fire to all Eternity The pangs of death the worlds loss anguish of Conscience frights of hell meeting together will make a man perfectly miserable and force him to cry out with cursed Cain Gen. 4. 13. My punishment is greater then I can bear or to say with the sadly afflicted Church behold no sorrow like unto my sorrow And if the dreadful reflection of a guilty accusing conscience be so tormenting here what will the whole flame and Sea of wrath be when poured out to the very utmost Sensless sinners Consider this may be your doleful case when you come to die viz. to have much sorrow and wrath with your sickness Eccl. 5. 17. For there is no is peace to the wicked saith my God not one word in all the Bible but speaks terrour in life and death though the sinner live a hundred years he shall be accurst he dieth under the curses written in God's Book yea under that most dreadful Gospel curse 1 Cor. 16. 22. The apprehension of which will cause such distraction of spirit and sad reflection of guilt which will make them curse their God and their King looking down to the pit roaring out Who among us shall dwell with devouring fire who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings Therefore be wise to consider this all ye that forget God lest he tear you in peeces and there be none that can deliver Psal 50. 22. And as it is dreadful and amazing to see the unbeleiver dying so on the contrary 't is comfortable and reviving to see the godly man dying because his ultimum is his optimum his last is his best the day of his death is better then the day of his birth Eccl. 7. 1. His end is peace Psal 37. 37. God at peace Conscience at peace and all at peace O blessed sight to see the heaven born panting soul going out of the world upon the wings of joy calmness and serenity of spirit with full sail for heaven longing and crying out make no tarrying O my God haste my beloved haste so come Lord Jesus I desire to depart and to be with Christ which is best of all Phil. 1. 23. You have heard what are the great things to be considered namely that an end will certainly be this world is no place of continuance they that now see you ere long will see you no more for ever You have heard that your present things will perish that sin so full of deadly poyson will leave a sting a dart that will strike through your Liver and that the case of the wicked will be doleful dreadful yea desperate when they come to dye for when death comes your souls then will be stated so as there can be no alteration to all Eternity The next thing is to speak to the reasons why it is a duty and matter of such moment to consider are these following Reas 1. Is taken from God Because the only wise gracious most indulgent and soulcompassionating God wisheth it and that most vehemently O that they were wise that they understood this that they would consider their latter end Sirs in this pathetical Option or desire there is the very tender bowels of God this is the very language of his heart and it is as if he had after the manner of men spoken thus to his faithful servant Moses I have but one wish or request and all is comprehended in this one viz. that thou shouldst go and tell them from me that they must be wise to consider this to remember the dayes of old and the years of many Generations what I have done for them in chusing them above all the Nations of the world to be my treasure portion and peculiar people and because I love them I have delivered them wrought wonders for them in Egypt the Red Sea and in the wilderness and have kept them as tenderly as the apple of mine eye carrying them upon Eagles wings but yet let them know that they have forgotten me provoked me and that their end is like to be miserable for afire is kindled in mine anget and unless they do speedily consider it will burn to the lowest hell Now you souls in peril which is best to thwart cross and greive your well-wishing dearest best and only friend or to please and geatifie your prosessed deadly implacable enemy your adversary the Devil can't endure that you should think of death or dying for if Satan that old Serpent would permit and suffer you to look into hell he could neither drag nor draw you thither at his pleasure And will you go on in the wayes of sin and death or bethink your selves whose you are what you have done whither you are going and what is like to become of you when your breath is gone what provision you have made for your other world that so the great business between God and your souls may be made up Sinners if the infinitely holy just and righteous God did desire or designe your ruine and destruction he would not have excited you to this solemn and serious consideration of the end of sin death and Eternity until it were too late and you left without remedy so that what is here intended hath a tendency to make you happy if it be regarded O that they were wise c. Reas 2. Because a deep serious and heart-affecting consideration of death and the grave will both realize it and represent it as near even at the door and make it to stand in open view Whereas things looked upon at a distance whether they be good or whether they be evil have but a little if any influence Now a fixed and hearty consideration will give as it were a being to future things and bring them near so that you may really converse with those things A truly godly man that hath a veiw of unseen things by divine contemplation here upon the wings of faith and hope he may ascend up into heaven and walk a turn in the golden streets of the New Jereusalem as the Prophet Ezekiel was in the Visions of God at Jerusalem in his mind when his body was by the River Chebar among the Captives in the Land of the Chaldeans so likewise those sadly wounded spirits who through fear of death are all their life-time subject to bondage being exercis'd with soul-conflicts and under powerful cutting and killing convictions of sin and misery or have such dark and dismal thoughts and apprehensions of hell and the wrath of God which make them ever and anon to enter into the Chambers of death and visit the prisoners of the pit and look upon that black guilt and fiery furnace to be so near that they are on the brink of it falling down continually This hath been the case of many of Gods precious ones who are now in heaven above all these fears and frights that were once more bitter then death And O how many travailing with these pangs and agonies of soul are ready to
should sever the Wheat from the Chaff the Sheep from the Goats the precious from the vile and in so doing we shall be as God's mouth and free from the blood of all men O then let this dreadful and amazing Doctrine of death and judgement be more frequently and effectually preached that souls in peril near run may see their sin and danger and flye to Christ as the only refuge knowing the terrour of God we perswade men 2 Cor. 5. 11. Mat. 3 7. 2. Converse with the best Christians viz. them that are grave sober solid savoury and sound in faith Such as make Religion their great business who love to speak of God and of the world to come and by whose counsel and example you may be stir'd up and perswaded to repentance and holiness to consider of death and judgement These were Davids excellent ones in whom he did delight and made his companions Psal 16. 3 119. 63. 3. Read the best Books and those that treat of death and judgement but especially the word of God There are the pure Chrystal streams and richest Mines in this field you will find the Pearl Let the word of God dwell in you richly be not ignorant of any part of it but be sure to accquaint thy self with those Scriptures that speak of the shortness of life the certainty of death and judgement heaven and hell Read the Book of Job and the twelfth Chapter of Ecclesiastes Psal 39. Psal 90. And let me desire you to be often urging upon your hearts some of those Scriptures that set forth the dreadfulness of that place of torment that will be the portion of all that forget God and make no provision for their precious souls Some few I have here set down which I desire you would all consider and apply Vpon the wicked he shall rain fire and brimstone and a horrible tempest this shall be the portion of their Cup Psal 11. 6. We be unto the wicked it shall go ill with them Isa 3. 10. He shall cast them into a furnace of fire there shall be weeping wailing and gnashing of teeth Matth. 13 42. Isa 33. 14. 66. 15. Matth. 25. 41. Luk. 16. 25 26. 2 Thes 1. 8 9. Rev. 6. 8 16 17. Direct 3. Make conscience of setting apart a little time every day on purpose to think of your latter end Do it so frequently until death and you become familar ever and anon put thy self into a posture of dying converse with thy winding sheet Coffin Grave let thy great change be so upon thy heart that thou may'st every morning or evening walk a turn or two with death Remember however it be with thee now thou mustere long be gasping and groaning for breath upon thy dying bed and grapple with the King of terrours and in a moment go down to the Grave and shall come up no more Job 10. 21. If thou shouldst affect thy heart with thoughts of thy latter end go down to Golgotha and think upon those dry bones putrified bodies and there revive the memory of your departed Relations Husbands Wives Children Friends Neighbours and look beyond the Chambers of the Grave converse with those miserable departed souls give the prisoners of the pit a visit Meditate on the raging furious flames that dismal darkness smoak and stink of the botomless pit the screeking of the damn'd and roaring of the devils the heart piercing complaints for water to cool their scorching tongues And when thou dost think upon those millions of souls that are hanging up in hell reflect upon thy sels and expect thy turn speedily Suppose every day thy last every meal thy last every journey thy last every duty Sacrament Sermon thy last And when the Lords day cometh think with thy self this will be the last spiritual market that I shall have to buy the spiritual Oyl of grace and to provide for the Bridegrooms coming after this day is ended I may never more hear the Lord Jesus speak to me by the mouths of his faithful Ministers never be invited to come to Christ or to beleive repent part with sin and accept of a pardon more and so demean thy self every day and in every duty as if thou should'st be called to Gods Bar and give up thine account at night In all thy thoughts words and actions say to thy self would I do thus and thus viz. would I eat drink sleep converse buy sell preach hear pray or worse if I certainly knew this day would be my last O let that Motto Memento mori which some carry in their Rings be engraven on your hearts it being the great concernment of our lives This is that which God people and some of the heathen too have been careful to remember King Asia made his Sepulcher in his life time 2 Cron. 16. 14. and some in their Gardens and places of solace and delight as Joseph of Arimathea John 19. 41. And some of the Heathen were wont to walk among the Graves to put them in mind of death some have had their Graves alwayes before their Gates other a dead mans skul presented every day at their Tables and shall we that beleive the doctrine of the other world put off the serious thoughts of death Solomon adviseth us to go to the house of mourning telling us it is better because the living will lay it to heart When you hear the tidings of the death of your Friends relations or Neighbours go thither though not personally yet contemplatively in your minds thoughts go and put your selves in their stead And think thus a living man or woman is become a dead Corps or cold clay the soul is gone to its everlasting habitation but to what place whether to be comforted or tormented who can tell If he were a godly man he is certainly gone to heaven if thou art such a one thy soul will shortly be with him but if an ungodly man he is certainly gone to hell and now among the Devils and if thou art such a one thou shalt erelong be there too 'T is true the dead can have no thoughts of the living but the living saith Solomon know that they must die And you that are young when you hear of the death of a lively lusty young man or alovely beautiful young woman stop reflect and consider may not this be thy case O man woman or child in a very little space I shall say no more by way of direction only desire you to review the particulars before mentioned and you that are Parents and Masters of Families who make conscience of looking to the souls of those committed to your charge may cause your Children and Servants to learn by heart the particulars I here set down 1. That it is most certain an end will be 2. At our latter end all things in this world will be gone for ever 3. All the pleasures of sin will be gone and leave nothing but a sting 4. That only which is eternal wil stand us
instead 5. Consider which of the two eternities are you going towards 6. We are all near our everlasting habitation 7. You know not how suddenly or unexpected your end may be 8. When death comes your souls are stated your eternity is cast 9. 'T is a dreadful and amazing fight to see a Christless soul breathing out his last 4. Vse May be of comfort to the poor people of God who through fear of death are all their life-time subject to bondage Let not you hearts be trobnled fear not neither be terrified because of this King of fears But cheer up your spirits and comfort up your hearts with this that death as terrible as it is to the wicked cannot hurt you The day of your death will be better then the day of your birth and thereffore death is put into the Beleivers Inventory and reckoned amongst his priviledges 1 Gor. 3. 22. Death will be gain to the Godly man viz. an out-let to all his present misery and an in-let to endless glory Then the truely penitent perplexed wearied soul shall be perfectly free from the power of Satan the firy darts and dreadful temptations of that unclean spirit Then the old Serpent for ever will be under their feet Then the body of death shall be put off and the in dwelling of sin that natural fountain of corruption will be perfectly dryed up You shall never complain of vain thoughts or hard hearts any more Never doubt of the truth of grace or favour of God more The beleiver shall then be with Jesus Christ the day of his dissolution will be the day of his Coronation he shall then receive the Crown and sit down on the Throne and enter into his Masters joy which is fulness of joy and pleasures for evermore Object I sometimes think of death but the thoughts of death and judgement are very terrible I fear I am not fit to die how shall it be known Answ There is a habitual fitness for death and an actual fitness for death Every graciously upright man or woman in the world that fears God in truth is habitually fit to dye so prepared for his great change that the sting of death or second death shall not hurt him having past the the strait gate shot the gulf he is out of danger As soon as a man is in a state of grace born again made a new creature and by faith united unto the Lord Jesus Christ God is reconciled his person justified his sins pardoned and recorded in the Court of Heaven though his pardon is not brought down transcrib'd and seal'd in the Court of his own conscience The truly converted soul is Gods special favourite and shall lodge in his bosom and never more be out of his favour 't is true heaven may be out of sight God may frown but will never condemn There is now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Rom. 8 1. If any man sin we have an Advocate with the Father Jesus Christ the righteous 1 John 2. 1. Who shall lay any thing to the charge of Gods elect it is God that justifieth it is Christ that dyed Rom. 8. 33. 34. Quest When is the godly man actually prepared for death Answ When his spiritual estate is well setled viz. all made sure between God and his soul particularly 1. When a man is truly conscious to himself that he hath sincerely and with much brokeness of heart repented of all his known sins committed before or after conversion so that there is no fresh or former guilt remaining on him This godly sorrow is the godly mans pleasure he delights to be sowing in tears loves with his soul a wet seed-time for they that sow in tears shall reap a harvest of joy which is a time of refreshing rom the presence of God compare Psal 126. 5 6. and Acts 3. 19. 2. When sin is so great a bur den that he is weary of this body of death and willing the infected house should be pulled down that the Leprosie might be cured that so he might never sin or offend his Father more The serious thoughts and sence of which is a heavy burden and matter of greif that makes him groan and complain We in this Tabernacle do groan being burthened and O how bitterly did St. Paul complain Rom. 7. 24. O wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from the body of this death He had been in deaths often for the sake of his dear Lord but this death his body of sin troubled him more then any It was so great a burden to holy David that he felt it in his very bones Psal 38. 3. 3. The godly man is fit to dye when the work of grace is perfected and his Generation work ended When the beleiving soul hath his Vessel full of Oyl and the Wedding garments of the glorious Righteousness of Christ about him then he is a Vessel of honour prepared unto glory Rom. 9. 23. wrought for the self same thing 2 Cor. 4. 5. and made meet or fit for the inheritance of the Saints in light Col. 1. 12. The ship that 's laden or fraugthed is fit to put to Sea and to sail from hence or for it s appointed Port. The labourer is fit to receive his wages when he hath done his work so when the heaven born soul hath faithfully served his Generation and done the work in his Place Calling and Relations for which God sent him and intrusted him though the best fall short being in some degrees unprofitable servants then is he fit to welcome death though to the flesh it s the Kings of terrours When the godly man liveing or dying can apeal to the heart-fearching God as Hezekiah did Isa 38. And say I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do John 17. I have finish'd my course and there is laid up for me a Crown of righteousness 2 Tim. 4. 8. this makes him fit and willing to depart to be with Christ When sin is pardoned and the pardon sealed i e when the clamorous noise of the guilt of sin in the conscience is calmed and silenced by the blood of sprinkling and his evidences for heaven bright and clear so that his better country is within view and the gate of glory wide open namely abundant entrance into the everlasting Kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ 2 Pet. 1. 11. Lot had a mind to prolong his time in Sodom it was a goodly City and he was not well assured wither to go when he had lest it But when the gracious soul his assured of a better state a better life that 's hid with Christ in God so that he can say as once an eminent godly man dying I shall but change my place I shall not change my company He may then being seal'd to the day of Redemption long for his dissolution 5. When the heart is weaned from and weary of this evil world and so enflam'd with love to Christ that it
God gasping and panting after the Lord Jesus Christ Psal 42. 1 2. O labour for such a frame of heart and bewail a narrow and contracted spirit Do not perform duties for duties sake so as to make duties the end of duties but as the medium by which thy soul may draw nigh to God and meet with him The countenance and presence of God in a duty is the very Suburbs of glory yea the very gate of Heaven Gen. 2â— 17. Let this be in thy thoughts and the very purpose of thy heart and expect it vehemently in every access to God Let thy soul follow hard after God and say One thing have I desired of the Lord that will I seek after that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life Psal 27. 4. Psal 84. 2. Duties are only the outward Court but the form shell and carkass of Religion as Pipes without Water Breasts without Milk as Sails without Wind or as a Body without a Soul that hath no life The encrease of your grace and holiness depends upon your acquaintance and communion with the God of grace It was Mose his being in the Mount that made his face to shine and the Kings being at his Table that caused the Churches Spikenard to send forth the swell thereof Cant. 1. 12. The presence of the glorious God on a Sabbath the presence of God in prayer or at a Sacrament will be unto thy soul as marrow and fatness and that which will make thy hands to drop with Myrrh and thy fingers with sweet-smelling Myrrh Thus it was with the Spouse when her Beloved put in his hand by the hole of the door Cant. 5. 4 5. 6 By improving every Providence every Comfort every Cross for Gods glory and our own spiritual advantage God doth nothing in vain for he hath a peculiar respect unto the good of his people in all his dispensations he doth time measure and order every dark and afflicting providence for his Churches advantage Jer. 24. 5. Rom. 8. 24. Heb. 12. 10 11. God's chastning and teaching commonly go together therefore it is we must hear the Rod and who hath appointed it Mic. 6. 9. The Rod hath a Voice Beasts may feel the rod but the believer hearts the rod. God's rod should make us like Aaron's rod bud blossom and to bring forth the peaceable fruits of righteousness Heb. 12. 11. Now if you would be bettered by affliction endeavour to do three things 1. To understand the meaning or mind of God in them for what sins committed or duties neglected they are sent Afflictions are Gods Messengers and we should never be quiet till we know their Errands Job 10. 2. 2. See the hand of God in all those afflictions So did David Psal 39. 10. and holy Job 1. 11. Hos 6. 1. 3. Labour to answer the end of God in your straits and troubles that you might be made more humble more holy more heavenly before that we may say and find that it hath beed good for us to be afflicted We have as much reason to seek unto God for a blessing upon our daily Rod as upon our daily Bread 7. Time must be redeemed by casting up your accounts every day and so to make even with God and not get further into his debt This will be the way to get an acquittance to procure a pardon before you are called and forced to an account Secret duties if well done are the sweetest duties and yet sadly neglected by Saints themselves You should retire every night and spend a little time in self-examination and when you sit alone commune with your hearts and call over the passages and actions of the day past We read Gen. 24. 63. That Isaac went out in the evening tide to meditate a precious duty but rarely practised Christians should spend void spaces of time in ejaculatory Prayer and holy Meditation And O how hard it is to ascend this Mount of heavenly Meditation 'T is very easie and delightsom to think of the World the pleasures of Sin Friends Riches Worldly business but to Meditate on God Heaven Eternity the insufficiency and vanity of the creature the bitterness of sin the certainty of death and judgement the very inwards of Religion is very difficult Before you lye down upon your beds at night call your selves to an account by such questions as these 1. I have lived many years in the world What have I been doing all my days have I answered the end of my being 2. Have I had a holy awe of God in the midst of my Worldly business this day What thoughts of death and Judgement have I had Where hath my heart been 3. How have I performed duties this day What hath been the sins of this day the mercies of this day that I may beg the pardon of the one and bless God for the other 4. What assistance and communion with God have I had this day in the duties of his worship have not God and my soul been strangers this day and many days together 5. What have I done or spoken for God and his Glory this day in my Family or else-where have I demean'd my self like a child of God this day this is to make Religion our business or to walk in the fear of the Lord all the day 8. Improve your time by endeavouring to order every days work with reference to your last day The end of every duty and the great reason of redeeming time lies here namely that we may be fit to dye and stand before God Therefore must we glorifie the infinitely holy God and make him our friend Hence it is that we must secure our souls and speedily get into Jesus Christ and grow in grace do good to others call our selves to an account and clear our title unto heaven that all our work may be done up while it is day and none left to do let death call when it will The reasons why our precious time must be redeemed are 1. Because the days are evil 2. Because 't is a considerable part of our Christian wisdom Reas 1. Because the days are evil This is the Apostles own argument to enforce the duty Precious time and evil days run parallel therefore no part of a little time must be lost I shall instance in a few particulars to make it appear 1. The Tares of false Doctrine or Diabolical Blasphemous Damnable Opinions do abound How do the Devils Agents endeavour to raise and undermine the very foundations and principles of the Christian faith Those old and damnable heresies that have been condemned and expunged out of the Church of God are greedily embraced and swallowed down by more then a few 2 Tim. 3. 1. and 4. 3. 2 Pet. 1. 12. Ye therefore Beloved seeing ye knew these things before beware lest ye also being led away with the error of the wicked fall from your own stedfastness 2 Pet. 3. 17. 2 Tim. 1. 13. 2. Mens flagitious
take a deep impression upon all that shall read these plain truths Seriously consider and believe 1. That it is most certain that an end will be For whatsoever the Scriptures speak of Death the Grave and Hell is an infallible Truth You are to consider that every man is mortal must dye and pass into the other World and that in every one of your bodies there is an immortal and never-dying soul and that after these bodies have slept in the dust of the Earth they shall live again there shall be a resurrection of the just and unjust and at the end of the World a Tribunal shall be set up before which all the World shall be made to stand And that as soon as your breath is gone the spirit shall return to God that gave it either to the Justice of God or to the Mercy of God to the place of joy or to the place of torment Our transgression natural constitution with a statute Law of Heaven have brought us under a necessity of dying Where ever this Viper fastneth it killeth certainly though not suddenly sin and death are twins sin is the great murderer that let death into the world For her house inclineth unto death and her paths unto the dead In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt dye Gen. 2. 17. That is thou shalt become mortal As soon as Adam had sinn'd he and we in him our representative became subject or liable to death Sin like a mighty Monarch reign'd from Adam to Moses a Malefactor cast at the Bar is dead in Law though he be repriev'd for a time the Body sayes the Apostle is dead because of sin some dye in the womb some in their infancy some in their youth they that live longest dy at last Death never hurts a man but with his own Weapon it always finds Sin in us and the sting of death is sin And where ever you meet it or see it you may say of it as Abab to the Prophet hast thou found me O mine enemy Death and every death is the fruit of sin death temporal death Spiritual and death Eternal The soul that sins shall dye Ezek. 18. 20. The wages of sin is death Rom. 6. 23. Our natural constitution rendreth us obnoxious to dissolution our flesh is not the flesh of stone or of brass but frail and mouldring dust to which as to our Centre we must return Gen. 3. 19. Dust thou art and to dust shalt thou return Eccles 3. 20. All go to one place all are of the dust and all turn to dust again Heb. 9. 27. It is appointed for man once to dye Job 14. 5. His days are determined the number of his moneths are with thee thou hast appointed his bounds that he cannot pass No shield or Buckler can fortifie against this King of terrors impartial death the great Leveller knows no faces and therefore none can be exempted If faithfulness might challenge impunity from death then Moses might have been excus'd if beauty then Absalem if strength then Sampson if sinceriry and piety then David if sultilry then Achitophel if magnanimity then Alexander if riches then Croesus if wisdom then Solomon but one event happens to them all so that when the fatal moment cometh no ransom can be given no art nor skill can keep us here Sirs were this Doctrine of the other would believed it would have a greater impression upon our hearts did we seriously consider of that future state of retribution according to our faith of which we must live or die stand or fall to eternity it would have a greater influence upon our lives 2. Consider That at your latter end all things in this World will fail you and take their leaue of you for ever All your natural indowments outward enjoyments Parts Parentage Birth Breeding Wit Wealth Crowns Kingdoms Pearles Diamonds Houses Lands Wives Children Friends when your breath is gone all these are gone Prov. 27. 24. Riches are not for ever neither doth a crown endure to all generations The glittering Sun of all outward glory will certainly set which your own experience and Scripture evidence doth clearly evince Riches have wings and they fly away Prov. 23. 5. The fashion of this world passeth away 1 Cor. 7. 29 30 31. We brought nothing into this world and 't is certain we shall carry nothing out 1 Tim. 6. 7. If a man were possessed with as much of this World as Solomon the great King of Jerusalem who had great Magnificent Buildings fruitful pleasant Vineyards Gardens Orchards and Trees of all manner of fruits variety of servants possessions of great and small Cattel heaps of Gold and Silver peculiar Treasure of Kings Musical Instruments Men and Women singers and whatsoever his eyes desir'd yet when he takes a serious view of all things he would say with him all is vanity and that a man hath no profit of all his labour which he taketh under the Sun which made the wise man even to have life Eccles 2. Since the fall there is a curse upon the Creature which indeed is deceiving vexing decaying and all our outward comforts may be compared to Pharaoh's Hosts and alive this hour and the next drown'd and dead upon the Sea-shore and though you judge they shall endure for ever Psal 49. 11. Luke 12. 19. They will deal by you as Absalom's Mule that left him in his greatest extremity What woful miseries attend Wordly riches in the getting keeping and parting with them they are snares and thorns plagues and Scorpions unto many they pierce them thorow with many sorrows 1 Tim. 6. 10. Yet here men toyl beat their brains weary their bodies tire their spirits break their sleep perplex their thoughts rack their consciences ingulf and drown themselves in cares endanger their souls dreaming of nothing but perpetuity and when they have done all like the Silk-worm dye in their work Nay many a man survives his own happiness which perisheth before he perisheth and it s the worst of miseries to outlive our own happiness therefore let not riches highten your hearts and prompt you to pride which is too common This day the rich worlding sang a requiem to his sadly deluded soul concluding he had much laid up the night following his soul is required Haman is to day the second man in the Kingdom but soon lost all and his life too Now doth Nebuchadnezzar walk in his stately royal Palace of Babel priding himself in his outward pomp but while the word was in his mouth a voice came from Heaven saying O King Nebuchadnezzar to thee be it spoken thy Kingdom is departed from thee Dan. 4. 29 30 31. Jerusalem this year is the Princes among the Provinces the next year made tributary and they that live delicately are desolate and embrace Dung-hills Lam. 1. 1. and 4. 5. Yesterday Job's Cattle might be numbred by thousands and tomorrow he is stript of all and left naked Neither is our age without a sad
and dreadful instance viz. famous London on the Lord's day standing by Wednesday burnt and laid in ashes and thousands of the Inhabitants housless and harbourless therefore if riches encrease set not your hearts upon them they are uncertain cannot satisfie cannot profit will perish and that for ever O then let those precious dear everlasting jewels laid up in your mouldring decaying dying bodies be cared for What can it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul Mat. 16. 26. 3. Consider How soon all the present pleasures of sin will be gone and leave nothing but a sting Old age weakness sickness will make a great change in the whole outward man as to beauty strength natural vigor liveness of senses and all whereby a man might take any pleasure in the world or in his lust When sickness old age deaths fore-runner cometh it will make a strange change in the most comely countenance corporal comeliness and beauty is soon stain'd sickness will not only fade it but deface it You that are endowed with comely proportion sparkling eyes well-favouredness amiableness of colours of white and red with straitness agility of body with a cheerful aspect when old age cometh it will plow deep forrows in those fair faces and yet many ignorant of their foul souls and filthy hearts are proud of their fair faces and comely features so that they grow wanton by reason of it and to set out their beauty and whiteness of their skins not being contented with Creators curious make will add painting patches powdering crisping curlings artificial hair and what not Know that old age will not onely whither your beâ—… which is but skin deep but aâ—… outward strength natural vigor liveliness of senses and all whereby you may have any worldly pleasure Old age is Solomon's evil day when the Sun Moon and Stars will be darkned the keepers of the House tremble and the strong men bow themselves and the grinders cease and all the daughters of Musick shall be brought low and fear shall be in the way when the whole outward man is decayed viz. eyes dim or dark Ears deaf Teeth rotten Gums bare Head bald Breath corrupt Hands and Feet weak and trembling an evil day indeed in which you shall find no delight in your former dalliances for the Grashopper will be a burden and desire shall fail Eccles 12. But the beauty of Grace withers not under the greatest declinings of natural beauty for grace is the Oyl in the Lamp that never goeth out but shineth more and more The Kings Daughter is all glorious within Psal 45. Godliness which is Gods likeness casts a lustre that is very lovely in the sight of God and Man Thou art all fair my Dove and there is no spot in thee Sinners you that now taste the sweet of Sin rejoyce to do wickedly that spend your time in riotous Drunkenness Chambers of wantonness lye upon Beds of Ivory and stretch your selves on your Couches and eat the Lambs out of the flock that chant to the sound of the viol that drink Wine in Bowls that are uot grieved for the afflictions of Joseph that put far away the evil day Know that the fire of sin will burn and that your sweet morsels are but for a moment those sweet morsels and delicate dainties will cost your dear Hear now this you that are given to pleasure that feast your selves in doing evil 't is but a little time and you will see and say that all your delights hopes joys are past and gone and that you shall never see or taste them more only the gravel gall guilt and sting will remain You that love this Hellish banquet of sin the stoln Waters that are sweet and bread eaten in secret that is pleasant don 't know that the dead are there and that her guests are in the depths of Hell Prov. 9. 17 18. Sin is a sweet poyson pleasant in the acting but bitter in the end For the soul that sinneth shall dye Ezek. 13. 20. And will you spare it and keep it still within your mouth hide it under your tongue untill it becometh the gall of Asps within you Job 20. 12 13. Consider also that your secret wickedness committed in the dark in corners that is mask'd and close kept is known to God The infinite Holy and heart seaching God marks them Job 10. 14. Hos 7. 2. Watcheth them Job 14. 16. Sealeth them they are down among his Tresures Deut. 32. 34. and they will find you out Num. 32. 23. If not truly and deeply repented of and pardoned they will lye down with you in the Grave and follow you into the other World and meet you at Gods dreadful Bar and be discovered in the sight of the whole world evil shall pursue the Sinner This evil thing and bitter bred in the womb not buried in the grave nor extinguished by the fire of Hell shall pursue the sinner unto Hell Sinners this is most certain unrepented sins will never leave you but lye down and rise with you your bones are full of the sins of your youth which shall lye down with you in the dust Job 20. 11. Sin is a bad bed fellow and a worse grave-fellow and if it sleep with you it will awake with you when the dreadful Trumpet shall sound Arise ye dead and come to jndgement The damned in Hell have all their sins about them that which was the cause of their being cast into Hell will be their everlasting campanion there and will you take these Vipers and Scorpions into your bosom that will be always gnawing upon your hearts Know this your posting Sun of all sinful sensual delights will set in the dreadful Ocean of endless easeless and remediless sorrow 4. Consider That only which is eternal will stand you in stead when you come to dye viz. when you shall shoot the vast Gulf and lanch out into the infinite Ocean of Eternity that hath neither bounds banks nor bottom Immortal souls Do you see any thing that hath Eternity engraven upon it There are variety of objects both of persons and things that present themselves to your view Lift up your eyes to the vast Heavens that are bespangled and beautified with a glorious Sun Moon and glittering Stars that have been there for some thousands of years see whether eternity be there No they had their beginning and must have their Period Gen. 1. 1. Heb. 1. 10 11. Thou Lord in the beginning hast laid the Foundations of the Earth and the Heaven are the works of thine hands They shall perish they shall wax old as doth a garment but thou remainest The day is coming wherein the Sun shall be turned into darkness and the Moon into blood The Stars of Heaven shall fall and the Powers of the Heavens shall be shaken the Elements shall melt with fervent heat and the Earth with the works that are therein shall be burnt up Matth. 24. 29. 2 Pet. 3. 10. Moreover
feared or felt worse then outward pressures perils pains which are but bodily miseries and that but for a moment This sin not only the prophane world are guilty of but some of those that profess the Name of God Rebecah said to Isaac I am weary of my life because of the Daughters of Heth Gen 27. 46. Rachel cryes out give me Children or else I dye Gen. 30. 1. Elisha being threatned by Jezabel said O Lord take away my life 1 Kings 19. 4. Jonah for the loss of a poor gourd said it s better for me to dye then to live and told God to his very face that he did well to be angry even unto death Jonah 4. 9. The Israelites when they wanted water wisht they had died in the wilderness These and the like wicked wishes are in the mouths of many poor ignorant discontented persons who long to be out of this wretched world Now by way of conviction I shall lay down these following particulars 1. What think you of these inward and soul-straits and conflicts with which Gods poor afflicted people are sadly exercis'd And were you but sensible of the guilt and weight of sin a wounded spirit the wrath of God and those everlasting burnings it would quickly swallow up your outward miseries though never so many This is evident in the example of the Jaylor who for the loss of his prisoners was so tormented that he would have kill'd himself before he was convinced of the dreadful state of his soul that was in danger of ruin Act. 16. 27 28 29 30. Then he fell and cried out Sirs what shall I do to be saved 2. To wish for death because of the evils attending this life is very wicked and dangerous interpretatively and in effect it is to wish your souls in hell Consider and mind this also that your present sorrowes crosses troubles of what kind or degree soever they be are the fruits of your ill-doings and fatless then you deserve for its a wonder you are not in hell and will you dare to be so audacious as to flye in the face of your faithful Creator when you should be deeply sensible of your horrible wickedness and humble under Gods hand and accepting of the punishment of your sinye should repent and turn to God take away the cause and the effect will cease 3. You can please and gratifie the Devil your deadly adversaty in nothing more you wish for death so doth the devil too if you are his now you must be his then his here and his for ever He waits and longs that your breath were gone your souls separated therefore he would have you poyson hang drown starve or stob your selves that you might be dead damn'd and burn'd with him in hell 4. Moreover if you were dead you would suddenly repent and change your mind and if it might be give the world to be alive again with all the wants pains and greif you now endure Had you but a peeping hole into hell to see and here what they endure you would confess your sins judge your selves and close with Christ before you dye that so you might not come into that dreadful place of torment Now that you may hear and fear and do no more so wickedly Let me ask you 1. What think you of the sting and bitterness of death when a man comes to dye Conscience being awakened roaring like a Lyon death the King of terrours standing by when the guilt of past-sins and loss of precious time will be as so many fiery darts and stinging scorpions biting and gnawing on the heart What think you it will be to dye unconverted to dye in a state of sin and wrath a Trator to God in a state of unbelief and impenitency the soul-damning sins to dye with an evil heart an accusing conscience self condemn'd cast in your own breast to dye which is worst of all 2. What think you of the sadness and amazing terrour of approaching judgment the second death when a man comes to take a dreadful view of the other world and begins to reflect and think Wherefore was I born what have I been doing are all these my sins O where shall I leave them or how shall I be rid of them now I am dying whither am I going what will be my company where shall be the place and how near am I to it what must I endure and how long how long and conscience will answer to all eternity misery without end This will amaze confound and overwhelm the soul with fear and perturbation when it sees that heaven is lost and that it must down down to the Region of darkness and company of Devils in that state of everlasting wo. The killing thoughts of which made a great man wish that he might live though bur the life of a Toad 3. What think you of the impartiality of the Judge that will not spare the guilty must and will Judge and sentence according to the fact and reward every man according to his works He would not spare the Angels that sinn'd but cast them down to hell 2 Pet. 2. 4. not Adam but cast him out of paradise and set a flaming word against him neither will he spare any impenitent sinner in the day of his wrath justice obliges him to justifie the righteous and condemn the wicked 4. What think you of the impossibility of having any appeal There will be no Moses to mediate no mediator to plead no Daniel Noah or Job to intercede or to stand in the gap not an Intercessor in Earth or Heaven to be found to speak a word There can be no appeal to God his Calls and Councels have been refused his Interest opposed his Enemies countenanced his laws violated his Anger will burn like fire No appeal to Jesus Christ his Government hath been slighted his Grace and Person rejected or to the Holy Ghost he hath been quencht and greived or to angels or Saints all will be against you 5. Whar think you of the resignation of soul and body to the executioner and tormentor the red dragon 't is sad to see a poor malefactor committed to the Jaylor or Hangman but O how much more dreadful will it be for ever-living souls in the face of men and Angels to be delivered into the hands of that raging roaring Lyon the Devil When God the righteous Judge shall say in sight of the whole world here are the men that brak my Statutes prophaned my Sabbaths that hated my Saints that served the Devil in the satisfying their Lusts the open and professed Adversaries to my Name and Interest that would not though I often intreated them come at my call accept of my love receive my Son or endure a life of holiness or by any means be drawn and perswaded to think of and prepare for death and judgement though they had time and opportunity enough Now take them devil and away to hell with them for my soul abhors them Thy Covenant servants
world be assured it shall go well with them in the other world Art thou in astate of grace at odds with fin and truly in love with Christ and holiness Be of good chear go thy way and eat thy bread with joy and drink thy wine with a merry heart for the bitterness of death is past The king of terrors that had the power of death is conquered by the Lord of life Terrible death that rides on the pale horse is dismounted by thy dear Lord that rides on the white horse under whose bloody Cross thou mayest see him disarmed wounded and dead death that raigned from Adam to Moses is now swallowed up in victory Isa 25. 8. I will ransoms thee from the power of the grave I will redeem thee from death O death I will be thy plagues O grave I will be thy destruction The beleiving soul is dead with Christ while he lives Rom. 6. 8 and is delivered not only from the damnation of sin but the dominion of sin and there is hope in his death When he dyeth he shall die in the Lord Rev. 14. 13. he shall sleep in Jesus 1 Thes 4. 14. his end shall be peace Psal 37. 37. This made the Apostle after his sad conflict Rom. 7. to triumph over the last enemy death 1 Cor. 15. 55. Motive 7. If you should not prepare for death yet you will wish you had as many do when it is to late You that are for making provision for the flesh and so eagerly pursuing the world When you shall be cast upon the bad of languishing you will wish in the very torment of your minds and flames of horrour that I had parted with my sin O that I had been careful to please and honour God and to get an interest in Jesus Christ then should I have now dyed the death of the righteous but this I wholly slighted I prosecuted the world with might and main and got so many thousands for my Posterity I liv'd a merry and jovial life but for my soul for my eternity things of infinite worth I have done nothing I forgat my soul Now here 's the Messenger of death come for me to imprison my body in the Grave the Chambers of darkness and to carry my soul I know not whither I fear to hell O that I had been wise to under stand this to consider my latter end What would I now give to live but a few years more to make provision for this soul that must now enter the gulf of endless eternity Motive 8. Consider the gaines will be exceeding great As will appear by these following particulars Would you haue sin as hell and be more truly holy Consider your latter end This is most certain that all the evil antecedents and dreadful consequences of death spring and grow out of this bitter root what is it that wounds stings paines and kills what is it that brings Diseases threatens death that murders the body and that damns and burnes the soul What is that doth necessitate the to make use of Physick Physicians whilst alive and bringeth thee to a Coffin and Grave when thou art dead is it not sin which thou embracest in thy bosom You poor blind deluded souls as little and as lovely as sin looks in your wanton eyes it is the Mother and Nurse of all your miseries hacht in hell the Devils spawn or excrement He that committeth sin is of the devil 1 Joh. 3. 8. This is that evil thing and bitter that hales death and hell at the heels of it yea that arms death devils and hell against us Were it not for this black ugly fierce ouer and bloudy adversary Law or Justice could not condemn us Death could not kill us Devils could not torment us Hell could not burn us Sin is the Traitor and Murderer of your immortal souls and those nails that will shortly dig your Graves will you hug hide and hold it fast Will a woman put that knife into her bosom that hath kill'd or murder'd her dear Child or Husband no by no means it must be broken and cast away for ever Now Sirs if sin be the enemy use it as an enemy or murderer kill it take the sacrificing knife and cut the throat of it or strike the heart vein and let it bleed until it dies Deal by it as Samuel by Agag cut it in pieces Did you think seriously of death and hell you would hate it to purpose and say away to hell with it from whence it came and it would put you upon a desire and earnest endeavour after holiness Being expos'd to a dissolution what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness 2 Pet. 3. 11. But if you forget death you will make dreadful work namely your accounts greater and hell the hotter you will increase your sin and God will heap up wrath against the day of wrath And if ever God shâ—w mercy it will cost you dear your souls must mourn your hearts must break and bleed for sin for unless you repent you will certainly be damned Luk. 13. 5. 2. Would you speedily call off your hearts from the world lay up treasure in heaven Remember your latter end In the greatest affluence of worldly prosperity alwayes consider that you must die Poor worldlings that make gold your hope whose plottings and ploddings are for earth If death and eternity were more in your thoughts you would let go that in your affections which you cannot hold in your possession and love that but a little that will be lost and which you cannot love long Riches have wings and they will be gone Consider how little the things of the world will stand you in stead in the evil day your gold and silver cannot keep you from diseases while you live nor from hell after you are dead Prov 11. 4. Psal 49. 6 7. It falleth out with many of the great storers of this world as it doth with a Sumpter Horse who all the day carrieth a great treasure on his back but at night it is taken from him and he thrust into a foul Stable So many wealthy worldlings that tire them selves to get and carry worldly treasure when death cometh it s taken from them and they for their ill getting or ill using of it are thrust down to hell the rich man dyed and in hell lift up his eyes And if you would deaden your hearts to this empty earth and look after a treasure above a happiness beyond the grave that shall last as long as your souls shall last think often of death this would divert your worldly cares and projects Remember from this day to your last day cannot be long your Journey or Voyage is short and a little Provision is enough neither Poverty nor Riches but food convenient is the desire and choice of a Citizen of Sion Converse more with death and be often looking into eternity and thou mayest here as it
were a voice speaking to thee as God to Baruch Jer. 45. 4 5. I will break down and pluck up and seekest thou great things seek them not Death is the great Leveller that will make all equal and you that grasp the world most greedily will find it but vanity for all is vanity is the language of experience Eccl. 1. 2. 1 John 2. 17. When Samuel was to anoint Saul he brought or directed him to Rachels Sepulcher and to this end as is suppos'd namely to suppress or prevent haughty proud thoughts that might arise from that new and great preferment And if the supposition be true it is as if he had spoken thus Saul God hath highly honoured you and I annoint you King But remember here lies the dust of that beautiful Rachel and though you are now King in Israel yet you must be as Rachel viz. laid in a Grave or Sepulcher the thoughts of which is a very mortifying Meditation You that have the waters of a full Cup that wallow in wealth and swim in worldly glory to wean you from the world that your hearts may not be turned into Earth and buryed before you are buryed keep fresh in your thoughts death and eternity Job 14. 14. 3. Would you be deeply sensible of the sad and doleful condition of unbeleivers when they come to dye think seriously of your latter end What will you do in the hour of distress when God shall call for your breath change your countenance and require your souls if you have made no preparation for death and Judgement Poor souls I would pity you with my very heart to think how ignorant you are of your great concernment you eat drink sleep buy sell and get gain but slight your souls and do not consider of the evil day We be unto him that is alone that is alone in life and alone in death that hath no Christ to befriend him or stand by him in that woeful day that cometh to lye down in the death-bed without peace or pardon who shall go into a Grave and stand before the Ba without an Advocate to plead for him It is most probable you may have dife ferent apprehensions of yout selves and others in your dying hour so the nearer the object the clearer the sight O sinners when the door of eternity begins to open as usually it doth to men dying you will have other thoughts of your selves and other men Here you ruffle it out thinking your selves above and better then others behold great Babel said that proud person in his Princely Palace but when pale death appears it will pull down those Peacocks feathers and cause their crests to fall Now the world shines and sparkles in your eyes which makes you judge and think that nothing but Riches Honor and Greatness can make you happy then it wil appear the pant being off to be an empty nothing As for the pure â—n heart who mourn for sin and mind itheir soules above the world who are scorn'd jeer'd hated being look'd upon as a company of poor pensive sneaking besotted fools will then be adjudged the best wisest and happiest men on earth Now sin is excused and called a light and little thing for trick of youth but then it will have at black and dreadful face and feel more heavy then lead taste more bitter then death it self Now the Damned and cursed Crue are your brave Boon companions and bosom friends but when you are come to your dying groanes and cold sweats away with them their sight is terrible But know that you who have been companions in sin must be companions in sufferings and lye down together in everlasting chaines and flames you shall be fettered and bound together and never part any more for ever Now an interest in Christ and a life of holiness is little valued and every lust and triffle preferred then a world a world for a Christ forty thousand pound for a good Conscience cryed out a wicked wealthy worldling when dying and passing into eternity 4. Would you expedite your Repentance try your state and make all ready for the other world think upon this last enemy the King of terrors that will ere long terminate your dayes and then all your opportunities will be gone for e If the thoughts of death especially the second death did but influence your hearts and penitrate npon your Consciences you would easily be perswaded to cast away your sins namely to cut off a right hand or pluck out a right eye and to rent your hearts to mourn in secret to afflict your souls and to put your mouths in the dust if so be there may be hope Lam. 3. 28. 29. We see that men in a journey if they think they have daly enough they are slack and slow enough but if they see but a little time they will make speed If a man must do the work of a whole day in half a day he will make hast Repentance is not a work for a day though a daly work our whole life is little enough to compleat and perfect it As long as we sin we must mourn while we provoke the Judge we must plead guilty and sue our out pardon with Ropes a bout our necks and smiting on our breasts and if it might be with tears of blood And the great things of death and Judment will prepare and prompt you to do it suddenly for when the day is gone the night comes and the Grave and Hell have shut their mouths upon you what can be done Eccles 9. 10. 5. Would you pray more frequently more fervently then ever you have done remember you must dye The Monuments and Statues of the dead as one notes are made in a praying posture viz. kneeling and with hands lifted up to heaven as if the remembrance of them now dead should teach us our duty what we must do whilst living One that was wont to pray often in a day being asked why he spent so much time in prayer gave no other answer but this I must dye I must dye An awakening apprehension of a mans entrance upon an endless state and a speedy approach before the holy God will make him pray and that importunately If there be in the Family a Husband wife or Child near unto death almost every one that cometh about the bed will be lifting up hands and putting up of prayers and then you cry out send speedily for some sober serious Minister or for some solid savoury praying Christian to commend his sad case to God The young man that lately suffered for Murder who came into Newgate as ignorant of God as the horse or the Mule and as sensless of his soul as a stock or a stone was by the acxcess and application of Ministers to him convinced of his desperate case and through the grace and blessing of God upon his appointed means he seemed so deeply sensible of the dreadful hazzard of his precious soul that he did with so
dying men and passing to receive the recompence of endless Joy or Wo. Christians if you would work while it is day If you would glorifie God on Earth If you would secure and eternally save your immortal souls If you would not be a prey to the Prince of Darkness If you would stand with comfort before the Lord Jesus at his dreadful Bar If you would not spend your days without hope Arise therefore and be doing and the Lord be with you Deut. 32. 29. O that they were Wise that they understood this that they would consider their latter end IT is always seasonable to insist on such subjects as direct us to speak of another world especially in time of great Sickness and Mortality in which thousands of souls night and day have been crowding into Eternity witness the late dreadful Plague in sixty five I therefore made choice of this serious and heart-wakening subject that drowsie secure souls might be awakened to a deep consideration of the world to come The whole Chapter is stiled the Song of Moses his Swan-like Song or Song before his death the dying words of that eminent faithful servant of God and if the words of a dying man are to be regarded how much the words of a dying Moses This Moses being ready to go into the other world composeth this song of which the Text is apart and dying words are weighty and make the deepest impression This song is partly Narratory Minatory Promissory In the Narrative you have 1. A Narration of the infinite greatness and most glorious attributes of the God of Israel introduced with a pathetical and awakening acclamation Give ear O ye Heavens and I will speak and hear O Earth the words of my mouth 2. We have a Narration of their corruption ingratitude and rebellion verse 5. 6. They have corrupted themselves they are a perverse and crooked generation do ye thus requite the Lord O foolish people and unwise Notwithstanding the remarkable favours and rare indulgence of God toward them yet they forsook him provoked him to jealousie with strange Gods and sacrificed to Devils and not unto God Vers 16. 17. Because of which he threatens 1. To hide his face from them then which nothing more bitter to the soul Ver. 20. 2. To inflict variety of sore temporal judgements upon them then which nothing more burthensome to the body I will heap mischief upon them I will spend mine Arrows upon them they shall be burnt with hunger and devoured with burning heat and with bitter destruction the sword without and terrour within shall destroy both the young man and the Virgin with a man of gray hairs for a fire is kindled in mine anger and shall burn to he lowest Hell And Vers 27. God gives the reason why he would not utterly destroy them and make a full end of them Were it not that I feared the wrath of the envying c. And now the words of the Text seem to be the Application of the whole O that they would consider their latter end You may look upon these words as it were a Mount cast up by which the people of Israel might take a view of things to come and have a prospect of what should befal them in their latter end O that they were wise to be wise is opposit to that brutishness ver 28. They were a Nation â—oid of counsel for they wanted the right exercise of reason and that wisdom which is from above to observe and improve the gracious providences and dispensations of God That they would consider Consideration is a fixed act of the understanding or mind in order to practice for doing and considering are frequently joyned together Judg. 18. 14. Now therefore consider what ye have to do Heb. 10. 27. Let us consider one an other to provoke unto love and good works The same thing is variously expressed in Scripture viz. to look narrowly upon a thing to call to mind to know and consider in ones heart to call things to remembrance to commune with a mans heart Psal 77. 5 6. Their latter end By which we are not only to understand those tremendous and desolating judgements that should surprize them in this world but to remember the great things of the other as also old age death the grave erernity death with its antecedents concomitants and consequences The words contain a pathetical Option or wish O that they were wise In which observe 1. The person wishing viz. the most great and gracious God 2. The thing desired and that is Divine Wisdom a Jawel indeed a price far above Rubies 3. The person for whom God thus desireth viz. for Israel a people nigh unto the Lord and yet a bruitish inconsiderate and unwise people O that they were wise c. 4. What this wisdom is or wherein it doth consist viz. in the consideration of their latter end The Doctrines observable from the words are these Doct. 1. That God doth earnestly desire and long for the good of a people Doct. 2. That an inconsiderate people are a foolish and unwise people Doct. 3. That want of serious consideration is incident not only to the prophane but to men professing God and Godliness The Israelites were the onely Church of God then in the World and yet they were not wise to understand and consider their latter end I shall not handle these apart but speak to the chief scope and intent of the words in this one proposition Doct. That it is a duty and matter of high concernment to consider our latter end O that they were wise that they would consider viz. practically consider and live always in the belief of the other world so as to do up all their work while it is day This seems to be the great import of the spirit of God in this Text. Eternal souls whatever escapeth your thoughts this must not this should be your vade mecum It should rise up with you lye down with you walk with you where-ever you go are This Moses himself that precious and renowned servant of God desir'd seeing such a dreadful mortality in the Wilderness and so many sad spectacles of Divnie wrath Psal 90. 10. So teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts to wisdom And as Moses desir'd it so also holy David Psal 39. 4. Lord make me to know my end and the measure of my days what it is that I may know how frail I am And Solomon sets a better upon it Eccles 7. 2. It is better to go to the House of mourning then to the House of Feasting for that is the end of all men and the living will lay it to his heart And it is an Argument that men are dead when at a House of mourning they are not moved with compassion to a due and deep consideration of their doleful and dying condition I shall come now to show you what we are to consider concerning our latter end and O that it may
Heaven Heaven will be your place and home but if you live and dye towards Hell Hell will be your place and home For according to your doing in this World will be your doom in the World that is to come 2 Cor. 5. 10. And is it not sad and dreadful to believe that you have precious never dying souls and do not know whether they shall be sav'd or damn'd stand or fall live or die to all Eternity And yet this is the case of thousands and millions of men and women now in the World that are making post hast to Hell and think and hope they are in the way toward Heaven Prov. 16. 25. 6. Consider How near you are to your everlasting habitation You are all going down amain the stream of time into the great Ocean and you will shortly come thither There 's not a step you step nor a breath you draw not a word you speak not a moment of time you live but hath an influence upon Eternity These golden sands running between two Eternities will quickly be gone a short race will be soon run O what a nothing is our life viz. a span a dream a wind a shadow a vapour a post swifter then a post Job 7. 6. You are all going to your long and last home to the house of Eternity every man goeth to his long home Ecel 12. 5. How doth he go he goeth swiftly always in motion night and day sleeping and walking labouring or loytering this post hastens time and tide stays not Again he goeth insensibly man doth not discern or perceive how his precious time doth fly from him the shadow on the Dial passeth from one hour or figure to another from the Sun rising to its setting though its speedy transient motion is not observed So man passeth from infancy to Child-hood from child-hood to youth from youth to middle age and so to old age and the Grave and we take little or no notice of it Again he goeth irresistably neither men nor Angels Physick or Physitian can keep him here it is as easie to obstruct the whole course of Nature or to hinder Gods Covenant of day and night a man may as well restrain the Sun from rising the Sea from flowing or the wind from blowing as keep man from dying and going to the place appointed for all living We are but of yesterday Job 8. 9. It was but as it were yesterday and we were in the womb of nothing had no being and it will be but as it were to morrow and we shall disappear and be as to this world as if we had never been We are crushed before the moth Job 4. 19. And in a moment we go down to the Grave and shall come up no more Yea our Pictures and Statues remain fresh and firm when we are gone down to the Bars of the pit and rest together in the dust and our very Dogs Horses live when we are dead and become meat for worms This heart-affecting meditation had a very great influence on a great Persian King who taking a view of his huge vast Army wept to think that within a hundred years not one man of them would be left alive Sinners you are to look beyond the grave because after death the judgment Heb. 9. 27. O then tremble to consider that you are all this day standing before the door of Eternity either on the brink of life or the brink of death upon the borders of heaven or the mouth of hell and shall ere long be made to see what is on the other side of the wall as soon as death hath shut your eyes you shall see and know what you shall be for ever If you are now unconverted and without God in the World you are almost come within the sight of the burning Lake of Fire and Brimstone but if Saints you are almost within the view of the New Jerusalem if Ungodly Sinners you are almost within the dreadful noise of the Mile-stones of wrath and the ratlings of the fiery chains of the Prisoners of Hell the dolorous out-cries and hideous roarings of the spirits in prison crying out one and all O what an evil and an infinite evil and bitter bitter thing is sin which we would not consider or believe till we came to this dismal place of torment There you may hear the cursed tormented unbeliever crying out upon his God-provoking Christ-rejecting and soul-murdering sin of infidelity saying in the anguish of his soul If I had accepted of the remedy I had not been in this doleful misery the Lord of Glory was at the door I heard him knock a long time but would not let him in therefore is Hells mouth shut upon me for ever There the Swearers Liars Blasphemers that did tear and rend the sacred name of their Creator and swear by the blood and wounds of their offered Redeemer are heard with their hot and scorched tongues to bewail that ever they should take the name of the infinite Holy God in vain There the hypocritical and false-hearted professors the sinners in Sion cry out and wish that either they had made no shew of love to Christ and Holiness at all or that they had lov'd him in sincerity and above all that so they might have escaped everlasting burnings There the impudent ranting swinish Drunkard that pleas'd his eye and pallate with his pleasant cups sparkling Wine and cursed Companions is heard to wish in the Agony of his soul O that I had been sober temperate abstemious that so I might not have tasted of the Wine of the wrath of God which is red and full of mixture the dregs whereof I must be made to drink forever Psal 75. 8. Isa 5. 22. There the filthy unclean Adulterers and Adulteresses that burn'd in their Hellish lusts which they were resolved to satisfie are heard to wish O that we had been sober modest chaste and that our wanton lustful eyes had been stark blind and never known or seen the face of man or woman that we might not have suffered the vengeance of eternal fire Jude 7. There the notoriously vile abominable Atheists that mockt and scoft at the belief of a Deity and judgement to come and that said in the pride and stoutness of their hearts let him make speed and hasten his work that we may see it for we have made a Covenant with death and with Hell are we at agreement may be heard to roar and cry O that we had heard believed and feared what was fore-told by Ministers concerning this dark and dreadful place before it was too late There the worlding and wretched Earth-worm that made Earth his Heaven gold his God and chiefest good is heard to say in the grief of his heart O that I had never seen either Gold of Silver all my days so that I might have had a better portion or that I had with Lazarus beg'd my bread so that I might not have come into this place of torment There the
cry out with holy Job Chap. 6. 4. The arrowes of the Almighty are within me the poyson whereof drinketh up my spirit the terrors of God do set themselves in array against me Such is the nature of meditation or consideration that it will cause future and remote things to have a real powerful and deep impression on our minds As for instance A Merchant in India by his meditation or contemplation may converse with his Affairs his Wife Children and Friends in England or a Merchant that 's walking on the Exchange in London may have his mind and thoughts in Spain or Italy or else where a Malefactor cast into Prison for some notorious Crime may long before the Assizes converse with all the sad circumstances of his tryal he may in his thoughts see him self brought to the bar standing before a terrible Judge to heare his indictment read the Charge prov'd his doom and sentence pronounced and see as it were himself at the place of his execution with the rope about his neck which must immediately hang him and if you would in good earnest set your selves to consider your latter end you may really and heart-affectingly converse with old Age Weakness Sickness your death-Bed short-Breathing cold sweats dying Pangs and Groans Winding-sheets Coffins and see your selves as it were streched out nail'd up and on the shoulders of men carrying to the grave where Worms and filthy Vermine must feed upon you The Servants of God and Saints of old have done this with great success soul advantage and so should you They have reckoned or counted their Lives by dayes because they were every day liable to Death and expected it daily Teach us to number our dayes said Moses Psal 90. 12. Few and evil have the dayes of my life been said old Jacob. For man that is born of a woman is of few dayes Job 1. 1 5. All the time of which said Job will I wait till my change come Job 14. 14. For I know that thou wilt bring me to death and to the house a dark house appointed for all living And Chapter the 17. 1. he said my breath is corrupt my dayes are extinct the Graves are ready for me where-ever he went or came he was looking for a Grave Again by consideration we may not only look to the Grave but beyond it to the great Transactions and astonishing things that shall be after death We may converse with the worlds burning Christ's coming the Trumpets sounding the Graves opening the Deads rising the Wickeds roaring who as jolly as they are shall then cry to dead and deaf Mountains and Rocks to fall on them to hide them from the dreadful face of the now slighted Son of God for in that great day of his fierce and terrible wrath they will not be able to stand Rev. 6. 16. 17. By realizing this consideration we may see the Judge standing behind the door and the Son of God as it were ready to break forth out of the Clouds with power and great Glory as Hierom did who said whether I eat or drink I hear this voice in mine ears Arise ye dead and come to judgement Now if a right consideration of the great things to come be so penetrating and heart-awakening let death which alwayes doggeth you at your heels be often upon your thoughts your heads and hearts too should be much upon it every night you lye down and every morning you arise let there be some serious and awful thoughts of death and Eternity That which many have engraven on their Rings viz Remember to dye let it be by the Pen of a Diamond written on your hearts It 's storied of Philip of Macedon that he laid a charge upon one of his servants to come every morning into his chamber and proclame this that he was mortal and if a Heathen were so careful of keeping the memory of his mortality much more should a Christian we should alwayes remember the dayes of darkness and keep life and death heaven and hell before us there being but a step between us and death The neglect and want of this was Israels sin and Jerusalems too She did not remember her last and therefore she came down wonderfully Lam. 1. 9. And this God who would have us remember and consider doth sadly complain ofby the Prophet Isa 1. 3. calling heaven and earth to witness for him Hear O heavens and give ear O earth the Oxe knoweth his owner and the Ass his Masters crib but Israel doth not know my people do not consider Reas 3. A serious consideration of your latter end through grace will prove an absolute and soveraign Antidote to expel the greatest evil yea a means to escape an infinite loss viz. sin and the dreadful effects and consequences of it What is the cause of that inundation and sea of wickedness and most prodigious sins that are now in the world and in this Nation in every City Town and Place and in the most Families among all ranks and degrees of men viz. Magistrates Ministers People Parents Children Masters Servants but this their not duly and deeply considering their latter end this we find laid down in the word of God to be one main ground of all sin and of the neglect of all duties You careless souls did you beleive and remember that you must die and come to judgement that your naked souls and naked sins must shortly stand before the most tremendous direful Judge of quick and dead the reflection hereof would be as a knife at your throats as a sword at your breast or as a hand-writing on the wall to retard and hinder your constant and desperate course of wickedness O what horrid hellish outrages are now committed and that deliberality impudently obstinately even against the light of nature Conscience Scripture What Cursing Lying Swearing Blaspheming Sabbath-breaking Cheating Couzening Stealing what wantonness filthiness uncleanness swinish drunkenness covetousness earthly-mindedness what mocking scoffing wrath envy malice pride passion and spiritual wickedness too as unbeleif a theism impenitency hypocrisie apostacy hatred of God his people ministers wayes and ordinances every where aboundeth Men declare their sins like Sodom and are not ashamed of the unfruitful works of darkness and why but because they doe not set their minds and hearts upon their latter end Poor dying sinners Let me out of tender compassion to your bleeding and almost sinking souls intreat you as for the Lords sake to goe down to the grave to go down to hell in your thoughts and stop here and think of the King of terrours the worm of Conscience the approach of Devils the burning lake the bottomless pit the loss of God of Christ of Heaven and your precious souls remember those fiery scorching endless flames the presence and company of Devils Reprobates and damned spirits and your sweet morsels will be gall and wormwood to you these amazing things being truly reflected on will be as lightning in your eyes as thunder
all these things and stand before the Son of man Luk. 21. 36. Neither doth our dear Lord Jesus press that on us which he did not practice for being sensible of the bitter and most dreadful cup of his Fathers wrath prayed Father if it be possible let this cup pass Matth 26. 39. Sinners let me tell you as secure and sensless as you are an awakning impression of approaching death and judgement upon your souls would be as the cry at midnight to excite and stir you up to get in your Oyle and to trim your lamp The Virgins both wise and foolish were all asleep and secure enough until that sudden and amazing cry was heard behold the Bridegroom cometh go you forth to meet him Math. 26. 6. Then they all arose and trimmed their Lamps 'T is the storm and rain that hastens the Bee into the Hive that brings the Traveller into his Inn the Ship into the Hare bour so likewise the sense of death the dead and drousie Professor unto his prayer in their afflictions they will seek me early Hos 5. 15. Anh eart-affecting meditation of unchangeable eternity will be as a voice from the clouds crying hast sinner hast post hast hast as for thy life in the work of faith and repentance in parting with sin and closing with Jesus Christ without which there will be no hope Noah was moved with fear and prepared and got into the Ark to the saving of his house when the secure deluded world died by the deluge Heb. 11. 7. Knowing the terrour of the Lord we perswade men 2 Cor. 5. 11. You wretched sinners that will not beleive or consider until you are just dropping into the pit if you had but a little cranny to look into the other world how violent and resolute would you be in the speedy prosecution of your known duty you would examine prove and try your selves you would read hear meditate watch pray repent fear love obey more then ever Did you see the night will come is coming and that the dayes of darkness shall be many whatsoever you do you would do it with your might Eccl. 9. 10. Now before the decree bring forth before the day pass as the chaff before the fierce anger of the Lord come upon you seek ye the Lord for how shall you escape if you neglect so great salvation Zeph. 2. 23. Heb. 2. 3. Reas 5. You are to consider your latter and because there lyeth your highest wisdom O that they were wise c. If you would be so wise as to exceed all the Wise men great Statists and Polititians in the world it must be in considering of and preparing for your end Sirs in this you are most concerned because hereby you will promote your own interest for it will make a man profitable to himself wise for himself Job 22. 2. Prov. 9. 12. 'T is true wisdome to understand this viz. to be wise to that which is good Rom. 16. 19. to be wise in Christ to secure the cheifest good is the best wisdom There are many worldly wise men who while they live provide for every thing but death and they are often ready to dye before they begin to live in a spiritual sense and is it not a very unfit and sad season to prepare for death when it s a burden to live And indeed such are the many evils attending old age that men can have no pleasure in them Eccl. 12. 1 And shall these be accounted the only wise men that are but wise in their Generation to get the world to pursue lying vanities and forsake their own mercies to hew out cisterns broken cisterns rhat can hold no water and forsake the fountain of living water this is to prefer Pebbles before Pearls to gain Larth and to lose Heaven Jer. 2. 13. Jonah 2. 8. Math. 16. 26. To be happy for a time and miserable to eternity True wisdom and serious consideration is exercised about things good evil yea it is conversant about the best good how it may attain it and about the worst evil how it may impede avoid and escape it chusing the most adequate and effectual means to bring it to pass This excellent divine wisdom is proper and profitable to direct Prov. 10. 10. and so it doth every considering godly man while he lives firstly and firmly to secure that which he hath of greatest value viz. a precious soul more worth then any thing he stands possessed of If all the Rocks were Pearls all the earth and Heaven Gold or if all the water in the vast Ocean were converted into Crystal or the most precious stones in the world and put all into one scale and the soul into the other scale the soul would weigh it all down Our dear Lord tells us that the gaining of the whole world is an invaluable consideration to the loss of our soul Math. 16. So that he must be wise indeed that hath gotten a Cabinet for this rare incomparable Jewel where it will be for ever safe He that winneth souls is wise saith the wisest of a meer man Prov. 11. 30 and sure then he is so that saves his own Again he that considereth his end is in the very way to procure and make the best friend that will certainly stand him in stead to purpose and in the greatest peril viz. God Christ Angels Saints Conscience Scripture his real friends When once the breach is made up between God and the poor soul who can harm or hurt it If God be for us who can be against us Rom. 8. I will lay me down and sleep in peace Psa 14. 8. Moreover he provideth against the greatest wants by the laying up for a spending time There was not a man to be found in all Egypt so wise as Joseph who fore-seeing their want filled the store-houses against the years of Famine He that gathereth his meat in the Summer saith Solomon is wise Prov. 10. 5. Consider the time of youth is your Summer old-age a sick-bed is not a gathering but a spending time and you are not wise wise towards God wise for your precious soules that do not make it your business to Trade and lay up a stock and store against that time Many a silly soul like the wanton Grashopper leaps and ckips chirps and sings all the Summer and when the Winter cometh perisheth for want But the truly serious and considering soul like the laborious Bee or Ant toils and labours in the Summer And that man might put off sloth and learn his duty and so provide for time to come Solomen sends him to the Ant Go to the Ant thou sluggard consider her wayes and be wise which provideth her meat in the Summer and gathereth her food in Harvest Prov. 6. 6 8. And so the wise in heart that trade for eternity lay up the best supplies against the evil day which are the favour of God an interest in Christ pardon of sin peace of conscience a stock of
prayers rich and choice experiences and love-tokens of their fathers favour the evidences for their heavenly Country This is the hidden and heavenly treasure of the godly man who only is called the man of wisdom Micah 6. 9. Besides he preventeth the worst evils viz. the guilt of sin the sting of death sorrows of hell terrours of Conscience the wrath of God the loss of God his soul and heaven This infinite and irreparable evil or loss he shall never sustain because this timely consideration of death and judgement will be a means to fit him for it They that were ready went in to the Marriage Matth. 25. 10. But for you that are careless of your immortal souls that think not of death that will not consider your latter end if infinite mercy doth not speedily prevent you will certainly dye without wisdom if you do not seasonably secure your souls make God and Christ your friends while the poor people of God lay up a treasure in heaven a good foundation against the time to come You will treasure up wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgement of God Rom. 2. 5. And this is the doleful case of many worldly wise men of those too whose office and imployment is to keep if it might be others alive viz. to cure diseases and prevent death It is observed concerning Paracelsus a great Physitian a man very skilful in Chymical Experiments that he bragged and boasted that he had attained to such wisdom in discerning the constitutions of men and in studying remedies that whosoever did follow his rules and keep his directions should never dye by any disease casually he might and of age he must but he would undertake to secure his health against diseases A bold and most presumptuous undertaking But he who by Art promised to protect others could not by his art make himself a protection in the prime of his age who died before or when he had lived but thirty years Poor mortals sith that thou cant prevent death it is your wisdome to prepare for it and forasmuch as you cannot by any means power or skill keep off the stroak of death get while you may a remedy or Antidote against the sting of Death that when you dye you may not dye unpreparedly or dye without wisdom For man in honour that understandeth not is like the beast that perisheth Psal 49. 20. So died that miserably mistaken rich man who though by himself or others judged wise in the account of the only wise God was a very fool who providing only for the time of life and not for death did deserve the name of thou fool This night shall thy soul be requir'd Lu. 12. 20. a dark and dreadful night indeed in which he lost both worlds at once earth and heaven too And will you say that you are wise and not consider what your end will be The five Virgins are called foolish Virgins but why because they did not make provision for the Bridegroom 's coming and when they came to the Door it was shut upon them ah sad and dreadful disappointment Mat. 25. 10. But the diligent and prepared soul that hath gotten in his oyl and made all ready is in a capacity to look upon Death with a smiling aspect because the deadly poyson and sting is out and it can but kill the body 't is not able to hurt the soul But the sleepy secure sinner will be dreadfully surprized as Belshazzar was by the hand writing that appeared on the wall the terrifying and amazing sight of which changed his countenance and troubled his thoughts so that neither his Wine his wives or Concubines could comfort him who had lifted up himself against the Lord of Heaven Dan. 5. Sinners Consider the King of terrours is a terrible sight and none more then to those that have their heaven here it will be to such as the tearing their caul from their very hearts worse then cutting off a Member from the body for many have suffered the loss of Members to save their lives O death death death how bitter bitter is the remembrance of thee to the man that is at ease in his possession And let me tell you evils and dangers by how much the more sudden and unexpected they are by so much the more dreadful and astonishing they are What a sad and hidious cry was there in Egygt when at midnight God smote their first-born and also when the Earth opened her mouth and swallowed up Korah and his cursed company that went down alive into the pit insomuch that all Israel fled at the cry of them for they said lest the earth swallow us up also Numb 16. 31 32 34. And how terrible was that sudden shower of fire and brimstone upon filthy Sodom after a bright Sun-shine morning Gen. 19. 23 34 So when grim and ghashly Death cometh in a black night and draweth the curtain and looketh upon the secure sinnet it will be very formidable for who can look Death in the face that dare not look God or his own conscience in the face But the sincerely godly man fitted for death may look and live above the fear of Death and Hell and welcome Death as old Jacob did the Waggons that his son Joseph sent to fetch him down to Egypt when he saw the waggons the spirit of Jacob their Father revived Gen. 46. 27. Death though a grim Porter will open the gate of Glory to every Beleiver and let them into their Fathers house for both life and death are theirs 1 Cor. 3. 22. Blessed are the dead that dye in the Lord Rev. 14. 13. To me to live is Christ and to dye is gain Phil. 1. 11. Whoso is wise will observe these things These are the reasons why your latter end must be considered The application If it be a duty so necessary to mind your end I shall descend to improve it by way of Application Vse This calls aloud unto all you unconverted sinners that have made no preparation for Death and Judgement to stand and wonder or to sit down and admire at the unwearied patience the matchless and amazing mercy of the infinitely gracious and glorious God Hath the most righteous judge and sin-revenging God held your souls in life and kept you from death and Hell to this very day And will you not even to astonishment adore the unsearchable riches of grace Men commonly wonder at things above their reach or that for which they can give no reason and especially at rare singular and unmerited mercy Now stop a little and spend a few serious thoughts and consider what reason can be given that you should be numbred among the living when so many are dead that you should be in the world and so many thousands of Men Women and Children in their Graves and their precious souls you know not where Now that your bodies are not laid up in that dark and dismal prison of the Grave
each falleth in one after the other a first second and third drops down the rest not discerning the danger runs the round I shall thus apply it This day or hour a Swearer tumbleth down to hell The next a drunkard This evening or morning the pale horse mounteth one it may be a cursed Atheist or a malitious bloody persecutor or a filthy Adulterer or an idolatrous worldling and carrieth him to the place of Darkness The next day he receiveth his Commission to fetch some more of them those their brethren in iniquity that are lest behinde keep and continue their course and dance about the pit not considering they so must die and come to judgement How little do the living lay to heart this great business of their Mortality insomuch that when they would deny a thing with greatest confidence they will commonly say they thought no more of it then of their dying day as if death were not a matter of any moment but rather a meer toy or trifle not to be regarded She remembred not her last end Lam. 1. 9. You self destroying sinners Do you know that you must dye and leave the world for ever and are you so stupified and mad as not to think of Death in many dayes together yea hardly to entertain a serious thought of death and judgment at a house of mourning in the very sight of the dead you can be vain frothy jest pot pipe feast discourse of the world a sad proof that men do not consider their latter end Some at that solemn and sad season seem a little serious but as soon as the dead Corps is removed and the Grave and Coffin out of sight Death is no more remembred To make you sensible of this folly let me reason with you in a few plain hints What no thoughts of death you that have been under a sentence of death and brought to the very pits brink looking into Eternity Oh how sad is it to think how quickly those thoughts and impressions of your mortallity have worn out and past away Sinner remember and forget not those secret vows promises and engagements you then made to God viz. that you would part with sin leave your wicked company set loose to the world live godly and make it your business to be religious and loose no more of your precious time and opportunities for your soul If you have forgotten it the all-seeing and heart-searching God remembers it Know and consider in thy heart that death that did but warn thee then by sending his summons will shortly come himself Forgetful of Death and made of dust born of a woman and under a Decree not to be revoked by men or Angels Heb. 6. 27. Job 14. 3. As for man his dayes are determined the number of his months are with thee thou hast appointed his bounds that he cannot pass Not mind your death you that have sickly weak diseased bodies full of paines and aches that are so many partial quotidian deaths yea a dying daily What put off the thoughts of death thou that hast been at so many Funerals heard so many passing Bells or Knells seen so many Graves Skuls and Coffins before thine eyes Forget your death and yet sinners and sinning daily carrying the cause and sting of death in your bosoms mors in corpore the body is dead because of sin Rom. 8. 11. Thy body is but a body of death sin hath kill'd it the sentence is past Gen. 3. The wages of sin is death Rom. 6. 1. The soul that sins must dye Ezek. 18. 20. What put off this evil Day and dead in part old and cold having one foot in the grave viz. feeble knees trembling hands wrinkled faces gray or bald heads the grave being ready for you What no more serious thoughts of death and so many pieces and parcels of your selves gone before to this long home so many Relations and Children now a sleep in the dust of death are they buried in perpetual oblivion never to be remembred any more What Sinner What not think of Death and Death at thy very heels and before thine eyes whither can you direct your eyes and not see that which preacheth or representeth Death all the Winter Death is on the Trees in our Gardens in every flower At your Table every day you feed on the flesh of dead Creatures to tell you that you must die and is not death in your beds every night what is sleep but the picture and image of cold Death and your beds but the representation of your dark graves O careless besotted sinners not consider of death and have precious souls that must live or die be saved or damnted to Heaven or Hell to bliss or burning to God or Devils to Saints or cursed Reprobates as soon as the breath is gon which may be the next day or hour this pale horse death hath the red horse Hell following him Rev. 6. 8. Lastly what not think of and prepare for Death and called Christians that profess you beleive the Resurrection of the body and life everlasting a happiness beyond the Grave For in this life only saith Paul wt have hope in Christ we are of all men most miserable 1 Cor. 15. 19. Poor hardned sinners that now forget God and this great and mighty concern of your eternal souls what will you do in the day of Visitation when your iniquities shall compass you about and no friend in heaven above or in earth beneath that can stand you in stead and when conscience like a bold sturdy Sergeant shall take you by the throat and summon you in the Name of the great Judge to come and stand at or before the judgement seat Vnderstand ye brutish among the people and ye fools when will ye be wise Psal 94 8. to understand this to provide for your latter end 2. This blames the ignorant pettish and considerate soul who in an angry fit or passion wisheth for death out of a base end viz. as a writ of ease or out-let to present pain poverty sickness and other worldly troubles and perplexities not rightly considering how terrible death is or what are the dreadful consequences of it Now that we may be convinced of this sin and folly give me leave to tell you that between the worst longest and deepest miseries and calamities of this life and those after death there is no proportion but an exceeding distance Poor deluded souls what is the bite of a flea to the sting of a Serpent or a scratch on the hand to a stab at the heart what 's the heat and smart of a little candle to a hot fiery furnace or a devouring flame What 's a drop of gall to a Sea or Ocean of poyson or what is pain forture or anguish for an hour to intollerable misery time without end into which to the unconverted death will certainly be the door and are you so mad to imagine that there is nothing in the other world to be
pretend to beleive these things we may see them as busie as a company of Ants in a sunny day and that the general course of men hath no tendency towards this end but indeed a sad and woeful incongruity 2. The second cause is want of spiritual and divine wisdom It was for want of that wisdom which is from above that the Israelites did not consider O that they were wise said God They are a Nation void of counsel neither is there any understanding in them Deut. 32. 28. If men were wise for their precious and eternal souls they would consider what is here to be done and what is like to be their condition in the other world The prudent man fore-seeth the evil or considereth the evil and hideth himself When God by the mouth of Moses threatned to plague the Egyptians by the Pestilence Haile and Fire he that beleived and feared the word of the Lord amongst the servants of Pharoah made his servants and cattel flee into the house and were preserved Exod. 9. 20. So the soul that is truly wise to consider of the danger of beingdestroyed by the grievous hail and fire of Gods wrath will flee into the hiding place viz. under the wing of the great and glorious Mediator where alone there is true succour But he that did not fear or consider of the danger left his servants and cattle in thâ— field and were destroyed Exod. 9. 21 25. 3. The third hindrance is sensuality worldly pleasures and cares these carry away the heart from the true consideration The Israelites confluence of creature-comforts caused them to forsake and to forget God Deut. 32. 14. 15 16 17 18. The old world was eating drinking marrying and giving in marriage not considering of their danger till the flood came and took them all away Matth. 24. 38 39. The men of the earth do so mind earthly things that their hearts are surfeited and drunken with the care of it Luke 21. 34. And while mens minds and thoughts are carri'd so vehemently after the world to make provision for their life they can think but little of their death Luk 12. 15 16 17 18. 4. The fourth obstruction is a plague upon the heart and desperate security proceeding from it No bonds next to death are so strong to keep men under as security and senslesness of Spirit So dead a sleep possesseth more of the ungodly world that they are past feeling and become so stark dead that the voice of God in the dreadful threatnings of his word and the alarum of his amazing tremendous judgement and desolating providences prevail not to awaken them The Lord hath poured out upon them the spirit of a deep sleep and hath in judgement closed their eyes that they can sin in the very face of the Judge at the very brink of hell at the very mouth and entrance into that great gulf of Eternity 5. A fifth hindrance to mens consideration of their latter end is a strong delusion of heart or satanical suggestions The old serpent and desperatively deluded hearts make them dream that God is all love that they shall have a long life that preparation for death and Eternity is a short work and that it may be done at any time namely when they have done with the world when they are old or lying on a sick bed They say in their hearts 't is but beleiving or repenting and saying Lord have mercy upon me let me die the death of the righteous Under this deadly delusion they dream of heaven and go laughing to hell 1 Thes 5. 3. And that which doth much encrease this stupidity may be the want of or neglect of a powerful and soul searching ministry whose office as watchmen is to foresee the danger and to warn and awaken secure sinners crying aloud to them in the name of the Lord Awake thou that sleepest arise from the dead and Christ shall give thee light Ephes 5. 14. But som cannot endure that Ministers should be so severe plain and peircing in their Doctrin so as to thunder and lighten in the eyes and ears of sleepy souls They are well contented to sit under those that daub with untempered mortar and who sow pillows for their arm holes under whose ministry they may take a nap and sleep it out But they hate him that reproveth in the Gate that galls cuts and wounds their Consciences just like the gall'd-backt horse that bites and kicks at him that would heal him A person of no mean quality speaking his opinion of several ministers said such a man I can hear and such a one I can hear very well but for the third he mentioned that was wont to lay the ax to the root of the Tree and grapple with the heart I cannot endure to hear him for he alwayes grates upon my conscience 6. Men do not consider their latter end because they are afraid to do it 1. First to wanton sinners the remembrance of death is a bitter Pill that will not suffer the pleasures of sin to go down so sweetly Therefore they say to the thoughts of Death as the Governour to Paul Go thy way for this time when I have a convenient season I will send for thee Serious thoughts of death and Judgement to come as the hand-writing on the wall will damp the spirits and mar the mirth of the greatest Prince or gallant in the world 2. They fear to think of death because they have made no preparation for it viz They have not believed repented liv'd a life of holiness so as to make God their friend A bankrupt that oweth many hundred pounds more then he is worth is afraid to cast up his Accompts so poor and impenitent sinners that are indebted to God that owe him ten thousand talents are unwilling to think of death because death will say unto them come give an account of your Stewardship for you must pay the utmost farthing 3. They are afraid to think of death by reason of the dreadful consequences of death as it relates to both worlds The change that death makes as to this present world is very amazing 1. It brings unavoidable dissolution or separation of soul and body these two dear companions that have lived and converst together and sin'd together for many years must then part and a living man will become a dead Carcase fit for nothing but a grave and the soul must have another habitation Job 17. 13 14. Job 19. 26. Well might Death be called the King of terrours 2. It is matter of fear to leave this world that hath been so pleasing and delightsom and for which we have toyl'd and labour'd so many years in one night to loose it all For when the departing hour cometh you may take a view of all your comforts which you have had under the Sun and helps for heaven viz. Husbands Wives Parents Children Kinsfolk Friends jolly Companions Gold Silver Houses Lands sweet and delicate Banquets pleasing Bargains
and say we must now part farewell for ever We shall never see or enjoy you more we shall never eat drink or converse more buy or sell more all our fleshly and sensual delights are ended our joy our mirth is ceased and all the blessed advantages for our salvation now will terminate Farewel the means of grace and all the golden opportunities for our souls farewell all those faithful Ministers that we have heard farewel all those powerful awakening Sermons that have sounded in our ears farewell all the blessed Sabbaths farewell all the Counsels Examples Reproofs Prayers of our serious and religious friends and Relations we shall never see the face of a Minister more or hear a Sermon more never have the door of grace and life opened to us any more for ever And what remains but a doleful remembrance of those good things that are past and gone and a severe strict account that is yet behind O dreadful change and loss indeed to them that make the world their home that have their heaven on this side heaven and no provision or portion beyond the grave The thoughts of which made a wicked young man very thriving in the world to utter these words If I live I shall be a rich man but this is the plague of it I must die which accordingly came to pass not long after 3 No wonder death is so terrible for after death the judgement Death is a Purservant that summons guilty souls to comend give an account at Gods dreadful bar And what more terrible to the Malesactorthen the sight and presence of an angry Judge While Paul reasoned of judgment Felix trembled and bid him be gone that Doctrine did so gall him that he could not endure it Acts 24. 25. Vse 2. The second use is to exhort perswade and stir you up to put this duty of so great and infinite concernment into practice O Sirs I beseech you to entertain some timely thoughts of your dying hour that death and you may be more familiar The best friend you have in heaven and earth longs to see it done O that therewere such an heart in them Now if you would do any thing in this blessed work viz. to prepare for death and judgement it must be done 1. Suddenly 2. Seriously 3. Effectually 1. It must be done suddenly it s a business of that importance that must not be neglected or delay'd for a moment of time Did you but see that you are upon the confines of eternity and in danger every day of being undone for ever you would quickly come to a resolution To further and encourage you consider 1. Life as dear and precious as it is is very uncertain What a nothing is this life a wind a vapour a dream a breath a bubble How soon may the Thread be cut the Glass run or this bright burning Lamp be dim and out when how or where this short dying life will terminate thou dost not know Whether at home or abroad among they friends or strangers in the field or house at thy table or in thy Bed who can tell 2. Death may come suddenly When the pase horse will set forth whether in the morning or at mid-day or midnight no man can tell thee There is a fatal hour which none can pass Luk. 12. 20. Psal 73. 18. 19. Psal 64. 7. 1 Thes 5. 3. 3. When death comes it strikes sure This King of terrors on the pale horse always rides the circuit and doth execution where-ever he cometh no shield or buckler or armour of proof can defend us no not an army of guard of men or Angels If dreadful death finds a King on his Throne or a beggar on the dunghil it 's all a case The strength of man though a Sampson this great Leviathan Death counts but a straw death doth his work speedily easily witness the last plague I shall adde here 1. Death calls warnings and alarums are very frequent not one of you but have had many a call and knock to mind you of death 2. Deaths commands are peremptory he brings his warrant a long with him Death coms in the name of the terrible Judge takes his Commission out of the court of heaven in order to the accomplishment and execution of an eternal irrevocable decree so that he must doe his work will have his Errand If a man had Mines of Gold and Silver to give it cannot deliver from the arrest of this inexorable Serjeant 3. Deaths Conquest is great I know thou wilt bring me to death and the place appointed for all living What man is he that liveth and shall not see death Thou hast set his bounds that he cannot pass They that have conquer'd Kingdoms and Countries and carried all before them have been subjected by death when death comes and takes a man by the throat though the proudest stoutest strongest in the world he must go willing or unwilling 't is all one to death 'T is observable that of bad men their souls are not resign'd but taken away What is the hope of the hypocrite though he hath gained when God taketh away his soul Job 27. 8 20. A tempest stealeth him away in the night This night shall thy soul be required death will not stay a night T is in vain for them that are strong and lively to say to death go to the wrinkled faces to the gray heads to the pile cheeks to the naked backs the dry bons to the dry breasts meddle not with this young man strike not this comely beautiful woman that is in the flower and prime in nature Go to yonder consumptive declining decaying dying old man go to that weak wither'd old woman Let me alone or be excus'd O but death regards it not For this great Conquerour death knocks as often at the young mans door as at the door of the old woman Death arrests and carrieth away the strong the healthy the rich the honourable the learned prisoners to the grave as often as the weak the sickly the poor the base and ignorant 2 You are to do it seriously with thy soul The living will lay it to heart Eccl. 7. 2. The dead cannot there 's no device in the grave Then go about it now in good earnest before old age and death cometh 3. Do it effectually go thorow with the work leave it not undone or but done to halves let every lust be mortified every duty performed every grace exercis'd As good never a whit as never the near Now you have opportunity before you the day of grace is continued Christ is at the door open to him and make all sure for if ever thou be justified pardoned sanctified it must be now The considerations to perswade you are these following Motive 1. Consider there 's an absolute and indispensible necessity for the doing of it a present necessity an infinite and eternal necessity other things may be done this must be done and its more then time this great
work were done and finished 'T is the grand business of your life timely and truly to prepare for death and judgment It were better that all your concerns in the world were wholly neglected namely Husband wife Children buying selling seed-time harvest omitted let all run to ruine then to hazard lose and undo your souls for this will certainly ruine body and soul for ever O seriously mind how little you have done in the time of your life past and how uncapable you will be to do any thing at the end of time when you come to take up your lodging in a grave O remember the dayes of darkness they will be many Eccl. 1. 18. They that have been in the Grave a thousand years have done nothing neither can you when you come there Eccl. Now for you that have lived some twenty thirty forty fifty or threescore years and done nothing in order to a preparation for your everlasting state it is high time to begin the work The most of you are so sensless as not to consider or entertain a thought of death till you hear the Bell or see a Grave or Coffin or till death comes within your walls and knocks at your beds head when you see a Friend a Child a brother a Husband or Wife gasping and dying till you see him bedewed with his cold sweats and groaning with dying pangs till your eyes thus affect your hearts your hearts are seldom affected with the sence of your mortality Now sith it must be done and done suddenly resolve in spight of men and devils and all the world to set about the work Motive 2. Consid It may be done you are in a capacity to do it adored for ever be free grace 1. Time and opportunity is yet before you The Torch burns the Sun shines yet it is day though not morning some sands are behind though not a whole glass Some of you are old lame deaf but not dead others weak sick langishing but alive If the Sun were set the Candle out the Glass run farewell all hope of heaven or of altering your condition for ever They that are gone down to the dead and among the damned may and do reflect with torment upon the opportunitiesonce offered to make them happy but can call back none that 's impossible 2. God is willing to help if you go to him Thine is the power and he gives it to them that have no strength Isa 40. Duty is ours assistance and success is Gods That God who hath given you a considering season can also give a considering soul go to him upon thy knees and beg as for thy life his a speedy aid say as the woman to David Help O King or as the Father for the distressed Son Mark 9. 22. If thou cansts do any thing help us Christ did help 't is his promise seek and you shall find But it cannot be said so of separated souls because time and meanes from them is gone for ever Then in the name of the Lord quit your selves like men Wisemen that are endued with precious rational considering souls that difference you from bruits Let that noble faculty of reason be exerted in considering your latter end For consideration is a serious eager lively act or exercise of the understanding about things to be done or not to be done furthering or impeding the execution of them as it sees good It is the exercise of the mind and heart these are at work in this divine consideration Contemplatioâ— as one observes looks upon things as the eye upon the object Judicium discerneth things whether good or bad but meditation or consideration is a further inquisition into the truth Set consideration at work and not like bruits suffer your eyes ears lusts and senses to be your guides but commune with your heares consider your wayes reflect upon your actions look to your end which if you did you would not be so sensual so sinful as you have been and are Isa 1. 3. Motive 3. Consider the omitting or neglect of it will render you the worst of fools If the doing of it be your highest wisdom the not doing must needs be the greatest folly this will make you like Ephraim a silly Dove without an heart Do you know that you must die and die but once and will you not indeavour to do that well which cannot be done the second time As Luther said to his adversaries You can kill me but once ye are not able to raise me to life again and kill me the second time So say I to thee O thou seeuer sinner when thy breath is gone it will return no more O consider with a trembling heart how much depends upon this dying once namely the gaining or losing of thy dear precious soul the gainingor loosing of the favour of God the fruition of God the joyes of heaven or the torments of hell hangs upon it When death comes your eternity is cast the very next moment after you have shot the black a mazing gulf you shall see know what you shall be and where you shall be to all eternity And will you judg the men of the earth or worldly wise men the wisest men who take care for the body and neglect the soul that make provision for time but none for eternity O Sirs if you would but trace them to a sick bed a death-bed from thence into eternity and to Gods dreadful tribunal you might easily determine Ier. 17. 11 Luke 12. 19 20. Luke 16. 22 23. Rev. 6. 25. Mot. 4. In a every little time you present powerful and awakening helps and advantages to excite and put you in mind of the other world will be past and gone And these are cheifly three viz. 1. Awakening Ordinances 2. Awakening Providences 3. Awakening Convictions 1 Awakening Ordinances will have an end The faithful powerful Ministers of the Gospel that watch for your souls and whose office it is to fire the Beacons and give the alarum will we know not how soon finish their work These Boauergeses and Embassadours of the Lord that preach the dreadful and amazing Doctrine of death and judgement and that with loud and earnest cries tears and fervour of spirit to make you sensible of your sin and danger will shortly be called home Moses that great Prophet after he had compos'd this excellent Song of which my Text is a part was gathered to his Fathers Noah that Preacher of Righteousness after he had for many years together warned the old world was called into the Ark and they had never a Sermon more till the wrath of God came upon them and there was no remedy 2 Pet. 2. 5. Be not therefore as your Fathers unto whom the former Prophers have cryed saying Turn ye from your evil wayes for they have not long to cry The Prophets do not live for ever Zech. 1. 4 5. You cannot rationally expect alwayes to hear the pleasant noise of Aarons Bells or the sound of
much brokeness of heart confess his sins pray and plead with God in Christ for pardon even to the wonder and amazement of those Ministers and Christians who where present And he being asked how often he prayed answered five or six times a day and it was with such meltings and multitudes of teares that did move the very bowels of the Auditors and as they said turned them into tears Thus you see how a powerful conviction of death and judgement may prevail upon the heart to make them cry to God that never prayed before As for you that can lye down at night rise up in the morning and go about the world without secret or family prayer I must tell you that you have but slight if any thoughts of death and eternity and no sence of or regard of your everlasting condition which is a sad symptom of a Christless state 6. Would you do good to others to their bodies and to their souls consider you must dye for after death you will be utterly incapacitated of doing any thing The wise man speaking of the season of doing and of the vicissitudes of mans life namely that there is a time to be born and a time to dye and he having observed the issues and changes of providence that hath made every thing beautiful in its season concludes that it is best for a man to do good in his life Eccles 3. 12. As we have therefore opportunity saith the Apostle let us do good to all men Gal. 6. 10. When it is in the power of thine hand to to do it Prov. 3. 27. Sirs the real thoughts of death will prompt you to give a portion to six and also to seven and that in season for when death comes all is gone then it s no more in power of thine hand to do Did you now beleive and consider that you must dye and give an account to God the great Landlord and Donor of all your good things great Reciepts having great accounts you would not contract your hearts and shut up your bowels against those many miserable objects who are so often in your view Now that you may be like sheep and not like swine be good in your life and let your acts of mercy be distributed in the morning the fittest season to sow this seed therefore speedily draw out thy soul to the hungry before death separate thy soul and body for with such sacrifices God is well pleased Isa 58. 10. Heb. 13. 14. 7. Would you get and keep sincerity a precious Pearl indeed think often of death and judgement Then it will be tryed then it will stand you in stead Sincerity the Scripture persection is the best of a Christian the grace of every grace for faith unfeigned and love in sincerity are the very nerves sinews of Christianity The next best to the precious blood and righteous of our glorified Redeemer to plead for us at the hour of death and in the Court of Heaven is truth in the in ward parts Isa 38. 3. To be a mourner in Sion is matter of solace and real comfort but to be a sinner in Sion is sad and it will be a matter of torment A Judas among the Apostles a Devil in Samuel's Mantle is a Devil indeed The sinners in Sion are afraid and cause enough for to live and dye a hypocrite is most dreadful because hypocrisie will certainly bring you down to hell yea the hottest place of that devouring fire and everlasting burning shall be the Hypocrites portion Isa 33. 14. Mat. 24. 5. 8. Lastly would you redeem your time and be greedy of getting grace in the day of grace for the present spiritual and eternal salvation of your souls think seriously of your end You sleepy secure souls did you consider that the night of death will come certainly and may come suddenly you would work while it is day and not be so mad as to put off beleiving repenting and soul afflicting-work self-trying and approving work until the evil day of old age a sick bed or dying pangs seize upon you Consider a death-bed repentance is seldom had and seldom good or a sick-bed repentance is seldom a sound but often a sick repentance Now if you would imitate your Lord to work while it is day remember you must dye John 9. 4. Directions and helps to consider of your latter end Direct 1. Search diligently to find out what it is that keeps you and the serious thoughts of death and eternity at so great a distance and cry mightily to God and speedily to remove it If it be either Ignorance Atheisme Unbeleif Sensuality Earthly-mindedness or Security be deeply sensible of it and set Prayer to work pour out thy very soul to God with greatest fervour and importunity Say as Meses Who knoweth the power of thine anger even according to thy fear so is thy wrath So teach us to number our dayes that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom Psa 96. 11 12. Sirs 't is spiritual wisdom will cause you to consider then cry after knowledg and lift up thy voice for understanding Prov. 2. 3 4. For she is thy life Prov. 4. 13 it s as much as thy life and soul is worth Then enter into thy Closet and fall down upon thy knees and pray to God in the name of Christ for spiritual wisdome we must seek it Ezek 36. 37. And god will give it James 1. 5. Beg more then for thy life for a truly wise and awakened heart withou which the great concerns of God and thine Immortal soul be for ever neglected Direct 2. Diligently and faithfully use and improve the most awakening means which have a tendency hereunto 1. Set your selves under a powerful faithful and soul-searching Ministry who make the conversion of souls their main business A lazy sleepy minister is nor like to waken a secure sinner the conviction and conversion of souls is not the mark they shoot at Resolve to hear have countenance and encourage those that grapple most with the conscience and earnestly endeavour to drive and draw soules to Jesus Christ by setting the blessing and the curse life and death before them Conviction leads the way to conversion as the needle to the thread what 's a plaistâ—r worth where there is no wound 't is the broken bones cry out for help the whole need not the Physitian General overly preaching is like the sword in the scabbard that doth not cut or wound or like Physick in the bottel that doth not penetrate or work but plain particular convincing preaching such as Nathans to David or Peters to the Jews 2 Sam. 12. 7. Acts 2. 36. is like the sword in the bowels or Physick in the body that will pain to purpose Those Preachers that have no faculty of reproving and convincing sleepy secure sinners are like a company of drone Bees that have lost their sting being good for nothing But they that have the charge of so many Golden Fleeces
cannot live without him or be absent from him Having tasted of the Grapes of Eshcol he must go to Canaan to see the good Land that goodly Mountain A foresight or glimps of the sweetness beauty and glory of the Lord Jesus will cause most vehement longing to be with him Now let thy servant depart in peace for mine eyes have seen thy salvation For this we groan earnestly And O how confidently quietly and comfortably may such a soul entertain the thoughts of death that hath sincerely repented of all sin and to whom sin is so greivous a burden that he would dye to be rid of it And whose soul is â—â—l'd and fraughted with grace and assured of glory and his heart sent as a Harbinger to Heaven before him And indeed a serious and hearty consideration of our eternal state would provoke us to press earnestly after all this To close up all let me ask you as in the presence of the great Judg of quick and dead at whose dreadful tribunal you must all shortly stand these following Queries Quer. 1. First Whether a seasonable preparation for death and Judgement viz. how you may escape Hell and come safe to Heaven be not the most urgent and important business that you have in all the world Let your conscience judge and determine Quer. 2. Are not they in a very happy condition that do believe repent and turn to God with their whole heart who by living a life of grace are truly prepared for death and out of the dreadful hazzard of loosing Heaven Rom. 8. 1. Psal 37. 37. Quer. 3. Is it not possible that you being yet on this side the Grave and Hell may prepare for this evil day were you resolv'd upon it would be done you have often intended it promised it when shall it be none but the Devil and your flesh will stop and hinder you Quer. 4. Do you firmly beleive the things here will fail that death will come that sin that accursed thing will sting and that the impenitent sinners case at the hour of death wil be sad and very desperate Let me say to all such there is not a night you lye down upon your beds but you run a very great hazzard If death should call and you not ready you must go though you be ruin'd to eternity Matth. 25. 10 11 12 16 22 23. Quer. 5. Have you so liv'd as to be fit to lye down in a Grave to rise again and stand before God who is a consuming fire Do you know your selves in a state of grace that you are new born that your evidences for heaven are clear and certain is your work done do your Lamps burn and have you a well-grounded assurance that you are in the Number of those to whom death will be a priviledge Phil. 21. Quer. 6. Can you chearfully and without dread entertain the thoughts of a dissolution and of leaving all your earthly and sensual delightes Suppose the dreadful Judge should at this instant send death into this place with the names of five or six of you in his writ or forehead and death should say you and you this man and that woman must go along with me I have received a comand from the great and terrible God who hath the power of death and of hell to bring you young man young woman this day or night before the Judgement seats I have often warned you by sending my Deputies and and that this ten twenty or forty yeares every Coffin every dead Corps or Grave you have seene was so many intimations of my coming Now saith death I am come look here upon my commission see my dart and my sting This dart must kill the body and send thy soul unto eternity I command thee this moment to bid adieu to and take thy leave of Friends Relations Houses Lands pleasures of sin once for all Thou shalt never see or jnjoy them more Luke 12. 19. 20. O how can you think of your dying the worlds burning the trumpers Sounding the deads rising and staunding at the Bar and not fear and tremble You Sons and Daughters of pleasures did you consider what horror and astonishment dogs you as the heels which will inevitable come upon you as travel on a woman with child you would not say unto God depart and treasure up wrath lay up scoorges and scorpions for your distressed souls against the last day Quer. 7. Let me ask you that pass for Saints and hope for Heaven whether your consciences in secret do not tell you that you have made poor preparation for it yea it may have done less for Heaven then many that are now in hell You say you must dye and come to judgement but how stands the case as to the other world If you look downward to this world it s well but how is it within with your precious soul Do you beleive that Atheists Unbeleivers Drunkards Swearers Murderers Thieves Persecutors Lyars Sabbath-breakers Adulterers worldlings are going swiftly to hell Do you beleive that Christs flock is little and not fear your selves Do you think that Esau Judas Ahab Agrippa Herod Simon Magus the foolish Virgins are in hell and yet confident of your going to heaven These have out done many of you Esau wept and cryed for the blessing Heb. 12. 17. Ahab humbled himself 1 Kings 12 29. Herod did many things and heard John joyfully Mark 16. 20. Agrippa was almost a Christian Acts 6. 28. The Scribe was not far from the kingdom of God Mark 12. 34. The foolish Virgins were not prophane they took care to trim their Lamps and knock at the door Now what sins have you lest what grace have you exercis'd what duties have you performed and how Take heed you be not deceived Strive to enter in at the strait gate for many will seek to enter in and shall not be able Luk. 13. 24. Quer. 8. 4. You having so many warnings time and means to prepare for death judgment and will not who will pity you when you perish God will not Prov. 1. 26 27. Christ will not Luke 19. 27. Angels Saints Ministers will not all will say away with them let them be damn'd And O what a killing and amazing sight will Christs coming in the clouds be to all that either denied his coming or who would not prepare for it His incarnation was terrible Matth. 2. 3. His Crucifixion was more terrible Luk. 23. 44. 45 47. 48 But his being on the tribunal will be most terrible Then shall the tribes of the earth mourn Math. 24. 3. And men cry to the rocks and mountaines to fall on them Rev. 6. 15 16. When they shall see so many thousands and millions of men and women dragged down with all the Devils of hell to that burning lake of fire and brimstone How will they then mourn for sorrow of heart and howl for vexation of spirit and with bitterness of soul wish they had never heard of Christ that they had been born among the Heathen or never had a being or enjoy'd a life of pleasure upon the Earth How will the wretched sinner beat his breast pluck off his hair tear his bowels crying out when he sees all hope is gone O that I had now no soul or that this immortal soul were mortal that I might now dye and breath no more or that my sentence might be but to lodge with Devils in this burning lake ten thosand years that so I might not remain in a state of banishment from the face and presence of God to all eternity O then pray that serious thoughts of death may be alwayes upon thine heart and whethere thou goest let them go and where thou lodgest let them lodg that thou mayest speak of it to thy Children and Family when thou sitttest in thine house and when thou walkest by the way and when thou lyest down and when thou risest up O let these great things of death and judgment be bound as a signe upon thine hand and write them upon the posts of thine house and on thy gates that they may be always before thine eyes and for thy good alwayes that thou may'st beware least thou forget the Lord thy God and the everlasting concernments of thine immortal soul and gods anger be kindled against thee and destroy thee suddenly with a mighty destruction Consider now what I have spoken and the Lord give thee understanding in all things 2 Tim. 2. 7. Which is that God wisheth in the Text O that they were wise that they understood this that they would consider thrir latter end FINIS 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Tempus spatium temporis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 est opportunitas Qui quid atotiis retro est mors tenet Sen. in Epist Prov. 22. 6. Luke 13. 24. 1 Cor. 9 24. 25. Eph. 6. 12. 1 Tim. 6. 12. Schola crucis est Schola lucis Luth. Ps 94. 12. Math. 4. 16. 2 Tim. 1. 10. Ezek. 13. 8. Rom. 5. 8. Isa 61. 1. John 6. 16. Tempus acceptum or tempus acceptabile Bez. in loc Quodoffertur gratia ex gratia Dei est qui sua contuit rebus omnibus momenta ut oblatam occasionum arripiamus The youth that lately was hang'd for murdering his Fellom Servant confess'd that his Sabbath breaking made way for all his other prodigious sins Tempus non potest Deo consecrari nisi quo modo redemptum Calvin in loc * Punctum est quod vivimus puncto minus Nonexignum temporis habemus sed multum perdimus Sen. Enigua pars est vitae quem nos vivimus
the Silver Trumpet the Sun will go down over the Prophets Therefore while the watchmen are upon the walls take warning and finish your work while you have the light O Sirs improve for your eternal advantage those plain and powerful Sermons which you hear and read and let it not be accounted legal preaching Who were more severe in their preaching then our Lord and his fore-runner whom we ought to imitate otherwise we draw the horrible sin of bloud-guiltiness upon our souls Ezek. 3. 18 9. 'T is observ'd that there are more dreadful doctrines scatter'd up and down in the New Testament then in the Old the powerful application of which is very necessary both for secure sinners and drowsie Saints Holy David after his fall fell into a deep sleep and did not awake until Nathan came and told him plainly and particularlly of his sin And of the Virgins we read while the Bridegroom tarri'd they all slumbred and slept Mat. 25. O how many sleepy souls are there in the world and in many Cities Towns and Parishes in this Nation that will either living dying or after death sadly bewail the not improving the labours of their faithful Pastors 2. All your awakening Providences by which God warns and calls will have an end The great and glorious God for a long time together hath been speaking and calling to us by his Word and of late year she hath spoken by his dreadful Rod and that very terribly The Sword the Plague the Fire the decay of trade and other Judgements are the loud voice of an angry God Those afflictions on our Families Relations Estates Persons are in order to awakening us out of sleep and so for our profit When Manassch was among the thorns bound with fetters carried into Babylon he be sought the Lord and humbled himself greatly 2 Chron. 33. 11 12 13. After Ephraim was chastised he awaked turned and repented for the bonds and cords of affliction do open the car to instruction then he sheweth them their work and their transgression and commandeth that they turn from iniquity Jab 6. 9 10. Jer. 13 18 19. Now to have a deaf ear to the rod and word to be hardned and secure and go on in sin under awaking and amazing providences is a dreadful judgement that which ripens men for ruine 2 Chron. 28. 22. This is that King Ahaz who in the time of his distress did trespass yet more against the Lord Jer. 5. 3. 3. Your awakening Convictions will have an end too Those secret and powerful workings strivings and struglings of the Spirit of God under the rod and in the word will be suspended Christ will not always be at the door calling knocking and his Spirit that is so much greived and oppos'd will not alwayes strive and struggle with your hearts and conciences Gen. 6. 3. Now sinners if you have any love or regard to your immortal souls before all these helps be taken away be wise to consider and prepare for your end Lest God should speedily resolve and say to you as to the Jews Isa 1. 5. Why should ye be striken any more or as Hosea 4. 17. Ephraim is joyned to Idels let him alone They will have their lusts and they shall have them As I live saith saith the Lord this iniquity shall not be purged till youdie Sith nothing will prevail I am resolved saith God they shall never hear an awakening soul-Searching Sermon more never have a Correction or Conviction more till they go down to hell Motive 5. Consider that the earnest cries tear prayers of unbeleivers when they comes to die it will be in vain fruitless and unsuccesful though you speak in the anguish of your souls and complain in the bitterness of your spirits when your flesh upon you shall have pain and your souls within you shall mourn it will be to no purpose You that will not seek God betimes and make supplication to the Almighty that will not pray while you have time to pray helps to pray health to pray encouragements to pray Now God invites you may have audience and find acceptance your prayers in a dying hour will be but the expressions of your fears and terrors arising from the sence and nearness of your danger when there will be but a step between your departing souls and the state of Devils God seldom hears from some men unless trouble sickness fear distress and anguish cometh upon them then pain will make them pray and how upon their beds and 't is but howling not Praying Hos 7. 14. But will God hear his cry when trouble cometh upon him saith Job 27. 9. No saith the Lord I will not be enquired of by you Ezek. 20. 3. Because it cometh from an evil mind or stinking breath proceeding from a corrupt rotten cursed heart and then it must needs be abominable Prov. 21. 27 15. 8. I will saith David wash mine hands in innocency and then compass thine Altar for if I regard iniquity in my heart the Lord will not hear my prayer Psal 66. 18. If God would not hear a Davids prayer a man after Gods own heart he will not hear a Devils prayer nor the prayer of a Swearer Sabbath-breaker Drunkard he heareth not sinners that like and love their lusts No saith the holy God though they seek me early they shall not find me Here note That there is a two fold early namely Gods early and mans early Gods early is in the morning of our life in the time of youth then God cals and invites to come Prov. 1. 24. Eccl. 12. 1. Mans early is in the evening or at the end of life or when man is high unto death when pain sorrow and anguish cometh upon him In their afflictions they will seek me early Hos 5. last When fear cometh as desolation and destruction cometh as a whirlwind then shall they call upon me but I will not answer they shall seek me early but shal not find me Prov. 1. 27 28. God will say to all such sinners remember it as Isaac to Abimelech Gen. 26. 27. Wherefore come ye to me seeing you hate me and have sent me away from you Or he will say as once to the Children of Israel that cryed to him in their sore distress Go cry to the Gods which ye have chosen let them deliver you in the time of your tribulation as for me I will not deliver you Judg. 10. 14. You have served the Devil embrac'd the world satisfied your lusts joyn'd with mine enemies go to the Devil go to your lusts to your wicked company let them deliver you in your distress Now death and devilsare come for you I will not own you nor your prayers your soul abhorred me my soul abhors you and your prayers depart from me I know you not Motive 6. It s the great comfort of the godly mans life to hope and know that he is fit for death Whatever be their lot and Portion in this