The Whole Duty of Mourning and Preparing Ourselves for Death, Part 1 · Chapter 5
CHAP. V. Of Sin, the Means of Death, of Sickness, Youth, and Old Age.
OVR Sins the Works of the Flesh, in Scripture, are called dead Works, Heb. 6.1. and 9.14. and the Workers of them are called dead Men, Mat. 8.22. Luke 15.32. John 5.25. Eph. 2.1.5. and therefore upon every occasion of Sin committed, we are taught to remember Death. Whatsoever thing hath Death annex'd and threatn'd as the Reward and Fruit belonging to it, the same thing is a just and necessary Memorial of Death: Now all our Sins have this Reward denounced, Rom. 6.23. and 7.5. and therefore in all Sins Death is set before us: as God also speaks expresly in his Warnings against Sin, Deut. 30.15.19. as in sight of Death, we are to remember Sin the Cause of it, so in the sight of Sin we are to remember Death, the Effects of it.
II. Neither are these Sins thus to be considered by us, only in respect of their future Reward; but God, by a further Judgment in sending a present Terrour and Fear of Death upon the present Acts of Sin, Lev. 26.36. Heb. 2.15. doth call Men, yea, and force them to remember Death: thus it is with all Wicked Doers, and with the Just sometimes in part, through divers Temptations, Psal. 77.3.7, 8. but with the Faithful, there is another Remembrance of Death by occasion of Sins, as comfortable to them, as the former is terrible to the Wicked: for in fight of Sins that perplex 'em, they call to mind what shall quite free 'em from those Sins, which Expedient is Death; thereupon they set Mortality before their Eyes, and are taught that Lesson of the Almighty, to long for their Redemption, by desiring to remove out of the Body, Rom. 8.23. 2. Cor. 5.8.
III. Afflictions, Sicknesses, and Dangers wherein Death is threatned unto Men, are likewise Means of Death, and by them also we are called of God to remember our Latter End. Sometimes it pleaseth the Great Being for the Warning of Secure Men, to bring them to the Gates of Death before they enter: Psal. 9.13. and though he bring them back again, yet is this done by the Almighty for a Memorial of Death: God brings Men into such Extremities, that nothing but Death is to be expected, they receive the Sentence of Death in themselves, and despair of Life, 1 Cor. 8.9. and are free among the Dead, in their own and others Judgment, Psal. 88.4, 5. and thus many times they are in Deaths often, 2 Cor. 11.23. and such things God worketh oftentimes, that Men might renounce the World, and set their Heart, and their House in Order, as a Preparation for their Departure, Job 33.22, 29.
IV. Let us praise then the Goodness of the Almighty, who ordains all things for the best to his Servants: whose unlimited Providence governs us all our Life, and takes so peculiar a Care of our Death: He wisely casts us down on our Beds of Sickness, and mercifully draws the Curtain 'twixt the Transitory World and us, shutting out all its vain and pernicious Designs, and contracting all our Affairs and Business to a little Room or Chamber; there in that close and quiet Solitude, he speaks to our sorrowful Hearts, and methodically sets before us, all our sinful Life; there he prudently discovers to us the Frauds and Fallacies of this World; and kindly invites us now at last to prepare speedily for the other. Thither he carefully sends his Messengers of Peace, to treat earnestly with our Souls, and reconcile them to his Heavenly Kingdom: Thither he sends even his only beloved Son, to secure our strait Passage, and to guide and conduct us to himself.
V. O, how quite contrary will our serious Thoughts be then, to what they were in our Negligent and Careless Health! how shall we justly and freely Censure what we once much esteemed; and be easily and readily convinc'd into wiser Counsels! when our unruly and stubborn Senses shall be check'd with Aches and Pains; and our rash and inconsiderate Minds made sober and calm with Fear. When the Opportunity and Occasions of Sin shall be removed away, and every Object about us, encline us to Repentance.
VI. Let thy Holy Name, O Lord, for ever be magnified! whose Mercy Sanctifies even thy Punishments and Judgments into Favours: thou bringest us Low and Weak to persuade us to be humble; and prescribest us a Sickness to heal out Souls and cure our Infirmities: thou commandest the unsatisfied Grave to dispense with none, but indifferently seize on all alike: That all may not neglect to provide for that last and fatal hour, and none be utterly undone with foolish and mistaken Hopes; thou tell'st us sincerely and plainly, we all must dye; but tenderly and kindly concealest the Time and Place, that every where we may readily stand on our Guard, and every moment vigilantly expect thy Coming.
VII. In the Age of Man, where they first climb up and ascend to their height, and then presently decline and descend again, is propounded by the Almighty. Now the Face of Man is a Dial of his Transitory Age, and the manifold Changes thereof from time to time, as the Shadow of Declination in the Dial, do shew his Mortality: and the main Differences in the Physiognomies of Men, may justly serve for a Memorial of Man's changeable Estate, his Beauty and the Vigour of his Countenance being daily altered, as the Grace and lovely shape of the Flower that perisheth, James 1.11. This ought to affect us daily, that the different Faces which we behold may put us in mind that the fashion of this world passeth away.
VIII. As the Face, so the Stature of Man growing up as a Plant, according to the divers Measures and Degrees of his growth appointed of God, Psal. 144.12. Luke 1.80. and 2.52. is another Testimony of his changeable Estate, even from the Child of a Span long, unto those that have their full growth, Lam. 2.20. though some be of low stature, as Zacheus, Luke 19.3. and some again higher by the head, as was Saul, 1 Sam. 10.23, 24 yet even in these compared with themselves, the proportion of their Growth is an Evidence of their Age to such as know them: and thus the Wheel of Man's Age is visible in the variation of his his Stature, which may put him in mind of his Latter End.
IX. Besides the Face and Stature, the Almighty hath set other Marks upon the Bodies of young and old, for a Memento of their Time passing away: God describes to Youth, the Time of Love, Ezek. 16.7, 8. and to Age the near approaching Tokens of Death, whereby they are warned of God to prepare for it: for through decay of strength, the Arms and Hands, the Keepers of the House, begin to tremble, Eccles. 12.3. and the Legs that are as Pillars of the Body, bow themselves; and the help of a Staff to rest on, is sought of the Aged Person, Zach. 8.4. and with that Assistance, at every Step he takes, he strikes upon the Earth, and raps at the Gate of the Grave, untill it be opened unto him: This Weakness is further signified by the ceasing of the Grinders, Eccles. 12.3. both the upper and the nether Millstone, which are called the Life of Man, Deut. 24.6. these Teeth failing, Life begins to fail, wherein the Memorial of Death is set before us.
X. And as in the outward Parts, so the like Weakness and Decay of strength is to be observ'd in the inward; the Silver Cords of the Sinews, which conveys the Faculty of Sense and Motion from the Head, in Old Age are loosed, Eccles. 12.6. that Cable of the Marrow in the Back Bone, which was wont so firmly to hold and stay the frail Bark of our Body, tossed with so many Motions, and by those many Conjugations of Nerves which kept our Body steddy, begins now to dissolve: the Head, which is the golden Bowl, wherein is emboxed the Brain that ministers that Faculty of Sense and Motion, through Age is broken and become crazy: the many Veins, which carry the nourishing Blood from the Liver unto each part of the Body, become like unto broken Vessels; and the Arteries, which by the reciprocal Motions and Pulses, do convey the Vital Spirits from the Heart, even to all Parts of the Body, these through languishing Age becomes slow and weak: and all these faint Operations are so many Memorials of Death, and do plainly portend the Approach of our Latter End.
XI. The Old Man's gray head is in Scripture compared to the white Blossoms of the Almond Tree, Eccles. 12.5. this Tree making hast to flourish before many others in the Spring, is therefore in Vision used to signifie, that God will hasten his Word to perform it, Jer. 1.11, 12. and consequently the sight of the gray head, either in our selves or others, serves as a Divine Vision to warn us of God's Decree of hastning our Latter End: yea, those are upbraided of God as Contemners of this Vision, who though their head be not all white do not observe the first sprinkling of the head, when as the gray hairs are here and there upon them, and they know it not, Hos. 7.9. and regard not this Memorial of their Mortality.
XII. As to the decay of Sense; in Old Age, they that look out of the Windows be darkned, Eccles. 12.3. the Eyes fail; Gen. 27.1. and 48.10. 1 Sam. 3.2. and 4.15. and that dimness of Sight is one of Death's Apparitors to summons Men to their End; by that restraint of Sight, God calls Men to make a new Covenant with their Eyes, to turn them out of the Corners of the World, not to gaze longer after Vanity, nor to walk after the Lust of their Eyes; to live by Faith and not by Sight, 2 Cor, 5.7. not to look after things temporal which are seen, but after things Eternal, which are not seen, 1 Cor. 4.18. and as the Sense of Seeing waxes dim, in Old Age, that of Hearing likewise fails; the daughters of Musick are abased and brought low, Eccles. 12.4. Men cannot then any more hear the voice of singing-men and singing-women, 2 Sam. 19.35. God that planted the Ear, Psal. 94.9. when he makes this Plant to wither again, calls them to remember their Transplantation into another World, to wait for their changing, and to prepare for it. The Tasting likewise decays; for Old Barzillai cannot taste what he eats, or what he drinks, 2 Sam. 19.35. Old Isaac by his touch cannot distinguish betwixt the hands of his Son, and the Skin of a Beast, Gen. 27.16.21, 22, 23. The Psalmist when Old, is covered with Cloaths, and feels no heat, 1 Kings 1.1. yea, the inward Senses begin to fail also; Memory decays; the Understanding is diminished, and the Aged sometimes in their decrepid Age, return to their Infancy, and not able to discern between Good and Evil, 2 Sam. 19.35. how inexcusable are they that live securely, and think not of Death, when they have so many Warnings given them.
XIII. With Decay of Strength and Sense, comes the decay of Health: Old Age is many times a continual Sickness, and when the days of Man are multiplied, they are but Labour and Sorrow, even the strength of them, Psal. 90.10. then is the time, when the evil days approach, and the years of which Man says, I have no pleasure in them, Eccl. 12.1. then is the Light of Sun, Moon, and Stars obscured; and then the Clouds return after the Rain, one Infirmity after another, v. 2. Through decay of Natural Heat ariseth Indigestion and Crudity of Stomach, and thereupon follow Rheums and Catarrhs; and from thence proceeds Aches, and manifold Pains and Diseases, whereby the Almighty, as with an Iron Pen writeth our Lesson, and engraveth this Sentence deep in our Flesh and Bones, Remember your latter end approaching, and prepare for Death.