THE DEVOTIONS OF 〈◇〉 DYING ●AN, THAT DESIRETH to Die well. devised and divulged by SAMVEL gardener Doctor of divinity, and Minister of the Church of great St. Peters in Norwich. REVEL. 14.13. Blessed are the Dead that die in the Lord, for they rest from their labours, and their works do follow them. BERNARD. Death is a passage from labour to rest: from expectation to the reward from the combat to the crown: from faith to knowledge: from a Pilgrimage to our Country: from the world to the Father. LONDON, Printed by John BILL, Printer to the Kings most Excellent majesty. 1627. TO THE RIG●● honourable Sir John SVCKLING Knight, Comptrouler of his majesties House, and one of his most Honourable privy council; And to his virtuous Wife, jane, lady SVCKLING: SAMVEL gardener wisheth the blessings of both lives. BEcause an old man is next neighbour to my Dying man, I haue something to say to him. Old age of itself is more com●●●●able than common. For few of many live till they be old: and commendable it is in its own self, and it carrieth with it reverence and respect, acconpanied with grace, and it is plighted to the righteous as a blessing, Psal. 91.16. With long life will I satisfy him. And it is to the godly, as a crown vpon their heads. Prou. 16.31. Age is a crown of glory, when it is found in the way of righteousness. And it is like Eccles. 12.5. the Almond-tree that flourisheth. But when gray hairs and manners grow not and go together, but are severed; and the older they be in age, are colder in virtue; their old age is not venerable, but despicable. Cicero in Senect. Non rugae, said honestè acta superior aetas. Not wrinkles( saith the Orator) but thy worth addeth honour to thine age. As we grow in stature and yeares, so must we in favour with God& man. Senec. Desine ea velle senex, quae voluisti puer. Seneca would aduise thee to take heed, not to lay the structure of age vpon the foundation of youth: but to loathe the things when we are old, that we loved when wee were young. Senec. Elementarius senex, ●idiculus. We are to go forward, not backward like a Crab; wee must daily increase in virtue and holinesse of life, as the moon that still waxeth till shee come to the full; as the riuers still flow, till they come to a full flood. Bee thou therefore, thou old man, a practical Christian every manner of way in holy conversation, holy meditations, in fastings oft, in prayers oft, in almsdeeds oft, in hearing sermons, in receiving the blessed Sacrament oft, in the Temple about the service of God oft, read the Bible oft, the best physic for the soul, as it pleaseth Chrysostome to say, and let not the book of the Law depart from thee, but meditate thereupon day and night, and let his laws bee thy counsellors, and his statutes thy songs, in the dayes of thy pilgrimage. Alphonsus King of Naples, notwithstanding he was encumbered with the affairs of a kingdom, a burden of itself heavy enough for any mans shoulders, yet would he never let go the blessed Bible, but perused it diligently, together with Scholies and Paraphrases vpon the text, fourteen times over, as Panormitane reporteth. If a King could find the leisure to do this, what shall I say of our elementary old men, who never yet perused the single Bible throughout in all their lives; nay perhaps haue not the Bible in their houses, less in their hearts; and being now old, they either scorn, or are loth to learn, but would turn over the book,& all matters of divinity, for Preachers to deal withall? again, if Marcus Antonius the Emperour haunted the house of Sextus the Philosopher, for learnings sake, and it irked him not in his extreme old age to continue that his course: how shall we be blameless, if we shall refuse instruction, by neglecting to repair to such as may edify us in our holy faith? It is a grace for an old man to learn. Marc. Antonius Pulchrum senescenti discere. It was the Motto of the said Emperour. Answerable whereto is this sentence of Socrates, Socrat. Praestat serò quam nunquam discere. Better late, than never to learn. But now to the point, because howsoever the young man may die soon, the old man cannot live long: and as Seneca saith, Senec. epist. 77. Mori, vnum ex officijs vitae est. It is one of the duties of life to learn to Die: therefore as the same Author saith, Wee are all our life long to learn. Seneca, Ideo tota vita discendum est. Now the chiefest point of learning, is to learn to die: therfore daily and much meditate thou thereupon. Quid fis, quid fueris, quid cris semper mediteris: Sic minus atque minus, peccatis sub●jcieris. What thou art now, what thou hast been, What thou art like to be: Consider well, and more and more From sin shalt thou be free. Seneca. lib. 2. Epist. epist. 30. Mortem venrentem nemo hilaris accipit, nisi qui se diu ad eam composuit. For no man can be willing to go with Death when he cometh, but he that hath long before fitted himself for it, as Seneca sagely saith. Senec. epist. 26. Incertum est quo in loco te mors expectet: itaque tu illu● omni loco expecta. Now because it is uncertain in what place thou must look for death, look for it in every place. wherefore above all things, let us learn the art of dying well. Wherefore Frederick the Emperour, the third of that name, being asked to what studies a man should especially give his mind: his answer was, To the knowledge of God, and to the skill of Dying. A princely answer, and most pious. Bonus ex hac vita exitus, optimus est Thesaurus: adeoque nosse Deum,& been posse mori, sapientia summa est. For a good passage out of this life, is the best treasure: and so to know God,& to be able to Die well, is the highest wisdom: a speech fathered vpon Maximilian the Emperour. For so wee shall Bern. Videbimus Deum hominem in coelesti gloria, patris potentiam, filii sapientiam, Spiritus Sancti benign●ssimam clementiam. see Godman in heavenly glory, seeing and agnizing the power of the Father, the wisdom of the Son, the loving kindness of the Holy Ghost: Bernard. August. Videbu●t in seipso:& h●bebunt in seips●s: manebunt in ae●ern●m 〈◇〉 ipso. They shall see him in himself: they shal haue him in themselves: they shall remain with him for ever: Augustine. August. O gaudium supper omne gaudium, v n●ens omne gaudium. O foelix iucunditas& jucunda foelicitas: sanctos videre, cum sanctis esse, sanctum esse. O ioy above all joys, exceeding all ioy: O happy joyfulness, and joyful happiness, to see the Saints, to bee with the Saints, to bee a Saint. wherefore what godly man would fear death, would flee death, which is the end of this life so laborious, and the beginning of the other so glorious? Death is the end of all evils, the birth-day of eternal joys, the conclusion of mortality, and the introduction into immortality. Bernard Mors bona, melior optima; bona propter requiem, melior propter nouitatem, optima propter securitatem. Certes such death is good, but a better is the best: good, in respect of quietness; better, in respect of newness; best of all for safenesse: Bernard. Ambros. Hanc qui gustat divinam dulcedinem, mundi is non curat,& mortis amaritudinem. He that hath tasted of this divine sweetness, nought setteth by the worlds or deaths bitterness: Ambrose. In the intuitiue regard hereof, holy men of God haue welcomed and embraced death with both arms, wishing to depart in peace with old Simeon, to be dissolved with Paul,& to bee with their Christ. Polycarpus in the midst of the flamme, said, receive me, O Lord,& make me partner with the Saints, of the resurrection. Ambrose at the point of death said divinely, I haue not so lived, as I am ashamed to live still among you: neither am I afraid to die because I haue a good Master. And it was a quick speech of Saint Laurence, short, but substantial: Gulielus. Malmesburiensis, lib. 1. cap 41. de gestis Anglorum. I give thee thanks o Lord, because I am entering thy gates. And the words that the widow Babila uttered at her death, were full of spirit and life, return to thy rest, O my foul, because the Lord hath been gracious unto thee, and calleth thee. The words of Hilarion at his death were these, as jerome reporteth: Hieron in vita Hilarionis. Depart my soul, why fearest thou? Depart, why tremblest thou? Thou hast served Christ now almost seuentie yeares, and art thou afraid to depart? And now I am in this Argument, it irketh me not to descend to lower times, and to relate the last words of johannes Belcurio, that famous Philosopher at Wittenberg: Pater est amator: Filius redemptor: Spiritus Sanctus consolator: quomodo igiturtristitia affici possum? The Father is he that loveth: the Son he that redeemeth: the Holy Ghost he that comforteth me: how therefore can I bee heavy? The last words of Christopher Duke of Wittenberg are remarkable, worthy to be written in marble or led: Albeit I could redeem this life of mine for an hundred yeares longer, and that but for an halfpenny, I would not give it. Squalida terra erit medicina mea. The dirty soil shall be my sovereign salve. These and such like examples, do me good, and warm my could blood, so as death with his grim vizard on his face, shall not affright me. But I shall take up the words of Augustine in mine agony, and say them often over to my comfort: A●gust. Domine mortar, vt te videam: vid●am, vt hic moriar: nōlo vivere, volo mori: mori desidero, vt videam Christum: vivere renuo, vt vivam cum Christo. O Lord I will die, that I may see thee; that I may see thee, let me die here: I will not live, I will die; I desire to die, that I may see Christ: I refuse to live, that I may live with Christ. And I will think of the Poets words while I live, which I haue endeavoured to English as I could. My soul depart, Exi anima, exi anima, ex od●oso corporis antro: Libera nunc tandem coelica regna pete. Isthic tu caro lenta iace, mala sarcina vitae: Debita iam pride vermibus ●sca iace. Vino tibi, moriorque tibi, dulcissime Iesu: Mortuus& viuus, sum, moriarque tuus. depart my soul from this thy fleshly cave Set free: that so in heavenly seats a kingdom thou mayest haue. lie here thou lump of flesh, the burden of my life: Go pay thy debts unto the worms, which are in thee most rife. I live to thee, I die to thee, O Christ thou saviour mine. living and dead, I am, and will remain for ever thine. And I will tender you this Epitaph, that was sometimes Senecaes, as suitable to the condition of the best: Senecae Epitaphium. Cura, labour, meritum, sumpti pro munere honores, item: alias posthac sollicitate animas Me procul à vobis Deus euocat, ilicet acts Rebus terrenis, hospita terra vale. Corpus auaca tamen, solennibus accipe saxis: Nāque animam coelo redimus, ossa tibi. Care, pains, desert, and honours all My recompense and mead, Farewell: solicit other friends, Which may to me succeed. God calls me hence from you, I know it very well: O hostess earth to earthly things, I bid thee now farewell. Yet greedy gut, my body take, Commit to marble ston: My soul I do commend to heaven, My bones to thee alone. Now these my deuotions in all due devotion, I tender and entitle to your persons, as the persons that haue a principal seat in my affections. I presumed( Noble councillor) not long since, to shrowd under the protection of your great name, which I haue always loved, and now honour, a voluminous book in the latin language: but because it may seem an oppression to the press, and as the malignant aspect of an unlucky planet to Printers, whose object is a certain and present gain; I fear it may sooner be shut up in silence, as a sword in the scabbard: I haue been not a little discouraged: yet I haue assumed spirits again, and haue adventured to veil this my minute manuel, under the same name of honour to which I most willingly flee, as to my best city of refuge. I haue endeavoured all I may to be material, not verbal: sententious and serious, not tedious, or frivolous. And herein I doubt not to put myself vpon the iudgement of the impartial Reader. The points in this Portesse, are from the text of Isaiah to Ezechiah, Set thine house in order, for thou must die and not live. To set our house in order, is to commend our s●●les to God, our bodies to the grave,& our goods to the proper owners. This is the epitome& abridgement of the whole book. And as this message bread in Ezechiah such good blood, as it destroyed the message, and added fifteen yeares unto his daies: so my trust is, that this message of mine shall work good in you, though not to the prorogation of your dayes here on earth, yet to give you a long life in heaven for ever and ever. I writ to you, who haue lived long, and seen many good daies: and God grant it, if it be his will, that you both may live many yeares after mine eyes bee closed up. howsoever, Disce mori, learn to Die, is a better watch than ye wear in your pockets, to teach you how you spend your time how it is spen●; and how th●… better part is spent: the same decreasing in euer●… one, every hour, whil●… he doth increase. Accept 〈…〉 Right Honourable, an●… you worthy Lady, the fre●… will offering of a true 〈…〉 heart: To whom I profess●… I owe more than I can pay and if I could pay, I woul●… owe it still. The great e●…gagement of my father, fo●… more than thirty year●… together to your Fathe●… for successive favours ver●… thick: take a bond of me●…( Right Honourable) b●… way of peremptory resolution, to perform you all deuotions, and to bestow an hundred books vpon you, might I haue so much use of life, as to compile them, to the perpetuating of your name and memory under the Sun among the posterity and ages to come. And good lucke haue you with your Honour; and grow you up still higher and higher, as a Cedar in our English Libanus: And ●… rosper you in all your proceedings, as the Ciprus ●… rees vpon the mountain ●… f Hermon: and be you fruitful in all good work as the fruitful Vine lad●… with grapes; and let yo●… boughs stretch the●… selves, as doth the Ter●…binth: be you bountifulli●… virtue and true honour, 〈…〉 the Rose, and comfortab●… as the olive three. Finall●… God, even our own G●… give you his blessing. Your Honours an●… ladyships in all duty, SAMVEL GARDINE●… TO THE RIGHT worshipful Sir PETER glean Knight; and to his virtuous Wife maud Lady glean, all peace and happiness. THE relation between the Right honourable Sir John Suckling, and you both, partly by the nighest coniunction of nature, as a Sister; partly by connubiall copulation, as a Brother in law, hath caused me to make enrolement of your names before my book. The inequality that Sir John hath of you both, in state& condition, doth not well admit this my compellation of you both: but my trust is, that either in his height of humility, he will not espy it; or else in his natural indulgence pardon it. Though the one hath the rubric and read letter in this calendar; yet you both may challenge of me a Saints room in the same. Well, because I haue no other present, but sheets of paper for you, and now, through this declination of my body through yeares, I haue small hope to set forth any more books; I could not otherwise satisfy my mind, than thus to thrust you in by head and shoulders, and as the proverb is, Vna fidelia duos parietes dealbare, that is, with one Carpenters line to white two walls at once. Accept these two mites I cast into your Coffers, all the good will of body and mind: and accept this little Treatise of me, in the same candid simplicity of minds, as I collate it on you. wear it& tear it for my sake, for Gods sake, for your own sake. I leave these notes with you, as Paul did his Velloms and sermon notes with Carpus at Troas. Though you be not now to learn how to die, yet the best of all may be contented sometimes to bee put in remembrance thereof. The egyptians had commonly served at their tables, among other their several and sumptuous services, the skull of a dead man, to the end, in the midst of their delicates, to be put in the remembrance of their death. Philip King of Macedonia, commanded his chamberlain every morning thus to round him in the ear, Remember that thou art a mortal man. This was such a note in Hieroms Meditations, as me think, so often as I recount his speech, I think of the Nightingale, who having got a note that likes her well, delighteth in the often trebling& quauering of it. Whether( saith he) I sleep, or whether I wake, or whatsoever else I do, me think I hear this voice always sounding in my ears, Arise ye dead, and come unto iudgment. I read of an ancient Father that should say, that all his study lay in a book of three leaves, the read leaf of Christs Passion, the white leaf of the blessed Resurrection of the Saints, the black leaf of the blackness of darkness for ever, determined for the damned. The often cogitation of death, cannot but reduce to our mindes the three leaves of this book; and the memory hereof cannot but be as a Manuel unto us of mellifluous meditations. There is nothing so effectual to put an end to sin, as the devout consideration of the end without end. But an end of this, because I speak at large to you of it in my Treatise following. It remaineth that I give hearty thankes to you both, for the great kindness you haue shewed me in my native city, unto which I was called a Preacher in the chief Parish thereof, not seeking it, nor once thought of it, whereunto I came chiefly for your sakes, vpon the sensible experience of your long continued loues towards me. During which time of my abode now for six yeares, I haue been much recreated by the piety, humanity, hospitality, society; as having no other means to gratify you withall, than this paper present, the pledge of my unfeigned devotion to you both. Thus praying to God for a blessing vpon it and you, I commit you to the gracious protection of the almighty, who shall build further, and give you an inheritance among them that are sanctified through faith. Yours in all Christian affections during life, SAMVEL gardener. Distichon Guil. Rant Doctoris Medicinae in librum Samuelis Gardiners Sacrae Theologiae Doctoris. MVlta liber parvus tenet hic praecepta salutis, Hunc lege si sapias, vt sapiasque lege. Eiusdem. OLD age is known to be a step to Death, And Death a way unto a better place, If we in time before we end this breath Prepare ourselves for such an happy race. This moved this aged reverend divine To writ this book, of latter books the best; To guide our steps, and so to be a sign, To show the way unto eternal rest. Verses written by Mr. Laurence owlet, late Minister of Saint Andrewes Parish in Norwich, sent to the Author four daies before his Death. WHo reads this little book●, may if he can, learn the Deuot●ons of a Dying man: Which having learned, its know●●dge in such store, That all the world can teach him nothing more: go little book; make but thy ti●le true, thank not the world for praise, its but thy due. Mr. William Allison, Minister of the Word at Norwich. REader, see here,( if thou canst rightly look) More in this Title, than in many a book: Man's all: Death's more, devotion only can Sweeten the harsh Death of a Dying man. Death it kills Man: devotion Death corrects, As here thou seest by manifold Collects: Therefore peruse it, I dare boldly say, A Golden head ne're had a Corps of day. THE DEVOTIONS of the dying man, that desireth to die well. CHAP. I. Of the inevitable condition of Death. DEath is an Archer, holding a Bow in his hand always bent, aiming continually at one mark or other: sometime above us, as at our superiors: sometimes below us, as at our inferiors: sometimes at the right hand of us, as at our Friends: sometimes at the left hand, as at our Enemies: at the last, haue at ourselves. Since Adam broken Gods statutes here on earth, Heb. 9.27. Pallida mors aequo pulsat pede pauperum tabernas, regunque turreis. Tendimus huc omnes, metam properamus ad v●am. Omnia sub leges mors vocat atra suas. A Statute came from heaven for all men to die. Death keeps no order, but the learned and unlearned, rich and poor, base and honourable, old and young, are all to him alike. 2 Sam. 14.14. Wee die all, and are like water spilled vpon the ground, not to bee gathered up any more. Hence is Dauids Quaere, Psal. 89.49. What is he that liveth, and shall not see death? Let Adam lurk never so much among the trees of the Garden of Eden, he must come forth, bee examined, indicted, convicted, and adiudged to the death. Sisera by his flight could not so flee the hands of death determined against him, but a beam nail in the hand of Iab●l must fasten him to the ground. Ierem. 48.44. he that getteth up out of the pit, shall fall into the snare. Amos 5.19. He fleeth from a lion, and a bear meeteth him: leaneth his hand on the wall, and a Serpent biteth him. Thou mayest escape six dangers, and the seventh shall seize vpon thee. 1 King. 19.17 Him that escapeth from the sword of Hazael, him shall jehu slay: and him that escapeth the sword of jehu, shall Elisha stay. Ierem. 15.1, 2. Cast them out of my sight, and let them depart: and if they ask, whither shall we depart? say, such as are appointed unto death, unto death: and such as are for the sword, to the sword: and such as are for the famine, to the famine: and such as are for the captivity, to the captivity. Some the Sea must swallow up, as it did Pharaoh and his followers. Some are fuel for the fire, as the King of Edom was, whose bones were burnt to Ashes: the earth opened and swallowed Dathan, and covered the congregation of Abiram. Haman must bee hurried away by the hangman: jezabel must bee dogs meat: Herod must bee eaten up of vermin: the man of God sent to jeroboam, for his disobedience was slain by a Lion in the way. Iobes sons and daughters, must by the fall of a house perish: and the mothers of jerusalem with their babes and younglings must bee starved to death. One complaineth of his head, with the Sunamites son: another of his feet, with Asa: another is gripped in his guts, with Antiochus: another is shaken with the palsy, as the Centurions son in the gospel: another the Ague casteth vpon the bed, as it did Peters wives mother: we come into the world one way, and go out, I know not how many. The babes of Bethlehe● were slain in their swathing bonds: Eglon in his Summer-house: Saul in the field: Ishboseth in his palate: Sennacharib in his oratory and temple of his Idols: Joab at the horns of the Altar: Homer was overset with sorrow: Sophocles was ravished with too much ioy, and died: a Gnat, the scorn of nature, choked Pope Adrian the fourth of that name: an hair in his milk strangled a noble man of Rome: and the ston of a raisin stopped the life of Anacreon the Poet. Some perish oppressed with penury: others are absorbed, surfeited with satiety. In the mouth of two or three witnesses every thing is confirmed: a sentence and rule of holy Scripture. Now we haue three witnesses, beyond all exception, of our vnauoidable mortality, 1. God. 2. Nature. 3. Experience. 1. God, who as he is the supreme cause of all things; so of life, and of the shortness of it. job 14.15. Are not his daies determined? the number of his moneths are with thee: thou hast appointed his bounds which he cannot pass. In the due regard whereof, the Philosophers of the Gentiles, who had a forge in their brains, haue enthronized three Goddesses, Clotho, Lachesis, Atropos, three severe sisters, the one the Spinster, the second the Twister, the third, that cutteth asunder the thread of mans life. Thus in the midst of darkness, the Heathens saw the light which wee refuse to see, because we list to be blind with our eyes open. It is the Text that God delivered Isaiah to Sermon on, Isa. 40.6. All flesh is grass. As God was the Author of the long life of Adam, nine hundred and thirty yeeres: of Seth, nine hundred yeeres: of Methusalem, nine hundred sixty nine yeeres: so in his just iudgement he hath abreuiated our dayes, and hath made them as it were but a span long. 2. Our second witness is dame Nature, which is, 1 universal; 2 particular. There be two organical causes of life. 1 The humour radical. 2 The heat natural. The humour is the preserver of the heat, which is extinct as a lamp, when the oil faileth. Also the continuance of life standeth to the courtesy of the breath within the nostrils: so as the mouth and nostrils being stopped, and the passage of the breath, which is nothing else but a wind, be intercluded, life forthwith goeth out the gates of the body. Isai. 2.22. Cease you from the man whose breath is in his nostrils. Iam. 4.14. What is your life? it is even a vapour that appeareth for a little time, and afterward vanisheth away. But we leave Nature personal, and proceed to Nature universal. And wee will begin with those things that set closest unto us, as with the gown vpon our backs, which we cannot look vpon, or touch, but it may be a memorial of our mortal state unto vs. job 13.18. he consumeth as a rotten thing, and as a garment that is moth-eaten. Eccles. 14.17. All flesh waxeth old as a garment. The best and beautifullest garment that is, is either by use, or by the moth consumed, or by both. even so it is with the life of man. For by living, we make use of life: Seneca, Vel tunc cum crescimus decrescit vita. but in the increasing use thereof, it still decreaseth, saith Seneca. And sicknesses and sorrows, what are they but moth-wormes, eating out the flesh? when we see our vesture moth-eaten, or threedbare, we consider therewith it cannot last us long, and we are ashamed to be seen abroad in it. Now thy skin is the cloth to cover thee withall. Wherefore descend from it to the consideration of thyself, and thine own frailty. A fret or hole in thy garment may be stitched up, and mended: but natures decay can by no means be repaired, as unable to add one cubit to our stature. Our life holds fit comparison with a shadow, the lackie that always followeth the body. job 14 He vanisheth as a shadow, and continueth not. david telling us what are our dayes by his own, saith, Psal. 102.11. My dayes are like a shadow that fadeth. But me thinks, that the visible works of the six dayes, may be unto us in stead of six several Sermons vpon this funeral Text in hand. Wee will take a view of them one after another. The works of the first day. 1 The creation of the day and the night, was the work of the first day. In both of them as in a crystal glass, we may behold our own similitude. job 7.1. Are not the dayes of a man as the dayes of an hireling? The day beginneth with the rising of the sun, and shutteth with the going down therof. The dayes of an hireling, are in sweat, in sorrow, and in hard labour, for a poor living. And no better is the common condition of life being rightly examined. To the marvell of the disciples, that Christ should touch judea again, where they would once haue stoned him, Christ answereth thus, Are joh. 11.9. there not twelve houres in the day? thereby making twelve houres, the measure of the artificial day, as it were the dimensions and proportion of mans life. The night, though it be rather the image of death, yet it may serve us as a worthy lesson, of the shortness of our life: in as much as it is resembled by Moses and david, to a watch in the night: Psal. 130.6. My soul fleeth unto the Lord before the morning watch. Thus our life for shortness is suited to a watch, which is but the fourth part of the night, consisting of three houres. 2. The second dayes work, The works of the second day. was the creation of the heauens, and the spreading of them a● a curtain over us; which as they be pregnant proofs unto us, of the wisdom, power, and immutability that are in God: so they are no obscure commonstrant● unto us, of the nature of our dayes: As david and Peter expressly haue declared: 2 Pet. 3.10. The heauens shalt pass away with a noise, the clements shall melt with ●eat. Saturne that takes place of all the seven Planets, finisheth his course in the space of thirty yeares: jupiter in twelve: Mars in two: and Mercury, Sol, and Venus in one: and the moon in a month. This Christian astronomy, portendeth a limitation of the life of man, and of the course he is to run. For i● bodies celestial which are of more durable and standing nature, haue their set bounds, beyond which they may not pass: man that is more transitory, and weak by kind, must not look here for any long continuance. The works of the third day. 3 The third dayes work, was the creation. 1 of the Earth, 2 Waters, 3 herbs and things vegetative, every one of them reading unto us a lecture, of the more than certainty of our mortality. 1 The Earth so often as we behold it and tread vpon it, serveth us to put us in mind of the rock out of which wee were first hewed, and of the pit out of which we were digged. Wee are bound up with a threefold cord of earth, twisted by the hand of the Creator himself, where he thus summoneth us, Earth, earth, earth, hear the voice of the Lord: as Earth by creation, Earth by continuation, Earth by dissolution. The Attribute proper unto us is, the man of the earth, Psal. 10.20. that the man of the earth be no more exalted against them. Gen. 2.7. The Lord God made the man of the dust of the earth. And the sentence definitive against his posterity is this; Gen. 3.19. Thou art earth, and to earth thou shalt return. The faithful in the old Testament, much looked back to their Origination, and to the sentence awarded against sin. Gen. 18.27. Abraham pleading before God in the cause of Sodom and Gomorrah, humbly acknowledgeth himself to bee no better than earth and ashes. david celebrating Gods mercy, and opposing the same to mans misery, speaketh thus: Psal. 103.14. he knoweth whereof we bee made, he remembreth that wee are but dust. job calling vpon God for mercy, amid his miseries useth the same phrase of speech; job 7.5. My flesh is clothed with worms, and filthiness of the dust. This is the mould and material of mankind, a lump of day, an ash-heape, clods of earth. Hence is the wisemans Interrogatory derogatory, Eccles. 10.9. Why art thou proud O earth and ashes? Thus he loadeth us with gravel to make us stoop, and to humble our proud looks. And hence it is that the Apostle styleth us Rom. 9.21. earthen pitchers, potters vessels, which with an easy blow shatter in pieces. 2 The waters which wee see in the clouds are the very same note. The levity and inconstancy of the clouds, do indigitate and point out this transient life of ours, nothing running so apace as water. job 7 9. As the cloud vanisheth and goeth away: so he that goeth down to the grave shall come up no more. The flowing of the sea twice a day, and then reculing, is likewise demonstration declarative enough of our rising and falling. 3. The Herbs in our garden, and the Trees in the forest, conclude the same Argument. 1 Pet. 1.24. All flesh is grass, and all the glory of man is as the flower of grass: the grass withereth, and the flower fadeth away. The Herbs in the morning that are green and gay, about noonetime haue lost their lustre and gloss, and in the evening are withered and hang down their heads. So how many among us, in the midst of our age, as in the middle of the day, alter and decline: or else towards the evening of our old age, are quiter done and die away? The works of the fourth day. 4 In the fourth day were the sun and moon created. The sun hath a double motion; 1. natural, which it performeth in the space of three hundred sixty and five dayes, the compass of a year. 2. Violent, begun and determined in the space of twenty four houres. The former motion distinguisheth the four seasons, and quarters of the year; 1. The Spring, 2. Summer, 3. autumn, 4. Winter. The second motion of it, divideth into his parts, the natural day, into, 1. Morning, 2. noon, 3. evening, 4. Night. Now the Spring of the year, and the Morning of the day, are the express Image and representation of our infancy and youth: The Summer and Noonetime, of our middle age: The autumn and the evening, of our old age: The Winter and Night, of our death. One hath but his Spring and Morning: another goeth a degree further, and hath his Summer season, and noontide: another is overtaken by the Winter and Night, before he thought of his autumn and evening. 2 The moon as it is nigher us, so it is example of this argument, more visible and palpable; as setting before our eyes the degrees of our life, by her alternations and vicissitudes, ever in her change till she come to the full: as if thereby shee would insinuate, and represent unto us, our extraordinary changes and chances in this mortal life, by her troublesone Eclipses. But the moon is restored, and renewed. Acts 3.21. But man must wait the time that all things bee restored. The works of the fifth day. 5. The fifth day doth spend itself vpon the Fishes and Birds. The Preacher sermoning of the scantness of mans life, saith, Eccles. 9.12. As the fishes are taken in the net, and the birds in the snare: so are the children of men snared in the evil time. Wee solace ourselves not seldom in the sight of Birds flying in the air: but wee little list to consider therewith how wee ourselves flee away with them. job 9.26. We pass away at the Eagle that flieth to the prey. The works of the sixth day. 6. The sixth day in the works of i●, is the hand that leadeth us to the contemplation of beast and man, of whom we entreat. What is the life of a horse, a bullock, a sheep, a goat, a hart? the first never exceedeth the fiftieth year: and the last seldom attaineth to the sixtieth. And is it not so for the most part with us? These six daies are short and not suitable: but the seventh which is the Sabbath, is eternal and equal unto all that shall do the work of the Lord faithfully, in the week daies of this life. Our labour and sorrows end with our daies. revel. 14.13. The dead which die in the Lord are fully blessed: For they rest from their labours, and their works follow them. The Collect of this Chapter. AS all the creatures were made by thy wisdom, so they serve to our instruction, to learn us to die. My garment that waxeth old vpon my back, puts me in mind, that I still wax old as doth a garment, and that as a vesture I shall be changed; let me not love the shadow and leave the substance. I will not change heaven for earth: for things temporal, things eternal. And sithence my life is but as the twelve houres of the day, I will so live, by thy grace, this day, as if I were to die to morrow. And because I learn; that my life is like but a watch in the night, my soul shall wait for thee, O Lord, before the morning watch: I say before the morning watch; in a zealous affection,& vnwearisome patience, and undoubted confidence, in expectation of the ioy that cometh in the morning, wherein thou shalt appear for my deliverance out of this mortal life: and with my lamp prepared, will be in readiness to meet my bridegroom at his coming. And while I behold the heauens, the works of thy hands, the sun and the moon which thou hast ordained, how they shall all pass away as doth a tempest; I will look for a new heaven and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness, the heaven of heauens, the City of the everliving God, the celestial jerusalem, the place where thine honour dwelleth. And while I live in earth, I will consider that I am but earth, I will remember that I am but dust, an house of day, a body of corruption. I will not be earthly minded with them whose god is their belly, and their end damnation. And while I look vpon the water floods, I will say, This is mine infirmity, I am lighter than water that runneth apace. And I pray thee, who sittest vpon the water-flouds, and art a King for ever, to sand thy gracious rain of grace vpon me thine Inheritance, to refresh me being weary. every herb that mine eyes shall see, shall cause me to see my estate, how I am to bee cut off like the green herb, and to whither away like the grass. The sun that shines over my head, shall lift up my heart to the son of righteousness, the Light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of the people Israel. And the moon that rules by night, shall make me call vpon thee the Father of lights, in whom is no variableness, as in the moon, nor shadow of change, to illuminate me while I sit in dark●esse and in the shadow of death. Finally; the beasts, birds, fishes, yea the very infects and scorn of Nature, shall by the shortness of their lives, put me in mind that the time of my life is short: and I am content therewith, for thy Law is within my heart. Grant this grace, O dear Father, for Iesus Christ his sake, thine only son, and my only saviour. CHAP. II. Of the uncertainty of mans life. AS there is nothing in the nature of things so certain as death; so there is nothing more uncertain than the hour of death. It is uncertain three ways. 1. In the place where wee shall die. 2. In the time when. 3. In the manner how. E●cles. 9.12. Man doth not know his time. Mark 13.33. ye know not when the time is. This life of ours is only constant in unconstancy. Iam. 4.15. It is a vapour that appeareth but for a little time. job 8.9. Our dayes vpon earth are but a shadow. job 7.7. But a wind, Psal. 102. But a smoke. job 9.26. More swift than a post. job 10.22. Where is no order. 1 Chron. 29.15. Where is no abiding. And as Seneca, Fata non seruant ordinem inter senes& iuuenes. Seneca saith, Death keepeth no order between young and old. infancy is no stoppage, 2 Sam. 12.18. for Dauids infant death: 1 Kin. 14.17. So doth the child of jeroboam. It is not youth that skippeth like the calf vpon the grass, that can hold up life; Acts 19.9. for Entychus death. And old age must needs yield. Gen. 5.27. For Methusalem, in the nine hundred sixty ninth year of his age death. The style of a King, that hath a long train after it, like the tail of a blazing star, will not move death: Mors sceptra lig●nibus aequat. for sceptres and plowshares to him are both alike. All the Kings of the earth haue embraced and kissed the dust. The best Bible-Clarke that is, must away; his great library and learning cannot deliver him. Salomon, the wisest man that ever was( the son of man always fore-prized) who wrote of all the trees of the forest, to the hyssop and shrub growing vpon the wall; notwithstanding this his Herball, and much other his secret learning and wisdom, hath slept his sleep. samson, who was of that incomparable strength, as by but leaning vpon an house, could make it come rumbling down, could not save himself. Ahasa, whose feet were as Harts feet, could not with his speediest place run away from death. Abel by his innocency, Absalon by his beauty, the purple Glutton by his opulencie, by his silver and gold, could not ransom themselves. The motto pricked vpon every mans sleeve is, he died, he was gathered to his fathers, He was carried out. Ludit in humanis diuina potentia rebus. Et certam praesens vix habet hora fidem. The state of life is so slippery, as no man may say that he shall live till to morrow. wherefore men think that they in Isaiah spake but absurdly, who said, Isai. 56.12. Come, I will bring wine, and wee will fill ourselves with strong drink; and to morrow shall be as this day, and much more abundant. And St. james taketh such fellowes thus to task, Iam. 4.13. go to now, ye that say, to day, or to morrow, we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain: whereas ye know not what shall bee on the morrow. Horat. Quis scit an adijcient hod●ernae crastina ●ummae tempora Dij superi. For what is your life? Is it not a vapour that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away? 1 King. 16.9. Full little did Elah King of Israel think, that while he was drinking to drunkenness in his stewards house, he should haue the stab there given him by Zimri his seruant. When the sons and daughters of job were gurmundizing and bouzing in their elder brothers house, they were not ware of their end so nigh at hand, by the fall of an house. Pharaoh even then enchanted his soul with the promise of a certain victory, when the read sea was opening his mouth wide, to swallow him up and all his forces. Isai. 47.5, &c. Babel, that called herself the lady of kingdoms, she saith in her heart, I am, and none else: I shall not sit as a widow, neither shall I know the loss of children: But destruction shall come vpon thee suddenly ere thou be ware. And ieremy setteth down this her destruction; Ierem. 51 ●● Thine end is come. I cannot better express this subject argument, than by this apologue or similitude: A man walketh by the way, and falleth into a deep pit, full of noisome and venomous creatures: in his fall, he taketh hold of the branch of a three at the pits brink, and hangeth thereby: afterward comes a lean and hunger-starved beast, which gnaweth and eateth asunder the bough. The moral is this: This pilgrim is the person impenitent; the pit is hell; the branch of the three, is the frailty of this life; and this lean and greedy beast that devoureth him, is Death. I will not curiously ransack the cause of this tickle life of ours, why children, young men and maids, are cut off as it were in the first grass, in the flower of their age, and are plucked up like a cluster of unripe grapes, while they might haue continued many yeeres longer, to the common good of the Church and Common-wealth. doubtless as in some, God doth thereby set forth his glory: so in others, for the most part, he stoppeth the course and passage of sin. For there be ungracious and unhappy children, 2 King. 2. 2● 24. such as were the two and forty boyes, that with scurrilous insectation vexed the righteous soul of Elizeus the Prophet: Gen. 38 9. such as were the two nefarious fellowes, Er and Onan: 1 Sam. 4 1●. such as were the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phineas: 2 Sam 18 ●. such an one was that varlet absalon. All these being incorrigible companions, were soon cut short, according to sentence and denunciation of Scripture; Prou 2. ●●. The wicked shall be cut off from the earth, and the transgressors shall bee rooted out of it. Answerable whereto is the doom of david, Psal. 55.3. The blood-thirsty and deceitful man shall not live out half his dayes. And to this point Quemadmodum ante tempus b●ni, ne diutius a noxijs vexentur, auocantur: ita mali& impij tolluntur, ne diutius bonos persequantur. St. Augustine speaketh thus, As the godly are called away before the time, that the wicked might not vex them: so the wicked die betimes, that they might not persecute the righteous. Other children bee toward, frugal, well inclined, of dutiful demeanour; who though in the fifth Commandement of the Law, they haue the promise of long life, and a benediction by Wisdom is pronounced over them, Prou. 3. 12. d●& Rh●phi●●●●st●ss●●●s v●●s Q●i fuit è T●u●●●s,& ●eruan● 〈◇〉 aequi. Let thine heart keep my commandements; For they shall increase the length of thy dayes, and the yeeres of life: yet in the sacred secret of his will, he soon and suddenly preventeth them by death; ●sal. 31.20. And doth hid them privily in his presence, from the pride of men; and keepeth them secretly in his tabernacle, from the strife of tongues. The hour of our death is concealed, that wee might bee suspicious of every hour: and as ●reg. Vt dum ●mper ignoratur, ●emper proxima e●se credatur:& ●anto● quisque 〈◇〉 operatione sit ●ruentior, quan● est de vocatio●e incertior. gregory saith, That while it is not discovered, it might bee always suspected, and conceived to be next, that so wee might bee the more fervent in operation, the vncertainer wee bee of our vocation. It is uncertain, O man, in what place death will arrest thee: wherefore suspect thou him to be in every place. Senec. in Epist. Egregia res est mortem morte condiscere. Omnem creed diem tibi diluxisse supremum. It is an excellent thing to learn death in death, saith Seneca. Whereas death is uncertain, and the time thereof in itself so uncertain; we ought to be provided and reckon every day the last. The Buzzard in the Bible crowed over his corne-heapes, as the cock vpon his dunghill, in the view of his plentiful provision, made for many yeeres to come: but he was found to bee a fool, and the event shewed it, his soul the same night being taken away from him. Men care too much for life that is uncertain, and too little for death that is most certain. If the King, in his gracious goodness towards thee, should bee pleased to confer a good office vpon thee, and should restrain thee to the short space of an hour, for the engrossing and consignation of the grant, wouldest thou not give all diligence to dispatch it with all speed? Now a greater grant is made to us, of the heavenly jerusalem, by the King of Kings, and merely out of his free favour towards us, and now is the time or never, of assuring it unto us, and it is but short, and as uncertain as wee see. Wherefore bee wee careful to make our election sure, in these dayes of our pilgrimage vpon earth. If to acquire a temporal benefit, thou canst bee content to expel sleep, to forbear meat and drink, and to deprive thyself of thy delights, that so thou mightest not lose the occasion offered: buckle thyself to thy deuotions in time, and make h●●●● to turn to the Lord thy God; and not of the gainful advantage of present grace ministered, to put off the work of thy salvation from day to day, as Festus did Paul; as Pharaoh did Moses and Aaron: or till we haue finished our fathers funerals, with him that would fawn and follow after Christ, noted in the gospel. Regard not so much a long life as a good. Rather covet to live well than long. It is dangerous to live in that estate, in which thou wouldest be loth to die. Wherefore it shall behove thee to look to thy life, in respect of the uncertainty of the hour of death. It was fatherly indulgence on Gods side towards us, that our death should bee uncertain and unknown to vs. The uncertainty of our dissolution, preventeth dissolution; and taketh bond of us for resolution in religion. For were we assured of life, we would live out at length without remorse in our sinful proceedings. But this uncertainty of life casteth a boll of water vpon our hot blood, and is a bridle to our sins, and a principal spur to prick us on to all manner duties of godliness. again, did a man know that his death should bee sudden, the scantness of the time would bee apt to beget a scant repentance. And if the time were long ere wee should depart, I fear it would be long ere wee would convert: both which are ominous, and portend peril. moreover, the Lord detaineth the knowledge of life from thee, for thy neighbours good. Now the common good is in itself greater than the private. If thou couldst tell that thou shouldst die soon, many good deeds tending to devotion,& to the common good, would be left undone. How many be there, who lying sick in their beds, do seriously turn unto God, for they haue no hope of their recovery: who, were they ascertained of their health to be renewed, would turn copy, and sing another song. Finally, if thou couldst foresee the time of thy visitation, that is yet a far off, thou wouldest run with the prodigal son into a far country, far from thy fathers house, thou wouldest pursue thy vindicative affections, and there would bee no peace within thy walls. And if wee could foresee our death to be at hand, wee would bee sad, melancholic, froward, and intolerable to all about us: all which vnioynt peace, and are adverse to human conversation. Wherefore for this benefit we give God thankes, we magnify and adore his most glorious name. Therefore that wee may conclude this latter act of ours, vpon the stage of mortality, even this day, this hour, this moment, wee will count them all the last: Greg. Sic mors ● sa cum venerit, vin●eiu●; si priusquam veniat, semper timeatur. So death when it cometh, shall be vanquished, if before it cometh, it be always feared, saith gregory. The Collect. FOr as much, O Lord God, as thou hast made my time uncertain, and hast not certified thee how long I haue to live: give me grace so to live, as if I were presently to die. Let my soul prevent the night watches, and let it wait for thy salvation. Let me not in the deceitful expectation of a longer life, put off my repentance from day to day; but now while it is called to day, take hold of saving grace offered me. By my rejoicing which I haue in Christ Iesus, let me die daily. Let me die while I live, that I may live when I die with thee for evermore. CHAP. III. Of the kindes of Death. THere bee two kindes of death, as there be of life, in nature answerable each to other. 1. corporal. 2. spiritual. corporal death is nothing else, but the diuorse of soul and body: as bodily life is the coniunction of them both. This bodily death in holy writ, is called the first Death, because in time it goes before the second. spiritual death is the separation of the whole man, both in body and soul, from the fellowship with God. Of these twain, the first is but an entrance to death: the second is the absolute accomplishment thereof. For as the soul ●s the life of the body, so is God the life of the soul, and his spirit is the soul of our soul. This spiritual Death hath three distinct degrees. 1. The first is when a man is dead in sin while he liveth. And this is the degree the Apostle meaneth, where he saith, 1 Tim. 5.6. But shee that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth. And thus it fareth with us all by nature, Ephes. 2.1. who are dead in sins and trespasses. 2. The second degree is the end of this life, when the body embraceth the earth, Free among the dead: and the soul goeth down to hell. 3. The third degree is the day of iudgement, when the body and the soul united again shall be determined to damnation. Of the two deaths, the second is the worse. The bodily death is terrible to nature: but the horror of the second is not to be expressed. For it is the curse of all curses, the misery of all miseries. The toothache, the headache, the colic and the ston, are oftentimes so sharp and vehement, as the Pati●●t wisheth he were dead. Now if these fits can so much distemper mind and body, as all the pleasures of this life cannot qualify them; what manner of torment shall that bee, when not one kind of pain, but the whole vial of Gods wrath shall be powred out, not vpon one member, but on the whole soul, body, and conscience: and not for a time, under hope of a better condition, but for time, and times, and when there shall bee no more time; and that not in this world, where there are comforts, helps, and remedies; but in that vile and darksome place of torments: and that not amongst living men, which might either ease thy pain, or pity thy case, but with the devils and damned ghosts, which will laugh at thy destruction, and solace themselves amid all thy miseries. Quest. But how shall I escape the second death? that would I fain know. Answ. By turning a new leaf, in turning to God, by affiance in the merits of Christs death and passion, keeping faith and a good conscience unto the end. Who so doth these things, shall not die for ever. The Collect. turn me, O Lord, and I shall bee turned. give me grace to turn from every evil way and renounce all ungodliness and worldly lusts, and live soberly, uprightly, justly in this present world. That dying to sin, I may not die in sin, but may escape the vengeance to come, the second death, and live with thee eternally. CHAP. IV. Of our necessary preparation against the time of death. IN respect of the certainty of death, of the uncertainty of the time, and of the kindes of death, hitherto treatized of; it is more than necessary that wee be prepared against it cometh. Of this preparation I see there be two sorts. 1. A general. 2. A Particular. The general I call that, which is in action all our life time. If any should reply, what need so much ado, holding it sufficient to enter this course, when we draw nearer our latter end? I answer, It must without delay be presently performed. Heb. 3.7. To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts. Heb. 3.13. Exhort ye one another daily, while it is called to day, lest any of you bee hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. 1 motive hereunto may be the doubtfulness of life: For who knoweth when or how he may be called out of life? This is Christs argument; Luk. 12.40. Be ye ready: for the Son of man cometh at an hour when ye think not. 2. again, the longer a man liveth in sin, his estate is more dangerous. For sin by custom, gathereth strength, becometh habitual, and in a manner natural. custom in itself is so efficacious, as look what things wee delight in in our life, wee think of when we are dying. Prou. 22.6. Teach a child in the trade of his way, and when he is old, he shall not depart from it. Ierem. 13.23. Can the Blackmoore change his skin? or the Leopard his spots? then may ye also do good, that are accustomend to do evil. 3. In the prorogation of thy repentance, thou dost heap vpon thyself the wrath of God, against the day of wrath. If a malefactor should bee enjoined every day to carry a billet to the stake where he is to bee burned, for diuers yeares together, he vndergoeth thereby great penance and misery. Now this is the condition of all such, as defer their repentance. 4. The longer our conversion is put off, the more Gods grace faileth, and the more the devill prevaileth. For God for his part expressly telleth us, Prou. 1.24, 28, &c. Because I haue called, and ye refused: I haue stretched out my hand, and none would regard: then shall they call vpon me, but I will not answer: they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me. And this is equal retaliation of iustice, Aug. Hac animaduersione just percutitur peccator: vt moriens obliuiscatur sui, qui vivens oblitus est Dei. according to that Saint Augustine speaketh, A sinner is justly thus censured: to bee when he is dying unmindful of himself, who, whilst he lived was unmindful of God. again the Lord saith, Ierem 51.9. we would haue cured Babel, but she would not be healed: we therefore forsake her. On the other side the devill, to whom it is meat, drink, and pastime, to see men run headlong into sin, will freshly, and more fiercely set vpon vs. So as those of whom he could lay no hold of formerly in their life, now he claspeth them in his arms by his temptations, when he espieth them lying at the point of death. If therefore when wee are at our best strength, wee are unable to resist the least temptation; how shall wee in our doting and decreped estate, encounter the strongest? our adversary being then stronger, and we weaker. Finally, a late repentance is scarce a due or true repentance, Aug. sera paenitentia, raro est seria aut vera. as Augustine observeth. It is much to be feared, lest repentance itself death that proceedeth from a dying man; and he is served aright, that is contemned of God at his death, who had contemned God formerly all the time of his life. To repent aright, is to leave our sins, before our sins leave vs. object. Yea but may some say, the better thief vpon the cross repented not before the last. Answ. Indeed he was not effectually called before the eleventh hour, even at the stroke of the twelfth. And therfore his repentance was extraordinary, and miraculous. And it was not without weighty reason, that Christ would not call him before the very nick, vpon the point of his passion; namely, thereby luculently to express the power of his passion. Now we are not to make a common rule of a singular example. It is therefore a fearful fallacy to the enchantment of the soul, to feed vpon this fancy, that if he hath but an eye to cast up to heaven, and can but blurt out these words, Lord haue mercy vpon me, before he giveth up the ghost, he may do well enough. This is all one, as if so bee a notorious thief should say, I will all my life time rob and steal, and when I am at the gallows, and ready to be turned over, will call vpon the judge for mercy, and so I shall be saved. He that will live after this life, must lay the ground of his salvation in this life. For there be three degrees of life everlasting. 1. The first is in this life, when being justified and sanctified, wee haue peace towards God and our Lord Iesus Christ. Some suppose, there is no other life after this: But such deceive themselves; for it beginneth here, joh. 5.24. Verily I say unto you, he that heareth my word, and believeth in him that sent me, hath eternal life, and shall not enter into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life. Wherefore the foundation of life everlasting must be laid in this life, namely, by repentance, and by endeavouring to make the conscience assured, that God the father of our Lord Iesus Christ is become our father: that God the son is become our redeemer: that God the Holy Ghost is become our comforter. Nay we must go further to say with Saint Paul, Galat. 2.20. I live, not I, but Christ liveth in me. These are the seeds of eternal life. 2. The second degree is in the end of this life, when the body freed of all maladies and miseries, resteth quietly in his locker, and his soul returneth to God that gave it. 3. The third is after the last Iudgement, when the body and soul shall be consolidated, and reunited, and exalted to glory. Now he that will take this first degree, must arise out of the sepulchre of sin, wherein he hath lain all his life time hitherto. For to avoid the second death, a man must partake of the first resurrection: revel. 2●. 6. Blessed and holy is he, that hath part in the first resurrection: For on such the second death hath no power. Paul telleth the Colossians, Coloss. 1.13. that they were in this life delivered from the power of darkness, and translated unto the kingdom of his dear son. And Christ saith to the Iewes, The kingdom of God is among you. This is the first degree of life, when a man may say with Saint Paul, Galat. 2.20. I live not, but Christ liveth in me. That is to mean, I find, by the certificate of a sanctified conscience within me, and partly by experience, that Christ my Redeemer by his holy Spirit leadeth and governeth, my thoughts, will, affections, and all the faculties and powers of body and mind, according to the rule of his holy will. Now that wee may say the like three graces of God are requisite in which this first degree of life consisteth. 1. The first is saving knowledge, by which wee plentifully persuade ourselves, that God the father of our Lord Iesus Christ is our father, Christ the son is our redeemer, the holy Ghost is our comforter. joh. 17.3. This is life eternal,( that is, it is the inchoation, and introduction into life eternal) to know thee the true God, and him whom thou hast sent, Iesus Christ. 2. The second grace is, Rom. 14. 1●. peace of conscience which passeth all understanding. Hence is it that the Apostle saith, The kingdom of God is righteousness, and peace, and ioy in the holy Ghost. The horror of a guilty conscience is the beginning of death and destruction. Therefore the quiet of conscience proceeding from the death of Christ, is life and happiness. 3. The third grace is the Regiment of the spirit, by which the heart, and life, is ruled according to Gods word. The Collect. O Lord writ all these thy laws in our hearts, wee beseech thee: that while wee behold the pale horse and the rider, who is death: wee may say with the holy Prophet, My heart is prepared, my heart is prepared. Let us take hold of repentance in time, and not put off our salvation from day to day: That by seeking thee O Lord whilst thou mayst bee found we may live in thy fear, and die in thy favour: and after this life ended, we may enter into that ioy, which thou of old hast prepared, thy dear son Christ Iesus by his precious blood shed for us, hath purchased, and to which by thy blessed spirit wee are sealed to the day of redemption. CHAP. V. Of the meditation of Death: an office appertaining to our general preparation, THe frequent remembrance of death is as it were a bucket of water, to quench the fiery flames of our sins. whatsoever thou takest in hand( saith the wise man) remember thy end, and thou shalt never do amiss. Moses in the survey of the pleasures of sins, Heb. 11.25. that were but for a season: choose rather to suffer affliction with the people of God. This maketh the elder more devote than the younger: while they spend their thougts much and often vpon death. Isaac being now dim sighted through age, saith to Esau his son, Gen. 27.1. Behold, I am now old, and know not the day of my death: that is, because I am now aged, I cannot live long. jeremy repeating the sins and troubles of the Iewes, maketh this consequence, Lament. 1.9. They remembered not their last end. The meditation of death serveth to scatter an host of sins; for it is in stead of a fan, to winnow the wheat from the chaff. Mat. 17.3. Christ in his transfiguration on mount Tabor, convented before him Moses, that had been dead long before, and with him Elias: to teach us, that when wee are at the highest pitch of our honour, to call death to our remembrance. The memorial of death is as fortunate a staff to us, while we walk this our pilgrimage of few and evil daies, as ever Iacobs was to him, in the way when he passed the fords of jordan. look we to the end, as the eastern Sagers did to the star, and it will conduct us unto Christ, as it did them. They that understand the enemy to be at hand, make themselves ready all they may to encounter them: death our last enemy cometh fast vpon vs. Be we therefore warned, and so armed against him. Such as expect their Lords coming, come often to the side of the window, and look out at the casement for him. So cast wee our eyes with holy david to the heauens, Psal 123 1. Unto thee do I lift up mine eyes, O thou that dwellest in the heauens. The life of a Christian is a meditation of death. joseph of Arimathea did build his Sepulchre& tomb in his life time, in the midst of his Garden. Which is examample unto us, in the midst of our merriments, to think of our monuments, and not to forget jerusalem in our mirth. The heathen philosophers took a felicity in the meditation of death, though voided of the comfort of another life, that we look for. For it doth us good at the heart, to recognise the cause of our death, which is our sin: together with the remedy thereof, the accursed death of Christ: cursed in respect of the inflicted punishment vpon our sins, but blessed in respect of ourselves. every one can sufficiently remember an injury offered him: but to many it is death, to remember death, so long as there is any blood running in their veins, or marrow in their bones. There is none so old, but can well remember the place wherein he hath laid up his money: but old and young can easily forget the place wherein their hidden treasure is. Et viuunt homines tanquam mors nulla sequatur. We daily die, and are daily changed and yet we think our selves immortal, saith jerome. Wee may well bee likened to Nebuchadonosor who forgot his dream, and would haue others to interpret it. We are as young chickens all the sort of us, who when any of the brood is caught by the kite, the rest high in hast to the wings of the damme, some on one side, and some on the other, and presently after their former fear forgotten, do meet and feed together, and become a prey unto the vulture. We may be sampled to the swine, who make a hoarse and hideous out-cry, but it is, but while one of them is under the butchers knife: and then immediately there is a deep silence and all the din is done. Death hath laid his hand vpon thy father, thy wife, thy son, one of thy kindred, or allies, and wee weep, and take on, and seem to be in pitiful plight: but almost so soon as the soule-bell ceaseth, the strength of our pang and passion is past. And as swine to the mire, and dogs to the vomit, they return to their accustomend sins. As the defect of memory is a symptom and sign of a dying man; so the forgetfulness of death is a token of a man dying in his sins. God by many arguments presse●h us to the due meditation of death. 1. As from the consideration of the matter of which we are moulded, of dust, and lumps of day: to monish us of our frailty, soon dissolved, and shattered in pieces like a potters vessel. 2. From the surname of our prime progenitor, that from his name wee might learn our nature. Adam was his name, which is as much to mean, as Earth, Terrigena, bread of earth, that is, of brittle metal, that will not hold. Dan. 2 33. Nebuchadonosors great Image stood vpon mixed feet of iron and day: and lo a ston cut without hands, smote the Image on the feet, and broke them in pieces This Image is the Image of us all, and of our earthly composition, apt to dissolution: Homo ab humo: man hath his denomination from the mould, and so his appellation is answerable to his origination: who as often as he is name man, he is to bethink himself of his mortal estate, he beareth his bier vpon his back, and carrieth his grave about him. 3. From his vesture that covereth him, wherefore God cut out leather coats for our first Parents after their fall, to clad themselves withall, that the skins of the dead beasts that were about them, might tell them that they bear their bane about their backs. 4. From their opifice and office, which was to dig and delve in the earth, with coulter and plowshare: they should remember their sepulchre. 5. From admonition given them as well before, as after sin committed. Before their sin, thus: Gen. 2.17. In the day that thou cuttest of the three of good and evil, thou shalt die the death, After their sin, thus: Gen. 3 19. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return to the earth. The Philosophers of the Gentiles, insist in this subject. Socrates was wont to say, that the study of Philosophy was nothing else but a meditation of death. Cic. 10. Tusc. phil●sophari nih●l est a●iu●, quam m●rtem m●d●tari. Plato saith, that a wise mans mind is set on death, that he desireth it, that this is his main muse and meditation. Democritus was ever trampling vpon graues. Wee are counseled by Kings to be harping vpon this string. Aelian. lib 8. var. ●●ist. cap. 15. Philip King of Macedonia charged his chamberlain, that thrice every day, he round him in the ear with these words, Herod●●, lib. 3. Remember thou art a mortal creature. The Egyptians, when a noble man solemnized the memorial of his birth day, caused a dead mans skull to bee set vpon the board: to put them in mind amid their delights, of the estate of death. Some medicines serve for unctions, some some for ulcers, some for wounds, some for swellings, some for potions, some for glisters. One kind of eie-salue, is not for the inunction of all mens eyes alike. Our actions& exercises, sort not alike to the subduing of all sins. But one vanquisheth one 'vice, and this another. It is frequent Humiliation of ourselves, that must pluck our peacocks plumes, abate the pride and high thoughts of heart. Our Prayers and Fastings must be the means to quench the coals of ungodly lusts. For this kind of spirit annot be cast out but by prayer and fasting, according to the testimony of truth it sel●e. But for one salve to heal many sores, it is seldom or never seen. Only the often and much meditation of death, healeth all our spiritual infirmities. The saying of david of the sword of goliath, I apply to this point of the meditation of death: 1 Sam. 21.9. There is none like to that, give it me. As necessary as the wings are to the dove to fly; as the sails, stern, main mast& carded are to the mariners to sail by; as the fins and tails are to the fishes to swim withall; as the wheel is to a waggon; as the iron shoes to a horse; so is the memorial of death to us, useful and available to eternal happiness. Wherefore put we not away the evil day from us, which the ordinance of God hath put so near. Remember we our Creator in time, before the d●●●s come wherein we shall say, wee haue no pleasure in them. walk we not always with our faces to the East, but let us sometimes look back to the West, where the sun goeth down. Sit not ever in the prow of the ship: sometimes go to the stern. Stand we in our watch-towers, as the creature doth. Rom. ●. 10. And wait we for the hour of our deliverance. provide we our armies, before that dreadful King cometh to fight against us, with his gre●ter forces. Order we our houses before wee die, that is, dispose we of our bodies and souls, and all the implements of them both. Let not our eyes be gadding after pleasures, nor our ears itching after rumors, nor our minds wandring in the fields, when death is in our houses. Our bodies are not brass, nor our strength, the strength of stones: our life is no inheritance: our our breath is no more than as the vapour, and the smoke of a chimney within our nostrils: and as a stranger within our gates, coming and going again, not to return any more till the day of final redemption. What need more exhortation in a subject of such common experience? If we were as Abel was, who never saw the example of precedent death: less exception might be taken to our excuse. But wee know the certainty of our death, as well as wee know our names, and the joints of our fingers: and yet we regard it not. What are all the Cities and towns of the earth, so far as the line thereof is stretched, but the lamentable pinfolds of the deaths of men. ●●al Max. Humanarum cladi●m miseranda This is a point Zach. 5.1. like the flying book of zachary, that flieth to to all, suiting to the simplo and teaching Senators wisdom. It pulleth down the high look of man, while he considereth with himself that he must turn to the earth, which he now sets his feet vpon. Rather those nice and dainty dames, are here taken by the arms, that must not touch ground with the sole of their foot: but as if the face of the earth, were not provided for the daughters of men: they must be always carried like the fowls of the air between heaven and earth: Let them remember, that the earth shall set her feet vpon their heads: and their lips shall kiss the dust of the ground; and the very gravel and slime of the grave shall dwell between their haughty eielids. do they forethink what shall become of them? when after all their labour and cost bestowed, in whiteing and painting the outward walls: there remaineth nothing but a stinking and rotten carcase. Putidum& pu●utum codauer. When though now they say to their sisters in the flesh, Touch me not, I am of purer substance than thou art; yet the bones of Agamemnon and Thersites shall be mingled together: of Vashti, the most beautiful Q●eene, and the sootiest egyptian bond woman, shall not bee found asunder. I will not say much to proud dust and ashes. But if the purple and fine linen were an opprobrious note( for lack of an inward clothing) to the rich man in the gospel, if that parable were to be written in these dayes, purple and fine linen were nothing. And what the burdens and carriages of pride in the age of Clemens Alexandrinus were, Mihi mirabile sit quod non necentur, cum tantum onus ba●●l●●●. I know not: but if it were wonder to him, That they killed not themselves under the burdens, I am su●e, if the measure was then full, it is now heaped up to the highest, and shaken together, and pressed down again. We are made to forget nature. Adam had the wisdom to call all the beasts of the fields by their proper names: but he forgot his own name, that he was called Adam, and that there was affinity between the Earth and him. he was not made of that substance, whereof the Angels, no not of that matter whereof the air and the water, inferior creatures were made. The earth was the womb that bread him, and the earth the womb that must receive him again. For let him play the alchemist while he will, and strive to turn earth into silver, and gold,& pearls, by making show to the world, under his glorious adornations, that he is of some better substance, yet the time is not far off, the earth shall challeng● him for her natural child, and say, he is my bowels. Neither can his rich apparel so disguise him in his life time, nor feare-cloth, spices, and balms, so preserve him after his death, nor immuring him in ston or led, hid him so close: but that his original mother, will both know him again, and take him into her possession. Let the covetous also remember this, Nature shall as narrowly examine them at their going out, as at their first entering. Se●●c. excutit redemptem naturam, sicut intrantem. They brought nothing with them into the world, but skin over their teeth and over the other parts of their body: and it is certain they shall carry away nothing. The Collect. SEt a watch, O Lord, before the doors of my heart: and so order my thoughts, that I may set thee always before me and in the midst of life, so remember death, as when my dayes are here at an end, I may happily live with thee, world without end. Grant, O dear father, that the flight and departure of this spirit of mine, which must depart, be not on the Sabbath day, in the rest and tranquillitie of my sins; nor in the winter and frost of my hard heart: nor in the mid-night of my security, when I least look for it. Let not the dangerous thief to my soul break into my house, and rob me of this comfortable meditation of death, and of the heavenly jerusalem. If I forget jerusalem in my mirth; let my right hand forget her cunning. My thoughts that are always on my death, are my best teachers: teach me to die to sin, and to live to righteousness: to trim up my lamp, and to furnish it with oil, to be ready to meet my bridegroom at his coming at midnight with a great noise. Morning, evening, and at midday will I wait for his coming at midnight: in which he shall turn my night into day, my darkness into light, my heaviness into ioy, my labours into rest; and death shall be swallowed up into victory, when the serpent shall sting no more, and the second death shall not hurt me. even so O Father, for thy dear sons sake my assured saviour, in whom, though he should kill me, I will put my trust. CHAP. VI. Of the manifold benefits arising from the much meditation of death, accrueing unto vs. much fruit groweth vpon this stalk. Bee it never so true, that the stroke of death is most terrible; yea, the very remembrance itself of death: O death, how bitter is the remenbrance of thee, to man whose sole repose is in his riches? Bee it that death bee in the pot, of which the children of the Prophets complained to the man of God: be death as Aloes, and the waters of Marah, the water of wormwood and gull: let a man fret and fear at the tidings of death, as Saul did: let him wax pale and wan, at the bare mention of death only; and say, as the disciples to Christ, joh. 6.60. This is an hard saying, who can hear it? yet the meditation of death is as effectual to drive away sin, as the quotation of the scriptures were to our saviour, to drive away the tempter. Eccles. 7.36. whatsoever thou takest in hand, remember the end, and thou shalt never do amiss. There is nothing, saith Saint Aug. lib. 10. con. Manich. N●hil sic reuo●at hominem à peccato, quàm frequens mortis meditatio. Augustine, that so reclaimeth a man from sin, as the continual consideration of death. With whom agreeth Seneca, where he saith, Nothing can so much avail thee to sobriety in all things: as to recount often and much, the shortness and uncertainty of thine age. Senec. lib 20. Epist 2. ad I●cil. Nihil ita aeque tibi prosuerit ad temporantium omneum rerum: quam frequens cogitatio brevis aeui,& huius inincerti. The denunciation of death, of itself sufficeth to correct us, and contain us in our duty. Isuaj no sooner had delivered his legatiue arrand of death to Ezechias, 2 King. 20.2, 3. But Ezechias turned to the wall and wept. Eliah speaking bitter things against ahab, ahab grew remorsed. 1 King 21.27. And tare his cloths, and lay in sackcloth, and went softly. No sooner the Baptist spake of the axe, now at hand to be put to the root of the three. Luk. 3.9. But all sorts of people, flocked unto him, enquiring of him what they should do. ninive that great City had not stood long, had not jonas prophesied of the destruction of it within forty daies. Now the message, overthrew the message: the prophecy fell, and the city stood: because the fall of it was foretold, Chrysost. hom. 5. ad pop. Antioch The prediction of death, saith Chrysostome, was the production of life: the sentence of destruction, wrought the nullity of the sentence: It was a snare, and it became a refuge: they heard that their houses should fall, and they forsook not their houses, but themselves. But especially it nippeth pride in the head, the cogitation of death. Aug. Agnoscat se homo mortalem:& frangit elationem. Timor de futura morte, quasi clavis carnis, omnes molus superbiae ligno crucis adfigit. So saith Saint Augustine, let a man take notice of his mortality, and it will teach him humility. again, the dread of death to come, is the nail of the flesh, which naileth all the motions of the flesh, to the three of the cross. The peacock that groweth proud in the sight of his tail, spread abroad, like a fan, and in his unconstant colours like the rainbow: is as much dejected, looking down vpon his feet. Psal. 82.6. I haue said, ye are gods, and ye are all children of the most high: this is that, that maketh us look high: But when we red on, ye shall die and fall like one of the Princes: thereat wee wax pale, and shake in every joint of us, and our combs are cut. The pride taken up, vpon the strength of our limbs, is tamed by the recogitation of death. For the dog insulteth over a dead Lion. The proud man speaketh pleasings and leasings to his soul, saying, Isai. 14.13. I will ascend into heaven, and I will exalt my throne above, besides the stars of God. I well set also vpon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the North: I will ascend above the height of the clouds: and I will be like the most high. But mark how God roundeth him in the ear, But thou shalt bee brought down to the grave, to the sides of the pit: they that see thee, shall look vpon thee, and consider thee, saying, Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, and did shake the Kingdoms? The same doom delivereth job against the haughty man! job 20.6. Virgil Aeneid. En tellus& quam bello Troiano petisti, Italiam metire iacens. Though his excellency mount up to the heaven, and his head reach unto the clouds; yet shall he perish for ever like his dung, and they which haue seen him, shall say, where is he, he shall flee away as a dream, and they shall not find him, and shall pass away as a vision of the night. Sennacharib was in the ruff for a time, and who but Sennacharib, scattering his proud boastings like some, Isai. 37.13. Where is the King of Hamath? and the King of Arpad?( Kings which he had vanquished) And haue the gods of the nations delivered their clients and orators out of my hands? And Ezekias, let not thy God deceive thee. But a man might haue asked him, where is the King of Assur? And hath Nisroch the god of Assyria delivered Sennacharib himself out of the hands of God? And Sennacharib, let not thy god deceive thee: nay, take heed that thine own sons deceive thee not. Herod that was pleased with the applause of the people, Act. 12.22. Non vox hoins orat. The voice of God, and not of man: in the same theatre where he took his glory, he received his shane. The people shouted not so fast in his ears, but another people sent from God gnaweth as fast vpon his bowels within, and altereth his style. The nature of man at the first creation, before that lump was soured with the leaven of sin, was full of glory and grace: All things were made for us; for in a manner wee are the end and perfection of all things. For our sakes were the heauens created; and for our sakes were the heauens bowed: and God was man, to bring man to God. So that all is ours, and we are Christs, and Christ is Gods. The wise men of the world, who never looked so far into the honours of man, as wee do, yet evermore advanced that creature above all others. One called him, A little world, the world a great man: another, A mortal God, God an immortal man: another, All things, because he partaketh of the nature of plants, of beasts, and of spiritual creatures. Phanorinus marveled at nothing in the world, besides man; at nothing in man, besides his mind. Abdala the Saracen, being asked what he most wondered at vpon the stage of this world, answered, Man. And Saint Augustine saith, that man is a greater miracle than all the miracles that ever haue been wrought amongst men. But whatsoever wee be, our nature is manifest to all the world. Our foundation is in the dust: we were fashioned beneath in the earth: we were brought together to bee flesh in our mothers womb in ten moneths, and when we were born we received no more than the common air, and fell vpon the earth which is of like nature. Our father is no better than an Animonite; neither angel, nor God; and our mother an Hittite; and we the unclean children of unclean seed. Let Alexander seed vpon his fancy, that he was the son of jupiter Hammon, till he receive a wound in the war, and seeth his own blood, and cannot sleept. Let sapour king of Persia writ himself, King of Kings, brother to the sun and moon, copartner with the stars: Let Antiochus think to sail vpon the mountaines: Sennacharib to dry up the riuers, with the soles of the feet of his followers: Let Edom exalt himself like an Eagle, and build his nest among the stars, and say in the swelling of his heart, who shall bring me down to the ground: yet when they haue all done, let them look back to their tribe, and to their fa●hers poor house, and to the pit from whence they were hewn: let them examine their pedigree and descent, and it will soon turn the edge of their conceited worth. And here I tender thee the pithy counsel of Scaliger to Cardan, I will over haue thee to remember, that thou and I and others are but men. For if thou knewest what man is, thou wilt easily understand thyself to be nothing. For my part, I am not wont to say: that we are so much as men, but pieces of man, of all which put together, something may bee made, not great: but of each of them sundered, almost less than nothing. 2. In case Prosperity shall puff thee up with pride, the remembrance of death will tame thee well enough. Hast thou had hitherto the better hand against all? death will get the mastery at length over thee; whom neither repulse, flight, or any thing that heart or art can excogitate, is able to subdue. Hast thou been the death of others? What remaineth else, but that thou be swallowed up of death thyself? Art thou laden with the spoil of the whole world? Be sure that thou thyself must be a prey to the jaws of death. This he well weighed, that well warned thee, Know thyself: a man, and so mortal. 3. If the famed and celebrity of thy name heaueth up thine heart, and make thy thoughts as jordan to overflow the banks; the meditation of death will qualify this humour: For Psal. 6.5. in death what man remembreth thee? The dead and they that are gone down into the silence, shall not sing thy praise. What? From the living, to the dead? Nay of the living, and of succeeding posterity that is to live, must proceed all thy praise. But yet mortal are they all, whom thou dost expect to be trumpeters of thy value: and mortal& transitory are all the means by which thou dost lay the foundation of thy famed. The Grammarian, that teacheth his scholar to decline death, confesseth that it is not of any to be declined. The Logician that undertaketh by his Dialect, ●o prove black to be white,& white to bee black, and what not? cannot persuade death by any syllogism to spare his life, but is in this point at a Non-plus. And here the Orators skill faileth with all his rhetoric, and eloquence cannot move death, who is impartial to alter his doom of death against him. My numerarie man with all his arithmetic, cannot suppute the number of his dayes. My Doctor of physic that taketh vpon him to recover me at the point of death, to li●e, cannot save his own life. Our Fencers and sword-players that can put by every blow, cannot award the blow of death, when it is intended against him. The Smith that smiteth harness, and prepareth military weapons, of offence, and defence, as if he had been an apprentice under Vulcan, cannot make a Brigandine or coat-armour for himself to bear off deaths darts. Achilles, though none could wound him in any part of his body, yet he met with an enemy that had him by the heel, and there gave him his mortal wound. The equal condition of death in vnequals, giveth a grand dodge and rebuk to pride. In the carcases of the dead, there is no difference to be discerned, unless it be this onely, that the bodies of the rich, bombasted and distended& as full as the moon; through their excessive riot, in their variety, and fullness of their great chargers,& their strong drinks and wine, sand out a more gross and noisome savour. Bernard. serm. 1. de morte. Bernard telleth us of a duchess of savoy, as curious as costly. Shee would not dip forsooth in any common water, but her hath must be of the due of heaven; her morsels of meat must bee carved her by her eunuchs, and put into her mouth by a golden fork: shee perfumed herself with all manner of fragrant and redolent smells. But mark what followed; the whole body so corrupted& putrefied throughout, as none was able to come nigh her. The pride of 2 Mach. 9.9. Antiochus was so humbled by the stroke of Gods vengeance, as he is become the worlds wonder, being gripped in his guts, and so tormented in remediless manner, in the inward parts, as his torture was more than intolerable. The worms crawled out at the holes of his body: his souldiers were so sensible of his smell, as they were not able to abide the rankness of his contagious savour: and the Legend noteth it down, as the punishment of his pride. And no milder iudgement befell Herod, as we haue said before. As the full kitchens of the rich are more fulsome and rank in their sent, than those of the meaner sort, whose attorneys are more like the nose of a dog, that is always could, and never hot: so for the most part are their dead corpse. Alphonsus king of the Arragons, being demanded, what was that which equalized Princes and private men, answered, their ashes. As wee know one three from another, while they grow in the forest; but being burnt vpon the hearth, wee cannot sever the ashes of the one from the ashes of the other: so wee distinguish men here: some by the procerity of their stature, some by the greatness of their stock, some by the beauty as it were by their leaves: but tumbled into their tombs and graues, and reduced to their dust, who can divide the beggar from the king? Diogenes the cynic, by such a similitude censured the loftines of great Alexander; who being of him asked, what they meant to bee rumbling bones of the dead, is said to haue made this answer; I seek the bones of king Philip thy father: Senec. lib. 3. Natural. Ques● but I cannot distinguish them from the bones of the common sort. It is Seneca his communication and counsel, Why art thou so displeased with thy client? forbear a while, Death cometh that will make us all equal. The Collect. WHerefore inasmuch as the remembrance of death may stand me in such stead; incline my heart, O Lord, to the remembrance thereof, that I may meditate thereon day and night; that so my pride may bee abated, and the whole army of my sins scattered, that I ceasing from sin, and living unto righteousness, I may die in thy fear and favor, and mine eyes may see thy salvation which I look for. CHAP. VII. Of the preparation in particular, to be made in the time of sickness. And how God determineth of the life of man. BEsides the precedent preparation in general, all our life long, a preparation in particular is required to be made in the end of our life, when sickness and weakness do wait vpon vs. And this respecteth three sorts of duties: 1. Towards God. 2. ourselves. 3. Our neighbours. 1. That duty that hath relation unto God only, is to take out our Quietus est from the Kings bench, to make our atonement and peace with God in Christ. All other offices are underlings to this: and all others in comparison of this, are nothing. This atonement is made by the renewance of our former faith, and repentance in this manner. assoon as we feel our sickness vpon us, that we duly consider the original thereof, how it came in, not casually, but by the hand of divine providence. Next to that, we are to inquire after the cause, that gave the introduction thereunto. For the first, every mans state and fate is under divine determination and ordinance. Stat sua cvique dies. every man hath his day set him. So saith sirach, Eccles. 17.2. He gave him the number of dayes,& certain times. again, Eccles. 3.24. The life of man standeth in the number of daies. So saith job, job 14.5. Are not his dayes determined? the number of his moneths are with thee: thou hast appointed his bounds which he cannot pass. So saith david, Psal. 139.16. Thine eyes did see me when I was without form; for in thy book were all things written, which in continuance were fashioned, when there was none of them before. So saith the princely Preacher, Eccles. 3.2. A time to be born, and a time to die. So saith wisdom, Wisd. 1●. 13. Thou hast the power of life and death: and leadest down unto the gates of hell, and bringest up again. So david saith again, Psal. 9.3. Thou turnest men to destruction: again thou sayest, come again ye children of men. But this period of life is not apportionated to every one alike. Some are ordained to die as soon as ever they bee born; 2 Sam. 12.18. as Dauids son. Othersome in their infancy; 1 King. 14.17. as the child of jeroboam. Some in their youth; Act. 20.9. as Eutychus. Others in their riper age; judge. 15.3. as samson; 2 Sam. 18.14. as absalon. Othersome in their old age; 1 King. 2.10. as david. Othersome in their decrepit age; Gen. 5.27. as Methusalem, who in the nine hundred sixty nine year of age dyed. Peter had once escaped the hands of that Hydra, Herod; for his time was not then come: therefore he was to bee delivered, Act. 12.1.3. &c. though by the ministry of an angel. On the other side, because that was the time wherein james must die, at that same time must he bee put to the sword. david came often into great dangers under Saul and others: but because God had ordained him to life, he must escape them all. Neither Saul that bloodsucker, nor that rebel or monster of nature Absalon, must hurt the Lords anointed. How furious was that hellish fury Baaliticall jesabel against the man of God Elia? But because his dayes were noted in Gods Register, and he was by a fiery chariot to bee hurried up to heaven; all the furies of this fury must fade and fleet away. What shall I say of our saviour Christ himself? who was continually all his life time chased as a do. Matth. 2.13. In his infancy and swathing clouts pursued by Herod, hardly escaping the butchers knife. Luk. 4.29. Vpon the entry into the execution of his office at Nazaret his Nursery, the mutinous multitude thrust him out of the city, and lead him unto the side of the hill, whereon the city was built, that they might cast him down headlong. But he passing thorough the midst of them went his way. So the Iewes cast stones at him while he was in the Temple: but he slid thorough their fingers: the reason is, his hour was not yet come. Sisera was not to die by the stroke of mans hand, or by the bow, or sword of the enemy; but God reserved him to end his dayes in a tent, by a hammer and a nail in the hand of a woman. So, and no otherwise must Sisera be served. Sennacharib was not to be slain in the field, by the destroying Angel, as the greater part of his army was: but in his own city, in his chapel, by his own sons. The day of vengeance is styled in holy Scripture, The day of the Lord. Not as though all other dayes were not his, but because he hath his appointed times for iudgement. Eccles. 3.2. A time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted. jerm. 31.33. The daughter of Babel is like a threshing floor: the time of her harvest is come: revel. 3.10. Christ speaketh of an hour of temptation, which shall come vpon all the world to try them that dwell vpon the earth. revel. 14.6. The angel flying in the midst of heaven, said with a loud voice, fear God, give glory unto him, for the hour of his iudgement is come. revel. 14.15. And another angel cried with a loud voice to him that sate on the cloud, thrust in thy sickle and reap, for the harvest of the earth is ripe. The consideration of this point serveth to the instruction of all, old and young: For neither young nor old may escape death. N●que vlla aut parvo aut magno laethi fuga. Inuenibus in insidijs: senibus in januis. Death lieth in wait for the young, and standeth at the gates of the aged. Psal. 31.17. My time is in thy hand, saith david: wherefore let our prayers come forth with david, Psal. 39.5. Lord let me know mine end, and the number of my dayes, that I may be certified how long I haue to live. Plato compareth the life of man to a game at tables: It is not in us what to cast; but when we see the cast, it is in us to order it. So the event of life which befalleth us, is not in our hands: but to make the best of it, we are to do our best. Aug. Infantia nostra innocentia sit: pueritia, reuerentia; adolescentia sit patientia; juuentus, virtus; senium, meritum; senectus sit sanus sapiens intellectus. Our infancy must be our innocency: our childhood, reverence: our young age, must bee patience: our riper age, virtue: our old age, merit: our decrepit age, prudent understanding, saith St. Augustine. And it affordeth no less comfort than instruction, in all our difficulties, dangers and distresses. The number of our dayes is certain, all of them are enrolled in Gods Register, all our lots are in Gods lap. Wherefore though the world should swarm with as many devils as may be, they can neither abridge our dayes, nor prejudge our lots. Matth. 10.29. All the hairs of our head are numbered. Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and yet not one of them fall to the ground, without Gods providence. Wherefore fear we not, we are of more worth then many sparrows. Greg. in Moral. Praefixidies singulis ab aeterna Dei praescientia: nec augeri possunt, nec minui: nisi contingat vt ita praesciuntur vt aut optimis operibus longiores fiant, aut possimis breuiores. every mans dayes are prefixed by divine prescience: neither can they be increased or minished; unless they may so hap, that they bee so foreknown, that by our good works we may lengthen, or by our bad deeds we may shorten them, saith St. gregory. For the Lord is the life of the godly, and the length of daies, Deu. 30.20. De. 32.48. Prou. 4.10. according to his promise annexed to the fourth Commandement, But the Psal. 55.24. bloodthirsty and deceitful man shall not live out half his dayes. job 21 21. The number of his moneths is cut off. Here we haue also Argument dehortatorie against the fond conceit of absolute necessity, or otherways stoical Destini●: to which the sacred Scriptures, and sounder Philosophers, are contrarious. And this Adage is fulfilled, Faete is Fatuus: Est fatuum Fatum: fatui qui fata sequuntur. and they that follow Fate are infatuated: Many infatuated herewith, haue desperately thrown themselves vpon the pikes of apparent perils. And some by an improvident and effeminate carriage, haue intercepted the course of life, which ungracious demeanour the very heathen Philosophers did abhor. One being on his knees, and ready to bereave himself of life, the dogged Diogenes told him, Wee live not by the knees, but by the mind. Non cruribus vivimus, said mente. Which was a quick answer, For it is not in us, Hieron. non est nostrum mortem arripere; said ab aliis iliatam libenter accipere. saith Saint jerome, to seek our own death: but willingly( when it is inflicted) to receive it. The Collect. O Lord the life of my life, and the God of the spirits of all flesh, make me willing to die because it is thy ordinance; for all things serve thee. Let me not forget thee, nor behave myself frowardly in thy covenant. Now thou smitest me into the place of dragons, and couerest me with the deep: make me willing to die, and to say with old Simeon, Lord now let thy seruant depart in peace: and with Paul, I desire to be dissolved, and to be with Christ. And because my spirit is willing, but my flesh weak, raise it, and quicken it with thy free spirit, while in mind I recount thy promises and comforts on every side. It is thy will I should die, and not live: Lord, I am content therewith, for thy law is within my heart. And therefore make no long tarrying, O Lord my God. CHAP. VIII. Of sin, the occasion of sickness and death. THe next thing I think vpon in my bed of sickness, is the original cause of my sickness and death, namely my sins original and actual: For so the Scriptures teach me. Wisd. 2.24. Through envy of the devill came death into the world: and they that hold of his side, prove it. Rom. 5.12. By one man sin came into the world: and death by sin. Lamen. 3.39. Wherefore is the living man sorrowful? man suffereth for his sin. Wherefore Christ for the curing of the palsy man, took first away his sins, the radical cause of his infirmity, and so dammeth up the fountain and spring. Matth. 9.2. Son, thy sins bee forgiven thee: take up thy bed and walk: thereby demonstrating himself to bee the true physician both of body and soul. To the man whom Christ healed at the pool of Bethesda, he saith, joh. 5 14. beholded, thou art made whole, sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee. I easily conceive that there bee other considerations of my languishing estate: which though they bee hide from me, are not hide from God. For to the question of the Disciples touching the blind man, why he was so born? our saviour answered, joh. 9.3. Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents; but that the works of God should be shewed in him. Yet I hold it ordinarily, that all diseases are of sin; in which, Psal. 50.7. We are all conceived and born: For so much power is yielded to the devill against man: and he so endeavoureth to deprave the first Image of God, set vpon man, as he forbeareth not the babe in the mothers womb. But sometimes by Gods especial sufferance, he doth much mischief: so as some are born blind, joh. 9.1. as the blind boy in the gospel: or else born lame, Act. 3.2.& 4.22. as the cripple who lay at the gate of the Temple, which was called beautiful, which was a cripple from his mothers womb: Or else weak and withered, joh. 5.5. as the man that lay at the bath of Bethesda, which had been diseased eight and thirty yeeres, and laid bedred: Or deaf& dumb, Mark. 10.32. with him of whom St. mark maketh mention: Or wry, Luk. 13.11. with that woman who had a spirit of infirmity eighteen yeeres, and was bowed together, and could not lift up herself in any wise. Some are shaken with the palsy, Matth. 8.6. with the Centurions seruant. Act. 9.33. and with Aeneas who kept his bed in that disease the space of eight yeeres. Some are possessed with an unclean spirit; Mark. 9.18. as he whose son was so taken, as he was bowed, and teared, he was made to some at the mouth, and to gnash with his teeth, so as he loured, and pined away, and sometimes was thrown into the fire, and sometimes into the water: Or with an issue of blood, Matth. 9.20. with the woman that was troubled therewith twelve yeeres together: Or are overrun with the scab of leprosy, Matth. 8.2. with Matthews Leper: Or brought low by an ague, Matth. 8.14. with Peters wives mother: Or strucken with carbuncles or running sores, job 2.71. as job was, Luk. 16.20. and Lazarus. Or with some other kind of malady and misery. I wish every man affencted as myself, to spend the little remainder of their time, in contemplation and meditation of this matter. That so finding out the original cause of all diseases and defects in nature, namely sin, may with Ezekias turn to God, 2 King. 20.2, 3 and crave pardon of his sins after his example. This wisdom adviseth us to do, Syrac. 38.9. My son, fail not in thy sickness, but pray unto the Lord, and he will make thee whole. Next let him use the lawful means of physic; Syrac. 38.12. Then give place to the physician, for the Lord hath created him. Let him not go from thee, for thou hast need of him. And say as the Prophet teacheth thee, Mich. 7.9. I will bear the wrath of the Lord, for I haue sinned against him. Crine ruber, niger ore, brevis pede, lumine lus●us. Rem magnam praestans Z●ile, si bonus es. Hic niger est, hunc tu roman caueto. Raro qu●ppe boni quos sic natura notavit. And be in the same mind with me, not to despair of the grace of God, or your souls health, for any defect whatsoever. The worlds iudgement of such as are blind, lame, mute, deaf, and such like, is oftentimes wicked, vain, and profane: as, Take heed of such whom nature hath branded above others, which the great God forbid. Be it far from us, once to hatch such a horrible conceit. The uncreated wisdom of God, Isai. 55 8. ( whose thoughts are not as our thoughts) knoweth why he doth every thing. And whatsoever his reason is, of this or that unknown to me, this one thing I know, Rom. 8.28. That all things work to the best, to them that love God. The Collect. O Lord, who with rebukes dost punish men for sin; pardon my sins, that my infirmities may be healed. Let me behold my sins in the glass of the Law, that I may fear to sin. And let me see my pardon in the glass of the gospel, to my everlasting comfort. My sore runneth and ceaseth not: heal thou, O Lord, the broken hearted, and minister medicine to heal my wounds. Infuse the wine and oil of thy grace into the deadly wounds of my sins, that I may be whole, and sin no more, but glorify thy name. Say unto my soul, I am thy salvation; that so my sins of their own nature of a read blood die, may by the righteousness of my Lord Iesus Christ, who is become my righteousness, be made as white as snow in Salmon. CHAP. IX. The sick mans examination of his sins. having thus laid my hand vpon the cause of my sickness, which is my sin; I hold it my next duty to examine and arraign my sins, in searching and trying my way, that so I may the better truly turn unto thee as I ought. Lam. 3.9. Wherefore is the living man sorrowful? Man suffereth for his sins. Let us search and try our ways, and turn again unto the Lord. This was Dauids course, Psal. 119.59. I haue considered my ways, and turned my feet unto thy Testimonies. And this was the counsel he gave to Sauls Courtiers, Psal. 4.4. Tremble, and sin not: examine your own heart, and be still. Answerable whereunto is this exhortation of Zephania, Zeph. 2.1. Gather yourselves, even gather you, O nation, not worthy to bee loved. This examination and trial is to be made by the Commandements of the moral law. When a man entereth his house at midnight, he findeth or seeth nothing out of order: but let him come in the day time when the sun shineth, then he shall espy many things amiss, yea the very motes that fly about him: so if a man shall search his heart, in the ignorance and darkness of his mind, he perceiveth nothing: but let him search it by the light of the Law, and he shall see a number of sins without number, of which he will be sensible. But especially let us make a survey of our sins, by the tenth Commandement, which search the heart more narrowly than ever Laban did search Iacobs tent. This was Pauls practise, and the mean of his conversion. For when he was a superstitious Pharisee, in the glass of this precept he saw certain sins, which without this he had never discerned to bee sins. Rom. 7.7.13. I had not known lust, except the law had said, thou shalt not lust. But sin took an occasion by the Commandement, and deceived me, and slay me; that is to mean, humbled me. As concerning original sin, that is totally mine; the breasts of eve giuing no better milk unto me. And Adam hath conveyed his whole nature unto me, so as my father is an Ammorite, my mother an Hittite: my father hath tasted sour grapes, and his childrens teeth are set on edge. The seeds of every sin are in every one, Christ only excepted, who was extraordinarily sanctified in his mothers womb by the holy Ghost. As for our actual transgressions, in the examination thereof, we must observe these three rules: 1. Not onely to ferret out our palpable and gross sins, but also to dive into the inward thoughts of the heart; for true repentance consisteth not onely in the alteration of thy words, attire, and outward actions, but also of the secret and hidden cogitations. wherefore Ioel calleth vpon the Iewes, Ioel. 2.13. To rend their hearts, and not their garments. And Paul telleth the Ephesians, Ephes. 4.23. That they must bee renewed in the spirit of their mind. And Simon Peter adviseth Simon Magus Act. 8.22. to repent, and pray, if perhaps the thoughts of his heart may bee forgiven him. 2. To consider the circumstances of our sins. 1. Time. 2. Place. 3. Maner, whether ignorantly out of weakness, or witting through wilfulness, we haue committed these sins. 3. To run over all the particular Commandements of the law moral, applying them as rules and directions to our hearts and lives, and so make long Registers of them, from our youth downward. So shall wee come to the knowledge of our thrice miserable estate; that our sins exceed the hairs of our head for number, and the sands of the sea for weight; and that they are a burden too heavy for us to bear. If after all this examination thus made, we cannot sound the depth of our sins,( for what man doth know how oft he offendeth?) Ierem. 17.9. For the heart is deceitful and wicked above all things, who can know it? As being like a huge deep, that hath neither bank, nor bottom; as having a maze of hidden corruptions within it: then it shall behooue us, in a religious iealousy to be suspicious of our unknown sins, and to say and pray with david, Psal. 19.12. Who can tell how oft he offendeth? O purge thou me from my secret faults. Hence is it that the Apostle saith, 1 Cor. 4.4. I know nothing by myself: yet am I not hereby justified. And it shall be more than necessary, that wee in this maner examine ourselves, and suspect those sins which we cannot call to mind: Luk. 16.15. For we are such as justify ourselves before men: but God knoweth our hearts. For th● which is highly esteemed amongs● men, is abomination in the sight of God. He laid folly vpon his Angels; much more on them that dwell in houses of day, whose foundation is in the dust. The Collect. give grace, O Lord, I may consider my ways: and turn my heart unto thy testimonies. My sins are more in number than the hairs of my head, and my heart faileth me. I do nothing but add worse to evil, and thirst to drunkenness. In my flesh dwelleth no maner of thing that is good: I am sold to sin, and I drink iniquity, as an ass drinks water. But turn thou me, O Lord, and I shall be turned: take away mine ungodliness, and thou shalt find none. O save thy seruant that putteth his trust in thee, and be merciful unto my sins for thy Names sake: and of thy goodness bring my soul out of trouble, for I am thy seruant. One depth calleth vpon another: O let the depth of thy mercy swallow up the depth of my sins. CHAP. X. Of confession of sins, another duty that hath relation to God, as at all times needful, so especially by the Dying man. IT is evidence of Gods wrath not to understand our sins before, that repentance may follow after, saith Cyprian. How wee should appear before the high God, in the humiliation of ourselves, in the due confession of our sins, wee can learn of none better, than of the prodigal, and Publican in the gospel. The prodigal son saith, Luk. 15.21. Father I haue sinned, and not simply so, but against heaven and against thee: against the Father of my spirit and flesh, against him that gave me his law, against him that gave me my life. The Publican stood afar off, not daring to draw near to God, that God might draw near to him, but smote his sinful breast, the coffer and closet where all his sins lay: punishing himself, that God might spare him; condemning himself in this world, that he might not be condemned in the world to come; saying, Luk. 18.13. God be merciful to me a sinner: I do not say to thy creature, to thy seruant, or to thy son; but to me a sinner. All my whole frame and composition is sin: whatsoever I am both in body and soul, to the uttermost extent and straint of the whole man, I am a sinner: and not only by office, as a Publican; but also by Nature and Descent a sinner. There is nothing else mentioned of Mary Magdalen, but that she was a sinner. Luk. 7.37. Behold, a woman in the city which was a sinner: as if the spirit of God had forgot her other names. 1. Shee stood at Christs feet. 2. behind him. 3. Weeping. 4. Began to wash. 5. The lowest part of his body, His feet. 6. With her tears. If she had done this with river water, it might haue gone currant, for civility and service enough. 7. Shee wipeth them, not with the fringe or skirt of her vesture, but with the hairs of her head, and she kissed them,& anointed them with ointment. The like duteous behaviour we find in the woman diseased with an issue of blood. For shee as Mary Magdalene Matth. 9.20. did come behind Christ, and shee touched the hem of his garment, and virtue went from Christ to her. The first token of life in the widows son of Naim, was, Luk. 7.15. He began to speak: so in our spiritual resuscitation from death to life, the first sign of our salvation; is the confession of our transgressions. pharaoh came to this, Exod. 10.16. I haue sinned against the Lord your God. So did Balaam, when he saw the Angel in the way, Num. 22.34. I haue sinned. So did Saul, 1 Sam. 15.24. I haue sinned. This was Dauids speech to Nathan, 2 Sam. 12.13. I haue sinned against the Lord. And the very same was Iobs language, job 7.20. I haue sinned, what shall I do? O thou preserver of men. And these were Daniels words, on the behalf of himself, the princes, and the people of jerusalem and judea, Dan. 9.5. O we haue sinned, and committed iniquity, and haue done wickedly, &c. Ezra hearing that the children of the captivity remained consorted with the people of the nations, was resolved into strange passions: Ezra. 9.3. He rent his clothes, plucked off the hair of his head, and of his beard, and sate down astonied until the evening sacrifice, deploring the case in this manner: O my God, I am confounded, and ashamed to lift up mine eyes unto thee my God. For our iniquities are increased ever our head, and our trespass is grown up unto the heaven. As in old time it was the received custom, in sorrowful seasons, to assemble women and others, who had skill in weeping; so such as would repent, and haue no skill, let them resort to such as haue it: to Ezra the Priest, and such like, as may teach them. There is no such treacle in Eden, or balm in Gilead, as this is, to heal the deadly wounds of sin, the confession thereof. Wherefore I say to thee O sick man, as Ioshua said to Achan, Ios. 7.19. My son, I beseech thee, give glory to the Lord God, and make confession unto him. For wounds that are opened, Vulnera clausa plus cruciant. are soon healed, and those that are closed up, are more to be dreaded, as it is well said of Seneca. Greg. si non confessus, lates, inconfessus damnaberis. If thou lurkest privily not confessing, vnconfessing thou shalt bee condemned, saith gregory. As he is a fo●le, call him no better, who being to beg an alms, strouteth in brave apparel, with rings on his fingers, and a gold chain about him( for beggars are to show their ulcers, their wounds, their rags and nakedness) to move commiseration: so being to crave the alms of Gods mercy at the gate of his Temple, which may be called beautiful, let us not show our merits, but our miseries; not our good deeds, but our mis-deeds; and call for the psalm of mercy for our necke-verse. If the sick man, when the physician shall let him blood, shall let go that which is pure, and retain that which is corrupt, he must needs faint and be in danger: so the sinner, that with a long trumpet shall sound his virtues, and smother his sins, must needs bee feeble in soul and at deaths door. Wherefore I hold Balaam the son of Beor but a Buzzard, prating thus to God, Num. 23.4. I haue built seven Altars: as though God were purblind, and knew not what a feat he had done, unless he had told him. It is the manner of the ungodly, to boast themselves of the acts they haue done, as if the Lord were ignorant: whereas he not only knows the actions of men, but also the several circumstances of the same. Abraham offered a sacrifice to the Lord; and God considered it in his circumstances, saying, Gen. 15.12. Thou hast not for my sake spared thine only son. So did our saviour in his expostulatory speech with Simon the Pharisee, in the cause of Mary Magdalen, Luk. 7 44. she hath washed my feet with tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head: she hath not ceased to kiss my feet: shee hath anointed my feet with ointment. he that sheweth his whole parts only to the physician, and hideth them that are diseased from him; how can he be cured? So it is with us in hiding from God the infirmities and diseases of our sins, by not confessing them to God. The Lord called Ezekiel to him, and said, Ezek. 8.8. son of man, dig in the wall: and when I had digged in the wall, behold there was a door. And he said unto me, go in, and behold the wicked abominations that they do here. So I went in and saw, and there was every similitude of creeping things, and abominable beasts. So the Lord would haue thee, O sinner, to dig in the wall of thy conscience, that thou mayst behold the similitude of creeping things, and of a thousand kind of sins, depicted in the wall of thy conscience: thy covetousness, pride, luxuriousness, and behold more abominations than these. The Lord refuseth that beast for sacrifice, that cannot ruminate or chew the cud: so such as cannot chew the cud by confessing of sins, are no oblation for the Lords Altar. As bees from sour herbs express sweet honey; so thou shalt find much sweetness coming to thy soul, by thy careful confession of thy sins. He that falleth into a deep river, though up to the beard, yet so long as he can open his mouth, he may hope to live. But in case he be so deep in, as the water enter into his mouth, and stoppeth it, he is a dead man. So if thou by thy manifold and most grievous sins, shalt plunge thyself into the deep waters of destruction, and the stream therof shall come over thy soul, yet if thou canst but open thy mouth, and confess thy sins unto the Lord, with the Lord there is mercy for thee, and plenteous redemption: Psal. 119.131. I opened my mouth, and drew in my breath, saith david. He opened his mouth to take in air, and live: do thou so, O sinner, draw in the breath of the holy Spirit of God, by confessing thy sins to God, that thy soul may live. The wolf assaulting the sheep, first flieth to the throat of it, that so it might not by bleating call vpon the shepherd for help, thereby to bee delivered from his merciless maw: so that ravenous wolf the devill, ready to tear us in pieces, while there is none to help, first seeketh to take us by the throat, that we might not confess our sins unto salvation, and so call vpon the great shepherd of our souls, Christ Iesus, who seeketh every stray sheep of his, and when he hath found it, Luk. 15.5. bringeth it home vpon his shoulders. O my soul, think of that which david said and did, Psal. 32.3. While I held my tongue, my bones consumed away, through my daily complaining. For thy hand is heavy vpon me day and night, and my moisture is like the drought in summer. Now what did he thereupon? I said, I will confess my sins unto the Lord, and thou forgavest the wickedness of my sins. I read of none that haue at any time truly confessed their sins to God, but ob●●ined pardon. virtue went from Christ to the cure of the Canaanitish woman, that touched but the hem of Christs vesture. To Mary Magdalen many sins were remitted. The Publica● went out of the Temple more justified. The children of the captivity were delivered. The latter daies of job were blessed above the former. david at one time had his sin detected, at another time the punishment qualified. Yea pharaoh and Balaam fared the better for their confession, though it was counterfeit. The Collect. BEcause by the heart wee beleeue to righteousness, and by the tongue wee confess unto salvation, I will aclowledge my sins unto thee O Lord, and mine iniquities I will not hid. Wee haue sinned with our fathers, and done wickedly: all our thoughts, words, and deeds, haue been evil continually. There is no whole part within me, from the sole of my feet to the crown of my head. There is nothing so infinite, thy mercies excepted, as be my sins. Against thee only haue I sinned, and done wickedly; that thou mightest bee justified in thy sayings, and clear when thou art judged. I confess, I confess, O Lord, that to thee belongeth righteousness; and to me nothing but confusion of face. I haue been conceived in sin, I am become a bondslave unto sin, my whole humanity is nothing else but a compound of sin. O Lord bee merciful to me a sinner. O let my humble confession come up into thy presence as the Incense, and my contrition as the evening sacrifice. hear me, O King of heaven, thus confessing unto thee; and accept this my confession, as not proceeding out of feigned lips: grant this for Iesus Christ his sake, thine only son, and my alone saviour. CHAP. XI. Of fervent prayer to God for the forgiveness of sins confessed: another duty belonging to the Dying man, to be performed to God, in his particular preparation unto Death. MY next duty to God-ward, in my particular preparation, being now at the point to die, is to pray for the forgiveness of my sins confessed. And I consider that I am to perform it seriously, as a matter of the greatest consequence in the world. And here I bethink myself of the poor prisoner, standing at the bar, now ready to receive the iudgement of death, crying out for mercy as for life& death. And so I come to thee most righteous judge, and will never leave to beseech thee, until thou hast mercy vpon me. I come as the spittle man and lazar by the high-way side, lame and full of sores, laying my wounds naked before thee, before whom all things are naked and manifest: continually crying unto thee as he doth, that I may receive grace, as he receiveth alms. So I find that Ozeas adviseth me in the name of the people; Hos. 14 2. O Israel return unto the Lord thy God: for thou hast fallen by thine iniquity. Take unto you words, and turn to the Lord, and say unto him, take away all iniquity, and receive us graciously: so we will render unto thee the calves of our lips. And the like I am taught by Daniel to do, Dan. 9.18, 19. We do not present our supplications before thee, for our own righteousness, but for thy great tender mercies. O Lord hear, O Lord forgive. And this devotion I descry in david, Psal. 51.1. Haue mercy vpon me, O God, after thy great goodness: according to the multitude of thy mercies do away mine offences. Yea, my prayers shall bee mingled with tears and sighs, as the prayers of Ezechias, who wept, as for the sins of others, so for his own. I find that david when he was sick, fell to indit● this good matter, and compiled these four penitential psalms: the sixth, the two and thirtieth, the eight and thirtieth, the nine and thirtieth, or at the leastwise afterwards, vpon the occasion of his sickness. And I well perceive that this was that, that did Manasses all the good; who having fallen from God, and given up himself to diuers very heinous sins, being in irons and misery in Babylon, he got himself to the Lord right humbly, by way of earnest prayer: and he was heard in that he prayed for, and was brought back to jerusalem, and restored to his kingdom. And hereupon Manasses freely acknowledged, that the Lord was God. But oh time! Oh manners! Oh men! How could or rather dead are we now adays, in this so duteous a devotion towards God? Who are so far off from renewing our repentance, in our sick and dying estate, as we are then to be initiated and catechised in the very rules and principles of religion, and faith towards. God, as not knowing what it meaneth: never once enquiting before wee be ready to depart, how we may bee saved. What is this else but demonstration of our more than supin● security, and contempt of Gods Word? Now in case the sick man be not able of himself, thus to renew his prayers for his new sins, let him seek for help of others; Matth. 9.2. as the palsy man had his potters to convey him to Christ, bed and all. As touching the help requisite in this case, many duties must be performed. Whereof james delivereth four: two of them respecting the dying man, the two others assistants. 1. It shall more than behove the dying man to sand for help. And here wee take notice of two circumstances. 1. Whom we are to sand for. 2. And when. 1. The parties to bee sent for, are the Ministers of the Church. Iam. 5.14. Is any man sick among you? let him call for the Elders of the Church, and let them pray over him. Neither is this office peculiar to the Minister alone, but it extendeth itself to all such likewise that haue the gift of prayer. Hebr. 3.13. Exhort one another while it is called to day. 1 Thes. 5.11, 14. Admonish them that are disordered, and comfort those that are weak. But here comes in the custom of our times to be considered, and condemned, in the visiting of the sick. Not a word of instruction or comfort haue they to minister to the sick party: but they pass away the time, either in silence, or in wandring speculation, or in vain words nothing to the purpose; as, how do you my good neighbour, I am sorry you are in this case, I hope you shall do well again, and that wee shall bee merry again together, I will pray for you. But ask such a one how he will pray for him, and there he leaveth thee: for he hath never a prayer at all. If he can mumble, and say over the ten Commandements, and blurt out a Pater noster, merely like a Parrot, without understanding. Now all this is long either of their ignorance of the Word, or that they think this to bee a business out of their element, nothing appertaining to their common wealth; but that this is the office of the Minister alone, peculiar to his charge. 2. For the other circumstance of the Time when the sick man is to devote himself to prayer, I say, in the beginning of his sickness: when the Preacher hath done, the physician should begin; for the course quiter contrary now taken, is preposterous, and irreligious: for the Preacher to bee sent for, when he is past physic, and not himself. For until such time as remedy bee had for the surfet of the soul, and sin the very root of all sicknesses and diseases be rooted up, my Doctor of physic with all his promises, and performances, shall perform nothing: for health cometh from the highest, and is in Gods hand onely. But these times of ours haue altered the case, and turned it upside down. The physician is thought vpon in the first place, and he must bee sent for in all hast; but the Preacher is neglected until death hath seized vpon the sick man, and the bell begin to toll for him, as though the Minister could work miracles. 2. The second duty of the Dying man, is to confess his sins: an Argument wee haue dealt with before. Now the first duty in the Assistance to bee done, is to pray over him, that is, in his presence, with him, and for him, and by prayer to present the person himself and his estate to God. 2 King. 4.33. So did Elisha on the behalf of the Sunamites son raised from death to life, by the means of prayer. Act. 20.10. So did Paul for Eutychus. joh. 11.41. And so did Christ for Lazarus. And so it is a duty commended unto us from their examples. 2. Now the office of the helpers in the second place, according to St. james, is the anointing the sick person: a Ceremony out of date, as during but for that time the gift of healing lasted, which is now at an end. Neither doth this place serve any whit the popish sort, for the maintenance of their greasy& slovenly Sacrament of Extreme Unction. For St. james neither calleth it Holy oil, neither a Sacrament of the Church, neither saith that it availeth ought to the health of the soul or body; neither teacheth he us, to speak to that as to a living creature, All hail, O sacred oil. Aue sanctum oleum. Our Popelings use to anoint their sick, especially in their instruments of sense, that the person thus anointed, may obtain the remission of his sins,& spiritual consolation against all the devils temptations, in the hour of death;& strength to sustain the anguish of the sickness, and the very terrors of death itself. But this is a mere mockery, voided of all reason. And james his text is pitifully handled,& strained to the uttermost, as a parchment skin vpon the tenters. For the unction that james speaketh of, holds no agreement with their unctuous Sacrament. 1. For that unction was the received Ceremony among the Apostles, and others of the primitive Church when miracles were on foot, and the miraculous gift of healing was in place. Which donation now desisting, is determined. 2. The unction that St. james mentioneth, hath the promise on the side of it, that the sick man shall recover his estate of health: But the Pontificious unction can show no such grant; because for the most part the parties die that are by them anointed: whereas such persons as were anointed in the primitive Church, recovered their health. 3 That ancient unction james speaketh of, served only to the attaimment of bodily health: but this of theirs goes far beyond, to the procuring of the remission of sins, and the power to stand fast in the hour of temptation. But enough of this Argument. The Collect. WEe are taught by thy holy word, O Lord, to pray at all times, and to lift up pure hands without wrath or doubting; especially when the sore runneth, and ceaseth not, and our souls within us are desolate. When Nature is weakest, and the enemy by his temptations is strongest, prayer is the physic of the soul, and the onely plaster to heal our wounds. My prayer therefore shall ascend to thee, that thy mercies, O Lord, may descend to me. receive thou therfore the calves of my lips, and hear my prayers that come from an unfeigned heart. look down from thy sanctuary out of heaven, and behold thou me here on earth, and deliver me thy seruant appointed unto death, that when my soul shall depart out of the prison of my body, it may be received into everlasting habitations, through the merits of thy Son, my sole and all-sufficient saviour. CHAP. XII. Against the fear of death. I Proceed now to the declaration of the duties, which concern the Dying man himself; and first to those that belong to the soul. Now for the better safeguard of his soul, he is to arm& fortify himself against the fear of death. For howsoever naturally, man feareth death all his life long, yet then more especially, when death is at the door, and entering in vpon him. The child of God is not overmuch to stand in fear of death. he is to fear it, and not to fear it: fear it he must for two causes; 1. Because death is the enemy to life, the destruction of nature, 1 Cor. 15.26. The last enemy that shall bee destroyed: from which both man and beast do flee. And it is the gracious promise of God, plighted to the elect, revel. 21.4. That there shall be no more death. How did Elias dread, when vpon the ragious words of jezabel, who swore by no beggars, 2 King. 19.2. The gods do so to me,& more also, if I make not thy life like one of their lives, by to morrow this time. They plucked him by the arm, and set him on his feet, and made him high in hast to Bethsheba for his life: what account david made of life, and how loth he was to die, may appear, 1. By the Disputation, 2. Supplication, 3. Gratulation, that he made. 1. By his Disputation, thus; Psal. 30.9. What profit is there in my blood, when I go down to the pit? shall the dust give thanks unto thee, and shall it declare thy truth? 2. By his supplication, in this wise: Psal. 39.15. spare me a little that I may recover myself, before I go hence, and be no more seen. 3. By his Gratulation, thus; turn to thy rest, O my soul, for the Lord hath rewarded thee. For thou hast delivered mine eyes from weeping, my feet from falling, my life from death: I will walk before God in the land of the living. In this case was Ezekias vpon the tidings of death he received, Isai. 38.2. He turned himself to the wall and wept. But at the second message done him of the prorogation of his life for fifteen yeares, he was jovial, and became a glad man. Nay Christ himself, in the foresaid respect, was not free of this fear, though it was without sin; which he shewed, where he said, Mat. 26.38. My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death. Aug. Si non esset mortis amaritudo, nulla esset Martyrum fortitudo. Were there not in death such a terror, there could not be in the Martyrs such a valour, saith Augustine. Now for this cause that natures enemy, and the destroyer of it death, is to be feared: we are to fear it therfore, and not otherwise than we fear sickness, poverty, famine, with other griefs and sorrows, which God will not haue us to slight and despise, but to be sensible of them, because they are the scourges in Gods hand of sin. And therefore he sendeth pains and passions with death, that they might be seared, and avoided, and wee therewithal learn in time to prevent sin, the main cause thereof. 2. again we may fear death, for the damage imported both to Church and common-wealth, in the death of such, who while they lived, were the props and pillars of them both. Otherwise we are not to fear death, but to be joyous of it. 1. Because it freeth us from the servitude of satan, from the bondage of sin, the world, and condemnation; from the losses and crosses which this life is subject to; and safely setteth us under the shadow of the Almighty, and as it were under the wings of our blessed saviour. 2. Because Christ by his death hath sweetened& sanctified unto us both our death and grave. 3. Because Christ both in life& death is advantage; Philip. 1.21. For to me, to live in Christ, and to die, is gain. 4. Because the comforts which the spirit of Christ ministereth to the soul, do far surpass the sorrows which death can bring with it. 5. The longing desire that wee ought to haue to behold the most glorious face of God, the company of innumerable Angels, the congregation of first-borne, and Iesus the Mediator of the new Testament, whose blood speaketh better things than the blood of Abel, should make death a comfort,& not a corsiue unto vs. 6. In stead of our bodies, wee shall be clothed and garnished with glory. 7. Because the sting of death, which is sin, is plucked out, so as that fiery serpent the devill can no more fasten it vpon us; but we may boldly defy him, and bid him do his worst, and triumph over him, with the Apostle, in this wise; 1 Cor. 15.55. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? Heb. 2.14. For as much as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same, that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devill: and deliver them, who through fear of death, were all their life time subject to bondage. We are not so pensiuely to think of death, as painfully to make account of our life. For he never death ill, that lived well. And it is seldom seen that he that hath lived ill, should die well. 8. Finally, the Angells are at hand to do us service so soon as wee die, to take charge of our souls, and immediately to convey them up to heaven. Wherefore then should we dread death, which is not an evil, but an end of evil; Bernard. Transitus de labour ad refrigerium: de expectatione ad praemium: de ago ad brabeum: de morte ad vitam: de fide ad notitiam: de peregrinatione ad patriam: de mundo ad patrem. A passage from labour, to rest: from expectation, to the reward: from the combat, to the crown: from death to life: from faith to knowledge: from our pilgrimage to our long home: from the world to our father, saith Bernard. Wherefore be not afraid of death at all: For it is for him to fear death, who hath no mind to go to Christ, It is for him to haue no mind to go to Christ, who hath no hope to reign with him, saith Cyprian. Cypr. serm. de mortalitate. Greg. Nazianzen. de morte Patris. Melior habitatio firma quam peregrinatio incerta. Better is a certain dwelling place, than an uncertain pilgrimage, saith gregory Nazianzen. sleep is more welcome than watching; rest than labour, sweat and sorrow: freedom from the yoke and burden, than fetters, imprisonment, captivity. The due meditation hereof could make the heathen say, when it happeneth that it bee determined by God, that we should go out of this life, wee ought cheerfully to obey; recounting how we are delivered out of gail, and translated out of darkness into light. Well, as in most things saith Seneca, Death as it is, is commended as the best invention to nature: which whether it includeth felicity, or excludeth calamity, or determineth the tiresome wearisomenesse of the aged, or the unripe age of the younger sort; it is to all an end, to many a remedy, to some their hearts desire, of none more deserving, than of those to whom it cometh before it be called vpon. Senec Contra iniurias vitae, beneficium mortis habeo. As again where he saith, Against the injuries of life, I haue the benefit of death. Yea but here is the grief, saith some, that our flesh shall rot away in the earth. To this objection saith Chrysostome, Chrysost. Homil. in Matth. 35. Thou shouldst rather be the more glad therefore, because in the corruption of the body, death itself is corrupted; the mortality is destroyed, not the substance of the body. The same Father further prosecuteth this argument by way of the continued similitude of an Image thus: If any shall haue an Image eaten with rust and age, and in the greatest part consumed away, he breaketh it, and casteth it into the furnace, that by melting it he might give it a new hue. Wherefore as an Image which is melted in a furnace, is not destroyed, but renewed: so when our body death, it perisheth not, but is restored. Wherefore when thou shalt see an Image melted in the furnace, rest thou not in the speculation of this thing; but tarry a while until it be melted: neither yet art thou to content thyself in this, but further by a more through cogitation, thou must proceed. For the statuarie and craftsman of Images, when he casteth a body confected of brass into a furnace, cannot make of the brass a golden and immortal Image. But verily God himself, of an earthen and mortal body, by casting it into the furnace, shall much more fashion it after a golden manner. So far Chrysostome. This is that the Apostle saith, 1 Cor. 15.53. The corruptible must put on incorruption: and this mortal must put on immortality. Philip. 3.21. That our vile body may be fashioned like unto his glorious body. 1 Cor. 15.42, 43. It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption: it is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. On what side soever therefore thou beholdest death, polycrates. death is not to be feared as an evil; but cheerfully to bee entertained, as the period and termination of all evil, saith Polycrates. whatsoever therefore it is thou fearest in death, fear it not at all. Augustine. look to this, that thou led a good life, and whensoever occasion shall serve thee to go out of this body, thou goest out to thy rest, thou goest out to thy happiness, which hath ●●ither fear, nor end. Augustine. Now to this more masculine resolution to die without fear, I tender thee certain practices and Meditations to put thyself vpon. 1. For practise, That the Dying man do not so much confer his thoughts vpon death itself, as vpon the benefits that redound to him by death. he that is to pass over a broad and deep river, must not cast down his eyes towards the bottom; but to prevent fear, he is to stand sure and to look vpon the further side of the bank: so let the dying man set his eyes vpon heaven, the haven and the keys side, at which the ship of our soul must arrive; so shall he b●e secure and free of fear. 2. Next the dying man is to behold the face of death in the glass of the gospel, not in the glass of the moral law. For death by law is a curse and malediction, and the bottomless pit itself of destruction. But death through the gospel, thanks bee given to God, is an introduction into eternal happiness. The law sets down death, as death: the gospel sets down death, not as death, but as a sleep only, because it speaketh of death, as it is changed by the death of Christ. Now the meditations I would give thee be these; 1. Of the providence of God, which as it numbereth our hairs, numbereth our daies; yea the very circumstances, as the Time, Place, Manner of our death, are foreseen, and soreordained. Psal. 139.15, 16. Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect: and in thy book were all my members written, which day by day were fashioned, when as ye● there was none of them. Elsewhere the said royal Prophet beseecheth God, To put his tears into his bottle. Now if God hath a bottle for the tears of his seruants, shall he not much more haue one for the blood and lives of them and so respect the miseries and circumstances of sicknesses and of death? 2. Thou shalt meditate on the singular promise of God to his dying Saints; revel. 14.13. They rest from their labours, and their works follow them. By death we are thrust out of our old house, 2 Cor. 5.1. The earthly tabernacle of the body, and house daubed with day: but to this end only, that wee might haue a building of God, an house not made with hands, but eternal in the heauens. If a King should command a beggar to cast off his rags, and in the room therof to put on a royal rob, would he not gladly obey him? Now the King of Kings doth the same to us, willing us to put off the patched garment of the body, which we received from Adam, to the end to be clothed with the long white robes laid up in heaven for vs. 3. consider the condition of all such, whether they be living or dead, that be in Christ. He that death in faith towards Christ, death in Christ, and is really united and consolidated to Christ, both in soul and body, according to the tenor of the covenant of grace. For death albeit it sundreth the body from the soul, yet none of them both are disjoined from Christ. The coniunction and union being made in this life, never to bee dissolved, remaineth for ever. 4. I muse vpon the special, happy, comfortable promise of Gods presence with such as are his, whether sick, or ready to die, or any way afflicted. His word of promise is this, When thou goest thorough the water, thou shalt not bee drowned: or thorough the fire, thou shalt not be burned: For I am with thee. He is with us, 1. Either by assuaging the extremity of our sickness, and the pangs of death: and hence it is, that the pains of death to many are not so grievous, as are the crosses of this life: 2. Or else by conforting us by his free spirit, with joys that are not able to bee expressed. And here we say with the holy Apostle, Rom. 5.3, 5. Wee rejoice in tribulation, because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts, by the holy Ghost, which is given to vs. This ioy and gladness, the Apostle Paul did hear of, which made his bones broken by great sickness to rejoice. 2 Cor. 1.5. As the sufferings of Christ abound in us; so our consolation aboundeth through Christ. Thus God sendeth a gracious rain vpon his inheritance, to refresh it when it is weary. And when mans help doth fail, Gods help doth prevail, who in his own person, at our bed side is present with us in our sickness, yea maketh all our bed in our sickness. Now blessed be God, the Father of our Lord Iesus Christ, who hath shewed us such kindness in a strong City. 3. Or else by the ministry of his holy Angels, whom God hath made the keepers and nurses of his seruants, to stay us, and to bear us up in their arms, as Nurses do their sucking Infants: and to shield us against Satan and his Angels, and against the power of all that hate vs. And this is seen especially in the time of our sickness, when his holy Angels pitch their tents round about us, ready to conduct our souls to heaven, as they did the soul of Lazarus into Abrahams bosom. The Collect. give grace O Lord that I may so live, as I may neither be ashamed to live, or loth to die. I know that death is fearful to the natural man: but I am thine by grace. And thou art present with me in my death-bed, to strengthen me in my greatest weakness, and to compass me about with songs of deliverance. Wherefore though I walk thorough the midst of the valley and shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for thou art with me, thy left hand is under my head, and thy right hand doth embrace me. Why should I bee afraid in the daies of evil, or be disquieted within me? For death is to me an advantage. I sigh and groan, desirous to be delivered from this burden of the flesh, thereby to be made partaker of immortality, and to enjoy those joys which thou thyself enjoyest. My faith, O my God, hath scattered all fears: and my soul longeth for thy salvation. deliver my soul out of prison, and take me to thy mercy. Put an end to my sins, by the end of this life, that I may haue life without end. CHAP. XIII. Whether death may bee desired: and how? IT should seem by the premises, that death is rather to be desired than feared: and so I beleeue and teach; because I find death described unto me in the scriptures, in such a mild manner, as I am weaned from my fear, and won to an earnest desire of death. And I perceive many weighty reasons, drawing that way; which by Gods grace now in my sickness I will hold me unto: which to thy comfort, O Christian, I am content to recount unto thee. 1. Whereas it is the nature of death to destroy and spoil, death itself in the Elect is destroyed and spoiled. 2. Because death is nothing else but a passage to our fathers in peace; whereby is insinuated, that it is hard with us here, where wee are no better than left to strangers, and are in hucksters hands. God speaking of the death of Abraham, telleth him, Gen. 15.15. Thou shalt bee gathered to thy fathers. 3. Because death is no dispersion, but a collection of us, to our own people. Wherefore God saith to Moses, intimating his death to him, Num. 27.13. Thou shalt bee gathered unto thy people: as though here wee were but scattered from the rest of the flock; that so of the Elect, there might be as it were one living fold. 4. Because by death we are but said, to sleep with our fathers. As where the Lord said to Moses, Num. 31.16. Behold thou shalt sleep with thy fathers. Not vpon a ston, the bolster vpon which jacob laid his head; nor in thy enemies tent and pavilion, as Sisera did; Isai. 26.20. but in thy chamber, thy doors being fast locked vpon thee. The death of the faithful is but a sleep, severing soul& body; the body, that after corruption, it may be raised to greater glory: the soul, that it being fully sanctified, may immediately after departure from the body, bee transported and rapt up to the third heaven. 1 Cor. 15.17. If Christ bee not raised, they which are asleep, are perished. Act. 7.60. When he had thus spoken, he slept. Our bodily death therefore in the sight of the Lord, and in very truth, is nothing else but a sleep; for which cause, it is so commonly called in holy Scriptures. The Lord saith to Moyses, Deutr. 31.16. Thou shalt sleep with thy fathers. Of david it is said, That he shall sleep with his fathers. 1 King. 2.10. 1 King. 11.43. So it is said of Salomon; 2 King. 11.21. So of jehoshaphat; 1 King. 11. So of jeroboam; 1 King. 15.8. So of Abia; Dan. 12.2. Many that are in the earth shall sleep. Isai. 26.20. They rest in their chambers. Psal 4.9. I will lay me down to sleep, and take my rest. joh. 11.11. Lazarus sleepeth. Act. 7.60. Stephen fell asleep. 1 Cor. 15.6. Some of them are fallen asleep. 1 Thess. 4.9. I would not haue you ignorant of those that sleep. There is nothing( as the Pagan Cato Maior himself acknowledged) that hath such similitude with sleep, as death. ovid. lib. 20 Eleg. Stu●te quid est somnus, gelidae nisi mortis imago? Whereupon Seneca surnameth steep, the Brother of death. And another Philosopher styleth death, the father of sleep. And in common language it is called, the image of death. This consideration, for our better instruction, wee will draw out more at length. 1. sleep when the day is over, when the night cometh, seizeth vpon all indifferently. So against all promiscuously, the decree is out, Syrac. 8.8. Once to die. job 3.25. Horat. lib. 1. Od. Omnes vna manet nox,& c●lcanda semel via laethi. Death is the house appointed for every man living. 2. sleep stealeth suddenly vpon us, when wee think not of it, so doth death. 1 Thess. 5.3. When we shall say peace, peace, all things are well. Luk. 12.4. In the hour we thought not of. Ec●les 9.12. We are taken as the fish with the hook. 3. In sleep, Dum bibimus, dum se●ta, vnguenta, puellas, poscimus: obrep t non intellecta senectus. Senec. Domitor malorum, requies animi, pars humanae melior vitae. a man resteth from all the labours sustained in the day; whereupon it is name by Seneca, The subduer of evils, the rest of the mind, the better part of mans life. So inasmuch as our daies are as the daies of an hireling,( as it pleaseth job to term them) let us abide the end of our work, because death is a supersedeas to all our labours, and lay down all our burden. 4. By sleep, the fore-wearied& wasted with labour, do not onely rest, but they further gather to themselves a new strength, and are fresh after their sleep, to return again to the labours and duties of their several callings. So by death the faculties and powers both of mind and body are repaired and renewed; that when Christ Iesus our day-star, and the Sun of righteousness shall spring from on high to visit us in the last day, we may be fitter and readier to perform all those works, according to the condition of our creation, and the consideration of our redemption,& the natural sanctification by the holy spirit bestowed vpon vs. 1 Cor. 15.44. For it is sown a natural body, it riseth again a spiritual body: Philip. 3.21. And shall bee made like unto Christs glorious body. 5. In sleep, while the body is at rest,& sleepeth, the soul sleepeth not; but notwithstanding executeth her powers, not onely those that are animal, but those also that are of the mind and inward senses. So albeit the body resteth and remaineth in the dust of the earth; revel. 13. 1●. And resteth from his labours; Ecccles. 12.7. Yet the spirit returneth to God that gave it: it resteth in the hand of God, and no torment shall touch it. Luk. 23.43. It is with Christ in Paradise. Luk. 16.25. It is in solace and bliss in Abrahams bosom. 6. In sleep, a man is quiet, and thinketh not of any earthly thing: he reckes not of any thing done round about him on every side; whether men laugh or lament, eat or drink, buy or sell, dance or fight; whether it grow dark or light; whether it raineth, snoweth, bloweth, or whatsoever weather it be, or what else may betid; for he sleepeth on both ears, leaving all such things to those that are awake to consider of. So the dead without any further regard or reckoning, sleep supinely in their lockers, careless and senseless of secular affairs; whether there be peace or war; be the pestilence never so ragious, or the famine grievous: though heresies spread, and schisms arise; whether their posterity be in prosperity, or suffer adversity, all is one to them; but discharged of all such disquiet thoughts, they sleep sweetly. 7. He that endeavoureth to sleep soundly, layeth aside all the cares and businesses of the day, and separateth them from his thoughts as wide as he can; Eccles. 5.6. For many dreams are the companions of many cares. Now where there bee many dreams, there be many vanities; which Seneca well observing, would red no letters brought him in an evening, until the morning, lest new businesses might distemper his head with new encumbrances,& so displace his sleep. So let such as are desirous to sleep sweetly in the Lord, empty their mindes of all earthly thoughts, and turn the ball of their eye from things transitory, to eternal. Coloss. 3.2. Set your affections on things which are above, and not on the things which are on the earth. Philip. 3.8. Forget that which is behind, accounting all things as dung, to win Christ. 8. We go not to that end to our beds to sleep, to take an epidemical, or deadly sleep; but to awake and rise again at the crowing of the cock, or at the rising of the sun: so wee sleeping by death, shall not sleep an everlasting sleep; but at the appearance of the morning of the Sun of righteousness, at the cock crowing of the angelical trumpet we shall rise again out of our cabins. joh. 5.28, 29. All that are in the graues shall hear his voice, and they shall come forth. 9. Finally, as they that sleep may soon bee awaked, if either they be called by their names, or taken by the hand and stirred: so in the last day, Christ shall raise our bodies putrefied in the dust, out of our sleeping holes, when he shall give a voice, and that a mighty voice, Arise ye dead and come unto iudgement. When we shall be again job 15.26. covered with our skin. Yea, Aug. Facilius Dominus excitabit ex sepul●ro, quam nos è lecto. God shall sooner raise us from our graues, than wee can a man out of his bed. When we shall enter with him into the land of the living, we shall see him face to face,& shall be always with him. Now let this comfortable consideration of this so sweet a sleep, serve to our instruction, that we abominate not so much the ireful and direful looks of death, as in the terrors thereof to bee loth to die. Tertul. Vita haec career est. This life is a prison. The best of it is Psal. 90.10. Senec. Mors omnium d●lorum solutio& fini●. Isidor. Mors omnem calamitatem adimit. Cypr. est finis malorum, ianua vitae qua ad immortalitatem in morte transgredimur. Vt somnus mortis, sic lectus imago sepulcri. But labour and sorrow. But death is a sleep, Death is the solution and end of all sorrow. Death is the finisher of all calamities. Death is the stop of all evils, the gate of life, by which in death we all pass thorough to immortal life. Also so oft as we go to rest, and climb up into our beds, let us call to our remembrance, our field-bed of death: As sleep is of death; so our bed is the image of our grave. As often as we arise out of our bed, so often let us bethink ourselves of our future resurrection to eternal life. And pray we, and say we, Lord make us to arise out of the sleep of sin, that at the last we may arise to eternal light and life. Let us also suck comfort from the juice of this grape, against the bitter death of such, as while they lived, were most dear and near unto vs. They are not dead, Non obierunt, s●d abierunt; non amisimus, said praemisimus. but they are departed; they haue but put off their clothes, and are gone to bed. Their bodies sleep in their closerts; their coffins of death are the coffers of their life, sacred by the Sepulchre of their blessed saviour: the bolster and pillow vpon which they lean their heads, is the towel and napkin of Christ, which serveth also to wipe away all tears from their eyes. And his resurrection is our Couerler. Our sleeping place is hanged round about with black cloth. Our door, that our sleep might not bee disturbed, is locked and barred vpon us, which onely the trumpet of the archangel in the last day shall smite open. These reasons may suffice all such, whose lives are hidden in Christ, who know that they shall hereby make an happy exchange. For is this life of ours to be called a life? Our house being but day, our spirit but smoke and vapour, the body a body of death, our garments corruption, the moth and worms our portion, and the earth, which as it was the womb that did bear us, so it must be the womb that must receive vs. Now what is a prison to a palace? a Tent or Tabernacle, to an abiding City? the region of death, to the land of the living? the life of men, to the life of Angels? a body of humility, to a body of glory? a valley of tears to the holy mount Sion, where the lamb is to gather the Saints about him, to the participation of the joys he himself enjoyeth? wherefore go we as cheerfully to our Creator, as Paul did to Carpus to Troas, leaving his cloak& his Sermon notes in vellome in his hands. So let us commend ourselves,& the best things we haue, that are most precious unto us, unto our merciful Creator. And let us say with St. Stephen, Lord Iesus receive my spirit. What man would not willingly be delivered out of a vile prison house, where he can see neither Sun, moon, nor Stars; full of serpents, toads,& such vile and venomous creatures? Now this body of ours is this miserable and horrible prison, full of ugly sins: and heaven is our princely and most delightful palace; wherefore it shall behove us to make hast thither. Who would not speedily high out of that house, as is in such ruin as is ready to fall? Now this mud-wall of our body, is this decayed house, every day in danger of dropping down. Vpon the foresight of a tempest at hand, the Pilot and Mariners betake themselves forthwith to their tackle,& strive with their oars, with all the contention of sides they can, to recover the haven. Now Christ our Pilot hath foreseen& foretold us of a terrible tempest: wherefore hast we all we may, to heaven, which is our haven and resting place. In the time of war●e, when the enemy besiegeth us on every side, and the roaring Cannons play about us, so as some shot fall before us, some behind us, some on the right hand, some on the left; if the enemy on a sudden should turn his back to us, how might wee rejoice? But so it is with us in this life of ours, which is nothing but a warfare; where sin our mortal enemy letteth flee very fiercely it us on every side,& putteth sore to us that we might fall. But by death our sins turn their backs,& are put to flight as the armies of the aliens: and the strings of our bow we make ready against the face of them, and we go out of the battle we haue with the devill, sin, and the world, into the kingdom of heaven. The day-labourer is glad when the day endeth, for then he resteth from his labours, and receiveth his wages. Wherefore let us bee glad when our dayes bee done, for then wee shall rest our bones, and receive the wages of our righteous dealing. Men are glad when winter with his wra●hfull spite is wasted, and the spring time cometh; when the Sun rising from on high, visiteth vs. These dayes of ours are no better than winter dayes, and wee wait for the spring; when our night should be turned into day, and the Sun of righteousness shall shine vpon vs. he whose raiment is all of rags, pieced together, would be glad of a royal rob in the room thereof: this skin of ours wherewith we are covered, is but a tattered vesture, stained and defiled with all manner of sin: but after death wee shall bee clad with the innocency of Christ, as with a wedding weed; who shall change our vile bodies, and make them like his glorious body. The Merchant that traveleth into sorraine parts, to negotiate and merchandise, desireth nothing more than to make a quick dispatch of his business, and a return to his wife, children, and friends at home. We are in this world, as in a far country, and here we are but sojourners, as all our fathers were: wee long after our long home, to return to our kindred and our fathers house; weary of being pilgrims and strangers here on earth. He that is constrained to flee his country, either for debt, or for some nefarious fact that he hath committed, how joyous would he bee to see the messenger that should call him home to haue his freedom? Wee live in this world, as men that are banished; now death is the messenger that calls us home, even to heaven, where wee shall haue our present freedom without further servitude. If a man might know whither to go, to see Abraham, Isaac, jacob, Moses, Elias, david, Peter, Paul, james, John,& such worthies between their eyes; I think he would compass sea and land, to please the sense of his eyes with such a sight: now by death wee shall see them all, with all such as are departed in the true faith. The wise men of the East, at the sight of the star, over the place where the babe Christ was, Matth. 2.10. Reioyced with an exceeding great ioy. Now death is the star that will led us to Christ, where wee shall see him face to face, in whose presence is the fullness of ioy, and at whose right hand are abundance of pleasures for evermore. Matth. 13.44. The merchant in the Gospel, vpon the hidden treasure he found in the field, was so rapt for ioy, as he made a present sale of all the goods he had, either left him by his friends, or otherwise acquired by his own endeavours, to make purchase of this field. Wherefore why should we not clap our hands, and shout for ioy when death cometh, whereby we shall not need to purchase, but wee shall possess this our heavenly treasure Christ, in whom are all the treasures of the Godhead bodily, 1 Cor. 1.30. Our wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, redemption. Luk. 15.23. If such feasting and merriment was made by the father, vpon the return home of the prodigal son; how shall not all ioy and gladness bee in the dwellings of the righteous? How shall not our hearts bee filled with laughter, and our tongue with ioy? It followeth now to show how death may be wished. For it should seem otherwise; for it is against the vein itself of Prayer, which still crieth, give, give, to crave to take away. For so was Dauids prayer, Psal. 119.34. give me understanding. So was it Salomons his son, 1 King. 3 9. give unto thy seruant an understanding heart. And so we are taught by Christ to pray, give us this day our daily bread. That which descendeth from above, from the father of lights, Iam. 1.17. is {αβγδ}, A good and perfect gift. It is a donative, and not an ablative. God is not close fisted, but hath a liberal hand, and giveth to every one of his blessings bountifully. His Quaere of every one is by the mouth of the Apostle, What is it that thou hast not received? We should therefore desire God rather to give life, than to take it away. If wee list to be the Ablatiues, and rather to call for an Ablation than an Oblation, pray we him with david, To take away from us shane and reproach: to take away vanity and lying words far from us, to take away the iniquity of his seruant, or to take away his judgements, as job did, job 9.34. Let him take away his rod from me, as pharaoh did, Exod. 8.8. Moyses and Aaron, pray ye unto the Lord, that he may take away the frogs from me. No man prayeth God to take away the life of his beast, of his ox, or his horse, given him for labour; therefore much less he should pray against his own life. Paul being rapt to the third heaven, could not tell what to desire, Philip. 1.23. I am in a straight betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to bee with Christ, which is far better: nevertheless to bee in the flesh is far better for you. But yet for all this, it is not always a sin to wish for death: for Paul wisheth it, Philip. 1.23. I desire to be dissolved. And again, Rom. 7.24. O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of death? Yet this desire must not bee simplo and absolute, but must go accompanied with certain respects, which must bee his keepers. 1. First, death must be desired, so far forth as it is a means to free us from the corruption of our nature, from this miserable estate, in which almost, we do nothing else but sin and displease God. For this is the greatest grief that can bee to Gods children by their sins to offend their so merciful a father. As for such as are not sensible of the weight of their wickednesses, guiltiness, and corruption, but bee slumbering and snorting in their security, they are therefore the more miserable, in that being plunged in the gulf of all miseries, yet they feel no misery. 2. Secondly, as it is a means to bring us to the immediate fellowship of Christ, and God himself in heaven. 3. Thirdly, death may lawfully bee desired, in respect of the troublesone miseries of this life, two cautions being observed. 1. That this desire bee not immoderate. 2. It must imply a submission and subiection to the will of God; where any of these bee wanting, the desire is faulty. It is a grievous sin to offer unto God our impatience under the degree of prayer, as joab offered his treachery to Abner under pretence of a peaceable parley; and as Iudas put his treason vpon Christ under the colour of a kiss. Wherefore job, ieremy, jonas, failed herein; because they desired death out of their impatient minds. It is too common an use, in form of petition, rather of banning and execration, to wish for death, yea, strange and accursed kindes of death, wherein God sheweth a iudgement: Let me sink where I stand, let me never speak more; and every cross and vexation of life, maketh it irksome and wearisome unto us, and to say, I would I were dead. If God should then take us at our word, how deplorable and desperate were our case? But as old Chremes in the comedy, told Clytopho his son, a young man, as much in discretion as in yeeres, who because he could not wring ten pounds out of his fathers fingers, to bestow vpon his love Bacchis, he would forsooth live no longer: but Emori cupio, was the eiaculation of my Gentleman. Whereas in this wise, wish not for death, before you bee ready for it: nay rather desire God to spare you a time, that you may recover, I say not, your strength and bodily ability, but his favour and grace, before ye go hence, and bee no more seen. The reason why the Apostle Philip. 1.23. desired to bee dissolved and to be with Christ, which he said, was best of all: and the Saints that were racked, Hebr. 11.25. cared not to bee delivered, that they might obtain a better resurrection: that Peter and Andrew commend their crosses, as they were wont their dearest friends; that Ignatius called for fire and sword,& for the teeth of wild beasts: and other Martyrs of Christ went to their deaths, with rejoicing and singing of psalms, and ran as cheerfully to the stake, as though they had a race to run for a garland; we haue partly shewed from the former authorities, that they might be with Christ;& that they might obtain a better resurrection. But the special consideration hereof was this, 2 Cor. 5.2. Wee will not be unclothed,& stripped of our lives, we take no pleasure or ioy therein; but we would be clothed vpon: wee haue no means to get that better clothing, but by putting off this, or that vpon this, That mortality may bee swallowed up of life, and corruption of incorruption. So that their thoughts subsist not in death, but haue a further reach, because they know it to bee the highway which bringeth unto happiness. And it is no slender persuasion unto them, when they think how by ending of their dayes, they make an end of sin: Wherefore they cry as he did, O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? In which postulations notwithstanding, they evermore submit themselves to the straightest and equalest rule, the will of God: desiring no otherwise to haue their wishes accomplished, than with that safe and wary Condition, Not my will, but thy will bee done. These respects had lawfully without blame, a Christian may wish death. On the contrary side likewise, a man may desire the continuation of life; Isai. 38.18. Ezechias prayed and desired to live, when the message of present death was delivered unto him, to perform service to God. Phil. 1.24, 25. And Paul desired to live for the Philippians sake, thereby to edify them in their holy faith: though in regard of himself, he knew right well that it was an advantage to him to die. The Collect. O Lord, how long shall I live to sin against thee? So long as I live in this earthly tabernacle of the body, I can do nothing but sin. To will is present with me, but I find no ability to perform: for I find a law in my members rebelling against the law of the spirit, making me captive to the law of sin, which is in my membe●s: so that the good I would do, I do not; but the evil which I would not do, that I do. deliver me therefore from this body of death, that I may enter the gates of life, and go to the Saints, bee with the Saints, bee a Saint. My soul thirsteth for God, even for the living God: wherefore Lord, now let thy seruant depart in peace, that mine eyes may see thy salvation. I desire to be dissolved, and to be with thee, O Christ. Make hast therefore to deliver me, and make no long tarrying, O Lord my God. CHAP. XIV. What to think of such as die in Desperation, or otherwise raving and blaspheming. but while I consider how many finish their lives in miserable wise, and how that the like may befall me, I am loth to die: and so I find the worthiest of all affencted. As our saviour himself, who prayed in this maner, Luk. 22.42. Father if it bee thy will let this cup pass from me: yet not my will, but thy will bee done. Now is my soul troubled; Father save me from that hour. And not any other respect called him back, Therefore I came: Father glorify thy N●me. He would haue begged it three times more, that the cup might haue passed from his mouth: but the will of his Father was in the midst of his bowels, and his obedience was stronger than death. And david prayed thus, Psal. 6.4, 5. return, O Lord, deliver my soul, save me for thy mercies sake: For in death there is no remembrance of thee, in the grave who shall praise thee? Isai. 38.3. And Ezechiah when the Prophet warned him to keep his Audit, and to set his house at a stay, because he was to die, powred out tears abundantly, and that in respect of the summons of death. But the answer to these and such like examples, is, that our saviour when he prayed, was in a muck sweat of water and blood, the most vnnaturallest sweat that ever was heard of, through the load of all our sins laid vpon his shoulders: which expressed and wringed from him those his passions not able to bee expressed. he feared nothing the death of the body, but the first and second death joined together: both which were due to us by the malediction of the law, and the iustice of his Father. As for david, when he composed the sixth psalm, he was not onely sick in body, but distressed in mind likewise, through the terrors of the Almighty that fought against him, the venom whereof did suck up his spirits. So his sickness was of conscience, in the sense of Gods wrath, as the express words of the text manifest, Lord rebuk me not in thy wrath. So he prayed not simply against death, but against death at that instant only, when that temptation so grievously assaulted him: for how death at other times could not dismay him, may appear by that he saith, Psal. 23.4. Though I should walk thorough the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear● no evil. To Ezechiah his prayer, I answer, It was not so much against death, as for that he was now to die without issue, that might succeed him in his kingdom: having had a particular promise made him in the person of david, that so long as his posterity should harken unto the Lord, and walk in his ways, the thread and line of his lineage shall be so spun out at length, as there should bee ever an heir apparent to the crown. Now in the time of these tidings brought unto him, the condition being kept of his side, and the covenant not then performed on Gods part, was Ezechias in that pitiful plight. wherefore God listened to this his prayer, and took him not away, but added to his time fifteen yeeres more: and two yeeres after gave him hi● son Manasses to sit on his throne after him. And whereas diuers, and they not of the meanest note, haue miserable ends, what through despair, and what through raving and blaspheming in fearful maner; it may seem that the day of death is the most dismal day that may be. But I answer hereunto generally, Careat successibus opto, Quisquis ab euent● facta notanda putat. That the event is no just mer-wand of the nature of things outward, whether they be blessings or curses, life or death: For as Salomon saith, Eccles. 9.2. All things come alike to all,& the same condition is to the just and wicked, to the rich and to the poor, and to the polluted, and to him that sacrificeth, and to him that sacrificeth not; as is the good, so is the sinner; he that sweareth not, as he that feareth an oath. Secondly, I answer the particulars thus; Touching despair, though it be a dangerous evil, whereby we willingly question the truth of his promises, and it is a sin above others most contrariant to saving faith: yet it is such, as for a time the dearest seruants of God are subject unto: as david, where he saith, Psal. 77.10. This is my death. As the incestuous Corinthian who was in hazard of despair, of whose estate that way Paul was so tender, where he adviseth the Corinthians on his behalf thus, 2 Cor. 2.7. Comfort him lest the same should bee swallowed up with overmuch heaviness. As Martin Luther, who confesseth of himself, that after his conversion he fell into despair, and so continued therein the space of three yeeres; and this is many a good mans case year by year. Now we are to know that it is Gods wont, to work by contraries; as in the creation, when all things were created, not of any pre-existent matter, but of nothing, quiter against the bias of nature. For of nothing, nothing, can be made, as the school of Rationalists teacheth; as in the work of our Redemption where God giveth life, not by life but by death. And if wee consider aright of Christ vpon the cross, wee shall find our Paradise, out of Paradise, even in the midst of hell. For out of his own cursed death doth he bring us life, and eternal happiness. As in effectual vocation, when it pleaseth God to convert and turn men unto him, he doth it by the means of the gospel preached, which in reason should drive all men from God. For it is as contrary to the nature of man, as fire is to water, and light to darkness. Furthermore, when God will sand his seruants to heaven, he sendeth them a contrary way, even by the gates of hell. And when it is his pleasure to make men depend on his favour and providence, he makes them feel his anger. The love of God is like a sea, into which when one is cast, he neither seeth bottom, nor feeleth bank. Wherefore I conclude, that despair howsoever arising either of weakness of nature, or of conscience of sin, though it happeneth about the time of death, cannot prejudge the salvation of them that are in the state of grace. As for other fearful ends, they are often the fruits of violent diseases, which torment the body, and bereave the mind of sense and reason. Rauings, and Blasphemings, are melancholicall fits and passions, which attend vpon burning agues, the choler shooting up to the brain. The distortion of the lips, the turning of the neck, the buckling of the joints, are caused by cramps and conuulsions, the natural effects of much evacuation. And whereas some in their sickness are of such strength, as that three or four men cannot hold them down without bonds; it comes not always by witchery and possessions of evil spirits, as it is vulgarly conceived, but of choler in the veins. And whereas some when they are dead, turn as black as pitch( as Bonner did) it may arise by a bruise, or an imposthume, or by the black laundis, or by the putrefaction of the liver: And it doth not always argue an extraordinary Iudgement. Now these and the like diseases, with their symptoms, and strange effects, though they may deprive a man of his health, and of the right use of the parts of the body, and of the use of reason also; yet they cannot deprive the soul of eternal life. And all sins procured by violent diseases, and proceeding from repentant sinners, are sins of infirmity; for which if they know them, and come again to the use of reason, they will further repent; if not, they are pardonned, and butted in the grave of Christ; and we are not so much to stand vpon the strangeness of any mans end, when we know how well he lead his life. For his life, and not his death, must bee the rule and direction of our iudgement. And if this be true, that strange diseases, and thereupon strange behaviours in death, may befall the best man that is; wee must learn to rectify the obliquity of our iudgement, of such at the point of death. The common conceit is, that if a man die quietly, and go away like a lamb,( which in some diseases, as in consumptions, and such like, a man may do) then he goes straight to heaven. But if the violence of the disease stirreth up impatience, and causeth frantic carriages, then they pass their censure thus, It is the iudgement of God against him for his sins; and he was rightly so served. But in very dead it is otherwise. For truly a man may die like a lamb, and yet go to hell; and another dying in most grievous torments, and fearful behaviours of the body, may easily go to heaven. Wherefore by the outward condition of any man, wee cannot calculate his condition before God. The Collect. O Lord, though my disease be strange, yet I am not thereby the more a stranger unto thee, but one of thy household; for all things fall alike to the just, and unjust. Thou knowest O Lord how I haue walked before thee; and thou art a righteous judge: thou wilt not therefore judge me by the terror of my death, but by the tenor of my life. Teach m●… therefore, O Lord, so to live that by the pains of death, 〈…〉 may not depart from thee, 〈…〉 behave myself frowardly i●… thy covenant. Order my goings, O Lord, that my foot-step●… may not slip: but that by l●…uing in thy fear, whatsoeue●… my infirmity bee, I may di●… in thy favour. Bury my infirmities in the blood of thy son, 〈…〉 sufficient satisfaction for all m●… sins and the strange punishment thereof. So while I remember thy everlasting judgements, I shall receive comfort●… So that thou shalt be the life o●… my life, both in life and death. CHAP. XV. That no man may hasten his own death. having thus taken a view of such duties, as particularly appertain to the Dying man, in respect of his soul; we are in the next place to proceed to such as belong to his care, concerning his body. And this shall be the first in our catalogisme and note-booke; That the sick man seek by all good means to preserve that life which God hath lent him for a season, until he shall take it away: Rom. 14.7, 8. For none of us liveth to himself,; neither doth any die to himself. For whether we live, we live unto the Lord; or whether we die, we die unto the Lord. Whether we live therefore, or die, wee are the Lords. Wherefore we may not deal with our lives as wee ourselves list; but they are wholly to bee left to Gods dispose, according to the pleasure of his own will, to whose glory we are both to live and die. The old Adage is, Life is sweet: the use whereof is afforded us for the time, therein to employ all the good means serving to the attaimment of life eternal. But this Question wee haue now on foot, whether we may be Authors of our own death: Some haue answered, not with their tongues, but with their hands, with their swords rather than with their words. Some guilty of some nefarious and transcendent sin, in despair of Gods mercy, offer violence to themselves,& so desperately do finish their ●ccursed lives, as Iudas, who hanged himself vpon a three. Some through impatience of a present cross, or in a fear of one to come, as in the loss of friends, or honour, or vpon some repulse in a svit taken, weary of their lives, become their own executioners. Some macerate themselves, and pine away through iealousy: Some through gripplenesse of the world; as when the price of corn falleth: Some ouer-set& tried with vexatious wives, ungracious children, perfidious friends, not able any longer to swallow such hooks, lay hands vpon themselves: Some through debt, plunging themselves into such deep arrearages, as they haue no hope of ever wading out: Some to prevent a sharper death, that the law would lay vpon them, do foredoe themselves: Some in a furious and phreneticall humour, through strange apparitions unto them, or through the grievousness of sicknesses and diseases, or through the extremity of torture, accelerate their end: Some through vain glory, cut themselves short; as Quintus Curtius, and others, thereby to procure to themselves a name of magnanimity and valour: Of such Augustine thus speaketh, August. Animi magnitudine fortasse mirandi non sapientiae sanitate laudandi sunt. They may bee for the greatness of their mind admired; but are not for any soundness of wisdom to bee praised. Neither doth reason regard it as a magnanimity, so to die. For it is more magnanimous, rather to suffer miseries, than to shu● them. Neither the Patriarks Prophets, Christ, or the Apostles, did pay their debts to nature, before the time that then creditor called for them. Some in the mind to bee the sooner immortal, do maturate their mortality. Such a one was Cleombratus, of whom the story is, that having perused the treatise of Plato, of the souls immortality, threw himself from a wall to the ground, and broke his neck, that so by a shorter cut he might achieve his immortality. Some to prevent sin, that they could not otherwise shift off, as modest Virgins, who to preserve Chastity, and to avoid impurity, haue not saved their lives, to save their credits. 2. 2ae. quaest. 64. artic. 5. Who are thus advised and counseled by Thomas, 1. Non inquinatur corpus, nisi ex consensu mentis. So be it they consent not let them live, because they are innocent: the body is not stained but by the minds agreement. 2. And though they should consent, yet let them live: that they may afterward repent them. And of the same iudgement is Saint Augustine, where he saith, Of the two, Aug. Nonne satius est incertum de futuro adulterium: quam certum d● pr●esenti homicidium. is it not the better to choose the uncertain danger of Adultery to ensue: than a certain present death? This were cause enough if there were none else, to sponge the books of maccabees out of the Canon of the Bible: In as much as the Compiler of those books so applaudeth the desperate act of Razis, in the murder of himself. For the mercy of God may come between the river and the bridge; between the sword and the throat; between the cup and the vpper lip; the proverbial speeches that haue been of old. The Donatists defend the affirmative of the Question, and would choke us by Sampsons example, judge. 16.30. who pulled an old house over his head, saying, let me lose my life with the philistines. But wee avoid their argument, by answering with Austen, 1. That he did this by the suggestion of the spirit of God. For the text telleth us, that his strength was renewed, and that he called vpon the name of the Lord. 2. That he died as a judge, that he might vanquish his enemies. 3. That herein he was a type and figure of Christ. The second argument is from Iobs words, job 7.15. My soul chooseth rather to bee strangled, and to die, than to bee in my bones. Answer. The Saints of God strive often with such diseases; but they are not overcome of them. Thirdly, they put vpon us this text of Saint Paul, Coloss. 3.5. mortify your members on earth. Answ. Such speeches are allegorical; whereby he signifieth the mortification of our sinful affections; and not that men should tyramnize over themselves, by destroying their own lives. Fourthly, they urge the examples of the Gentiles, who commend this facinorous fact for fortitude; lauding their Lucretia, Cato,& such others. But this was effeminateness and weakness, and no manhood at all: for masculine courage passeth the pikes, and encountereth all extremities. Seneca, otherwise no ignoble author, would aduise him that is deeply distressed, to make an end of himself; so to put an end to all his disquiet. But such counsel is no less dangerous than erroneous. Finally, they pled the practise of the ancient Church, which approveth and commendeth the disposition of such, who in defence of their chastity, haue chosen rather to foredoe themselves, than to bee defiled. Ambrose reporteth of the Lady Pelagia, that she, together with her mother and sisters, did cast themselves head-long into a river; rather than the pursuing souldiers should violate them: and they are canonised in the calendars of the Martyrs of the Church. So Eusebius writeth of Sophronia, a noble woman of Rome, that rather than the Emperour Maxertius should fulfil his filthy lust vpon her, shee fell vpon a sword and died. But in such cases they should rather haue understood, that it is no sin to suffer unjustly; unless the mind concurreth with the dead. Hereupon Augustine, among other things, disputing this question, and opening the very vein of the point itself, saith elegantly, August. lib. 1. de civit. Dei. Virtus animi sine consensu voluntatis non violatur. Aug. de civit. Dei. cap. 20. The virtue of the mind is not violated without the agreement of the will. And it is effectual, the same Father saith thus, The commandment that saith, thou shalt not kill; because it saith not as the ninth commandement, Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour, understandeth himself. Thou shalt not kill thyself. He saith moreover that if the law had said more fully, Thou shalt not kill thy neighbour; yet in such a form it had not exempted a mans own self. Because the rule of loving my neighbour, chiefly& first of all, includeth myself. For the thigh is nearer than the knee: Heus tu ipsemet proximus sum mihi. and I myself am the nighest neighbour to myself. Neither by the law of nature written in our hearts; neither by the law of God written in Tables: is a man bound to love his neighbour above himself. And so the conclusion is of undeniable consequence, Thou shalt not kill another; therefore much less thine own self. Neither doth he that murdereth himself, murder any but a man. Gen. 9.5. I will require your blood at the hand of every beast; and at the hand of man, I will require the life of man. But every man is nigher to himself, than his brother is. Frater enim dicitur quasi sere alter. ●t amicus quasi alt●r i●em. The name of a Brother in the latin language, is Frater, which is as much to say, as almost the other. And the saying is, Thy friend is thy second self. Aquinas by these reasons, proveth it unlawful for a man to kill himself. 1. Such are evil by nature, in that they want the law of charity, by which every one is bound to love himself. Death is the main enemy to nature; and life is the blessing of God, the promise annexed to the fift commandement. 2. every man is a part of the communion of mankind. And therefore he is injurious to the common wealth, who depriveth the same of any member or subject thereof. 3. Life is the gift of God, and in his power alone, whose voice it is, I kill, and I give life. Act. 16.27. The jailor at Philippos when he saw the prison doors open, drew out his sword and would haue slain himself. But Paul cried with a loud voice, saying, do thyself no harm. The Prophets and Apostles in their extremes, made their prayers and patience their refuge; they would by no means bee their own executioners. jerome writing of the death of Blessilla, sets this note vpon her head, in the person of God; Hieron. Non recipio tales animas, quae me nolente exeunt è corpore. I will haue none of those souls, which against my will depart out of their bodies. And such as do in such manner, he doubteth not to term them, Martyres stultae philosophiae. The Martyrs of foolish Philosophy. And he regulateth and vmpreth the case, thus, It is not for us to run vpon our death: Non est nostrum mortem accipere, said illatam ab aliis libenter accipere. Aug. lib. 1. de Ciu. Dei. cap. 1. but when it is inflicted by others, not unwillingly to entertain it. Augustine disputeth against such thus, When a man kills himself, he either killeth an innocent, and so is guilty of innocent blood; or a hurtful man which is also unlawful for him to do: in as much as he is not to be his own judge, and he giveth not space of repentance to himself. God hath set Iudges and Magistrates over his people, so that no man in his private will, may bereave any man of his life: so he may not by killing himself be an intruder into anothers office. Our laws well do provide, that he that shall endeavour to murder himself, albeit he recover, shall not so escape, but shall die for ir. And if vpon a wound given to himself, he shall miscarry; he shall be branded with infamy, and perpetual contempt. Nature itself teacheth us, that our lives, goods, and good names, and whatsoever the good gifts of God, are tenderly to be preserved,& not profusely to be expended; for no man hateth his own flesh, but fostereth it. It is Socrates his dispute in Plato, Plato in phaedone that sithence we are in this station of our life by God, and man is Gods bond seruant, he is not without his passport, to go out of this standing, which is his life. Cicero in his book styled Cato Maior, or of old age, saith that Pythagoras was of the self same opinion. And in his Fragments of the common-wealth, Scipio entreateth his nephew, not to depart this life, before God shall call him. Caelius noteth it, Caelius in antiquis lectionibus. to be the maner of the Athenians, that the man that shall contrive his own death, should haue his hand, the instrument thereof, chopped off, and burned a part by itself from the body. Seneca determineth, that the man who slayeth himself, should in regardless maner be debarred burial: his reason is irrefragable, and it is this, because there is small hope that he will spare others, that will not spare himself. The Thebans reputed him no better than a hangman, that was his own executioner. But there be diuers involuntary, murders; 1. As when lunatic persons in their lunacy do themselves to death; and there the blame is to be given to the remissness of such as had the oversight of them, and kept them no better. 2. As when by chance, intending another thing, by dag or dagger, striketh himself and death; or unawares drinketh down poison, in stead of a potion, or taketh physic of an Empericke, who kill men down right, to get themselves experience; or poureth in wine freely, when he is in his hot ague, not knowing what he doth. But such are more in blame, who contrary to the advice of their Physitians, drink out of capable cups, and gurmundize beyond all measure, Prohibent grandes patinae. and sicken and die of surfeiting. For wee might live longer, were it not for broad chargers that hinder it. 3. As such who in an idleness will climb high and steep places, or without any need enforcing it, put themselves vpon apparent perils. As also all such, who by incontinent and intemperate courses, waste nature, and misspend the state of their bodies; as they that stab themselves through despair, and sense of their sins. Now it shall behove all such to understand and consider, that herein the devill is a doer, who lo they brought unto him a man sick of the palsy, Mat. 9.2. lying on a bed. And Iesus seeing their faith, said to the sick of the palsy, arise, take up thy bed and walk. After that Iesus found him in the Temple, and said unto him, behold thou art made whole, sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee. 2 Chron. 16.12. And Asa in the nine and thirtieth year of his reign, was diseased in his feet, and his disease was extreme: yet he sought not to the Lord in his disease, but to the Physitians. moreover, bee wee here forewarned that we shun the use of unlawful means, for the recovery of health. Malo s●mper aegrotare, quam tali remedio con●ales●ere. I had rather be always sick, than to be saved by such a salve. Of this kind are all charms, or spells, Charactars, and figures, either in paper, wood, or wax, all Annulets, and Ligatures, which wee hang about the neck, or the parts of the body; unless good natural reason be the ground. As white Piony hanged about the neck is good against the falling sickness; and wolfes dung applied to the body, Galen. lib. 6.& 10 de simp. Medic. is good against the chollicke, not by any enchantment, but by an inward virtue. Otherwise they are all vain and superstitious, because neither by creation, nor by any ordinance in Gods word, haue they any power to cure a bodily disease; for words can do no more than represent; and yet nevertheless, these unlawful and absurd means are more used, and in more request among the people, than skilful and good physic. But it standeth all men greatly in hand, in no wise to seek forth after enchanters, and sorcerers, which are indeed but witches, and wizards, though they be commonly called Cunning men, Cunning women, It were better for a man to die of his sickness, than to seek recovery by such wicked persons. Leuit. 20.6. For if any turn after such as work with spi its, and after gainsayer, to go a whoring after them, the Lord will set his face against them, and will cut them off from among his people. When Ahazia was sick, he sent to Baalz●bub the God of E●kron, to know whether he should recover or no. As the messengers were going, the Prophet Elias met them, and said, ●●●●g. 1.6. go and return to the King which sent you, and say unto him, thus saith the Lord, Is it not because there is no God in Israel, that thou sendest to inquire of beelzebub the God of E●●ron? Therefore thou shalt not come down from thy bed on which thou art gone up; but shalt die the death. And thus much of the means of health. Now followeth the manner of using the means; concerning which, three rules must be followed. 1. First, he that is to enter vpon physic, must not only prepare his body, as Physi●ians do prescribe; but he must also prepare his soul, by humbling himself under the mighty hand of God, in his sickness for his sins; calling vpon God, by holy prayer, for the forgiveness of them, before any physic come into his body. Now that this course is to bee taken, appeareth plainly in this; that sicknesses spring from our sins, as from a roo●, which should first of all bee stocked up, that the branc●es might more easily die. And therefore Asa commended for many things else, is blamed for this by the holy Ghost. 2 Chron. 16.12. That he sought not the Lord, but to Physitians, and put his trust in them. Oftentimes it comes to pass that diseases curable in themselves, are made incurable, by the sins and impenitency of the party; and therefore the best way is, for them that would haue ease, when God begins to correct them by sickness, then also to begin to humble themselves for all their sins, and to turn to God. 2. The second rule is, that when wee haue prepared ourselves, and are about to use physic; wee must consecrate it by the word of God and prayer, as we do our meat and drink. For the word must bee our warrant, that the physic prescribed is lawful and good; and by prayer we must procure a blessing vpon it, 1 Tim. 4.3. For it is sanctified by the word of God, and prayer. 3. The third rule is, to consider aright, of the proper end and use of physic; not to think that physic can stop the course of nature, by way of prevention of sickness or death; but serveth to produce the life of man, to his natural period. The Collect. O Lord God, Creator and preserver of all mankind, though thou hast appointed all men once to die, yet thou hast ordained means to lengthen out our life, by the use of medicines, to heal our sickness. give us grace therefore to praise thy name for the famed, and to use them soberly, and in thy fear; not to trust in them, but in thee only that gavest them. sanctify the use of them to us, and us to thee. And to thy name be the praise now and for ever. CHAP. XVII. That the sick man is to reconcile himself to his neighbour, whom he hath offended, before he die. having entreated of such duties, as haue relation, 1. To God. 2. To the sick mans own person. 3. We proceed to third and last duty, which he oweth to his neighbour. And here first I would wish him before his departure, to reconcile himself to his neighbour, whom formerly he hath any way harmed. For this duty is more than necessary, and therefore not to be delayed. There is no man that l●ueth, Hieron ad Furium. Fieri non potest vt absque ●o●su homin●m, vitae pu●us curricul● quis pertrans●a. but some time or other trespasseth against his brother. It is a wonder that a man should walk in the rain and not bee wet; to keep in a mill or coal house, and not to be spotted with white or black. Among the best of the bunch, many and diuers causes of differences do occur, which must be taken up in time and intercepted. Examples of dissensions and contentions, yea among the worthiest are obvious unto vs. Gen. 13.7, 8. What a heavy coil was there between Abraham and Lot. about their sheeps gate; but the strife was stinted by Abrahams moderation, and reconciliation which he sought. Gen. 31.2. The like happened between Laban and jacob; Laban could not afford jacob a good look; yet by communing and couenanting together, they were reconciled the one to the other. Gen. 27.41. The hatred was such Esau haboured in his heart against jacob, as he was at a resolution to haue stabbed him, Gen. 33.4. But jac b so submissely sought his good will, as atonement was made, and they became good friends. Luk. 22.24. There was also a strife among the disciple, which of them should be the greatest. Mat. 20.24. And the ten were in indignation against the two brethren. Galat. 2.11. Paul with Peter, Act. 25.39. Paul and Barnabas, Augustine and jerome, Basil and Eusebius, Cyren and Theodoret, and John of Antioch with the Fathers of the Nicene counsel; whose bills of complaint the godly Emperour commanded to be burnt,& by this way of his reconciled them together. Christus praecepit, vt qui veniam imp●trare contend●●, f●atri ipse veniam debt. Christ hath commanded that he that will obtain pardon, should pardon his brother. Well hath Chrysostome said, No man between two that are enemies, can be a faithful friend to both; yea God himself is no friend to the faithful, so long as they themselves remain enemies. The Romans built a temple to Concord, that by sacrifices performed in the same, all discord and disagreement might bee laid aside. No sacrifice, service, prayer, alms, can please God, that proceed not from a quiet and reconciled mind. God( saith Chrysostome) more regardeth the concord of the faithful, to mans benefit; than rewards offered him to his own honour. Mar. 11.25. When ye stand praying, forgive, if ye haue ought against any, that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses. But who must be the first in this action of reconciliation? Surely, the delinquent, the offending party. This is Augustines iudgement, where he saith, he that first gave the matter of offence, let him first make amends. And so it is Chrysostomes opinion, who saith, If wee haue harmed our brother any way, then he hath cause against us: and wee against him, if he hath wronged us: in which case thou shalt not need to proceed to reconcilement. For thou shalt not need to require it of him that hath done thee the injury: but thou shalt onely remit him, as thou wouldest the Lord should remit thee that evil thou hast committed. If thou hast offended thy neighbour in thought, in thought be reconciled to him: If by words, by words: If by deeds, by deeds. For thou shalt not make amends without deeds, whom thou hast violated by deeds. Wherefore ingenuously confess thy fault, ask forgiveness at his hands, and say Luk. 17.4. I repent: and recompense the harm thou hast done him; whether in body, goods, or good name: howsoever, as God hath commanded thee, Exod. 21.28. Leuit. 6.5. Numb. 5.7. By the example of Zacheus, Luk. 19.8. If I haue taken any thing from any man by forged cavillation, I restore fourfold. I wish they would more carefully consider this with themselves, that are so slack and obdurate of this duty; who are of such inflexibility, as a razor would sooner cut a whetstone, than any reason alter their resolution. So as though themselves be the original of the offence, yet they had rather accumulate more displeasures, than diminish the former. In such the devill is the author and Abettor of all these brawls and broils, and the bellows itself that blow these coals: so as he with-holdeth them from acknowledgement of their offences offered; deiecting their eyes, that they might not behold them; shutting their mouths, that they might not confess them, and entreat forgiveness of them; manacling their hands, that they might not perform agreeable satisfaction. But let all such know, that so long the Lord shall shut in his loving kindness in displeasure against them: as they shall continue thus inexorable against their neighbour. What is therefore required at their hands, that haue to do with such refractory fellowes? Shall that power a bowl of water vpon their spirits to quench them? Or detain them from Prayers, Sermons, and the service of God? Our Lord forbid it. Nay, they shall observe, 1. The course and process prescribed them by God; Mat. 18.15, 16 If thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone, &c. 2. They shall retain a tender mind ready to forgive, and to do good to such as hate them. Matth. 5.44. do good to them that hate you: and pray for them that persecute you. Rom. 12.21. And overcome evil with good. Caesar would not avenge himself of Catullus, who had divulged invective verses against him, full of virulency. Cato would not seek to cry quittance with Lentulus, who teared his rob from his back, scratched his face, and disgraced him in all manner of indignity: but wrapped up all in silence, and patiently passed by all these inhumanities. Chrysostome reporteth of Constantine the great, how when word was brought him, that a company of rascals had demolished his image, broken the head of it, mangled the face: moved his hand to his head, and not without a smile, answered thus; I cannot so think. To love our enemies, August. Diligere inim●cos, grandis est lab●r in ho saeculo said grand habet praemium infuturo. it is a great task for us in this world: but the reward shall be greater in the world to come. 3. They shall pray for their enemies, as Christ hath taught them by his own example, Luk. 23.34. Father forgive them, for they know not what they do. And so Saint steven ensampleth them, Act. 7.60. Lord lay not this sin unto their charge. And truly as gregory saith, Those prayers are most of force that are powred forth on the behalf of our enemies. Greg. Illae preces summè valent quae pro miurijs funduntur. 4. And sometimes they shall seek reconciliation at the delinquents hand, by the example of Aristippus, Plutarch. lib. de Ira cohib. who besought Aeschenes that was the trespasser, that peace might be between them. For so he shall haue the aduan●age as Chrysostome saith, If the party offended, shall first seek the offender, he shall obtain a double crown: one that he was harmed; the other, that he first entreated. 5. Finally, if any bee bitterly affencted, let us relinguish such offenders to God, and to the iudgement to come; who shall take the matter into his hand, and judge righteously. On the contrary side, we are to learn what bee the duties of the offended parties: namely, not to behave themselves frowardly with such as humble themselves to them, but to admit of a friendly conclusion, to accept of equal conditions, and to d●scharge their heart of all displeasure. Luk 17.3. If thy brother trespass against thee, rebuk him: and if he repent, forgive him: Of this we haue examples, Gen. 50.18. in joseph towards his brethren; 1 Sam. 18.9. in david towards Saul, 1 Sam. 25.33. and towards N●bal. In fine, on both sides let Saint Bernards rule go currant, Bern●rd Sit ille humilis ad petendam veniam tu fo● ilis a● dandam,& 〈◇〉 membra erunt in place. Let him bee humble to ask, and the other pliable to grant pardon; and so the members shall be in peace. Yet this facility shall not let, but that the offended party may somewhat argue the offender, and lay before him the things that he hath done: Gen. 31.36. As jacob did to Laban, Gen. 45.4 &c: joseph to his brethren. Where notwithstanding, a moderate exaggeration is required, voided of the gull of bitterness, and accompanied with equity and humanity. Touching which, thou hast golden rules given thee by Syracides, Eccles. 19.13. reprove a friend lest he do evil: and if he haue done it, that he do it no more, &c. Eccles. 22.24. As the vapour and smoke of the chimney goeth before the fire: so evil words, rebukes, and threatenings, go before bloud-sheading, &c. But here me think I hear the grieved party come in with his exceptions, thus muttering between his teeth; I cannot carry such an easy mind, so to slight offences, and pass by them. St. Augustine answereth for me, A man may say to me, I cannot watch and pray, I cannot fast; but can he say, I cannot love. A man may tell me, I cannot forsake all I haue, and divide it among the poor, and serve God in a Monastery: but can he say, I cannot love? If thou tellest me, thou canst not forbear wine, or delicate fare, I easily beleeue thee: but if thou sayest never so much I cannot be favourable to such as shall offend me, I beleeue thee not a whit. Not from the wine cellar, but from the promptuary of the heart, thou art willed to minister this alms, that by the way of life, thou maiest pass to an eternal country. 2. Next thou tellest me, how great the wrongs bee that haue been done thee; so great, as by no means thou c●nst forgive them; so horrible, as they are intolerable. And here again I answer thee by St. Augustine, Tell me, O thou Christian, Hast thou committed any sins against God? Thou sayest, I haue: I pray thee tell me which is the greatest, and manifoldest sin; whether that which thou hast designed against God, or that which man hath committed against thee. dost thou heed that which man hath done to thee? and neglectest that which thou hast done to God? If thou shalt thoroughly ●examine thine own conscience, thy sins are greater and more, which thou hast committed against God, than they bee which thy brother hath performed against thee. Now with what face canst thou desire of God, he would forgive thee much: when thou wilt not yield to remit a little? In the condition between God and man, there is no proportion. Thou forgivest thy fellow seruant; but God forgiveth thee, who art simply his seruant and no better. As thou forgivest, so thou hast need again to be forgiven: but God hath no need at all of any of thy forgiveness: but he may say to thee as david said to the King, keep thy rewards to thyself, and give thy gifts to another. Thou forgivest a definite debt, but God an infinite; decreeing a proscription of thy wife and children, and an ex●ent of all thou hast, for the payment of thy debts. Thus by an incredible mercy, he would call thee to a certain pity. 3. Thou surioynest again, that thy neighbour hath offended thee not once, but often, and so often, as thou canst not forgive him. And here again I place Augustine in my room to speak for me; If Christ hath forgiven thee thy sins seventy times seven times, and now will no more; if he hath pardonned thee all thy life time hithereto, and hath denied to go further: set thou thyself these bounds also, and there stay. learn thou therefore often to forgive, and to let go displeasure. It was Peters interrogation put up to Christ, Matth. 18.21. Lord how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times? belike he was loathe to forgive him eight times. But Christ his answer is, I say not unto thee until seven times: but until seventy times seven: that is in Hieromes computation four hundred and ninety times: that is, so often as it is impossible for one man to offend another. Augustine delivereth as much in effect, where he questioneth the case thus, why doth not Christ speak of an hundred times eight, rather than seventy times seven? And his answer is, because from Adam to Christ, are seventy generations: Therefore as Christ forgave the sins of all mankind, divided into so many generations; so wee should forgive all the offences committed against us all our life long. 4. But thou sayest, I will not forgive, but I will avenge myself of my enemy, and I will fulfil my desire vpon him. Here Chrysostome answereth, If thou wilt reuenge, reuenge thyself on this maner: render good for evil, that so thou mayest make the malefactor thy debtor, and carry a notable victory away. Rom. 12.19. Tertul. Satis idoneus patientia sequester est Deus: si inito ias depones apud eum, ultor est. Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord. The Lord is a sufficient arbiter of thy patience; if thou shalt commit thine injuries unto him, he will be the avenger of them. 5. But thou sayest, I will stay a while, I will not out of hand forgive every thing to every one. Augustine to this answereth, When at the length wilt thou finish the way? How long shall it be ere thou wilt listen unto Christ? Thy adversary is in the way itself, that is, in this mortal life. But what saith he? Agree with thine adversary quickly, while thou art with him in the way. Hast thou heard, believed, accorded? If thou hast discorded, accord, and bee at no further discord: when thou shalt end the way thou knowest not, but he knoweth it altogether. 6. But thou sayest, I will forgive him, but I will not forget him: he may come into my Pater noster, but he shall never creep into my Creed; but this is but Satans sophistry. Augustine to this answereth, do not say, I pardon him with my tongue, I pardon not him with my heart: for he knoweth what thou sayest: Man heareth thy voice, the Lord beholdeth thy conscience. Thou dost better when thou criest not with thy mouth, and forgivest in thine heart, than when thou flatterest with thy tongue, and art cruel in thine heart. 7. But thou sayest, I cannot forget him, can I root out of my memory the thing I know? Chrysostome answereth, To be mindful of an injury, it is a new anger, or a fervent passion; but the force of it, a settled and froward malice. And Isidore thus; To keep in remembrance received injuries, betokeneth not a mind that is generous, but wicked and wretched. 8. If thou shalt further demand, what shall I do? He will give but a deaf ear to all I can say, and when I haue persuaded all I can, I shall not persuade: To this Augustine answereth, If thou hast besought thy neighbour in an humble and true heart, and he will not forgive thee, take thou no further care. Ye are both the seruants of one Master, of God, and his Son Iesus Christ. Call vpon God, and it will suffice. In the mean while, let such inflexible and inexorable men know what sentence the Court of heaven hath decreed against them, Nazian. in orat. de laud. Caesaris. Peccatorum remissio, ubi peccatorum commissio: hic nobis prompta medela, post autem clausa est omnis medicina salutis. Aug. Frustra sibi homo post hoc corpus promittit, quod in hoc corpore comparare neglexit. Verily, verily, I say unto thee, thou shalt not depart till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing. Now is the time of the account to bee made one with another. For there sins must be remitted, where sins are committed, &c. For as Augustine teacheth, In vain doth a man after this body, pray; which whilst he was in this body, he neglected. The Collect. O Lord, while I call to remembrance thy tender mercies which haue been ever of old, how thou hearest my prayers and pardonest all my sins, more than the hairs of my head in number, and heavier than a talent of led for weight: I consider that I am bound to forgive my brother that trespasseth against me, though never so often and grievously. Therefore Lord I forgive him willingly and freely, as I would bee forgiven of thee in the like maner. And Lord let me thy seruant depart in peace, in peace towards thee, Angels, and men: I let go all displeasure; and as I verily beleeue thou hast forgiven me, so forgive I all the world. Thou knowest Lord the secrets of my heart; O save thy seruant that putteth his trust in thee. Bee merciful unto my prayers that come not out of feigned lips; and that for Iesus Christ his sake thy dear Son my onely mediator and Redeemer. CHAP. XVIII. That the dying man, if he bee a public person, must provide as much as in him lieth, for the good estate of his charge after his death. THe second duty of the Dying man, that is in relation to his neighbour, in case he be in office, is to provide as solicitously as he can, for the future good estate, tranquillity and prosperity of the people under him. The Magistrate is to plant and settle true religion, and to enact and establish such wholesome laws and discipline, as may most make to the administration of iustice and virtue, that he may say of his city or common-wealth, as Augustus said of the City of Rome, inveni luteritia, marmoream reddidi. I found it made of brick, but I leave it made of marble; that all posterity may praise his doing, and say, This hath that man done. Such a worthy and careful Magistrate was Moses, who about the time of his death, Deut. 31.2. surrogated Iosua in his room; seriously charging him concerning the carriage of himself towards the people. josu. 24. And the like course ran Iosua when he was to die, charging his people to bee religious and valorous. 1 Kin. 2.1, 2, 3. So did david, nominating Salomon his lawful successor to the crown, and gave him his charge, as well for matters of religion, as for civil affairs in his Courts of iustice. 1. The Minister is to project all he can, for the continuance of the good estate of his Church under his prefecture, for the better propagation of the Gospel after his decease. This was Peters fore-sight and provision, 2 Pet. 1.15. I will endeavour always, that ye also may be able to haue remembrance of these things after my departure. For which cause, no less diligently he instructed the ages to come by his Epistles, as he did the people present by his Sermons, that so the worship and service of God might bee perpetuated in the world. And next the writings of the Apostles, it is difficult to express, how greatly posterity hath been benefited by the painful and learned works, which Augustine, Ambrose, jerome, gregory, Basil, with many others, haue left behind them. But while men haue more regarded personal succession, than the proper succession indeed, consisting in faith and doctrine; grievous wolves, not sparing the flock, haue crept into the Church, and the apostasy 2 Thess. 2.3. of which Paul speaketh, hath like a Gangrene overspread the face of the Church. 2. The master of a family must also do his uttermost endeavour herein, to sow the seeds of religion and virtue, in the hearts of his children and household, that his sons may grow up like young plants, and his daughters bee as the polished corners of the Temple. For this cause, Abraham received ample commendation from Gods own mouth, and the gracious promise of the blessed seed that should come out of his loins: Gen. 18.19. For I know that Abraham will command his sons, and his household after him, that they keep the way of the Lord, to do righteousness and iudgement; that I may bring vpon Abraham all that I haue spoken unto him. What a careful man was job, that his sons might not blaspheme and sin against God? job 1.5. To which end he sanctified them, and rose up early in the morning and offered burnt offerings, according to the number of them all. The Israelites are commanded to instruct their children in the use and end of the institution of the Passeouer. Exod. 12.26. When your children shall ask you, what service is this you keep, then ye shall say, it is the sacrifice of the Lords Passeouer, which passed over the houses of the children of Israel in egypt, when he smote the egyptians, and preserved our houses. How industrious in this duty parents were in times of old, the Odist telleth us, Psal. 44.1. We haue heard with our ears, O God, and our fathers in time past haue told us, what thou hast done in their time of old. Asaph prepareth his auditors to attention, while he promiseth them to speak of great matters, which from hand to hand were delivered by the Fathers to their posterities; Psal. 78.3. Which wee haue heard and known, and such as our fathers haue told us, That we should not hid them from the generation of the children to come. The Collect. O Lord, who hast set me over others, to rule and govern them; set my heart vpon thee, that I may train them up in all manner of virtue, and godliness of living; That so by my good example after my departure, they may proceed in thy ways, in which they haue been brought up from their youth. That they living in thy fear, may die in thy favour, and bee numbered among thy Saints in thy eternal kingdom. Grant this grace, O dear Father, for Iesus Christ his sake, my Lord and only saviour. CHAP. XIX. That the sick man is to make his last Will and Testament before his departure. IT pertaineth to the office of the sick man, to whom God hath given any portion of worldly wealth, though but in a kind of competency, so to dispose of them while he liveth, as he may cut off all strifes and contentions, in the claim that may bee made to them after his decease. So did Abraham, who when he was much strucken in yeares, and knew that he had not long to live, he made his last Will and Testament, and bequeathed sundry legacies. So did Isaac; and so did jacob after him; in whose last Testaments, many worthy blessings were delivered, and sundry singular prophesies were pronounced, concerning the future estate of their children. So Christ vpon the cross had a provident respect unto his mother, commending her to the care of the disciple whom he loved. And truly it is a matter of great consequence, for a man to haue his Will by him, as the special means to prevent most tedious and costly suits of law. And this is no indifferent matter, as some suppose; who either for that they would not haue their wealth discovered, or else because they would smother and suppress their poverty, forbear to make a Will. Now a Will is to be made agreeable to the laws of nature, and the rules of Gods Word, and the good and wholesome laws of the kingdom and place wherein they live, and whereof they be members. But the Will of God must bee the measuring Rod of the will of man. Therefore the Will which checketh any of these, is to be checked and reproved. These premises considered, I haue no skill of such, who haue so profusely concocted their estate, as when they die, they haue not a dodrant left behind them to bequeath. Yea, which is worse, they haue plunged themselves into such a depth of debt, as there is no get●ing out; to the remediless undoing of their poor widows and orphans for ever. And they seem to me no less strange, who are so gripple of the world, and are so wedded to the world, as to a wife, and they two are become one flesh; as it is a death to them to think of death, so long as they haue but a drop of blood in their veins, or any little measure of marrow in their bones, though they be never so feeble and decrepit through age, as they die intestate, and so leave their wives and children to go together by the ears, till the Lawyers haue licked up all or the more part of their goods. moreover I am amazed in my muse at some, the very monsters of human nature, who hoard up such moneys in walls, Cumuli tumuli. in vaults and caues of the earth, places unknown to any but to themselves, which they haue wretchedly gathered together, so as they never come to good. These verily bewray themselves what they are, as utterly devoid of all conscience, as they be of affection of nature. Now by this testamentary Legacion of our goods, we make as it were a resignation of such things received from Gods hand, to the use of this present life. And thereby we witness to the world, that we account the day of our death to bee at hand, and that we are to pass from the tiresome pilgrimage of the labours and sorrows of this life, to our perpetual rest; where no further use is to bee had of this terrene and transitory pelf and provision that we make, to the wrack of our own souls. And by this forward and cheerful resignation, the mind is prepared, and made ready to die, before death seizeth vpon vs. And so wee shake off these secular cares, as Paul did the viper from his hand, and bid the world farewell;& so lay in time for our better estate in the world to come. Finally, by this means we cut off future brawls and broils about questions of right, that none might intrude themselves into that which is anothers. The Collect. I Am strike in yeares, and my body is weak, and I wait the time of my deliverance out of this mortal life. My goods which thou hast lent me, I bestow vpon my wife and children thou hast given me; the time being now at hand that I can use them no longer. I resign therefore life and living into thy hands, and look up to thee, the Father of the Spirit of all flesh. And thus I take my farewell of all earthly things, looking to be an inheritor of thy eternal kingdom, purchased for me, in the hand of a Mediator, Iesus Christ the righteous, in whom, and through whom, to thee with thy blessed spirit, be rendered all possible praises, now and for evermore. CHAP. XX. That the sick man in his will, is first to dispose of his soul, and to commend it to God. THe sick man is monished in the person of Ezechias, to set his house in order. Now to perform this in order, he must first bequeath his soul to God, his body to the ground, his goods to the right owners. The soul in the first place is to be considered of, and commended to God, as all other things that are most precious, in a full assurance that he is able and willing to keep them. 2 Tim. 1.12. I am not ashamed, for I know whom I haue believed: and I am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I haue committed unto him against that day. Thus the cause why he committed his soul, salvation, and all to God, was his faith in God that he would safely keep them. Saint Peter calleth vpon all Christians to bee like minded; 1 Pet. 4.19. Let them that suffer according to the will of God, commit the keeping of their souls to him in well doing, as unto a faithful Creator. As one friend when he death committeth to another in trust the dispose of all his goods, as to a faithful executor; so let every Christian man make God his executor, who is faithfulness itself. Thus Christ vpon the cross surrendered up his soul into the hands of God: Luk. 23.46. Father into thy hands I commend my spirit. And having said thus, he gave up the ghost. So did Saint steven, saying, Act. 7.59. Lord Iesus receive my spirit. And thus david in danger of death, used the like language, Psal. 31.6. Into thy hands I commend my spirit; for thou hast redeemed me, O Lord thou God of truth. The same we must do. Now to do this aright, because it is difficult in itself, wee must fit ourselves thereunto, by using the means; 1. By duly considering, that God is the Creator of the spirits of all flesh, and so by way of necessary consequence, the preserver of them: for the workman cannot but preserve the work of his own hands. No man is so careful of any workmanship, as the Artificer and Craftsman himself. And shall not God bee much more careful of the work of his own hands, than man can bee of his? Psal 95.6, 7. O come let us therefore worship, and fall down, and kneel before the Lord our Maker: for he is the Lord our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hands. And this is the motive to this duty, pressed by Saint Peter, before mentioned; 1 Pet. 4.19. That wee commit ourselves to him, in that respect, that he is a faithful Creator. 2. That wee vnquestionably persuade ourselves, that God is our Father, that we are justified, sanctified, and adopted by Christ. In which most holy faith, if wee shall edify ourselves, wee shall cheerfully commit our souls to his trust. For this was the reason that put on Christ to bequeath his soul to God, for that he was his Father. 3. The continued experience wee haue of Gods love, in the tender preservation of us, is a principal spur to prick us on in this way. So it was to david, who having said, Psal. 31.6. Into thy hands I commend my spirit; he subioyneth the material motive thereunto, for thou hast redeemed me. The time to commend our souls to God is; 1. When any trouble or danger takes hold of vs. So did david in the place before name, when through the snares that Saul laid for him, he was in peril of life, and had none whom he might trust. As also in the time of a siege laid to a city; or in a combustion, at what time whosoever hath money, plate, jewels, or any thing else of special worth, if he may haue time, he will convey them from the place. 2. But specially when we are ready to die; for then the soul is in the greatest hazard; for that is the white that Satan aimeth at, with al the arrows of his quiver. 3. Yea all times are fit for this office; for at all times we ought to be in a readiness, when the Lord our God shall call; for at all times Satan lieth in the lurk for us, admitting no truce. For we cannot be ignorant of his sleights. By so doing in the time of our best health, wee shall be more prompt and provided for this, at the time of our death. This was Dauids behaviour in danger; 1 Sam. 30. ●. And david was in great sorrow; for the people intended to ston him: but david comforted himself in the Lord his God. And so it was Pauls; 2 Tim. 1.12. I suffer these things, and am not ashamed, for I know whom I haue believed; and I am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I haue committed unto him, against that day. But how hath the God of this world blinded us in this main matter of our souls health? Wee daily commit our children to Tutors and Gouernours; if we haue flocks of sheep, wee set keepers over them; but as though our souls could keep themselves, O curuae in terris ainae,& caelestium inanes. or had no need of any to keep them in his ways, we let that alone for ever. The Collect. AT all times I shall commend myself to thee, and so shall my soul which thou hast delivered: O thou that art the Creator, bee the keeper of it; for none can take it out of thy hands: it is defended under thy wings, and it is safe under thy feathers, and in thy power, O thou most high, it shall not miscarry. It cost much to redeem my soul from the nethermost hell. Now as thou hast redeemed it; so save it, and glorify it for thy name sake. I am thine, O save me, for I put my trust in thee: And though I walk thorough the midst of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for thou art with me, thy rod and thy staff comfort me. And now Lord I am ready to die; let thy holy Angels bee about my bed, who may transport my soul from this valley of tears to joys celestial, as they did the soul of Lazarus into Abrahams bosom. My soul gaspeth after thee, as the Hart after the water brooks. When shall it appear before God? even the living God? O Lord, I haue longed for thy salvation: Make no long tarrying, O Lord my God. CHAP. XXI. Of the last words of the Dying man. AS we are at all times so to order our footsteps, that we slide not, and to set a watch before the door of our lips; so it shall behove us most of all, to crave of God the grace, that at the point of death our words may declare our faith, and minister grace unto the hearers. 1 joh. 3.31. He that is of the earth, is earthly, and speaketh of the earth. Mat. 12.35. A good man, out of the good treasure of the heart, bringeth forth good things; and an evil man, out of the evil treasure of his heart, bringeth forth evil things. The tongue is the mes●●nger and bewrayer of the ●●●de. If the heart be inditing of a good matter, the tongue will bee the pen of a ready writer: If the clock striketh false outwardly, it is plain that it is out of kelter inwardly. Vnsauoury speech argueth directly an heart not sanctified. The standards by no sooner heard Peter speak, but immediately they knew who he was, Mar. 14.70. Surely thou art one of them, for thou art of Galilee, and thy speech agreeth thereto. As the French or English are known by the language of their country; so is the true Christian by his Christian speech. By a mans exulcerate and broken out lips, wee conclude that he hath had an ague: so corrupt& ilwords are a symptom& sign of a spiritual ague. Matth. 12.34. For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. I haue red of a triobular and pawltry fellow, who being to receive three pounds in three yeeres, lying on his death-bed, had no other words but these which he always plodded on, Three pounds, three pounds: this was an aguish humour in him. I will not prejudge sick men for their idle talk, but rather shall impute it to the sharpness of their sickness; to which when the brain is overmuch distempered, the best man of al may easily be subject. But for the most part the last words of a well dying man are seasoned with salt, they savour altogether of sobriety and piety; they are words bread in the breast, drawn from as deep a fountain of the heart, joh. 4.11. as ever water was from Iacobs well. For vpon the exigent, the seruants of God enlarge their spirits, and raise up themselves by celestial contemplation, and speak as it were out of heaven, in heavenly wise. They come composedly, and professedly thereunto, as by plenty of examples shall appear. What a singular lecture of divinity, stored with all instructions and comforts, red Moses to his people, when he was to go hence and bee no more seen; Deut. 32. witnesseth the spiritual Ode and Swans song that he sung, delivered in deuteronomy. Peter perceiving the time of his death approaching, took in hand his second Epistle written to the Churches. So Saint Paul about the time he was to die, called an holy convocation of the Bishops, Elders, and clergy of Asia; yea out of the gaole dispatched he his directions, now to some, and then to othersome: and when he was to bee put to the sword under Nero, he wrote to the Church, and to timothy his disciple, to recount the ejaculations sent up to heaven by diuers of the worthies vpon their death-bed, to make the way plain before their face, because it is such a cordial to my soul, it shall not irke me. Gen. 49.10.18 The sceptre shall not depart from judah, and the lawgiver from between his feet, till Shiloh come. Lord I haue waited for thy salvation, the last words of jacob vpon his death-bed. 2 Sam. 23.2, 3. The Spirit of the Lord spake by me, and his word was in my tongue: the God of Israel spake to me, the strength of Israel said, bear rule over men: the anthem of the sweet Singer of Israel not long before his death. The last words of Christ when he stood vpon the cross, now ready to be offered up a sacrifice for our sins, how sweet are they unto my mouth, sweeter than hony to my throat? as where he said, 1. To his Father, Luk. 22.34. Father forgive them, they know not what they do. 2. To the thief, joh. 19.26, 27. Verily I say unto thee, this day shalt thou be with me in Paradise. 3. To his mother, Luk. 23 43. Mother, behold thy son; and to John, Behold thy mother. 4. And in his agony, joh. 19.28. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And when he said, I thirst, to show that he thirsted for our salvation. 5. It is finished: that is, he had finished and gone thorough stitch with the work of the common salvation: the consideration of his Incarnation, Death, Passion. 6. And when body and soul were to bee severed, Luk. 23.46. Father into thy hands I commend my Spirit: who would not wonder at these gracious words which thus proceeded out of his mouth? The last words Saint steven uttered, were full of spirit and life; 1. Act. 7.56, 59, 60. Behold, I see the heauens open, and the son of man standing at the right hand of God. 2. Lord Iesus receive my spirit. 3. Lord lay not this sin to their charge. The last words of Polycarpus were much fruitful and answerable to his name: Thou art a true God without lying; therefore in all things I praise thee, and bless thee, and glorify thee by the eternal God, and high Priest Iesus Christ, thy onely beloved son, by whom and with whom, Euseb. li. 3. c. 30. to thee and the holy Spirit, bee all glory now and for ever. The last words of Ignatius came from a tongue set on fire by coals from the Lords Altar, who exposed to the Lions, said; I am the Lords bread, and I am to bee grinded by the teeth of beasts, as by a mill, that I may bee pure manchet for the Lords own mouth, who is the bread of life for me. The last words of Saint Ambrose relished like Ambrosia the meat of the gods as the Poets fain; I haue not so lived, as if I were ashamed to live: neither stand I in dread of death, because I haue a gracious Lord. The last words of Augustine were rightly augustious, that is, blessed words: he is no great man who thinks it a great matter that trees and stones fall, and mortal men die. just art thou, O Lord, and righteous in thy iudgement. Bernard in his last admonition and farewell to his friends, persuaded them to ground the anchor of their faith on the safe and sure port of Gods mercy: and he commended three precepts to their imitation, which he himself had practised. 1. Not to stand vpon the singularity of their own reason and opinion. 2. Not to prosecute a reuenge of injuries offered. 3. To offer harm to no man willingly; and for any harm done, to make amends in the best manner that we may. The last words of Zuinglius, having found that he had received his deadly wound in the Heluetian wars, were few and forcible; They may kill the body, but the soul they cannot. And it doth me good at the heart to recount the last speech of Oecolampadius, so pious and religious. His monition to the Ministers was, To maintain the wholesome doctrine of faith, in purity and sincerity unto the end; and to lead a quiet and peaceable life unspotted in the world. 2. He contested for himself, that whereas he was questioned, as a corrupter of the truth, he nothing regarded such scandalous imputations, but appealed from the uncivil and uncourteous courts of their sinister conceits, to the high Commission Court of heaven, to the judge of all the world, whose judgements are truth and righteousness altogether. And so he cited the standards by, as witnesses of this his peremptory appellation, ratifying and confirming it with his last breath. 3. To his children he said, love God the Father. And to his kinsfolks turning himself, he spake further in this wise; I haue bound you with this contestation, you shall do your endeavour that these my children may be godly, peaceable, and true. 4. To his friends that came to visit him, What shal I say unto you? news, I shall shortly be with Christ my Lord. 5. Finally, he rehearsed the whole fifty one psalm,( the psalm usually among us in our Assizes exhibited to the malefactors for their necke-verse) and not without strong sighs, and a profound feeling of what he said. 6. This was the Epiphonema and happy conclusion, save me, Lord Iesus. And I shall remember every day I live, the ghostly words of Luther at his death; My heavenly Father; God and Father of our Lord Iesus Christ, and God of all comfort, I give t●●t thankes that thou hast revealed unto me thy son Iesus Christ, whom I haue believed, whom I haue professed, whom the Bishop of Rome and the whole company of the wicked persecuteth and revileth. I pray thee my Lord Iesus Christ, receive my poor soul. My heavenly Father, though I be taken from this life, and this body of mine is to bee laid down; yet I know certainly that I shall remain with thee for ever, neither shall any bee able to pull me out of thy hands. The last words of Babylas Martyr of Antioch when his head was on the block, and the heads-man ready to strike it off, were these; return, O my soul, unto thy rest, because the Lord hath blessed thee: because thou hast delivered my soul from death, mine eyes from tears, and my feet from falling; I will walk before thee Iehouah, in the land of the living. The Collect. DRaw near to me, O Lord, that I may draw near to thee. Let me speak once more unto thee, to express my faith and love towards thee. In the midst of my troubles, thy comforts, O Lord, do quicken my soul. I haue longed for thy salvation from day to day. My soul waiteth for thee, O Lord, desiring to be dissolved and to bee with thee. I will lay me down to sleep, and take my rest, for it is thou Lord onely that keepest me in safety. I am weary of this burden of my flesh, and of my sins: ease me therefore, I pray thee good Father, that my soul may fly as a bide unto the hill. My trust hath ever been in thee, and in thy name do I make my boast. Let them that will, put their trust in the multitude of their riches, or in their much strength: my trust shall bee in the tender mercies of God for ever and ever. I haue lived long, I haue sinned long; let life and sin go both away together, that I may live with thee for ever. O life above all lives the most blessed! O let me die the death of the righteous, that I may attain to the ioy of the blessed. CHAP. XXII. That the Dying man is to rest himself altogether vpon God, trusting assuredly that his sins are forgiven him, and that he shall be saved. he that will dispose himself aright to die, must die in the faith. Death maketh them Christians, that can bee made Christians: for then is the time to awake our faith. When david saw nothing but present death before his eyes, 1 Sam. 30.6. The Lord his God was his Quietus est. And for this he may thank his faith, that was the cause of it, which he laid as a salve to his soul, to heal his sore, as he witnesseth, where he saith, Psal. 119.49. Remember the promise made to thy seruant, wherein thou hast caused me to trust. It is my comfort in my trouble, for thy promise hath quickened me. As again where he uttereth himself thus, Psal. 73.25. My flesh and my heart faileth, but God is the strength of my heart, joh. 3.14. and my portion for ever. When the Israelites were strike in the wilderness by fiery serpents, and were even at deaths door, by casting their eyes up to the brazen serpent that was set up, they were healed of that wound. So haue thou the eye but of a true Israelite in thine head, to behold Christ lifted up to the cross for thy sins, and thou art presently healed of them all. But this faith of thine must be an absolute confidence, not overclouded with the least doubt of the state of salvation. This Faith hath no skill of the word If, which is a word of doubt: Faith cannot so pronounce. For If cometh rather from the lips of Babel, of whom it is written, Ierem. 51.8. Bring balm for her sore, if she may be healed. This If, is a plaster more proper for the running sore of Simon Magus, whom Peter called vpon to repent. Act. 8.22. That if it be possible the thought of thy heart may bee forgiven. True faith nestleth itself in the wounds of Christ, as doves do in the cliffs of rocks. It flieth not as the Crow between heaven and earth. For true faith and doubting are opposite each to other. Matth. 21.21. If ye haue faith and doubt not. And of Abraham it is said, Rom. 4.20. He doubted not of the promise of God through unbelief. And it is Saint james his advice, Iam. 1.6. Let him ask in faith and waver not. Wherefore where faith is, there is no prevailing doubt; where such doubt is, there is no faith; for doubt is repugnant to justifying faith, which is a subsistence, evidence, and a plenary persuasion: whose property it is, joh. 3.33. To seal it, that God is true: whose property it is to be confident, and to be of good comfort, because our sins be forgiven us; whose nature it is, where it cometh, to conquer. 1 joh. 5.4. This is the victory that hath overcome the world, even our faith. Now he that doubteth or wavereth, Iam. 1.6, 7. Is like a wave of the sea, tossed of the wind, and carried away. Neither let that man think, that he shall receive any thing of the Lord. It is repugnant to the end of the promises of God, Rom. 4.16. Therefore by faith, that the promise might be sure to all the seed. It is repugnant to the oath made by God himself; Ezech. 33.11. As I live( saith the Lord God) I desire not the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his ways and live. joh. 5.24. Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth my word, and believeth in him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but hath passed from death to life. Heb. 6.16. An oath for confirmation, is among men an end of all strife. It is repugnant to the end of the Sacraments, Rom. 4.11. which are seals& obsignations of the righteousness of faith. It is rep●gnant to the end of the oblignation of the holy Spirit. Ephes. 1.13. The spirit of promise by whom we are sealed; Rom. 8.16. who heareth witness with our spirits, that wee are the sons of God. Finally, this Doubting maketh God a liar; 1 joh. 5.11. he that believeth not God, hath made him a liar. Let the faithful therefore free their hearts of this perplexed doubt. Wee beleeue the remission of our sins, as being an article of our Christian faith. Wee know whom we haue believed. Act. 15.11. We beleeue through the grace of our Lord Iesus Christ to be saved. Wee know that wee are of God; Rom. 8.38. and are persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor Angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Iesus our Lord. This confidence and hope of ours( saith Chrysostome) is the foundation of our salvation and life, the guide of our way that leadeth to heaven, in which our whole salvation consisteth. Faith hath a denomination of that which is done, Aug. Fides appellata est ab eo quod fill. saith Augustine. Wherefore I ask thee, saith he, whether thou believest? Thou answerest me, I beleeue. Then do that thou saist and thou hast believed. For Faith( as Chrysostome again saith) the chiefest virtue of the mind, consisteth in this, that it doubt not. If any shall doubt, that verily is a token of infidelity and distrust: it is an evident argument of an incredulous and unfaithful heart. Yet the firmest faith that is, is mingled with doubts, eclipsed with clouds, shaked with tempests, winnowed by Satan. Otherwise to what end served this our saviour Christ his cautelous watchword to Peter, Luk. 22.31. Simon Simon, Satan hath desired to sift thee as one sifteth wheat; but I haue prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not. What, shall we think of ourselves that we are like unto Mount Sion, that cannot be removed: The Target and Helmet of our faith is driven at by all the fiery darts of the devill. The consideration whereof occasioned Paul thus to boast; 2 Tim. 4.7. I haue fought a good fight; I haue kept the faith. Thus he would in no wise lay aside the shield of his faith; howsoever else, he bare the marks of the Lord Iesus in his body. The faith of a Christian is always in the field in skirmishes and sufferings, as Christ was in the garden in his agony and bloody sweat, resisting unto blood, yea unto hell itself. Faith sometimes in the hearts of Gods seruants, is like the last spark of a coal of fire going out; like the little grain of mustard seed, which the smaller birds devoured; and like the last gasp of a dying man; yet it recovereth itself, and gathereth new strength. It fareth often times with the good christian in his faith, as it did at a time with Eutychus, who slept at sermon time, and fell from the third loft, and was taken up dead, of whom Paul said, Act. 20.10. Trouble not yourselves, for life is in him. Isai 6.13. There is substance in an elm, or an oak, when they haue cast their leaves. Isai. 65 8. Wine is found in the cluster, and one saith, Destroy it not, for a blessing is in it. There be such Apoplexies of faith with men by fits, as if so be God should not take us up in his arms, as Paul did Eutychus, we might perish everlastingly; we so faintly inwardly draw the breath of life, as it can hardly be perceived. In such an apoplexy was david, when for a whole yeares space he wallowed in the mire, and puddle of his adultery without touch of breast. So was Peter in his apostasy; and Salomon in his Idolatry. He that never doubted of his salvation, never yet believed. The true believer feeleth often and much fluctuations, and wauerings; even as a healthful man feeleth grudgings and quaimes of an ague, and sickness, which he should not feel if he were not hail. I red of a man who said to Christ, Mark 9.24. Lord I beleeue, help my unbelief; which is all one, as to say, I beleeue, and I do not beleeue. Therefore he who before was a suppliant to Christ, to heal his sons infirmity, is now as earnest a solicitor for himself, to heal his own incredulity. How pitifully did david plain his case, when he spake thus passionately? Psal. 77.7, 8, 9, 10. Will the Lord absent himself for ever? and will he be no more entreated? is his mercy clean gone for ever? and is his promise come utterly to an end for evermore? Hath God forgotten to be gracious? and will he shut up his loving kindness in displeasure? yea, he stoppeth not here, but proceedeth as if he were in desperation; I said this is my death. And this appeareth by that he elsewhere saith, Why art thou so vexed, O my soul, and why art thou so disquited within me? Faith hath not onely her Spring time, and her Summer season, but also the fall of the leaf, and the winter. Many Christians are but as broken reedes, overthrown by every blast of wind; and but as smoky flax which hath fire in it, but so weak, as it neither can give heat nor light, but smoke only. But as the Infant who as yet hath not the use of reason, is a reasonable creature; as he that is in a swoon, and is not sensible of life, yet is not dead; so a Christian hath many quaimes creeping vpon his heart, and falleth often into a spiritual swoon, and cannot perceive at all any life of faith in him, and yet he is a Christian. Now I exhibit these salves unto thee, for the cure of this thy sore. 1. The commandement of God, to beleeue in Christ, 1 joh. 3.23. Now this is his commandement, that we should beleeue on the name of his son Iesus Christ. Thou shalt not steal, it is Gods commandement, and thou darest not but keep it, because of the curse inflicted on the violaters of it. Now the former is Gods commandement as well as the latter. And therefore why should wee not as much stand in awe of the one as of the other? 2. The indefinite nature, and generality of his promises made to all, excluding none; joh. 3.16. So God loved the world, as he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but haue life everlasting. When the king sealeth a general pardon for all theeues, every one is apt to make present use of this pardon to himself, although his name be not mentioned in the parchment: so God particularly offereth unto thee pardon and salvation, in his word of promise generally delivered. 1. In baptism. 2. in his Supper. Why shouldst thou therefore question the matter? By doubt and desperation thou dost as much displease God, as thou dost almost by any sin else. Yea in Hieromes iudgement, Iudas his sin of Desperation was more transcendent than the other his bloud-red sin was of his treason against his saviour. And Isidore rendereth us the reason for it, because to sin heinously is the death of the soul, but to despair, is to throw it hastily and headlong into hell. To despair of Gods mercy, is to derogate from God in the highest degree: for thereby we turn his truth into a lye, and justify Satan more than God; for God hath promised, sworn and set to his read wax, even the blood of his son unto it. Desperation is an immedicable malady; for wee do thereby as he that hath a wound, and almost healed up, that thrusteth in his nailes, and maketh it as raw and rank, and as grievous as at the first. Desperation is the state and condition of the damned; for every thing on earth liveth under hope: for he that liveth, liveth in hope; and he that death, death in hope. Yea, the creature groaneth under hope, and looketh for deliverance in the expectation of the revelation of the sons of God. Desperation is like the fourth beast mentioned in Daniel, not name, but noted to be Dan. 7.7. fearful, and terrible, and very strong: and to haue great iron teeth, that it devoured, broke in pieces, stamped: ten bornes, and a mouth speaking presumptuous things. It hath horns to push at God with blasphemies, at our neighbours with injuries, at our own souls by distrust of the mercies of God towards us: wherefore cast we not up the blood of Christ to the air with julian, neither spill we it vpon the earth with Saul, or sacrifice it vpon a three with Iudas. For is this the wage● wee shall give to him, who hath born the heat and burden of the day? Shall he reap no better harvest than this, for his sowing in tears? Is this the bowl of wine we offer to him, who hath trodden the winepress of the wrath of God? For the cup of salvation he hath graciously given to us, shall we minister unto him the cup of desperation? Nay, ye that are Lions in your own houses, fiercer against yourselves than others, behold the lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world. His death moved the boniest parts of the earth, the rocks and the stones; and shall it not much more move us? It is an aphorism worthy to be applauded by the double spirit of Elias, Why should I bee afraid in the dayes of evil, when iniquity compasseth me at the beeles? Fortune may forsake an honest man, but faith and hope cannot: he that is without hope, is without his best advocate that should pled his cause. A gentle spake it, and let every true Christian confirm it, Seneca, Qui nihil potest sperare, desperet nihil. He that can hope of nothing, let him despair of nothing. Hope is as the shower of the second rain in the drought of summer. Cynegerus a noble gentleman, and a valiant man at arms among the Athenians, in a fight at sea, when other means failed him, gripped with his hands a ship of the enemies, to hold it to battle; and when his hands were chopped off, he took hold with his teeth, and would not let go his hold, till he was strucken out of life. So I will not by Gods grace give over my hold of salvation while I live: No, though the Lord should kill me,( as job saith) I will put my trust in him. Wherefore, O my soul, say thou with Peter, It is good for me to be here: And with david, My trust shall bee in the tender mercies of God for ever and ever. I will not so fall as the Elephant falleth, who when he is down cannot rise again. I will taste of the fruit of the three of life, that mine eyes may bee opened. Cantic. 3.4. I will hold him whom my soul loveth, and will not let him go. The Saints at all times, amid their uttermost fear, haue interposed hope. david who said in his hast, Psal. 31. I am cast out of thy sight, could yet again assume to himself new spirits, yet thou heardest the voice of my prayer, when I cried unto thee. And he sendeth out his exhortation to all, That they would put their trust in the Lord, and he shall stablish their hearts. And in another place he saith, I am forgotten like a dead man, I am become like a broken vessel: but my trust hath been in thee, I haue said thou art my God. Christ was not without his convulsion, and a quick one to, when as in the sense of human nature, he thought himself to bee forsaken; yet had he an assured hope and confidence in God. For which cause in his extremes, he called him his God, My God, my God. Thus God sendeth always a gracious rain vpon his inheritance, to refresh it when it is weary. The Collect. GVide, O Lord God, the ship of my soul, thorough the sea of this world, by the rudder of thy holy word, wherein thou hast caused me to put my trust; so as it may so safely sail, as neither by the winds or waves of temptations driving against it, it may strike against the rocks of presumption or despair, but may happily arrive at the keys side of the promised land of thy heavenly kingdom. While I behold thee, O Lord, in thy iustice, I am afraid and ready to despair: and while I look vpon thee in thy infinite mercies, I am bold to presume. Wherefore let thy hand so hold me in, that I may bee defended by thy fatherly goodness, as by a shield; and not cut off by the course of strict iustice, as with a sword. I cannot but aclowledge, that in iustice I haue incurred thy wrath& condemnation: but through thy manifold mercies, O Lord, I look and long for thy salvation. I am the workmanship of thy hands, thou wilt not therefore destroy that which thou hast made, but bless it, and bring it to a perfect end. Thou hast redeemed me, O Lord, thou God of truth; and therefore I promise myself that I cannot bee lost. The door posts of my heart are sprinkled with the blood of the paschal lamb Christ Iesus, a lamb undefiled and without spot. Hereby I am so cleansed from my sins, as the destroying angel shall haue no power over me to hurt me. Thou hast promised me salvation in thy word, and thou hast bound this thy promise with an oath, and sealed it with the blood of thy son, and that before the best witnesses in heaven and earth, thy holy Spirit bearing witness to my spirit, that I am the child of God. Now in these, and through these, vpon which I ground my faith; I am persuaded that after this life ended, I shall enjoy life eternal: and in this confidence I commend my soul to thee; and in this faith as I haue lived, so now I die. CHAP. XXIII. Of the necessity of Prayer. prayer is the life of the soul, when it is in such heaviness, as neither wine, nor strong drink can refresh it, but the spirits within the bowels be as melting wax, taking no delight in light or darkness, in pleasures or riches. Iam. 5.13. Is any among you afflicted? let him pray. Yea under the correction of so great an Apostle bee it spoken, afflicted or not afflicted, let him pray. But such as engross the prosperiry of the times, and wallow in worldly wealth, and are eminent for their honours and high places, very hardly can bee brought vpon their knees by prayer. For as Basil saith, A custom which length of time hath begotten, is a second nature. Wherefore wee compare them with the horse and mule, without understanding; neither conceiving the benefits of God, neither drawing near to him as their founder. Wherefore God pierceth their jaws with sorrows and sicknesses, as with an hook. Psal. 32.10. Whose mouths must be holden with bit and bridle, lest they fall vpon thee. Now by such means it pleaseth God to convert some of the wealthiest and proudest among them. For the cross( as saith gregory Nazianzen) is the salve of salvation. Greg. Nazian. Crux ●harmacum salutis. It is the fountain of life as Chrysostome termeth it. Greg. Malaquae nos pr●munt, ad Dominum irecompellunt. For the evils which here press us, prick us on to Godward, as saith Gregory. And many when they feel the smart, correct the fault. Bern. Et multi cum sentiunt poenam corrigunt culpam. It is the saying of Saint Bernard, Where the affliction is, and the temptation, Aug. ubi crux& tentatio, ibi vera eratio. there is prayer and devotion. So saith Augustine very rightly. I know the mans name, that while he was in the ruff, there was no rule of him; his tongue was too big for his mouth, saying, Psal. 30.6. I said in my prosperity. I shall never be removed, thou Lord of thy goodness hadst made my hill so strong. But with the turn of a hand, he found his oversight, and turned copy, singing another song, Thou didst turn thy face from me, and I was troubled. And this alteration begot better blood in him, even prayer, the juice and blood of the foul: Then cried I unto the Lord, and got me to the Lord right humbly. jacob when he perceived that death had strike him, Heb. 11.2. worshipped, leaning vpon the top of his staff. Thus his prayer was the effect and fruit of his faith. Wherefore when our miseries and maladies do multiply, and grow more and more vpon us, let us not mutter between the teeth, and say, Psal. 4. Who will show us any good? But let us take out our lesson in the words following, Lord lift thou up the light of thy countenance vpon vs. Thou hast given me more ioy of heart, than they haue had when their oil, wheat, and wine did abound. Shall wee amid our sorrows and sicknesses, cast ourselves down vpon a bed of desperation, as jezabel did cast down herself vpon a bed of fornication? Shall wee swallow down sorrow and heaviness, as the Behemoth doth the waters of jordan with her mouth? Shall we live the life of cain, or die the death of Iudas? Or shall we begin to curse the day in which we were born? Our God forbid it. What then? I will say my prayers; and that is a supersedeas to all my sorrows, and my absolute quietus est. Bernard in a conceit, setteth down a Table or Map before our eyes, in which are portrayed out the Kings of Babylon and jerusalem; by whom he understandeth the Church& Commonwealth at strife between themselves. Now in this combat, one of the King of Hierusalems souldiers conveyed himself by flight to the castle of Iustice. But the Castle being besieged by armed men round about, fear dismayed and daunted all Hope. But Madam Prudence giveth encouragement and new spirits, saying, Knowest thou not that our King is the King of glory, strong and mighty in battle? Wherefore dispatch thou a messenger to this King, who may signify thy necessity. But hereto fear replieth, But whom shall I sand? For darkness is under his feet, and thick clouds are his pavilion round about him: our enemies are on every side of us, our journey is far, and we know not the way. Now here lady Iustice is consulted with, who saith, Be of good comfort, I haue a faithful messenger that knoweth the way, and dare presume to press to the Kings bed-chamber door, and take hold of the ringle, and knock and say, Open unto me the door of righteousness, and be ye left open ye everlasting doors, that this messenger Prayer may come in. We haue no other messenger save this; for if I shall make a mittimus of my merits, the stars think scorn of this, which are impure in Gods sight: if wee shall dispatch our diffidence up to heaven in our heaviness, it will faint before it hath gone half the way. If wee shall address our blasphemies and impatience, all the creatures both in heaven and earth will rise up against vs. Prayer therefore is the true and surest friend I haue, that shall go on my errand, and pled my cause before the high God. Wherefore in all our sicknesses& Oeconomicall distresses, let us not run to Magicians, necromancers, gainsayer, wizards, Witches, the devils agents, being expressly commanded the contrary, Leuit. 19.30. Deut. 18.11. Leuit. 20.6. vpon pain of being cut off as a rotten branch, from among the people. Neither are we to trudge to dead Saints; for the Saints in heaven do not know what is done on earth, as Augustine rightly saith, and according to the Scriptures, Isai. 53.16. doubtless thou art our Father, though Abraham be ignorant of us, and Israel knoweth us not. Much less are we to run to carved and engraven Images of wood, gold, silver, ston, brass, or of whatsoever other matter they bee made of. The vanity whereof is largely drawn out at length, Psal. 115.4. by david, and set before our eyes. These bee Ierem. 2.13. the broken pipes and cisterns that will hold no water. But wee are to flee to God alone by way of prayer; for he is Psal. 46.2. our refuge. He calleth Matth. 11.28. all that are weary and laden to himself. Psal. 91.15. He shall call vpon me, and I will hear him: yea I am with him in trouble, I will deliver him. Psal. 50.15. Call vpon me in the time of trouble, so I will hear thee, and thou shalt praise me. Now the effect of holy prayer is most effectual. Eccles. 35.17. The prayer of him that humbleth himself, goeth thorough the clouds, and ceaseth not till it come near, and will not depart till the most High haue respect thereunto. Prayer( saith Saint Ambrose) is the best buckler, Ambros. Bonum scutum est oratio. it maketh us of men the Temples of Christ: and he whom the heauens cannot contain, entereth into the soul conversant in prayer, saith Chrsostome. And as the sun sheweth light unto the body, so prayer is the light of the soul: saith the same Father. And as the perfume made by the art of the Apothecary, delighteth him that smelleth it; so prayer hath its effectual force, pleasing the nostrils of the Almighty. Ps. 145.18, 19. The Lord is nigh to all them that call vpon him: yea, to all such as call vpon him faithfully. He will fulfil the desire of them that fear him: he also will hear their cry, and will help them. Psal. 50.15. Call vpon me in the time of trouble, so I will hear thee, and thou shalt praise me. Chrysostome furnisheth us with a cloud of witnesses in the cause, as how prayer quenched the violence of the fire, in the three young men, the consorts of Daniel: shut up the mouths of the Lions, that they might not hurt Daniel. As how the prayer of Moses stilled the rage of the people: as how prayer opened the gates of paradise; at how that prayer hath opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers; as how that prayer hath been effectual to make the barren woman fruitful, and to be a joyful mother of children; as how that the prayers of the Church hath broken the gates of brass, and smote the bars of Iron asunder, to loose Peter and Paul out of their prisons; as how the prayers of Cornelius pierced the heauens; and finally, as how prayer justified the Publican in the Temple. And here I may say with the Apostle, Heb. 11.32. The time will not serve me, to speak of all who haue prevailed mightily with God through prayer. But the common prayers of the Church, when( to use Tertullians words) wee join together in a company, and as it were by a set match, to set vpon God by prayer; hath I know not what secret power in it. For it is a position in polity, which holdeth good also in divinity, Vis vnita fortior. united force is stronger. So much Chrysostome sheweth by similitude; coals scattered vpon the hearth, give some heat and light; but heaped together, they afford a far greater; so the private prayers of Christians in their closerts, the doors shut vpon them, are not without their virtue and effect; but the multitude in the open church, in their prayers, exceed them in the efficacy thereof. If the prayers of one good man availeth much, the prayers of many righteous souls assembled together, shall avail much more in this their holy exercise. If the woman of Syrophenissa obtained that she prayed for on the behalf of her children; how shall not an assembly of much people, meeting together in the house of prayer, to lift up pure hands without wrath or doubting, on the behalf of Gods children, bee heard of God. If where two or three bee gathered together in his name, there he hath promised to be present among them; how shall he not much more be present among a multitude that meet together, with one heart and one soul? jerome compareth the noise of public prayer, with the noise of a thunder, that rendeth the clouds with the roarings that it maketh. Basil likeneth it to the noise& rage of the sea. And Chrysostome saith, that prayers are more powerful than provision military, Euseb. lib. 5. cap. 5. Niceph. lib. 14. cap. 10. which he commonstrateth by the examples of Moses, of the souldiers of Aurelius, of Athanasius, of the orthodoxal Fathers against Arrius, of Theodosius, and of Constantine the Emperour. object. Yea but in the pains and pangs of death when they come vpon us, our senses forsake us, and our speech faileth us, and so we become unfit for prayer. Answ. The sobs and sighs of a broken and contrite heart, are as effectual prayers before God, as they that are vocal. Prayer consisteth in the affection of the heart; the voice is but only the outward messenger of the heart. God regardeth not the lips, but the heart: Psal. 10.19. O Lord thou hast heard the desire of the poor, thou preparest their heart, and thine ear hearkeneth thereto. Psal. 145.19. he will fulfil the desire of them that fear him. Yea the tears of the faithful are loud prayers in the ears of the most High. Zacharias was dumb, and could not speak; yet were his prayers heard. He that made the heart and the tongue,& the language of them both, doth understand and consider both of them alike, and is as nigh to the reins as to the lips. In the ears of God, Bernard. In Dei auribus desiderium vehe●es clamour magnus est: remissa intentio vox submissa. a vehement desire, is a vehement cry, and a slacken intention, is a low pronunciation. 1 Sam. 1.13. Hannah a figure of the Church, prayed in her heart, her lips did but move only, but her voice was not heard: wherefore Ely thought she had been drunken. And truly shee was drunken; but not with wine nor strong drink, but with devotion, issuing from the winepress of a broken heart. The heart is the cistern that containeth Gods honour, and the tongue is the pipe that letteth it out to others. The soul and the body haue Caesars Image and superscription vpon them; and therfore the tribute of them both he requireth. And these bee the two mites, which being cast into Gods treasury, we offer more to him, than the wealthiest of all. Wherefore lift we up our souls with david, our hands with Moses, our eyes with Stephen, our voice with Deborah, and all the children of God, who desire to give God the praise due unto his Name. The Collect. O Lord, thou that hearest the prayers, to thee shall all flesh come. Trouble and heaviness haue taken hold of me: but thou art my refuge,& my merciful God. hear Lord, and help me: let my prayer come before thee as the incense; and the lifting up of my hands and heart, as the evening sacrifice. receive thou the calves of my lips, which I offer vpon thine Altar, as a sweet smelling sacrifice in thy sight. give me a true repentance never to bee repented of for my sins past: and through my faith in Christ Iesus, seal to my soul and conscience the forgiveness of them. And if it bee thy will, let me live and recover myself before I go hence and bee no more seen; that I may praise thy Name in the great congregation. But if it hath pleased thee otherwise to take me to thy mercy, Lord prepare me thereunto, by establishing my heart with thy free Spirit, against the terrors of death, and the devils temptations: that so dying in thy fear and favour, and fighting as I ought, I may receive that incorruptible crown of glory, laid up in store for me, and for all them that love the second coming of thy Son Iesus Christ. O hear my prayers, and grant my requests: O save me for thy mercies sake. CHAP. XXIV. How the Dying man is to dispose his goods before his Death. TO set our house in order, as Ezechias was willed by Isaiah. is to settle our estates and goods vpon the right owners. The right owners are our wives, children, kinsfolk, allies, the Church and the poor. wherefore Abraham is told concerning Eleazar, who was but a stranger: Gen. 15.4. This man shall not be thine heir; but one that shall come out of thine own bowels, he shall be thine heir. Wherefore it was given to the Israelites for a law: Num. 27.8. If a man die and haue no son, thou ye shall turn his inheritance unto his daughter. And if he haue no daughter, ye shall give his inheritance unto his brethren: And if he haue no brethren, ye shall give the inheritance unto his fathers brethren. And if his father haue no br●thren, you shall give the inheritance to the next kinsman of his family, and he shall possess it. From this written law, agreeing with the law of Nature, the Apostle euicteth this his consequence: Rom. 8.17. If children, then heires. And this law under the Law, is thus confirmed by the Law of the gospel: 1 Tim. 5.8. If any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel. Wherefore it is unlawful finally and totally, for a man to alienate all his possessions and goods from his progeny and posterity. Plato de repub. lib. 2. And this the law itself of Nature disclaimeth, as Philosophers haue taught. 2. Arist. lib. 5. cap. 8. And here is checked the awke practise amongst us, in conferring almost all vpon the eldest son, leaving, in respect of the elder, little more than nothing to the younger to live vpon. As if the elder brother were born to be a Gentleman, and the younger to be beggars, and to carry the wallet. We grant that the first-borne is to go away with the greatest portion; 1. In respect he is the first-borne. 2. For the preservation of the name in the family and person. 3. The better to bear out the charge of office and prefecture in the Commonwealth, which would not so well be performed, in case the lands and goods should bee equally divided. 2. again, for a man to set his house in order, he is to restore such goods as haue been any way wrongfully acquired and detained. So teacheth us Zacheus to do, who when he was converted, proclaimed a satisfaction that he would make to all such whom he had formerly injured: Luke 19.8. If I haue taken any thing from any man by forged cavillation, I restore him fourfold. It is a heinous sin for a man when he is to die, to commend his soul to God, and his goods wickedly gotten to his children, not making satisfaction. Quest. But what if a man hath not wherewith to make amends? Answ. Let him crave forgiveness, and God will accept the will for the work. So Paul avoucheth in the like case: 2 Cor. 8.12. If there be first a willing mind, it is accepted according to that a man hath, and not according to that he hath not. Quest. But in as much as a man cannot restore, without blemishing his good name; how may satisfaction bee performed, and his credit kept untouched? Answ. Let him make choice of some honest and faithful friend, who may perform this office for him, and suppress his name. Quest. But what if the party wronged be dead? Answ. he must satisfy his heires; and in case an heir and successor be wanting, let restitution be made to the Church, and to the poor. Now this satisfaction is another phlebotomy, which minisheth the quantity of the blood, but taketh away the matter of the ague, and preserveth life. So he that restoreth goods gotten by guile, impaireth his stock, but it purgeth his infatiable greediness of getting, the death of his soul, and saveth the life of it. While thou catchest others in the snare, the devill catcheth thee; and so long as thou holdest such goods in thy fists, the devill holdeth thee. Thou gettest gold, and losest heaven: thou dost unjustly keep that which is anothers, and dost justly deprive thy own self of thine eternal Inheritance. An unjust gain, but a just loss: gain in thy coffer, but grief in thy conscience. Now a mischief on such money that spoileth my soul. I marvell not that thine heires restore not the goods ill gotten by thee: I marvel not that they love them better than another mans soul: in as much as thou hast loved them better than thine own soul. Augustine in this case is peremptory, in this manner: August. ad Maced. epist. 54. paenitentia non agitur, said simulatur. If that which is anothers, for which thou hast sinned, may be restored, and is not, it is no faithful, but a feigned repentance. August. Non remittitur peccatum nist restituatur ablatum. If it be truly performed, the sin is not remitted, unless satisfaction be performed: always presupposing that the party bee of ability to perform it. Fulgentius vpon this text from Matthew, every three that bringeth not forth good fruit, shall bee hewn down and cast into the fire, argueth thus; If sterility be determined to the fire, what shall we judge of extorting rapacity? If he shall burn in hell that giveth not his own, how shall he escape that taketh from another? And the like Rabanus speaketh in effect vpon the doom of Christ to bee denounced against the wicked in the last day. I was an hungry, and ye fed me not, &c. I was an hungry, and my little bread that remained, thou hast beguiled me of: I had but a vile garment to cover me, and thou hast stripped me of it: I had but a poor pight-hill at the bak-side of my house, and thou hast taken the mortgage of it. Behold Zacheus, little in growth, but great in graces a principal receiver,& a principal restorer: rich in goods, and richer in good works: in his sinful state of life, renouncing sin: He gave not crumbs from his table, or fragments of meat, but half of his goods, not to his friends that could retail them; but to the poor that could make no requital: he restored, not the principal, but gave fourfold satisfaction: he voided himself of earthly goods, to replenish his soul with heavenly goodness. If thou canst not say with old Samuel, 1 Sam. 12.3. whose goods haue I taken say with Zacheus, Luke 19.8. whose goods haue I kept. We are charged in the first place not to offer wrong, and in the next to make amends. So much the Inhibition served vpon us insinuateth unto us: Iosua 6.18. Beware of the execrable thing, lest ye make yourselves execrable. For that which is unlawful, we may well term execrable. This is the first point. The second is in these words of Daniel to Nabuchadonosor the King, Dan. 4 24. break off thy sins by righteousness. As diseases are cured by their contrary remedies, so are our sins: as pride, by humility: gluttony, by abstinence: offences, with remission: covetousness, with almesdeeds: so is robbery and rapine by restitution. As the Camel being to enter the stable, shaketh off his burden at the door, the easier to get in: so the gate of heaven being a straight gate, it is impossible, with the burden of other mens goods vpon our backs, we should enter in. Therefore they must of necessity bee cast off to make us a passage. The Collect. THou art just and righteous, O Lord, neither iustifiest thou a sinner and ungodly person, but beholdest ungodliness and wrong. I haue done evil in thy sight, and haue ravished the poor when I got them in my net. But now the time is come, wherein I can haue no more pleasure in my goods, nor thou in me, considered in myself. But there is mercy with thee, O Lord, therefore shalt thou bee feared. I call to thee for mercy, being ready to show all the mercy I am able, by breaking off my sins by repentance; and the wrongs I haue done by plenary satisfaction. O Lord, I freely recompense every one I haue injured; I disavow the vneuen balance, and the bag of deceitful weights; I hate that which is unjust, and all false ways I utterly abhor. I will deal hereafter, so be it I live, with nothing but that which is equal and just; O forsake me not utterly; but hear me, O king of heaven, now I call vpon thee, and be merciful unto my sins for thy name sake. O save the soul of thy seruant, who putteth his trust in thee. So shall I always be singing thy praise, all the daies of my life. Amen, the faithful witness of heaven, the everlasting word and truth of his father, say Amen, Amen. CHAP. XXV. The sick man disposeth his body to the ground. THe job. 25.6. son of man( as job saith) is but a worm; Earth and ashes are our materials; So telleth us sirach, Eccles. 10.9. Solon. Putredo as in exhortu; esca vermium in morte; ter●am geris; terram tears; et in terram reverteris, quia de terra sumeris. Why art thou so proud, O earth and ashes? we are corruption at our birth; we are worms meat at our death; we bear earth; wee tread earth; we are taken from the earth; we return unto the earth. Call wee into our often and much consideration( as Basil adviseth us) how that these the now lively members of our body, and the concupiscence of the flesh, which is now present with us, by and by shall be no more; the members being to be dissolved, and resolved into their earth. Bee we mindful of nature, and all the force and provocation to maliciousness shall vanish away. Let us travell to our graues( the words of Chrysostome) show me thy father, show me thy wife, where is he that ietted in his purple, who was carried in his coach between heaven and earth, who lead armies after him, who was circuled with souldiers round about, who went guarded with his tormentors, and officers of that nature, who slay some down right, imprisoned othersome, and set at liberty such as it pleased him? I see now nought else but rotten bones, and worms, and spiders. All things are but at a tale that is told, a dream, a shadow, a naked narration, and an Image. Here is no distinction( saith Ambrose) between the carcases of the dead, unless perhaps it be this, that the corps of the rich man distended with luxury; giveth a more rank and noisome favour. Wherefore learn we this one lesson, to despise life. No man hath well governed it, but he that hath despised it. Seneca. Nemo illam been rexit, nisi qui contempserit. No man can attain to a quiet life, who thinketh overmuch how he may lengthen it. well, I now die, I desire you my friends, that you see that I be butted in seemly sort; in as much as my body while it lived, was the temple of the holy Ghost. I entreat you with Cyrus king of Persia, in Xenophon, This body of mine, O my children, after it be dead, conclude not in any sumptuous monument: for what are we to desire rather, than that we should return to our mother the earth, which brought us forth: wherefore bury it out of hand. And now all of you farewell;& harken ye to the words of sirach, Eccles. 38.16. My son power forth tears over the dead, and begin to mourn, as if thou hadst suffered great harm thyself; and then cover his body according to his appointment, and neglect not his burial. I do not deny but that it is lawful& commendable to bury the dead, according to their estate and condition while they lived. Gen. 50.2, 7. Thus joseph commanded the physitians his seruants, to embalm his father Israel. And joseph went up to bury his father, and with him went all the seruants of pharaoh, both the elders of the house, and all the elders of the land of egypt; likewise all the house of joseph, and his brethren,& his fathers house. Gen. 50.26. And joseph himself was embalmed,& put in a chest in egypt. 1 Sam. 3.31. So david solemnized Abners funerals, and followed the bier and Hearse himself. joh. 11.31. So many of the Iewes accompanied Mary to the burial of Lazarus, and it shall become us right well to do the like; it being the last office of courtesy and charity, which every one ought to perform to other. But yet here a moderation is required, where Chrysostome roundly reproveth such, who bedecke dead bodies with rich array, rings of gold, and precious stones, speaking in this wise, Cease from this mad magnificence about funerals: for what meaneth this superfluous cost, much unprofitable to them that bestow it, and doth no manner of good to the dead, but hurt rather? For a sumptuous burial, very often causeth theeues to dig the dead out of their graues, to strip them of their ornaments, and jewels, and to leave them open and naked to the public view. But they will perhaps say, that affection, sorrow, and commiseration of the dead, urgeth thee so to do. Hereto answereth Chrysostome, It is not piety, or pity, but vain glory: For if thou meanest to be pitiful to the dead, I will show thee a better way; namely, to adorn them with such vestures, as shall rise again with him, and make him glorious. And what be they I pray? Namely, thy almesdeeds. alms is his signet and seale-ring he carries with him; in these garments he shall shine, when he shall hear these words; you saw me hungry, and you gave me to eat, &c. These are the fairest funerals under the sun; these avail such as remain, and honour them that are gone. Neither do wee forbid any to mourn over the dead; for the Saints like it well. Gen. 23.2. Abraham mourned and wept for Sarah. Gen. 35.19. jacob for Rachel. Gen. 50.10. joseph and his brethren for jacob; And they came to Goron-Arad which is beyond jordan, and there they made a great and exceeding sore lamentation, and he mourned for his father. Num. 20.30. The Iewes for Aaron, Deut. 34.8. for Moses, 1 Sam. 21.1. for Samuel, 2 Chron. 32.33. for Ezechiah. 2 Chron. 35.24 And jeremiah lamented josiah, and all singing men and singing women mou●ned for josiah in their lamentations to this day, and made the same for an ordinance unto Israel, and they were also written in their lamentations, and became a common word amongst them. For whensoever afterward there was taken up any great lamentation, it was sampled and matched Zach. 12.11. with that Hadradrimmon in the field of Megidde. Wherefore according to the counsel of the Apostle, Rom. 12.15. weep wee with them that weep, over the dead, Eccles. 22.11. Because he hath lost the light. Yea weep we bitterly, Eccles. 38.17. Make a grievous lamentation, and be earnest in mourning, and use lamentation as he is worthy: and that a day or two, lest thou be evil spoken of. This not onely natural inbred affection inviteth us to do, but also charity itself requireth it at our hands, as members of one and the same body: and so consequently others evils are our own, by a sympathy of the body of Christ. The Collect. WEe commit the body of this our brother departed in the true faith of thy holy name, to the earth from whence it came; in steadfast hope that thou shalt raise it up again at the last day, by thy son Iesus Christ, the first-fruits of them that sleep: who shall change our vile bodies, and make them like unto his glorious body. Wee weep for him according to the affection of nature, and the rule of charity, and as members of one body. O Lord comfort us, after the time wee haue suffered heaviness, and wipe thou away all tears from out eyes. And wee desire that wee may bee butted with Christ in our death, that as we are made partakers of his death, so wee may be partakers of his resurrection. So that finally with the rest of thy chosen, wee may bee inheritors of everlasting life, through Iesus Christ our Lord. CHAP. XXVI. Of the end of the Reprobates, and of their pains in hell. having laid open these particulars, we will last of all speak, De fine malorum& bonorum; of the end of the Reprobate and Elect. The Reprobates shall not be able to stand in the iudgement, neither the wicked in the Congregation of the just. They shall rise again to condemnation; both the living and the dead shall then haue immortal bodies, but without glory: and they standing vpon the earth at the left hand of Christ the judge, shall hear the sentence of condemnation, Matth. 25.41. Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire, which is prepared for the devill and his Angels. That there is an hell provided for the Reprobates, our saviour witnesseth in plain words, go ye cursed into hell fire, &c. The Apostle witnesseth, 2 Thes. 1.8, 9. In flaming fire, rendering vengeance unto them, which shall be punished with everlasting perdition, from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power. The throbbings and throwings in conscience which the wicked sustain, witness the famed, Rom. 2 15. Their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts accursing one another. The damned themselves witness it, speaking thus in the language of hell, Wisd. 5.3. This is he whom we sometime had in derision, we fools thought his life madness, and his end without honour, &c. The devils themselves witness it, dreading these infernal torments, Art Matth. 8.29. thou come to torment us before the time? Iam. 2.19. The devils beleeue, and tremble. The heathens themselves, by the little remaining light of that spark of knowledge in them, though they haue mingled the truth with their fond fables, witness it, just. Martyr. serm. ad Gentes exhort. as justine Martyr sheweth it. Now albeit( as Chrysostome saith) Nothing is more fruitful than to reason of hell fire, for it shall purify the souls above silver tried seven times in the fire: yet it is both unprofitable and rash, curiously to inquire after the situation and proper place where hell should be, as not a few haue done; who determined it to be in an hollow cave, or center of the earth, and so punctually do describe unto us the space therof, as if with a reed or metwand in their hand they had taken the just measure of it. But let such see to that, saith Saint Augustine, how they understand their poetical inventions. Chrysostome saith, Thou wilt say, in what place is this hell that is spoken of? I ask thee why thou dost stand vpon that so much? All the matter is, that wee prove that there is a hell, and not that we show where hell is. Finally, saith the same Father, Chrys. serm. 31. in 16. cap. ad Romanos. Our care ought not so much to bee to know in what place hell is, as to learn and study how we may avoid it. When an house is on fire, it is but an idle question to ask from whence, and how the fire came; but all our care must bee to know how to quench it. Touching the pains and torments of the damned in hell, they are horrible, intolerable, inexplicable. They shall be excluded the kingdom of heaven, Matth 25.41 Depart from me ye cursed, &c. Matth. 22.13. bind him hand and foot, take him away, and cast him into utter darkness, there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. There shall bee weeping with a witness; For their eyes shall bee a fountain of tears, and their teeth within their heads shall clatter like a troope of armed men. job 10.22. Into a land dark as darkness itself, into the shadow of death, where there is no order, but the light is there as darkness. revel. 21.8. Into the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone. Psal. 11.7. Where he shall rain vpon them snares fire, brimstone, storm, tempest, this shall be their portion to drink. Psal. 49.19. he shall never see light. Isa. 66.24. Their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched. 2 Thes. 3.8, 9. The Lord shal show himself in flaming fire, and shall punish them with everlasting perdition. Bern. Fletus ob ignem qui non extinguetur, stridor ob vermem qui non morietur Plane fletus ex dollar, stridor dentium ex furer. They shall weep by means of the fire, that shall never bee quenched: they shall gnash with their teeth, for their worm that never death. For weeping ariseth from dolour, gnashing of the teeth from furor. revel 9.6. They shal seek death and shall not find it: and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them. revel. 14.11. They shall haue no rest day nor night. Ierem. 20.14. They shall cry, Cursed be the day wherein I was born,& let not the day wherein my mother me bare be blessed. Cursed be the man that shewed my father, saying, a man child is born unto thee, and comforted him. revel. 6.16. They shall say to the mountaines and rocks fall on us, and hid us from the presence of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the lamb. Then shall the horrible places of punishments lye open, a Chaos and mist of darkness, the horror of misery and tribulation, the fear of anguish and confusion, the grief of horrible visions, the formidable fear of fearful mansions, the place of men weeping, the noise of teeth chattering, where there is the lamentations of those that mourn, where is the voice of crying sinners, and saying, woe be unto us the sons of evah: these bee the words of St. Augustine. There shall be no one part of body or soul that shall be able to help itself. The memory shall recount nothing else but old fore-passed and thrice-odious sins. The fantasy shall present nothing but most fearful visions. The ears shall hear no other music than the scritchings of infernal furies. The Nostrils shall smell nothing else but sulphureous fumes. The Feet shall walk no further than their chains shall suffer them. What, and of what sort, and how great their tortures shall be, who is able to conceive? Greg. Infernus sine misericordia, quos tenet, cruciat. Hell tortureth without mercy, such as it retaineth, saith gregory. Wee read of exquisite torments excogitated by tyrants; as the teeth of wild beasts, hot burning furnaces, vessels of boiling oil and led, fiery bulls, and engines of brass, agitations and circumrotations in hogsheads full of sharp pointed nailes, scorchings and roastings by an easy fire, perforations by awles and bodkins, the division of the flesh from the nailes by needles, the laceration and discerption of the flesh by wild beasts, and many such like extreme tortures. But the torments of hell prepared for the damned, are infinitely more, and more intolerable: and so much the more, as the wit of the devils goeth beyond the wit of man, and his malice more able to execute and perform his unmerciful devices. There is the cup of the deadliest wine that ever any tasted of, such wine as the Prophet speaketh of, Psal. 60.3. Thou hast given us a drink of deadly wine. Psal. 40.2. There is the horrible pit of mire& day; and those profound graues out of which they can come forth no more, Isa 66.24. There is the fire never to be quenched. Ierem. 8.14. There bee those waters of gull that shall bee given them to drink, of which ieremy speaketh, Ezech. 38.21, 22. There bee those unmerciful plagues whereby God will dispute his cause against Gog and Magog. revel. 14.10. The sword, the pestilence, the rain, the hailstones, the fire, the brimstone. There is the wine of Gods wrath, which is powred into the cup of his wrath; and he shall bee tormented in fire and brimstone, before the holy Angels, and before the lamb. Reu. 16.1.6. And the smoke of their torment shall ascend evermore, and they shall haue no rest neither day nor night. There be those seven viols of the wrath of God, out of which, blood shall bee given them to drink. There they shall bee tormented with the heat of fire, and they shall gnaw their tongues for sorrow. The rich glutton in the Gospel, experienced in these things, Quorum pars magna sui. as Aeneas was in the calamities of Troy, affordeth us a kind of skill in them. For the torments of hell were so importunate to haue their due to the uttermost of him, as if he would haue shed more tears than ever Esau did for his blessing, he could not haue obtained so much as a drop of water vpon the tip of his tongue, for the cooling thereof. And what if all the Riuers of the South had been yielded him? they would not haue sufficed him, but he would still haue howled out in the language of hell, and said, More, more. But yet these unutterable torments might be more tolerable, if there might be hope of deliverance at the last: but there is no redemption to be hoped for out of hell. There is no order, but everlasting horror; an end without end, a never dying death, fire inextinguable, darkness more palpable than the egyptian darkness, a darkness more black than very darkness itself. Their torments shall continue for time, and times, and when time shall bee no more. The everlasting gates of hell shall bee so rampierd up, as there can bee no egress: as the East side of the garden of Eden Gen. 3.24. was warded by Cherubims, and the blade of a sword shaken, to keep the way of the three of life for ever, our first parents never to enter in any more. These gates of hell shall be kept sure, not by Cherubims, but by Satan and his black guard; and the seal of Gods decree shall bee set vpon them, as the seal of the high Priest vpon the tombe-stone of Christ. The covenant of the day and of the night shall be changed, the stars in the firmament shall finish their course, there shall be a time when winter and summer shall bee no more, the heauens shal pass away with the noise, the elements shall melt with heat, but the torments of the damned sort in hell shall never cease. A godly matron solicited by a villain to uncleanness, she desired him in declaration of his love towards her, to hold his hands over a pan of coals but for the space of one hour, who answered her that it was an unreasonable request; whereupon with this replication she disparched him, Shall you think it much to burn but a hand,& that but an hour for my sake; and shall I to satisfy your lust, burn both in body and soul in hell fire for ever? O consider this ye that forget God, lest by sinning without end, ye be tormented without end. The often and much consideration of this, is more than necessary: for it will work much to our amendment. For the nature of man is so servile and brutish, as bitter things beget better things, and go better down with vs. Hence it is that an injury doth more spite us, than a benefit doth delight us; wee are more ready to reuenge a wrong, than to recompense a good turn: wee are more disquieted through sickness, than thankful for our health: more dejected with restraint, than erected with the freedom of our liberty: we are touched more with sorrow than with solace: more with trouble than with rest: more with punishments than with rewards: more with threat● than with promises: more with the fear of evil, than with the hope and expectation of good. Hence it is that the Apostle exhorteth us, Philip. 2.12. To finish our salvation with fear and trembling. The same Apostle having treatised of the catholic iudgement, before which we are all of us to be convented, hereupon infereth, 2 Cor. 5.11. knowing therfore that terror of the Lord, wee persuade men. For there is not a better Orator to persuade than fear. Wherefore fear is said to be The beginning of wisdom. And job determineth it to bee wisdom itself. Absalon when he could not win joab on his side by faire means, he fired his barley fields, and by that trick gained him. So whom the promises of God will not persuade, the denunciation of his judgements will enforce. Were it not for the terror of hell, wee should all of us run headlong into hell, saith Chrysostome. And the same Father saith, No less( as I haue spoken it often) the commination of hell fire commendeth the providence of God towards us, than the promise of a kingdom. And this he instanceth in the case of the Nineuites, Nineuie could not haue stood long, had not jonas first prophesied of their fall: Yet within forty dayes, and nineve shall bee destroyed. The message overturned the message: the prophesy fell, and the city stood, because the fall thereof was foretold. The denunciation of death effectuated life; the sentence of destruction nullified the sentence. It was for a snare, and it became a refuge: They heard that their houses should fall, and they forsook not their houses, but themselves. The Collect. O Lord, thy judgements are everlasting, and I am afraid of them. Great plagues remain for the ungodly, but who so putteth his trust in thee, mercy embraceth him on every side. Lord, I put my trust in thee, let me not bee confounded. Draw my feet out of the snare, that I may diligently keep thy Commandements. Thy grace is sufficient for me, to keep my feet out of the horrible pit of death and destruction. give me of this grace, that I may live for ever: so shall I not be afraid in the dayes of evil, but death shall lose his sting, and hell his victory: and I shall be more than conqueror through him that hath loved me, and given himself for me, even Iesus Christ the righteous; whose blood by my faith hath purged my sins, and hath made me righteous in thy sight. And in this faith I come now unto thee, and look for thy salvation from day to day. even so Lord Iesus come quickly, come quickly, and receive me to glory. CHAP. XXVII. Of life eternal, and of the felicity of the faithful. THat there is a life eternal, no Christian doubteth; it being so clear and manifest by so many pregnant proofs of Scriptures. Dan. 12.2. Many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake; some to everlasting life, and some to shane and perpetual contempt. Mat. 25.46. And these shall go into everlasting pains, but the righteous into life eternal. joh. 3.16.36. God so loved the world, that he hath given his onely begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but haue everlasting life. He that believeth in the son, hath everlasting life. joh. 6.40. This is the will of him that sent me, that every man which seeth the son, and believeth in him, should haue everlasting life. joh. 10.28. And I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish. Heb. 13.14. Here we haue no continuing City; but we seek one to come. 1 Thess. 4.17. Wee shall be ever with the Lord. Hugo lib. 3. de anima; Quicquid in Scriptura sacra docetur, veritas est; quicquid praecipitur, bonitas est; quicquid promittitur, foelicitas est. Now whatsoever is taught out of holy Scriptures, is the truth; whatsoever is commanded, is goodness; whatsoever is promised, is happiness. Wherefore what mind will feed vpon doubt any longer, and will not absolutely quiet himself that way? This is the reward laid up in store for the righteous, and to all such as are true of heart. 1 Thess. 4.17. Wee shall be ever with the Lord. Mat. 13. ●3. We shall shine as the sun in the kingdom of the father. 1 Cor. 15.43. That which is here sown in corruption, shall rise again in incorruption. Psal. 126.5. Prosper. Erit ibi eterna sanitas,& sana aeternitas; sec●ra trāq●illitas, tranquilla iucunditas; jucunda foelicitas, foelix aeternitas, aeterna foelicitas. August. Gaudium vitae illius nunquam decrescet, neque amor tepescet; gemitus nullus audietur, neque dolor sentietur; trust nile videbitur, laetitia semper habebitur. They that sow here in tears, shall reap then in ioy. There shall be eternal health, and healthful eternity; a secure quietness, and a quiet joyfulness; an happy eternity, and eternal happiness; the words of Prosper. The ioy of that life shall never haue decrease, neither love shall wax could; no sighs shall bee heard, no pains shall bee felt, no sadness shall be seen, therein all ioy is to be had. 1 Cor. 2.9. The eye hath not seen, neither ear hath heard, neither came it into mans heart, the things that God hath prepared for them that love him. revel. 21.4. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there shall bee no more death, neither sorrow, neither crying, neither shall there bee any more pain. The blessed estate of the life to come, Aug. Omnem sermonem effugit, omnem sensum humanae mentis ●xcedit, desideria& vota transgreditur; acquiri potest, astimari non potest. saith Augustine, goeth beyond the tongue of man to utter, it goeth beyond the compass of all human senses, it goeth beyond all a man can desire or wish for; it may be attained, but not estimated. The ioy thereof shall not bee worldly, vain, transitory. The ioy of the flesh endeth with the flesh, saith Chrysostome. It is perpetual and eternal, which may not bee taken from vs. Isai. 35.16. The redeemed of the Lord shall come to Zion, an everlasting ioy shall come vpon their heads; they shall obtain ioy and gladness, and mourning shall flee away. 2 Cor. 4.17. The light affliction which is but for a moment, causeth unto us a far more excellent and an eternal weight of glory; while wee look not on the things which are seen, but on the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal. 1 Cor. 12. Bernard. Ibi amabimus sine modo; videbimus sine termino; cohaerebimus sine med●o: nam semper manebimus in Deo. Aug. de triplici tabernaculo. Then we shall see face to face. There wee shall love beyond measure; we shall see without end; we shall cleave to him without means; for there wee shall always abide in God. Verily, saith Saint Augustine, there shall bee a heap of happiness, when the Lord shall bring his Saints in the vision of glory, the society of Angels and Saints, and our presence in the presence of God, incomparably exceedeth the kingdom of the whole world, though it might be eternal. Greg. in Homil. Gregory treatising vpon this subject, telleth us, that no tongue can utter, nor understanding comprehend, how great the joys may be to be present in the choir of heavenly Angels, with the holy spirits, to stand by the glory of the Creator, and to see his present countenance. And truly as Saint Bernard saith, That is the solid and sole ioy, which is not from the creature, but from th● Creator; which when thou shalt possess, none shall dispossess, thee of; with which all other ioy being compared, is but heaviness, all pleasure, is sorrow; all sweetness, is bitterness; all comeliness, filthiness; and what may seem delightful, troublesone. moreover to the augmentation of their glory, they shall see the punishments of the wicked, which by the grace of God they haue escaped, saith Saint Gregory. Let the careful consideration hereof raise thee up O man, O faithful soul. Greg. Quos videntes, non dollar affici●ntur, said laetitia saturabuntur; gratias agentes Deo de sua liberatione visa impiorum ineffabili calamitate. Whom they heholding, they shall not bee touched with sorrow, but shall bee fulfilled with ioy; singing praises unto God for their deliverance while they behold the unspeakable calamity of the damned. Eccles. 5.1. Then shall the righteous stand in great boldness, before the face of such as haue tormented him. Aug in Psal. 138. Miseria tua dolor medicinalis est, non sententia paenalis. Thy misery is a medicinal grievance, and not a penal sentence. The punishment of this life is short; and he that afflicteth, and he that is afflicted, are mortal, saith Isidore. Rom. 8.18. The afflictions of this present time are not worthy of the glory that shal be shewed unto vs. Greg. Consideratio haec praemij, minuet vim flagelli. The consideration of the reward, minisheth the force of the punishment. I cry out with Saint Bernard, O that I might die the death of the righteous; that I might attain to the ioy of the blessed. There bee four special names, by which the felicity of the faithful is specified. 1. First it is styled a life, and such a life as is eternal. 2. A glory, and a crown of glory, and that of such a weight, as is not to be balanced. 3. A kingdom, and such a kingdom, as is not to be moved. 4. An inheritance, and such an inheritance, as is immortal, undefiled, and fades not away. Now tell me, O man, what is that thy heart would haue? Is there any thing that thou esteemest above life? Is there any thing that may hold comparison with the life of glory? Is there any greater glory than a kingdom of glory? Is there any surer kingdom than that which is thine, by the right of an immortal and permanent Inheritance? Now all these are thine in Christ Iesus in the life to come. And here we take notice of the excellency of that life that we shall haue, in that it shall be a life of glory. It shall not be therefore base or contemptible; but the state thereof shall be every way conspicuous and glorious. Wee may in some sort judge of that glory, how glorious it shall bee, by the glory of God manifested in his works. If these works of God which our eyes behold, bee so glorious, what shall we think of those we see not? For doubtless, among all the works of God, those that are invisible, are most excellent. The body of man is a beautiful workmanship, but it is not comparable to the soul. This Glory I account the highest degree of eternal life. The first is righteousness, the second is Peace, the third is Ioy, the fourth is Glory. righteousness begets Peace, and Peace brings forth Ioy, and our Ioy shall be crwoned with Glory. If our performance of the works of righteousness bring such comfort to the mind, as the godly find by experience; how shall our comfort exceed, when wee shall receive the reward of righteousness, Bernard. in Cant. serm. 47. Si sic bonus es quaerentibus te; qualis es assequentibus▪ which is glory? If thou Lord be so good to them that seek thee; what shalt thou be to them that find thee? Wee may bee well assured, that these first fruits of the spirit, and the earnest of our heavenly inheritance, wherein standeth our greatest comfort, shall appear as nothing, when that mass of glory shall bee taken up, and communicated unto vs. As the light of the sun when it ariseth, obscureth the light of the moon and the stars; so that glory when it shall bee revealed, shall eclipse these our joys, which wee now easily suppose to be the greatest. Aug. de temp. serm. 49. Adeò enim pulchra est sa ies illa, vt illa visa, nihil aliud posset delectare. For so amiable is that face of God, that they who once see it, can be delighted with no other thing. The southern queen had a large report made her of Salomons wisdom, and of the glory of his kingdom; but when shee communed with him herself, and saw his state, shee found more by half beyond the report. And so shall wee one day, not only say with the Psalmist, As we haue heard, so haue wee seen in the city of our God: but shall be enforced to aclowledge that the glory prepared for us, infinitely beyond all we can utter or conceive, excelleth all that we haue heard with our cares, or our fathers in times past haue told vs. Basil. Hexam. Semper enim maiora tribuit Deus quam promittit. For the Lord our God giveth always greater things than he promiseth. And yet albeit wee cannot speak of it as wee should, let our mindes muse vpon it as they may. When the Apostle was rapt to the third heaven, he heard such words as he could not utter. And again, the eye never saw, the ear never heard those things which God hath prepared for them that love him. Aug. de verbis Domini, serm. 64. Facilius inueniemus quid ibi non sit, quàm quid sit. And it is( faith Augustine) more easy to tell what that life is not, than to show what it is. Yet certainly the Lord would never use it as an Argument to comfort us in troubles, were it not, that it is his will that we should exercise our mindes in the consideration thereof. When the Lord first promised to give Abraham the land of Canaan for inheritance, he commanded him to arise, and walk thorough the land to view the length and the breadth of it. And albeit he was not to give him a present possession thereof, yet the Lord would haue him to view it, that the sight of that which God had promised, might refresh and sustain his soul, till the day wherein he should possess it, came. So we, though we bee not presently to enter possession of our heavenly Canaan; yet seeing the Lord hath so commanded us, let us now and then go with Moses to the top of mount Pisgah, and view it: that is, let us separate ourselves from the earth, and ascend up by prayer and spiritual meditation, and solace ourselves with some sight of that land, which it shall please the Lord one day to give unto vs. Now we see the Lord but thorough a veil, and in a mirror; but then wee shall see him face to face, and shall in such sort behold his glory, as we shall be transformed into it. This change, as witnesseth the Apostle, is begun by the sight of God, which we haue in the Gospel. For even now wee behold as in a mirror, the glory of the Lord with open faith, and are changed from glory to glory, by the Image, by the Spirit of the Lord: but in heaven this change shall be perfected, and we shall be fully transformed into his similitude, so that nothing shall be left in us, but that which is his workmanship. O Lord, how hast thou magnified thy mercy towards us? Thou hast raised our honour from the dust, and delivered our souls from the nethermost hell, and hast made us to sit with thyself in the highest places, where wee shall bee filled with the joys which are at thy right hand, we shall drink of the riuers of thy pleasures, in thy light wee shall see light, and bee transformed by the light of thy countenance. Moses was forty dayes with God vpon mount Sinai, and his face shined so bright, as when he descended, the people of Israel might not behold him. If those forty dayes remaining in the wilderness with God, did so much alter him from the man he was before; how shall we be altered, who shall for ever abide with him, and never any more come down from him? Our face in that day, as our Siuiour Christ faith, shall shine as the sun in the firmament. O what glory shall be then among them all, when the glory of one shall bee like the brightness of the sun! August. ad Fratres in eremo. Quolis tunc erit splendour animarum, quando solis habebit cla●itatem lux corporum? When the light of that body shall bee like unto the light of the sun, how great think ye shall bee the resplendent light of the soul? The three disciples that were with our saviour vpon Mount T●bor, were so rapt with ioy at the glance of his glory which they saw, as they would there haue fastened the cords of their often removed tabernacles, and would there haue had their abode for a full do; how then shall we be replenished with ioy when we shall see that full manifestation of his glory? Wee shall covet no further remove from that mountain of the Lord. Another heart shall bee given us, and wee shall become other men than we are. So that as a drop of water powred forth into a great vessel full of wine, loseth both the taste and colour of water, and becometh wine; or as the iron put into the fire, assumeth after a sort the nature of fire; and as the air illuminated with the bright shining sun, seems not so much to bee illuminated, as to be light itself; so our souls and bodies, when the glory of God shall shine vpon them, shall be so marvelously changed, that after a sort they shall become partakers of the divine nature. moreover, the excellency of that glory shal better appear, if we shal consider the companions with whom we shall be glorified. There is the congregation of the first-borne: all of them are men of excellent strength and dignity. None of them are of base lineage, but of most noble descent. For by their second birth, they are the sons of God, and so coheirs with Christ, and the brethren of our Lord Iesus Christ. The Citizens of Tyrus are described by Isaiah, to haue been companions to Princes; but in that heavenly jerusalem, every Citizen is a crwoned King; and none but Kings are freemen of that City, knit among themselves by the bond of one spirit into so holy a communion, as every one of them account the ioy and glory of his brethren an enlargement of his own ioy and glory. It is otherwise there, than here on earth, when the ioy of one is anothers sorrow. The light of the sun darkeneth the moon, and the light of the moon dimmes the light of the stars; if the one half of the earth be illuminated, the other is left in darkness: but there the light of one increaseth the light of another; the glory of one shall be the glory of all; every one of them rejoicing, not onely because the lightsome countenance of God shineth vpon themselves; but also because they see their brethren admitted to the participation of the same glory. But among all those with whom wee shall be glorified, there is one companion of our glory, who above all the rest shall be the fullness of all ioy, even Iesus Christ the righteous. O with what boldness and spiritual rejoicing shall we stand among the holy Angels, when we shall see the Lord of the house, the Prince of glory, clothed with our nature? Now we are sure that our Redeemer liveth,& we shall at the last day see him in our flesh, wee ourselves shall see him,& our eyes shall behold him, and none either for vs. Hence we learn to resolve a noble question, whether wee shall know one another in heaven? My answer is affirmative, that we shall: my reasons are these; Our knowledge in heaven must far exceed the knowledge of man on earth, when he was at his best in his estate of innocency. But Adam knew evah, no sooner he was awake, and not onely called her by her proper name, but also like a divine, sermoned of the indissoluble knot of marriage. And this may be one argument in the cause. Matth. 17.4. When Christ was transfigured vpon mount Tabor, Peter knew Moses and Elias, whom he had never seen before. Now, that transfiguration was an Idea& resemblance unto them, and us, as the aptest for our apprehension of the future glory that remaineth for us in heaven. And that is another argument in the cause. Luk. 16. The rich man that went to hel, knew Lazarus in heaven, in the bosom of Abraham. And this history Ambrose taketh to be a narration of a thing done,& not a naked parable. But suppose it to be a parable, parables are of true things, and therefore the divinity is good. And this is another argument in the cause. Our knowledge there shall be absolute and perfect: wherefore I doubt not of this point. But whether we shall know one another as wee do here, in an earthly manner; as to say, this was my father, and this my mother, these my brethren and sisters; because the Scriptures say nothing thereunto, I hold my peace. Finally, the due regard of the place where we shall be glorified, will further set forth unto us the excellency of that glory. As for the place, it is sometimes called a paradise. So it is by our saviour, there being no metre place in the earth to shadow it, than was that garden of Eden name paradise, the dwelling place of man in his estate of innocency. Sometime he calleth it his Fathers house, wherein are many mansions. Sometimes, the everlasting habitations. S. Paul calleth it, the third heaven, an house not made with hands, but eternal in the heauens. Wee see in this frame and fabric of the world, that the finest things are seated in the highest places. The earth as the grossest Creature is placed in the lower room, the waters above the earth, the air above the water, the fire above the air, the spheres of heaven purer than any of them, above the rest, but the place of our glory is above them all, in the heaven of heauens, which doth not only note the excellent purity thereof, but sheweth also what principal purity is required in all them that are to dwell therein. There be three places of the residence of the sons of God, in their three several times. 1. Our mothers womb. 2. The womb of the earth, the mother of us all. 3. The Palace of glory which is above. From the first, the Lord hath brought us to the second; and from the second, we rest in hope that the Lord when the fullness of time be come, will bring us to the third. If we shall confer these three together in their circumstances of Time, Bounty, Beauty, we shall find the second not so far to excel the first, as the third excels the second. The ordinary time of our abode in our mothers womb is nine moneths; the time of our sojourning in our second house is much longer, threescore and ten twelve moneths; but in our third house, neither daies, moneths, nor yeares shall be numbered unto us: for it is the place of our everlasting habitation. To compare them in limits and latitude of place, we shall find, that as the womb of a woman is but of narrow dimensions, in regard of the spatiousnesse of the universe: so this is nothing in comparison of that high Palace, wherein are a number of mansions without number, prepared for many myriad of elect men and Angels. For if one star be larger than the whole earth, what is the firmament, the continent of so many stars? And if the firmament be so wide, what shall we think of the heaven of heauens, altogether boundless? Lastly, for Beauty and Bounty, the inequality is exceeding great. When thou wert in thy mothers womb, howsoever thy body was qualified with his faculties and senses, yet what sawest thou, or heardest thou there? every sense wanting the own natural object, could breed thee no delight. But this thy second house thou seest replenished with variety of all necessary and pleasant things, every sense accompanied and stored with innumerable objects that may delight thee. And yet all the beauty and bounty of this earth is as far inferior to that which is above, as it is superior to that which the Infant had in the mothers womb. The firmament, which is the ceiling of our second house, beautified with the sun, moon, and stars, graven in it by Gods own hand, and shining more gloriously than all the precious stones in the world, shall be no other thing than the nether side of the pavement of our Palace. John the Baptist sprung for ioy in the womb of his mother Elizabeth, at the coming of Christ Iesus into the house, in the womb of his mother Mary. But afterward, when he saw the Lord Iesus more clearly face to face, and pointed him out by the finger, saying, Behold the lamb of God, &c. when he stood by him as a friend, and heard the voice of the bridegroom, he reioyced in another manner. So in very truth, all the rejoicing that wee haue in the house of our pilgrimage, is but like the springing of John Baptist in his mothers womb, in comparison of those infinite joys wherewith wee shall be replenished, when wee shall meet with our bridegroom in our Fathers house, wherein wee shall see him face to face, and abide with him for ever. It is recorded of Ahashuerus that he made a sumptuous feast to his Princes and Nobles, which continued for the space of half a year; which being finished, he made another for his Commons, which lasted seven daies. The place was the outmost Court of the Kings Palace, the hangings were of all colours, white, green, blew, fastened with Ribbons of fine linen, and Purple, through Rings and Pillars of silver and Marble: the beds were of Gold and silver, the pavement of Porphyry, Marble, alabaster, and blew colour: the vessels wherein they drank were all of gold. All this he did, that he might show the glory of his kingdom, and the honour of his majesty. If a worm of the earth hath done so much in ostentation of his vain beggarly glory, as ravished men with the admiration thereof, how( I pray you) shall the Lord our God the great King declare his glory, when he shall make his banquet cover his table, and gather his Princes, that is, his sons thereunto, not for a few dayes, but for ever, not in the outmost Court, but in the inward Court of his royal Palace? Verily no tongue is able to express it. For seeing he hath decked the world wherein we sojourn, and which I haue called the outmost Court of this Palace, in so rich and glorious manner, that he hath ordained lights, both by day and night to shine in it, and hath prepared a storehouse of Fowles in the air, another of Beasts in the earth, and the third of Fishes in the Sea, for our necessity, besides innumerable pleasures for our delight. What glory and variety of pleasures may wee look for, when he shall altogether separate us from the children of wrath, and assemble us all into the inward Court of his own Palace, into the chamber of his presence? Now because, if wee would declare these things, they are more than wee are able to express, or think of, wee will rest and say with david, Psal. 65.4. Blessed is the man whom thou choosest, and causest to come to thee: he shall dwell in thy Courts, and be satisfied with the pleasures of thy house. having thus scholied vpon the excellency of this glory, it is fit in the next place somewhat should be said of the eternity thereof. The state of the elect in heaven, and their glory there, is not subject to corruption, or alteration. This may appear in that notable and stately description of the heavenly jerusalem, revel. 21.14. &c. and from the 10. verse to the 21. It hath a great wall, and high, twelve gates, twelve Angels for Porters, and the wall had twelve foundations, of twelve forts of most excellent precious stones, and the wall itself was jasper, and the city pure gold like crystal. The state of it is shadowed by precious stones, and gold, to signify as well the durableness, as the excellency thereof. For this cause david calleth it, Psal. 15.1. The mountain of Gods holinesse. hills are hardly removed, and therefore david saith, Psal. 125.2. Mount Sion cannot be removed, but remaineth for ever. Now if that bee true of Mount Zion in this world, which must needs bee taken either literally, for the state of the visible Church, which cannot be utterly overthrown; or mystically, for the state of Gods grace, which in this world cannot totally and finally be lost: I say; if this mount Zion standeth fast, and cannot be removed: how much more true is it of the state of glory in heaven, and of the triumphant Church, and of heavenly Zion, that is so unchangeable, so durable, so vnremoueable that it cannot be shaken, but standeth fast for ever. Secondly, the state of the elect in heaven, is not onely sure, but everlasting, that is, without end. Psal. 37.18. The inheritance of holy men is perpetual. Therefore Saint Peter saith, that the inheritance reserved in heaven for us, 1 Pet. 1.4. is immortal, and not fading away. It fades not away, there is the vnchangeablenesse: It is immortal, there is the eternity of it. Where wee learn the great difference betwixt the state of that world, and this present world wherein wee live in the body. For what is there in this world so excellent, so precious, so costly, so artificial, but is subject both to alteration, and in the end to dissolution? The longest day hath his night, and the longest life endeth in death, after many miseries and maladies: the longest Empires, and mightiest Monarchies had their stop and period after many mutations: the stateliest and strongest Cities ended in ruin after many civil broils, massacres, and other miseries. Though a man had all the earth for his kingdom, yet it could not be a kingdom of eternity. No Prince ever reigned the whole age of a man, and so long time as a man naturally may live, which the Philosophers say, is the space of an hundred yeeres. But our kingdom in heaven endures not only the age of a man, but for ever and ever. jezabel had a glorious kingdom, but within a few yeeres it was said of her, 2 King. 10. Where is that jezabel? When it was fulfilled which the Prophet jeremiah foretold; Ierem. 13.28. Tell the King and queen, humble yourselves, for your dignity shall bee taken away, and the crown of your glory shall fall down. And the like is the greatness of all earthly kingdoms, so that no glory, no strength, no happiness, nothing at all is there in this world, that is either constant or perpetual, but subject to utter dissolution in the end, and in the mean time, to ruthful alterations. So weak a foundation hath this world, and the best things in it. But contrariwise the glory of heaven hath such a foundation, as is both unchangeable and eternal. This is our hope, and the perfection of our desires, and therefore as the Creed hath his period in life everlasting; so the Lords prayer endeth in glory everlasting. The Apostles counsel therefore is not onely reasonable, but needful, 1 Tim. 6.17. Charge them that are rich in this world, that they bee not high minded, and put not their trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God. And follow wee the advice of our blessed saviour, Mat. 6.19, 20. Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and canker corrupt,& theeues steal: but in heaven, where is neither canker moth, thief, nor any other corruption. The Collect. THy kingdom, O Lord, is an everlasting kingdom, and the glory thereof is larger than either tongue can express, or the breast of man conceive, which thou hast prepared for all such as love thee. O Lord, how do I love the habitation of thy place, and thy everlasting Tabernacles where thy glory dwelleth: I desire it more than the heart doth the water brooks, or any thirsty land. Translate me, O Lord, from this kingdom of darkness, to thy kingdom of light, purchased of late by the blood of thy son, and from all eternity in thy sacred counsel and decree prepared for me. I see here nothing but shane and rebuk; when shall I appear in thy presence, that I may be satisfied with thy glory? Here I see all things come to an end, but thy kingdom and glory is without end. Now bring me thereunto for thy Name sake, so shall I ever be speaking of thy praise which is without end. CHAP. XXVIII. Of the glory of the elect, and of the benefits of eternal life in special. AS the tortures of the Reprobates in hell shall be in the whole man, and in every part both of body and mind, as we haue formerly specified: so the ioy and the glory of the elect shall be answerable on the contrary side, as now it remaineth in like maner to be manifested. The mind shall be emptied of all encumbrances, as of ignorance, incredulity, ambition, emulation, anger, fleshly lusts, terrors of conscience, corruption in affections. The body shall be eased of all his clogs, as faintness, sickness, pain. revel. 21.4. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there shall bee no more sorrow, nor crying, neither any more pain. 2. Our knowledge of God shall be absolutely perfect, and nothing that can be wished shal be wanting to the fullness of it. Here wee haue scales and rubbish in our eyes, and we see but as old men do, by the help of Spectacles. 1 Cor. 13 12. Now we see thorough a glass darkly, but then shall we see face to face. Now we know but in part, but then shall we know even as we are known. All the knowledge we haue now of GOD, lieth in two books. 1. The book of his Creatures. 2. The book of the Scriptures. In these wee read in great Characters, and behold the righteousness of the Lord, his love, his mercy towards vs. So david in the nineteenth psalm teacheth us, where he noteth and nameth these two books. 1. That of the Creatures, in these words, Psal. 19.1. The heauens declare the glory of God, and the firmament sheweth his handy work. One day telleth another, Verse 8. and one night certifieth another. 2. That of the Law, and of the Scriptures, in these words, The Law of the Lord is an undefiled law, converting the soul: the testimony of the Lord is sure, and giveth wisdom unto the simplo. But this life ended, when that which is imperfect shall be done away, and that which is perfect shall come in place, we shall so know God as he is to be known, so far forth as the Creature can be capable of his infinite majesty. God is infinite, and therefore the complete knowledge of his majesty can be no more comprehended of the Creature, than all the waters of the vast Ocean can be taken up with a spoon. 3. Our love towards God shall be so full in all dimensions, as the love of the Creature can be. The cause of this love of God shall be God, Bern. Causa diligendi Deum, Deus est: modus sine modo diligere: mensura sine mensura. and the manner beyond all manner, the measure of it shall exceed all measure. For we shall actually haue the fruition of God himself,& shall be so as it were absorbed and swallowed up of the Ocean sea of his love towards us, as we shall return to him again all the love our humanity can extend, to the utter most straint of it. For the love of a thing apportionateth itself to the knowledge of the thing. And ●herefore in this life, because we can know God but in part, wee can love him but in part. But in the life to come our knowledge shall be perfected, and so consequently our love. And in this respect love hath the precedency of Faith and Hope, albeit Faith and Hope haue the right hand of love: every day in heaven shall be Sabbath day, hallowed by the Saints. Here wee keep Sabbath day but one day in seven, and by the narrower observers of it, it is kept but by halves; but in heaven there will be no such shredding of his service, but it shall be entirely and totally performed, Isa. 66.23. From month to month, from Sabbath to Sabbath, shall all flesh come to worship before the Lord. Our bodies shall be conformed to the body of Christ in glory. Philip. 3.21. Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body. Now the conformity betwixt Christs body and ours, consists in these specialities. 1. Incorruption. 2. Immortality. 3. spiritual nature. 1 Cor. 15.44. It is sown a natural body, it riseth again a spiritual body. Not that the body is metamorphosed& turned into spirit; for the body as touching the substance of it, remaineth the same for ever: but because it is in a spiritual manner, and not any more by a natural course, continued and conserved. For here the body is sustained and kept by outward means, as by meat, drink, sleep, raiment, physic, diet, quiet: but after this life it is preserved without any means, by the omnipotent power of the spirit of God for ever. And thus it standeth with the body of Christ in heaven: and thus it shall be with the bodies of the elect. again, as the body of Christ now glistereth, and is glorious:( the argument whereof is in his transfiguration vpon mount Tabor) so it is more than likely that the bodies of the elect shall be every way conspicuous and glorious, though they remain the same bodies in substance, as before. Finally, as Christs body, after his resurrection from the grave, had a property of velocitity and agility of ascending up to the third heaven, distant I know not how many miles from earth: so the bodies of the Saints, when they shall be transfigured, shall be qualified with ability of ascending without any violence or straint offered them. Furthermore, our joys shall be unutterable and eternal. Psal. 16.12. In thy presence is the fullness of ioy, and at thy right hand is pleasure for evermore. Gen. 45. The brethren of joseph, for Ioseph● sake, partaked of the pleasures of Pharaohs Court; much more the Saints for Iesus Christ his sake, shall enjoy the joys of the high Court of heaven. Matth. 2. The wise men of the East were not a little joyous when they saw the star over their heads, which conducted them to Christ. But our ioy shall exceedingly surmount theirs, at the sight of the glory of the blessed in heaven. How are the Birds of the air joyous when the sun ariseth? Much more shal our souls rejoice and sing, when we shall see the sun of righteousness, Christ Iesus, so shining vpon us, in the light of his countenance. The Baptist was so replenished with ioy, as sensible of Christs presence, he leaped in his mothers womb, albeit he saw him not with a bodily eye: therefore how shall wee be rapt with ioy, when we shall see him face to face in glory? If the Bethshemites were so io●iall and glad, when they saw the Lords ark: If Zacheus was such a glad man, that Christ vouchsafed him that favour to divert to his house: how much more should wee rejoice and be glad with him in his eternal habitations? Matth. 13. If the Merchant in the gospel was so possessed with ioy, when he found the treasure hidden in the field, as he partend with all that he was worth besides, to purchase that field: how incredible shall our ioy be, when our souls shall plenarily possess that hidden treasure of eternal glory? 1 King. 1. If when Salomon was enthronized, the Acclamation and Ouation of the people so reuerberated the air, as the echo thereof resulted on the earth,& made it to ring: how shalt thou exult& triumph through ioy, when thou shalt see the true King of Peace, greater than Salomon, crwoned with all glory and majesty in the heauens? Now, if God should afford thee this felicity, but for the space of half an hour, it were infinitely of more value than a thousand worlds. Wherefore, sithence he hath given thee the fee-simple thereof for all eternity, O curuae in terris ainae& caelestium inanes! how shalt thou not in the longing expectation thereof, wax weary altogether of this present evil world wrapped with such woes? The children of this world put to rebuk and shane, the children of the light in their supine security of the world to come. They and their affairs secular, about things transitory, and vainer than vanity, are wary, watchful, subtle: but we in ghostly matters appertaining to life everlasting, are improvident, remiss, faint, feeble. This we find in the ambitious, libidinous; epicurious, and others the children of the world. For what do they intend else, but to glut their lusts, and to bring their purposes to pass, though it be with the maceration of their bodies, and vexation of their souls. And as Hierom saith well, Hieron. Gulosus cor habet in ventre, lasciuus in libidine, cupidus in lucr●. The heart of the glutton is in his belly, the wanton mans heart is vpon his lusts, and his that is covetous is vpon his Coffers, yea oftentimes to the expense of his health and life. Now, to whom shall I liken this generation? or to what may I compare them? They are like the Panther, who( as Plutarch reporteth) is so greedy of the excrements of a man, as place them in a vessel above his reach, it will tyre itself to death with the straint of body, and ouer-reaching itself. Now, if the children of this world be so toilsome and tiresome about such momentany matters, little better than nothing; yea, as I may so say, fordid, filthy, and unclean: how should not the children of God be solicitous and industrious, about the acquisition of the everlasting Tabernacles in the life to come? If wrestlers being to enter the lifts, do keep a spare dyer, intending onely the mastery to carry away the game, and the garland that withereth and fadeth away: how much more should we employ all our thoughts and endeavours to gain and bear away the crown of immortal glory? 1 Cor. 9.25. every man that proveth masteries, abstaineth from all things: and they do it to obtain a corruptible crown, but we for an incorruptible. But we, Hieron. In minimis cauti, in maximis negligentes. Et hoc fit quia ubi vera vita sit, ignoramus. as S. Hierom s●ith, are cantalous in small things, careless in the greater. The cause whereof is, that wee know not where the true life is. Now were this world of its own nature good, and the things of this world of reckoning and worth, and might we live herein a thousand yeares in health and prosperity: all this were but ●ond and ridiculous, compared with the most happy fruition of God. But that is the true and due ioy which is received from the Creator, not from the Creature, which when thou shalt receive, thou canst never be deprived of: in comparison whereof, all ioy, is sorrow; all pleasure, is pain; all sweetness, is bitterness; all beauty, is deformity. Wherefore, as the faithful seruant of Iesus Christ, haue before thine eyes the land of the living, towards which thou art traveling: that thou mayest so die, as thou mayest live and reign for ever in eternal glory with Iesus Christ the righteous. The Collect. IF I should speak of thy benefits here bestowed vpon the sons of men, they are more than I am able to express. It is the ioy of my heart therefore, to consider what mercies are laid up in store for me in thy kingdom. There shall I be satisfied with the plenteousness of thy house, and shall drink of thy pleasures, as out of a river. There I shall be freed from all infirmities in body, hunger, thirst, could, nakedness, weariness; from all defects of mind, anger, forgetfulness, ignorance, and such like; yea, from sin, death, damnation, or any thing else that begetteth misery, because all tears shall be wiped away from mine eyes. O let this thy loving kindness come to me thy seruant, according to thy word, wherein thou hast caused me to put my trust. In respect whereof I hasten from the Creature to thee my Creator. I desire to be dissolved, and to be with Christ. I renounce this present evil world, and all the pleasures thereof, which are but for a season. I love the gates of Zion, more than all the dwellings of jacob. I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than to remain in the tents of the ungodly. My soul hath dwelled too long among those that are enemies to peace. O take my soul out of trouble! which thing if thou wilt do, then shall the Saints rejoice in my company. I am thine, O save me, for I put my trust in thee. I long to be with thee, and to behold thy face in righteousness, that when I awake I may bee satisfied with thy glory. Wherefore come Lord Iesus, come quickly. CHAP. XXIX. Of the differing degrees of glory in the kingdom of heaven, the ●l●ct shall bee partakers of in the life to come. IT hath been a great question in the schools, whether the blessedness of eternal life shall bee alike, and the same to all? To this we answer by way of distinction; Life eternal itself shall bee one and the same to all: for all the blessed shall see God face to face, as he is. 1 joh 3.2. And we shall be changed into the same image, from glory to glory, which sight is the supreme& the highest happiness. Greg. Quidenim est quod non videat, qui videntem omnia videt. For what doth not he see, who seeth him, that seeth all things? But in the nature and course of this happiness, there be differing degrees, as may appear by these arguments; Daniel speaking of the condition of the chosen after this life, saith, Dan. 12.3. They shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and they that turn many to righteousness, shall shine as the stars for ever and ever. But the brightness of the firmament is far exceeded by that of the stars. It is an Argument deducted from the contraries, that in as much as there is difference of punishments, it naturally followeth there should bee difference of rewards. Now that the punishments differ, and are not the same, it is manifest from Christs own words, Matth. 11.21. It shall be easier for sodom and Gomorrha in the day of iudgement, for Tyrus and Zidon, Corazin and Bethsaida. Another Argument may bee this, that Christ saith, joh. 14.2. In my Fathers house are many mansions. again where Christ saith, Matth. 22.30. that in the kingdom of heaven we shall be like the Angels, and there bee diuers degrees and orders among the Angels, this point is concluded. So much also seemeth to bee confirmed Mat. 13.8.23. by the seed the husbandman sowed in the ground, which brought forth seed in differing manner, some a hundred, some threescore, some thirty fold. And the Parable of the talents insinuateth so much, which were more and fewer committed to his seruants in trust: and the rewards were sundry, apportionated to the sundry improuements of the same. And it is said in the revelation, revel. 14 4. that some there bee that follow the lamb wheresoever he goeth: a grace which belike is not granted to other some. As also where it is said, Matth. 5.19. whosoever shall break any of these least Commandements, and shall teach men so, he shall bee called the least in the kingdom of heaven. But whosoever shall observe and teach them, the same shall bee called great in the kingdom of heaven. As where it is said, 2 Cor. 9.6. He that soweth sparing, shall also reap sparing: and he that soweth liberally, shall also reap liberally. As where it is said, Rom. 2.6. he will reward every man according to his works. As where it is said, 1 Cor. 15.41. There is one glory of the sun, another glory of the moon, another glory of the stars: now these words Paul applieth to the present point, saying, so also is the resurrection of the dead. object. But for all these arguments wee read otherwise, Matth. 20. How that the labourers sent to work in the vineyard, received wages alike, every one his penny, though their labours were unlike: for some came but the last hour of the day, and some there were which bare the heat and burden of the whole day. Answ. Christs meaning is not in the said Parable, to show the equality of rewards in heaven; but his onely purpose is to teach, that such as were of the former rank, and were first called, had no cause to find themselves grieved with them who were called out of due time, or not yet called: in as much as they may be balanced with them, and hold equality, if not a precede●cy. How these degrees of glory shalbe divided, it is not for me to judge: but so far as we may dive hereinto by probable conjecture, wee suppose, that the degrees of glory shall answer the measure of gifts and graces here bestowed vpon us, and our diligence and faithfulness in the dispensation of them to the glory of God, and the edification of the Church. And so that the twelve Apostles, who were more enriched than others with the graces of the spirit, and laboured more than all, being master builders of the Church of the new Testament, shall haue the greater glory, as to whom it shall be given to be in Commission, and as it were Iustices to assist our saviour Christ the Lord chief Iustice, and to sit vpon twelve seats, and judge the twelve tribes of Israel. object. Yea, but if there bee such liberal diuidences of glory; some perhaps may go without, and come short of their glory, in as much as there may not any more be left. Answ. It is not with this glory, as it is with an hourglass, where the filling of one part is the emptying of another; or as the lands or goods of the Testator, who the more he gives to one, the less is left to others: for heaven is so fraught with glory, as the augmentation of the glory of some, shall be no diminution of the glory of other some. There is a fullness of ioy for him that shall haue least, that shall be but a doorkeeper in the Lords house. Cast never so many tankards and vessels into the wide sea, some more, some less capable, all of them will be filled; so shall it be with us in heaven, in the resurrection of the just. So well are wee, and happy shall we be. The Collect. O Lord, manifold are those thy mercies that thou hast laid up in store for them that fear thy Name, the least of them is greater than I can utter. Draw me after thee, and I will run after the savour of thy sweet ointments, and my bones which thou hast broken shall rejoice. O how doth my soul long to be with the Saints in glory! While I haue any being I will seek thy glory, that I may bee made partaker of thy glory, and sing with all Saints, Glory be to thee, O Lord, most high. The light afflictions of this life, hold no proportion with that exceeding weight of glory in the life to come. I cheerfully therefore for this glories sake, bear all the shane, reproach, afflictions of this present life, for the attainment of this immortal glory. I am thine, O save me, take away from me the shane that is mine, which hath covered my face; and give me the glory which is thine, when I shall see thy face in thy kingdom. For thine is the kingdom, the power, and glory, for ever and for ever. Amen. CHAP. XXX. Of the manifold uses arising ou● of this doctrine of eternal life. THe due consideration of our eternal life, affordeth us variety of good learning. 1. As so to use the world, as though we used it not; as living in expectation of a better world. The Pilgrims mind is always set vpon his journeys end,& he is grieved when as at any time he is out of the way: so fix we our thoughts vpon our long home, and let us be disquieted not a little vpon every by-way, occasioning a diversion from the Kings high way. Abraham being called out of ur of the Chaldeans,& from his own kindred,& his fathers house, to a strange place, was strait ways obedient to the heavenly Commandement, and by faith dwelled in the land of Canaan, as in an uncouth country, and as one dwelling in tents. But the principal spur that pricked him on so speedily, was the expectation of life eternal. Heb. 11.8. For he looked for a City whose builder and maker is God. We are not therefore to bathe ourselves in the liquid and languide pleasures of this world. Pilgrims take but small pleasure in their journeys, as considering they are not at home. This is Peters argument, 1 Pet. 2.11. dearly beloved, as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which fight against the soul. We are not to be carried away, no not with the necessary comforts and delights this world can afford vs. For the Pilgrim● passing thorough a strange country, regardeth not the goods and commodities of that country where he is, but making use onely of such things as may serve his present necessity, he calleth his thoughts home to his own country. This mind should bee in us, amid all our pleasures and prosperity this world can yield us: wee are to wean our thoughts from it, and spend all our cares vpon that country where our conversation is to be. Colos. 3.20. But our conversation is in heaven, whence we look for our saviour Iesus Christ, this is the Apostles exhortation. But worldly men make their belly their God; that is, overwhelm themselves with these secular sensualities so far, as they think not of any other life, neither is God in all their thoughts. Wee are to use the world no otherwise than the traveler doth his walking staff, and the ferry-man his oars, who lay them aside when their journey is at an end. 2. This point, as I may so term it, is a schoole-house of patience in the time of affliction, for iudgement often beginneth at Gods house. The mother being about to wean her child, layeth mustard, wormwood, or some such bitter thing, to her breasts, that the child by a distaste, may loathe and leave the breast: so the Lord by our afflictions, doth mortify our corruptions, and doth wean and win us from the love of this world. As al rawflesh is offensive to the stomach, so is every sinner to Gods stomach, until such time as God by afflictions doth mortify our affections in the corruptions thereof, especially this of the love of this life. Hope of heaven begets patience, and contentment in all estates of life: wherefore the Disciples disquieted at Christs departure from them, he heartneth them with these words of comfort; 1 joh. 14.2. In my Fathers house are glorious mansions, I go to prepare a place for you. Hence many may perceive, how they deceive themselves, while they prate and boast of heaven, and presume enough thereof: and yet can concoct and digest no wrong, but they are ready to mutter between the teeth, to blaspheme the name of God, and to prosecute every one that harm them, in all spleneticall and vindicative maner. again, in case the Lord shall lay an heavy hand vpon them, they run to wizards and witches, the devils factiue instruments& right hand as I may so term them; and so run to very hell itself for help. These and all such do but flatter and beguile themselves, for if they would fit themselves, for heaven, they would run contrary courses; for questionless that man is careless, hap to him what hap may in this present life, who looketh for heaven at Gods hand after this life. Let our mindes be grounded in the assured expectation of life eternal, and the yoke of affliction shall bee easy unto us, and the burden light. Example hereof wee haue in Moses, whom the Apostle celebrating for his faith, saith, Heb. 11.24. By faith Moses when he was come to age, choose rather to suffer adversity with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season, esteeming the rebuk of Christ greater riches, than the treasures of egypt. For he had respect unto the recompense of the reward. When God shal give us a whole bowl full of afflictions, and bid us drink all out to the bottom, the meditation of life eternal is as it were sugar to sweeten the bowl, and to make it taste pleasantly and strongly like to Aqua vitae. Finally, whereas there is a life to come after this, but not for all, but for the elect onely, it shall stand us in hand to endeavour all wee may, that wee may bee found worthy to bee inheritors thereof: by first seeking the kingdom of grace here, that there wee may attain to the kingdom of glory, even by Iesus Christ who hath so dearly bought us,& purchased us with his blood; to whom all blessing, praise and power be ascribed for ever. The Collect. O Lord and heavenly Father who hast taken us out of the kingdom of darkness, and hast given us a kingdom which shall haue no end: wee give thee praise and glory. And we pray thee give us grace to mind and seek this kingdom above all, and to count all other things no better than dung in comparison of this. And preserve and fit us for this life to come, by giuing us the grace to die to sin daily, and daily to live to all new obedience: that while I live, I may live by faith in the son of God, who hath loved me, and given himself for me. And thus in this assurance of this life eternal, which thou hast prepared for me before all worlds, and thy son Christ since hath purchased for me in the world, and to which by the spirit of sanctification, I am scaled: I go to thee, O Father, the Father of the spirits of all flesh, leaving my body to the earth from whence it came, unto the day of the resurrection of all flesh, and in the mean while commend my soul to thee; O thou that gavest it me, receive it again of me, and bundle it up in the bundle of life. go therefore, O thou my soul, to thy Creator, Redeemer, Sanctifier: fly as a bide unto the hill, free of all sorrow& sin, to be partaker of those joys thou thyself enjoyest. Thus my lot is fallen into a faire ground, yea I haue a goodly inheritance. O happy sin of Adam, without which Christ had never been sacrificed for vs. Therefore, O my soul, praise thou the Lord, for Iesus Christ; and all that is within me praise his holy Name. Now all praise and glory be unto him that sitteth vpon the throne, and to the lamb, Amen, Amen; Praise the Lord, O my soul. And so with this new song in my mouth, even a thanksgiving unto my God, I pluck up my feer, and give up the ghost. A TABLE O● THE CONTENTS of this book. Chapter 1. OF the inevitable condition of Death. page. 1. Chap. 2. Of the uncertainty of mans life. page. 23 Chap. 3. Of the several kinds of death. page. 37 Chap. 4. Of our necessary preparation against the time of death. page. 41 Chap. 5. Of the meditation of death, an office appertaining to our general preparation. page. 51 Chap. 〈…〉 〈…〉 time of sickness. And how God determineth of the life of man. page. 85 Chap. 8. Of sin, the occasion of sickness and death. page. 97 Chap. 9. The sick man his examination of his sins. page. 101 Chap. 10. Of confessing of sins, another duty that hath relation to God, as at all times needful, so especially at the time of death. page. 108 Chap. 11. Of fervent prayer to God for the forgiveness of sins confessed, another duty belonging to the dying man towards God, in his particular preparation unto death. page. 121 Chap. 12. Against the fear of death. page. 132 〈…〉 Chap. 15. That no man 〈◇〉 ●sten his own death. page. 188 Chap. 16. That the sick man is to use lawful means for his recovery, and what be those means. page. 209 Chap. 17. That the sick man is to reconcile himself to his neighbour before he depart. page. 226 Chap. 18. That the dying man if he be a public person must provide as much as in him lieth, for the good estate of his charge after his decease page. 245 Chap. 19. That the sick man is to make his last will and testament before his departure. page. 251 Chap. 20. That the sick man in his 〈…〉 〈…〉 est himself altog●●●●r vpon God, trusting assuredly that his sins are forgiven him, and that he shall be saved. page. 279 Chap. 23. Of the necessity of prayer. page. 296 Chap. 24. How the dying man is to dispose his goods before his death. page. 311 Chap. 25. The sick man disposeth his body to the ground. page. 322 Chap. 26. Of the end of the reprobates, and of their pains in hell. page. 330 Chap. 27. Of life eternal, and of the felicity of the faithful. page. 346 Chap. 28. Of the glory of the elect, and of the benefits of eternal life in special. page. 379 Chap. 29. Of the differing degrees of glory in the kingdom of heaven, the elect shall be partakers of in the life to come. page. 394 Chap. 30. Of the manifold uses arising out of this Doctrine of eternal life. page. 402 FINIS. LONDON, Printed by John BILL, Printer to the Kings most Excellent majesty. 1627.