can cure the aching teeth ; nor the honourable garter that can ease the gout ; nor the purple robe that can chase away the burning fever ; nor the velvet slipper that can heal the kibe-heel : 1 no more can treasures of gold or silver deliver from wrath, or help in a day of death. Oh, but righteousness, that delivers from death. Look, what the sword, the shield, the helmet, the breastplate, the coat of mail, is to the soldier in the heat of battle, that, all that, and more than that, is righteousness to the righteous in the day of death. 2 Eight- eousness or holiness of affection, of action, of life and conversation, delivers from spiritual death, and from eternal death, yea, it dehvers from the evil, the hurt, the horror, the terror, the dread, and the sting of temporal death. Piety delivers not only from the second death, but also from all the evils and miseries of the first death too. As the righteousness of the righteous wiU be a royal protection to him, both against the day of wrath, and the wrath of the day ; so the righteousness of the righteous will be a royal protection to him, both against death, and against all the evils of death. Kighteousness unstings death, it takes away the venom, the poison and bitterness of death ; it turns that curse into a blessing, that punishment into a benefit, that night of darkness into a day of light, that wilderness into a paradise, that hell into a heaven : Prov. xii. 28, ' In the way of righteousness is life, and in the path thereof there is no death.' In the way of righteousness is (chaum) lives ; so the Hebrew hath it, in the way of righteousness there are many lives : in that way there is spiritual life, and eternal life, and natural life, and all the comforts, and sweets, and blessings, and happiness of that life, without which man s life would be but a lingering, a languishing death ; yea, a hell rather than a heaven unto him. ' And in the path thereof there is no death.' There is no spiritual death, there is no eternal death, yea, there is no corporal, no temporal death to hurt or harm them, to sting or terrify them, to damage or disadvantage them : for death is an outlet and an inlet to a holy man : it is an outlet to sin, to sorrow, to shame, to suffering, to afflictions, to temptations, to desertions, to oppressions, to confusions, and to vexations ; and it is an inlet to a more clear, full, and constant fruition of God and Christ, and an inlet to the sweetest pleasures, the purest joys, the highest delights, the strongest comforts, and the most satisfying contentments. Death is the funeral of all a holy man's sins and miseries, and it is the resurrec- tion of all his joys, and the perfection of all his graces and spiritual excellencies.3 Death to a holy man is nothing but the changing of his grace into glory, his faith into vision, his hope into fruition, and his love into perfect comprehension. The Persians had a certain day in the year in which they used to kill all serpents and venomous creatures: such a day as that will the day of death be to a holy man. Feccatum erat obstetrix mortis, et mors sepulchrum peccati: '
^ 'Bruised' heel. — G.
* Nugas the Scythian king despised the rich presents and ornaments that were sent unto him by the Emperor of Constantinople, because they could not ward off sorrow, sickness, diseases, death.
2 Death is not mors hominis, but mors peccati, not the death of the man, but the death of his sin : Phil. i. 23; 2 Cor. v. 12, and iv. 7, 8. Death is a Christian's quietus est, it is his discharge from all trouble and misery.
180 THE NECESSITY, EXCELLENCY, RARITY, [HeB. XII. 14.
Sin was the midwife that brought death into the world, and death shall be the bearers that shall carry sin out of the world. When Samson died, the Philistines died together with him : so when a holy man dies, his sins die with him. Death came in by sin, and sin goeth out by death. As the worm kills the worm that bred it ; so death kills sin that bred it. Death cures all diseases, the aching head and the unbelieving heart : the diseased body and the defiled soul.i At Strat- ford Bow were burned in Queen Mary's days a lame man and a blind man ; after the lame man was chained, casting away his crutch, he bade the blind man be of good comfort ; for, saith he, death will cure us both ; it will cure thee of thy blindness and me of my lameness. Death will cure the holy man of all natural and spiritual distempers. Death is the holy man's jubilee, it is his greatest advantage, it puts him into a better estate than ever he had before. It is God's gentle- man-usher to conduct us to heaven ; it will blow the bud of grace into the flower of glory. Oh, who would not go through hell to heaven ! who would not go through a temporary death to an eternal life ! who would not willingly march through mortality to immortality and glory ! 2 0 sirs ! holiness will make you look upon death as a welcome guest, a happy friend, a joyful messenger. It will make you kiss it and embrace it, as Favinus the Italian martyr kissed and embraced his executioner : it will make you desire it, and long after it with tears, as holy Bradford did. By all this you see that holiness will deliver you from death in death ; and therefore I shall close up this head, as that wise and witty man, Sir Francis Bacon,^ closed up a paper of verses : —
' What then remains, but that we still should cry. Not to be born, or being born, to die ? '
[5.] Fifthly and lastly, By holiness you shall gain the greatest bold- ness in the day of judgment, Job xix. 25. Nothing will embolden a man in that great day like holiness ; holiness will then make the face to shine indeed : 1 John iv. 17, ' Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment ; because as he is, so are we in this world.'* That which will make Christ's last appear- ance delightful to Christians, will be their likeness to Christ in holi- ness : in nature and grace likeness begets the greatest boldness. As there is no child so bold with the father, as he that is most like the father, so there is no Christian so bold with Christ, as he that is most like to Christ. A holy Christ is most familiar with a holy Christian ; and a holy Christian is most bold with a holy Christ. The more a Christian is like to Christ in holiness of heart and life, in holiness of affection and conversation, the more divinely bold and famiHar will that man be with Christ, both in this world and in the great day of
^ Ultimus morborum medicus mors. [Foxe] Acts and Mon., fol. 1733.
2 Death is but an entrance into life. Miseri infideles mortem appellant, fideles vera quid nisi pascham ? Miserable unbelievers call it death, but to faithful believers, what is it but a passover, but a jubilee? — Bernard.
" Spelled, as frequently by contemporaries,'/ Bakon.' See Works of Bacon by Spedding, vol. vii. p. 272.— G.