An expository comment, doctrinal, controversial, and practical upon the whole first chapter to the…An expository comment, doctrinal, controversal, and practical upon the whole first chapter to the…

Secondly, Thy fear about death is sinful, when it is immoderate and disquieting ¹of thee, so that thou doest not walk with a cheerful quiet and calm spirit. So that although it may not put thee upon any sinful or unlawful enterprise, yet if it fill thee with anxieties, with trepidations, so that it depriveth thee of that Evangelical joy and peace; in this excess it is a sin. All that are truly godly, Being justified by faith they are to have peace in their hearts; yea they are to rejoice always in the Lord; but the inordinate fear of death causeth this Sun to be in an eclipse: and as men subject to swooning fits, or convulsions, cannot go with that courage and confidence up and down, as those who are freed from such distempers; Thus also the slavish and immoderate fear of death putteth millstones about our neck, is a continual Ephialtes upon the soul, filleth the spirit with heaviness, whereby that Evangelical life and Gospel-conversation that we are called unto, is seldom or never exercised. Observe then thy self, doth such fears of death make thy soul full of tumults and distractions? Doth it oppose any Evangelical grace, or retard the Spirit of Adoption upon thy soul? Then humble thy self, know thou sinnest against God, and pray for the mortification of it; and this thou art to do, though it doth not make thee put out thy hand to any evil way; though it doth not make thee omit any known duty. For as worldly and distrustful cares, though lodging only in the heart, are greatly displeasing to God, though we do not thereby fall into covetous and unjust ways, yet the very cares and distractions of the heart are forbidden, as appeareth by that reproof given to Martha, by our Saviour himself, Luke 10. 41. Martha, Martha, thou art troubled about many things, but one thing is needful. Thus it is also in fears, though thou art not instigated thereby to unlawful ways to preserve thy self, yet the distractions and divisions of thy heart are offensive to God. Therefore as the Apostle saith, Phil. 4. 6. Be careful in nothing, but let your requests be made known to God. Let prayer rebuke all storms and tempests of sinful cares, so in nothing be fearful, no not about death it self, but commit thy self by prayer to God, to whom the issues of life and death do belong

Secondly, Thy fear about death is sinfull, when it is immoderate and disquieting