The Catechizing of Families, Chapter 47
CHAP. XLVII. Of Preparation for Death and Iudgment.
Qu. 1. HOw must we prepare for a safe and co… fortable Death?
A. I have said so much of this in my Family Book, that to avoid Repetition I must refer you thi…her; only in brief. I. Preparation for Death is the whole work of Life, for which many hundred years are not too long if God should so long spare and trie us. And all that I have hitherto said to you, for Faith Love and Obedience, upon the Creed, Lords Prayer and Commandements, is to teach you how to prepare for Death. And though …ound Conversion at last, may tend to Pardon and Salvation, to them that have lived a careless wicked Life; Yet the best, the surest, the Wisest Preparation, is that which is made by the whole course of a holy obedient heavenly Life.aPhil. 2. 12. Heb. 12. 28. Tit. 2. 11, 12. Heb. 5. 9. Luk. 19. 9. Rom. 10. 10, 11. 2 Pet. …. 11, 12. 1 Pet. 1. 9. Luk. 14. 26, 33.
Q. 2. What Life is it that is the best Preparation?
A. 1. When we have so well considered of the certain Vanity of this World, and all its pleasures, and of the truth of Gods Promises of the Heavenly Glory, as that by Faith we have there placed our chiefest Hopes, and there expect our chief Felicity, and make it our chief business in this world to seek it, preferring no worldly thing before it, but resolved for the hopes of it to forsake them all when God requireth it: This is the first part of our preparation for Death.bMat. …. 33.
II. When we believe that this mercy is given by Christ the Mediator between God and Man, and trust in his Merits and Intercession with the Father, and take him for our Teacher also and our Ruler, resolving to obey his Word and Spirit. This is the second part of our preparation for Death.c2 Cor. 4. 16, 18. Ioh. 3. 16.
III. When the Holy Spirit hath shed abroad Gods Love upon our hearts, and turned their nature into a habit of Love to God and Holiness, and given us a Victory over that Love of the World and fleshly Prosperity and Pleasure which ruleth in the hearts of Carnal men, though yet our Love shew it self but in such Mortification, and endeavour, and grief for what we want, we are prepared for a safe Death.d2 Cor. 5. 17. Heb. 12. 14. Rom. 8. 9, 13.
But if the foretasts of Heavenly Glory, and sense of the Love of God, do make our thoughts of Heaven sweeter to us than our thoughts of our Earthly hopes, and cause us out of Love to God and our glorified Redeemer and his Church; and out of love to a Life of perfect Knowledge, Love and Joy, to long to depart and be with Christ; then we are prepared not only for a safe but a joyful Death.e2 Cor. 5. 1, 3, 8. Phil. 1. 21, 23.
Q. 3. O! But this is a great and difficult work?
A. It is not too hard for the S… of Christ… and a Soul renewed by it. It is our great foll… and naughtiness that maketh it hard: Why e… should it be hard for a man that loveth: himself, and knoweth how quickly a Grave, and rotting in the Dark must end all his pleasures in this World, to be earnestly desirous of a better after it. And why should it be hard for one that believeth that mans Soul is immortal, and that God hath sent one from Heaven who is greater than Angels to purchase it for us and promise it to us, and give us the first fruits by his Holy Spirit; to rejoyce that he dyeth not as an unpardoned Sinner, nor as a Beast, but shall live in perfect Life and Light, and Love and Joy and Praise for ever; What should rejoyce a believing considering man like this?f1 Pet. 1. 6, 8. 1 Thes. 5. 16. Phil. 2. 16, 17, 18. & 4. 4. Heb. 3. 6.
Q. 4. O! But we are still apt to doubt of things unseen?
A. 1. You can believe Men for things unseen, and be certain by it; for instance, that there is such a place as Rome, Paris, Venice, that there have been such Kings of England as Hen. 8. King Iames, &c. You know not but by believing others, whether ever you were Baptized, nor who was your Father or Mother: 2. You see not your own Soul, nor any ones that you talk with; and yet you feel and see such things as may assure any Sober man that he hath a Soul. God is not seen by us, yet nothing is more certain than that there is a God.
3. We see Plants, Flowers, Fruits, and all vital Acts, produced by an unseen Power: we see …ast, lucid, glorious Regions above us; and we see and feel the effects of invisible powers: therefore to doubt of things because they are unseen, is to doubt of all the vital noblest part of the World, and to believe nothing but gross and lowest things; and to lay by Reason and become Bruits. But of this I have said more near the Beginning.
Q. 5. What should we do to get the Soul so familiar above, as to desire to be with Christ?
A. I. We must not live in a foolish forgetfulness of Death; nor flatter our Souls into delayes and dulness, by the expectations of long life on Earth, the grave must be studied till we have groundedly got above the fears of it.
II. We must not rest quiet in such a humane belief of the Gospel and the Life to come, as hath no better grounds than the common opinion of the Countrey where we live, as the Turks believe Mahomet and his Alcoran: for this leaveth the Soul in such doubts and uncertainty as cannot reach to solid Joy, nor Victory over the World and Flesh: But the true Evidences of the Gospel and our Hopes must be well digested, which I have opened to you in the beginning, of which I give you a breviate in two Sentences.
1. The History of the Gospel of Christs Life, Miracles, Death, Resurrection, Ascension, sending down the Spirit, the Apostles Miracles, and Preaching and Writing and Sufferings, is a true History: Else there is none sure in the World: for none of such Antiquity hath greater Evidence.
2. And if the History aforesaid be true, the Doctrine must needs be true: for it is part of the History, and owned and sealed certainly by God.
III. We must not be content to be once satisfied of the Truth of the Life to come, but we must mentally live upon it and for it: and know how great business our Souls have every day, with our Glorified Lord, and the Glorified Society of Angels and the perfected Spirits of the just, and with the blessed God of Love and Glory: We must daily fetch thence the motives of our desires, hopes and dutyes, the incentives of our Love and Joy. The Confutation(g) Phil. 3. 18, 19, 20. Col. 3. 1, 2, 3. Heb. 13. 22, 23, 24. of all Temptations from the Flesh and World; and our supporting patience in all our Sufferings and Fears. Read oft Ioh. 17. 22, 23, 24. & 20. 17. Heb. 12. 22, 23, 24. Mat. 6. 19, 20, 21, 33. Col. 3. 4, 5. 2 Thes. 1. 10, 11. Heb. 11. 2 Cor. 4. 16, 17. & 5. 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8. Phil. 1. 21, 23. & 3. 18, 19, 20▪ They that thus live by Faith on God and Glory, will be prepared for a joyful death.
IV. We must take heed that no worldly Hope or Pleasure, vitiate our Affections, and turn them down from their true delight.hEph. 3. 17, 18.
V. We must live wholly upon Christ, his Merit, Sufficiency, Love and Mediation; His Cross and his Kingdom, must be the summe of our Learning, Study and Content.iEph. 4. 30.
VI. We must take heed of grieving the Spirit of Consolation, and wounding our Consciences, by wilful Sin of Omission or Commission.
VII. We must Faithfully improve all our Time and Talents to do God all the Service, and others all the good that we can in the World; that we may be ready to give an account of our Stewardship.
VIII. We must be armed against Temptations to unbelief and despair.
IX. We must while we are in the Body in our daily thoughts fetch as much help from sensible Similitudes as we can, to have a suitable Imagination of the Heavenly Glory. And one of the most Familiar is, that which Christ calleth the Coming of the Kingdom of God, which was his Transfiguration with Moses and Elias in Glorious appearance in the Holy Mount, Mat. 17. 1. Which made Peter say, It's good to be here. kMat. 17. 4.Christ purposely so appeared to them to give them a sensible apprehension of the Glory which he hath promised. And Moses that was buried appeared there in a Glorified Body.
And we must not think only of God but of the Heavenly Society, and even our old Acquaintance, that our Minds may find the more Suitableness and Familiarity in their objects and Contemplations.
X. We must do our best to keep up that Natural Vivacity and Chearfulness, which may be Sanctified for Spiritual Employment: for when the Body is diseased with Melancholy, Heaviness, or Pains, and the Mind diseased with Griefs, Cares and Fears, it will be hard to think joyfully of God or Heaven or any thing.
XI. We must exercise our selves in those dutyes which are nearest kin to the work in Heaven. Specially labouring to excite Hope, Love and Joy by Faith, and Praising God, especially in Psalms in our Families and the sacr…d Assemblies, and using the most Heavenly Books and Company.
XII. We must not look when all is done to have very clear Conceptions of the quality and acts of separated Souls, or the World of Spirits; But must be satisfied with an implicite Trust in our Father and our Glorified Lord, in the things which are yet above our reach: And giving up Soul and Body to him, we should joyfully trust them with him as his own: And believe that while we know as much as may bring us well to Heaven, it is best for us that the rest is known by Christ, in whose Hand and Will we are surer and better than in our own.
As for the special Preparations in Sickness, I refer …ou to the Family Book.
Q. 6. What shall one doe that is tempted to doubt, … to think hardly of God because he hath made Heaven for so few?
A. 1. Those few may be assured that he will ne…er forsake them, whom he hath so chosen out of …ll the World, and made his Jewels and his Trea…re.
2. It's unprobable rashness, to say, Heaven is but …or few: All this Earth is no more to the Glorious World above us (even so far as we see) than one …ch is to all the Earth: And what if God forsake …ne Inch or Mole-hill? See Heb. 12. 23, 24.
Again I say, I take Hell to be as the Gallows; …nd this Earth to be as Newgate Jail, where some …risoners are that shall die, and some shall live: and …he Superior World to be like the City and King…om. Who will say that the King is unmerciful because Malefactors have a Prison and a Gallows, if …ll else in the Kingdom live in P…e.
And though this World …eems almost forsaken as …he Prison-way to Hell, yet while the Elect are saved, and the superior lucid Glorious World is many thousand and thousand and thousand times greater than all this Earth, I doubt not but Experience will quickly tell us, that the Glory of Gods Love is so unmeasurably manifested in Heaven, as that the Blindness, Wickedness, Confusions and Miseries of …his Earth and Hell, shall be no Ecclipse or disho…our to it for ever.…nitur, Jan. 10. 1681/2.
FINIS.
End of the text · Richard Baxter, The Catechizing of Families (1683)