Two treatises the first of death, on I Cor. 15:26, the second of judgment…

2. But this is not all, nor the greatest Enmity that Death hath to the godly. It is a lamentable hinderance to the work of Grace, as I shall show you next in ten particulars.

2. But this is not all, nor the greatest Enmity that Death hath to the godly. It is a lamentable hinderance to the work of Grace, as I shall shew you next in ten particulars.

1• The fears of Death do much abate our Desires after God, as he is to be enjoyed by the separated soul. Though every believing holy soul, do love God above all, and take Heaven for his home, and therefore sincerely longeth after it; yet when we know that Death stands in the way, and that there is no coming thither, but through this dreadful narrow passage, this stoppeth, and lamentably dulleth our desires: And so the Natural Enmity, turneth to a Spiritual sorer enmity. For let a man be never so much a Saint, be will be still a Man, and therefore as Death will still be death, so nature will still be nature. And therefore death as death will be abhorred. And we are such ⟨p. 11⟩timorous sluggards, that we are easily discouraged by this Lyon in the way. The ugly P•• er affrighted us from those grateful thoug•• of the New Jerusalem, the City of God, the heavenly Inheritance, which otherwise the blessed object would produce. Our sanctified affections would be mounting upwards, and holy Love would be working towards its blessed object: but Death standing in the way, suppresseth our desires, and turns us back; and frighteneth us from our Fathers presence. We look up to Christ and the Holy City, as to a precious Pearl in the bottom of the Sea; or as to a dear and faithful Friend, that is beyond some dreadful gulf: Fain we would enjoy him, but we dare not venture; we fear this dismal enemy in the way. He that can recover his health by a pleasant medicine, doth take it without any great reluctancy: But if a Leg or an Arm must be out off, or a stone cut out by a painful dangerous Incision, what a striving doth it cause between the contrary passions, the love of life, and the love of ease, the fear of death, and the fear of suffering?