Twenty sermons preached at Oxford before His Majesty, and elsewhere

First, a cursed separation between body and soul, and then of both from God for ever, and this is the last payment, This is that great death which the Apostle speaks of, Who delivered us from that great death. 2 Cor. 1.10. So terrible is that death. This death is but the severing of the body from the Soul: This is but the Lords Harbinger, the Lords Serjeant to lay his Mace on thee, to bring thee out of this World into a place of everlasting misery, from whence thou shalt never come, till all be satisfied, and this is never.

First, Consider the nature of this death, which though every man knoweth, yet few lay to heart. This death, what doth it?

First, it takes the things which thou spentst thy whole life in getting. It robs thee of all the things thou ever hadst: Thou hast taken pains to heap and treasure up goods for many years, presently when this blow is given, all is gone: For honour, and preferment, it takes thee from that; pleasure in idle company-keeping, it bars thee of that. Mark, this is the first thing that death doth, it takes not only away a part of that thou hast, but all, it leaves thee quite naked, as naked, as when thou camest into the World: Thou thoughtest it was thy happiness to get this and that. Death now begins to unbewitch thee, thou wast bewitched before, when thou didst run after all worldly things: Thou wast deceived before, and now it undeceives thee; it makes thee see what a notorious fool thou wast, it unbefools thee. Thou hadst many plots, and many projects, but when thy breath is gone, then without any delay in that very day saith the Psalmist, all thy thoughts perish, Psal. 146.4. all thy plottings, and projections go away with thy breath: A strange thing, to see a man with Job, the richest man in the East, and yet in the evening (we say) as poor as Job: He hath nothing left him now. Now though death takes not all things from thee, yet it takes thee from them all; and so in effect them also from thee; though they remain in thy house, and grounds, yet they are as far removed from thee, is ahou from them. All thy goods, all thy books, all thy wealth, all thy friends thou mayst now bid farewell: now adieu for ever, never to see them again. And that is the first thing.