CHAP. I. Upon the words of the Psalmist.

KIng David from his Royal Palace in Mount Zion, might feast his eyes with many delicious Prospects.

1 1. The first and chiefest was the Ta­bernacle of the Lord of Hosts, who Ps. 87.2. loved the gates of that mountain, more then all the dwellings of Jacob. This holy Prince delighted in communion with God and therefore is styled a man after Gods own heart: he Ps. 13.1, 2, 4, 5. swore against the slumber of his eye-lids, till he found a place for the Lord, a habitation for the mighty God of Jacob. And where did he fix the Tents of the holy One of Israel? did he not bring up the Ark from the house of Obed-Edam into the Sam. 6.12 City af David with gladness? For Ps. 132.13. the Lord had chosen Zion, he desired it for his habitation. Thrice happy those Princes, who entertain the pure worship of God within their Courts. They shal Ps. 89.15 know the joyfull sound of Temple-mu­sick they shall walk, O Lord, in the shi­ning light of thy countenance.

2 A Second lovely Prospect with which David enamelled his eyes was the pleasant City of Jerusalem, Ps. 122.3 a City Com­pact together, Ps. 48.2, 3. beautifull for scituation, the joy of the whole earth, God is known in her Palaces for a refuge.

3 A third, Was the valley of Kidron, a dark valley through shades and precipi­tious rocks. Its name from Kedar, ob­scurities and thick shadows, environed with mountains and a swift torrent tril­ling along its caverns. This gave a comely off-set to the neighboring hills: here were the shady strokes of natures [Page 3]pencil the more to illustrate the bright pieces of this holy Land-skip, Hence were redoubled the pleasant and warb­ling ecchoes of the silver Trumpets at new Moons and Sacrifices.

4 The fourth and last, was the three-ridged mount of Olivet fruitfull, health­full and pleasant.

In the first of these Prospects, he saw the holy One of Israel walking in his Sanctuary and enjoyed sweet fellowship with the divine Oracles. From the se­cond, he took a view of the State of this vain life. In the third, he might raise Contemplations upon the house of all living. In the fourth, he beheld as in a glasse a glorious cast of the Resurrecti­on, Zach. 14.4. the day of Judgment and Ascen­tion to Heaven.

The sweet Singer of Israel had tuned in consort with his Harp, many choice Meditations, near the murmuring wa­ters of Kidron, and here in this Psalm he playes upon the valley it self. Let's de­scant on his Lesson in four parts.

1 1. Here's a comparison of the state of death, to a walk in the shady valley of Ki­dron. I know it is usuall to interpret the shadow of death, by great and deep afflicti­ons, but I shal accept the phrase in this method: In its first notion, that darknesse which seizes upon persons ready to die, is represented. In a second the grave and death it self. Its plain by the confe­rences of Job 3.5. & 10.21. & 34.22. & 38.17. Job with his Arabian com­forters, [Page 4]'twas Eastern language. In a third by a Metalepsi, those horrors and terrors that attend the agonies of dying mortals; yea, any grievous calamities that paint the face of death to the life in the glasse of imagination.

Here under an elegant Allegory holy David prosecutes the divine shephear­dy: Gods gracious care and conduct. The green pastures and the chrystal streams with which his soul was refresht. Not doubting but goodness and mercy should follow him all the dayes of his life, and although he should be lead through the valley of the grave; the Li­ons and the Bears, the Tygers and the Wolves of those fell bottomes should not scare him. I will fear no evill for thou art with me. Assuring himself that the great Shepheard of Israel had wisdome and power sufficient to guide him safely and at length to enclose this sheep of his Pasture in the Folds of his Ps, 23.6. house of glo­ry for ever. Other shepheards tremble at the yelling of the Lions, and the print of their foot stamps horror, much more to convey their Flocks under such dis­mall shadows be the slads never so ver­dant, and the gliding brooks never so sweet and pleasant; left they and their sheep prove sorry comforters to one a­nother, when they slide together into the Maws of such ravening Butchers. But here's a blessed and glorious shep­heard, Muscul. in Loc. (qui sciens prudens (que) ducet in [Page 5]mortem ipsam:) who purposes and re­solves to lead his Flock through the jaws of death; So that David sings this Psalm in the warm feelings of the di­vine Presence, Ile fear no evil: thy crook and thy staffe they shall comfort me.

2 Secondly, Here's the person, that walks through this tremendous valley, ruddy, royal and holy David. Thy sanguin com­plexion must now turn blanck and me­lancholy, when Abishags arms shall be cold and feeble comforters, and thy reall body must shrink into this grim 1 Sam. 15 16. Mi­chols bed. That conquering Sword at whose brandishing, Edam and Ammon trembled, must be shaped into deaths Sithe to mow thee from the Land of the Living. Thy holy heart must take San­ctuary in the divine Covenant, Ps. 49, 15 89.48. that God will one day redeem thy life from corruption, and thy darling from the hand of the grave.

3 Thirdly, We should muster up the formidable evils that put on their armor, gird on their Swords, and whet their glittering Spears for a fatall encounter in this valley.

4 Fourthly, We must prepare the Cor­dialls, the Balms and all the sustaining comforts and quickning promises to re­fresh the Soul and uphold the spirit from sinking; that we may fear no evil, since God is with us, his Crook and his Staffe shall comfort us. Bochar [...] de animal. l. 2. c. 44. col. 459. part. 1. [...] His Shebet [ pedum pastorale, Mich. 7.14. Lev. 27.32] his Shepheards Crook [Page 6]to guide and conduct to the Pastures of Glory, his Mishgnan, his staffe, to beat off wild beasts and enemies that might assault and annoy us.

CHAP. II. Of the Valley of Death.

DEath 'tis compar'd to a Valley, to a Valley of shadow, to a walk in a Valley, to a night walk in this shady Valley of Kidron.

1. Death is compared to a Valley, While men are alive their feet are set upon a Rock, on a high Mountain on the towring Pinnacle of a Temple, and oh how hard it is for any to perswade themselves, that they shall once step down the precipice into this Valley. Every one thinks he may live to morrow, be he never so old: and the morrow of his thoughts can see no evening. But down he must and visit the dark land of his forefathers mansions.

In the Valley of Kidron were the Jer 31, 40. Je­wish Sepulchres on the East-side of the City, between the aspiring Mountains of Moriah and Olivet. Here the Ra­vens of the Valley pickt out the Prov. 30.17. Eyes of disobedient Children. Did Jews or Romans (who had also their Tombes [Page 7]in the Liv. Dec. 3. l. 6. Esquilian Mountains on the East of Rome) turn their faces to the ri­sing Sun, in hope of a resurrection to a future life? whatever glances might in spirit their Customes: Into this Valley they must all descend and run their ap­pointed race. Into this Valley of Kidron, through the water-gate was conveyed the Soil and Offall and Filth of the Ci­ty; probably most of their Sewers and Drains had here their vent. Here all the d Ashes and refuse of the Sacrifices, Jea. 31.40. all the recrements and purgations of the Temple found a Lay-stall. Death and the grave cover all.

Its a high pitch of Grace to be hum­bled unto the death, to mingle the dust of our noble bodies with such off-scour­ings and sullage, to converse with the records of rottennesse. But so 'tis with a Saint, he submits his will and yields up his spirit to God: To putrifie a while in the Valley of Hinnom, that by Heavens Chymistry, he may spring up into a Tree of Life, in the Garden of Gethsemany. Wicked men fret and fume at death, and curse the Aple that poy­soned nature, and some would seem to cheat death by a violent seicide, O fool, ne moriare, mori: by a choosing a vio­lent, to avoid a natural death: by cut­ting off present terrors, to hasten eter­nall.

But a Saint like a man in a dark Ca­vern under a mineral Mountain, sees [Page 8]light at the other end by the Eye of Faith. He goes down into this Valley leaning upon the Staffe of hope, of Christ in him the hope Col. 1.27. of glory: he spies Mount Olivet, and the foot-steps of Christs Ascention. Cor. 5.2 He groans to be uncloathed of his filthy garments expecting change of raiment, and pla­ces to walk among Angels, Zach. 3.7 that stand by and wait upon the Prince of the Co­venant. He knows that his vile body, this Phil. 3.21 [...] body of humiliation, must once be a body of exaltation, and fashioned like his glorious body, who is able to sub­due all things to himself, and to carve our bodies into his own image.

2 Secondly, Death is a valley of shadow, a Valley of darknesse. Here are Lions Dens and Mountains of Leopards: Here be Akrabbims, ascents of Scorpi­ons and Fons Draconis prope Jeru­salem. Fountains of Dragons, and yet Cant. 4.8. the holy Spouse will go hand in hand with Christ, 1 Cor. 15.57. from the fleeting pleasures of this mortall Lebanon, to view and walk in the midst of these tre­mendous Dungeons.

The Valley of Kidron of old likely was a dark Valley, not only for Rocks and Mountains, but pitchy shades and thence might yield a lively symbol of death: here might be Trees and Shrubs which not only shut out the healing beams of the Sun: but also by their opi­ate vapors and the exhaling of deadly atomes, might lull the brains asleep in [Page 9]the Cradle of Death: here might grow the funestous Yew, the strong-scented Box, that makes the head to fume, the melancholy Cypress, the soporous Juni­per with the Firre: here the dark greens of deadly night-shade, the grosse Savin and Dulcamara might entwine together, and cover many an Asp, many a Coc­katrice, and a Basilisk; and plump them with their direfull poysons.

Does a Saint fear to trace these Re­gions and to measure the Land of his Captivity? No! Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ, who gives him vi­ctory 1 Cor. 15.57. His feet are shod with Gospel promises: the Iron and Brazen Deut. 33. shoes of happy Asher fence him from the stings of these Hasera­phim. Num. 21.6. Seraphims, these fiery Ser­pents: he shall tread upon the Lion and Adder, the young Lion and the Dragon shall he trample under foot: Ps. 91.13 nay, he shrinks not, though let down into this Den of Lions: seeing the Lion of the Tribe of Judah is with his Daniels.

And yet darkness, this Egyptian dark­ness carries a load of fear and sadness upon its back, it exhales and breaths out terror from every dim hole within the Valley: behind every bush lurks a gla­ring Leopard; from the cleft of every Rock the young Dragons hisse out fire, and belch venome upon a carnal man. He thats alive to sin, may tremble to dye to nature, and shrink out and stream to think of the old Serpent sli­ding [Page 10]through the marrow of his back­bone and upbraid him with bitter scoffs about the forbidden fruit. O ye Sons of Men how long will ye love Ps. 2.2. vanity and forget your latter end? The length of their love to vanity keeps pace with the line of Life; they turn not from it, till they turn into it, & become vanity it self, & their place know them no more.

In time of some rowzing Sickness the Bell of Eternity tolls dolefully in their Ears: then they say, By and by Lord, wee'l come to worship, to repent and amend: but if a good Crisis lengthen the hopes of life; theit gyant-promises sink into Dwarss, and their By and by lengthens out its Tenor through many a morrow till the last hour approaches▪ and then the day of invitation from di­vine grace, turns into a day of provoca­tion to the divine anger: he that swears in his Heb. 6.17 love to the Heirs of promise for their strong consolation, will Heb. 3.11 sware in his wrath to the Children of disobedience that delay repentance, and harden their hearts at the voice of God, they shall never enter into his rest.

Alas! whats the life of man? but a Jam. 4.14. vapour appearing for a little while and then vanisheth away: Man walks in a vain h shadow while he lives, even the shadow of a vapor; Job 8.9. every wind puffs it away and man is not: a short lived va­pour, that lives to be, but lives no longer no sooner in being, but it flies away, [Page 11]and who can gather it: whats all time from the Suns first motion, till he turns to sack-cloth; but a perishing cut out of the bosome of Eternity: scarce worth the name of a point or a moment to it. And, what then are the few and evill dayes of mans life upon earth, like a spark gives a snap and perishes; but when he dyes, the shadows of a dark, of a long Jer. 6.4. evening, are stretcht upon him.

How wholsome is it to meditate un­der these shadows: By these things Is. 33.16▪ men live, and in all these is the life of our spirit: let's catch these vapours by the hand of contemplation, and distill some spiritual Cordials.

Is life so Job 7.7▪ vain a meteor? O vainer soul to build castles upon it: here's Heb. 11.10. no City that hath foundations: thats in hea­ven, men trade, and buy, and build, and plant, as if Noah's second flood of fire and brimstone would never come. All former ages are wrapt up in the short breath of a history, and yet most men live, as if they thought their forefathers were by the Art of Magick stept aside in a mist, and the story of death but a Poets fable. But as Dion. Cass. l. 53. p. V 34. Tiberius said of Scaurus, that reviv'd an old Tragedy against the Emperor, he himself should be Ajax. Thou lookst upon Death only as the Tragicall Theam of some sickly over­studied Minister, till thou become the Tragedy it self, and be invelop't in eter­nall darknesse: to which the shadow of [Page 12]death is but the shadow of missery.

What makes night but the shadow of the earth? and what's death but the sha­dow of the grave? every night is the shadow of death, and every sleep in the bed is next of kin to that in the dust: and should raise up the holy seed of me­ditation to his brother. While man lives, he walks in a shadow, and when he dies he lies down in it: A carnall man dies once, and rises to judgment: but after that, to a second death, and never rises more. A Saint indeed steps down into this first Valley, but walks through it to glory. The Vale of Kidron was also called the Valley of Tophet, and the Valley of Gehenna. Ge-hennon, the Valley of Hell. From the Valley of the grave wicked men sink into the bottom of Hell: But a Saint ascends from Kidron to Olivet.

3 Thirdly, Death is a Saints walk in this shady Valley. King David might, but Saint David would fear no evill; though he trod this dismall path. Christ is gone before Act. 2.29 the Patriarch, and hath left be­hind him the lustre of his footsteps to inlighten Davids feet in the Ps. 16.11 path to life. 'Twas not his royall Diadem could dazle the eyes of Death, and fright him attaching his Ermine Robes, or guard him from appalement at the wan looks of Death: Scepters as well as Sheephooks lye snapt in that Valley: Purple and Sackcloth are a like begrim'd with the soil of the grave: the Worms Table-cloth [Page 13]is spread with the fine Linnen of Egypt, no less then the coursest Woollen, not greatness but goodness, not highness but holiness, gains Letters of safe con­duct through this Valley. All passe through it, but a Saint walks through it to the Mountains of Spices,

4 Fourthly, Death is a night-walk through this shady Valley: a Saint is to pass, not to stay there: 'tis a night-walk, and there he must walk till the bright morning springs. So many Suns must rowl over his body till the Resurrecti­on. Then he that Dan. 12.2. slept in the dust of the earth, shall awake to everlasting life. When his mouldring Clay being well digested in the Sepulchrall urn, shall at­tain maturity: it shall then shine forth a diaphanous, splendid and glorious bo­dy. The sleep of the ancient Heroe-Saints for some thousands of years, shall seem but as the sleep of one night: Wicked mens souls may be terrified with dreams and visions of horror in that dis­mall night; but a Saint sleeps quiet and sound, and with Christs dead body shal he arise: he tosses, Ifay 26.19. he tumbles not in this bed of Roses: 'tis but one fast sleep to a labouring and resting Saint; the worm shall suck the nerves of the wicked, and feed Job 25.20. sweetly on him; but a Saint feeds sweetly on death. 'Tis but his refreshment from all the sorrows and toil of his heart & hands, that he found under the Sun, and his works follow him to glory.

[Page 14]Saints indeed are noctam bulones, night walkers in this Valley; but 'tis not the fruit of undigested Suppers on the worlds Dainties, but as a happy plea­sure in the bosome of Christ. The sepa­rate Soul watches his lovely bed-fellow and sings (a requiem, an Epithalamium) a Song of Love towards it Marriage-morning. Nay Angels in shining gar­ments sit at the head and feet of a Saints grave. When holy David Ps. 8.3 considered Gods Heavens the work of his fingers, the Moon and the Stars which he had ordained: he considers Man too, that God should remember him, and the Son of Man that he should visit him, what's Man to a Star, to the Sun, to the Hea­vens? yet a Saint's of more value to God then numerous Stars or the mani­fold Orbes of Heaven. Was not David now on the Roof of his House by night gazing on that spangled Canopy, and pondering on the greatness of the Stars, their motion, lustre and influence? May not a Saint thus meditate upon the night-watches of the grave and look up to the Gen. 15.5 Stars as so many promises, Ps. 89.37 and faithfull witnesses in Heaven? When he views the Zodiack, he traces the course of the Sun of righteousness: he looks upon the Milky Way, as the fu­ture path of his glorified feet. He counts what if each Saint shall have a Star for his Kingdome; and yet, that all the Stars are but the paintings of the out­houses [Page 15]of that eternal Palace, wherein he shall dwell with God: When his Fa­thers face shall visit him with the day-spring from on high, and the bright morning Star shall glitter upon the Ea­stern-Mountains of the Resurrection, and proclaim the Suns arising to an eter­nall Jubile.

CHAP. III. Of the persons walking in the Val­ley of Death.

IN this Valley of Kidron, David and Jonathans little Lad must gather up the mortall arrows together. Princes and Skullions must do their homage a­like in Deaths Kitchin: There's the homely House, the Straw Hovell ap­pointed Job 30. for all living: There be the [...], Diodor. Sic. l. 1. c. 51 the Camden in Glamor­ganshire. eternales domus, those smoaky and fulsome Huts, about which (the leves animae) the separate Ghosts do keep their residence: here the spright­ly Satyrs tread their measures, and paint green circles in the Elysian Fields, till the blushing dawn of eternity. Ps. 22.29. None can keep alive his soul from death, nor ransome his Job 13.6 lamp from darkness. The martiall Commander creeps under his Bed Sueton in Coleg. c. 51. with Caligula, at the r [...]ing of [Page 16]this Thunderbolt: no Marble Palaces cau dazle the eyes or daunt the ap­proaches of Death: no iron bars can repell his force: his aquafortis burns all afunder: he stands not agast at the pale and wan looks of quivering Princes; but like a gyant fluster'd with the wine of blood looks terrible on the proud Nimrods of the World. Kings Edicts, that Death be not whispered in their Courts are sullied on waste Paper, they but daub their Royall Parchments with fond flourishes. Their strongest Towers are but the spinstry of Spider-webs. Death's too great a Flesh-fly to be catcht in such Tiffany Walls, hee'l hum in their ears with hatefull buzzing, will they, nill they: There's no Canon or Decree against him can stand inviolable Should Medes and Persians twist Laws as strong as Cables, this Sampson snaps them asunder like raw Flax or twined threads. If all Justinians pandects were cramb'd with severe penalties, that death presume not to touch an Emperor or be rude with his Lady or Children, hee'l send a Phocas to find them out, and hale them to his Slaughter-house. The Cap­tains of their Guard with their Halber­diers, fling down their Arms and cry craven. This old Leviathan Job 41.29. counts their Darts as Stubble, and laughs to scorn the shaking of their Spears. When this storm rises, this furious blast, be takes down the top-gallants, and the [Page 17]Flags of Admirals, he cuts their Masts by the Board, the wisest Pilot he flings o­ver-board, no Anchor holds, they run a­drift and are shattered upon the Rocks.

The cunning Lawyer with all his shirks and querks, and Writs of Error cant hook out a Habeas Corpus from this unbribed Barr. Death has too subtle a Pate to be overmatcht; he has Presi­dents and rul'd Cases and Records as high as Adam: There's no Chancery re­fuge or Appeal from the Club-law of this Kings-Bench; he's Lord Chief-Justice, and Jaylor, he's Sheriff and Ex­ecutioner.

But what sayes Hipocrates with his Coan Aphorisms, and Galen with his long winded Method? Can't he open a Vein in the Arm of this raging Adver­sary, that his Sword may fall, and the Galenture of his fury abate against Mankind? Is there no inchanted Poti­on, nor amorous Cup can lull him a­sleep? O Physitians! Are there no Re­cipe's in all your Dispensatories against the crack of Heart-strings? Must his deadly Ague shake both you and your Patients into the Grave? Must his drop­sie drown you, his Feaver burn you to Ashes, his Consumption emaciate and waste you to Skelitons, and set up your Bones in his Anatomy School? What is there no Antidote, no Treacle against the needle-teeth of this black Adder? No! he turns a deaf ear to all your Si­ren-Lectures. [Page 18]This Serpent Eccles. 10 11. will bite for all your inchantments: Such ba­blers are no better,

But alas! for this day of darkness Irel. 2.2, this gloomy morning, thats spread up­on the Mountains, Can we track no comfort in this thick Fog of Igno­rance? Are there no Trees of Life to be found in Lebanon? Alas! is Eden lost? Is that Tree free among the dead? did the venemous breath of the old Ser­pent wither it? did he hack it down? did he pluck it up by the roots? Are there no sprouts from its chips, nor no healing atomes that flew from its wounds into other shrubs or plants? Is there no drug in Arabia, no balm in Gilead, no Spice in India can revive a languishing mortal? What, no Etheriall Spirits, nor irradiating Sulfurs, nor Mi­nerall tinctures, nor Elixirs of Life to cure this stroke? Won't potable Gold snatch back the flying Spirit, and intreat that noble guest to stay a while within its old Cloister new plaistred and gilt with this restorative? Won't the lim­pid Alcahest make the blood volatile, and circulate it nimbly against the cold congealing blast of death? Won't the great red-powder cure it? Then fare­well all their empty notions, and unpra­cticable maximes, their clogging Syrups & ill digesting Powders: their life-ex­hausting blood-lets, and their cold mor­tal Juleps? O vain man!

Use the Physitian, thats a duty: trust not in him, for thats a sin. Good Asa had this mournful title upon his 2 Chron. 16.12, 13. Tomb that he sought not to the Lord, but to the Physitians, and slept with his Fathers. Though the skilfulst Physitian, and the holiest Saint do meet together; yet both should count upon a last day, a last hour, and a last moment, that they can­not passe. Isay 3.2. The mighty man, and man of war, the Captain of Fifty, the ho­nourable, the Counsellor, the cunning Artificer, and the eloquent Orator, Death takes them all by the hand and leads them into this gloomy Valley. He reverences not the gray hairs, he rises not up to the milk-white brow of the grave and ancient, nor layes down his crook­ed Sith at the foot of aged and hoary head: he strains no courtesies with the weaker sex, nor gives it the upper hand; the pitifull cries of tender Infants pierce not his Adamantine breast: This tear­lesse Moloch hugs them mortally in his brazen arms, he hath Urns propor­tion'd to all their Ashes, and Graves of every size.

But what though riches and honour, though sweet natures & virtuous minds prevail for no reprivall? Must holy bones also see corruption? Can't Faith & Prayer wrestle a fall with this mighty [Page 20]King of terrors. No, no though the wicked twice fall under the dint of this Goliahs Sword: yet 'tis appointed for all Heb. 9.17. ence to dye, and after that to Judg­ment: For as by one man sin entred into the world, Ro. 5.12. and Death by sin; So death passeth upon all men. for that all have sinned: Faithfull Abraham must lye down in the Cave of Machpeloh. Pati­ent Job after all his Arabian Tragedies must act one Scene more, and say to Corruption, Job 17.14 thou art my Father, to the Worm, thou art my Mother and Sister: Strong Sampson must fall by this Jaw­bone in the Vineyards of Zorah, and meek Moses though he dye in a Deut. 32.50. Moun­tain, must walk down this deep c. 34.6. Valley of Abarim: Wise Solomon by all his pru­dent and pollitick maximes of Govern­ment, can't tame and rule this ferocious Behemoth, nor tye this wild Bull at his Figtree: But his sage breath must out at the dore of his lips, he returns to his earth, Ps. 146.4. and that very day his thoughts and his reasons of State must perish: All his skill in Botanicks could not ex­tract such (an ens primum, or) a quin­tessence from his Cedars in Lebanon, to prolong his life a moment beyond the appointed Job 14.5. moneths, and the bounds which he could not passe. No, nor holy Poul could not strengthen the stakes of his Tabernacle or keep its curtains from trembling, but an East wind from the Roman wildernesse h smites it down to [Page 21]the ground, Act. 18.3 and all his i skill in Tent-work could not raise it: He therefore counts upon his house with God, not made with hands, 2 Cor. 5. [...]. eternal in the Hea­vens, and groans earnestly to be clothed upon, that mortality might be swallow­ed up of Life.

Q. But why must Saints dye? hath not Christ paid a ransome to purchase them from death. Must Daniel the man of de­sires be led into this second Captivity? Must John the beloved Disciple, though he scape the boiling Oyl, and rocky Patmos, come down to his Tomb at Ephesus, and walk in this six-foot Val­ley; yes, even he that lay in the bosome of Christ, must also sleep in the bosome of the grave.

A. 1 To this may be replyed, 1 Downam of Justifie, p. 6. Edit. fol. Lond. 1639. That Justifi­cation is a continued act of divine grace ( terminative & quoad 1 nos) in respect to us, & it lasts from our first conversion to the declarative sentence of absolution at the day of Judgment, Indeed in re­spect to God (who is actus purissimus) a most pure and absolute act and sits down without any succession of times, in the glorious noon of Eternity, our justification admits no degrees. It is not instill'd into us drop by drop in respect to him: but so soon as a man doth truly believe, he stands truly and perfectly righteous in the sight of God. The Covenant of Grace is ratified (si­mul & semel) together and at once, at [Page 22]the Throne of God in the name and vertue of Christs righteousness, so soon as ever we truly believe; but 'tis appli­ed, manifested and compleated to us, in the successive methods of effectual voca­tion, sanctification and finall redempti­on at the great day. For while we con­tinue sinners, we have continuall need of justifying grace. David as to fresh Commissions stood in need of Ps. 51.7. purg­ing with Hysop from his leprous sins to receive an atonement, Lev 14.6, 19. and to have the Seal of the Ps. 32.5. forgiveness of the iniquity of his sin, upon his ac­knowledgment and confession: For as to us, God is not said to remit those sins, that are not yet committed, but such Rom. 3.25 as are past. We are taught therefore by our Lord to pray Mat. 6.11, 12. Act. 5.31. every day, forgive us our trespasses. We sin dayly, and must con­fess dayly, and pray dayly for repentance and pardon. Yea God himself, in that Evangelicall promise by Esay, assures us. Isay 43.25 I even I ( [...], delens) am blot­ting out your trangressions for mine own sake, and will not remember your fins, to comfort us against tentations a­bout daily infirmities: Do we sin every day? and is the truth not in him? nay, does he make him a lyar, that saith 1 Joh. 1.10.8.2.1. he hath no sin? then we have need of a dayly Advocate to plead for us at the right hand of the Father, a high Priest that Heb. 7.24 continueth evir, and V. 25. liveth [...]v [...] to Heb. 9, 24 appear in the presence of God, and [Page 23]to make intercession for us. By vir­tue whereof he Joh. 14.2, 3. prepares the heavenly Mansions in the Temple of Glory for us, and us for them. Then, he will come again and receive us unto himself, that where he is, we may be with him, and behold his glory. And when this Prince of life, the Judg of quick and dead, shall appear, he will pronounce that finall justifying and glorifying sentence Mat. 25.34., Come ye blessed of my Father, ( Ps. 32.1 2. for blessed are they indeed to whom the Lord then imputeth not iniquity) come and inherit the Kingdome prepared for you. Then shall our justification be com­pleat in all its points at that joyfull de­claration of Christ upon his Tribunall in Judgment: No marvell then, Rom. 8.10, 11. If the bodies even of Saints shall dye: 'Tis be­cause of sin; though the spirit be life, be­cause of righteousnesse. But then shall all our sins be finally blotted our, and cast behind his back in the Mic. 7.19 depths of the Sea, when those times of Act. 3.19.20.21. refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord: when he shall send Jesus Christ at the great Restitution, whereof he hath spoken by all his holy Prophets since the world began: Then shall Onesiphorus according to the prayer of Paul 2 Tim. 1.18. find mercy in that day at the hand of Christ. That day of full Eph. 1.14 and 4.30. Redemption hath not yet appeared, when the Mat. 13.43. righteous shall shine forth in the Kingdome of their Father with everlasting joy upon their heads.

A. 2 Again, Death was decreed and deter­min'd of God to seize upon faln sinners in all it kinds, and yet we never find that doleful sentence repeal'd as to tem­porall dissolution, in any promise. Joh. 11.25. I am the Resurrection and the Life, saies Christ: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. Yea, our blessed Lord in his Sermon at Caperna­um, no less Joh. 6. then four terms, comforts his Disciples with the Doctrin of the Resurrection: not, that they should not dye, but that he would raise them up at the last day. Nay, even to John himself Jesus Joh. 21.23. said not, that he should not dye, But if I will, that he tarry till I come, what's that to thee Peter. No! both ho­ly Peter and holy John, Death is or­dain'd as a means to purge and cleanse their bodies from the soil and filth of sin, and to fit those sanctified Vessels for the life of glory.

A. 3 Saints therefore must look upon death with no other aspect, then as the greatest bodily affliction, which shall or can befall them, and that it hath the same ingrediency, though in a deeper measure with all the bitter Cups of tri­all, which the Father is pleased to put into their hands. They have one com­mon reason, and one common end to make them partakers of his holiness. Sickness of the holinesse of Grace; and Death of the holiness of Glory.

But are not Saints the members of [Page 25]Christs body? Is the head glorified and must the Members pass this State of exinanition? Must believers dye? Yes! and good reason too! Should not the members be conformable to their head? Ought Christ to have Luk. 24.20. suffered these things, and so to enter into his glory? Hath the Father made Heb. 2.10 the Cap­tain of our Salvation perfect through sufferings, and will he not the same way bring many sons to glory? Shall this High-pri [...]st after the order of Melchize­dek, drink Ps. 110.7 of the Brook of Kidron in the way to Olivet, before he lift up the head in a glorious Ascention? And shall Saints, the inferior Levites think much to taste it? Zebedees, Children do but taste a few drops at the bottome of Mat. 20.22, 23. the Cup of Kidrons water, Christ hath drunk it off. Saints do but sip of Num. 5.27, &c. these bitter waters, not for satssfaction but submis­sion to the Law: they shall not cause their thighs to rot, but conceive to glo­ry. Whats fabled of the Unicorn that he takes away the poyson by dipping his horn in the waters before the Beasts of the Forrests do drink after him: Is true of our Lord, he hath sweetned these waters of Marah with this Tree of Life, for true Israelites to pledg him. His holy body washed the waters of Jordan by his Baptism, and healed the waters of Kidron by his Passion. Christ that pure prolifick Joh. 12 24 Corn of Wheat fell in­to the ground, and died and bringeth [Page 26]forth much fruit: The grave is made fertile by his death; that Saints lying by his dead body may be impregnated and spring up in a green Resurrection, and grow ripe to the harvest of glory, They are implanted into the Rom. 6.5. simili­tude of his death, and shall be raised in the likeness of his Resurrection, As that heavenly grain did rise; so shall Saints sprout upon his stalk, without Chaffe for the Garner of Paradise.

A. 4 A. 4. Again, Saints dye, not only in conformity to their head, but to mag­nifie the glory of divine Grace in Salva­tion by the New-Covenant. Christ takes away the radicall and fundamen­tall guilt of sin, but not the totall in be­ing thereof during this Life. None shal go to heaven by the law of perfection, according to the tenor of the first Cove­nant. None shall boast of Eph. 2.8, 9. Tit. 3.5. work or merit: for by grace are we saved. None shall climbe to heaven but by Gen. 28.11, 12. Joh. 1.51. Jacobs Ladder, whose foot is fixt upon the son of man. We are saved by grace to Rom. 3.27 ex­clude boasting we are saved Act. 15.11 by faith, that Christ may be Phil. 1.20. magnified whe­ther in life or death: we are saved Tit. 3.4, 7. by mercy, that the kindness and love of God our Saviour may appear: we are not born, but made heirs according to the hope of eternall life: Nay, we are saved by Rom. 8.24 hope, and with patience we wait for it: Were we perfect here; our faith would be clambering into vision, and [Page 27]our hope into fruition, our resting, wai­ting, panting frame would be swallow­ed up in preliminary injoyments of heaven: our love would cast out all fear and torment, and ride triumphant be­fore resurrection, to the capitol of glo­ry: But God hath an eye to that new and living way of salvation paved with the precious blood of the second Cove­nant: wherefore, though Christ be Ro. 10.4. the end of the Law for righteousness to eve­ry one that believeth: yet he restores us not in this life to the beauty and perfe­ction of holiness; So that, if sin remain in a Saint, death must needs be its issue: For sin when 'tis finisht, Jam. 1.16 bringeth forth death: Though death in all its circum­stances be not the proper Ro. 6.23. wages of sin unto a Saint, because Christ hath satis­fied and made us free from the Law Rev. 8.2. of sin and of death: Though death be not the Ib. c. 6.22 [...], the stipendiary supper of a believer, yet 'tis the [...], the four sauce, wherewith the remnants and leavings of originall, and the too great improvement thereof in actuall sins and infirmities are disht up: Warm Bernard starts this question, If Christ have deli­vered us, Bern. ad milit. Templ. f. 98. a. Ed. Pari 517. [ Utquid adhuc morimur & non statim immortalitate vestimur? Sane, ut Dei veritas impleatur, &c.] Why do we yet dye and are not presently clothed with immortality? Verily, that the truth of God might be fulfilled: For, because God loveth mercy and truth, its [Page 28]necessary that man should dye, because God had foredoom'd it: but yet that he should also rise from the dead, lest God should seem to forget his mercy: So then though Death Lords it not over a Saint perpetually, yet it remains a while upon us, because of the truth of God. Even as Sin, though it reign not in our mortall bodies, yet is it not totally taken from us. Thus Bernard layes the burden of a Saints death, upon the pri­mitive fall, the curse of God, the vera­city of his threatnings and fulfilling of that word to Adam, in the day thou cat­est thereof, thou shalt dye: and a little before, [ Adae delictum merito contrahimus; quouiam cum peccavit, in ipso eramus & ex ejus carne per carnis concupisentiam ge­nite sumus. We are deservedly involved in Adams guilt, because we all sinned in him: for when he sinned, we were in him, and were begotten of his flesh by car­nall concupiscence.] And is not this the very Doctrin of Paul? Ro. 5.11. As by one man sin entred into the world and death by sin; So death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned: This is the guilt that carries those that have not sin'd after V. 14. the similitude of Adams transgression into the grave. Yea In­fants, & Embryo's, such as never saw the light, from one dark grave to another.

Insomuch, That though the second and glorious Covenant of free grace, be Ps. 89.37 establisht as the Moon, and as a [Page 29]faithfull witness in heaven: yet it re­ceives not its full accomplishment in all its promises, till the Saints set down in the bosome of Christ after the great Tribunall: and 'tis not any the least impair or reflection upon the divine ju­stice on this side the resurrection, to visit the Saints transgressions with this Rod, and their iniquity with these stripes: 1 Cor. 11.30. For this cause, sayes Paul (treating of some violations respecting our Lords Supper) many are weak and sickly among you and many sleep.

Wherefore, though the guilt of sin be removed by justification, through the merit of Christ, and the dominion of sin by sanctification through the Spirit: yet the totall remainders of originall or actuall sin are not stub'd out of the heart: but some fibres and strings will stick behind in the best, during this pre­sent life: In like manner, though 1 Cor. 15.55, &c. the sting of death, its venome and poyson be pull'd out by the death of Christ: yet our mortality is not abolished. Although our Lord hath brought 2 Tim. 1.10. life and im­mortality to light through the Gospel, in its revelation and consignation to e­very believer; yet not as to its com­pleat fruition till the day of Christ. Then shall this mortall put on immortality, and death shall be swallowed up in vi­ctory, and then, shall we render eternall thanks to the Father, for giving us this victory 1 Cor. 15.57. through our Lord Jesus [Page 30]Christ. For reign he must, till this last enemy also be put under his feet: To conquer over death by rising, brings more honour to God, then to keep our foot from the grave: or else Divine Wisdome would not run that course. One's th' effect of powerfull manute­nency. But the other of creating om­nipotency. Hence, as Christ the Natu­rall, so shall Saints be declared the A­dopted sons of God, Rom. 1.4 with power by the resurrection from the dead, by reason of which union God will also raise them up like their glorious and mysticall head Act. 2.24 by loosing the pains of death, it being impossible for them likewise to be held by it, For Christ being risen from the dead, is become 1 Cor. 15.20. the first fruits of them that sleep: Our blessed Lord rose at the Passe-over, and they shall rise at the day of Pentecost: He rose as the head, they as members, all in their own order shall rise to glory.

Obj. But some may say, Did not Enoch and Elias leap over this Valley of death into heaven?

Ans. True! but their translation moved upon the wheels of transmutation e­quivalent to death: as they also, who are found alive at the coming of Christ. Though they passe not through the strainer of the grave, yet they undergo. the percolation of a change. As the hea­vens shall Ps. 102.26. perish when they be changed and passe 2 Pet. 3.10. away with a great noise, and [Page 31]the Elements melt with fervent heat: neverthelesse we look for new heavens, and a new earth, not in substance, but in quality. Even so Elijah, though ri­ding to heaven in a chariot of fire, and the living 2 Cor. 15.51. 1 Thes. 4.17 Saints at our Lords coming in a chariot of aire, yet are all by a mar­vellous change [ [...]] Heb. 11.5 transla­ted to the vision of God.

CHAP. VI. Of the Formidable evills in the Valley of Death.

AS in a Land-skip let us take a quick prospect of those fatall and tremen­dous evills, which cock their Helmets, and make bare their Gorgon faces at the entrance, in the passage, and the utmost end of this direfull Valley.

1. At the Entrance, when these brazen gates flee open: The soul bewitching comforts, to which we must bid [a lon­gum vale] an eternal farewell, and those wracking pains which must be felt, not on a Palate of Ivory, but a Bed of Iron, in which, this Gyant Procrustes tortures all he catches: must needs shoot barbed arrows into the Livers of all impeni­tent sinners.

[Page 32]The Phylosopher teaches, Aristot. Rhet. l. 7. c. 14. [ [...],] that change is the sweetest of all things: It must be in things to the better, or equall at least in goodness to precedent injoyments; else 'tis [...]: the bitterest of all. To have been fair, strong, healthfull, rich, and happy, sharpness the edge of present misery, & cuts the deeper. Is not this a dead fly in the box of oyntment, a gourd in the pot, a snake in the grasse, that poysons the joy of all thy com­forts? Must the amorous smiles of all thy sinfull pleasures corrupt into doleful howlings? Here's the parting style, when the sweet embraces of the dearest conju­gall relations must surrender up to mor­tall gripings: Here livid, and fainty kisses must take leave of pretty children his own bowels, [& pignora chara nepo­tes,] those choice pledges of a mans survivall unto himself: The friend thats nearer than a brother, must now shake hands and look back to little purpose, at this dolesome and dark good-night. His fine houses and fair possessions, his fruitfull orchards of his own planting and his pleasant gardens, with all its rills and fishponds, his flowry meadows and beautifull prospects, his gamefull parks and woody forrests, his dutifull and toiling tenants must all come to his bedside and shake their heads, and with dry eyes, bid good-even to their old foolish rent-wracking covetous Land­lord: [Page 33]Then all these flashy, thorny joyes that made so great a crackling under his pot, having shot some splinters in his eyes, and more in's heart will leave him in thick darkness: Then all his false pa­rasites and trencher-guests, for a sorry ring (else hardly) will march with him to the pits side, and forsake his memory when closed in a cold stone.

Besides 'twill gawl him to the heart in that hour, to think what a feather cap fool Eccles. 2.19. he leaves for his heir: that will turn upon his left heel, and twit the mi­ser, when he sees his chests all lined with gold, and sorrow for nothing but that he shall never more have so true a drudge: Then out goes the young Ruf­fian with the fork upon his shoulder, to France and Venice to learn carriage a­mong Whores, Banditos and riotous persons, till penury forces his belly to fellow common with Luk. 15.30, 16. Swine and quatrell with hogs for their husks, and at length can hardly crawl home to the Surgeons Shop: Are not these sweet Flowers for his memory to smell to? And a soveraign Cordiall against the assaults of Death?

But were this all, 'Twere no match for a Roman Spirit? No, no! proud worldlings before departure often con­flict with fearfull torments, Agags 1 Sam. 15 32. bit­ternesse of death arrests their souls and make their Spirits stagger: The Ps. 18.4 & 116.3 pains of Death and of Hell get hold upon [Page 34]them: These deadly sorrows switch them with such smart lashes [Ut se sen­tiant mori] as to leave lingring pains with strong and biding Convulsions. Like Tiherius that cruell Tyrant: when tormenting of Asinius Gallus, told him, he was not yet reconciled, and there­fore would not permit him to dye, [ Dion.. Cass. in Ti­ber. p. [...],] That he might count life a pu­nishment, and death a great benefaction Like the stroke of these Rev. 9.6. Scorpions when men shall seek death but not find it, and shall desire to dye, but Death shall flee from them: So sharp and pun­gent are these invenomed shafts, Job 7.15. that the soul chooses Strangling and death rather then life: They are called, Act. 2.24 12. the [...], the pains of death, the acute pains of a woman in travell: when God shall Job 33.19. chasten men with pains up­on their Beds, and the multitude of their bones with strong pain: when every bone shall have its pang; and every pang from the strong arm of God: oh! how dreadfull to fall into the hands Heb. 10.31. of the living God: They are pains indeed which God calls pains, when the soul shall be torn and rent from its beloved twin; oh, the tendons crack and the nerves with startling dolour snap in sun­der. We read of one, but sick of the Palsie, and yet Mat. 8.6 grievously tormented. When the Lord smites persons Deut. 28.22. with Consumptions, Feavers, Inflamations [Page 35]and extream burnings: oh, what tos­sings and tumblings and pinings with wearisome hours: when torn and grin­ded by the Stone or wrackt by the gout; what tongue can express their miseries? For a Herod to be eaten up of Act. 12▪ 23. Worms and such little wretches to pull a Prince piece-meal, and to run away unquesti­oned: For Jehorams 2 Chron. 21.19. bowels to fall out by reason of his sickness, and poy­son his Courtiers: For Asa to lye how­ling of the Gout, and make all Jerusa­lem ring with his roaring: Should not these tidings of three miserable Mo­narchs, cool the fury and tame the mad­ness of the Bedlam Hectors of our age. To ruminate upon these terrors of death, these painfull throws, when men pour out their souls in dreadfull agonies methinks should take them a peg lower and put their carier in sin to a pause: They who taste of the Cup of Death, find it more bitter than Wormwood, more venemous then the poyson of Asps all squeez'd into it: Such as are under the gastly view of Death, behold a griefly & fearfull Monster, that scares the bloody Heroes and vainglorious Gallants into exquisite horrors.

— Obriguere comae & vox faucibus haesit. Their hait stands an end, and their tongue faulters with amazing fears It has a direfull sting, more horrid then a Scorpion or a Dragon. This Cup unlesse sweetned with a lively sense of a [Page]gracious promise there's no laying of your lips to it: This fiery flying Ser­pent, unlesse eased of his sting: there's no dallying with it in their bosomes for fool-hardy sinners: Well might Sueton. in Cas. c. 87. Caesar wish a sudden, and Augustus Id. in Aug. c. 99. an easie Death, who had beheld many astonish­ing spectacles in their long and bloody wars: which might pierce hearts of A­damant, and melt the most brawny and flinty breast, and run down the most stoical Apathies into Rivers of mourn­full Sympathies and compassions: Me­thinks, it should awaken snorting for­malists to admit into the Hall of Con­science the Ecchoes of the roaring Ele­gies of such who dye (as the historian phrases) Id. in Cas. c. 88. non morte sua, not a natural but a violent death; when this Lion rampant rends the Soul from the body, as he would the Hos. 13.8. Caul of a Kids heart: When death shall meet them as a Bear bereaved of her Whelps, or an evening Wolf that hath lurkt close in Ps. 104.20. her Den all the day long of a sinners life, and comes forth barking at night and sharp set for her prey: Then they are forc'd to drink deep of the wine of violence and to sup up the Cup of the avenger. Then they Job 15.33 shake off their unripe Grapes as the Vine and cast off their Flower as the Olive.

But alas! the pains of naturall or the pangs of violent death, are but the stinging of Gnats or Flea-bites to a [Page 37]scorched conscience and inflamed by the wrath of God: When men come to dye and have trifled away pretious hours with Rattles and childish Baubles, and the silly jing­ling Hobby-horses of Court or Coun­try: and at that turning point of Eter­nity have forgotten to make their peace with God: then Conscience rowzes up like a Gyant refresht with the wine of Sodom, and the Grapes of Gomorrah. When the grinning Furies lasht the goatish Soul of Tiberius for all his Vil­lanies within the dark and dismall Dun­geon of his unclean breast: Oh! who would not tremble to think of those goring wounds, those secret and invisi­ble tortures, which wrackt his Soul and stretcht his tormenting imaginati­ons upon the Devils Tenter-Hooks. See, how Tacit. An nal. l. 5. p. 107. Edit. Basil. 1544 Tacitus breaks forth upon the Theme, Si recludantur Tyrannorum mentes, posse aspici laniatus & ictus,] had we Casements into the hearts of Ty­rants: the dreadfull marks of the Steel whips of Conscience would appear with bloody gashes: And as Dio. in Nerone l. 63. Dion the Historian speaking of the horrors of Nero, neer the time of his death, for the assasination of his Mother and other brutish crimes: sayes, that if a Whelp did but howl, or a Hen cackle, or the arm of a Tree creak by a strong wind, [ [...],] he was in a wofull anguish: Oh, how the wires of Megaerae [Page 38]fetcht blood and gobbets at every stroak, from his Soul: When God shall pour the scalding Lead of his wrath into these fresh wounds, when the Law thunders from Mount Sinai, and the lightnings of Paran glitter about him, Then Hab. 3.16. their bellies tremble, their lips quiver at the voice, and rottennesse en­ters into their bones: When sin comes home to the Soul on a death-bed, and accosts him as the Souldier did Pollio in Mario p. 538. Ed. Lug. B. Ma­rius the Black-smith, and Triduan Em­peror, (Hic est gladius, quem ipse fecisti.) Here's the Sword of thine own ham­mering and shaking it in the face of a sinner, cries, look how it shines, 'tis thine own furbishing.

Then wo to him, who hath enlarg'd his desire as Hell, and encreased that, which is not his: and laden himself with thick clay: Then fain would he vomit up his sweet morsells: but no Emetick of the shop can help him, no Squills, no Roots in Nicander can fetch them up: Then they abhor to remem­ber, what they cannot forget, and the eyes of their fancy are as quick and ve­nemous as a Bafilisk. Then with their robberies of Peter they would pay off Paul: and for their defrauding of Mi­nisters would give tenfold Tithes, and with the ruins of old Abbayes, and Mannors by oppression & depopulati­ons of Villages, that they may Isa. 5.8. be alone in the midst of the earth, in all haste [Page 39]they patch up Chappells, Schoolls and Work-houses.

But God hates the Sacrifices of dying and putrilaginous bodies: the Incense that oppressors offer, proves the sa­vour of death unto death; he counts the sighs of their fleeting Spirits, like the steams of rancid dung-hills, which the fire of Hell sends up: not the beams of his countenance, who is now depar­ted. No warning pieces before could a­larm them. No blazing Comets could awaken or startle them: though Mantil. Astrinom. l. 1. p. 27. that of Mantilius be true in all ages.

But now they scud about like Eels in Thunder, and anon Death hales them with the weeds about their heads in his sweeping drag-net. Now they cry out with Spartian in Hadri­an p. 34 Ed. Lug. B. Hadrian the Emperor:

And is this all the cold comfort for these roaring Blades with a sneaking [Page 40]Epigram, with so deadly a neck-verse, to swing into the arms of eternall ven­geance: How horrible is it, and to be trembled at, to think that Randoll the Poet (as I have heard) should cry out at death, Now Horace have at thee where ever thou art. Could we think, that vile worms when dying should spew such poyson? like the Toads in Helmont. t. mul. pest. p. 884.4 to. Helmone hung up by the Heels before the fire of Hell cast out green flies and other ve­nom, Oh! that it might make a Zenex­ton an antidote against the plague of the heart in astonied mortalls. And have you not drencht your Souls in a sweet pic­kle by flinging off repentance to so late an hour. Alas! God's now gone up to his place and retired, ye have Prov. 1.25, &c. set at naught all his Counsell and would none of his reproof: Now he laughs at your calamity and mocks when your fear cometh as a desolation and your destru­ction as a whirlwind: when distresse and auguish seizes upon you; Therefore shal ye eat the fruit of your own way, and be filled with your own devices: 'Tis not the cold absolution of every formall Priest can daube up these Thunder struck Walls with his untempered Mor­ter. The foolish and cock headed Athiest, that Ps. 14.1. said in his heart there was no God and was bold and sawcy to fancy what he would have, that he might revell and rant and tear it, in his blasphemous pride, and doe corrupt and abominable [Page 41]works, begins now to be awakened out of his Frenzy-Lethargy, and runs into the clefts of the rocks and skulks in the tops of the ragged rocks, and cryes to the deaf hills to fall on him, and the hard-hearted mountains to cover him for fear of the Lord, and the glory of his terrible Majesty.

The old Owl-eyed Heathens by the glimmering glances of Synideses Alcin. de doct. Plat. cap. 10. Max. Tyr. c. 1. &c. and Syntereses, the faint reflections of primi­tive light did grope after a Deity by the Glow-Worm candle of soft con­templation. They catcht at a little va­nishing notion of the first Being by the working of their Souls in night-Visions and argued the immortality of their own Spirits and began to discern that (Divinae particula aurae) this particle of Divine light, was inspired by the Fa­ther of Lights and Spirits: Ro. 1.20. By the things that were made they stammer'd and spelt out lamely his Eternal Power and God-head: But alas! the Meri­dian Fools of our age, that sit in the De­vils Chair of Pestilence, though taught by the glorious light of holy Scripture, will hardly come off to cry at death, with that musing Phylosopher of Greece, O ens entium miserere mei. O being of beings have mercy on me. But when the grave Judg of Conscience commis­sion'd and charg'd by God, sits down with his white considering Coife in his Judgment-seat upon a pale Pillow: [Page 42]Then their stupid Atheism (a sin great­er then Jam. 2.19. Devils are guilty of) brings the Scoffer to the Prov. 7.22. correction of the Stocks; and Phineas his righteous dart sticks through his belly, and there he lyes sentenced to self-tormenting hor­rors: Thoughts as fiery as flashes of lightning, and as keen as double edg'd Swords. No Turky Cymiter pierces so deadly to the inner-most parts of the belly.

But oh Sirs! this is not all: The Devill by his Heb. 2.14 ministeriall power of death, slips forth from behind the hang­ings, all arm'd with fire-brands. He who before like a roaring Lion yeld af­ter his prey: Now whets his Claws upon the rock of their impenitent hearts grins like a tearing Lion, and strangles for his Lionesses: Now he who se­cretly stir'd them up to war and rapine, to slaughter and blood-shed, even the precious blood of the Saints, he who egg'd, and spur'd them up to their mad ambition and rage; to alarum neigh­bour Provinces into confusions, to sa­tiate their lust, revenge and avarice; now he springs forth with his Rev. 9.17 breast­plate of fire, jacinct and brimstone: and and out of his mouth flow torrents of fire and smoak and sulphur: His head is twisted about with a Crown of Snakes, and girt with a Vest and Tu­nick of Scarlet deep dyed in the blood of Souls. This Prince of the Power of [Page 43]the Air, the raiser of tempests, now hur­ries up a storm within, which no crea­ted power can calm: At his puddling he finds turbulent matter in the foul sinck of their hearts, and rowzes all the winds of the Compasse into a dreadfull Hurricane: Then the wicked Gallio's that of old waved and tush't at any thing, but Spring-Gardens and painted Faces, and pampered Paunches, Ro. 13.14 and provisions for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof: That snuft at your Counsells like the doltish block-head, the Jer. 2.24. wild Asse in the Wildernesse; Till their bel­lies swell big with the Tempter, in this moneth you shall find them crying out with the German Captain in those civill Wars: Six hundred Dollars for a Mi­nister to comfort a galled Conscience. Then how the Waves break white one in the neck of another? Oh! how the wicked wretch tumbles like Is. 57.20. troubled Seas that cannot rest, and casts up mire and dirt? 'Tis dreadfull to stand on the shore and see, how Leviathan makes the deep Job 41.31 of their hearts to boil like a pot, the Sea of Conscience like a Pot of Ointment; he makes a path of flaming Brimstone to shine after him, and at the breaking of these waves of fire, strong sulphurous exhalations even stistle and suffocate the Spirits, One of the Ro­man Emperours sent to buy the Pillow of a man, that was greatly in debt, and yet could sleep sweetly: But who [Page 44]would not fly from the Pillow of an awakened Athiest, though stufft and cramb'd with double angels: When such dismall Sprites chatter at the four corners: when he who had seduced them to all their flagitious sins, and hardned them to perseverance now ap­pears in his colours, triumphing in the harvest of his envy, and tumbling his impenitent Proselytes, with himself in­to the bottomlesse gulf of despair.

And now 'tis evident, Who ever form'd Weapons against Heaven and prosper'd? Do not their Darts recoil upon their Ps. 68.21 own hairy Scalps? When against every raking Oppressor, Hab. 2.11 the Stone cries out of the Wall, and the Beam out of the Timber shall answer it. When Isay 34.13, 14. the Owls of the Desert shall hoop among their shatter'd Palaces in hideous Consort, and Satyres shall cry to their Fellowes.

Now, woe to the ruiners of Cities by Fire, and Hab. 2.12 builders of Towns with blood, that stablish their foundations by iniquity, and cement the stones with the gore of the Innocent: That put the V. 15. Bottle to the nose of their Neigh­bours and make them drunk, to behold their nakednesse. That boast in their might Is. 5.11.22. to drink Wine, that they are men of strength to mingle strong drink, and how many they knock under Ta­ble: V. 23 24. Therefore as the fire devoureth stubble, and the flame consumeth the [Page 45]chaffe; So their root shall be rotten­nesse, and their blossome shall go up as dust. Now, woe Hab. 2.19 to him that saith to the wood of a Table, awake: and to the dumb stone of a Crosse, arise: for it shall teach: These all compasse themselves Isay 50.11. with sparks of their own kindling: This they shall have at the hand of the Lord: they shall lye down in sorrows.

CHAP. V. Of the State of the Dead.

NOt only in reference to the State of Sinners before and at the point of Death: but as to their passage through the Valley of the grave, many grand horrors do occupy the thoughts of mortalls: Oh! that it were to pre­vent, as well as fore-see: what a damp 'tis to carnall Spirits, to think of their heads being no sooner laid in the cold Cavern; but Death as a Tyger or Ps. 49.14 Li­on greedily feeds upon them: With what a cold clamy sweat they faint a­way, to think of going down to the Gates of Death, and there to be lockt up in a loathsome Dungeon? But here's the sweet comfort of a Saint, that Christ hath the Rev. 1.18 Keys at his Girdle and [Page 46]will give them the Ib. c. 2.28. morning Star: They rest meekly pacified, that their blessed Lord went the same way to glo­ry: that Ahrabam, Samuel and David; that Daniel, Paul, and John have beaten the path before them: There is but one Eph. 4.5. Lord, one Faith, one Baptism, one new and living way to enter within the Vail, that former Saints He. 11.40 without us should not be made perfect.

But how mortally do the Pulses of unsanctified persons beat, at the remem­brance of the pit: How they swound away with many a sinking qualm. The fiery thoughts of their cold entertain­ment among the clods, well may they scorch and shrivell up the plumes of their pride and jollity: Oh how crest­faln and blew in the lip, when this fa­tall guest knocks at dore: The tenors of the old drunkards songs, do they not quiver and rattle in their throats with wofull howlings? What Vultures of grief would knaw their heart-strings, did they dare to retire and meditate in this Charnell-house? Were they so valiant and hardy Knights as to converse with Conscience in secret? as heretofore they have met their impudent Mistres­ses Pro. 7.9.10. with the attire of a Harlot in the twy-light, in the evening, in the black and dark night: Would they not hang the head, droop the wing and feel their Loins dissolv'd in trembling Palsies? Do not their countenances Dan. 5.6. change and [Page 47]their knees clatter together to read the writing upon the wall that their daies are numbred and sinisht? How do the inhabitants of the earth, melt at the mu­sings on their forlorn estate in that hol­low and deep Vault? What! to be trodden upon by every footless worm, to be insulted upon by an ugly grub: to be bearded by a yellow Maggot, and to be kept prisoner in stinking chains of darkness by noisome rottennesse? Oh! how it vexes the high spirit of a Lord, and nauseates the fine stomack of a Lady? Then's the time, when all Isay 14.9.10, 11. the Kings of the Nations will rise up from their Thrones in the grave, and passe this dolorous complement with the proud Emperor of Babel: Art thou al­so become weak as we? Art thou be­come like unto us? Thy pomp is brought down to the grave, and the noise of thy Viols: the worm is spread under thee, and the worms cover thee.) where the Nouns in the Hebrew Bochart. de animal. part. 2. col. 254. are feminine, and the Verbs masculine: the creatures contemptible: but their feast magnificent, upon the bowels of Princes: Oh! how the woodlice, flat-worms, maw-worms, the yellow-tails, mites and wivils carve out their morsells and rejoice together: Annon, after the feast is ended, the yellow hundred-foot takes up his Palace-royall in the skull of a King, and the proud mincing Jezabels shall have their faces once more painted [Page 48]and spotted with the odious excrements of a black Beetle.

'Tis but lean comfort for haugthy & big looks which the Lord abhors, Pro. 6.1. & 21.4. to be humbled into these dark holes: where their costly Sepulchrall Lamps shine with but a dim and blew light, to search what impudent insects dare so boldly to crawl up and down their entrails, and scorn to give account to their sum­mons. For a living worm counts him­self more honourable then a putrifying Monarch.

Here, on this side the grave, after e­very meal they must have a fit of mu­sick to digest their varieties, and a sad poor fool must come in with his pat­ches to make them merry: But he that mocketh the poor (whether in purse or parts) Pro. 175. reproacheth his Maker, and he that is glad at calamities shall not be unpunished,

Their gluttonous Feasts shall have sour sauce of deaths cooking; and no Doctor can sweat away the surfeits of Conscience: When Death hath once shook them by the shoulder into the grave, hee'l call also for a lesson at his Table, and the Satyrs shall play low Funeral-Songs upon the Lure-strings of their perishing Nerves, & Dancein their courses: while they are here, they rise from their gormandizing Platters to play at Cards for whole Parks, and fling the Dice for ancient Mannors: But there [Page 49]flaming Devills will hurl their bones about, from under the Altar, and the Chancell rails without Sacriledge and thrust their own Rapiers red hot into their bushy Pates, and make those hairy Comets to burn for warning Beacons: O then, they would fain prevail with Father Abraham to send Messengers to their Luk. 16.28. five brethren upon earth to testi­fie to them, lest they also come to this place of torment: Here after the game at Tables is ended, they hurry away with Coach and six horses in haste to hear a Sermon at the Play-house, and are very well edified, fully instructed and takes notes of the ready way how to reach Hell speedily: But there death and his Hs. 2.14. master will handle them with­out Mittens, hee'l force no court com­plements upon them: There's a King of a fierce Dan. 8.23 countenance, understand­ing dark sayings, will speak as big and as rough as they taunted to the poor, he will make them bend the knee, and do suit and service at his Court-Baron: There they shall hear the Jaylors long­winded Lecture upon a sharp and cut­ting Text, and can't get out of his Chappell though they sit at the lower end, hee'l keep them from sleeping, and gash their memories with the keen knife of his tongue, about the many Sabbaths they profaned, and the means of Grace they contemned; how they mockt at repentance, and loll'd out the tongue [Page 50]at precisenesse; hee'l gripe them with the holy examples, meek admonitions of Saints and their patient sufferings for the truth at their barbarous hands: They'l have cold stomachs to jeer and fleere in the face of this conscience-scal­ding Preacher; hee'l chain the blessed Bible to the Desk of their Pews; which they had laid aside like an old Alma­nack: Now it comes in date at this year of reckoning. Hee'l prove to their faces, how they have slighted the heavy judgments of the late dreadfull Pesti­lence, the astonishing Fire, and the co­lour of the British Seas, crimson'd and diaper'd with the blood of their bre­thren: hee'l gaul them with their base ingratitude in slighting the mercies of the great God, who gave them reprie­vall and survivall after all these dismall memento's. But now ha's delivered them from Jerom. 21 7. the Pestilence, and from the Sword and from the Famine, into the hands of this dismall King of Assyria: hee'l once more rub up their dull senses with sharp rebukes, about the numerous checks of conscience, and the loud calls of the spirit, which then they injoyed, but now they may howl after, without any pitty: and that which shall vex them to the heart, hee'l ever be harping and grating odiously upon the same string, and jarring in their ears, and rubbing the old sore about their lost opportuni­ties and seasons of grace: This shall [Page 51]be a plain and home Sermon, such as before they scoft at: here will be no flowers of Rhetorick to set off Truth to the squeazy palate of a Sermon-sick Lady: here will be no fear to displease greatness, here's no Trencher-Chap­lains to soften expressions, least the great Churl Stomack at sound reproofs, that might save his soul; No, these dayes are past! here's no impatient lookings at the hour-glasse when the last sand drops, to be gone to dinner; here's no being glad at sleevelesse er­rands to steal away through the croud, and choak conscience with this flam: that a little's enough if well practised: No! here's a Preacher will hold them to it, and taunt, and twit them with the day of repentance being over, and chain them to their seats, and lock them in the stocks, as they once did the Saints in Lollards-Tower: till the Trump of the Resurrection sounds an Alarum to Judgment.

Is this the state of wicked mens souls; while their bodies rot in the grave: when will they learn to be wise for E­ternity? They must Bernard de Conver. ad Clerico [...]. suffocate and slay the worm of conscience, here saies Bernard, that would not be bitten here­after: Is it not better to hearken dili­gently to a few Sermons here, though ten hours long, though Act 20.7. Paul preach till mid-night: then to be liuckt to that terrible Sermon, that shall last many [Page 56] hundred years long, from the day of death, till the day of judgment, and af­ter that a second Sermon in the after­noon, which shall know no evening, but last to Eternity: when rivers of tears can't wash away guilt, nor ten thousand rivers of oyl can't make thy Sacrifice flame acceptably up to hea­ven: O be wise while the day lasts, Mic. 6.7. and do the work which the Father gi­veth to work: Joh. 6.29. This is the work of God, that ye believe in him, whom he hath sent.

But if ye reject this counsell, and like foolish builders refuse this stone of the corner, till that fearfull night shall over­shadow you; then your mouldring bodies must lye by it, and be kept in that smothering prison; while your la­menting souls are agitared and hurried with these condemning and tormenting Furies: There your bodies though of ne're so fine a Job 21.26 Clay, must mix with the course allay of your once oppressed Slaves: The dust of Princes must min­gle with base and mean Peasants: they and their Porters must lodge together: Lords and Beggers know no distance, and what Artist can form his Epitah, by any distinct colour, or grain in their mould? Neither can heaps of Gold bride a fancied Charon, to waft their bodies out of these gloomy regions, these Egyptian shades to any Elysiam meadows of pleasure: The searching [Page 53]brains of the ablest Counsellors can find no flaw in the Writ of Death, nor get any bayl or mainprize from that tedi­ous Gatehouse: Here the Skull of the acutest Thomist through length of time will all dwindle into starvling Moss while he forgets to distinguish its fit season for the Weapon salve: Alas! it won't cure the fractures made by Deaths Pole-Axe: No distinctions can satisfie this cunning sophister to turn the key and release the Prisoner: But here they must all continue and abide in the state of the dead: The ingeni­ous Artificer, can invent no clew to hand him out of this snaring maze, this winding Labyrinth: There's Eccl. 9.10 no invention or judgment, no device, knowledge or wisdome in the grave whither thou goest: 'Tis by the De­cree of the Dan. 4.17 watchers, the time once doom'd and sixt, there's no reversion: He that goes Job 7.9, 10. down into this far Country shall return no more, to his house, nor shall his place know him a­gain: There all sit down in deep silence till the moment appointed by the high and holy One, who inhabits Eternity: Then shall the enemies of his Sons Kingdome, creep out of the dust to shame and everlasting contempt.

But the ashes of his people, their gra­cious Father lays them up in the trea­suries of his wakefull providence, and they shall be his in that day, that Mal. 3.17. he [Page 54]makes up his Jewels, when the joyfull voice of Christ shall gently raise them to that blissfull dawn: when ( [...],) the rosie fingered morn shall blush out of the East, and the Sun of Eternity shall gild their rising Tem­ples for glory.

CHAP. VI. Of the fell Dragons at the further end of the grave.

MEthinks the way through the dark Morisans Travels, p, 113. Grott near Naples, opening to­wards the sulfurous mountains of Vesu­vius, and the stagnant air of Campania bears some resemblance with this close and terrible passage, through the Val­ley of Death: were the terrors many at the entrance, they increase and mul­tiply at the coming forth: There's no hiding, stopping or retreating; when the Reapers are sent forth to gather the Tares Mat. 13.30. together, to bind them in bun­dles and to burn them to ashes: no stately Mausoleums, no Marble Tombs can detain the new-enlivened bodies, when they begin to hear the shrill Ec­choes of the Arch-Angels Trumpet: That acute voice which sounded so oft [Page 55]in the ears of Jerom, Arise ye dead and come to Judgment.

The great doctrin of the Resurrecti­on which vain Athenians derided, now shines forth in its glory: when the bones that were scatter'd at the graves mouth begin to crawl together: See, Ezek 37.8. how the sinews, nerves, and muscles climb up to their proper places, and milk­white skin covers them round about: Here's an admirable spectacle of the imperiall power of God: when so many millions of miracles, shall pro­claim that glorious and fearfull name of the Lord of Hosts: when some dust shall creep up the Banks of Rivers, and o­thers from the depths of the Sea: when that which was mingled with common Earth, or the Sands of the Shore, the Bowels of Fishes, wild Beasts and Can­niballs, shall each Atome return to the structure of their proper Bodies, and all the round Globe over, new-quickned, and living persons start up in every quarter: Methinks the Angells stand gazing at it, and trumpeting forth blessing, Rev. 5.13. Clem. Alex. strom. l. 5. p. 405. honour, glory and power to him that sitteth upon the Throne, and to the Lamb for ever and ever.

That the ancient Heathens had some glimpses of this great point, Euseb. de prepar. E­vang. l. 11. c. 33. & l. 13. c. 13. Clemens Alexandrinus, Eusebius out of Plato and Plutarch, and our Brad­ward. de Caus. Dei l. 1. c. 1. sect. 39. p. 96. Bradwardin out of Pliny, Varro, Plato and Democritus give some evidence: But whence the old [Page 56] Sophies lighted their Torches, and how far they improved their faint and glim­mering twi-light I must not enlarge: nor shew, who rose no higher then Py­thagoras his doctrin of transanimation, out of Porphyry and the Stoick Schools: since we have a more sure word of Prophecy, to which we do well 2 Pet 1.19. to take heed as to a light, shining in a dark place till the Day-star arise in our hearts.

We have here to consider, with what consternation of Spirit, all wicked and ungodly men, shall lift up their heads out of the dust of Death: How bitterly shall their Souls and Bodies greet and rue the day of their sad reunion: These Simeons and Levies, former brethren in evill, now turn mutuall instruments of cruelty in their habitations: Methinks the fore-dooming of that Tragicall Dialogue should fore amuse any rea­sonable creature, To think, how the la­menting body shall wring its hands at the moment of the Souls re-entry: when the Soul it self shall tremble and all the bells of the senses ring backward at this fatall marriage: How do the eyes gush forth with tears in that clou­dy morning, and the whole day over­flown Pro. 27 15 with continuall droppings of a soaking rain, and that with tears of blood, and flaming drops of brimstone. They who were in this life mutuall tempters, shall in that life be mutuall [Page 57] tormenters: O that mortalls would put on Prometheus betimes and be wise be­forehand, and cry out with Jacob, O my Gen. 49.6. Soul come not into their secret, unto their assembly mine honour be not thou united: For both were guilty of self-murder, and that of the deepest grain, the strangling of Souls.

But alas! were the body to rise only, that were its happiness and perfection. Resurrection in its simple notion speaks out the redintegration of nature: The form of the Soul hath a strong and ve­hement appetite after the materiall Bo­dy: It delights in union to perform the native and genuine functions of in­formation: Alas! sinners shall not meerly rise, but must all stand before the Judgment Seat of Jesus Christ, and can there be any thing more horrible to the immagination of a dying sinner, not reconciled to God, then the great and fearfull Tribunall? When God Eccl. 12.14. shall bring every work into judg­ment with every secret thing, whether it be good or evill: When Death rides towards him on a meager and pale Horse; that dismaies him most to spie Judgment galloping after him. Heb. 9.27 Its appointed for all to dye, and rhen to Judgment.

There will a Judg sit down upon a fiery Throne of Carbuncle: who shall not Isay. 11. [...] judg after the sight of his eyes, nor reprove after the hearing of his ears, [Page 58]externall appearance and glittering greatness bribes the understanding: and falfe witness perverts the sentence of an earthly worm: he must go (Secundum allegata & probata) according to proofs and witnesses: But here's a Judg Ib. V. 3. of quick scent in the fear of the Lord: righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins and faithfulness of his reins. (The [...]) Heb. 4.12, 13. the Word essentiall pierces to the dividing of soul and spirit, the joints and marrow; he is a discerner of the thought and intents of the heart: There's not a creature but is manifest in his sight: All things without are na­ked and stript of their vestments, and all things within are cut open by his Razor, and anatomiz'd to the back­bone and spinall marrow before the eyes of him with whom we have to doe.

The eyes of this Judg are Rev. 1.14, &c. as a flame of fire, his feet like fine brasse burning in a Furnace, he treads down and burns up his enemies at once: His voice is as the sound of many waters, who can abide the day of his coming? Out of his mouth flowes a sharp two-edged Sword, and his countenance is like the Sun shining in his strength. Rev. 2.23 He sear­cheth the reins and hearts, and giveth to every one according to their works.

He that sits down on this Judgment Seat, Rev. 4.3, &c. is to look on, like the various and many-vein'd Jasper in the rare di­versity [Page 59]of his excellent and glorious atributes and perfections: like the in­carnate Sardine in taking our flesh upon him, and round about the Throne the enamouring Rain-bow of the Cove­nant, shining like a pleasant green E­merald with all the glittering promises of the Spirit. Upon twenty four Seats encompassing this illustrious Chair of heavenly state, sit the reverend Asses­sors, twenty sour Elders, clothed in white Raiment and Crowns of Gold upon their Heads, according to the twenty four Orders of Priests, attending this great Prince of might, and High-Priest upon Zach. 6.13. his Throne, and between his Princely and his Priestly Dignities, the Counsell of Peace shall stand. Before him burn seven Lamps of Fire, and up­on twelve Brazen Oxen stands a Sea of Glasse like Chrystall: He is endued with the multiformions gifts and graces of the holy Spirit: his hands are alwaies purely washt in Innocency, and round about the Throne in this Majesticall Temple-Session, angelicall Cherubims full of eyes, cry night and day Rev. 4.8. [ Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, V. 5. and is to come] and from out of the Throne proceed lightnings, and thunderings, and voices.

At so radiant and tremendous a Spe­ctacle, in such a glorious and orient Theatre: how can the direfull perse­cutors of the Church look up? O how [Page 60]they creep to the Rocks for some hole some cleft to pitty them, O Nimrod Pharaoh and Nebuchadnezar! O Nero Trojan and Dioclesian, whither will ye run from the face of the Lamb, that sits on the Throne, who with his fulgent Eyes, searches and pierces to the Cen­ter of the Universe. O Pope of Rome and thy cursed Shavelings, Its in vain now to stand poring on Bern. de Consid. ad Eugen f. 237. h. Bernards good monitions to thy stubborn Predecessor, Eugenius. O Bonner and Gardiner, what will become of you and your [...]ccess [...]r [...] for pushing, and goring, and letting out the blood of Saints, all in the Book of Martyrs, Remember James Abbes, and the Fox Mar­tyrs Vol. 3. p. 956, &c. Ed. 1641. Sheriffs Servant at Bury, who rai­ling at that faithfull Martyr, was strook with madnesse and cried out, James Ab­bes is the Servant of God and is saved, but I am damn'd, and inveighed at the Priest that brought him the Hoste, that he and such were the cause of his dam­nation.

Is it so terrible before hand in the presentiments and preaccusations of Conscience, before that great and fear­full Day of the Lord come? What will be the horror of execution, when the blood which is dryed up in prisons as well as drawn forth by whips and flames, shall be weighed to a drop and a grain in the ballance of this righte­ous Judg. So much Rev. 18.7 torment and sor­row give them: Then the Beast shall [Page 61]be taken, and with him that false Pro­phet the Pope, that wrought Miracles before him: Both these shall be cast a­live into the Lake of Fire burning with Brimstone: Then, they that Rev. 14.10, &c. worship the Beast and his Image, and receiv'd his Mark in Hand or Forehead, shall be tormented with Fire and Brimstone in the presence of the holy Angells, and in the presence of the Lamb: the smoak of their torment shall ascend for ever and ever. They shall have no rest day nor night, who ador'd the Beast or his I­mage, or received the Mark of his Name: And this brings me to the last Consideration, and thats Eternity.

The misery of Hell (could I speak it properly) were it to end but a moment on this side Eternity, either in blisse or abatement of pain or compleat annihilation: 'twere a soveraign Cor­diall. The memory of it would be a cooling drop day by day, upon the tongue of every Dives, to keep it from blistering into blasphemy.

But to ponder upon this dreadfull, Ever: and to champ upon it to Eter­nity; its a thousand times more bitter then Wormwood, Aloes or Coloquin­tida. 'Tis to swallow down the wine of astonishment, and to pledg one ano­ther Deut. 30.33. with the poyson of Dragons, and the cruell venome of Aspes.

I dare any wicked man in the world to run on in their follies, with any se­rious [Page 62]apprehensions of Eternity, Clem A­lexandr. Strom. l. 1. p. 222. Edit. Lug. B. or calm convictions of it upon their Spi­rits. Poor Heathens have highly as­serted the Souls immortally, and com­mon reason evinces, that there can be no communion between God and Be­lial, light and darkness can't associate. If the Soul be immortall, and its union to [...]od be the life of the Soul? must it not (when God's absent, & absent for ever from all unholy persons) lye down in Eternall death? He that walketh in light, 1 John 1.6, 7, &c. dwelleth and hath fellowship with the Father, and with the Son: But he that lives and dies in darkness can never come to, or abide in Eternall Light: But must be cast out into utter darkness, where is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.

I know there be such in our daies, or else I should not mention it, who would fain tamper with the false do­ctrin of Origen, and (like his weak Dis­ciples) would perswade themselves, that [...] in the Hebr. and [...] and [...] in the Greek, often note but a stated determination of time, and therefore may be so understood in this case. Poor wretches! will they hazard their all, up­on a pittifull conjecture: a jejune cri­ticism in Grammar and run fool-hardy upon the pikes of divine vengeance and the thick bosses of his Bucklers, under the thin covert of a words acceptation sometimes in that sense in Scripture: [Page 63]when the nature of the matter, and the force of the context obliges: should you not rather deeply weigh and pon­der upon those places: where the dam­nation of the wicked is opposed to the eternall salvation Dan. 12.2 Mat. 25.46. Jude 7, 21, 22. of the Godly. Do you believe eternall life for the Saints? and shall the wicked, who come not in­to a life of grace, shal they after a set race of years be raised to glory? Such as never repent, never close with Christ, never fly to the promise while here; and is there any repentance in the grave or remission of sins? O fool, twice dy­ed in grain, that darest to venture thy Soul upon the punctilio of a word. Nay, is not that very word, [...], used and applyed to the divine Rom. 16.26. Heb. 9.24. Ma­jesty, who inhabits eternity, and dwel­leth in the inaccessible light: Nay, are there not other cogent expressions set­ting out the perpetuity of that estate in misery (where their word is absent: with which they play their lives at stake.) Is there not a dolefull Mat. 5.26. Rev. 1.18. prison, which no man can unlock or break through, or be let forth till he pay the utmost farthing? Is there not a place where the Mark 9.44, 46, 48. worm of Conscience dies not, and the fire shall never be quencht? Are these but dry metaphors? Take heed thy Soul be not the dreadfull fiery comment, that thou sinck not into Luk. 16.26. that great gulf, Riv. 20.3. that bottomless-pit: If thou wilt be Pro. 9.12. wise, be wise for thy self [Page 94]and believe on the Son Joh. 3.36. to everlasting life, he that beliveth not the Son, shall not see life, but the wrath of God abi­deth on him.

O Souls, will you warm your thoughts, and unfreeze your security at that fearfull fire: will you open your eyes at the sight of that horrible dark­ness. Fire that yields, no light and flames, that are thick with darkness. O monstrous misery! A cohabitation with Devills: The Drum of the Ears even tingles, and is broken in pieces, with distracted roarings of men and devills, and yet to see no body. O Souls! will you be warn'd by the noises of these Canons at distance? shall that insati­able thirst and gnawing worm well view'd in the glasse of divine threatnings provoke you to mend? Or will you stay rather, till you feel the loins of wrath in its unsupportable burden, and then cry out to late? Alas thy Consci­ence then at every turn will dun thy Soul, with that of Abraham to Luk 16.25. Dives O Son remember, &c. Remember the many holy Sabbaths, the pretious Ser­mons, the earnest zeal of painfull Mi­nisters to pull thee as a firebrand out of the fire: Remember the good examples, the pious presidents, the melting ad­monitions, the sore afflictions and fa­therly visitations of God. Remember me, thy now sweltring Conscience, that shook the often by the Collar, that [Page 65]scared thee to some duties, and gave thee many a warm Item of this wrath to come: Remember how thou scoffedst at puritans and mourners for sin. Remem­ber that good spirit that cried to thee, Return, return, harden not t [...]y heart, hearken while 'tis called to d [...]y. But now vain is the hope or mercy: vain to lift up the bitterest cries, thou shalt find no place for repentance in the breast of God, Heb. 12.17. no change in his minde, though thou seek it carefully with t [...]ars. The day of thy blessing is past. Now the hope of the hypocrite is cut off, [...]nd swept down like a Spiders Web. Now thou hast no rest from this angry teazd Vulture, that knaws thy Liver night and day: And that which puts the bloody and circumflex accent, the abiding tone upon all thy maladies: They are Eter­nall, who can dwell with Is. 33.14. everlast­ing burnings, who will set Is. 27.4. briars and thorns against him in Battail? who can enter the Lists and contend with con­suming fire, when it shall devour before him and be very Is. 50.3. tempestuous round about him: when he shall shew Is 30.3, 31. the lighting down of his arm with the in­dignation of his anger, with the flame of a devouring fire, with scattering, and tempest, and hailstones: When the pile of Tophet shall be fire, and much wood, and the breath of the Lord like a stream of Brimstone shall kindle it?

These are the fiery Serpents (the Ha­seraphim) [Page 66]the Devills, the fell Dragons that gape with open mouth, that hisse with inflamed tongues, and pour out floods of venome, at the further end of the grave upon every impenitent sin­ner.

O that the terror of the Lord would perswade men to take hold of his arm, to makepeace with him, and to be Job 22.21. at rest. O that I could rowze vain man from the lap of pleasure. Will ye sleep on the Pro. 23.34. top of a Mast, in such a rowling and [...]umbling tempest, when every whist may tosse you into the deeps of Hell? Be wise at last, if possible, and shale off your senseless slumbers: O hard heat that tremblest not at the rattling of his Chariots, when he clotheth the necks of his Horses, with thunder a­gainst thee as in the day of Battail. Thats a hard heart which is not frigh­td at it self, and what will be the event? Ask not me, saies Bern ad Eugen. f. 237. a. Bernard, but ask Pharaoh: Be instructed by the Egyptian Carkasses on the shore of the Red-sea. Will you learn to Ps. 2.12. kisse the Son lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way? when his wrath is kindled but a little: O when it flames all a broad, how ter­rible is it? The flames of London were but painted fire to this. That suckt up houses, but this Mat. 10.3. immortall Souls.

But where's the Remedy? O kisse the Son lest he be angry: O blessed Son! O gracious Saviour, that's I. 2.12. angry, if he [Page 67]be not kist; and griev'd if he be not loved: He loves Pro. 8.17▪ 36. them that love him: and complains, that they wrong their own Souls, and love death, that hate him.

Vile Sinners! we are angry with him because he calls for love, who needs not care for't: lets be angry with our selves, because we give it not: He's angry with sinners, that Sinners kisse him not. V. 3. Such as cast away the cords of his Laws, he casts about them the cords of his love. And must such sinners kisse him? yes! they kisse the creatures, why not him? he made our hearts, he loves our hearts and chides to have them. 'Tis a jealous love, no waters quench, but such as freely run into it.

Here's loving anger and wrath in grace, he fights with kind anger, that he may embrace with love. 'Tis the heat of love that kindles his anger, but if neglected, 'twill blaze into a flame. His love hastens us with the voice of anger: that the fire of his anger consume us not: His anger calls us from his an­ger, but not to his anger, but to his love. His mouth checks us that we may kiss it, and his heart is moved for us, that we may move into it: when anger warns, 'tis loving anger: but love too long abused kindles the flame of wrath. If so much love in this holy anger to bring us to him: what manner of love in those blessed kisses, when we come. [Page 68]Let's then love his anger and kiss his love: For happy are all they that put their trust in him. Ps. 2.12.

You that are living, hearken to his anger that ye may never feel it, lay this love to heart, and consider its latter end. This love will gather the Saints toge­ther, and set apart the godly, the kind Ps. 4.3. [...] Benignus. in heart Ps. 50.4. that love him, for himself: For such have made an everlasting covenant of Salt with him by sacrifice.

CHAP. VII. Of a Saints Comforts, against all the Evills in Death..

I Will fear no evill, saies David: For thou art with me, thy crook and thy staffe, they comfort me.

Here are evills great and manifold in this Valley of Death: evills to be feared and trembled at, but not by a David. A Saint will fear no evill: what David, no evill? not the evill of losse nor the evill of sense, Anacepha­laeosis. not the parting from many sweet injoyments, not the curse of the Law, thundering from Si­nai, and lightning from Ebal, not the conflicts of conscience, nor the darts of Satan, not the pangs of sickness, nor [Page 69]the pangs of death▪ not the mouldring dust, nor unsavory stench, not the hi­deous darkness, nor the tedious night of the grave, as you may perceive by the foregoing Chapters. O valiant Da­vid! when God stands by thee: what, do'st thou not stagger at the doctrin; nor fear the event of thy resurrection to Judgment, not the strictness of that awfull Judg, nor his doomfull sentence, nor the long face or silver hairs of Eter­nity? No, no! David will fear no e­vill, and here's his Cordiall. For thou art with me: thy crook and thy staffe, they comfort me.

He fears no evill, because God is with him: He fears God, and therefore nought but God. I'le forewarn you whom ye shall fear, Luk. 12.5. sayes our Lord, fear him, who after he hath kil'd, hath power to cast into Hell: yea, I say unto you, fear him. The filiall fear of God expells the tormenting fear of death and hell it self. Holy David with one God in his hand encounters and vanquishes every evill, and scatters the fear of evill. Let the King of Terrors muster his Forces and order his Troops in Battalia: The shadow of death to David is but the shadow of evill. Though Ps. 3.6. ten thousand Curiassiers run upon him atilt with envenom'd and poysoned spears, Ps. 4.8. he layes him down in the bosome of God, he sleeps in peace; For thou Lord makest him to [Page 70]rest in safety. The Job 26.11. Pillars of Heaven tremble and are astonisht at his reproof, who keeps a Saint in his arms. Hee'll scourge the black Tents of Hab. 3.7. Mat. 27.54. Cushan with affliction, and the pale Curtains of this Land of Midian, like the Souldiers at our Lords Sepulchre, shall tremble to detain a Saint in the grave; For he that keepeth Israel Ps. 121.3. shall neither slumber nor sleep: hee'l awaken him in due time in the resurrection morning, to enter the Courts of Glory.

David saies not: I shall not dye, and therefore I will not fear: But though I dye, I will not fear, for thou art with me. Be the waters of Kidron never so deep: the fire of Tophets Valley never so quick and furious: Ps. 40.2. the pit of Mo­loch never so dark and obscure: God hath secured my heart from fear, because he is with me: Isay 43.2. The waters shall not drown, nor the fire burn, nor the pit swallow. The power and wisdome, the mercy and truth of God encircle the faith of a Saint, he dyes Heb. 11.13. kissing and embracing the promises, and like good old Simeon taking Christ in his arms: he tunes his Swanlike L k. 2.28 29. Sonner, and sings himself asleep at the mouth of the grave.

Thou art with me: For thou art mine. A God in Covenant guides to death and receives to glory. Other friends take leave at death: Here's a friend like Ruth Ruth 1.16. goes through with the [...] to Cana­an: [Page 71]Others shake hands at the grave, they weep with Orpah and depart: This friend takes thy spirit into his Luk. 23.46. hands immediately, and keeps thy body in his privy Is. 26 20. chamber of presence. God is the God of Abraham even in the grave. God Mat. 22.32. is not the God of the dead, but of the living: God is the God of whole Abraham, therefore Abraham is alive to God, his immortall soul is alive with God: his precious dust is alive to God: and therefore Abrahams body shall arise to glory: 'Tis in his keeping, who keepeth all the Ps, 34.20. bones of his Saints, not one of them is broken: and to mor­row (I mean at the resurrection of the just) all their Ps. 35, 10. bones shall say, Lord who is like unto thee? Josephs bones are embalm'd for heaven, and lye in a more magnificent Tomb then Egyp­tian Pyramids, and Gen. 50.25. Exod. 3.19. Josh. 24.32. Heb. 11.22. follow the Ark to Canaan. Does the Father take care of his childrens bones? what chest do they sleep in? with Is. 26.19. my dead body, saies Christ, in the Cedar Chest of the Co­venant. What? doe they sleep in the arms of his own beloved Son? yes, they 1 Thes. 4.14. sleep in Jesus, and shall rise with Jesus: They are baptized into his death, V. 14. and buried in his grave, and brought in the clouds together with him. The same new Tomb, the same Fine Linnen, the same Spices, the same Angels for a Saviour, and for his Saints. Little did Joseph of Arimathea, think [Page 72]that he embalmed the whole body my­sticall of Christ, and wrapt the Saints together with him in the same Joh. 20 7 Napkin, but so he did, by reason of their com­munion with him.

But does the Father and the Son like­wise take such heavenly care of dying Simeons? and is the Spirit of Grace at a distance from the bodies of Saints, which are his p Temples? No such matter! though there were not a stone of these Temples lying upon another, yet the Spirit will rear them up. The Spirit of God is at work in the grave of a Saint: If the 1 Cor. 6.19. spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead, dwell in you. He that raised up Christ from the dead, shall also quicken your mortall bodies by his spirit that dwelleth in you. So then, well may a Saint with holy Jacob Ro. 8.11. gather up his feet into his bed and sweetly fall a sleep. For the Father keeps him, the Son lies by him, and the Spirit quickens him: All heaven will come down to the grave of a Saint, and not wake their beloved, till Gen. 49.33. the day break and the shadows flee away, then up he gets to the mountains of Myrrhe and to the Hills of Frankincense. Song. 6.4.

But to follow David: its worth tra­cing the footsteps of David: nay the footsteps of God with David in this Valley: Therefore he fears not, for God is with him: lets listen to his Harp and learn the Ditty. Methinks [Page 73]I hear five principall Songs of spirituall consolation for a dying Saint.

1 An Experimental feeling of the di­vine presence. For thou art with me: Da­vid ha's it and David feels it, and there­fore speaks it: 'Tis his safety to have it, his joy to feel it, and his love to speak it; the having of God at death carries us to heaven safely; the feeling it, wings us thither, and makes us sing of it to others, when we are flying.

2 A holy Appeal to God in Prayer, David must now be supposed upon his knees, praying, harping, singing, for thou art with me: All the joyfull Pray­ers of a Saint end with Songs, and the Songs with this Epiphonema; this bur­den, shall I call it? No! this Diapsalma, this Selah, this Diapason, this Close upon all the Strings, For thou art with me.

3 A Saint in Covenant, and a Saint knowing it, may dye sweetly: Tis a strong Cordiall, 'twill sweat away death: For thou art with me, and whats the reason; For thou art mine; He that can prove, that God is his, may sweet­ly inferre that God is with him. God's with none but who are his: But they that are so, and know it so, shall fear no evill: For God makes them Act. 2.28 full of joy with his countenance.

4 Divine Relation is a Saints Sanctu­ary. Fly to this holy Tower and thou art safe. The Lords Ps. 23.1. my shepherd, I shall not want a full Table, trickling [Page 74]Oil, a running Cup are Davids portion. Such a child that hath a God to his Fa­ther, V. 5 fears no want. Such a Lamb, that hath a God to his Shepheard, fears no evill. His crook and his staffe shall com­fort him: Here's green Pastures and pleasant Rivers in the very Valley of Death.

5 Faiths prospect of Heaven transports a Saint, He sees Deaths Valley: but 'tis a Gilden Vale. 'Tis a narrow Valley, he leaps it over with his Shepheards staffe: Faiths eyes are strong and its legs nimble: He takes his rise from the pro­mise, and no sooner dies, but is over Kidron: At death carnall mens eyes are dim, no spectacle, no optick Glasse can help them to spie Jerusalem. A Saint like Moses hath Deut. 34.7. strong eyes, nor is his natural moisture fled. He stands up­on the Pisgah of his own Tomb, and sees crosse the whole Land of Canaan, to the utmost, V. 2. even the Mediterranean Sea. Others at death, how feeble are Eccl. 12.3 the knees of their Souls? their hands the keepers of their house tremble, and their thigh-bones the strong men bow them­selves. But the feeblest of the inhabi­tants of Zion, (I speak of such as stand [ in specula visionis Zach. 12.8] in the watch-tower of Faith, and look through the glasse of assurance) they shall be as David in that day, and the house of David shall be as God, as the Angell of the Lord before them: As David! but why as [Page 75] David? Sure, strong was the faith and piercing the eye of David, that saw glory so clearly through all the thick Fogs & Mists of the Valley: 'Twas God was with him that cleared his eyes, and pointed with his hands as he did to Moses, and Deut. 34.1, 4. caused him to see it. But neither Moses nor Aaron must enter, to shew that the ceremoniall no nor the morall Law can't waft us over the Brook to Canaan. But David, the Prince of the new Covenant, he shall tread down the Cananites, and on his head shall his Crown flourish: David the Subject had Daved the Ps. 84.3. King with him: David the Servant had David the Son: the Son of Jesse had the Son of God for Ps. 110.1. his Lord and Captain. And whose Faith shall not flowre by Christs watering? and whose fear shall not wither at his pre­sence: who fears death when this Shep­herd sustains? who fears his arriving to Heaven, if a God, if a God in Cove­nant, if my God and my Father lead me. Thou art now with me, saies Da­vid, I'le not fear, for shortly I shall be with thee: Gods with us here: but we are with him in heaven: here drops of Heaven slide into us, there we shall swim in heavens Ocean: Here a little of the oil of joy trickles into our hearts from Ps. 133.2. the head of Christ: there we shall Mat. 25.21. enter into the fulness of our Lord and Masters joy: here it enters into us, and there we enter into it. But [Page 76]still by virtue of his presence, thou art with me, and the vigor of his conduct, thou shalt lead me: Thou art with me to bring me to thee: Thy Crook and thy Staffe they comfort me, and why? For they protect and guide me to thy holy Hill, and to thy Tabernacles. Thou wilt shew me the path of life: At Ps. 16.11. thy tight hand are pleasures for evermore: of all these five, I hope to treat in their order; If God permit.

CHAP. VIII. Experimentall feelings of the Di­vine presence, choice Comforts to a Saint at Death.

THou hast made known unto me the wayes of life: and what fol­lowes? Thou Act. 2.28. shalt make me full of joy from thy countenance. Gods face darts one beam of light on the path of a Saint, to shine upon his way to glory: another beam (and thats of joy) upon the heart of a Saint, to oil his motion. And all but beams: yet warming beams and experienc'd beams to hasten him to the Sun it felf. A Saint ha's now but beams of joy, and blessed be God for beams, and such beams as direct and [Page 77]attract to the Sun it self, to that Sun of joy, to that fulness of joy in his coun­tenance: Saints look unto him and their Ps. 34, 5. faces are enlightned, our looking to God makes us look like him and the neerer to him, the more we are like him Gods countenance is of a changing and transforming nature: When God lookt upon Moses but through a chinck: how did his face shine, how lovely was it, as well as glorious? God smiles on a Saint in love, and a Saint reflects upon God with joy.

But Saints have not only good looks from God, but free entertainment. He maketh me to lye down in green pa­stures, he leadeth me beside the still wa­ters, he restoreth my soul, he leadeth me in paths of righteousness for his Names sake: oh! how the cool Etesian gales from the rivers of the spirit in or­dinances revive and refresh a Saint: The experience of present mercies di­spells the fears of future evills: I will fear no evill for thou art with me: God never forsakes a soul in covenant, never withdraws his reall (though sometimes his visible) communion. I foresaw the Lord alwaies Act. 2.2 [...] 27. before my face: there­fore my heart rejoices &c. because thou wilt not leave my soul in the grave. By nature Gods not with us: but when once the day spring from on high doth visit us, grace never sets in an evening, whether we sleep or wake we are still with God.

[Page 78]Here's the point, to know aright; that God is with us: and we with him. Whether we have walkt with God and he with us. If Enoch walk with God then God will take him: He that walks with God, pleases God: Gen. 5.24. The Septuagint render the Hebrew word for walking, by pleasing God, and the Spirit of God delights in the word [ [...]] and uses the same Heb. 11.5. when treating of Enoch in the New Testa­ment to shew what pleasure God takes in them, that walk with him.

If we walk with God, we have fel­lowship and communion with him. God 1 Joh. 1.6, 7. is light, and if we walk in light we walk with him: Light is holiness: and a holy person walks in light and dwells in God: lets not spot our gar­ments, and we shall walk with him in white Rev. 3.4. The fine linnen of holiness a­las, what Saint doth keep it clean: we must wash it daily in the Laver of the Spirit, or else no company for a holy God: The best of our linnen is but course and yellow: its well if it be sin­cere and true: but then it shall shine with raies of glorious light, and be la­ced and beautified with admirable gifts: The Queen Ps. 45.14. shall be brought unto him in raiment of needlework at the wed­ding day. Now 'tis soiled with many a drop and many a foul spot: but then as pure as God would have it. Now, the mores the pitty, 'tis patcht and ragged: [Page 79]many a Saint is out at heels in his holi­ness, he walks disorderly and uncomely. But then we shall have new Coats fine linnen, clean and white, Rev. 19, 8. and change of Raiment from our elder bro­ther. Benjamin Gen. 45.22. shall be fine indeed, when he sits at the Table of the Ruler of Canaan: 'Tis holiness fits us for Table communion in heaven: 'tis porch communion in grace that brings us neer it: hast thou never walkt with God in the porch? thou shalt never sit down at the Luk. 22.30. Table of Christ and drink the new wine of the King­dome.

2 Again, As God walks in the light of holiness: he walks also in the holy Place of his Temple, God delights in his Ordinances, in his pure worship: We walk with God, when our hearts are in communion with him in Ordi­nances. His paths are in the Sanctuary there's his Lam. 2.1. footstool and there his go­ings: He Rev. 2.1. walks among the golden Candlesticks: In the Temple all talk of his glory, while he sits at the Table of grace, and the Song. 1.11 Spikenard sendeth forth the smell thereof; There he hath Ps 133.3. commanded the blessing and life for evermore.

Walking, in Scripture when applyed to God in communion with Saints, is exprest three severall waies: Before God, with God, and after God.

To walk before God (among others) [Page 80]one speciall sense is, (that we are now upon) to walk in pure and holy wor­ship. Coming up to the Temple is cal­led a coming up 1 King. 14 9. before God, our ap­pearing, Ps. 56.13. sitting, 1 Sam. 2.30, 35. Ps. 100.2, &c. Ezek. 33.31. walking and abiding before him. h And Jerohoam is branded on the account of false worship, that he cast God behind his back. As God commands his people, they shall have no other Gods before him; So he for­bids any other worship then he hath in­stituted, to serve himself with: For he is Exod. 20.5. a jealous God: his eyes do see quickly Exod. 32.8., and his jealousie will Dent. 29.18, 20. smoak fiercely against such a man and all the curses in the Book shall lye upon him, and the Lord will blot his name from under heaven. Bold and sawcy is that silly worm that presumes to chalk out a worship for the living God.

To walk with God, is to walk in his wayes, in his statutes and command­ments to do them: to eye his directi­ons, to feel and turn about with every guide of his hand. We must Ps. 119. choose his precepts for our way, and we shall have him for company: and is the way so holy, and our God so holy? then blessed is the man: thats holy and unde­filed in such a way, Ps. 119.1. and in such heavenly company. The Hos. 14.9. wayes of the Lord are right: the just shall walk in them: but transgressors shall fall therein. Every holy duty is a rock of offence, and a [Page 81]stone of stumbling to a carnall heart, he trips and stumbles and falls and rises no more: But an upright heart, and an upright way, meet pleasantly with an Ps. 25.8. upright Lord, that teaches sinners in the way, and guideth the week in judgment: Pro. 11.20. Such as are upright in the way, are his delight, he takes pleasure in the path and person.

To walk Deut. 13.4 after God, is to choose God for our Captain and Leader: to make him our example, president and con­duct. The Israelites followed the cloud of Gods presence by day, and the pil­lar of Fire by night, in the howling Wilderness of Arabia, till they came to Canaan. When the Num. 9.17. cloud was taken up, then Israel journied, and where the cloud abode, there they pitched their Tents: Saints must be imitators Deu. 1.36 Josh. 14.8, 9. of Caleb and Joshuah, to follow the cloud of the divine presence fully: and this is the Churches prayer Ps. 80.2. before Ephraim Benjamin and Manasseth stir up the Ark of thy Strength, march before us to lead and save us: A holy and per­fect God goes before, and a holy and perfect People follow after: Be Mat. 5.48 ye perfect as your heavenly Father is per­fect: be ye holy in all manner of con­versation; For 'tis written Pet. 1.15, 16. be ye holy as I am holy: Not to come up to it, but to come after it; not to equall but to eye and imitate. O perfect copy! the more a Saint looks at it, the more [Page 82]he mends his hand: O the rare strokes in this pattern of holiness! that ena­mours the eye to behold, and quickens the hand to imitate: As he is, so are we 1 Job. 4, 17. in this world: as he walkt 1 Joh. 2.6 so ought we: So should we Lord! and by thy heavenly conduct so would we: Let Saints consider, how Christ walkt: how obediently to the Father, how ten­derly to the brethren, how mortified to the worlds vanities. When thy thoughts are tempering, or thy tongue upon the string: thy hand or thy foot hastning to action: stop one moment, consider, would Christ do this, Eph. 5.1. and be followers of God as dear children.

3 Thirdly, As God walks in holiness, and in the Sanctuary of Ordinances: So he delights to walk among a holy People: he Zeph. 3.17 rejoyces over them with joy, he rests in his love, and joyes over them with singing: When Zion shines in holiness, she shall be a Crown of glory in the hand of the Lord, and a royall Diadem in the hand of her God: She shall no more be termed Forsaken, nor her land desolate: But her own name shall be Isa. 62.4. Hephzi-bah and her Lands name Beulah: For the Lord de­lighteth in her, and her land shall be mar­ried. The joy and delight of God is in a people like himself, with such he will dwell, rejoyce over them, 2 Cor. 6.16, 16. above the joy of harvest, and walk in them for ever. Pro. 8.17. I love them that love me, saies [Page 83] Wisdome, and who seeks me early shall find me: Love sets the heart a seeking and the more we love him, we seek the earlier. I sought yea Song. 3.1. by night, him whom my soul lov'd. Night-searchers are Christ-finders, a holy heart seeks a holy Saviour, and a holy Lord delights to be found by it: Christ absents, not for want of love to us, but to inflame our love to him: he loves Song 2.9, 14. to stand behind the wall, and to hear our moa­ning after him; to look out at the 2.9. win­dow of heaven, and takes pleasure to see our wandrings about to find him, and sends Isa. 30.2 [...] his holy spirit to whisper to us, where he is.

Art thou like Christ? Dost thou de­light in Song 2.14 hearing the voice, and seeing the face and changing breaths in con­versing with Saints? Does the blood of David run in thy Veins? Does thy goodness, thy kindess, extend to Saints on earth, to those Ps. 16.2, 3 excellent ones, more excellent Prov. 12.26. then their neighbour? Is thy delight in these Princes of the daughters of Zion, these Ps. 45.16. Princes in all the Earth. God calls Zion his Hephzi-bah my delight is in her: Dost thou call the Suns of Zion, thy Hephzibam? My delights in them. So David did, Ps. 16.3. Col-Hephzibam, All my delights in them. All his delight: All his time and all his parts, all his estate, and all his affe­ctions are spent with God and Saints: With his good will, he could spend all [Page 84]his dayes in the Courts of Gods house and society of Israelites, that come up to worship. Art thou one of these? then all these are thine: because thou art Christs, thy heart's in them, and one day in their company is a little heaven: For what makes heaven? Ps. 84.7. but a purer and a longer communion with God and Saints. Why did David so long and pant to dwell in Gods house? that he calls it, his Ps 27.4. [...] one thing, his one, his only, his darling, his choice petition? chiefly! to Ps. 27, 4. behold the amenities, the pleasant­nesses, the beauties of the Lord, and to inquire in his Temple, to tast the 36.8. fat­ness of his house, the fat sacrifices of the peace-offerrings with God. God had his part and the Priest his, and the Saint his. In Lev. 7.14.15, &c. the old Sacrifices all the fat C. 3.16. was the Lords: but in the spiritual sacrifices, all the Isa. 25.6. Ps. 63.5. fat is a Saints at the Gospell mountain: when the cloth is spread for the feast of fat things, of fat things full of marrow, when the wine's mingled, and Pro. 9.2. the rable's furnisht, and Wisdome cries, Song 5.1. Eat O friends and drink abundantly O beloved.

But this is not all, (yet more then all besides) though David love God above all, seeks him before all, and loves Zion for finding God there: yet the Saints he loves too, and therefore delights to go to Zion to meet the multitude, that kept holy feasts in Ps. 42.4. the courts of God. [ Hamon Turba tripudians. chogag,] To rejoyce with the [Page 85]multitude of dancers, and hear the joy­full Ps. 89.15 sound: where they are still Ps. 84.4. prai­sing him and Ps. 145.11, 12. talking of his power: They sing of his righteousness, his mighty acts and the glorious majesty of his Kingdome.

Whereas the man that pleads his name in Zion Court-roll; he thats Ps. 87.5, 7 born there, delights to be there among the Sin­gers and Players on Instruments: he loves the Songs of Zion; For all his Springs are in Zion, and stream from the God of Zion: Would you sind a Saint or would you find your self to be so? look in the Courts of Zion: in pure Ordinances with a pure God do all true Saints converse. Do'st thou enquire for the Song 1.7, 8. foot-steps of the flocks of his com­panions. Perhaps the Fathers flock, the little chosen flock of Christ, is with his son Moses, some faithfull Shepheard in the Exod. 3.1, 2. back-side of a Desert coming to the mountain of God, and there see Vi­sions of the flaming Bush and the An­gell of the Covenant in it? Do'st thou delight where Christ does feed, though in secret and retired corners, and hol­dest communion with Saints there? 'Tis not glittering pomp of outward services that takes the heart of a Saint: that's the mark of a Roman strumpet. Joh. 420 2 King 16.11. Altare a­mascenum. To worship in spirit and truth: not in gaudy Gerizims or stately Samaritan Temples, not to burn incense on Al­tars like those of Damascus: but in na­ked [Page 86]and plain simplicity of the Gospel lies the beauty and glory and ornament of the true Church. Divine institutions: not a tittle beyond them of mens inven­tion, please a holy heart. A true Con­vert alwaies inquires after purity of wor­ship; like the woman Joh 4.20. of Samaria, when Christ was working upon her heart, is very inquisitive and busie about the truth of worship and Christ as ready and clear in answers. Art thou a walker with God? thou walkst then and con­versest with him, and with holy Saints in holy worship.

But is thy delight in vain Compani­ons: that's an ill token. Dost thou fan­cy and rellish Mat. 15.9. vain worship, and set­test in the assemblies of superstitious Zealots. Its a bad omen of a car­nall heart, and an ignorant head. A mans company shews his moralls: and a Saints, his graces. Where our treasure is, there our heart and love, and communion lies. A vain habit and a vain gesture, and vain discourse with vain and trifling spirits are the Sign-Posts, that hang out from an empty and a vain heart. Do'st thou bowl a­way thy time, shoot away thy seasons, and bett away thy precious hours a­mong the wasters of the day of grace? I fear thy profession is rotten at core. David argues his integrity before God, in not having sat Ps. 26.4. with vain persons. nor having gone in with dissemblers [Page 87]or 35.16. with hypocritall mockers in Feasts. But that he was a Companion Ps. 119.63. of all such as feared the Lord and kept his Pre­cepts. Sheep do not use to company with hogs, and lye down in the mire together, you never saw Doves feeding upon Carrion with Crows and Ravens. Such, whom thou perceivest by a spi­rituall instinct and expectest to sing with thee in heaven; do thou company with, pray, hear, conferre and converse with, here upon earth? I need not bid thee: If gracious, the magnetisme, the Loadstone of holiness will draw and allure thee. The perfume of that pre­cious ointment, its fragrant aromaticall smell, will attract thy society by a spi­rituall naturality. Those that are 1 Joh 4.7. born of God love the Brethren.

To issue this: If thou findest inward solace and pleasure:

• 1 1. In a holy con­versation.
• 2 2. In pure Ordinances. And
• 3 3. In gracious Saints: Its evident, thou walkest hand in hand with God: And by experience thou shalt feel both warmth, conduct and sustentation from that holy hand.

He infuses lively spirits for motion, directs thee in a straight way to the Land of uprightness, and upholds thee from dashing thy foot a­gainst any stone of stumbling; For thou lovest his Law, Psal. 119 165. and nothing which God does to thee, shall offend thee.

These tokens plainly manifest, that God is with thee: but dost thou feel it? [Page 88]Can'st thou say it from an in war warmth influenced into thy Soul, by sitting under the Ps. 91.4. Feathers of the Al­mighty, under the wings of the Cherubims in his holy Oracle? Art rhou warm'd by Ordinances, and inflamed in thy affections to God, and through a holy, cherishing, vitall heat? Can'st say with David, thou art with me? then humbly infer I will fear no evill. He that walks in Ps. 89.15 the light of Gods face, and under the warmth of his wings: no evill frights him, no Lion in the way turns him aside from the paths of holiness. A righteous man under the sense of the flowings in upon him, of the righteous­ness of Christ, is as bold as a Lion, and makes all the beasts of the forrest trem­ble. He playes with that huge Job 41.2.5. Levia­than of Death, as with a Bird, and bores his jaw with a thorne: The head of this Ps. 74.14. Crocodile, is meat for his Soul in the wilderness: he spreads a banquet for his companions, and parts him a­mong his spirituall merchants: he makes a gain of death, and feeds upon the Destroyer. For 1. Cor. 3.21. death is his, because he is Christs and Christ is Gods. He carries the Rev. 2.17. white stone of absolution in his bosome, and fears not the day of Judgment. Christ is Gal. 1.16. revealed in him and so shall his glory. The Col. 1.27. Eph. 3.17. dwelling of Christ in his heart by faith, is not only the bode of glory, but roots and grounds him in love, and inlarges his [Page 89]Soul to comprehehend with all Saints the interminable bounds, the unmea­surable dimensions, the unintelligible knowledge of the love of Christ, till he be filled with all the fulness of God. Though as yet he sees not Christ by the eye of sense: yet he is enamour'd with him by the eye of love from the optick nerve of Faith, and 1 Pet. 1.8 rejoices with joy unspeakable and full of glory. A Saint cannot conceive the greatness of Christs love nor utter the exuberancy of his own joy. As the love of Christ flowes in: so his joy swells, overflowes and tides it into the bosome of Christ: He is as full of heaven as he can hold and is ready to take his Phoenix-flight upon the wing of an extasie into Paradise.

But wheres the Saint, that injoyes such heavenly feelings of the presence of God? Did we search our experi­ments to feel our feelings, and tast our tastings of God? More would find the Well and drink the waters of assurance,

Hast thou a Well of living waters within thee and ne're a Bucket? A Fountain, and ne're a Bason of Medi­tation: Be a worthy Souldier of Gi­deon, Judg. 7.5, 6. lap with the hand of Faith Bochart. de animal. parti col. 674. ha­sten and conquer the Midian of tenta­tion: O how it strengthens the nerves, inspirits, and puts a new life in the si­news [Page 90]of these Champions of valour to fight the Lords Battails: A sense, a tast of the waters of divine love makes a conquering Saint: Like Sampson at death, slayes all his Philistins, destroyes their God and their Temple together: What the touch of God upon the heart is, may be better felt then exprest, and what ye can express, none understands but he that feels: None hear these U­nison strokes, but Virgin-Souls that have learnt Rev. 14.3 the Song of the Lamb: No stranger intermedles with a Prov. 14 10. Saints bitterness at first conversion. nor the sweet fruit of joy in assurance: These spices grow in the Song 4 12 enclosed garden, bitter are they in the root and taste at first: but send forth a fragrant scent when pounded in the Mortar of Medi­tation: These waters flow from a Fountain sealed, like the head of Ni­lus, but at length by their nitrous streams impregnate all the champion plains of the Soul with fertile and teeming joyes: A Saint distills them into Spirits of consolation and then like an expert Chymist circulates all his duties and graces in the closed glasse of experi­ence at the Sun of Gods countenance into an oyl of joy. 'Tis etheriall and volatile, and comforts all that mourn: 'I is fragrant wine and highly balsami­call fit for a sick beloved: it Song 7.9 goes down sweetly, causing the lips of those that are asleep, to speak.

[Page 91]The love of God is a glorious ob­ject, seen by the eyes of the Soul turn'd inward: Experience is like the chry­stalline humour, through which, and Medi­tation is like the tunica Spigel. A­nat. fol. p. 301. & Bartholin. 80. p. 351 Ed Lug. B. 1651. retina, the Net­work-Coat of the Eye, upon which the various kinds and species of divine love are cleerly discern'd: Like as the cu­rious varieties of all manner of objects are brought into darkned rooms by convex glasses: So 'tis with a Saint in the private room of contemplation when his glasse is placed in the roof of his Soul, and all worldly objects are shut out, a heavenly heart lets in only the ad­mirable things that come from above. All thats in Heaven flowes in, and paints the Chambers of the Soul like Solomons Temple within, and adorns a holy heart in lively colours with Palm-Trees and Cherubims: The Queen is all glori­ous Psal. 45.13. within: Her clothing of wrought Gold from the Isle of Ophir, her gar­ments of Phrygian Needlework: But all these ornaments beautifie the heart within: The Kings Song 7.5. Galleries, within the Soul, are hung with the Arras of Grace, and Tapistry Stories of Gods love from Election to Salvation, from Heaven to Heaven: Lift up your heads ye everlasting Ps. 24.9. dores, that the King of glory may enter, and there Song 7.12 re­ceive his loves.

Naked innocency and godly simpli­city, holy integrity and unblameable [Page 92]purity of life, are a Saints outward or­naments, the choicest lustre, and radian­cy shines in the presence Chamber: The Soul that has it, beholds it with un­satiable delight, enjoyes it, and is even inebriated and scarce it self, with the pleasant draughts of this cordiall Ne­ctar: It drinks abundantly of this ho­ly anodyne to asswage its sorrows: The joyes of Heaven pour'd in from the golden cup of assurance is a choice opiative against death: It perverts not, but exalts the intellectualls and tran­slates a Saint in a trance to glory.

Hast thou then any spirituall senses, & are they f e [...]ercised to discern both good and evill: Heb. 5.14 Canst thou tast the bitter evill of death in the forbidden fruit, and cure that mortall gust with the Rev. 2.7. Tree of Life, in the midst of the Paradise of God: Eph. 1.21, 2. Hath the h Head of Principa­lities and Powers, commanded away the Cherubims with their flaming Swords from the gates of Eden: Has the Prince of Life called thee to feed upon that i medicinall fruit, Rev. 22.2 to live for ever? Has thy Soul relisht the sweet­ness of the water of the chrystalline Ri­ver of Life? Does it flow so fast upon thy Palate with its unspeakable varie­ties and admirable changes of all man­ner of delicious tastes, that thy spirituall sancy is uncapable to keep pace with, much less to unfold and express its pleasure: Here are sweet waters stoln [Page]from heaven, that the world knows not, and hidden Manna that even many dis­ciples Joh. 4.32 taste not: The waters come down from the Rev. 22.1 throne of God and of the Lamb: They spring from the Fountain of the Fathers divine electi­on, and his eternall Covenant with the Lamb, and run between the Banks of the Incarnation and Passion in chry­stall streams: Hast thou tasted 1 Pet. 2. [...] that the Lord is gracious? Tell me, O Soul, is he not sweet? And so sweet, that thy tongue can't hold but passionately invite others to come Psal. 34.8 taste, and see: Is not the Manna, the Joh. 6.35. Bread of Life, which Christ gives, suited to every de­sire and longing appetition of a Saints Palate? Is not his Song 2.3. fruit sweet to thy taste? Do not the Apples comfort thee, when thou eat'st them under his shadow with great delight? To them that be­lieve he is 1 Pet, 2.7. h. 3. precious, sayes Peter, If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gra­cious: A gracious Lord is a precious Lord, and a tasted Lord is a sweet Lord: Speak true, O Soul, didst ever taste so choice a sweetness, or lay thy lips to such Song 6.11 Pomegranats as grew in this gar­den: The Song 7.12 & 2.13. flower of the Vine by its smell allures, by its taste captivates the senses and even overcomes the spirits of a Saint: Its said of the spicy moun­tains of Arobia the happy, that the ga­therers are often bereav'd of their spirits by the strong emanation of those fra­grant [Page 94]shrubs: Truly Saints, (when walking in the mountains of Canaan the heavenly, I mean of assurance) need the spice of support against the power­full efflux of the spice of joy: The Soul before it finds Christ, is sick of love and when hee's found, is sick of joy: I mean, while here below. till we are purified by vision, it can scarce well bear the flowings in of assurance: We must have our visions of the Angell of the Covenant like Jacob, Gen. 32.26. only by dawn­light, glittering noon enjoyments are for heaven: These old Bottles are readyto burst with the new wine of the Kingdom▪ We could not bear the strength of this wine: If the King should often bring us into these Cellars & therefore he keeps the Key, & opens & shuts it at his plea­sure: and possibly therefore God is plea­sed to nourish Saints but with drops of these high Tinctures of glory, full draughts might swell us with pride, and inflame us with feavers of censure again meek walkers: Jacohs Peniels must halt upon shrunk sinews. Gen. 32.32. And Pauls Revela­tions must be humbled by Satans buffets: 'Tis not only the surges of grief, but ri­vers of joy that may overwhelm the spi As Gerson speaks of a devout woman that breathed out her Soul in the strength of these enjoyments: Vol. 3. p. 64. b. There­fore 'tis, that here we must live by tastes and tastes only: the full banquet's kept to last, the first fruits first, then the har­vest; [Page 95]first the bunch of Eschol, and then the Vintage of Canaan: first the wa­tersh wine of Cana, and then the mira­culous wine of Christs glorious King­dome: Admirable grace it is, that God drops down tastes and lets fall crumbs from the Table of the Spirits of the Just made perfect: And is a taste so pleasant, so delectable, then whats the fulness: Hast thou a mouth that tastes and savours the things of God? Though it stay the stomnck, yet it whets the appetite for glory: The ear trieth words and the mouth tasteth meat, saies Job 34.3. Elihu: but 'tis the heart that ponders judgment: Heavens dainties call for a pondering spirit to dwell upon the relish and a circumspect frame, that we be not wanton: I have heard of thee, saies Job, Job 42.5 by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee (and may we say) my soul tasteth thee: Therefore I abhor my self and repent in dust and ashes: Abhorrency of self and complacency in God, are tokens of divine tastings, feelings, seeings, en­joyings: The neerer we draw to those holy embraces, the more lovely doth God appear and more vile our selves: Nothing else pleases that Soul which hath had a ravishing relish of God: Now nothing lesse then God, now no­thing longer, nothing like him: Not our selves, our sins humble us, our gra­ces are imperfect: Not Angels: Mary [Page 96]weeps for all she Job. 20.12 13. talks with shining Angels, 'tis not them she cries for: nor can their white garments dry up her tears, or their radiant shining faces raise the least umbrage of a smile, while her Lord is absent: The burden is, they have taken away my Lord, and whereis he? But a word from Christ clear her eyes and chears her spirit: She knows his voice (when Christ will have it so) before she sees him: She saw a seeming gardiner and asks for Christ: but now she sees the true Vine, and tastes his love, she hears his voice and sees his face, and nothing now will serve but V. 17. touching: The more we hear and see of Christ, the neerer, fuller, sweeter, are our approa­ches to him. The Soul's never satiated on this side heaven: This feast presents heavenly Viands genuine & apposite to a gracious palate: They are not of a cloying, clogging temper, and there e­ver comes in flowing upon the heart fresh, new, and sweet issuings from Christ: Such rare pieces of prospect entertain the Soul in this transfiguring mountain: that it peeps and pryes, and piers in at the key-hole of the Chamber of Heaven, and can do nothing but lye at the posts of wisdome and cry with the ancient, plus de te Domine, Mo e of thee Lord

But on the other side, where are the hearts of besotted worldings: The eyes of a Prov. 17.24. fool, saies Solomon are in the ends [Page 97]of the Earth, rowling and rambling a­bout upon vain objects: But wisdome is [...] at the very face of him that [...]ath understanding, he sees such beauty in the face of wisdome: that he shuts his eyes to the world, and opens them only to heaven.

A wandring eye is the sign of an un­satisfied fool, that wont learn wisdome from a Solomon: Though God gave him more riches, (If Villalpandus count­aright, then ever any of the Roman Emperors had) and all manner of en­joyments and an exquisite heart to dive to the bottome of the visible Creation: Every one that girds himself to run So­lomons race a new, counts that Prince a fool, but proves himself to be so: God commanded Solomon to write a Book on purpose to save our labour, to quench our drought, to excuse our oil, and to set up his Herculean Pillars: On the one side he graves, all is vanity: on the other, ne plus ultra, sail no fur­ther: For now there's no terra incogni­ta, no more land, nor continent, nor Isle to be discovered: hear the conclu­sion of the Eccl, 12 13 whole matter: Fear God and keep his commandment, for this is the whole of man,

Solomons Ships of speculation went round the world and brings tidings of more gold for covetous wretches, and more Apes and Peacocks for curious and weak fancies, but no new thing un­der [Page 98]rhe Sun: The old pleasures indeed shall waft home new toils, & new vexa­tions, but no satisfaction to a judicious Soul: A wise man therefore fixes his eyes upon divine wisdome and daily con­templates the ribs of Solomons Ship laid up in the dock at Eziongaber, shatter'd with its sore travells, and learns the great prudence to stay at home, to study his own heart, and to ponder the paths of understanding. Alas! then may we not pitty, deluded, bewitched, entan­gled mortalls, that still hunt their game, and follow the hot scent through the wildernesse and forrest of this world: Oh! how they puff and pant, and sweat and leap hedge and ditch after the deep throated hounds of their boundlesse desires to catch a shadow: Its a plain sign they know little and have tasted nothing of God to hunt so fiercely after smoak and vapour.

I will not say 'tis unlawfull to hunt wild Beasts for the food of man, or to make room and preserve his safety: But this I'le say, to take pleasure in set­ting the creatures at variance, to make a sport of the fruit of sin, to make that a recreation, which God has made a curse, is the sign of one that walks con­trary to God: I read of no godly man but of four other hunters in Scripture, Nimrod, and Esau, and Ishmael, and the cruell hunter of souls, and I am sure they are wild and bad companions: But [Page 99]there are a world of hunts-men that pur­sue the pleasures of sin, and the gains of unrighteous Mammon, and oh how these ignes fatui, these inflam'd meteors lead thousands into the bogs of eter­nall darknesse: And as the ancient Hea­thens sang of hunts-men, — Nec praeda quam caede magis &c. Nunc hominum nunc bella gerunt vio lenta ferarum: That eager hunters of Beasts in times of peace were usually bloody hunters of men, in time of war.

That man has no communion with God, whose Soul is immerst and drownd in sensuall pleasures: Such as walk in the vanity of their minds, Eph. 4 18 are alienated from the life of God; such have little honour or love for God, that forsake the fountain of living waters, and suck the mud of the broken Cisterns of the Creature: Their Souls are as earthy as their objects, and their spirits as base as their pleasures: But remember, that to lay up thy Soul in thy Barns, to tye it in thy Bags, to lodg it in thy Parks, to pack it in thy Warehouse, or stove it in thy Ship: These are dangerous places to look for it: when the world is in a light flame.

Shall I commend unto thee, O man, a gainfull Trade and a pleasant Chase: The first is to lay out all thy Stock for the Pearl of price: The second is to fall in company with David, and Ps. 63.8 fol­low hard after God, and never leave [Page 110]him till thou get a blessing, As Ps. 42.1 the Hart panteth after the water-brooks; so panteth my soul after thee, O God, Here's a hunted hart turns hunter him­self: Sin hunts a Saint, and he pants for God, and at length meets with lovely Venison, but 'tis in the Sanctu­ary, savoury meat that his soul loves, he tastes it and blesses his darling before he dyes: He feeds upon a Kid of the flock takes the Cup of Salvation and Praises, saying, thou hast dealt bounti­fully with me, Ps. 116.7. Return, O my Soul, unto thy rest: He has no rest upon earth, no rest but in God, and therefore return, O my soul, unto thy God: He looks upon the whole earth, as Tohu vabohu, without form and void, Gen. 1.2 and all the fulnesse thereof to be but emptinesse, the roating of the seas to sound forth their shallownesse, and all the starry heavens to be like Stellae ne­bulosae. vanishing clouds: Unlesse he feel the warmth of the spi­rit of God moving upon the waters of his soul.

If thou hast indeed had spirituall feel­ings of God, thy Soul's warm'd, thy thirst to the world slaked, to God in­flamed, thy hot inquisition and pursuit of the creature coold and checkt: Fools gather Cockleshells and Pee­bles, when there lyes before them a mine of Gold or a rock of Diamonds: And here's the vast difference between the possessors of worldly, and the inheri­tors [Page 101]of heavenly treasures. Those make the man covetous of an evill, Hab. 2.9 cove­tousnesse to his house, the other enno­bles the minde with a communicative generosity: And theres reason for't, though no reason for sin, yet theres a reason to be rendred why the sinner acts so: For the first loses by his hoar­ding, and the other gains by his spread­ing: The graces of the spirit in the soul as well as in the whole Church, are a fountain of gardens, Song. 4.15. a well of living waters and streams from Leba­non: They are not wells pent up, but overflowing: Come, saies David, and Ile tell you what Ps. 66.16. God hath done for my soul: Experience in these Visions is like sailing upon an Ocean, that hath an infinite round: no diving to the bottome, no kenning of a shore: Theres alwayes a terra incognita, an un­known land in heavenly mysteries, and the more we discover, it yields more various and excellent pleasures: New fruits, new tastes, new paradises, new gar­dens of delight, new songs and new joyes for ever: The Songs of the Lamb will be new Rev. 14.3 to all eternity: Here, in this life the soul hoists up sails from the port of con­version, on the waters of Merom, the bitter waves of repentance, mourning and tentation for sin; then spreads them upon the Sea of Galilee in sweet communion with Christ and his holy disciples in the ship, then passes the [Page 102]dead sea without danger, and at length with a prosperous gale falls into the vast Ocean of eternall glory.

But to reentrench: he that feels, what God is to his soul, is in wardly fild with a sense, what he will be: Death is no more able to amuse a holy soul inbosom'd with God, and season'd with experiences of his love then the Carkass of the Lion was to fright Sampsons Parents: nay, it fed them with life-honey dropping from the hony-comb.

Keep up thy feeling fellowship with God in the closest, and choicest re­flections upon his love, and the fear of death will vanish: Make conscience of secret sins and secret duties: this will make way for secret communion and sweetly encrease it: The more frequent and humbly familiar, you are with God in holy reverence: the more divine and soul-fainting emanations will flow from his heart to replenish thy soul, and en­large it for glory: our Ps 90.8. secret sins, saies Moses, are in the light, in the broad day light of thy countenance. Let's consi­der a he sees the least aberration and wandering of our thoughts from his love, let's be as tender to avoid his dis­pleasure, as we would be joyfull in the beams of his face: let's Ps 63 6. remember him upon our beds, and meditate on him in the night watches: Let's Ps. 4.4. [...] commune with our own hearts and be still, that we may commune with his and be joyfull. [Page 103] Silete, vacate, be still from all passions and hurries: give a vacancy to thy Soul to meditate on God and it will still thy fears. The more our Souls are wrapt up in this communion, the more they dye to the world and live to God. Our life is a vapor to dying mortalls: but death is a vapor to a living, to a lively Saint.

But now let me end with a caution that's mixt with a Cordiall: A very holy Saint may set in a cloud, and ar­rive at the haven in a storm. God's tyed to believers by promise to save them: but not to carry them in Song 3.9. Solomons Cha­riot of the wood of Lebanon, into Hea­ven. Yet it stands firm what David sings in this present Psalm; Thou art with me, and therefore, I'le fear no evill. When the Soul from feeling can chear up its spirits, that God is with it: It fears not, who's against it. God for secret reasons Luk. 24.16. may hold the eyes of some disciples, that they may not know him: to shew that all, from grace to glory, is from free love, and that we can challenge neither grace to close with his Covenant, nor assurance to discern our adherence. The sprinkling of the Conscience from dead works, the peace of God that passeth all un­derstanding, Col. 3.15 to rule in our hearts; and the joyes of the holy spirit all flow from the same Fountain. All our springs are in Zion, and bubble up from under the [Page 104]Throne of the Mercy-Seat. Yea at the state of Death some ordinary Chri­stians, If meek and humble, may in­joy greater Visions, then many gra­cious, holy, and sweetly gifted Mi­nisters. 'Tis not alwayes the strength of Grace: but the gift of influence that breeds and nourishes strong and bright assurance. A Mary Magdalen shall call Jesus by the name of Rabboni: When two experienc'd Disciples shall walk and talk with him many a mile, and not see him nor taste him till the evening, till the Luk. 24 29. Supper of Glory. But yet 'tis rare for holy hearts to want these heavenly Visions. The pure in heart shall see him in the Glasse of assurance, as well as behold him hereafter face to face.

CHAP. IX. Holy Appeals to God in Prayer, great Comforts against Death.

DAvid was now at Prayer, applying and appealing to God, at owning and appropriating work; telling God, that he was with him. Did not God know that he was with David? Yet! but God loves to hear from a Saint that he feels it. A Saint must tell God that [Page 105]he feels it, not to satisfie him as unac­quainted with it. (For the Lord fills the Soul with himself, and known unto the Lord are all his works from the beginning.) But because God delights to hear, that we thankfully own and ac­knowledge it. Thou art with me, David speaks it upon his knees, and with his Harp in his hands he sings it. This Lesson, Lord I learnt of thee, wilt thou please to hear it. Thou art with me, in me: and thou within me comest unto thy self. I am full of thee, and therefore my Soul over-flowes to thee. Thy love is a fire, which hath inflamed my heart: and Excellens sensibile laedit sen­sum. being pent it preyes upon my spirits: let it have it's holy vent into thy bosome. It multiplies upon it self, and out it must; wilt thou accept it? For a while let it warm the strings of my Harp as well as of my affection, and touch every tone with a flame of love: as if a Seraphim had quickened it with a coal from the Altar. Then let my Soul like fire ascend before thy Throne, winged with that love from whence it came.

Prayer, what is it, but a flight of the Soul from it self to God? A Soul af­fected with divine love hath Doves eyes, its prayers hath Doves wings and flies with Letters of credence at its feet from the spirit within our Temples, un­to the holy Oracle within the Vail.

'Tis in Prayer, that David pours out [Page 106]his Soul and sings, Thou art with me: he sayes not, thou wilt be with me: but inferres, that God would be with him, because he was so: and therefore I shall fear no evill. This God is our God Ps. 48.14 for ever and ever: he will be our guide un­to death, and through death: and af­ter Ps. 73.24 death, receive us to glory. Faith carries the foot of prayer, [ [...]] Rev. 14.6. into the midst of Heaven, as with Angels wings. And as the Lord said to Joshua, so may we say to pray­ing Saints, Josh. 1.3. every place that the soal of your foot shall tread upon, that hath he given you, the good land is before you, go in and possesse it.

When we pray, we enter the Court of Heaven, where the Lord Exod. 24.10. Ezek. 1.26. sits on a Saphire Throne, embellisht with the morning Stars and the Rain-Bow of the Covenant round about him, and thousands of Legions of Cherubims to minister to him.

We are taught by our blessed Savi­our to pray: Our Father which art in Heaven: as if a Saint in prayer should account himself as it were assum'd into Heaven. The Father sees us at all times: but in prayer we doe [Sistere nos coram] present our Souls to be seen by him. Should our hearts be in hea­ven, when our souls are in prayer: what heavenly hearts become so hea­venly a presence as God's, and so hea­venly a quire as the Angells round a­bout [Page 107]him. Let's pray, that his will be done, as it is in heaven: that we be like a kind of earthly Angells: that in all our prayers, our wills may be hal­lowed into his, 1 Joh. 5.14. as when we shall come to heaven. Then, if we ask any thing e according to his will, he heareth us. To have our wills, the best way is to have his holy will to be ours, and then we may pray with reverence, as Luther said, Let our will be done, Gerson de Mendici­tate f. 760. for our will is become thine. Ne tradas me voluntati meae, O give me not up to mine own will, but to thine. The will of God is 1 Thes. 4.3. our sanctification, and a Saints renewed will delights in the ho­liness of God. Here's a union of wills in the communion of holinesse. For both Heb. 2.11 he that sanctifieth and they that are sanctified are all of one. Joh. 17.23. I in them as our Lord in his heavenly prayer, and thou in me, that they may be made per­fect in one.

Receive we such a Kingdome, Heb. 12 28. let us serve him with reverence. Nothing renders us more revenent in our services then an inward sense of the divine ho­linesse that sills his essence, and is the lustre of his Kingdome. This argu­ment of the divine holinesse to put us in a reverent frame, is often pleaded in Scripture. Thou art Ps. 22.3. holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israell, Thou dwellest in the Temple, where they are still praising thee, and therefore they [Page 108]serve and praise thee because thou art holy, What services are the Cherubims continually ingaged in, but crying Holy, Rev. 4.8. Holy, Holy, before the Throne. Ye shall Lev. 19.30, reverence my sanctuary (my holy place) I am the Lord. Holinesse is the attractive of Reverence from a holy heart: The nearer we approach to a holy God, the more awfull im­pressions are stampt upon a holy Soul. I will be Lev. 10.3 sanstified in them that draw nigh me (saith the Lord) and before all the people I will be glorified. Draw­ing nigh to him commands sanctity in us, and the more we sanctifie his name by our holy addresses, the more we glo­rifie him. He is Exod. 15.11. glorious in his holi­nesse, and therefore fearfull in his praises. The raies of glory round about his ho­liness, (that none can behold and live) should imprint submissive through filiall fear upon our spirits in his praises and services. It's true, that God is to be feared, as to the matter of his praises: his dreadfull acts upon his Egyptian enemies: yet when his wrathfull judg­ments have sunk the Chariots as lead in the deep waters: still a holy fear should tune the e Timbrells and mea­sure the Dances of his People in praise, [...] 2 [...] 21. Serve the Lord with Ps. 2.11. fear and rejoyce with trembling, we serve him acceptably, when we attend his presence not with slavish but Heb. 12. [...]8. godly fear: and when we rejoice in his goodnesse, and tremble at [Page 109]his greatnesse; our heavenly joy defends us from the base terrors of bondage and our holy fear from luxuriant wanton­ness. Nay, when Phil. 2.3. we work out our Salvation in the Vineyard of the pro­mises: we must sweat at it with a Son­like fear, knowing that our work is not worth our peny: & with due trembling being assured, that when the Lord Ps. 36.6. pre­serveth one, and lets another perish, yet his righteousnesse is like the great mountains, and his Judgments are a great deep.

O but say some, where the spirit of the Lord is, there is 2 Cor. 3.17 liberty. Again, we have accesse with Eph. 3.12. bolnesse by the faith of him. Again, we are invited to come boldly Heb. 4.16 to the Throne of Grace: and Again, we have Heb. 10.19. boldnesse to enter into the Holiest by the Blood of Jesus. Tru­ly some Translators seem a little too bold with the greek word, and make o­ther Christians thereby too bold with the thing unlesse the word [boldnesse] be taken in a very reverent sense: it might better be translated by liberty or freedome, that is, from a spirit of bond­age. For [...] in the notation and acceptation of the word in greek Au­thors and in its opposition to straitnesse and pentnesse of spirit in our addresses to God, most properly signifies the speaking out the mind of a man fully with enlargedness of heart, and fluency of expression. 'Tis an encouraging [Page 110]word, to allure drooping, and to incite and raise desponding weak believers; not to spur on audacious, irreverent and presumptuous spirits. Improbe au­des irrumpere in osculum oris, si nec pedi­bus cum lachrymis, Gerson de mystic. Theolog. Tom. 3. p. 66 2. &c. Saies Gerson, thou art wickedly audacious, to rush into the kisses of his mouth, that hast not first washt his feet with thy tears. I know, God calls us to a more sweet and heavenly familiarity with himself under the Gospel, Rev. 4.10 then when under the anci­ent pedagogy of the Law. But let's not be sawcy and put on our Hats in the Court. Moses was commanded not to draw too nigh the flaming bush, and to put off his shoes, and so was Joshua, Jos. 5. all to signifie the danger of too much prying curiosity and the necessity of a holy re­verence in the presence of God. a Behold how the twenty four Elders fall down before him in worship, and cast their golden Crowns before the Throne. Let's remember that we are but Ps. 73.22. Behe­moth's great beasts before him; But dust and ashes still, worms and no men, less then the least of his mercies: nay, when in heaven we are but glorified dust and sparkling ashes, but spirituall flesh▪ but atomes and lesse then nothing, to stand before God. The very heavens are im­pure in his sight, and he charges his An­gels with folly. When they cry, Holy, Holy. before him, they cover their faces and may justly cry out with Lepers, [Page 111] unclean, Lev. 13.49. unclean. Their created holi­nesse, considering its infinite deficiency from Gods, is like folly and pollution, and their lips uncircumcised before his unfadomable beauty, inaccessible light and Angel-confounding holinesse. And did they not suck in streaming raies of holinesse from beholding his face con­tinually, and drink in rivers of divine dignation, to make and accept them as worthy? they could never be able or fit to fly before his Throne, or to be imployed in the messages of his services. Ps. [...]3.22. Eternity is insufficient for the highest of finite beings to praise an in­finite essence, and that unsearchable a­bysse of holinesse, glory and Majesty. O then what's man? That God should visit him, when we consider the impu­rity of the heavens, and its celestiall inhabitants: Nay, what's man? That God should suffer him to peep and mut­ter out of the dust before him.

Well however: come near, but hum­bly, and we may come freely: come we reverently, and what grace we feel within us, we may appeal with, before him. Examine me, O Lord, and prove me (sayes David) Ps. 26 2. Ure rene [...]. try my reins and my heart, search me, O God, and Ps. 139. [...]3 know my heart, try me and know my thoughts. Sit as a refiner upon me, melt away the drosse of my impure affecti­ons, that my Soul may appear like glit­tering gold seven times purg'd by the [Page 112]fire of thy love. Nay, Lord (thus Da­vid appeals) thou V. 1. hast searched and known me, and oh how precious are thy V. 17. thoughts unto me, O God, how great is the sum of them. Thy thoughts of me, and my thoughts of thee, how precious to me, O God? how great is the sum of them? Thy thoughts of electing love, of justifying and sancti­fying grace. Nay, thou hast thoughts for 2 Sam. 7.19. a great while to come. A great while indeed, for they are thoughts of eternall Jer. 31.3. love. Thy thoughts in num­ber transcend the sands on the Sea­shore, the hairs of my head, and the stars of heaven. Archimedes may num­ber the sands, Spigelius the hairs, and Hipparchus the visible stars: But who can expend thoughts commensu­rate to the love of God. The circle of his love cannot be squared, nor its cu­bick root extracted. We may study and pray Eph, 3.18 to comprehend with all Saints the glorious love of God in Christ: But still it passeth knowledge, and surmounts our numbers. Well might David when waking, Ps. 139.18. be still with God. In the morning watches, when his Soul was freshest, his thoughts warmest, his parts quickest: while the yet-remaining darknesse presented no diverting ob­jects to his eyes, and the deep silence of the night distracted not his audience with various clamours: Then David hath his Songs in the night, Ps. 30.29. as in the [Page 113]holy Solemnities: Then does he me­ditate on the divine love and remem­ber God Ps. 63.6. upon his Bed. His wonder­full works and the thoughts of God concerning him, he professes they could not be reckoned up in order before him. Though he was stil with God, search­ing and following after him, yet Joh 11.7. could not find out the Almighty to perfecti­on. But yet the holy man holds fast his confidence, For thou art with me, and I with thee. God with us, keeps us with him. Doe our desires and affections hast after him, they'le bring in the food of assurance, that he is ours. ( Talem illum invenies, saies Gerson, a Gerson de Mendi­citate spiri­tual, f. 75. a. Op. 3. part. qualis & tu fueris in tuis desideriis.] Our spirituall desires longing and panting after God, inter­pret and manifest the gracious motions of the divine love to us. The more we seek him, the sweeter we find him: and the more we trust him, the more he loves us. Let us with David in all our straits make to him as our rock, our refuge, our strong Castle, our Fortresse, our City of Defence and Munition of Rocks, b our Waters shall never fail, and our bread shall be sure. is. 33.6.

Appeals to God.

To Appeal to the Majesty of Hea­ven is a matter of most important mo­ment, because of his omniscience, om­nipresence, his exactnesse in justice and [Page 114]judgment. If our hearts 1 Joh. 3.10. condemn us, God is greater and knoweth all things: but if our heart acquit us, then have we confidence towards God: yea And 4.17 in the day of Judgment. To be scalded with condemnation from conscience and from God too, is double judgment, and our hearts condemnation is but the har­binger to Gods. Conscience is but the Prison till execution, and if the earthly Prison be so noisome and dismall, what's the eternall? It behoves all therefore, that dare appeal to God, to examine and try their hearts with im­partiall strictnesse, before they turn a­bout their faces to heaven. David spends the largest part of an excellent Psalm in choice ruminations upon the divine attributes and the works of God, on his former experiences and deep meditations upon the all-searching eye of God, before he dares to make an essay of a reverent Ps. 139.23 appeal unto him. Holy Paul makes small account of be­ing judg'd by the Church, or by mo­rall men, or his own conscience in com­parison with 1 Cor. 4.3, 4. divine judgment. Our heart is Jer. 17.9 deceitfull above all things, who can know it. But the Lord is a God of knowledg, and by him 1 Sam. 2.3, actions are weighed. The ballances of the San­ctuary will turn at a grain of the least action, yea, at the thousandth part of a thought. His [...], his pier­cing and searching eye, enters the inner­most [Page 115]parts of the belly, His eyes doe behold, his eye-lids Ps. 11.4. try the children of men. [ [...] Explorabunt.] They search into the hearts and pry into the reins of men. The Lord sits (in specula aeternitatis) upon the watch-tower of glorious Majesty and discerns all the secrer recesses and caverns of the hearts of Men and Angells. The Metaphor seems to be taken from Souldiers that stand upon the guard on a high Tower to observe and ken the approaching enemy. When men doe (connivere ocu­lis) even close their eyes, and make as it were a small portion of a Tube with their eye-lids to exclude the light and discern objects the clearer, or like re­finers that look narrowly into the Cru­cible or Cople to discern, when the mel­ted Gold gathers into a clear and pure circle and hath cast out all its drosse. All this, is to shew with what nicenesse and accuratenesse the Lord doth pierce into the hearts of men. When we con­sider the excellency of the searcher, the curiosity of his observation, that no­thing escapes the Eagle eye of his Om­nisciency: when we ponder upon the pu­rity of his Judgment and the equity of his tremendous tribunall, who should not fear before him and tremble at his imperiall Majesty? For who can stand If he doe but Ps. 143.2 enter into Judgment? [...] ne veniat] let him not come toward the work, saies the Psal­mist, [Page 119]unlesse we can stand before him: To impose upon men, is base hy­pocrisie: but to impose upon the Ma­ker and searcher of hearts is cursed A­theism, abominable impudence, Ps. 14.1, 2, 4. and corrupt folly of the works of iniquity.

When we enter our appeals before God, we imply his all-searching pro­vidence, his avenging hand, his acquit­ting justice, his pardoning grace, the resurrection of the dead, and the dread­full Judgment-Seat of Christ. 'Ev [...], upon this account Act. 24.16 2 Cor. 5.2 saies Paul, we exercise our selves, in having a consci­ence void of offence in the sight of God: that the Ps. 19 14 meditation of our heart may be acceptable in his sight, our Strength and our Redeemer.

As to the matter of our appeals in prayer, there are but four cases, whereof I would treat in respect to our comforts at death. Isa. 33.16