Man ashiv le-Yahoweh, or, A serious enquiry for a suitable return for continued life, in and after a time of great mortality, by a wasting plague (anno 1665) answered in XIII directions / by Tho. Doolitel.

SECT. XVI.

* 1.1HAth the Plague been raging, and you yet alive? then be better than you were before. And here I especially direct my speech to those that had the grace of God infused into their hearts, before this Judgement came upon us; that you would improve this providence by being better than you were before; if Drunkards and Swearers will not be better, yet be you; if sen∣sualists and flesh-pleasers will not be better, yet be you. It may be the wicked will be worse, but will you be so too? If Gods people are not men∣ded by his Judgements, who will? and hath God swept away so many thousands into another world, and shall there be no good effect, or fruit upon neither bad nor good? God forbid? London hath been a place of great prosperity, a City of Feasting, and a place of plenty of out∣ward enjoyments; but in this last Sickness, God hath filled it with dolorous complaints by the many breaches made by death in so many fami∣lies and relations; God hath filled it with pale faces, and sick persons, and running sores; God hath turned it into a place, an house of mourn∣ing. And Solomon saith, Eccl. 7.2. It is better to go into the house of mourning, than to the house of feasting; for that is the end of all men, and the living will lay it to his heart. Have not your houses been houses of mourning, some dead out of most houses, and you are yet living; will you then lay it to your heart? What should you lay

to heart? Lay to heart the great Judgement that hath been amongst you. Lay to heart the sins that did provoke the Lord to lay his hand so heavy upon you. Lay to heart the goodness of God in preserving you. The City hath been an house of mourning, but have you learned the lessons that are to be learned in an house of mourning? Have you met so many dead Corpse carried in the streets? have you seen the living laboring to carry forth their dead, and yet not learned the lessons that are to be learned in such a place of mourning? Where one is dead in a family, that before was an house of mirth and gladness, it will turn it into an house of mourning and sadness, much more, when many dead in one family; and this is the case of many families. God hath been teaching you many things at such a time, but is your lesson taken out? Oh, what dull Scholars are we in the School of Christ that must thus be scourged to learn our lessons, and yet have not done it? Consider, when God hath turned London, by reason of their dead, in∣to an house of mourning, he hath been teaching you such things as these.* 1.2

I. * 1.3God hath been teaching you the Infallible verity of divine threatnings. God threatned our first Parents, Gen. 2.17. That if they sin∣ned, they should certainly dye, they and their posterity. This threatning was made some thousands of years since, and it hath been made good in all generations. Length of time makes not voide the threatnings of God; men read

Gods threatnings, but do not believe them, nor fear them, nor tremble at them. Many will not practically believe that they shall dye, though they sin, and will not at all believe they shall be damned, though they sin; but we see that men that have sinned must dye, and wicked men shall feel that they shall be damned according to Gods threatnings, but you have learned the truth of Gods threatnings in this, and they are as true in all other respects; therefore do you that are Gods people, learn the truth of Gods threatnings, when he saith the Drunkard shall not inherit the Kingdom of God; and let this move your heart to pity them that are such, that have a threatning of God, which is of undoub∣ted verity, as a flaming sword standing in their way to keep them out of the Paradise of God, and be thankful unto God that you are none of these. Do you learn the truth of Gods threatning, when he saith, the hypocrite and un∣believing shall be cast into the lake that burnes with fire and brimstone, Rev. 21.8. and pity and pray for them that are such, and bless God that you are none of them, and so are taken from under the curse of that threatning.

II. * 1.4In this great house of so great mourning, God hath been teaching you what are the Wages of sin. You have often heard that death is the Wages of sin, Rom. 6.23. The Greek word 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 there used, is a military term, signifying the wages that is due to souldiers, intimating that death is as due to a sinner for his service to

the Devil, as pay is to a Souldier for his service to his General; it comes from the word 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, which signifieth properly, all kind of pleasant meats that may be prepared or made ready by fire, so that all the delicates, and dainty dishes that sin prepares for sinners, hath a deaths head in them. Do you learn this, and by this learn to hate sin more than you did before, and watch against it more than you did before.

III. * 1.5In this great house of so great mourning, God hath been teaching you the certainty of mens mortality. You have seen that this is the way of all flesh, Josh. 23.14. 1 King. 2.2. and there∣fore learn to live as mortal, dying men should live; you have seen that thousands have been carryed from their houses to their graves: And, Oh what manner of persons ought you to be in all manner of holy conversation, after such a sight as this?

IV. * 1.6In this great house of so great mourning, God hath been teaching you the worlds vanity. You have seen what miserable comforters riches are to men in time of Plague, and at an hour of death; you have seen death haling men from that which they had set their hearts upon; you have seen death dragging men from their riches, and from their pleasures, and hath forced them to come away to the Bar of God, and leave their riches behinde them, and their pleasures behind them. You have seen that riches could not go with them into another world, but left them in a

time of need. You have seen that those that loved riches, could finde no comfort in them when they stood in greatest need of comfort. You have seen that what men have been labor∣ing for, and scraping together all the time of their health and life, death hath come and scat∣tered in a moment. Oh how weaned should you be from the world, and the riches and the plea∣sures thereof, after such a sight as this! Oh how much less should you afford the world, of your heart and affections, of your love, desire, and de∣lights that is so unkind to dying men, even unto those that served it most, and loved it most. Oh do you learn to deal so with the world, as you have seen the world to deal with others, i. e. turn it out of your heart with as little love and pity to it, as you have seen the world turn its followers out of it, and shake them off, not∣withstanding all their entreaties to abide and stay therein. The world may now entreat you, that it might stay in your heart, and live in your love; but hearken you no more to its entreaties, than it hath hearkened unto others, and you must expect the world ere long will deal with you, as it hath dealt with others; therefore part with the world, before you leave the world.

V. * 1.7In this great house of so great mourning, God hath been teaching you the short continuance of all relations: you have seen death taking Hus∣bands from their Wives, Parents from their Chil∣dren, Ministers from their people, and so Wives

from their Husbands, Children from their Pa∣rents, People from their Ministers. Those that had but one onely Son. Plague and Death hath stripped them of him, and teared one relation out of the others bosome; fain they would have kept them, but death would not suffer them; they wept and cryed, but death would not have pity on them, nor hear their cries, nor regard their tears, but said, this is your childe, but I must have him; this is your husband, but I must seize upon him; God hath given me a Commission, and I always use to do according to the Com∣mission I receive from God, if God will not spare you, in vain you look for pity at mine hands. I (saith death) am blinde and cannot see the beauty of your childe, that hath drawn out your heart so much towards him, I am deaf and can∣not hear your pleadings for the continuance of your childe, or husband, or friend; if God doth not hear you, I cannot, and if God doth not spare and pity you, I will not, therefore I will smite him, and stick my arrow in his heart, and dippe it in his life-blood, and take him from you. Oh how many have thus experienced the dealings of death! and you have seen it, and will not you learn to sit looser in your affections towards your nearest and dearest relations? You have seen death hath seized upon them that were most beloved by their friends, and perhaps did there∣fore do it, because they were over loved; and took up too much of that love, and that delight which should have been more, and would have been better placed upon God. Your lesson

then is set down by the Apostle, for I would not teach you by rott, nor without the book of Gods word, 1 Cor. 7.29. But this I say, Brethren,* 1.8 the time is short, or rolled up, or contracted; a metaphor taken from a piece of cloth that is rol∣led up, onely a little left at the end; so some. As Mariners near the Haven winde up their sails, or make them less. When the sails of time are thus contracted, it is a sign we are near the Har∣bor of eternity. It remaineth, that both they that have wives be as though they had none, Vers. 30. And they that weep as though they wept not, and they that rejoyce as though they rejoyced not; and they that buy as though they possessed not, and they that use this world as not abusing it, for the fashion of this world passeth away.

VI. * 1.9In this great house of so great mourning, God hath been teaching you the lesson of humi∣lity. How many humbling sights have you seen? every Corpse that you have seen hath been an humbling sight. It may be you have been proud of your beauty, but have not you seen that beauty vanisheth away when death comes; that beauti∣ful bodies by the Plague and Death have been turned into loathsome bodies? and those that you have loved and been delighted to look upon, you have been glad to have them buried out of your sight, when once dead. How many open Graves have you seen, and those that have been nice and curious of their comely bodies, have been inter∣red, and given to be meat for worms, and to be a prey to rottenness and putrefaction. Have you

seen any difference betwixt the poor and the rich, be••wixt that body that was fed with cour∣ser fare, and that which was nourished with more delicate dishes? Have you not seen bodies that were made out of dust, been turned to the dust, to be turned into dust, and will you be proud after God hath taken such an effectual course to teach you to be humble?

VII. * 1.10In this great house of so great mourning, God hath been teaching you, that all things fall alike to all, that the wise must dye as well as the fool, and the good must dye as well as the bad. And though God hath promised [conditionally] preservation from the Plague unto his people, which hath been literally fulfilled to some of his, yet some of his have fallen in this general morta∣lity, God hath been teaching of you, that though grace doth deliver from eternal death, yet not from temporal; though from the sting, yet not from the stroke of death, that you (though godly) should be preparing for your own departure out of this world.

VIII. * 1.11In this great house of so great mourn∣ing, God hath been teaching you the difference between the death of the wicked and the death of the righteous, that though good and bad alike have dyed, yet they have not dyed alike. But as there was a difference in their life, so God did make a difference in their death: Have not you seen some wicked dye without any sense of sin, or

fear of God, or Hell? and some with terrors in their consciences? and have you not seen some godly dye with peace and comfort, and giving good evidences of their hope of a better life? that God hath filled them with joys that they were going to their Fathers house? and that the plague and death had not so much in them to terrifie and affright, as the hopes of heaven had to comfort and support their hearts. It hath been ground of great rejoycing to hear: how many of Gods people in this plague did dye with joy and comfort? And should not y••u by such a sight as this, be quickened in your service unto God, and ever while you live look upon Religi∣on as a real thing, that letteth in such real com∣forts into their hearts, who had real grace, in such time of real discouragements; after such a sight as this, never think it a vain thing to serve God (though you must dye) who comforts his peoples souls in the very gates of death?

IX. * 1.12In this great house of so great mourning, God hath been teaching you the folly of delaying in the great concernments of another world; you have seen many Drunkards did delay to re∣pent and turn to God, but when death once came to Arrest them, it would not stay till they had done their work. Have not you seen many have been surprized by death; that those that thought they would repent hereafter, and talked how they would mend hereafter, are gone down into the grave before that time was come? and wil not you after such a sight as this be quickned to

make more haste in doing of the work that God expecteth at your hands? Have not you seen some that have talked what they would do the next year, laid in the dust before this year is past and gone? God hereby would have you learn not to boast of to morrow, because you know not what may be in the womb of another day, nor what to morrow may bring forth, Prov. 27.1. God would have you learn so to number your days that you may apply your hearts to wisdom, Psal. 90.12. God would have you learn to do your duty quickly, and to do it with all your might, because it will be too late, when you are rotting in your Grave, Eccles. 9.10.

X. * 1.13In this great house of so great mourning, God hath been teaching you the great lesson of Mortification; you have seen how many dyed by sin, and should not you be now dead unto sin, you should now in good earnest labor for the death of sin. O be the death of your passion, and be the death of your lusts, and be the death of your worldliness, especially be the death of your be∣loved sin, God forbid that sin should be found alive in your heart after such a time of death to so many thousand persons. Are so many dead and rotting in their Graves, and shall not sin be dead and mouldring in your hearts.

These be some of the lessons God in his late providence hath been instructing you in, and if you can now do these duties better than before, it is some sign that you are better than you were before, But yet because so great a providence

should not be sleightly passed over, with but a little Improvement, I shall take occasion to press you to be much better than you were be∣fore; before, God saw a great deal of sin in his own people, and amongst Professors, much censoriousness, and rash and uncharitable judge∣ing one of another, want of love and affection, a great deal of pride in Apparel, pride in Diet, pride in Furniture of houses, pride of Beauty, pride of Parts and Gifts; and God hath been staining the pride of all Families therein. God saw a great deal of neglect of Family Duties in Professors houses, and customary, cold and dead performance of them in others, and doth it not concern all to see where they have failed, and do so no more?

Notes

• * 1.1

  The se∣cond part of the first Direction,
• * 1.2

  Ten Les∣sons to be learned in this City that hath been a great house of mourn∣ing.
• * 1.3

  Verity of divine threat∣nings.
• * 1.4

  Desert of sin.
• * 1.5

  Mans mor∣t••l••ty.
• * 1.6

  The worlds vanity.
• * 1.7

  The un∣certainty of all rela∣ti••ns.
• * 1.8

  〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 When they set forth to Sea, V••la da••t, when they have done their voyage, ve∣la contra. hunt.
• * 1.9

  Humility.
• * 1.10

  Parity in ••••t ••••d afflictions.
• * 1.11

  Difference ••n the ••anner.
• * 1.12

  Folly of delays.
• * 1.13

  Mortifica∣tion.