The last use then is this. If a believer's last day be his best day, then hy the rule of contraries, a luicked man's last day must he his loorst day, for he must there lie down with the sins of his youth.3 Death shall put an end to all the benefits and comforts that now thou enjoyest. Now thou must say. Honours, friends, pleasures, riches, credit, &c., farewell for ever ; I shall never have good day more ; I shall never be merry more ; my sun is set, my glass is out, my hopes fail, my heart fails ; all offers of grace are past, the Spirit will never strive with me more, free grace will never move me more, the golden* serpent shall never be held forth more ; death will be an inlet to judg- ment, yea, to an eternity of misery. 5 What the voice was of Grod to Adam upon eating the forbidden fruit ; what the coming of the flood was to the profane men of the old world ; what the waters of the Ked Sea were to Pharaoh and his army ; what the fire from heaven was to the captains that came up against Elijah ; what the burning furnace was to them that cast in Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, the same will be the day of death to profane wicked souls. Ah, sinners, my prayer for you shall be, that the Lord would awaken you, and set up
^ He that prepares for his body and friends, but neglects his soul, is like him that pre- pares for his slave, but neglects his wife.
" When I was young, saith Seneca the heathen, I then studied artem bene vivendl the art of living well ; when age came upon me, 1 then studied artem bene moriendi the art of dying well.
^ A great man wrote thus a little before his death : Spes et fortiina valete Hope and
fortune farewell. * Query, 'Brazen'? — G.
' Sigismund the emperor and Louis the Eleventh of France straitly charged all their servants that they should not dare to name that bitter word death when they saw them sick, so dreadful was the very thoughts of death to them.
408 A believer's last day is his best day. [Ecclek. VII. 1.
a choice light in your souls, that you may see where you are, and what you are ; that he would give you to break off your sins by repentance, and give you an interest in himself; that so ' for you to live may be Christ, and to die may be gain,' Phil. i. 21 ; that in life and death Christ may be advantage to you ; and that death may be the funeral of all your sins and sorrows, and an inlet to all that joy and pleasure, that blessedness and happiness that is at God's right hand.
Published in the year of the ' Plague,' (1665,) immediately preceding the 'Fire' of 1666 — which destroyed the entire stock of so many books— the ' Heavenly Cordial,' like the 'Experiences' of Mrs Bell, is unknown to Bibliographers, not being found in any of our great libraries. Our own copy seems to have been carefully preserved, along with Brooks's other writings, by some ardent admirer. It would fetch in the market treble the cost of our entire edition of Brooks. The title-page is given below.* — G.
For all those Servants of the Lord that have had the PLAGUE (and are recovered) or that now have it ; also for those that have escaped it, though their Relations and Friends have been either visited, or swept away by it.
Thirteen DIVINE MAX I ME S or CONCLUSIONS in respect of the PESTI- LENCE, which may be as so many supports, com- forts, and refreshing springs, both to the visited and preserved people of God in this present day.
Ten Arguments to prove that in Times of Common Calamity, the people of God do stand up- on the advantage ground, as to their outward pre- servation and protection above all other people un- der Heaven.
Eight Jieaso7is why some of the precious Ser- vants of the Lord have fallen by the Pestilence in this Day of the Lord's Anger.
By Thomas Brooks, late Mini- ster of the Gospel in London.
London, Printed for, and are to be sold by John
Hancock, at the first shop in Popef-hc^id
Alley, next to CornhiU. 1665.
I. The first divine maxim or conclusion is this — viz., TJ^ien the pestilence is among a people^ it is the Lord alone that sends it.
2 Sam. xxiv. 15, 'So the Lord sent a pestilence upon Israel, from the morning even to the time appointed : and there died of the people, from Dan even to Beer-sheba, seventy thousand men.' Num. xvi. 46, ' Wrath is gone out from the Lord ; the plague is begun.' Num. xiv. 12, 'I will smite them with the pestilence, and disinherit them." Deut. xxviii. 21, ' The Lord shall make the pestilence cleave unto thee, until he hath consumed thee from off the land, whither thou goest to possess it.' Ezek. xiv. 19, ' Or if I send a pestilence into that land, and pour out my fury upon it in blood, to cut off from it man and beast;' ver. 21, Tor thus saith the Lord God, How much more when I send my four sore judgments upon Jerusalem, the sword, and the famine, and the noisome beast, and the pestilence, to cut off from it man and beast ? ' Amos iv. 10, ' I have sent among you the pestilence, after the manner of Egypt.' Hence it is called, God's arrow, Ps. xci. 5 ; and when God shoots those arrows into kingdoms, cities, towns, families, Ps. xxxviii. 2, none can puU them out but God himself. The plague is more immediately from God than any other sickness or disease, for it is the immediate stroke of God.i The scribe is more properly said to write than the pen, and he that maketh and keepeth the clock is more properly said to make it go and strike than the wheels and poises that hang upon it, and every workman to effect his work, rather than tlie tools which he useth as instruments. So the Lord of hosts, who is the chief agent and mover in all things and in all actions, may more fitly and properly be said to effect and bring to pass all judgments, yea, all things which are done in the earth, than any inferior or subordinate causes : seeing they are but his tools and instruments, which he rules or guides according to his own will, power, and providence. I know some physicians ascribe it to the heat of the air, and sometimes to the dryness of the air, and sometimes to the corruption of the air, and sometimes to the corruption of men's blood, and sometimes to Satan, and sometimes to the malignancy of the planets ; but certainly those are ' physicians of no value' that
^ Deut. xxxii. 39. Hippocrates calls it to 6dov, the Divine disease, because it cornea more immediately from God than other diseases do.
412 A HEAVENLY CORDIAL.