Case XII: How the People of God, in Times of Sickness, May Get Their Hearts Loose from All Earthly Engagements
Case XII. How the people of God, in times of sickness, may get their hearts loose from all earthly engagements, and persuade them into a willingness to die.
And there are seven arguments which I shall urge upon the people of God, at such a time as this, to make them cheerfully entertain the messenger of death, and die as well as live like saints. And the first is this:
Arg. 1. First, The harmlessness of death to the people of God. — Though it keeps its dart, it hath lost its sting. A saint (to allude to that in Isa. xi. 8.) may “play upon the hole of the asp, and put his hand into the cockatrice’ den.” Death is the cockatrice, or asp; the grave is his hole or den: a saint need not fear to put his hand boldly into it; it hath left and lost its stinff in the sides of Christ: “O death! where is thy sting?” Why art thou afraid, O saint, that this sickness may be thy death, as long as thou knowest that the death of Christ is the death of death? Indeed, if thou didst die in thy sins, as John viii. 21.; if death as a king did reign over thee, Rom. v. 14..; if it could feed upon thee, as the lion doth upon the prey he hath taken, as Psalm xlix. 14.; “if hell followed the pale horse;” then thou mightest well startle, and shrink back from it: but when God hath put away thy sins from thee, “as far as the east is from the west;” as long as there is 110 other evil left in death for thee to encounter with, but bodily pain; as long as the Scriptures represent it to thee under such harmless and easy notions, — as the putting off thy clothes, and “lying down to sleep upon thy bed,” — why shouldst thou be afraid? There is as much difference betwixt death to the people of God, and others, as betwixt the unicorn’s horn, when it is upon the head of that fierce beast, and when it is in the apothecaries’ shops, where it is made salubrious and medicinal.
Arg. 2. Thy heart may be kept from shrinking back at such a time as this, by considering the necessity of death, in order to the full fruition of God.
Whether thou art willing to die or not, I assure thee there is no other way to obtain the full satisfaction of thy soul, and complete its happiness, — till the hand of death do thee the kind office to draw aside the curtain of thy flesh, thy soul cannot see God. This animal life stands betwixt him and thee: “Whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord.” Thy body must be refined, and cast into a new mould, else that new wine of heavenly glory would break it. Paul, in his highest rapture, 2 Cor. xii. 4. when he heard things unutterable, was then but as a stander by, a looker on; not admitted into the company as one of them. But as the angels are in our assemblies, so was Paul in that glorious assembly above, and no otherwise; and yet even for this, he must, as it were, be taken out of the body, unclothed for a little time, to have a glimpse of that glory, and then put on his clothes again. O, then, who would not be willing to die for a full sight and enjoyment of God? Methinks thy soul should look and sigh, like a prisoner, through the grates of this mortality: “O that I had wings like a dove, then would I fly away, and be at rest.” Most men need patience to die, but a saint, that understands what death admits him to, should rather need patience to live. Methinks he should often look out, and listen on a death-bed for his Lord’s coming; and, when he receives the news of his approaching change, should say, “The voice of my beloved! behold, he cometh leaping over the mountains, skipping over the hills.”
Arg. 3. Another argument, persuading to this willingness, is the immediate succession of a more excellent and glorious life.
It is but a wink, and you shall see God. Your happiness shall not be deferred till the resurrection, but, as soon as the body is dead, the gracious soul is swallowed up in life. When once you have loosed from this shore, in a few moments your souls will be wafted over, upon the wings of angels, to the other shore of a glorious eternity: “I desire to be dissolved, and to be with Christ.” Did the soul and body die together, as Berilius taught; or did they sleep till the resurrection, as others have groundlessly fancied; it had been a madness for Paul to desire a dissolution for the enjoyment of Christ: for, if this were so, he enjoyed more of Christ whilst his soul dwelt in its fleshly tabernacle, than he should out of it.
There are but two ways of the soul’s living, known in Scripture; namely, the life ofaith and the life of vision 1 Cor. v. 5. These two divide all time, both present and future, betwixt them, 1 Cor. xiii. 12. If, when faith fails, sight should not immediately succeed, what would become of the unbodied soul? But, blessed be God! this great heart-establishing truth is evidently revealed in Scripture, Luke xxiii. 43. You have Christ’s promise, John xiv. 3. “I will come and receive you to myself.” O what a change will a few moments make upon your condition! Rouse up, dying saint! when thy soul is come out a little farther, when it shall stand, like Abraham, at its tent-door, the angels of God shall soon be with it. The souls of the elect are, as it were, put out to the angels to nurse, and when they die, these angels carry them home again to their Father’s house. If an angel were caused to fly swiftly, to bring a saint the answer of his prayer, Dan. ix. 22. how much more will the angels come post from heaven, to receive and transfer the praying soul itself!
Arg. 4. Farther, it may much conduce to thy willingness to die, to consider, that by death God oftentimes hides his people out of the way of all temptations and troubles upon earth. “Write, From henceforth, blessed are the dead that die in the Lord.” It is God’s usual way, when some extraordinary calamities are coming upon the world, to set his people out of harm’s way beforehand: “Merciful men are taken away from the evil to come.” So Micah vii. 1, 2. when such an evil time comes, as is there described, that “they all lie in wait for blood, and every man hunts his brother with a net,” God, by an act of favour, houses his people beforehand. Dost thou know what evil may be in the earth which thou art so loath to leave? Thy God removes thee for thy great advantage: thou art disbanded by death, and called off the field; other poor saints must stand to it, and endure a great fight of afflictions.
It is observed, that Methuselah died the very year before the flood; Augustine, a little before the sacking of Hippo; Parens, just before the taking of Heidelburgh. Luther observes, that all the apostles died before the destruction of Jerusalem; and Luther himself died before the wars broke out in Germany. It may be the Lord sees the tender heart cannot endure to see the misery, or bear the temptations, that are coming, and, therefore, will now gather thee to thy grave in peace; and yet wilt thou cry, O spare me a little longer!
Arg. 5. If yet thy hand hang back, consider the great advantage you will have by death, above all that ever you enjoyed on earth. And that, 1. As to your communion with God, — 2. As to your communion with saints.
L For your communion with God. The time of perfecting that is now come. Thy soul shall shortly stand before the face of God, and have the immediate emanations and beamings forth of his glory upon it. Here thy soul is remote from God; the beams of his glory strike it but obliquely and feebly; but shortly it will be under the line, and there the sun shall stand still as it did in Gideon: there shall be no cloudings nor declinings of it. O how should this fill thy soul with desires of being unclothed.
2. As for the enjoyment of saints: here indeed we have fellowship with them of the lower form; but that fellowship is so dissweetened by remaining corruptions, that there is no satisfaction in it. As it is the greatest plague that can befall a hypocrite to live in a pure church, so it is the greatest vexation to the spirit of a saint to live in a corrupt and disordered church. But when death hath admitted you into that glorious assembly of “the spirits of just men made perfect,” you shall have the desire of your hearts. Here you cannot fully close with one another; yea, you cannot fully close with your own souls. O what discords, jarrings, censurings, are here! what perfect blessed harmony there! In heaven each saint loves another as himself; they are altogether lovely. O my soul, haste thee away from the lions’ dens, from the mountains of Bether, from divided saints, to those mountains of myrrh and hills of frankincense! Thou art now going unto thine own people, as the apostle’s phrase imports, 2 Cor. v. 8.
Arg. 6. If all this will not do, consider what heavy burdens death will ease thy shoulders of.
“In this tabernacle we groan, being burdened.”
1. With bodily distempers. How true do we find that of Theophrastus, “The soul pays a dear rent for the tenement it now lives in!” But glorified bodies are clogged with no indispositions; death is the best physician; it will cure thee of all diseases at once.
2. With the indwelling of sin. This makes us groan from the very bowels: but “he that is dead is freed from sin.” Hath justification destroyed its damning power, and sanctification its reigning power? so glorification destroys its very being and existence. 3. We groan under temptations here; but, as soon as we are out of the body, we are out of the reach of temptation. When once thou art got into heaven, thou mayest say, Now, Satan, I am there where thou canst not come. For as the damned in hell are so fixed in sin and misery that their condition cannot be altered, so glorified saints are so fixed in holiness and glory that they cannot be shaken. 4. Here we groan under various troubles and afflictions; but then the days of our mourning are ended; God shall wipe away all tears from our eyes. O then let us haste away, that we may be at rest!
Arg. 7. If still thou linger, like Lot in Sodom, then, lastly, examine all the pleas and pretences for a longer time on earth. Why art thou unwilling to die?
Obj. 1. O I have many relations in the world! I know not what will become of them when I am gone.
Sol, If thou art troubled about their bodies and outward condition, why should not that word satisfy thee? “Leave thy fatherless children to me, 1 will preserve them alive; and let thy widows trust in me.” Luther, in his last will and testament, hath this expression: “Lord, thou hast given me wife and children: I have nothing to leave them, but I commit them unto thee. O Father of the fatherless, and judge of widows, nourish, keep, and teach them!” Or, art thou troubled for their souls? Thou canst not convert them if thou shouldst live; and God can make thy prayer and counsels to live and take place upon them when thou art dead.
Obj. 2. I would fain live to do God more service in the world.
Sol. Well: but if he have no more service for thee to do here, why shouldst thou not say, with David,” If he have no delight to use me any farther, here am
I; let him do what seemeth him good.” In this world thou hast no more to do; but he is calling thee to a higher service and employment in heaven: and what thou wouldst do for him here, he can do that by other hands.
Obj, 3. I am not yet fully ready: I am not as a bride completely adorned for the bridegroom,
Sol. Thy justification is complete already, though thy sanctification be not so. And the way to make it so, is to die: for, till then, it will have its defects and wants.
Obj. 4. O but I want assurance! If I had that, I could die presently.
Sol, Yea, there it sticks indeed. But then consider, that a hearty willingness to leave all the world to be freed from sin, and be with God, is the next way to that desired assurance: no carnal person was ever willing to die upon this ground.
And thus I have finished those cases which so nearly concern the people of God, in the several conditions of their life, and taught them how to keep their hearts in all. I shall next apply the whole.