promise and leave us in the dust for ever It cannot be Hath he conquered Death for himself alone and not for us Hath he taken our Nature into Heaven to be there alone and will he not have all his members with him Remember then Christian when thou lookest on thy grave that Christ was buried and hath made the grave a bed of rest that shall give up her trust when his Trumpet sounds And that his Resurrection is the pledge of ours Keep therefore thy rising and glorified Lord continually in thy eye If Christ were not risen our preaching were vain and your faith were vain and all men were miserable but we most miserable that suffer so much for a life which we had no ground to hope for 1 Cor. 15 14 17 19. But now we have an Argument that Infidelity it self is ashamed to encounter with that hath been the means of the conversion of the Nations unto Christ by which we may put even Death it self to a defiance as knowing it is now a conquered thing If it could have held Christ captive it might also have held us But he being risen we shall surely rise Write it therefore Christians upon your hearts mention it more in your conference for the encouragement of your faith Write it on the grave-stones of your friends that CHRIST IS RISEN and that BECAUSE HE LIVETH WE SHALL LIVE ALSO and that OUR LIFE IS HID WITH CHRIST IN GOD though we are dead and when he shall appear who is our Life we shall also appear with him in glory John 14. 19. Col. 3. 3 4. Though we must be sown in corruption in weakness and dishonour we shall be raised in incorruption strength and honour 1 Cor. 1. 15. 42 43. While our souls behold the Lord in glory we may bear with the winter that befalls our flesh till the sping of Resurrection come Knowing that he that raised up the Lord Jesus shall also raise us up by Jesus For which cause we faint not but though our outward man perish yet the inner man is renewed day by day while we look not at the things which are seen but at the things which are not seen For the things which are seen are temporal but the things which are not seen are eternal 2 Cor. 4. 14 15 16 17 18. As we are risen with Christ to newness of life so we shall rise with him to glory Use 10. LAstly If Death be the last Enemy to be destroyed at the Resurrection we may learn hence how earnestly believers should long and pray for the second coming of Christ when this full and final Conquest shall be made Death shall do much for us but the Resurrection shall do more Death sends the separated soul to Christ but at his coming both soul and body shall be glorified There is somewhat in Death that is penal even to believers but in the coming of Christ and their Resurrection there is nothing but glorifying grace Death is the effect of sin and of the first sentence passed upon sinners but the Resurrection of the Just is the final destruction of the effects of sin And therefore though the fears of Death may perplex us me-thinks we should long for the coming of Christ there being nothing in that but what tends to the deliverance and glory of the Saints Whether he will come before the general Resurrection and reign on earth a thousand years which some expect I shall not presume to pass my determination But sure I am it is the work of faith and Character of his people to love his appearance 2 Tim. 4. 8. and to wait for the Son of God from Heaven whom he raised from the dead even Jesus who delivered us from the wrath to come 1 Thes 1. 10. and to wait for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ 1 Cor. 1. 7. and to wait for the adoption the redemption of our bodies with inward groanings Rom. 8. 23. O therefore let us pray more earnestly for the coming of our Lord and that the Lord would direct our hearts into the love of God and into the patient waiting for Christ 2 Thes 3. 5. O blessed day when the glorious appearing of our Lord shall put away all his servants shame and shall communicate Glory to his members even to the bodies that had laid so long in dust that to the eye of flesh there seemed to be no hope Though the Majesty and glory will cause our Reverence yet it will not be our terrour to the diminution of our joy It is his enemies that would not have him rule over them whom he cometh to destroy Lu. 19. 27. Behold the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his Saints to execute judgement upon all to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodlily committed and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him as Henoch the seventh from Noah prophesied Jud. 14. 15. But the precious faith of the Saints shall be found to praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ 1 Pet. 1. 7. When the chief Shepherd shall appear we shall receive a Crown of glory that fadeth not away 1 Pet. 5. 4. He that was once offered to bear the sins of many and now appeareth for us in the presence of God shall unto them that look for him appear the second time without sin to salvation Heb. 9. 24. 28. And When Christ who is our life shall appear then shall we also appear with him in Glory Col. 3. 4. The Lord shall then come to be glorified in his Saints and admired in all them that believe in that day 2 Thes 1. 10. This is the day that all believers should long and hope and wait for as being the accomplishment of all the work of their redemption and all the desires and endeavours of their souls It is the hope of this day that animateth the holy diligence of our lives and makes us turn from the carelesness and sensuality of the world For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared unto all men teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts we should live soberly righteously and godlily in this present world looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of our great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ Tit. 2. 11 12 13. The heavens and the earth that are now are kept in store by the word of God reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men And though the Lord seem to delay he is not slack of his promise as some men count slackness for a day is with him as a thousand years and a thousand years but as a day But the day of the Lord will come as a Thiefin the night in the which the Heavens shall pass away with a great noise and the elements shall melt with fervent heat the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burnt up Seeing then all
and the excellency of the Redeemers grace Adam was but to seek the continuance of his life and a translation to Glory without the terrors of interposing death He was never called to prepare to die nor to think of the state of a separated Soul nor to mind and love and seek a glory to which there is no ordinary passage but by death This is the difficulty that sin hath caused against which we have need of the special assistance of the example and doctrine and promse and Spirit of the Redeemer Adam was never put to study how to get over this dreadful gulf The threatning of death was to raise such a fear in him as was necessary to prevent it But those fears did rather hold him closer to the way of life then stand between him and life to his discouragement But we have a death to fear that must be suffered that cannot be avoided The strange condition of a separated soul so unlike to its state while resident in the body doth require in us a special Faith to apprehend it and a special revelation to discover it To desire and love and long for and labour after such a time as this when one part of us must lie rotting in the grave and the separated Soul must be with Christ alone till the Resurrection and to believe and hope for that Resurrection and to deny our selves and forsake all the world and lay down our lives when Christ requireth it by the power of this faith and hope this is a work that innocent Adam never knew This is the high employment of a Christian To have our hearts and conversations in Heaven Matth. 6. 21. Phil. 3. 20 when Death must first dissolve us before we can possess it here is the noble work of faith SECT VI. Use 4. MOreover this Enmity of Death may help us to understand the reason of the sufferings and Death of Christ That he gave his life a Ransome for us and a Sacrifice for sin and so to make satisfaction to the offended Majesty is a truth that every Christian doth believe But there was another reason of his death that all of us do not duly consider of and improve to the promoting of our Sanctification as we ought Death is so great an Enemy as you have heard and so powerful to deter our hearts from God and dull our desires to the heavenly felicity that Christ was fain to go before us to embolden the hearts of believers to follow him He suffered Death with the rest of his afflictions to shew us that it is a tolerable evil Had he not gone before and overcome it it would have detained us its Captives Had he not merited and purchased us a blessed Resurrection and opened heaven to all believers and by Death overcome him that had the power of death as Gods executioner that is the Devil we should all our life time have been still subjected unto bondage by the fears of Death Heb. 2. 14. But when we see that Christ hath led the way as the victorious Captain of our Salvation and that he is made perfect by sufferings in his advancement unto glory and that for the sufferings of death which by the grace of God he tasted for every man he is crowned with glory and honour Heb. 2. 9 10. this puts a holy valour into the soul and causeth us chearfully to follow him Had we gone first and the task of conquering Death been ours we had been overcome But he that hath led us on hath hew'd down the enemy before him and first prepared us the way and then called us to follow him and to pass the way that he hath first made safe and also shewed us by his example that it is now made passable For it was one in our Nature that calleth us his Brethren that took not the nature of Angels but of the seed of Abraham that is one with us as the Sanctifier and the sanctified are and to whom as children we are given Who hath passed through Death and the Grave before us and therefre we may the boldlier follow him Heb. 2. 11 12 13 16. Being found in fashion as a man he humbled himself and became obedient unto death even the death of the Cross and therefore God hath highly exalted him and given him a name above every name Phil. 2. 8 9. Hereby he hath shewed us that Death is not so dreadful a thing but that voluntary obedience may and must submit unto it As Abraham's faith and obedience was tryed in the offering up his Son to death at Gods command so the children of Abraham and the heirs of the promise must follow him in offering up themselves if God require it and in submitting to our natural death for that he doth require of all Examples work more then bare precepts and the Experiments of others do take more with us than meer directions It satisfieth a sick man more to read a Book of Medicinal Observations where he meets with many that were in his own case and finds what cured them then to read the Praxis or medicinal Receipts alone It encourageth the Patient much when the Physitian tells him I have cured many of your disease by such a Medicine nay I was cured thus of the same my self So doth it embolden a believer to lay down his Life when he hath not only a promise of a better life but seeth that the promiser went that way to Heaven before him O therefore let us learn and use this choise remedy against the immoderate fear of Death Let Faith take a view of him that was dead and is alive that was buried and is risen and was humbled and is now exalted Think with your selves when you must think of dying that you are but following your Conquering Lord and going the way that he hath gone before you and suffering what he underwent and conquered And therefore though you walk through the valley of the shaddow of death resolve that you will fear no evil Psal 23. 4. And if he call you after him follow him with a Christian boldness As Peter cast hinself into the Sea and walkt on the waters when he saw Christ walk there and had his command so let us venture on the jaws of death while we trace his steps and hear his encouraging commands and promises John 21. 7. Mat. 14. 28 29. SECT VII Use 5. MOreover from this Doctrine we may be informed of the mistakes of many Christians that think they have no saving grace because they are afraid of dying and because these fears deterr their souls from desiring to be with Christ And hence they may perceive that there is another cause of these Distempers even the ENMIMY of Death that standeth in the way You think that if you had any Love to Christ you should more desire to be with him and that if your treasure were in heaven your hearts would be more there and that if you truly took it for your felicity you
they have had tryal of cruel mockings and scourgings yea moreover of bonds and imprisonment they were stoned they were sawn asunder were tempted were slain with the sword Heb. 11. 35 36 37. Thanks be to God which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ 1 Cor. 15. 57. They overcome by the blood of the Lamb and love not their lives unto the death Rev. 12. 11. They fear not them that kill the body and after that have no more that they can do Luke 124. They trust upon his promise that hath said I will ransome them from the power of the grave I will redeem them from Death O Death I will be thy plagues O grave I will be thy destruction Hos 13. 14. Precious in the sight of the Lord is the Death of his Saints Psal 116. 15. Blessed are the dead which dye in the Lord from henceforth yea saith the Spirit that they may rest from their labours and their works do follow them Rev. 14. 13. SECT IX Use 7. MOreover from the Enmity of Death we may be directed which way to bend our cares and seeing where our difficulty most lyeth we may see which way our most diligent preparations must be turned Death cannot be prevented but the malignant influence of it on our souls may be much abated If you let it work without an Antidote it will make you live like unbelieving worldlings It will deterr your hearts from Heaven and dull your love to God himself and make your meditations of him and of your Everlasting Rest to be seldom and ungrateful to you And it will make you say It s good to be here and have sweeter thoughts of this present life than of your inheritance It will rob you of much of your heavenly delights and fill you with slavish fears of Death and subject you unto bondage all your lives and make you dye with agony and horrour so that your lives and deaths will be dishonourable to your holy faith and to your Lord. If it were meerly our own suffering by fears and horrours or meerly our loss of spiritual delights the matter were great but not so great But it is more than this For when our joyes are overwhelmed with the fears of Death and turned into sorrows our love to God will be abated and we shall deny him the thanks and cheerful praises which should be much of the employment of our lives and we shall be much discomposed and unfitted for his service and shall much dishonour him in the world and shall strengthen our temptations to the overvaluing of earthly things Think it not therefore a small or an indifferent matter to fortifie your souls against these malignant fears of death Make this your daily care and work your peace your safety your innocency and usefulness and the honour of God do much lie on it And it is a work of such exceeding difficulty that it requireth the best of your skill and diligence and when all is done it must be the illuminating quickning beams of grace and the shining face of the Eternal Love that must dothe work though yet your diligence is necessary to attend the spirit and use the means in subservience to grace and in expectation of these oelestiall rayes And above all take heed lest you should think that carnall mirth or meer security and casting away the thoughts of Death will serve to overcome these fears or that it is enough that you resolve against them For it is your safety that must be lookt to as well as your present ease and peace and fear must be so overcome as that a greater misery may not follow Presumption and security will be of very short continuance To dye without fear and pass into into endless desperation which fear should have wakened you to prevent is no desirable kind of dying And besides resolving against the terrours of Death will not prevent them When Death draws near it will amaze you in despight of all your resolutions if you are not furnished with a better Antidote The more jocund you have been in carnal mirth and the more you have presumptuously slighted Death it is likely your horrour will be the greater when it comes And therefore see that you make a wise and safe preparation and that you groundedly and methodically cure these fears and not securely cast them away Though I have given you to this end some Directions in other writings in the Saints Rest and in the Treatise of Self-denyal and that of Crucifying the world yet I shall add here these following helps which faithfully observed and practised will much promote your victory over Death which conquereth all the strength of flesh and glory of this world DIRECTION I. IF you would overcome the danger and the fears of Death Make sure of your Conversion that it is sound and see that you be absolutely devoted unto God without Reserves Should you be deceived in your foundations your life and hopes and joyes would all be delusory things Till sin be mortified and your souls reconciled to God in Christ you are still in danger of worse than Death and it is but the senselesness of your dead condition that keepeth you from the terrours of damnation But if you are sure that you are quickened by renewing grace and possessed by the sanctifying spirit and made partakers of the Divine nature you have then the Earnest of your inheritance Ephes 1. 14. 2 Cor. 1. 22. 5. 5. and the fire is kindled in your breast that in despight of Death will mount you up to God DIRECTION II. TO Conquer the Enmity of Death you must live by faith in Jesus Christ as men that are emptied of themselves and ransomed from his hands that had the power of Death and as men that are redeemed from the curse and are now made heirs of the grace of life being made his members who is the Lord of Life even the second Adam who is a quickning spirit The serious believing study of his design and office to destroy sin and death and to bring many Sons to glory and also of his voluntary suffering and his obedience to the death of the Cross may raise us above the fears of Death When we live by faith as branches of this blessed Vine and are righteous with his righteousness justified by his blood and merits and sanctified by his Word and Spirit and find that we are united to him we may then be sure that Death cannot conquer us and nothing can take us out of his hands For our life being hid with Christ in God we know that we shall live because he liveth Col. 3. 3. Joh. 14. 19. and that when Christ who is our life appeareth we shall also appear with him in glory Col. 3. 4. And that he will change our vile bodies and make them like to his glorious body by his mighty power by which he is able to subdue all things to himself Phil. 3. 20 21. In our own strength we
as they Am I now in flesh in fears in griefs so was David and Paul and all the Saints a while ago yea and Christ himself Am I beset with sin and compassed with infirmities and racked by my own distempered passion so were the many saints now glorified but the other day Elias was a man subject saith James to like passions as we are James 5. 17. Am I maliced by dissenting adversaries Do they privily lay snares for me and watch my halting and seek advantage against my name and liberty and life so did they by David and many other now with Christ But now these enemies are overcome Art thou under pains and consuming sicknesses are thine eyes held waking and doth trouble and sorrow wast thy spirits doth thy flesh and thy heart fail thee and thy friends prove silly comforters to thee So was it with those thousands that are now in Heaven where the night of calamities is past and the just have dominion in the morning and glory hath banished all their griefs and joyes have made them forget their sorrows unless as the remembrance of them doth promote those joyes Are thy friends lamenting thee and grieved to see the signs of thy approaching death do they weep when they see thy pale face and consumed body and when they hear thy sighs and groans Why thus it was once with the millions that are now triumphing with their Lord They lay in sickness and underwent the pains and were lamented by their friends as as thou art now Even Christ himself was once in his agony and some shake the head at him and others pitied him who should rather have wept for themselves than for him This is but the passage from the womb of mortality into the life of immortality which all the Saints have past before thee that are now with Christ Dost thou fear the dreafdul face of death Must thy tender flesh be turned to rottenness and dust and must thou lie in darkness till the Resurrection and thy body remain as the Common earth And is not this the case of all those millions whose souls now see the face of Christ Did they not lie as thou dost and die as thou must and pass by death to the life which they have now attained O then commit thy soul to Christ and be quiet and comforted in his care and love Trust him as the Mid-wife of thy departing soul who will bring it safe into the light and life which thou are yet such a stranger to But it is not strange to him though it be strange to thee What was it that that rejoyced thee all thy life in thy prayers and sufferings and labours was it not the hopes of heaven And was Heaven the spring and motive of thy obedience and the comfort of thy life and yet wilt thou pass into it with heaviness and shall thy approaches to it be thy sorrows Didst thou pray for that which thou wouldst not have Hast thou laboured for it and denyed thy self the pleasures of the world for it and now art thou afraid to enter in Fear not poor soul Thy Lord is there Thy husband and thy head and life is there Thou hast more there a thousand fold more than thou hast here Here thou must leave poor mourning friends that languish in their own infimities and troubled thee as well as comforted thee while thou wast with them and that are hasting after thee and will shortly overtake thee But there thou shalt find the souls of all the blessed Saints that have lived since the Creation till this age that are all uncloathed of the rags of their mortality and have laid by their frailties with their flesh and are made up of holiness and prepard for joy and will be suitable companions for thee in thy joyes Why shouldst thou be afraid to go the way that all the Saints have gone before thee Where there is one on earth how many are there in Heaven and one of them is worth many of us Art thou better then Noah and Abraham and David then Peter and Paul and all the Saints Or dost thou not love their names and wouldst thou not be with them Art thou loath to leave thy friends on earth And hast thou not far better and more in heaven Why then art thou not as loath to stay from them Suppose that I and such as I were the friends that thou art loath to leave What if we had dyed long before thee If it be our company that thou lovest thou shouldst then be willing to die that thou mayst be with us And if so why then shouldst thou not be more willing to die and be with Christ and all his holy ones that are so much more excellent than we Wouldst thou have our company Remove then willingly to that place where thou shalt have it to everlasting and be not so loath to go from hence where neither thou nor we can stay Hadst thou rather travel with us than dwell with us And rather here suffer with us than reign in Heaven with Christ and us O What a brutish thing is flesh What an unreasonable thing is unbelief Shall we believe and fly from the end of our belief Shall we hope and be loath to enjoy our hopes Shall we desire and pray and be afraid of attaining our desires and lest our prayers should be heard Shall we spend our lives in labour and travel and be afraid of comming to our journeys end Do you love life or do you not If not why are you afraid of death If you do why then are you loath to pass into everlasting life You know there is no hope of immortality on earth Hence you must pass whether you will or not as all your Fathers have done before you it is therefore in Heaven or no where that endless life is to be had If you can live here for ever do Hope for it if any have done so before you Go to some man of a thousand years old and ask him how he made shift to draw out his life so long But if you know that man walketh here in a vain shew and that his life is a shadow a dream a post and that all these things shall be dissolved and the fashion of them passeth away is it not more reasonable that we should set our hearts on the place where there is hopes of our continuance than where there is none and where we must live for ever than where we must be but for so short a time Alas poor darkned troubled soul Is the presence of Christ less desirable in thy eyes than the presence of such sinful worms as we whom thou art loath to part with Is it more grievous to thee to be absent from us than from thy Lord from Earth than from Heaven from Sinners than from blessed Saints from trouble and frailty than from glory Hast thou any thing here that thou shalt want in Heaven Alas that we should thus draw back from Happiness