O that these arguments might prevail ! O that they might at last win the consent of our hearts to go along with death ; which is the messenger sent by God to bring us home to our Father's house.
But I doubt, when all is said, we are where we were : all this suffices not to overcome the regrets and reluctancies of nature ; still the matter sticks in our minds, and we cannot conquer our disinclined wills in this matter. What is the matter ? Where lies the rubs and hinderances .^ O that God would remove them at last !
Objection 1. This is a common plea with many, I am not ready and fit to die ; icere I ready, I should be willing' to be gone.
Solution (1.) How long soever you live in the body, there will be somewhat still out of order, som.ething still to do ; for you must be in a state of imperfection while you remain here,, and according to this plea, you will never be williYig to die. (2.) Your willing- ness to be dissolved and to be with Christ, is one special part of your fitness for death : and till you attain it in some good measure, you are not so fit to die as you should be. (3.) If you be in Christ, you have a fundamental fitness for death, though you may want some circumstantial preparatives. And as to all that is wanting in your sanctification or obedience now, it will be completed in a mo- ment upon your dissolution.
Object. 2. Others plead that the desire they liave to live, is in order to God's Jarther service by them in this world. O, say they, it was David's happiness to die, when he had served his generation accord^ ing to the will of God : Acts xiii. 36. If we had done so too, ive should say with Simeon, " Now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace.'*
Sol. (1.) God needs not your hands to cany on his service in the world ; he can do it by other hands when you are gone. INIany of greater gifts and graces than you, are daily laid in the grave, to teach you, God needs no man's help to carry on his work.
(2.) If the service of God be so dear to you, there is higher and more excellent service for you in heaven, than any you ever Avere, or can be employed iii here on earth. Oh ! why do not you long to be amidst the company of angels and spirits made- perfect in tlie temple-service in heaven ?
128 A TREATISE OF THE SOUL OF MAN.
Obiect. 3. 0, hit my relations in the zcorld lie near my hearty icliat will become of them when I am gone ?
Sol (1.) It is pity they should lie nearer your heart than Jesus Christ : If they do, you have little reason to desire death indeed.
(2.) Who took care of you, when death snatched your dear re- lations from you, who possibly felt the same workings of heart that you now^ do ? Did you not experience the truth of that word, Psal. xxvii. 10. "When father and mother forsake me, then the " Lord taketh me up.'' And if you be in the covenant, God hath prevented this plea with his promise, Jer. xlix. 11. " Leave thy " fatherless children to me, I will keep them ahve ; and let their " widows trust in me."
Object. 4. But I desire to live to see the felicity of Z'lon before I go hence, and the aiiswer of the many pi^ayers I have sown for it ; I am loth to leave the people of God in so sad a condition.
Sol. The publicness of thy spirit, and love to Zion, is doubtless pleasing to God ; but it is better for you to be in heaven one day, than to live over again all the days you have lived on earth in the best time that ever the church of God enjoyed in this world ; the promises shall be accomplished, though you may not live to see their accompUshment ; die vou in the faith of it, as Joseph did, Gen. 1. 24.
But, alas ! the matter doth not stick here : this is not the main hinderance. I will tell you where I think it lies: (1.) In the hesi- tancy and staggering of our faith about the certainty and reality of things invisible. (2.) In some special guilt upon the conscience, which discourages us. (3.) In a negligent and careless course of life, which is not ordinarily blessed ^nth much evidence or com- fort. (4.) In the deep engagements of our hearts to earthly things : they could not be so cold to Christ, if they were not over-heated with other things. Till these distempers be cured, no arguments can prosper that are spent to this end. The Lord dissolve all those ties Ijetwixt us and this world, which hinder our consent and wil- lingness to be dissolved, and to be with Christ, which is far better.
And now we have had a glance and glimmering light, a faint umbrage of the state of the separated souls of the just in heaven : it remains that I shew you somewhat of the state and case of the damned souls in hell. A dreadful representation it is ; but it is ne- cessary we hear of hell, that we may not feel it.
A TREATISE OF THE SOUL OF MAK. 129
1 Pet. iii. 19. By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison.
In the former discourse we have had a just view of heaven, and the spirits of just men made perfect, the inhabitants of that blessed region of hght and glory.
In this scripture we have the contrary glass, representing the un- speakable misery of those souls or spirits which are separated hy death from their bodies for a time, and by sin from God for ever ; arrested by the law, and secured in the prison of hell, unto the judgment of the great day.
A sermon of hell may keep some souls out of hell, and a sermon of heaven may be the means to help others to heaven : the desire of my heart is, that the conversations of all those who shall read these discourses of heaven and hell, might look more like a diligent flight from the one, and pursuit of the other.
The scope of the context is a persuasive to patience, upon a pros- pect of manifold tribulations coming upon the Christian churches, strongly enforced by Chrisfs example, who both in his own person, ver. 38. and by his spirit in his servants, ver. 19- exercised wonder- ful patience and long-suffering as a pattern to his people.
This 19th verse gives us an account of his long-sufiering towards that disobedient and immorigerous generation of sinners, on whom he waited an hundred and twenty years in the ministry of Noah.
There are difficulties in the text. * Estius reckons no less than ten expositions of it, and saith, " It is a very difficult scripture in " the judgment of almost all interpreters;" but yet I must say, those difficulties are rather brought to it, than found in it. It is a text which hath been racked and tortured by popish expositors, to make it speak Christ's local descent into hell, and to confess their doctrine o^ purgatory ; things which it knew not.
But if we will take its genuine sense, it only relates the sin and misery of those contumacious persons, on whom the Spirit of God waited so long in the ministry of Noah ; giving an account of,
1. Their sin on earth.
2. Their punishment in hell.