This point will serve to open two cases : — ■
Case 1. Whether men confessing Christ may make away them- selves to avoid the cruel torments of their persecutors, and they know not certainly what their strength may be able to sustain ? This was a great case in the primitive times, and it may be still of use. Euse- bius telleth us, lib. viii. cap. 24, that in the time of Dioclesian's per- secution, which was very bloody and cruel, there were divers that procured death to themselves by leaping down from lofts and high places, or else thrust themselves through with knives or swords.
I answer — This is sinful. Christ prayeth not that his disciples ' might be taken out of the world,' but ' kept from the evil.'
The sinfulness appeareth —
1. Because this is an act of disobedience, contrary to tlie law of God : ' Thou shalt not kill' Now the more unnatural any act is, the greater is the crime. A man is not lord of life and death.
2. It is an act of distrust : 1 Cor. x. 13, ' There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to men : but God is faithful, who who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able ; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.' God will either temper the afHiction to our strength, or raise our strength to the degree of the affliction. Christ hath laid in this prayer for our encouragement in this case, ' Keep them from the evil ; ' it is a making haste, as if God would not be faithful, but require brick where he giveth no straw.
3. It is a disparagement and dishonour to the cause which we main- tain. It robbeth God of a great deal of gloiy, when he calleth us out to show our love to him, to take our lives out of God's hands, when he claimeth them : Eora. xiv. 7, 8, ' For none of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself : for whether we live, we live unto the Lord, and whether we die, we die unto the Lord ; whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord's.' Providence hath singled you out to be wit- nesses ; God by his providence cliallengeth his due ; it is a retracting of your vows. And therefore, though God may be merciful to the soul, yet the act is unnatural and sinful and base, when God hath drawn you out to be his champions and witnesses to the world.
VeE. 15.] SERMONS UPON JOHN XVII. 393
Case 2 is about wishing for death. You know the law doth not only forbid acts, but thoughts and desires ; therefore, is it lawful to long for death and dissolution ? We find instances on both hands in tlie scriptures. The murmuring Israelites are taxed : Exod. xvi. 3, * Would to God we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt.' And it is usual for men in a pet to wish themselves dead, to curse the day of their birth, and long for the day of their deatli. On the other side, Paul, out of a spiritual affection, desire th to be dis- solved, and to be with Christ : Phil. i. 23, ' I have a desire to depart, and to be with Christ.' What shall we say in this case ?
I answer in several propositions : —
1. There is a great deal of difference between serious desires and |)assionate expressions. The desires of the children of God are delibe- rate and resolved, conceived upon good grounds, and after much struggling with flesh and blood to bring their hearts to it. Carnal men are loath that God should take them at their word ; as he in the fable that called for death, and when he came, desired him to help him up with his burden. Alas ! they do not consider what it is to be in tlie state of the dead, and to come unprovided and unfurnished into God's presence. We often wish ourselves in our graves ; but if God should take us at our word, we would make many pauses and excep- tions. Men that in their miseries call for death, when sickness cometh will run to the physician. Many gifts are promised if life could be restored. None more unwilling to die than those that in a passion wish for death.
2. We must carefully look to the grounds of these wishes and de- sires. Carnal wishes for death arise, either —
[1.] Out of violent anger, and a pet against providence ; as Jonah, chap. iv. 3, ' Therefore now, 0 Lord, take, I beseech thee, my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live ; ' and ver. 8, ' He fainted and wished in himself to die, and said, It is better for me to die than to live.' The murmuring Israelites, when they felt the famine of the wilderness, wished they ' had died in the land of Egypt.' When men are vexed with the world, they look upon death as a release, to take vengeance upon God, to deprive him of a servant.