John Flavel · 8 of 34

Sermon 1. Gen. 2:7 · Part 6

Inf. 1. How admirable then is the mystery of providence in the daily continuation of the breath of our nostrils?

That our breath is yet in our nostrils, is only from hence, that he who breathed it into them at first is our life, and the length of our days, as it is Deut. 30:20. It is because our breath is in his hand, Dan. 5:23. not in our own, nor in our enemies' hands. Till he take it away, none shall be able to do it; Psal. 104:29. "Thou takest away their breath, they die, and return to their dust.

It is neither food nor physic, but God in and by them, that "holdeth our souls in life", Psal. 66:9. We hang every moment of our life over the grave and the gulph of eternity, by this slender thread of our breath: But it cannot break, how feeble so ever it be, till the time appointed be fully come. If it be not extinguished and suffocated; as others daily are, it is because he puts none of these diseases upon us, as it is Exod. 15:26. or if he do, yet he is Jehovah Rophe, the Lord that healeth us, as it follows in that text.

We live in the midst of cruel enemies, yea, "among them that breathe out cruelty," as the psalmist complaineth, Psal. 27:12. Such breath would quickly suffocate ours, did not he, in whose hand ours is, wonderfully prevent it. O what cause have we to employ and spend that breath in his praise, who works so many daily wonders to secure it!

Inf. 2. Is it but a puff of feeble breath which holds our souls and bodies in union? Then every man is deeply concerned to make all haste, to take all possible care and pains to secure a better and, more durable habitation for his soul in heaven, while yet it sojourns in this frail tabernacle of the body.

The time is at hand, when all these comely and active bodies shall be so many breathless carcases, no more capable of any use or service for our souls than the seats you sit on, or the dead bodies that lie under your feet. Your breath is yet in your nostrils, and all the means and seasons of salvation will expire with it; and then it will be as impossible for the best minister in the world to help your souls, as for the ablest Physician to recover your bodies. As physic comes too late for the one, so counsels and persuasions for the other.

Three things are worth thinking on this matter.

1. That you are not without the hopes and possibilities of salvation, while the breath of life is in your nostrils. A mercy, (how lightly soever you value it) that would ravish with joy those miserable souls that have already shot the gulf of eternity, and turn the shrieks and groans of the damned unto joyful shouts and acclamations of praise. Poor wretch, consider what thou readest; that thy soul is not yet in Christ, is thy greatest misery; but that yet it may be in Christ, is an unspeakable mercy; though thy salvation be not yet secured, yet what a mercy is it that it is not desperate?

2. When this uncertain breath is once expired, the last hope of every unregenerate person is gone for ever: It is as impossible to recover hope as it is to recover your departed breath, or recall the day that is past. When the breath is gone, the compositum is dissolved; we cease to be what we now are, and our life is as water spilt on the ground which shall not be gathered up till the resurrection. Our life is carried like a precious liquor in a brittle glass, which death breaks to pieces. The spirit is immediately presented to God, and fixed in its unalterable state, Heb. 9:27. All means of salvation now cease for ever; no ambassadors of peace are sent to the dead; no more calls or strivings of the spirit: no more space for repentance. O! what an inconceivable weight has God hanged on a puff of breath!

3. And since matters stand thus, it is to be admired what shift men make to quiet themselves in so dangerous a state as most souls live in; quiet and unconcerned, and yet but one puff of breath betwixt them and hell! O the stupefying and besotting nature of sin! O the efficacy and power of spiritual delusions! Are our lives such a throng and hurry of business that we have no time to go alone and think where we are, and where we shortly must be? What shall I say? If bodily concerns be so weighty, and the matters of eternity such trifles; if meat and drink, and trade and children be such great things, and Christ, and the soul, and heaven, hell, and the world to come such little things in your eyes, you will not be long in that opinion I dare assure you.

Inf. 3. Is the tie so weak betwixt our souls and bodies? How close and near then do all our souls confine and border upon eternity?

There is no more than a puff of breath, a blast of wind betwixt this world and that to come. A very short step betwixt time and eternity: There is a breath which will be our last breath: respiration must, and will terminate in expiration: The dead are the inhabitants, and the living are borderers upon the invisible world. This consideration deserves a dwelling place in the hearts of all men whether,

I. Regenerate, or

II. Unregenerate.

I. Regenerate souls should ponder this with pleasure. O it is transporting to think how small a matter is betwixt them and their complete salvation. No sooner is your breath gone, but the full desire of your hearts is come; every breath you draw, draws you a degree nearer to your perfect happiness; Rom. 13:11. "Now is your salvation nearer than when ye believed;" therefore, both your cheerfulness and diligence should be greater than when you were in the infancy of your faith. You have run through a considerable part of your Christian course and race, and are now come nearer the goal and prize of eternal life. O despond not, loiter not now at last, who were so fervent and zealous in the beginning.

It is transporting to think how near you approach the region of light and joy. O that you would distinctly consider,

1. Where you lately were.

2. Where now you are.

3. Where shortly you shall be.

1. You that are now so near salvation, were lately very near unto damnation, there was but a puff of breath betwixt you and hell. How many nights did you sleep securely in the state of nature and unregeneracy? How quietly did you rest upon the brink of hell, not once imagining the danger you were in? Had any of those sicknesses you then suffered, been suffered by God, like a candle, to burn asunder this slender thread of life which was so near them, you had been as miserable, and as hopeless as those that now are roaring in the lowest hell. I have heard of one that rid over a dangerous bridge in the night, who, upon the review of that place, fell into a swoon, when he was sensible of that danger which the darkness of the night hid from him. O reader, shall not an escape from hell affect thee as much as such an escape would do?

2. It is no less marvellous to consider where you now are; you that were afar off are now made nigh, Eph. 2:13. You that were not beloved, are now beloved, Rom. 9:25. You were in the state of death and condemnation. You are now passed from death to life by your free justification, 1 John 3:14. Your union with Christ has set you free from condemnation, Rom. 8:1. Die you must though Christ be in you, but there is no hazard or hurt in your death. The stopping of your breath can put no stop to your happiness, it will hasten not hinder it: If the pale horse come to you, heaven, not hell, will now follow him; your sins are pardoned, the covenant of your salvation sealed. Death is disarmed of its fatal sting; and what then should hinder you from a like triumph, even upon your death-bed with that, 1 Cor. 15:55. "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?"

3. And yet you have more room for joy, while you consider where you must, and shall shortly be. You are now in Christ, but in a few days you shall be with Christ as well as in him; it is well now, but it will be better ere long. Your sin is now fully pardoned, but not fully purged out of your souls. Your persons are freed from guilt, but your hearts are not either freed from filth or grief: But in a little time you shall be absolutely and eternally freed from both. Your present condition is in heaven, compared with your former, and your future state will be in heaven indeed, compared with your present. "The path of the just is as the shining light, which shineth more and more unto the perfect day," Prov. 4:18.

II. But on the other side, what meditation can be more startling and amazing to all the unregenerate and christless world? Ponder it, thou poor christless and unsanctified soul. Get thee out of the noise and clamour of this world, which make such a continual din in thine ears, and consider how thou hangest over the mouth of hell itself, by the feeble thread which is spun every moment out of thy nostrils; as soon as that gives way, thou art gone for ever. What shift do you make to quiet your fears, and eat, drink, and labour with any pleasure? It is storied of Dionysius the tyrant, that when Damocles would have flattered him into a conceit of the perfection of his happiness, as he was an absolute sovereign prince, and could do what he pleased with others, as his vassals; Dionysius, to confute his fancy, caused him to be placed at a table richly furnished, and attended with the most curious music, but just over his head hanged a sharp and heavy sword by one single hair; which when Damocles saw, no meat would go down with him, but he earnestly begged for a discharge from that place. This is the lively emblem of thy condition, thou unregenerate man.

There are three things in thy state, sadly opposed to the former state last described.

1. The state you were born in, was bad.

2. The state you are now in, is worse.

3. The state you shall shortly be in, if you thus continue, will be unspeakably the worst of all.

I. The state you were born in was a sad state; you were born in sin, Psal. 51:5. and under wrath, Eph. 2:3. The womb of nature cast you forth into this world, defiled and condemned creatures.

2. The state you are in now is much worse than that you were born in; for what have you been doing ever since you were born, but treasuring up wrath against the day of wrath? Rom. 2:5. For every sand of time which runs out of the glass of God's patience towards you, a drop of wrath has been running into the vials of his indignation against you. Oh! what a treasure of sin and wrath then, is laid up in so many years as you have lived in sin! Every sin committed, every mercy abused, every call of God neglected and slighted, adds still more and more to this treasure.

3. It will be much worse shortly than it is now, except preventing, renewing grace step in betwixt you and that wrath, into which you are hastening so fast. It is sad to be under the sentence of condemnation, but unspeakably worse to be under the execution of that sentence. To be a christless man is lamentable, but to be a hopeless man is more lamentable. For though you be now without Christ, yet while the breath of life is in your nostrils, you are not absolutely without hope. But when once that breath is gone, all the world cannot save or help you. Your last breath and your last hope expire together. Though you be under God’s damning sentence, yet that sentence, through the riches of forbearance, is not executed; but as soon as you die, all that wrath which hanged over your heads so many years, in the black clouds of God's threatenings, will pour down in a furious storm upon you, which will never break up while God is God. O! think, and think again, and let your thoughts think close to this sad and solemn subject, there is but a breath betwixt you and hell.

Inf. 4. Doth God maintain your life by breath? Let not that breath destroy your life, which God gave to preserve it.

No man can live without breath; and yet some might live longer than they do, if their breath were better employed. "Some men’s throats have been cut by their own tongues," as the Arabian proverb intimates. Life and death (says Solomon) are in the power of the tongue. Critics observe, that a word and a plague grow upon the same root in the Hebrew tongue. It is certain, that some men's breath has been baneful poison both to themselves and others. It was a word that cut off the life of Adonijah, 1 Kings 2:23. and thousands since his day have died upon the point of the same weapon. It is therefore wholesome advice that is given us, Psal. 34:12. "What man is he that desireth life, and loveth many days, that he may see good; keep thy tongue from evil, and thy lips from speaking guile."

And the more evil the times are, the stricter guard we should keep upon our lips. "It is an evil time, the prudent will keep silence," Amos 5:18. When wicked men watch to make a man an offender for a word, as it is, Isa 29:20, 21. it behoves us to be upon our watch, that we offend not with our lips. It is good to keep, what is not safe to trust. David was a deaf and dumb man, when in the company of wicked men, Psal. 38:13. he thought silence to be his prudence. It is better they should call you fools, than find you so.

Inf. 5. Employ not that breath to the dishonour of God, which was first given, and is still graciously maintained by him for your comfort and good.

It were better you had never breathed at all, than to spend your breath in profane oaths, or foolish and idle chat, whereby at once, you wound the name of God, draw guilt upon your own souls, and help on the ruin of others. That is a startling text, Matt. 12:36. "But I say unto you, that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give an account thereof in the day of judgement."

To give an account, is here, by a metalepsis of the antecedent for the consequent, put for punishment in hell-fire, without an intervening change of heart, and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus.

And there is more evil in this abuse of our breath, than we can easily discern, especially upon two accounts; (1.) Because it is a sin most frequently committed, and seldom repented of. The intercourse betwixt the heart and tongue is quick, and the sense of the evil as easily and quickly passeth away. (2.) Because the poisonous and malignant influence thereof abides and continues long after: our words may do mischief to others, not only a long time after they are spoken, but a long time after the tongue that spake them is turned to dust. How many years may a foolish or filthy word, a profane scoff, an atheistical expression, stick in the minds of them that heard them, after the speaker's death. A word spoken is physically transient, and passed away with the breath that delivered it; but morally, it is permanent: For as to its moral efficacy, no more is required, but its objective existence in the minds and thoughts of them that once heard it: And, upon that very ground, Suarez argues for a general judgement, after men at death have passed their particular judgement; because (says he) long after that, abundance of good and evil will be done in this world by the dead, in the persons of others that over-live them. For look, as it was said of Abel, that being dead, he yet speaketh; so it may be said of Julian, Porphyry, and multitudes of scoffing Atheists, that being dead, they yet speak. Oh, therefore, get a sanctified heart to season your breath, that it may minister grace to the hearers.

Inf. 6. Let your breath promote the spiritual life of others, as well as maintain the natural life in yourselves.

Though the maintaining of your natural life be one end why God gave you breath, yet it is not the only, or principal end of it. Your breath must be food to others, as well as life to you; Prov. 10:21. "The lips of the righteous feed many." It will be comfortable to resign that breath to God at death, which has been instrumental to his glory in this life. It was no low encomium Christ gave of the church, when he said, Cant. 4:11. "Thy lips, O my spouse, drop as the honeycomb, honey and milk are under thy tongue." Sweet, wholesome, and pleasant words drop from her lips. They drop (says Christ) as the honey-comb. Some drops ever and anon fall actually, and others hang, at the same time, prepared and ready to fall. Such a prepared and habitual disposition should every Christian continually have. Your words may stick upon men's hearts to their edification and salvation, when you are in your graves. Your tongues may now sow that precious seed, which may spring up to the praise of God, though you may not live to reap the comfort of it in this world, John 4:86,:37. It is a rich expense of your breath, to bring but one soul to God, and yet God has used the breath of one, as his instrument, to save, edify, and comfort the souls of thousands, Prov. 11:30. "The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life, and he that winneth souls is wise." The good Lord make all his people wise in this.

Surely, whether we consider the invaluable worth and preciousness of souls, the benefits you have had from the breath of others yourselves, the innate property of grace, wherever it is, to diffuse and communicate itself, how short a time you have to breathe, and how comfortable it will be, when you breathe your last, to remember how it has been employed for God; all this should open your lips to counsel, reprove, and comfort others, as often as opportunity is ministered.

Did Christ spend his blood for our souls, and shall not we spend our breath for them! Oh! let our lips dispense knowledge. If you will not spend your breath for God, how will you spend your blood for him? If you will not speak for him, I doubt you will not die for him. Away with a sullen reservedness, away with unprofitable chat; all subjects of discourse are not fit for a Christian's lips. It is a grave admonition God once gave his people by the pen of a faithful minister. "You may rue (says he) the opportunities you have lost. Here lay a poor wretch with one foot in hell; would he not have started back, if he had had light to discover his danger? Well, you are now together, something you must say; the same breath would serve for a compassionate admonition, as for a complacent impertinency, which will redound to the advantage of neither. You part, the man dies, and in the midst of hell cries out against you, one word of yours might have saved me; you had me in your reach, you might have told me my danger; you forebore, I hardened; the Lord reward your negligence."

Inf. 7. If breath be the tie betwixt soul and body, How are we concerned to improve, and draw forth the precious breath of ministers and Christians, while it is yet in their nostrils.

The breath of many ministers is judicially stopt already, their breath serves to little other use than to preserve their own lives; it will be stops ere long by death, and then those excellent treasures of gifts and graces, wherewith they are richly furnished, will be gone out of your reach, never to be further useful to your souls. You should do by them therefore (as one aptly speaks) as scholars do by some choice book they have borrowed, and must return in a few days to the owner: They diligently read it night and day, and carefully transcribe the most useful and excellent notes they can find in it, that they may make them their own, when the book is called out of their hands.

But alas! we rather divert, than draw forth these excellencies that are in them. You may yet converse with them, and greatly benefit yourselves by these converses; but (as one speaks) by the stream of your impertinent talk, that season is neglected. Afterwards You see your lack of knowledge, but then the instrument is removed. How must it gall an awakened Jew, to think what discourse he had with Jesus Christ! Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar? Why do not thy disciples fast? Oh! had I nothing else to enquire of the Lord Jesus? Would it not have been here pertinent to have asked, What shall I do to be saved? But he is gone, and I dead in my sins. How many persons have we sent away, that had a word of wisdom in their hearts, having only learnt from them what a clock it is, what weather, or what news; forgetting to ask our own hearts, what is all this to us? and to enquire of them things worthy of their wisdom and experience. "Wherefore is there a price in the hand of a fool, seeing he has no heart to it?" Prov. 17:16. The expense of one minute's breath in season, may, if God concur with it, be to you the ground of breathing forth praises to God to all eternity.

Inf. 8. Are soul and body tacked together by so frail a thing as a puff of breath? How vain and groundless then are all those pleasures men take in their carnal projects and designs in this world?

We lay the plot and design of our future earthly felicity in our own thoughts; we mould and contrive a design for a long and pleasant life. The model for raising an estate is already formed in our thoughts, and we have not patience to defer our pleasure till the accomplishment of it, but presently draw a train of pleasing consequents from this chimera, and our thoughts can stoop to nothing less than sitting down all the remainder of our days in the very lap of delight and pleasure; forgetting that our breath is all the while in our nostrils, and may expire the next moment: and if it do, the structure of all our expectations and projects comes to nothing in the same moment. "His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his dust: And in that very day his thoughts perish," Psal. 146:4. The whole frame of his thoughts fall instantly abroad, by drawing out this one pin, his breath. It is good with all our earthly designs to mingle the serious thoughts of the dominion of providence, and our own frailty; James 4:15. "If the Lord will, and we live."

It is become a common observation, that as soon as men have accomplished their earthly designs, and begin to hug and bless themselves in their own acquisitions, a sudden and unexpected period is put to their lives and pleasures, as you may see Luke 12:19, 20; Dan. 4:30.

Oh then drive moderately; you will be at the end of all these things sooner than you imagine. We need not victual a ship to cross the channel, as they do that are bound to the Indies. "What is your life? It is even a vapour which appeareth for a little while, and then vanisheth away," James 4:14. In one moment the projects of many years are overturned for ever.

Inf. 9. Is it but a puff of breath that holds men in life? The build not too much hope and confidence upon any man.

Build not too high upon so feeble a foundation. "Cease ye from man (says the prophet) whose breath is ill his nostrils; for wherein is he to be accounted of?? Isa. 2:22. There are two things that should deter us from dependence upon any man, viz. his falseness and his frailty. Grace in a great measure may cure the first, but not the last. The best of men must die, as well as the worst, Rom. 8:10. it is a vanity therefore to rely upon any man. It was the saying of a philosopher when he heard how merchants lost great estates at sea in a moment,— Non amo felicitatem e funibus pendentem; - I love not that happiness (says he) which hangs upon a rope. But all the happiness of many men hangs upon a far weaker thing than a rope, even the perishing breath of a creature.

Let not parents raise their hopes too high, or lean too hard upon their children. Say not of thy child, as Lamech did of Noah, "This son shall comfort us," Gen. 5:29. The world is full of the lamentings and bitter cries of disappointed parents. Let not the wife depend too much on her husband, as if her earthly comforts were secured in him against all danger. God is often provoked to stop our friend's breath, that thereby he may stop our way to sin, 1 Tim. 5:5. The trust and dependence of a soul are too weighty to be hanged upon such a weak and rotten pin as the breath of a creature.

Inf. 10. To conclude; if this frail breath be all that differenceth the living from the dead, then fear not man whose breath is in his nostrils. There is as little ground for our fear of man, as there is for our trust in man. As death, in a moment, can make the best man useless, and put him out of a capacity to do us any good; so it can in a moment make the worst man harmless, and put him out of capacity to do us any injury. Indeed, if the breath of our enemies were in their power, and ours at their mercy, there would be just cause to tremble at them; but they are neither masters of their own, nor ours. "Who art thou that thou shouldest be afraid of a man that shall die?" said God to Jacob, Isa 51:12. The breath of the mightiest is no better secured than of the meanest, nor never in more danger to be stopt than when they breathe out threatenings against the upright.

Julian's breath was soon stopt after he threatened to root out the Galileans. Queen Mary resigned her breath at the very time when she had filled the prisons with many of Christ's sheep, and designed them for the slaughter. Read Isa 17:12. and see what mush rooms we are afraid of. The best way to continue your relations and friends to your comfort, is to give God and not them your dependence; and the best way to secure yourselves against the rage of enemies, is to give God your fear, and not them. And thus much of the nature of the soul, and its tie with the body.