the favour of man nor worldly wealth to prevail with Christ to Receive thy spirit O learn thy Last Work before thou art put upon the doing of it The world of spirits to which we are passing doth better know than this world of fleshly darkened sinners the great difference between the Death of a Heavenly Believer and of an earthly sensualist Believe it is a thing possible to get that apprehension of the Love of Christ that confidence of his Receiving us and such familiar pleasant thoughts of our entertainment by him as shall much overcome the fears of Death and make it a welcome day to us when we shall be admitted into the Celestial society And the difference between one mans Death and anothers dependeth on the difference between Heart and Heart Life and Life Preparation and Vnpreparedness It you ask me How may so happy a Preparation be made I have told you in this following Discourse and more fully else where formerly I shall add now these few Directions following 1. Follow the flattering world no further Come off from all expectation of felicity below Enjoy nothing under the Sun but only use it in order to your
presence of the Lord and yet should have kept her longer from it for our own and others sakes if our Wisdom had been fit to rule or our Wills to be fulfilled or if our Prayers must have been answered according to the measure of our sailing Apprehensions or precipitant Desires But Folly must submit to the Incomprehensible Wisdom and the Desire of the Creature must stoop to the Will of the Creator The Interest of Christ must be preferred when he calleth for his own and our temporary Interest must give place Flesh must be silent and not contend and Dust must not dare to question God He knoweth best when his Fruit is ripe and though he will allow our moderate Sorrows he will not so much damnifie his Saints as to detain them with us from their Joyful Rest till we are content to let them go Thus also did Blessed Stephen depart from Glory to Glory from a distant sight of the Glory of God and of Jesus standing at his right hand into the immediate presence and fruition of that Glory But yet he must pass the narrow Port enraged Malice must stone him till he die and he must undergo the Pains of Martyrdom before he reach to the Glory which he had seen And when he was arrived in safety he leaveth his Brethren scattered in the Storm and Devout men make great lamentation at his burial Acts 9. 2. Though it is probable by the ordinary acceptation of the Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that they were not professed Christians but devout Proselytes such as Cornelius and the Ethiopian Eunuch were that buried and thus lamented Stephen as knowing him to be an excellent Person cruelly murdered by the raging Jews yet their Example in a Case not culpable but commendable may be imitated by Believers upon condition that with our sense of the Excellency of the Persons and of our loss by their removal we exceed them that had but a darker Revelation in our joyful sense of the felicity of the translated Souls The occasion of the Death of this Holy Man was partly that he surpassed others as being full of Faith and of the Holy Ghost and partly that he plainly rebuked the blind and furious persecuting Zeal of the Jews and bore a most resolute Testimony of Christ It is an ill time when Men must suffer because they are good and deserve not suffering but reward And they are an unhappy People that have no more Grace or Wit but to fight against Heaven and set themselves under the Stroaks of God's severest Justice by persecuting them that are dear to Christ and faithfully perform their Duty It is no strange thing for the ZEAL and INTEREST of a FACTION to make Men mad so mad as implacably to rage against the Off spring of Heaven and to hate Men because they are faithful to their great Master and because they are against their Faction so mad as to think that the Interest of their Cause requireth them to destroy the best with the greatest malice because they stand most in their way and to forget that Christ the Revenger of his Elect doth take all as done to him that is done to them so mad as to forget all the terrible Threatnings of God and terrible Instances of his avenging Justice against the Enemies of his Servants whom he taketh as his own and to ruine their own Reputations by seeking to defame the Upright whose Names God is engaged to honour and whose Righteousness shall shine forth as the Sun when foolish Malignity hath done its worst When Christ had pleaded his Cause effectually with Saul that was one of the Persecutors of Stephen he maketh him confess that he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 exceedingly excessively or beyond measure mad against the Christians But this Blessed Protomartyr in despite of Malice doth safely and joyfully pass through all their Rage to Heaven By killing him they make him more than Conquerour and send him to receive his Crown And he shuts up all the Action of his Life in imitation of his suffering Lord with a two-fold Request to Heaven the one for himself that his Spirit may be received the other for his Persecutors that this sin may not be laid to their charge Acts 7. 59 60. For so you may find Christ did before him Luke 23. 34 46. Father forgive them for they know not what they do and Father into thy hands I commend my Spirit Only Christ directeth his Prayer immediately to the Father and Stephen to Christ as being one that had a Mediator when Christ had none as needing none and being now bearing witness by his suffering to Christ and therefore it was seasonable to direct his Prayer to him but especially because it was an Act of Mediation that he petitioneth for and therefore directeth his Petition to the Mediator This first Request of this dying Saint which I have chosen to handle as suitable and seasonable for our Instruction at this time in a few Words containeth not a few exceeding useful wholesom Truths As 1. It is here plainly intimated that Jesus Christ is exalted in Glory in that he hath power to receive departed Souls 2. That Christ is to be prayed to and that it is not our Duty to direct all our Prayers only to the Father Especially those things that belong to the Office of the Mediator as interceding for us in the Heavens must be requested of the Mediator And those things which belong to the Father to give for the sake of the Mediator must be asked of the Father for his sake I cannot now stay to tell you in particular what belongeth to the one and what unto the other 3. That Man hath a Spirit as well as a Body of which more anon 4. That this Spirit dieth not with the Body unless you will call a meer separation a dying 5. That Christ doth receive the Spirits of his Saints when they are separated from the Body 6. That a dying Christian may confidently and comfortably commend his Spirit to Christ to be received of him 7. That Prayer in general and this Prayer in special That Christ will receive our departing Souls is a most suitable Conclusion of all the Actions of a Christian's Life THe first and second of these Doctrines offered us by this Text I shall pass by The third is not questioned by any that knoweth himself to be a Man But that we may understand it and the rest we must consider what the Word Spirit doth here signifie By Spirit here can be meant nothing but the Rational Soul which is the principal constitutive part of the man For though the word do sometime signifie the Wind or Breath and sometime the moral and intellectual Qualifications and have divers other senses I need not stay to prove that it is not here so taken Stephen prayeth not to Christ to receive his Breath his Graces or the Holy Ghost but to receive his Rational immortal Soul It is not only the Soul
though the Tempter would aggravate his sins and weakness and dulness to his discouragement yet he may he must with confidence recommend his Spirit to Christ to be Received by him O learn this Doctrine Christians that you may use it in the hour of your last distress The hour is near the distress will be the greatest that ever you were in As well as we seem now while we are hearing this our turn is nigh The Midwife is not so neccssary to the life of the Child that Receiveth it into the world as Christs Receiving will be then to our everlasting life To say over heartlesly these words Lord Jesus receive my Spirit will be no more than a dead hearted Hypocrite may do such formal lip-service in life or at death doth profit nothing to salvation Now make such necessary preparation that at Death you may have well-grounded confidence that Jesus Christ will receive your Spirits 1. And first let me bring this to the carnal unprepared sinner Poor sinner What thoughts hast thou of thy dying hour and of thy departing Soul I wonder at thee what thoughts thou hast of them that thou canst sin so boldly and live so carelesly and talk or hear of the life to come so senselesly as thou dost Thou mightest well think I wronged thee if I took thee to be such a brute as not to know that thou must die Thy Soul that brought thy body hither that causeth it now to hear and understand that carryeth it up and down the world must very shortly be required of thee and must seek another habitation What thoughts hast thou of thy departing Soul Will Christ receive it Hast thou made sure of that Or hast thou made it thy principal care and business to make sure O what doth intoxicate the brains of sensual worldly men that they drown themselves in the Cares of this Life and ride and run for transitory Riches and live upon the Smoak of Honour and Applause and never soberly and seriously bethink them whether Christ will receive their departed Souls That they can fill their minds with other thoughts and fill their mouthes with other talk and consume their time in other inconsiderable employments and take no more care and spend no more thoughts and words and time about the entertainment of their departing Souls When they are even ready to be gone and stand as it were on tip-toes when Fevers and Consumptions and many hundred Diseases are all abroad so busily distributing their Summons and when the Gates of Death have so many Passengers crowding in and Souls are making such haste away will you not consider what shall become of yours Will you say that you hope well and you must venture If God had appointed you nothing to do to prepare for your safe passage and entertainment with Christ you might then take up with such an Answer But it 's a mad adventure to leave all undone that is necessary to your salvation and then to say You must put it to the venture If you die in and unrenewed and unjustified state it is past all ventures for it is certain that Christ will not receive you You may talk of hoping dut it is not a matter to be hoped for Hope that God will make good every word of his Promise and spare not But there is no more Hope that Christ will Receive the souls of any but of his members than there is that he will prove a lyar He never promised to save any others and that is not all but he hath declared and professed frequently that he will not And you are no Believers if you will not believe him And if you believe him you must believe that the unbelievers the unregenerate the unholy and the workers of iniquity shall not be received into the Kingdom of Heaven For he hath professed it John 3. 3 36. Heb. 12. 14. Matth. 7. 23. If Christ would Receive the souls of all your venture then had reason for it Or if he had left it as a thing that depended only on his unrevealed will and not on any preparations of our own we might then have quit our selves of the care and cast it all on him as being his part and none of ours But it is not so I hope I need not tell you that it is not so Believe it the Question must be Now resolved and resolved by your selves whether Christ shall Receive your departed souls or cast them off as firebrands for Hell He hath made the Law and set down the terms already to which he will unalterably stand and which we must trust to It is now that you must labour to be accepted of him For we must all appear before the Judgment seat of Christ that every one may receive the things done in his body according to that he hath done whether it be good or bad 2 Cor. 5. 9 10. O Sirs this is the reason of our importunity with you Knowing the terrors of the Lord we persuade men saith the Apostle in the next words vers 11. We know that the sentence will be just and that it is now in your own hands what judgment then shall pass upon you And if just now your souls were passing hence before you went from the place you sit in would you think any care could be too great to make sure that they should go to happiness O that you would consider how much it is your own work and how much it resteth on your selves what Christ shall then do with you Then you will cry to him for mercy O cast not away a miserable soul Lord receive me into thy Kingdom But now he must intreat you to be saved and to be the people that he may then Receive and you will not hear him And if you will not hear him when he calleth on you and beseecheth you to Repent and to prepare as sure as Christ is Christ he will not hear you when you cry and call for mercy too late in your extremity Read Prov. 1. and you will see this is true It is you that are to be entreated that Christ may receive you for the unwillingness and backwardness is on your part You are now poysoning your souls by sin and when we cannot intreat you either to forbear or to take the Vomit of Repentance yet when you are gasping and dying of your own willful self-murder you will then cry to Christ and think he must receive you upon terms inconsistent with his justice holiness and truth But flatter not your selves it will not be This is the accepted time behold now is the day of salvation refuse it now and it is lost for ever O Sirs if this were the hour and you were presently to be received or refused would you blame me to cry and call to you with all the fervour of my soul if I knew that it were in your own choice whether you would go to Heaven or Hell Why now it is in your choice Life and
Death are set before you Christ will receive you if you will but come within the capacity of his acceptation If you will not there will then be no remedy It is a doleful thing to observe how Satan doth bewitch poor sinners That when time is gone and the door of mercy is shut against them they would think no cries too loud for mercy and no importunity too great for Christ telleth us Matth. 25. 10 11. that they they will cry Lord Lord open to us And yet now when the door stands open no arguments no earnestness no tears can intreat them to enter in Then there is not the most senseless sinner of you all but would cry more strongly than Esau for the blessing when his tears could find no place for repentance Heb. 12. 16 17. Lord receive a miserable soul O whither shall I go if thou receive me not I must else be tormented in those scorching flames And yet now you will sell your birthright for one morsel for a little of Judas or Gehezi's gain for the applause of worms for the pleasing of your flesh that is turning to corruption for the delights of gluttony drunkenness sports or lust There is not a man of you but would then pray more earnestly than those that you now deride for earnest praying as if they whined and were ridiculous And yet now you will neither be serious in prayer nor hear Christ or his messengers when he maketh it his earnest request to you to come in to him that you may have life John 5. 40. Then you will knock when the door is shut and cry Lord open to a miserable sinner and yet now you will not open unto him when by his word and spirit her mercies and afflictions he standeth at the door of your stubborn hearts and calleth on you to repent and turn to God Now our intreaties cannot so much as bring you on your knees or bring you to one hours serious thoughts about the state of those souls that are so near their doom O Sirs for your souls sake lay by your obstinacy Pity those souls that then you will beg of Christ to pity Do not you damn them by your sloth and sin in the day of your visitation and then cry in vain to Christ to save them when it is too late Yet the door of grace is open But how speedily will it be shut One stroak of an Apoplexy a Consumption a Fever can quickly shut it and then you may tear your hearts with crying Lord open to us and all in vain O did you but see departed souls as you see the corps that is left behind Did you see how they are treated at their removal from the flesh how some are taken and others left how some are welcomed to Christ and others are abhorred and turned over to the tormenter and thrust out with implacable indignation and disdain Luk. 13. 28. Prov. 1. 24 26 27. sure you would enter into serious consideration this day What it is that makes this difference and why Christ so useth the one and the other and what must be done now by the soul that would be received then Alas men will do any thing but that which they should do Among the superstitious Papists the conceit of a deliverance from Purgatory makes them bequeath their Lands and Moneys to Priests and Friars to pray for them when they are dead and to have other men cry to Christ to receive them and open to them when time is past And yet now in the accepted time now when it is at your choice and the door is open men live as if they were past feeling and cared not what became of them at the last and would not be beholden to Christ to receive them when the deceitful world hath cast them off And now Beloved Hearers all I would make it my most earnest request to you as one that knoweth we are all passing hence and foreseeth the case of a departed soul that you would now without any more delay prepare and make sure that you may be received into the everlasting habitations And to this end I shall more distinctly though briefly tell you 1. What souls they are that Christ will receive and what he will not and consequently what you must do to be received 2. What considerations should stir you up to this preparation I. Nothing is more sure than that Christ will not receive 1. Any unregenerate unconverted soul John 3. 3 5. Matth. 18. 3. that is not renewed and sanctified by his spirit Rom. 8. 9. Heb. 12. 14. Acts 26. 18. They must have the new and heavenly nature that will ever come to Heaven Without this you are morally uncapable of it Heaven is the proper inheritance of Saints Col. 1. 12. This heavenly nature and spirit is your earnest If you have this you are sealed up unto salvation 2 Cor. 1. 22. Ephes 1. 13. 4. 30. 2. Christ will receive none but those that make it now their work to lay up a treasure in heaven rather than upon the earth Matth. 6. 20 21. and that seek it in the first place Mat. 6. 33. and can be content to part with all to purchase it Matth. 13. 44 46. Luk. 14. 33. 18. 22. An earthly-minded worldling is uncapable of heaven in that condition Phil. 3. 17 18. Luk. 16. 13. You must take it for your portion and set your hearts on it if ever you will come thither Matth. 6. 21. Col. 3. 1 2 3. 3. Christ will Receive no soul at last but such as sincerely received him as their Lord and Saviour now and gave up themselves to him and received his Word and yield obedience to it and received his Spirit and were cleansed by him from their iniquities John 1. 11 12 Luk. 19. 27. 2 Thes 2. 10 12. That all they might be damned that believed not the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness They are God's own words be not offended at them but believe and fear He hateth all the workers of iniquity and will say to them Depart from me I know you not Psal 5. 5. Matth. 7. 23. 4. He will receive none but those that loved his servants that bore his holy image and received them according to their abilities Matth. 25. 40 41 c. And if he will say to those that did not entertain them Depart form me ye cursed into everlasting fire what will he say to those that hate and persecute them 1 Joh. 3. 14. 5. 2. 5. He will receive none but those that live to him in the body and use his gifts and talents to his service and make it their chief business to serve and honour and please him in the world Matth. 25. 21 26. 2 Cor. 5. 9 15. Gal. 6. 7 8. and live not to the pleasing of the flesh but have crucified it and its lusts Rom. 8. 1 13. Gal. 5. 24. Examine all these Texts of Scripture for the matter is worthy of your
that is our lawful sorrow for it is the fruit of sin But her spirit is Received by Jesus Christ and that must be our joy if we will behave our selves as true Believers If we can suffer with her should we not rejoyce also with her And if the joy be far greater to the Soul with Christ than the ruined state of the body can be lamentable it is but reason that our joy should be greater for her joy than our sorrow for the dissolution of the flesh we that should not much lament the passage of a friend beyond the Seas if it were to be advanced to a Kingdom should less lament the passage of a Soul to Christ if it were not for the remnant of our woful unbelief She is arrived at the everlasting Rest where the burden of corruption the contradictions of the flesh the molestations of the Tempter the troubles of the world and the injuries of malicious men are all kept out and shall never more disturb her peace She hath left us in these storms who have more cause to weep for our selves and for our Children that have yet so much to do and suffer and so many dangers to pass through than for the Souls that are at Rest with Christ We are capable of no higher hopes than to attain that state of blessedness which her Soul possesseth And shall we make that the matter of our lamentation as to her which we make the matter of our hopes as to our selves Do we labour earnestly to come thither and yet lament that she is there You will say It is not because she is cloathed upon with the house from Heaven but that she is uncloathed of the flesh But is there any other passage than Death unto immortality Must we not be uncloathed before the garments of Glory can be put on She bemoaneth not her own dissolved Body The glorified Soul can easily bear the corruption of the flesh And if you saw but what the Soul enjoyeth you would be like minded and be moderate in your griefs Love not your selves so as to be unjust and unmerciful in your desires to your friends Let Satan desire to keep them out of Heaven but do not you desire it You may desire your own good but not so as to deprive your friends of theirs yea of a greater good that you may have a lesser by it And if it be their company that you desire in reason you should be glad that they are gone to dwell where you must dwell for ever and therefore may for ever have their company Had they stayed on earth you would have had their company but a little while because you must make so short a stay your selves Let them therefore begin their journy before you and grudge not that they are first at home as long as you expect to find them there In the mean time he that called them from you hath not left you comfortless He is with you himself who is better than a Mother or than ten thousand friends When grief or negligence hindereth you from observing him yet he is with you and holdeth you up and tenderly provideth for you Though turbulent passions injuriously question all his Love and cause you to give him unmannerly and unthankful words yet still he beareth with you and forgiveth all and doth not forsake you for your peevishness and weakness because you are his Children and he knoweth that you mean not to forsake him Rebuke your passions and calm your minds Reclaim your thoughts and cast away the bitterness of suspicious quarrelsome unbelief and then you may perceive the presence of your dearest friend and Lord who is enough for you though you had no other friend Without him all the friends on earth would be but silly comforters and leave you as at the gates of Hell Without him all the Angels and Saints in Heaven would never make it a Heaven to you Grieve not too much that one of your Candles is put out while you have the Sun Or if indeed it be not day with any of you or the Sun be clouded or ecclipsed let that rather be the matter of your grief Find out the cause and presently submit and seek reconciliation Or if you are deprived of this Light because you are yet asleep in sin hearken to his call and rub your eyes Eph. 5. 14. Awake thou that sleepest and arise from the dead and Christ shall give thee light Rom. 13. 11 12 13 14. Knowing that it is now high time to awake out of sleep our salvation being nearer than when we first believed the night is far spent the day of eternal light is even at hand cast off therefore the works of darkness and put on all the armour of light walk honestly and decently as in the day And whatever you do make sure of the friend that never dyeth and never shall be separated from you and when you die will certainly Receive the souls which you commend unto him And here though contrary to my custom I shall make some more particular mention of our deceased friend on several accounts 1. In prosecution of this Use that now we are upon that you may see in the evidences of her happiness how little cause you have to indulge extraordinary grief on her account and how much cause to moderate your sense of our loss with the sense of her felicity 2. That you many have the benefit of her example for your imitation especially her Children that are bound to observe the holy actions as well as instructions of a Mother 3. For the honour of Christ and his Grace and his Servant For as God hath promised to honour those that honour him 1 Sam 2. 30. and Christ hath said If any man serve me him will My Father honour John 12. 26. So I know Christ will not take it ill to be honoured in his members and to have his Ministers subserve him in so excellent a work It is a very considerable part of the love or hatred honour or dishonour that Christ hath in the world which he receiveth as he appeareth in his followers He that will not see a cup of cold water given to one of them go unrewarded and will tell those at the last day that did or did not visit and relieve them that they did or did it not to him will now expect it from me as my duty to give him the honour of his Graces in his deceased servant and I doubt not will accordingly accept it when it is no other indeed than his own honour that is my End and nothing but the words of Truth and Soberness shall be the means And here I shall make so great a transition as shall retain my discourse in the narrow compass of the Time in which she lived near me and under my care and in my familiar acquaintance omitting all the rest of her life that none may say I speak but by hear-say of things which I am uncertain of and I
Honour that is due to Parents when they are dead is to give just honour to their Names and to obey their Precepts and imitate their good examples It is the high commendation of the Rechabites that they strictly kept the â—recepts of their Father even in a thing indifferent a mode of living not to drink wine or build houses but dwell in tents an God annexeth this notable blessing Thus saith the Lord of hosts the God of Israel because ye have obeyed the commandemtent of Jonadab your Father and kept all his Precepts and done according to all that he hath commanded you Therefore thus siath the Lord of Hosts the God of Israel Jonadab the Son of Rechab shall not mant to stand before me for ever Jer. 36. 6 7. 18. 19. But especially in the great duties of Religion where Parents do but deliver the mind of God and use their authority to procure obedience to Divine authority and where the matter it self is necessary to our Salvation the obligation to obedience and imitation is most indispensable and disobedience is an aggravated iniquity and the notorious brand of infelicity and Prognostick of ensuiing woe The ungodly Children of godly Parents being the most deplorable unhappy unexcusable persons in the World if they hold on There is yet another Doctrine that I should speak to Doct. 7. PRayer in general and this prayer in particular that Christ will Receive our depâ—rting souls is a most suitable conclusion of all the action of Christians life Prayer is the breath of a Christians life it is his work and highest converse and therefore fittest to be the concluding action of his life that it may reach the end at which he aimed We have need of Prayer all our lives because we have need of God and need of his manifold and continued Grace But in our last extreamity we have a special need Though sloath is apt to seize upon us while prosperity hindreth the sense of our necessities and health perswadeth us that Time is not near its journies end yet it is high time to pray with doubled fervour and importunity when we see that we are near our last when we find that we have no more time to pray but must now speak our last for our immortal Souls and must at once say all that we have to say and shall never have a hearing more O then to be unable to pray or to be faithless and heartless and hopeless in our prayers would be a calamity beyond expression Yet I know for ordinary observation tells it us that many truly gracious persons may accidentally be undisposed and disabled to pray when they are near to death If the Disease be such as doth disturb the Brain or take them up with violence of pain or overwhelm the mind by perturbation of the passions or abuse the imagination or notably waste and debilitate the spirits it cannot be expected that a body thus disabled should serve the Soul in this or any other duty But still the praying Habit doth remain though a distempered body do forbid the exercise The Habitual desires of the Soul are there and it is those that are the soul of Prayer But this should move us to pray while we have time and while our Bodies have strength and our spirits have vigour and alacrity to serve us seeing we are so uncertain of bodily disposition and capacity so near our end O pray and pray with all your hearts before any Fever or Deliration overthrow your understandings or your memories before your thoughts are all commanded to attend your pains and before your decayed spirits fail you and deny their necessary service to your suits and before the apprehensions of your speedy approach to the presence of the most Holy God and your entrance upon an endless state do amaze confound and overwhelm your Souls with fear and perturbation O Christians what folly what sin and shame is it to us that now while we have time to pray and leave to pray and helps to pray and have no such disturbing hindrances we should yet want hearts and have no mind no life and fervour for so great a work O pray now lest you are unable to pray then And if you are then hindred but by such bodily undisposedness God will understand your habitual desires and your groans and take it as if you had actually prayed Pray now that so you may be acquainted with the God that then you must fly unto for mercy and may not be strangers to him or unto Prayer and that he may not find then that your prayers are but the expressions of your fears and not of your Love and are constrained and not voluntary motions unto God Pray now in preparation to your dying prayers O what a terrible thing it is to be to learn to pray in that hour of extreamity and to have then no principle to pray by but natural self-love which every Thief hath at the gallows To be then without the Spirit of prayer when without it there cannot an acceptable word or groan be uttered and when the rejection of our suits and person will be the prologue to the final judicial rejection and will be a distress so grievous as presumptuous Souls will not believe till sad experience become their Tutor Can you imagine that you shall then at last be taught the art of acceptable Prayer meerly by horrour and the natural sense of pain and danger as Sea-men in a storm or a Malefactor by the rack when in your health and leasure you will not be perswaded to the daily use of serious Prayer but number your selves with the families that are under the wrath of the Almighty being such as call not on his name Jer. 10. 25. Psalm 79. 6. Indeed there are many prayers must go before or else this Prayer Lord Jesus receive my spirit will be in vain when you would be loth to find it so You must first pray for renewing Sanctifying grace for the death of sin and the Pardon of sin for a holy life and a Heavenly mind for obedience patience and perseverance and if you obtain not these there is no hope that Jesus Christ should receive your Spirits that never received his sanctifying spirit How sad is it to observe that those that have most need of Prayer have least mind to Pray as being least sensible of their needs Yea that those that are the next step to the state of Devils and have as much need of Prayer as any miserable souls on earth do yet deride it and hate those that seriously and fervently perform it a man of prayer being the most common objct of their malicious reproach and scorn O miserable Cainites that hate their brethren for offering more acceptable sacrifice then their own little do they know how much of the very Satanical nature is in that malice and in those reproachful scorns and little do they know how near they are to the curse and desparation of Cain and
day And yet not thou but Christ is he that hath been victorious for thee even as when thou livedst the life of Faith it was not thou but Christ lived in thee Gal. 2. 20. Thou mayst fear at thy departure and leave the Flesh with terrour and imagine that Satan will presently devour thee But the experience of a moment will end thy Fears and thou shalt triumph against thy conquered Foe He that saved thee from the dominion of a tempting Devil will certainly save thee from him when he would torment thee Here he would have us that he may sift us and get advantage on our weakness but Christ prayeth for us and strengthneth us that our faith may not fail Luke 22. 31. And he that saveth us from the sin will save us from the punishment and from Satans fury as he did from his fraud 2. Christs Receiving us doth include his savourable entertainment and welcoming the departed Soul Poor Soul thou wast never so welcome to thy dearest Friend nor into the arms of a Father a Husband or a Wife as thou shalt be then into the presence and embracements of thy Lord. Thou hearest and readest and partly believest now how he loveth us even as his Spouse and Members as his Flesh and Bone Eph. 6. But then thou shalt feel how he loveth thee in particular If the Angels of God have joy at thy Conversion what joy will there be in Heaven at thy enterance into that Salvation And sure those Angels will bid thee welcome and concur with Christ in that triumphant joy If a returning Prodigal find himself in the arms of his Fathers Love and welcomed home with his kisses and his robe and feast What welcome then may a cleansed conquered Soul expect when it cometh into the presence of Glorious Love and is purposely to be received with such demonstrations of Love as may be fitted to magnifie the Love of God which exceedeth all the Love of man as Omnipotency doth exceed our Impotency and therefore will exceed it in the effects Though thou hast questioned here in the dark whether thou wert welcome to Christ when thou camest to him in prayer or when thou camest to his holy Table yet then doubt of thy welcom if thou canst O had we but one moments sense of the delights of the embraced Soul that is newly received by Christ into his Kingdom it would make us think we were in Heaven already and transport us more than the Disciples that saw the Transfiguration of Christ and make us say in comparing this with all the Glory of the World Master it is good for us to be here but in consideration of the full to say It is better to be there But it must not be Earth must not be so happy as to have a moments sense of the unconceivable Pleasures of the received Soul that is the Reward and Crown and therefore not fit for us here in our Conflict But low things may by dark resemblance a little help us to conceive of something that is like them in a low degree How would you receive your Son or Husband the next day after some bloody Fight where he had escaped with the Victory Or your Child or Friend that arrived safely after a long and a dangerous Voyage Would you not run and meet him and with joy embrace him if he had been many years absent and were now come home I tell thee poor Soul thy Saviour hath a larger heart and another kind of Love than thou and other Reasons of greater force to move him to bid dice Welcome into his Presence 3. Christ's Receiving the departed Soul includeth the State of Blessedness into which he doth receive it If you ask What that is I answer It is unto himself to be with him where he is And that in general is full of comfort if there were no more For we know that Christ is in no ill place He is glorified at the right hand of the Majesty on high Heb. 1. 3. And that the Souls of the Righteous and at last their Bodies are received to himself he often telleth us John 12. 26. If any man serve me let him follow me and where I am there shall also my servant be John 14. 2 3. And if I go to prepare a place for you I will come again and receive you unto my self that where I am there you may be also And in the mean time when we once are absent from the body we are present with the Lord 2 Cor. 5. 8. and that is in the building of God not made with hands eternal in the heavens V. 1. Paul therefore desired to depart and be with Christ as being far better Phil. 1. 23. And Christ promiseth the converted Thief This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise Luke 23. 43. And our State after the Resurrection hath the same description 1 Thess 4. 17. And so shall we ever be with the Lord And what it shall be he declareth himself John 17. 24. Father I will that they whom thou hast given me be with me where I am that they may behold my glory which thou hast given me The Soul of Lazarus Luke 16. was received into Abrahams bosom where he is said to be comforted The heavens receive Christ Acts 3. 21. and therefore the heavens receive the spirits that go to him even the spirits of the just made perfect Heb. 12. 23. that is that are crowned with Christ in Glory and freed from the Imperfections and Evils of this Life And so that 1 Thess 5. 10. is plain though some would pervert it That whether we wake or sleep we may live together with him Not Whether we wake to righteousness or sleep in sin for such Sleepers live not with him Nor whether we wake by sollicitude or sleep in security Nor Whether we naturally wake or sleep only But whether we live or die and so our Bodies sleep in death yet we live together with him In a word Christ will receive us unto a participation of his Joy and Glory into a Joy as great as our Nature shall be capable of and more than we can now desire and that the largest Heart on Earth can justly conceive of or comprehend And because all this tells you but to the ear stay yet but a little while and experimental sight nnd feeling shall tell you What this Receiving is even when we receive the kingdom that cannot be moved Heb. 12. 28. and when we receive the end of our faith the salvation of our souls 1 Pet. 1. 9. DOCT. 6. A Dying Christian may confidently and comfortably commend his Spirit to Christ to be received by him Though he have formerly been a grievous sinner though at the present he be frail and faulty though he be weak in faith and love and duty though his body by sickness be become unfit to serve his Soul and as to present sensibility activity or joy he seem to be past the best or to be nothing