thee of thy Danger by bad Company I urg'd thee to flee youthful Lusts I told thee what would be the End and Issue I forewarn'd thee of this day and of the Everlasting Destruction that Christ had Threatned and of thy too late Repentance in the other World and that hereafter I should see thee condemned to Hell without being able to pity thee And now the Case is thus I cannot but approve the Righteous Sentence of the glorious Judge for thou wouldest not prepare and get Ready for this Day notwithstanding thy many Warnings and Calls from God and Man to do it Moreover 5. Labour to strengthen Faith concerning the Certainty and Glory of Christs Appearing and the most important awful Consequences of it both to the Righteous and to the Wicked 1. As to the Certainty of his Coming Unbelief is at the bottom of our neglect to make Ready We do not consider the confirming Reasons of the Truth of the Gospel and beg the Light and Influence of the Spirit to perswade us fully of this foundation Article We take up with the name of Faith and do not Believe with a notional weak ineffectual Faith that may dwell in the Hearts of Hypocrites or Devils and therefore feel no influence by it to excite our Hopes or Fears or Preparation Did we indeed believe it as an unquestionable Truth that Christ shall come again to judge the World we could not but Fear to be found Unready For whatever the distance be between this and that Our Faith would represent it near as if the thing were present as if we saw the Redeemer in the Clouds with the glorious Retinue of Blessed Angles and ten thousand of his Saints It would realize the Solemnity of his Tribunal the Books being opened and the Wicked trembling before their Judge and the Righteous justified and rejoycing in the Approbation of their Saviour Did we believe it Certain we should often put the Question How shall I appear and stand in the Judgment How shall I give an account of all my Talents What shall I answer when I am call'd to his Bar what shall I do to be befriended when I am tryed for my Life Therefore beg that God would fix a believing sence of this upon your Hearts that your Faith may be the Evidence of things not seen That you may believe it as firmly as if Dooms-day were already come as if you heard the Trump to sound and that Amazing voice Arise ye Dead and come to Judgment 2. Strengthen and increase Faith concerning the Glory of the Second Coming of Christ as well as the Certainty of it He shall be revealed from Heaven with visible Glory in flaming Fire with his mighty Angels so that every Eye shall see him and they also that pierced him He shall come again with Power and great Glory and the voice of the Arch-Angel shall awaken the World and fill them with an awful Reverence of their Glorious Judge He that stoopt so low at first to be cloathed with a mean disguise and to glorifie the Father in the form of a Servant by the Sacrifice of himself for our Redemption shall be publickly Honoured in the view of all Mankind At his first Appearance he was a Man of Sorrows and acquainted with Grief he made himself of no Reputation was despised and rejected of men but he shall come again openly to vindicate himself from the Contempt of his Enemies Every knee shall bow before him and every Tongue confess him to be Lord And they who affronted his Throne and lift up the Heel against him shall be made his Footstool At first he appear'd with all the sinless Infirmities of Humane Nature but shall a second time with all the Demonstrations of the Divine Power and Godhead 3. How awful and important will be the Consequences of his Coming to all Mankind 1. To the Wicked With what Amazement and Confusion with what Fear and Horror with what Dread and Trembling shall they as guilty Prisoners be made to stand before his Judgment Seat What killing despair will seize their Hearts what Paleness and shadow of Death will cover their Faces what Convulsions and gripes of Conscience will then torment them Where can they go where can they hide How can they appear How can they avoid appearing What can they say How can they answer the Charge or deny the Accusation or evade the Sentence or put off the Execution for a day or bear it for a Moment Since they can never escape the Tryal or corrupt the Judge or be pardon'd after Judgment or get the Sentence to be reprieved or the Execution deferr'd It will then be in vain to cry for Mercy for now the Day of Vengeance without Pity and of Judgment without Mercy is come what Friend wilt thou go to then where are they who can plead for thee or save thee but he that will not I would not for ten thousand Worlds appear in thy Case among those that shall then be found Naked and Vnready And are not these things sit to be now consider'd believ'd and prepared for What is all the Business and Affairs of this World What but a Play a Game a Trifle to these things 2. To the Righteous The Bridegrooms departure is not upon a Divorce He shall come again to be glorified in his Saints and be admired of all them that believe They shall see him and meet him in the Air and say Yonder is He whom our Souls Love yonder is the blessed Jesus who once came from Heaven to dye for us and now comes to bring us to Heaven we believed his Word and behold now he comes to make it good They shall hear his absolving Sentence their Persons shall be justified their Cause shall be pleaded their Sins shall be blotted out their Sufferings and Sorrows shall all be ended They may therefore rejoyce in hope and lift up their Heads in expectation of that Day for the blessed Sentence shall ravish their Hearts when they shall be bid to Enter into their Lords Joy And hear those endearing Words from the great Redeemer Come ye blessed Children of my Father take Possession of the Inheritance prepared for you Let us therefore pray for the Second Coming of Christ and the hastning of it as all Believers under the Old Testament and New have done And in this posture Watching Praying Waiting and preparing for his last Appearance to Judgment we should be Ready for his particular Coming to us by Death Lastly Let us improve every Warning of Divine Providence every Death and Funeral of our Relations and Acquaintance to promote our own Readiness to follow This is the Language of the late Providence that occasions this Discourse This is the voice of God by every breach he makes in our own or our Neighbours Family Be you also Ready for you know not the Hour when the Son of Man comes We lose the Examples and Holy Lives of our deceased Friends for want of Imitation and we lose
Followers shall one day be with him to behold his Glory Let this then be remembred as the matter of our Christian Hope that we may not mourn * See Cyprian de Mortalitate ad sinem Greg. Narianz Orat. deca in laudem Caesarii Fratris Fun. as strangers to the Gospel for such as dye in the Lord. We sind the Egyptians mourned longer for Jacob than Joseph did even threescore and ten days They that have little Knowledge and Expectation concerning another Life and the Resurrection of the Dead may more excusably extend their Funeral Sorrows and grieve for the loss of this and equal the Days of their Mourning to the number of the years of the Life of Man but so tedious a Funeral Solemnity would have been unsuitable to Josephs Faith Had he shown himself more a Son by such a Testimony of his Natural Affection in Mourning longer he had shown himself less a Patriarch When God restored to Job after his long Tryals double for all his Cattel and Goods which he had lost as Fourteen thousand Sheep for Seven thousand c. he gave him but the same number of Children again for they were not really lost though Death remov'd 'em they were Alive in another State And if they were Holy Persons he had the like number in Heaven as God gave him on Earth It 's a great Relief to a Christian Mourner to consider that his Deceased Friends are not Lost but Live I know very well that the Holy Will of God must take place of mine I know that I ought to love God and Christ above all and absolutely resign my self and All that 's mine or cannot hope to see his Face I know that I shall shortly follow the Desire of mine Eyes I hope I shall be silent and adore and not charge God foolishly But methinks I know with sensible supporting Insluence from such a Thought that She is not Dead but Sleepeth She is not Lost but Lives And if I get to Heaven shall meet her there in the presence of the Lord our Redeemer And then the Company of our Holy Relatives will be more Sweet than ever it was on Earth For though the Blessed Vision of God be our Chiefest Hope and Joy yet the Presence of all the Blessed Spirits will make a Real though Subordinate part of our Happiness and Delight I am so far from doubting whether we shall Know and Love one another in the Heavenly State that the Belief and Expectation of it is or should be one great Motive why we love 'em so well now If we thought we should not Know and Love them after Death we ought to Love 'em but as Earthly Transitory things and not as Heirs of Heaven with such a Love as shall be perfected and last for ever Neither can it well be imagin'd how the Process and Proceedings of the Judgment-Day according to the Scripture Account of it can be manag'd by the Man Christ Jesus or the Lord Redeemer cloath'd with Humane Nature without our Knowledge of One Another in the other World who were acquainted and convers'd together in this 'T is true the present Relations by Marriages and Blood will then cease but there is no reason to think that the Remembrance of those Relations must also cease Yea their Knowledge and Remembrance of us and their Affection to us whom we knew and lov'd in the Lord is not like to be abolish'd but perfected by Dying Doubtless the Angels who rejoyce at the Conversion of a Particular Sinner and the Departed Saints too do know more even of the State of this World than we do who are * Mr. Baxter Of the Knowledge of God part 3. p. 331. acquainted with so very little a part and spot of it Which by the way should check anâ— inordinate fond Desire of living to see Glorious Times on Earth For if we get to Heaven we are like to know much more of those Happy Times than if we remain'd alive in a Corner of the Isles of the Gentiles But as to our Mutual Knowledge in the Heavenly state Shall those whom we Reliev'd on Earth Welcome us to Heaven And are therefore said to receive us into Everlasting Habitations Luk. 16. And shall not the departed Saints know one another in Glory Shall we then know as we are known And shall the Thessalontans be the Joy and Crown and Glory and Rejoycing of the Apostle Paul in the Day of Christ And shall he not know them or they him who prosited by his Ministry Did the Rich Man in Hell know Abraham afar off in Heaven and can we think a blessed Lazarus shall not For though that be a Parable there is some Truth as the Foundation of it Shall it aggravate the Misery of lost Souls to meet their wicked Companions in the place of Torment as few deny or doubt And shall it not Rejoyce the Blessed to meet their Holy Friends whom they knew in this World Did Peter James and John know Moses and Elias in the Transsignration whom they never saw before and we read not that Christ told em ' who they were And shall those who were acquainted upon Earth and helpt one another to Heaven utterly forget and lose the remembrance of any such thing It is a pleasant Thought and proper to support under the Death of those we have honoured and loved and profited by on Earth to think that hereafter we shall meet and know several Ministers of Christ whose Preaching and Converse and Writings have been useful to us That we shall then meet and know several of our Holy Relations and Acquaintance with whom we were wont to walk together to the House of God and meet often at the Table of the Lord with whom we conferr'd about the Misteries and and Promises of the Gospel and many a time discours'd together of the Heavenly Inheritance believingly to foresee and consider that though they are gone before we shall meet 'em again at the last great Supper of the Lamb in the Celestial Kingdom And why may not I suppose such a distinct and personal Knowledge and Remembrance of one another as to be able to say This was the Person whom God employed to bring me into the World and educate me in his Fear who instructed my tender Years and taught me early to Know the Lord. Or This was the Person who was at so much pains to convince me of my Sin and reclaim me from the Errour of my Ways This was He or She who tendred my Salvation as their own who watch'd over me and pray'd for me and with me and often told me of the Evil of Sin of the Excellency and Pleasantness of Wisdom's Ways of the Freeness of the Love and Grace of Christ and his Willingness to receive Returning Penitents at first and even Backsliders afterwards This was the Person who was assisted by God to encourage strengthen revive and comfort my desponding my doubting my unbelieving Heart and establish me in the way of
But tho he would not heal and recover sick Lazarus he sends a most excellent Remedy unto his Sisters to cure their mistakes to ease and heal their minds which was the intention of this Reply unto their Importunate Message This sickness is not unto Death but for the Glory of God c. In which we are called to consider 1. The Manner 2. The Design 3. The Import of this Answer I would make a few Reflections upon the two former and then shall insist upon the last as most suitable to our present Affair I. As to the Manner of this Answer 'T is easie to perceive the obscurity and dubiousness of the former part This Sickness is not unto Death For the Event did at least seem to contradict the literal meaning of this Declaration which expresly denies that the sickness of Lazarus was unto Death and yet Laxarus dyeth This seeming contradiction must render this part of the Answer dubious and dark unto those to whom it was sent Indeed notwithstanding this obscurity there was a most certain Truth in this part of the Answer which speaks of such a Death as truly answers that Character viz. Such a Privation of Life as puts a final Period unto it on which account it can truly be said of the Dead That their places know 'em no more and that they go the way whence they shall not return Job 8.10 c. 16.22 As also That they see corruption Acts 13.36 The Body quite losing that Organization that makes it a fit Habitation for a humane Soul This is the primary and proper notion of Death and under which the Spirit of God speaks of it See Rom. 5.12 14. 1 Cor. 15.21 26 54 56. Not to mention several other places Unto such a Death the sickness of Lazarus was not his Death was not a final Period but only a short interruption or cessation of Life which like some Rivers which run under ground for a space only for a while disappear'd and then was again brought to light This being granted we cannot deny that there is some darkness in the manner of expression Had it so pleased the Redeemer he could have spoken in a much plainer Language he could have said Tho this sickness shall deprive Lazarus of his Life yet it shall soon be restored to him again tho' he shall truly die yet he shall not long remain under the power of Death for I design to work a Miracle to raise him from the dead Thus could the Redeemer have expressed himself had it so pleased him but he chooseth to speak obscurely not only to these Sisters but afterward to his Apostles when he said Our friend Lazarus sleepeth v. 11. Which Metaphorical and dark way of speaking led them into a mistake as we read v. 13. Many other instances of this kind might be produc'd as that which this Evangelist relateth Ch. 16.16 17 18. And as the Language so the Carriage of Christ hath obscurity in it his ways are unsearchable and his footsteps are not known both with respect unto visible Providences and invisible dealings with the Soul Many there are whom Christ really loveth who walk in darkness are brought into a kind of a Labyrinth where they are strangely perplext and are tempted to conclude that their Lord hath quite forsaken and cast 'em off when he retains the kindest and most gracious purposes toward ' em As God did toward Abraham when he commanded him to go out of his Countrey and yet did not acquaint him with the Place which was design'd to be his Inheritance Heb. 11.8 Thus was Abraham try'd and so are the Children of Abraham as indeed this conduct of God is admirably suited unto the state of Probation in which we now are All that darkness and perplexity which at any time we are brought into are design'd by God to try and discover the sincerity and constancy of our obedience And 't is our grand concern to stand out this Tryal to undergo this Probation aright and then whatever darkness there is now in the dealings of Christ he will after a while scatter every Cloud and will be an everlasting Light unto us 'T were easie to make large Reflections upon this Subject but your own Meditation can supply this defect Nor may I dwell long upon the II. Observable in the Text The Design of this Answer made by Christ which was to afford present Support unto the dejected Sisters of Lazarus He whose Eye discerns the most hidden and distant Objects knows how their tender Hearts were disquieted and that such a Spectacle as a deceased dying Brother must wound and afflict their Souls and the more when their Expectations were disappointed as to the speedy visit of Christ What! might they be apt to argue not make so charitable so seasonable a Visit to one whom he loveth to one who needs his help and must perish without it Is this Kindness to neglect a distressed Friend till Life and all be gone Such disquieting Thoughts would begin to rush into and disorder their Minds Now 't was to still this Tempest that the Redeemer sends this Reply to ' em This Sickness is not unto Death but for the Glory of God c. q. d. Though the Danger and Progress of this Sickness joyn'd with my seeming Neglect of their Brother will be an Occasion of Trouble unto them Sorrow and Fear will take hold of their Spirits yet let not their Hearts be troubled there is no just ground of disquieting Fear notwithstanding the dismal Appearances this Matter will have a happy and honourable Issue When our Lord Jesus doth not grant the expected Relief yet he always provides Support and Consolation for his faithful Followers When He determin'd to send away the Multitudes who had followed him into the Wilderness he resolves that he will not send 'em away fasting lest they should faint by the way Mat. 16.32 Though they must for a time be deprived of his Presence yet he takes care that they might not faint and perish This was his Carriage toward his Apostles in general and more particularly toward the Apostle Paul who when he besought the Lord thrice that the Messenger of Satan might depart from him tho' this Request was not granted tho' the Thorn in the Flesh was not removed yet this most supporting Answer was given to him My grace is sufficient for thee 2 Cor. 12.9 Sometimes the Carriage of Christ bears an Aspect of Unkindness and Neglect but even at such a time his Heart is fill'd with Love and his Hand is employ'd to Support 'T is worthy our notice what care the Spirit of God hath taken to remove the Suspition of Unkindness in the Redeemer toward his Friend Lazarus whom he refus'd to Visit and Recover as his Sisters requested and expected for in the Verse which immediately follows this Answer of Christ the Evangelist adds this cautioning Remark Now Jesus loved Martha and her Sister and Lazarus His not complying with their intimated Desire of