CHAPTER XXXVIII – Twenty reasons to move us to deny our lives and yield to violent or natural death
because your reason is not illuminated and elevated by faith, to see the necessity of choosing it, and to see those higher and better things which by this means you may obtain. Had you that heavenly life of faith and love which the Spirit worketh in the saints, it would carry you above this present life, and take you up with higher matters, and shew you that (and so shew it you) as should procure your own consent to die.
But because this is the great point that Christ doth purposely here try our self-denial by, and a point of such great necessity to be looked after, I shall stay a little longer on it, while I give you, 1. Some reasons to move you; and 2. Some directions to assist you, to get a self-denying submission to death when Christ requireth it.
The many lamentable defects in grace which the inordinate fear of death doth intimate, I have already opened in the fourth part of the 'Saints' Rest;' and therefore may not now repeat them, but shall add some few considerations more.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
Twenty Reasons for denying Life 1. CONSIDER that our lives are not our own, but God, that doth require them, is the absolute Lord of them: more truly than you are owner of any thing that you have in the world, is he the owner of your lives and you. And therefore both in reason and justice we should be content that he dispose of his own. If he may not freely dispose of you and your lives, you may as well deny him the dispose of any thing, and so deny him to be God; for he hath the same right
to you as to any thing else, and the same power over you. And therefore if you consent that he shall be God (for which he needs not your consent), you must consent that he be the owner and disposer of all, and of you as well as all things else: otherwise he is not God.
2. You can be content that the lives of others, yea, that all the world, should be at God's dispose: in reason you cannot wish it should be otherwise. You are content that the lives of emperors and kings, that are greater than you, should be at his dispose. And is there not the same reason that he dispose of your life as of theirs? Are you better than they, or more your own; or hath the world more need of you than them? Or rather, is it not unreasonable selfishness that makes so unreasonable a difference with you? If reason might serve, the case is plain.
3. You are contented that far greater matters than your lives should be at God's dispose. The sun in its course, the frame of nature, heaven and earth, and all therein, are at his dispose, and would you wish it otherwise? Days and nights, and summer and winter, and times and seasons, are at his dispose; and you dare not murmur that all the year is not summer or daylight, and that there is any night or winter. The angels of heaven are at his dispose to do his will, and are content to be used on earth for your service, and they desire not to be from under his dispose. And should you desire it? or rather desire that his will may be done on earth as it is in heaven? If you would not have the crowns and kingdoms of the world at his dispose, and heaven and earth are at his dispose, you would not have him to be
God; but if you would have these greatest things at his dispose, what are you then, that your lives should be excepted?
4. Whom would you have to be the disposer of men's lives but God?
Is any other fit for the undertaking? No other can give life but he; and no other can preserve and continue it but he! If your life had been in any creature's hand, you had been dead long ago; for no creature is able to uphold itself, much less another also. Is any creature wise enough to order the world and the affairs thereof? Is any creature powerful enough to dispose of the world and all things in it? Is any creature good enough to do it without the communication of its imperfection, which would disorder and destroy all? I know you make no doubt of any of these things. No creature is fit to be God; and therefore none is fit to undertake the work of God: and therefore it must be God or none that must have the disposal of your lives and you.
But I know what it is that self would have! You would have the disposal of your own lives, or else have God to dispose of them as you would have him, which comes all to one. But how unreasonable is this? Would you alone have the disposal of your own lives? Or would you have all men else in the world also to have the disposal of theirs?
If all should have this privilege, what a miserable privilege would it prove! No man then would die; and then either you must forbear marriage, or what would you do with your posterity, when there were no room on earth? And then you could not punish a malefactor with death! And what a world would it be, if all men were disposers of themselves, when there would be as many different ends and minds as men? Every man would be for himself, and an enemy to others; and the world would run every man on his own head, and a madder confusion than can be imagined would seize on all. If you would have every man have the dispose of his own life, you would have as many
Gods as men, and so have no God; and you would have as many
kings or rulers as men, and so have no ruler: and you would have the world to be no world, when God were to them as no God. And if you would not have it thus with all, what reason have you to desire it for yourself? What are you more than all the world, that you should be exempted from the common state of mortals, and be at your own disposal more than they, and be instead of God unto yourselves?
5. You think it neither cruelty nor injustice, that the lives of brutes should be much at your disposal! Your poor fellow-creatures must die when you require it. Birds, and beasts, and fishes, even multitudes of them, must die to feed you; yea, even for your delight, to make you a feast, when you have no necessity. The most harmless sheep you will not spare: the most laborious ox, the most beautiful bird, must give up their lives to satisfy your pleasure. And is not God ten thousand thousand times, even infinitely more above you, than you are above your fellow-creatures? Is one creature fitter to kill another, and afterwards devour it, and become its grave, than God to dispose of the lives of all?
6. Where could you wish your lives to be better, than in the hand of the most wise and gracious God? If you may rest content, or have confidence in any, it is in him. You need not doubt of his goodness, for he is goodness and love itself. And therefore though you see not the world to come that you are passing to, yet as long as you know that you are in the hands of love itself, what cause have you of disquiet or distrust? And that you know that he is wise as well as good, and almighty as well as wise; and therefore as he meaneth you no harm (if you are his children), so he will not mistake, nor fail in the performance. You need not fear lest your happiness should miscarry for want of skill in him that is omniscient, or for want of
will in him that is your father, or for want of power in him that is omnipotent. You may far better trust God with your lives than yourselves, for you have not wisdom enough to know what is best for you, nor skill to accomplish it, nor power to go through with it; nay, you love not yourselves so well as God doth love you. Did you but believe this, you would better trust him. You can trust yourselves in a narrow ship upon the wide and raging seas, when you never saw the country that you are going to; and all because you believe that the voyage is for your commodity, and that you have a skilful pilot. And cannot you commend your souls into the hand of God, to convey you through death to the invisible glory, as confidently as you dare commit your lives to the conduct of a man, and to a tottering ship in a hazardous ocean? You can trust your lives on the skill of a physician; and cannot you trust them on the will of God? If you had your choice, whether your lives should be at your own dispose, or God's, you should far rather choose that God might dispose of them than yourselves; as it is better for an infant to be guided and disposed of by the parents than by itself. A good king will not kill his own subjects needlessly, and a natural father or mother will not needlessly kill their own children; yea, a very brute will tenderly cherish their young. And do you think that God, who is infinitely good, will causelessly or injuriously take your lives? Or that he doth not mean you good even in your death?
Object. 'But how can I think it for my good to die; and to have my nature dissolved?
Answ. Paul "did desire to depart, or be dissolved, and to be with Christ as best of all;" Phil. 1:23. And did not he know what was for his good as well as you? He was "willing rather to be absent from the
body and present with the Lord, than at home in the body and absent from the Lord; and therefore groaned earnestly, desiring to be clothed upon with his house which is from heaven, that mortality might be swallowed up of life;" 2 Cor. 5:1, 2:4. 6:8. When the hen hath sat to hatch her young ones, they must leave the shell as good for nothing, and must come into a world which they never saw before. And what of that? Should they murmur at the breaking of their former habitation? Or fear the passage into so light, so wide, so strange a place, in comparison of that in which they were in before?
No more should we murmur at the breaking of these bodies, and casting the shell of flesh, and passing under the conduct of angels, into the presence of the Lord. God is but hatching us here by his
Spirit, that he may bring us out into the light of glory. And should we grudge at this?
7. And what if God call you to sacrifice your lives to him, as he called Abraham to sacrifice his son? What if he call you to come to him by a persecutor's hand? Or at least to be willing of your natural death? He calls you but to give up a life which you cannot keep; and to do that willingly, which else you must do whether you will or not: willing or unwilling, die you must! How loath soever you are, you are sure to die! You may turn you every way, and look about you on the right hand and the left, to all the friends and means in the world, and you will never find a medicine that will here procure immortality, nor ever escape the hand of death. "It is appointed to all men once to die, and after that the judgment;" Heb. 9:27. And no man can change the decrees of Heaven. And seeing all your turnings and unwillingness cannot avoid it, is it not better to submit to it willingly than unwillingly? God doth impose it on you as a necessity. Your willingness may make a virtue of necessity, and out of necessity
extract a reward; but your unwillingness may turn your suffering into your sin, and a necessary death unto an unnecessary misery now
(and hereafter if you be not true believers), as Paul saith of his ministerial labours, "If I do this thing willingly, I have a reward: but if against my will, a dispensation is commited to me: for necessity is laid upon me"—1 Cor. 9:16, 17. So I may say in the present case: if you give up your lives willingly in the love of God, you have a reward; but if you do not, necessity is upon you, and die you must, whether you will or no. You may escape the reward by your unwillingness, but death you cannot escape. And methinks you should see that it is little thanks to you, to give up that life which you cannot keep; and yet this is all that God requireth. Perhaps you think, that though you cannot keep it still, yet somewhat longer you may keep it. But you be not sure of that. The next hour may God deprive you of it. And O, what a dreadful thing it were, if as soon as you have denied God your lives, he should snatch them from you in his fury, and cast you into hell!
And if he should distrain for his own, as soon as you have denied it him! And you should die as enemies, that would not die as martyrs, and as his friends! And in this sense hath my text been many a time fulfilled, "He that will save his life shall lose it."
8. Consider also, that it is upon terms of the highest advantage imaginable to yourselves, that God calls you to resign and lay down your lives. It is not indeed to lose them, but to save them, as my text doth promise you, "He that loseth his life shall save it." No more than you lose your clothes which you put off at night, and put on again in the morning; or rather, no more than you lose your dirty, rotten rags, when you put them off at night, and are to have in the morning a suit of princely attire in their stead. Will any man say, these rags are lost?
At least they will not say that the man is a loser by the change. That is
not lost that is committed to God, upon the ground of a promise. Nor that which is laid out in his service, at his command. Reason will tell us, that no man can be a loser by a course of submissive obedience to God. You cannot be at so much cost for him, or offer him so dear a service, which he is not able and willing to satisfy you for a thousandfold. God will not be beholden to any man. You cannot bring him in your debt, beyond what he doth by his bountiful promise; but if you could, he would not continue in your debt. You will make nothing of your death, if you do not either undergo it for Christ, or bear it submissively by the power of heavenly love constraining you. Merely to die whether you will or no, as a fruit of sin, is common to the most ungodly men; but if the love of God can make you voluntarily submit to death (whether natural, or violent from persecutors), what a glorious advantage may you make of it!
You will 1. Put your salvation more out of doubt than any other course in this world could do. For whosoever perisheth, it is most certain that such as these shall be saved. 2. And therefore you may die with the greatest confidence and joy, as having seen the matter of your doubts removed, and dying in the very exercise of those graces that have the promise of salvation; and in such a state as hath the fullest and most frequent promises in the Gospel. 3. And then the crown of martyrdom is the most glorious crown. You will not have an ordinary place in heaven. These are that part of the heavenly host that stand nearest to the throne of God, and that praise him with the highest joys, who hath brought them through tribulations, and redeemed them by his blood. If a man should make a motion to you to exchange your cottage for a palace and a kingdom, you would not stick at it as if it were against you, because you must leave your ancient home: and how much less should you be against it, when you
are but moved to step out of your ruinous cottage into glory, when it would shortly fall upon your heads, and you must leave it whether you will or no, for nothing.
9. What reason have you to be so tender of the flesh? Is it the greatness of its sufferings that you stick at? Why, you put poor beasts and birds to as much, and so do the butchers daily for your use; and they must suffer it. And why should the body be so dear to you? For the matter of it, what is it but earth? And wherein is it more excellent than the beasts that perish? I think God hath purposely clothed your souls with so poor a dress, that you should be the less unwilling to be unclothed, and might learn to set more by your souls than by your bodies, and to make more carefully provision for them. It seems he hath purposely lodged you in so poor a cottage, that you should not be at too much care for it, nor be too loath to leave it. You have its daily necessities, and infirmities, and pains, and somewhat of its filth and loathsomeness, to tell you of its meanness; and why should you be so loath that so poor a cottage, so frail a body, should be turned to dust? Dust it is, and to dust it is sentenced. When the soul hath left it but a week, men can scarce endure to see it or smell it! And should the breaking of such an earthen vessel be so unpleasing a thing to you? And for its usefulness, though so far as it is obedient, it was serviceable to your souls and God, yet was it so refractory, illdisposed, and disobedient, that it proved no better than your enemy.
Many a temptation it hath entertained and cherished; and many a sin hath it drawn you to commit; those senses have let in a world of vanity; those wandering eyes have called in covetousness, and pride, and lust. Those greedy appetites have been so eager on the bait, that they have too oft borne your faith and reason, and drawn you to excess in meats and drinks, for matter or manner, for quality or
quantity, or both. Many a groan those sins have cost you, and many a smarting day they have caused you, and a sad, uncomfortable life you have had by reason of them, in comparison of what you might have had. And this flesh hath been the mother, or nurse of all. You were engaged by your baptismal covenant to fight against it, when you entered into the church; and if you are Christians, this combat hath been your daily work, and much of the business of your lives. And yet are you loath to have the victory, and see your enemy under feet? Do you fight against it as for the life of your souls, and yet are you afraid lest death should hurt it or break it down? Have you fought yourselves friends with it, that you are so tender of it? When you are the greatest friends to it, it will be the most dangerous enemy to you.
And do not think that it is only sin, and not the body, that is the flesh, that is called your enemy in Scripture. For though it be not the body as such, or as obedient to the soul, yet is it the body as inclining to creatures, from which the sinful soul cannot restrain it; and it is the body as having an inordinate sensitive appetite and imagination, and so distempered, as that it rebels against the Spirit, and casteth off the rule of reason, and would not be curbed of its desires, but have the rule of all itself. Was it not the very flesh itself that Paul saith he fought against, and kept under, and brought into subjection, lest he should be cast away? 1 Cor. 9:26, 27. Why should sin be called
'flesh and body' but that it is the body of flesh that is the principal seat of those sins that are so called? "If ye live after the flesh, ye shall die; but if ye, through the Spirit, do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live;" Rom. 8:13. "If ye sow to the flesh, of the flesh ye shall reap corruption;" Gal. 6:8. That which is first in being, is first in sin; but it is the flesh or embryo endued with sense, that is first in being. Be not therefore too tender of that which corruption hath made your prison
and your enemy: many a time you have been put to resist it, and watch and strive against it, and when you have been at the best, it hath been hindering you to be better; and when the spirit was willing the flesh was weak, and quickly hath it caused your cooling and declension. Many a blessed hour's communion between God and your souls, that flesh hath deprived you of: and therefore, though still you must love it, yet you should the less grieve or be troubled at its sufferings, seeing they are but the fruits of its sin, and a holy contentedness should possess your minds, that God should thus castigatorily revenge his own quarrel and yours upon it.
10. But yet consider, that were you never so tender of the body itself, yet faith and reason should persuade you to be content, for God is but preparing even for its felicity; his undoing it is but to make it up again. As in the new birth he broke your hearts and false hopes, that he might heal your hearts, and give you sounder hopes instead of them; so at death he breaketh your flesh and worldly hopes, not to undo you, and leave it in corruption, but to raise it again another manner of body than now it is, and give it a part in the blessedness which you hoped for. If in good sadness you believe the resurrection, what cause is there for so much fear of death? You can be content that your roses die, and your sweetest flowers fall and perish, and the green and beauteous complexion of the earth be turned into a bleak and withered hue, because you expect a kind of resurrection in the spring. You can boldly lie down at night to sleep, though sleep be a kind of death to the body, and more to the soul, and all because you shall rise again in the morning; and if every night's sleep (or one at least) were a gentle death, if you were sure to rise again the next morning, you would make no great matter of it. Were it as common to men to die every night, and rise again in the morning, as it is to
sleep every night and rise in the morning, death would not seem such a dreadful thing. Those poor men that have the falling-sickness, do once in a day, or in a few days, lie as dead men, and have as much pain as many that die; and yet because they use to be up and well again in a little time, they can go merrily about their business the rest of the day, and little fear their approaching fall. How much more should the belief of a resurrection unto life confirm us against the fears of death! And why should we not as quietly commit our bodies to the dust, when we have the promise of the God of heaven, that the earth "shall deliver up her dead," and that this body "that is sown in corruption, shall be raised in incorruption? It is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power: it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body." So great and wonderful the change will be, as now is inconceivable! We have now a drossy lump of flesh, an aggregation of the elements to a seed of life, which out of them forms itself a body, by the Divine influx. Like the silkworm, which in the winter is but a seed, which in the summer doth move and attract that matter from which it gets a larger body, by a kind of resurrection: but it is another manner of body (I will not say of flesh), which at the resurrection we shall have. Not flesh and blood, nor a natural body, but of a nature so spiritual, sublime, and pure, that it shall be indeed a spiritual body. And think not that this is a contradiction, and that spirituality and corporeity are inconsistent; for "there is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body:" the root of the fleshly, natural body, was the "first man Adam, who was made a living soul," to be the root of living souls. The root of the spiritual body is Christ, who being a "quickening Spirit," doth quicken all his members by his Spirit, which Spirit of grace is the seed of glory; and as from a holy and gracious Saviour we receive a
holy and gracious nature, so from a glorified Saviour we shall receive a glorious nature: we are now "changed from glory to glory" in the beginning, as "by the Spirit of the Lord;" but it is another kind of glory that this doth tend to. "Howbeit, that is not first which is spiritual, but the natural, and afterwards the spiritual. The first man was of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven."
And from each of them we partake of an answerable nature. "As is the earthy, such are they that are earthy," even all of us in our fleshly state, having earthy bodies from an earthy Adam, and natural bodies from the natural Adam. "And as is the heavenly, such are they that are heavenly;" for Christ makes men like himself, even first gracious, and then glorious, as Adam begets us like himself, that is, natural
(and sinful). And therefore all those that have "followed Christ in the regeneration," shall follow him into glory, and having conquered by him, shall reign by him and with him; and having received the holy nature here which is the seed of glory, they shall receive the glorious nature there, which is the perfection of that grace: and so as Christ hath a heavenly spiritual body, and not an earthy, natural body, so shall his members have, that they may be like him. "And as we have here borne the image of the earthy," in having first a natural, fleshly body, "we shall also bear the image of the heavenly Adam," in having a spiritual body, that is not flesh. Now, lest any doubt of it (saith the Spirit of God), "this, I say, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption;" 1
Cor. 15:42–51.
Object. 'If there were but as much likelihood of a resurrection, as there is of the reviving of the plants in the spring, I could believe it, for there is a life remaining in the root or seed; but the body of man
hath neither root nor seed of life, and therefore it is contrary to nature that it should revive.'
Answ. 1. If it be above nature, that is all, it is not contrary to it; or not so contrary as to be above the power of the Lord of nature. Will you allow no greater works for God than such as you can see a reason of, and can assign a natural cause of? What did nature in the creation of nature? It was not certainly any cause of itself! If Christ rose without a natural cause, even so shall we. 2. But why may I not say that the dead body of man hath a living root, as truly as the plants in winter?
The soul is the root of the body, and the soul is still alive; and Christ is the root of the soul, and he is still alive. For though we are dead,
"yet our life is hid with Christ in God: and when Christ, who is our life, shall appear (at the spring of resurrection), then we shall also appear with him in glory;" Col. 3:3, 4. And though there be no physical contact between this living soul and the body, yet there is a relative union, and a deep rooted love of the soul to its body, and inclination to it; so that it is mindful of it, and waiteth with longing for that hour when the command of God shall send it to revive that body. It is not incredible that a silly snail should, by its natural life and power, make for itself a beautiful habitation; or that the life of a rose-tree, that was buried in the root, should fabricate a sweet and beauteous rose, by which it may make an ostentation of its invisible self to the world. In how small a room doth the life of a silkworm lie
(of which I spoke before) in the winter! That little grain of seed is such as yields no sign of life to the beholder: yet doth it form itself a larger body, and that body spin its silken web out of its own substance; and in that, house itself in a husk, and take to itself another shape, and thence become a winged fly, and so generate more. But nearer us, in the generation of man, the vital principle in
the seed doth quickly, with concurrent causes, form itself a body. The warmth of the hen, or other bird, can turn the egg into a chicken.
Why then may not the living soul, that is the root and life of the body in the dust, be the instrument of God to reform its own body? As certainly it will be the principle that shall reinform it. But you say, the body being dead hath no natural root, nor way of recess to life again, because the privation is total. To which I answer; first, the relative union between the soul and it, and the soul's disposition to the return into its body, is as potent a cause of its reviving as the natural union of the root and the branches; if, withal, you consider that Christ is the root of the soul. Rational agents, if perfect, will work as certainly as natural; for natural causes do nothing but by a power communicated to them from an intellectual cause, even God himself. Why should nature do any of these things, but because God, that makes and ruleth all, will have it to be so? Now Jesus Christ is the political head of the church. The body in the grave hath its own relation to him. Christ is still living, and resolved, and engaged by promise, and inclined by love, to revive that body. And as Christ is the life of the soul, so the soul is the life of the body; and this soul, as I said, is waiting to be sent again into it. And when the hour comes, what can hinder? The love of the soul to its body, and its desire to be reunited, is a kind of natural cause of the resurrection. A candle not lighted is as far from light, and as much without it, as a dead body is without life: and yet one touch of a lighted candle will light that which never was lighted before. And so may one touch of the living soul that is now with Christ, put life into the body that lieth in the dust. And as the lighted candle makes the other like it, and communicateth of its own nature to it; so doth the glorified soul communicate a new kind of excellency to the body, which it never
had before; even to be a spiritual, glorious, incorruptible, and immortal body. In the first creating of man, the new formed body, as to the matter of it, was no better than the body of a beast or any common piece of earth. But the soul made the difference; when a rational soul was breathed into that body, it advanced the very body to a dignity beyond the body of brutes, even such as the natural body of man had before sin. When Christ was about to repair fallen man, it was the Spirit of Christ informing the soul, that caused the renewed soul to communicate again a dignity to the bodies of sanctified men above other bodies. And so when the body was dead because of sin
(having the root of sin and death within it, and being mortal therefore), yet the spirit was life because of righteousness (being the root of holy and righteous dispositions, and the new life in man himself); Rom. 8:10. For Christ, the principal root of life, and the spirit and holiness, are first in order of nature in the soul, and but by communication, and secondarily in the body. But contrarily, sin made its entrance by the body, and hath its root and seat, first in order of nature in the body; and it is so communicated to the soul: thus sin comes in at the backdoor, even at the wrong end, and by the baser part: but grace comes in the right way, by the nobler part; sin hath its root in the viler part; but Christ hath his seat first in the better part. And yet I must add, 1. That sin is not ripe till it reach the will, though it enter by the flesh and senses: it is not formed, nor to be called sin, till it reach the will, and as there it is situated: but yet the thing itself is first in and by the flesh. 2. And the will is truly the seat of originial sin itself, as well as the sensitive part; but not the first root of the corruption. Though sin be worst in the rational part, because the corruption of the best is the worst, yet it is not first there.
But holiness is first also in the soul, and so communicated to the
body, And so also glory itself will be. And therefore take notice of the wise and gracious providence of God, that taketh the soul to heaven beforehand that it may be first glorified, and so may be fit to communicate glory to the body: and so as the natural soul dignified the natural body; and the sanctified soul did sanctify the body, so the glorified soul by re-union with the body, shall communicate its nature to the body at the resurrection, and so it will be made spiritual, immortal, and incorruptible by the soul; and the soul and body are made such by Christ.
So that by this time you may see that there is more reason for the resurrection, for all the body is turned to earth, than there is reason that a candle that is gone out should be lighted again by another; or than there is reason that I should put on my clothes in the morning which I put off at night. It is true, those clothes have no power to put on themselves; nor is there any natural necessitating cause of it; but yet there is a free cause in me, that will infallibly (if I live and be able) produce it; for nature disposeth me to abhor nakedness, and desire my clothes, and therefore in the morning I will put them on.
And so nature teacheth the separated soul to desire a re-union with its body; and therefore when the resurrection morning comes, it will gladly take the word from Christ, and give that vital touch to the body that shall revive it, and so put on its ancient garment; but wonderfully changed from fleshly to spiritual, from dishonourable into glorious.
And now I hope you see, that you may put off these clothes with patience and submission, and that it is no wrong to the flesh itself to be put off, but tendeth to its highest advancement at the last; though the first cause of sin, and the nest of sin shall be so broken first, that
it shall first be seen what sin hath done, before it be seen what grace will do; and the fruit of our own ways must first be tasted, before we shall fully feed and live upon the blessed fruit of the grace of Christ.
11. Moreover, as there is a resurrection for the body itself, and that to a more perfect estate than it can here attain, so the whole nature shall be perfected beyond our present comprehension. This life was not intended to be the place of our perfection, but the preparation for it. As the fruit is far from ripeness in the first appearance, or the flower while it is but in the husk or bud; or the oak when it is but an acorn; or any plant when it is but in the seed; no more is the very nature of man on earth. As the infant is not perfect in the womb, nor the chicken in the shell, no more are our natures perfect in this world. Methinks for the sake of the body itself, much more of the soul, if we are believers, we should submit contentedly to death.
While you are here you know that creatures will fail you, enemies will hate you, friends will grieve you, neighbours will wrong you, satan will tempt you and molest you; the world is changeable, and will deceive you; all your comforts are mixed with discomforts; the body carrieth about with it calamities enough of its own to weary it. What daily pains must it be at for the sustentation of itself in its present state; and yet what grief and sorrow must it undergo! Every member hath either its disease, or a disposition thereto. What abundance of passages can pain and sickness find to enter at; and how many rooms that are ready to receive them! As every member hath its use, so every one is capable of sorrow; and the sorrow of one is at least as much communicated to the whole, as the usefulness is; the pain of the simplest member, even of a tooth, can make the whole body weary of itself. What is the daily condition of our flesh, but weakness and suffering, with care and labour to prevent much worse, which yet
we know cannot long be avoided: the sorrow of many a man's life hath made him wish he had never been born: and why then should he not wish as much to die, which doth ten thousandfold more for him, if he be a Christian, than to be unborn would have done. Not a relation so comfortable, but hath its discomforts; not a friend so suitable, but hath some discordancy; nor any so amiable and sweet, but hath somewhat loathsome, troublesome, and bitter. Not a place so pleasant and commodious, but hath its unfitness and discommodities; not a society so good and regular, but hath its corruptions and irregularities. And should we be so loath to leave
(whether naturally or violently) such a life as this? When the fruit is ripe, should it not be gathered? When the corn is ripe, would you have it grow there and not be cut? When the Spirit hath hatched us for heaven, should we be so loath to leave the shell or nest? When we are begotten again to the hopes of immortality, should we be so desirous to stay in the womb? O, sirs, it is another kind of life that we shall have with God! They are purer comforts, that stay for us above.
But if you will not have the grapes to be gathered and pressed, how can you expect to have the wine? Methinks our flesh might have enough ere this time, of sickness, and pain, and want, and crosses, and should be content to lie down in hope of the day when these shall be no more.
Little would an unbeliever think what a body God will make of this, that now is corruptible flesh and blood! It shall then be loathsome and troublesome no more. It shall be hungry, or thirsty, or weary, or cold, or pained no more. As the stars of heaven do differ from a clod of earth, or from a carrion in a ditch, so will our glorified, immortal bodies differ from this mortal, corruptible flesh. If a skilful workman can turn a little earth and ashes into such curious transparent
glasses, as we daily see; and if a little seed that bears no show of such a thing, can produce the more beautiful flowers of the earth; and if a little acorn can bring forth the greatest oak; why should we once doubt whether the seed of everlasting life and glory which is now in the blessed souls with Christ, can by him communicate a perfection to the flesh that is dissolved into its elements? There is no true beauty but that which is there received from the face of God: and if a glimpse made Moses' face to shine, what glory will God's glory communicate to us, when we have the fullest endless intuition of it!
There only is the strength, and there is the riches, and there is the honour, and there is the pleasure; and here are but the shadows, and dreams, and names, and images of these precious things.
And the perfection of the soul that is now imperfect, will be such as cannot now be known. The very nature and manner of intellection, memory, volition, and affections, will be inconceivably altered and elevated, even as the soul itself will be, and much more, because of the change on the corruptible body, which in these acts it now makes use of. But of these things I have spoken so much in the 'Saints' Rest,' that I shall say no more of them now, but this: that in a believer that expects this blessed change, and knows that he shall never till then be perfect, there is much unreasonableness in the inordinate unwillingness and fears of death.
12. You know that fears and unwillingness can do no good, but much increase your suffering, and make your death a double death. If it be bitter naturally, make it not more bitter wilfully. I speak this as a violent death for Christ, as well as of a natural death; for as the one cannot be avoided if we would, so the other cannot be avoided when
Christ calleth us to it, without the loss of our salvation; and therefore
it may be called necessary as well as the other. Necessary suffering and death is enough without the addition of unnecessary fears.
13. Nay, were it but to put an end to the inordinate fears of death, even death itself should be the less fearful to us. These very fears are troublesome to many an upright soul; and should we not desire to be past them! As a woman with child is in fear of the pain and danger of her travail, but joyful when it is over; so is the true believer himself too oft afraid of the departing hour: but death puts an end to all those fears. Is it the pain that you fear? Why, how soon will it be over! Is it the strangeness of your souls to God, and the place that you are passing to? This also will be quickly over; and one moment will give you such full acquaintance with the blessed God, and the celestial inhabitants, and the world in which you are to live, that you will find yourself no stranger there; but be more joyfully familiar and content than ever you were in the bosom of your dearest friend.
The infant in the womb is a stranger to this lighter, open world, and all the inhabitants of it; and yet it is not best to stay there. You can sail for commodity to a country that you never saw; and why cannot you pass with peace and joy to a God, a Christ, a heaven that you never saw? But yet you are not wholly a stranger there; is it not that God that you have loved, and that hath first loved you? Have you not been brought into the world by him, and lived by him, and been preserved and provided for by him? And do you not know him? Is it not your Father, and he that hath given you his Son and his Spirit?
Have you not found an inclination towards him, desires after him, and some taste of his love, and communion with him, and yet are you wholly unacquainted with him? Know ye not him whom you have loved above all? In whom you have trusted? And whom you have
daily served in the world? Who have you lived to but him? For whom else have you laid out your time and labour? And yet do you not know him? And know you not that Christ that hath purposely come down into flesh that you might know him? And that hath shewed himself to you in a holy life, and bitter death, and in abundant precious Gospel mercies, and in sacramental representations, that so he might entertain a familiarity with you, and infinite distance might not leave you too strange to God? Know you not that Spirit that hath made so many a motion to your soul? That hath sanctified you, and formed the image of God upon you, and hath dwelt in you so long?
And made your hearts his very workhouse, where he hath been daily doing somewhat for God? It is not possible that you should be utterly strange to him that you live to, and live from, and live in; and not know him, by whom you know yourselves and all things, nor see that light by which you see whatever you see.
O but, you say, you never saw him, and have no distinct apprehension of his essence. Answ. What! would you make a creature of him, that can be limited, comprehended or seen with fleshly, mortal eyes? Take heed of such imaginations. It is the understanding that must see him; you know that he is most wise, and good, and great; and that he is the creator, and sustainer, and ruler of the world, and that he is your reconciled Father in Christ; and is this no knowledge of him? And then, the heaven that you are to go to, is it that you are an heir of, where you have laid up your treasure, and where your hearts and conversation hath so long been; and yet do you not know it? You have had many a thought of it, and bestowed many a day's labour for it, and yet do you not know it? O, but you never saw it for all this! Answ. It is a spiritual blessedness that flesh and blood can neither enjoy nor see; but by the eye of the mind you
have often seen, at least some glimpse of it: you know that it is the present intuition and full fruition of God himself and your glorified
Redeemer with his blessed angels and saints in perfect love, and joy, and praise. And if you know this, you are not altogether strangers to heaven. And for the saints and heavenly inhabitants, you are not wholly strangers to them. Some of them you have known in the flesh, and others of them you have known in the spirit; you are fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God, and therefore cannot be utterly unacquainted with them.
But methinks the stranger you are to God and to heaven, and to the saints, the more you should desire to be there where there is no strangeness: this is not the time or place of most intimate acquaintance. If you would be acquainted, you should draw nearer and not draw back. It is death that must open you the door into that presence where strangeness will be no more.
And if it be the doubts of your interest in Christ and life that makes you shrink and loath to die; consider, that to refuse to die for Christ, is the way above all to increase those doubts; but to give up your lives for him, or cheerfully to surrender your souls to him at his call, is the readiest, surest way in the world to prove you at present in a state of grace; besides that you will be hastened into a state of glory, where you shall be quickly and fully passed all doubts of your state of former grace. In a word, as all the fears and sorrows of this life will then be at an end, so with the rest will our fears of death: and therefore death should be the more welcome; because it is the end, as of all other troubles, so of these disturbing fears.
14. Consider also what a multitude have trod this bloody way before you. Almost all that ever were born have died, and are now in the world that you are passing to. You are not the first that entered at this narrow gate. The dearest saints of God have died. If Abraham,
Moses, Joshua, David, Peter, and Paul could not escape the stroke of death, what are you that you should murmur to follow such and so many that have gone before you? You need not fear being solitary in heaven. There are millions and millions more of saints, than there are on earth: many that you knew, and millions more that will then be as dear to you as if you had known them. Is it not better be among innocent souls than a defiled, guilty world? Is it not better be where no sin entereth, and never a lust or passion comes, than to live as among wild beasts, with furious, unreasonable sinners? Is it not better be where light is perfect, and all your doubts are fully resolved, than in darkness, and perplexity, and among an ignorant, blind generation, that are enemies to the light that you desire? Is it not better be where is nothing but the perfect love of the infinite God, in perfect saints and blessed angels, than to live among perverse, ungodly men that make you almost weary of your lives? If it be a delight to us to read the writings of the illuminated saints of God, and we think them such jewels and ornaments in our libraries, what a pleasure it would be to converse with them that wrote these books, and that in their celestial perfection, where they have attained a thousand times more light than before they had; and where all the doubts are resolved which their books could not resolve. O, blessed society, in comparison of that we now converse with!
15. Nay more, lest the bloody way of death should seem too strange and terrible to us, the Lord Jesus our head hath trod that path; and that on purpose to conquer death, by taking away the sting and
principal cause of terrors, and making that a passage to felicity that was a passage to everlasting misery; so that ever since Christ hath gone this way, there is no such danger in it to his followers. Where the Captain of our salvation goeth, his soldiers may boldly follow him. "Forasmuch as the children were partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part with them, that he might destroy by death him that had the power of death, that is the devil; and might deliver them that through fear of death, were all their lifetime subject to bondage;" Heb. 2:14, 15. He hath cleared our way, and taken out of it the sorest thorns, and hath prepared us a habitation with himself.
And shall we fear to go the way that Christ hath gone, and purposely gone to clear it for us?
16. Moreover consider, that the celestial inhabitants have purposely made themselves familiar with us in this lower world, that they might acquaint us with themselves, and lead us up to their blessed habitation, and fit us for it. No man of common reason can doubt but that those more capacious, glorious parts of the universe, are stored with inhabitants answerable to their glory; when we see every corner of the lower world to be replenished with inhabitants. And Scripture and some experience tells us, that those angels of God are conversant here about us men: they bear us up in their hands, that we dash not our foot against a stone; they pitch their tents and encamp about us, as an appointed guard for our security; it is their very office: "for what are they but ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them that shall be heirs of salvation?" Heb. 1:14. They converse with us, though we see them not, and are about us night and day; they are among us in our holy assemblies, observing our behaviour before the Lord; 1 Cor. 11:10 and they are witnesses of our good and evil; Eccles.
5:6. From them, as the servants of God, was the law received; Acts
7:53. Gal. 3:19. Heb. 2:2. They read our books, and study with us the mysteries of the Gospel; 1 Pet. 1:12. And as near as they are to God, they are glad to make the church their book in which to read his manifold wisdom, and know it by beholding it in us as in a glass;
Ephes. 3:10. The nations have their angels, the churches have their angels, and the particular saints also have their angels; Dan. 10:13.
20, 21. Rev. 1:20. Acts 12:15. Matt. 18:10. They are not strangers with us, but have charge of us to keep us in all our ways; Psal. 91:10–12.
They rejoice in our conversion; Luke 15:10. They are part of the heavenly society that we are already listed in; Heb. 12:22. They ascend and descend as ordinary passengers between heaven and earth; Gen. 28:12. They are round about us, and we live as in their camp; Psal. 34:7. Before them we must be confessed or denied; Luke
12:8, 9. They convoy our departed souls to Christ; Luke 16:22. They shall attend Christ at his second coming, as they proclaimed his first, and attended him on earth; Matt. 25:31. Mark 8:38. They shall be his heralds to call up the dead to judgment; Matt. 13:39. 49 and 24:31.
And at last we shall be their companions and equal to them; Luke 20:36. So that you see we have the same society invisible, which we shall have in heaven; yea, and sometime when God is pleased, they manifest their presence by visible or audible apparitions. And shall we fear to remove into the presence of these blessed spirits that now attend us and are still about us, and the instruments of so much of our good?
Yea, the Lord Jesus Christ came down to be familiar with us, and to bring us into a state of friendship, and holy boldness with God himself: and yet shall we draw back?
17. I would put this question to you for your serious answer: Can you be contented, yea, do you desire, to have no more of God than here you have? Is this much of the knowledge of him, and his will and works, sufficient for you? Would you be no nearer him, and enjoy no more of him? Whatever your flesh say, sure the love of God in your hearts will not suffer you considerately to say so. Consult with your new nature, with the holy principle that is in you: methinks you should not be content to remain for ever at such a distance from God as you are. If you can, I blame you not to be afraid of death: if not, why then are you loath to go to him?
18. And I would ask you also, whether you are content with the measure of sanctification which you have, or which is to be attained in this life? Are you content to live for ever with no more knowledge or love of God? No more faith or love to Christ? No more sense of the worth of grace? No more righteousness, or peace, or joy in the Holy
Ghost? No more meekness, humility, or heavenly-mindedness? Are you contented rather to live for ever under all the pride, and ignorance, and passion, and selfishness, and lust, and worldliness, and all other sins that here beset you, rather than to remove to the place of perfection, and yield that death shall break the vessel and nest of your corruptions? If you care so little for the grace of God, and see so little beauty in his image, and see so little odiousness in sin, that you had rather keep it for ever than go to God by the passage of death, I blame you not to be afraid to die; but if otherwise, why do you desire perfection and deliverance, and yet be so loath to come and receive it, when you know that it is not to be had on earth?
19. Moreover, you are contented to remain for ever as unserviceable to God as here you are? Alas! how little do you for him! How much
do you to displease him! Lay together all the service of your lives, and how small and poor a matter is it! And would you still live at these rates? Will this content you? Methinks it should not if you have grace in your hearts. Why then do you not desire to depart, and to be with Christ? There you shall be perfectly fitted for his service, and therefore perfectly perform it. What other service God will have for us, we cannot yet tell: but love and praise we are sure will be the chief, and the rest will be good, and holy, and honourable, whatever it be. If you are Christians, methinks the sense of your unprofitableness, and of your unpleasing frame of heart and life, should be your daily grief; and therefore you should desire the state where you may be more servicable, and not be so unwilling of it.
20. Lastly, I would ask you, are you contented to attain no other end of all your life, and labours, and sufferings, than here you do attain?
What is it that you pray for, and seek and strive for? Is it for no more than is to be had on earth? If you have no higher design, intentions, or desires, I cannot much blame you to be loath to die; but if you have, methinks no man should be unwilling to attain his end. What! have you done and suffered so much for heaven, and now would you not go to it? Had you rather all your labour were lost? Do you desire to be happy, or do you not? If you do (as certainly you do), would you not go where happiness is to be had, when you are sure that it is not to be had on earth? What say you! is there not plain reason in all this that I propound to you? It is a sad case when men seek not God and heaven as their felicity, but only as a lesser evil than hell, which they would endure, rather than enjoy, when they can keep no longer this earthly life, which they account their felicity. Where this is the case, it is a sad case; and were not this a common case, there would not be so much unwillingness to depart.
And now Christian reader, I beseech thee weigh these foregoing considerations, and judge whether it be not a contradiction to thy profession, and unseemly for a believer to be unwilling to die when
God shall call him; much more to cast away everlasting life, for the saving of his temporal life but a little longer! O, learn the needful lesson of self-denial, especially in this point of denying your lives! He that can do this can do all, and may be sure that he is mortified indeed; and he that can do all the rest, and sticks but at this, and could part with any thing for Christ save his life, doth indeed do nothing, nor is it esteemed self-denying. It is a lesson therefore that is exceeding necessary to be learnt, and worthy all your time and diligence, even to deny your lives for the love of Christ.
Perhaps you will say, we live in days of peace and liberty, and therefore are not like to be called to martyrdom: what need then have we to learn this lesson? I answer, 1. You are uncertain what changes you may see; but if you never suffer, yet you must be sure that you have a heart that would suffer if God did call you to it; for though you may be saved without suffering, where you are not called to it, yet you cannot be saved without a heart that would suffer if you were put upon it. 2. And if you cannot deny your lives for Christ, you will not sincerely deny your pleasures, or profits, or honours for him.
If you would not suffer death for him if he called you to it, you will not sincerely suffer losses, and wrongs, and reproaches for him, which almost every Christian must expect: so that to try your own sincerity, you should look after it. 3. And it is certain that death will shortly come; and then if you have not learnt this lesson, to deny yourselves even in case of life, you will die unwillingly and uncomfortably.