The Last Work of a Believer: To the Reader
Reader,
The person whose death did occasion this discourse was one that about five y-ears ago removed from her ancient habitation, at Appley, in Shropshire, to liidderniinster, where she lived under my pastoral care tUl I was come up to London; and before she had lived there a twelvemonth (for thither she removed) she died of the fever, then very common in the city. She lived among us an example of prudence, gravity, sobriety, righteousness, piety, chiirity, and self-denial, and was truly what I have described her to be, and nmch more; for I use not to flatter the living, much less the dead. And though I had personal acquaintance with her for no longer a time than I have mentioned, yet I think it worthy the mentioning, which I understand V)y comparing her last years with what is said of her former time, by those that were then nearest to her, and so were at her death, that whereas (as I have said) sudden passion was the sin that she was wont much to complain of, she had not contented herself with mere complainings, but so elTectually resisted them, and applied God’s remedies for the healing of her nature, that the success was very much observed by those about her, and tlic change and cure so great herein, as was a comfort to her nearest relations that had the benefit of her converse; wliith I mention as a tlung that shews us, 1. That even the infirmities that are found in nature and temperature of body are curat)le, so far as they fall under the dominion of a sanctified will. ‘2. That even in age, when such passions usually get. ground, and infirmities of mind increase with infirmities of body, yet grace can effectually do its work. 3. That to attend God in his means, for the subduing of any corruption, is not in vain. 4. That as God hath promised gro-wth of grace, and flourishing in old age, so in his way we may expect the fulfilling of his promise. 5. That as grace increaseth, infirmities and corruptions of the soul will vanish.
This makes me call to mind that she was once so much taken with a sermon which I preached at the fimeral of ia holy aged woman,* and so sensibly ofl recited the text itself as much affecting her — “For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day,” &c. 2 Cor. iv. 16, 17; that I am persuaded both the text itself, and the example opened (and well known) to her, did her much good.
Her work is done, her enemies are conquered (except the remaining fruits of death upon a corrupting body, which the resurrection must conquer), her danger, and temptations, and troubles, and fears, are at an end. She shall no more be discomfited with evil tidings; nor no more partake with a militant church in the sorrows of her diseases or distresses. We are left within the reach of Satan’s assaults and maUce, and of the rage and Aaolence which pride, and faction, and Cainish en-sy, and enmity to serious holiness, do ordinarily raise against Christ’s followers in the world. AVe are lefl among the lying tongues of slanderous, malicious men, and dwell in a wihhrncss among scorpions; where the sons of Belial, lilve Nay)al, are such that a man cannot speak to them, 1 Sam. xxv. 17. The best of them is as a brier, the most upright sharper than a thorn hedge, Mic. vii. 4.” But the sons of BeUal shall be all of them as thorns
* Good olil Mrs Douphty, sometime of Shrewsbury,” ‘h” had long walked with God and lonpcd to he with him, and was among us an excellent example of lioliniss, hlamclessiiess, contempt of the world, constancy, piiticncc, liuinility, and {which makes it strange) a great and coni-tant desire to die, though she was still complaining of doubtings, and weakness of assurance.
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thrust away, because they cannot be taken with hands; but the man that shall touch them must be fenced with iron, and the staff of a spear, and they shall be utterly burned with fire in the same place,” 2 Sam. xxiii. 6, 7. We are left among our weak, distempered, sinful, afflicted, lamenting friends; the sight of whose calamities, and participation of their sufferings, maketh us feel the strokes that fall upon so great a number, that we are never like to be fi’ee from pain. But she is entered into the land of peace, where pride and faction are shut out; where serpentine enmity, malice, and ftiry, never come; where there is no Cain to en-ty and destroy us; no Sodomites to rage against us, and in their blindness to assault our doors; no Ahithophels to plot our ruin; no Judas to betray us; no false -natnesses to accuse us; no TertuUus to point us out as pestilent fellows, and movers of sedition among the people; no Rehum, Shimshai, or their society, to persuade the rulers that the servants of the God of heaven are hurtful unto kings, and against their interest and honom*, Ezi-a iv. 9, 12-14, 22; v. 1 1; no rabble to cr>’, “Away with them, it is not fit that they should live;” no Demas that ^-ill forsake us for the love of present things; no such contentious, censorious fi-iends as Job’s to afflict us, by adding to our affliction; no cursed Ham to dishonour parents; no ambitious, rebellious Absalom to molest us, or to lament; no sinfid, scandalous, or impatient friends to be our grief: and, which is more than all, no earthly, sinful inclinations in ourselves; no passions or infirmities; no languishings of soul; no deadness, dulness, hard-heartedness, or weaknesses of grace; no backwardness to God, or estrangedness from him, nor fears or doubtings of his love, nor frowns of his displeasure. None of these do enter into that serene and holy region, nor ever interrupt the joy of saints.
The great work is yet upon our hands, to fight out the good fight, to finish our course, to run with patience the remainder of the race that is before us; and as we must look to Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith, as our great Exemplar, so must we look to his saints and martyrs
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as our encouraging examples under him. Put the case you were now djing (and oh, how near is it, and how, sure)! what would you need most, if the day were come? That is it that you need most now. Look after it speedily while you have time. Look after it seriously, if you have the hearts of men, and sin have not turned you into idiots or blocks. What a disgrace is it to mankind, to hear men commonly at death cry out. Oh! for a little more time. And, Oh! for the opportunities of grace again. And, Oh! how shall I enter upon eternity thus unprepared? as if they had never heard or known that they must die till now. Had you not a life’s time to put these questions? And should you not long ago have got them satisfactorily resolved? And justly doth God give over some to that greater shame of human nature, as not to be called to their wits, even by the approach of death itself; but as they contemned everlasting life in theu* health, God justly leaveth them to be so sottish as to venture presumptuously with um’enewed souls upon death; and the conceit that they are of the right church, or party, or opinion, or that the priest hath absolved them, doth pass -n-ith them for the necessary preparation; and well it were for them if these would pass them currently mto heaven. But, oh, what heart can now conceive how terrible it is for a new-departed soul to find itself remedilessly disappointed, and to be shut up in flames and desperation, before they would believe that they were in danger of it!
Reader, I beseech thee, as ever thou believest that thou must shortly die, retire from the crowd and noise of worldly vanity and vexation. O, bethink thee, how Uttle a while thou must be here, and have use for honour, and favour, and wealth; and what it is for a soul to pass into heaven or hell, and to dwell among angels or de’ils for ever; and how men should live, and watch, and pray, that are near to such a change as this. Should I care what men call me (by tongue or pen), should I care whether I live at liberty or in prison, when I am ready to die, and have matters of infinite moment before me to take me up? Honoiu* or dishonour.
liberty or pnson, are words of no sound or signification, scarce to be heard or taken notice of, to one of us that are just passing to God, and to everlasting life. The Lord have mercy upon the distracted world! How strangely doth the devil befool them in the daylight, and make them needlessly trouble themselves about many things, when one thing is needful; and heaven is talked of (and that but heartlessly and seldom), while fleshly provision only is the piize, the pleasure, the business of their lives. Some are diverted fi-om their serious pre])aration for death by the beastly avocations of lust, and gaudiness, and meats, and drmks, and childish sports; and some by the busmesses of ambition and covetousness, contri^ng how to feather their nests, and exercise their wills over others in the world! And some that will seem to be doing the work, are diverted as dangerously as others, by contending about formalities and ceremonies, and destroying charity and peace; rending the church, and strengthening factions, and caiTjdng on interests hA-pocritically under the name of religion, till the zeal that St James describeth (James iii. 13, 14, &c.), haling consumed all that was like to the zeal of love and holiness in themselves, proceed to consume the servants and interest of Chiist about them, and to bite and devour, till their Lord come and find them in a day that they looked not for him, smiting theu* fellow-servants, and eating and drinking with the drunken, and cut them asunder, and appoint them their portion with the hj’pocrites, where shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Matt. xxiv. 49-51.
0 study, and preach, and hear, and pray, and live, and use your brethren that differ fi’om you in some opinions, as you would do if you were going to receive yoiu* doom, and as will then be most acceptable to yom* Lord! The guilt of sensuality, worldliness, ambition, of uncharitablenoss, cruelty, and injustice, of losing time, and betrapng your souls by negligence, or perfidiousness, and wilful sin, wUl lie hea-s-ier upon a departing soul, than now, in the drunkenness of prosperity, you can think. Christ will never receive such souls hi their extremity, unless upon repentance, by faith in his blootl, they are washed from this pollution. It is unspeakably terrible to die, without a confidence that Christ will receive us; and little knows the graceless world what sincerity and simplicity in holiness is necessary to the soundness of such a confidence.
Let those that know not that they must die, oi’ know of no life hereafter, hold on then* chase of a feather, till they find what they lost their fives, and souls, and labour for. But if thou be a Christian, remember what is thy work: thou wilt not need the favour of man, nor worldly wealth, to prevail with Christ to receive thy spirit. O, learn thy last work before thou art put upon the douig of it! The world of spirits, to which we are passing, doth better know than this world of fleshly darkened sinnei-s, the great difference between the death of a heavenly believer and of an earthly sensuahst. BeUeve it, it is a tiling possible to get that apprehension of the love of Christ, that confidence of his receiving us, and such familiar, pleasant thoughts of our entertainment by him, as shall much overcome the fears of death, and make it a welcome day to us when we shall be admitted into the celestial society: and the difference between one man’s death and another’s, dependeth on the diiTorence between heart and heart, life and life, preparation and unpreparedness.
K you ask me, How may so happy a preparation be made? I have told you in this following discourse, and more fully elsewhere formerly. I shall add now these dii’cctions following.
1. Follow the flattering world no further; come off” from all expectation of felicity below; enjoy nothing under the sun, but onlj’ use it in order to your enjo3-mcnt of the real, sure delight; take heed of being too much pleased in the creature. Have you houses, and lands, and oflices, and honours, and fi-iends, that are very plejising to you? Take heed, for that is the killing snare! Shut your eyes, and Avink them all into nothing; and cast by your contrivances, and cares, and fears, and remember you have another work to do.
2, Live in communion with a sufierine Christ: studv
well the whole life and nature of his sufferings, and the reason of them, and thuik how desirable it is to be conformed to him. Thus, look to Jesus, that for the joy that was set before him, despised the shame, endured the cross, and the contradiction of sinners against himself. Dwell upon this example, that the image of a humbled, suffering Christ, being deeply imprinted on thy mind, may di-aw thy heart into a juster relish of a mortified state. Sure he is no good Christian that thinks it not better to Uve as Chi-ist did (in holy poverty and sufferings In the world), than as Croesus, or Ciesar, or any such worldling and self-pleaser lived. Die daily by following Jesus with your cross, and when you have a while suffered with him, he wdll make you perfect, and receive yom- spuits, and you shall reign with him: It wonderfully prepareth for a comfortable death to live In the fellowship of the sufferings of Chi’ist. He Is most likely to ilie quietly, patiently, and joyrally, that can fii’st be poor, be neglected, be scorned, be wronged, be slandered, be imprisoned, quietly, patiently, and joy-fully. If you were but at Jerusalem, you would, with some love and pleasiure, go up mount Olivet, and think, Christ went this very way. You would love to see the place where he was born, the way which he went when he carried his cross, the holy grave where he was buried (where there Is a temple which pilgrims use to visit, fi-om whence they use to brmg the mark as a pleasing badge of honour); but how more of Christ Is there in oiu* suffering for his cause and truth, and in following him in a mortified, self-denying life, than In following him in the path that he hath trodden upon earth! Ills e;iemies saw his cross, his gi’ave; his mother, his person. This did not heal their sinful souls, and make them happy; but the cross that he calleth us to bear is a life of suflering for righteousness’ sake; in which he commandeth us to rejoice, and be exceeillngly glad, because our reward Is gi-eat in heaven, though all manner of eil be spoken of us falsely by men on earth, Matt. v. 11, 12. This is called a being partaker of Chnst’s sufferings, in which we are commanded to rejoice, “that, when his glory shall be revealed, we may he glad also with exceeding joy,” 1 Pet. iv. 13. And as “the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation aboundeth by Christ,” 2 Cor. i. 6. Till we come up to a life of willing mortification, and pleased, contented suffering with Christ, we are in the lower form of his school, and, as children, shall tremble at that which should not cause our terror; and, through misapprehensions of the case of a departing soul, shall be afraid of that which should be our joy. I am not such an enemy to the esteem of relics, but if one could shew me the very stocks that Paul and Silas sat in when they sung psalms in their imprisonment (Acts xvi.), I could be contented to be put (for the like cause) into the same stocks, with a special willingness and pleasure: how much more should we be willing to be conformed to our suffering Lord in a sjiirit and life of true mortification!
3. Hold communion also with his suffering members: desire not to dwell in the tents of wickedness, nor to be planted among them that flourish for a time, that may be pestroyed for ever, Psal. xcii. 6, 7. I had rather have Bradford’s heart and faggot than Bonner’s bishopric. It was holy Stephen, and not those that stoned him, that saw heaven opened, and the Son of man sitting at the right hand of God (Acts vii. 56), and that could joyfully say, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” He liveth not by faith (though he may be a hanger-on that keepeth up some j)rofession for fear of being damned) who chooseth not rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; and esteeineth not the very reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of the world, as having resjject to the recompence of reward, Heb. xl. 25, 26.
4. Live as if heaven were open to your sight, and then dote upon the delights of worldlings if you can; then love a life of flesldy ease and honour, better than to be with Christ, If you can. But of this I have spoken at large in other writings.
Christian, make It the study and business of thy life to learn to do thy last work well, that work which must be done but once; that so death, which transmits unholy souls into utter darkness and despair, may deliver thy spirit into thy Redeemer’s hands, to be received to his glory, according to that blessed promise, John xii. 26. And while I am in the flesh beg the same mercy for
Thy brother and companion in tribulation, and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, London Jan. 31, 1661.