A Pastors Legacy to His Beloved People, Sermon 6
SERMON VI. To old People.
OLd People, let me salute you, who can't stay long …ere to be saluted by any; who may easily remember some of my words all your dayes, they being likely to be few.
First Word of Exhortation.
First. Oft melt thy heart with the mercies of thy life past.
Who has maintained thee thus long? Delivered thee from so many sicknesses, and dangers? Prevented thee from so many calamities? Brought thee out of many straights? Heard so many of thy prayers? Been with thee in thy travels? Help't thy Relations? Is not this God to be loved? Is there no thanks due to him? Must he have none of thy life? Is there no engagements upon thee to him? Have others deserved better at thy hands?
Record all his eminent providences, and drop a tear of love, upon every kindness thou remembrest.
Secondly. Consider the greatness of the state whither thou art with hast going.
Old man and woman, thou wilt shortly know the things we are here but guessing at; Thou wilt be in an enlarged state, whereas thou art now contracted.
Thou art going whence is no return: Here mayst thou oft change thy state, but there thou wilt have no changes.
Hearken; Art thou prepared to look Eternity in the face ere long? To behold a good or evil Angel, as soon as thy breath is departed? Yea, God himself immediately? For to him thy spirit goes, and there receives the doom, Eccles. 12.7. The spirit returns unto God that gave it; And then he bestows it as seems good unto him: Is thy back ready to bear everlasting tortures? Alas! thou art not able to bear thy present stiffness, and aches, how wilt thou bear Hell's sharpness and pains? Little thinkest thou, what thy dimn eyes are going to see; Hast thou fortified thy self old man?
Oh the wo! that old hearts are heavy, as well as old ears, or eyes; either men have no spirits upward, or spirits furious downward.
Old man, thou carest not for an everlasting, glorious peaceful Kingdom; thy old thatch'd House is better to thee than Heaven.
How will the sparks of Wrath make thee nimble? The stroaks of an Almighty Arm quicken thee?
Old man, Oh hearken! else 'twill be true of thee what's said in Eccles. 4.13. A poor begging Child is far better than thou; we…t thou an old King, who will no more be admonished.
Ope thine eyes, behold the spacicus Regions whither thou art going; on one hand, see the glorious Palaces; on the other, the hellish Furnaces; and over all, the Glory of the King of Righteousness.
Thirdly, Consider the infinite madne…s of fooling away old Age after Youth.
Must poor Soul have no time, but Satan, and thy Disease have all?
Oh sad infatuation! Youth ever puts off to old Age; and Age, ever puts off a year, a month, or a day further.
Dayes will teach Wisdom in any thing, but the greatest Concernment.
What would'st have more? Are not all the pleasures of Youth devo…ed? Hath …n any more p…easure for thee in her womb?
Wilt not give the Fagg-end of this world, for all the world to come?
Wilt not go to God for joy, when thou canst have none any where else?
How long re…ning hast th… to make, over … in youth?
How … old mens worm be, seeing, G… … them a possibility, wh…e he hath le… … life and opportunity?
The longer God stands with his hand stretch'd in Mercy, the harder will his hand strike in Justice.
Fourthly, Consider the beauty of all thy Sin and Folly past, and take heed of youthful sins in old age.
What glory hath all thy sin brought thee? How hath it made thee honourable in the sight of God, Angels, and men? How hath it delighted thy heart in thy private thoughts? What joy hath it been at mid-night to thee, or in thy lonely walks, or in the day of troub…e? Doth it not sting like an Addar, and bite like a Cockatrice?
Is not this that which amazeth thee in the thoughts of Judgment and Eternity? How pleasing would the looks of these be to thee, were it not for the thoughts of sin?
How much better had been a holy, pure, and spotless life, a life full of glory, and good works to follow thee?
Vices have short pleasures, long afterpains; Vertues have short pains, long after pleasures.
Sin and Folly hath spoyled all the past-day, and must it have the short even-tide too.
Oh Monster of wo, and Soul of Hell, that men can say this hath been my death, yet this will I run into; as is exprest in Prov. 23. from 29. to last. What misery soever comes, yet will the Sinner, seek his sin again.
Oh! to sin lively, when nature is dead, is an affrighting sight: filthy talk in an old man, is hell's flame, breaking out above the house top.
An old Drunkard is the picture of a damned Spirit, a very Fiend before his time.
Judgement will be ever hereafter strong, as Sin hath here been ever young.
Old man, thou knowest sin is filthy; Oh! carry it not in thy arms to Judgment with thee.
Fifthly, Unless thou art resolved for death, dispair not now, but set the face of thy remaining life, to make thy eternal peace, and redeem thy time for divine glory.
Is there now a motion in thy heart? Then God holds open heaven-gates unto thee; God means, while he moves.
The more difficulty, and the more rarity, the more glory for God, if thou dost now accept.
God will shew in Heaven Sinners of all sorts; And how will an old ignorant, worldly, prophane wretch, strain eternal praises?
If the Decree of Death be never so much past, yet Repentance shall change all, Ezek. 33.14, 15, 16.
The case is determined, Matth. 20. from 6. to 15. Know, God delights in his free dispensations; he's not bound in his account, but triumphs to shew his freedom.
Wilt thou not now make thy peace? Art not weary of the delusions of the world? Try heavenly pleasures; Oh! that thou knewest in this thy day, &c.
Have some comfort for thy aches, and pains, thy griefs, and sorrows, which now thou must undergo?
What! Sin all thy life, and have heaven at last? Will not this amaze thee? Shall I perswade one old Soul, before I go? Oh! do it in good earnest; run and clasp about Jesus; Cry for the Spirit.
How think you, Did the eleventh hour-labourers, bestir them in the vineyard?
Why? Thou canst relish no more pleasure but of heaven.
Old man, or Woman, I shall speak no more to you, May we have a good meeting hereafter:
Thou must run post; Say, I have far to run, and my time is done.
Oh! What wilt thou not do for God, that will forget all thy sins, pass by all thy slightings, and neglects? Come, now accept of so kind a God.
Sixthly, Take heed of sins of old age.
1. Deadness. Oh! Cry to God to quicken thee.
As the outward man decayes, let the inward man be renewed, day by day.
Now let Mortification, and heavenliness of mind, supply natural life and vigor.
2. Worldliness. Lay not in Food and Fewel, unmeasurably, in the House thou art leaving.
Oh the unreasonableness of Sin! which makes thee make so much of that, which can do thee so little good. How little can the Earth profit thee, from which thou art now departing? Shall the Earth bury thy Soul, as well as thy Body?
Come, take a Mansion for thy Soul, as well as a Grave for thy Carkass.
3. Frowardness.
First, Exsperience of the Miseries and Frustrations of Life.
Secondly, Grief, they are going hence.
Thirdly, Aches in the body, and decayes.
Fourthly, Impotency in the mind by those decayes.
Fifthly, High self Conceits, jealousie, and envie, at youngers preheminence.
Sixthly, Necessary, or sinful disrespect of others, (for when people are very old, they are usually silly; and much laying them aside in cases of Counsel, and action is oft obsolutely necessary.)
These and such like are the Causes of old Peoples frowardness.
While thou hast parts, pray God to deliver thee from these, and labour earnestly, to deliver thy soul there-from.
Take a fair farewel of the World.
Frowardness encreases thy vexation; there's the more pain within, and disrespect without.
Be found in the Spirit of Christ, when thy Spirit departs from thee.
Be inwardly lovely, when thou art outwardly uncomely.
Believe impartial Person's Judgment of thy Wisdom, & not thine own decayed conceitedness.
Expect but the respects of children, when thou art become a Child.
4. Apostacy. It's one of the most mournful fights, to see an old Christian decayed, not only because of weakness of parts, but loss of graces.
When parts remain, and grace is gone, look to thy self, lest thy latter end be dreadful.
When tenderness of Constience, zeal for God, heavenly Mindedness is all gone, when there's meerly a Name to live, but the man is become a Ghost; this is a Professors sad Conclusion.
Happy is the Soul, that watches against the sins of his age and state.
Seventhly, Be here a Citizen of the other World, and live as such.
That's lovely old age, which is gilt with future glory; not filthy with young fins.
Thou that art entring into the other World, should behave thy self like such a one.
There should be the eye of thy mind.
Thither should thy tongue walk.
Thither should thy hands be lifted up, and thy knees be bent.
Discourses of that company should take thy ear.
It's a lamentable thing to have one's Spirit going to Eternity by divine decree, and yet catching at every thing here to hold it back.
They should speak as those that have been with Jesus; should (with Paul) see and hear things unutterable; should be as heavenly Courtiers here conversing among us.
Oh! be making up thy accounts, gathering thy evidences, laying up a foundation for eternal life.
8. Eightly, Drop wisdom into youth, while thy parts remain.
Thou shouldest be an Oracle to youth, like a Janus with two faces, that had viewed both worlds, one by experience, the other by faith, and therefore fit to teach.
Imploy abilities while thou hast them, and shew not thy weakness, when abilities are gone.
Titus (2. from 3. to 5.) presses the seventh Councel, and this also.
This were the way to have men rise up to the hoary head; this were a notable employment in old men, to be the Philosophers and Pastors of the world.
Let clearness and kindness speak; not pettishness and passion, which never teaches.
In thine own harvest, sow blessed seed in others.
9th. and Lastly, Charge thy self to set thy house in order before thou diest.
How can men ever think of going to Heaven themselves, when wilfully, or carelesly, they have left a Hell behind them in their Families?
There's great fear of every mans Damnation, that leaves not his house in order; If he delayes temporal things, a thousand to one but he delayes spiritual things more.
Even all he Commands of the first and second Table, require it; and pray take understanding Councel to you when you do it: This duty, you may see fully commanded, 2 Kings 20.11.
Be not a Devil, to set thy house in Hell; but like God, give blessedness unto them: How beautiful is it to see an old man dying like Jacob? Gen. 49.
Leave to thy Relations temporal Legacies, clear; spiritual bledings, powerful.
Farewel old man, till the Resurrection