in n <::;ol(len f^amc, or in a golden race, sliall run after flics or feathers, or faint before he comes to the goal, will lose not only his pains, hut also the crown for which he runs. My desires to the Lord shall be, that we may all so run as that we may obtain the crown.
[13.] Lastly, The glorious appearances of God for you do bespeak you to shew mercy to others. Now God has shewed such great mercy towards you, oh let ' the sighing of the prisoner' come before you, and the desires, the tears, the cries, the wounds, and the blood of poor distressed souls move your compassion towards them, that so you may do for all to the uttermost what you are able, that so their sorrows may be turned into joy, and sighing and mourning may flee away, and their souls may arise and call you blessed. The only way to have full barns, is to have charitable hands. The gainfullest art is alms- giving, saith Chrysostom. Whatsoever we lay out for them, we do but lay up for ourselves. Whatsoever we scatter to the poor, we gather for ourselves. Not getting, but giving, is the way to wealth. The poor man's hand is Christ's treasury, Christ's bank. Oh let not Christ's hand and Christ's treasury be empty ! and yet be careful that what you cast into Christ's treasury be got in Christ's wages. It is better to gratify none, than to grate upon any one, saith Augustine. The Hebrew words signifying ' alms,' npm, (tscdakah,) })roperly signifies justice ; to intimate to us that the matter of our alms should be goods justly gotten. Hence also the Jews call their alms-box, [Ktiph ashel tsedaka,] the chest-behest of justice. 0 Eight Honour- able, shall the Persians, and many Indians, erect hospitals, not only for lame and diseased men, but also for aged, starved, or hurt birds, beasts, and such like creatures ; and will not you do much more for those that have ventured their blood to save yours, and that are the price of the blood of Christ ? It is storied up of Stephen, king of Hungary, and of Oswald, sometime king of England, that their right hands, though dead, never putrified, because much exercised in giving and relieving the poor and afflicted. Surely the names and souls of such that do look to quoad font cm, and to quoad finem, to do this duty from a right principle, to a right end, shall never die, but live for ever ; which that all your names and souls may do, sliall be my constant desire and prayer at the throne of grace.
A BELIEVER'S LAST DAY IS HIS BEST DAY.
The ' Believer's Last Day his Best Daj',' originallj* published in 1651-52, passed throu"'h a great number of editions during tlie ten subsequent years and onward, though the various reprints are not designated in the title-pages. Our text is that of 1657, compared with another of IGGO. The title-page is given below.* Appended to the Sermon was this Notice: — ' Christian Reader, — Be pleased to pass by, or to correct with thy pen, the faults that have escaped by reason of the author's absence from the press.' The ' Believer's Last Day' is often found as an appendix to ' Heaven on Earth;' and perhaps nothing proves more completely the popularity of Brooks, than the large circulation and sustained vitality of such merely local and fugitive publications as the ' String of Pearls' and ' Believer's Last Day' — both funeral Sermons. AVith reference to the former, — ' String of Pearls,'— I take this opportunity to give a curious 'Advertise- ment' concerning it, by Brooks's publisher, which is appended to the seventh edition of the ' Apples of Gold,' (1667.) It is as follows :—
' The Stationer to the Reader. * This is to give notice that some dishonest booksellers, called land-pirates, who make it their practice to steal impressions of other men's copies — whose sin will surely find them out — have lately printed a false and imperfect impression of Mr Brooks his ' String of Pearls,' and have wronged both the author and me by false printing many words, and leaving out all the table of the chief heads, and of a bad paper and print, and crammed it into eight sheets, the true sort being fifteen sheets, sold by John Hancock, in Broad -street, over against the Church.' — G.
BELIEVERS Last Day is his Best Day.
Preached at the Funerall of
At Christs Church, London, June 28. 1651.
By Thomas Brooks, Minister of
the Gospel at Margarets i^ts/t-street-hill.
Thou wilt guide me by thy Counsell, and after
receive me to glory. Psal. 73. 24. Light is sowne for the righteous, and joy for the
upright in heart. Psal. 97. 11.
Ejus est timere mortem, qui ad Christum nolit ire. Cyp.
Timor mortis pejor, quam ipsa mors. £7'as.
Senibus mors in januis, adolescentibus in insidiis. Ber.
Printed, and are to be sould by John Hancock
at the first Shop in Popes head- XWcy,
next to Cornhill. 1657.
THE EPISTLE DEDICATORY.
To my worthy and beloved Friends, Mr John Russel, and Mrs Martha, his wife ; and to Mr Thomas Randoll ; all happiness in this world and that which is to come.
My dear and worthy Friends, — The ensuing sermon was preached upon your importunity, and printed also upon the same account. You know nothing would satisfy your spirits but the printing of it, which at last made me unwillingly willing to answer your desires ; not that I did delight to deny your desires, nor because I prized it, but because I thought it not good enough for you, nor worthy of that weight that you laid upon it, it being but the fruit of some short broken medita- tions. I have now published these notes, which in all love I present to you. They were once in your ear, they are now in your eye, and the Lord keep them ever in your hearts ! If there be anything in this sermon worth the having, it is not mine but the Lord's, through grace. 1 know that my best actions stand in need of sweet sweet odours, a golden censer.
Dear Friends, You know we must all fall in the wilderness of this world, be gathered to our fathers, go hence and be no more seen. Abraham and Sarah must part, Jacob and Rachel must be separated, David and his child must be severed. Our days are numbered, our period of time appointed, and our bounds we cannot pass. * All flesh is as grass, and the glory thereof as the flower of the field,' Ps. ciii. 15; therefore do not mourn as persons ' without hope,' neither be like Rachel that would ' not be comforted.' To that purpose take this counsel.