Witchcraft in America. Charles Wentworth Upham

but a little before they bid adieu to all those many Afflictions, they often have greater, harder, Sorer, Loads thereof laid upon them, than they had yet endured. It is true, That thro' much Tribulation we must enter in the Kingdom of God; but a little before our Entrance thereinto, our Tribulation may have some sharper accents of Sorrow, than ever were yet upon it. And what is the cause of this? It is indeed the Faithfulness of our God unto us, that we should find the Earth more full of Thorns and Briars than ever, just before he fetches us from Earth to Heaven; that so we may go away the more willingly, the more easily, and with less Convulsion, at his calling for us. O there are ugly Ties, by which we are fastned unto this world; but God will by Thorns and Briars tear those Ties asunder. But, is not the Hand of Joab here? Sure, There is the wrath of the Devil also in it. A little before we step into Heaven, the Devil thinks with himself, My time to abuse that Saint is now but short; what Mischief I am to do that Saint, must be done quickly, if at all; he'l shortly be out of my Reach for ever. And for this cause he will now fly upon us with the Fiercest Efforts and Furies of his Wrath. It was allowed unto the Serpent, in Gen. 2.15. To Bruise the Heel. Why, at the Heel, or at the Close, of our Lives, the Serpent will be nibbling, more than ever in our Lives before: and it is, Because now he has but a short time. He knows, That we shall very shortly be, Where the wicked cease from Troubling, and where the Weary are at Rest; wherefore that Wicked one will now Trouble us, more than ever he did, and we shall have so much Disrest, as will make us more weary than ever we were, of things here below.

      Corollary III.

      What a Reasonable Thing then is it, that they whose Time is but short, should make as great Use of their Time, as ever they can! pray, let us learn some good, even from the wicked One himself. It has been advised, Be wise as Serpents: why, there is a piece of Wisdom, whereto that old Serpent, the Devil himself, may be our Moniter. When the Devil perceives his Time is but short, it puts him upon Great Wrath. But how should it be with us, when we perceive that our Time is but short? why, it should put us upon Great Work. The motive which makes the Devil to be more full of wrath; should make us more full of warmth, more full of watch, and more full of All Diligence to make our Vocation, and Election sure. Our Pace in our Journey Heaven-ward, must be Quickened, if our space for that Journey be shortned, even as Israel went further the two last years of their Journey Canaan-ward, than they did in 38 years before. The Apostle brings this, as a spur to the Devotions of Christians, in 1 Cor. 7.29. This I say, Brethren, the time is short. Even so, I say this; some things I lay before you, which I do only think, or guess, but here is a thing which I venture to say with all the freedom imaginable. You have now a Time to Get good, even a Time to make sure of Grace and Glory, and every good thing, by true Repentance: But, This I say, the time is but short. You have now Time to Do good, even to serve out your generation, as by the Will, so for the Praise of God; but, This I say, the time is but short. And what I say thus to All People, I say to Old People, with a peculiar Vehemency: Sirs, It cannot be long before your Time is out; there are but a few sands left in the glass of your Time: And it is of all things the saddest, for a man to say, My Time is done, but my work undone! O then, To work as fast as you can; and of Soul-work, and Church-work, dispatch as much as ever you can. Say to all Hindrances, as the gracious Jeremiah Burrows would sometimes to Visitants: You'll excuse me if I ask you to be short with me, for my work is great, and my time is but short. Methinks every time we hear a Clock, or see a Watch, we have an admonition given us, that our Time is upon the wing, and it will all be gone within a little while. I remember I have read of a famous man, who having a Clock-watch long lying by him, out of Kilture in his Trunk, it unaccountably struck Eleven just before he died. Why, there are many of you, for whom I am to do that office this day: I am to tell you You are come to your Eleventh hour; there is no more than a twelfth part at most, of your life yet behind. But if we neglect our business, till our short Time shall be reduced into none, then, woe to us, for the great wrath of God will send us down from whence there is no Redemption.

      Corollary IV.

      How welcome should a Death in the Lord be unto them that belong not unto the Devil, but unto the Lord! While we are sojourning in this World, we are in what may upon too many accounts be called The Devils Country: We are where the Devil may come upon us in great wrath continually. The day when God shall take us out of this World, will be, The day when the Lord will deliver us from the hand of all our Enemies, and from the hand of Satan. In such a day, why should not our song be that of the Psalmist, Blessed be my Rock, and let the God of my Salvation be exalted! While we are here, we are in the valley of the shadow of death; and what is it that makes it so? 'Tis because the wild Beasts of Hell are lurking on every side of us, and every minute ready to salley forth upon us. But our Death will fetch us out of that Valley, and carry us where we shall be for ever with the Lord. We are now under the daily Buffetings of the Devil, and he does molest us with such Fiery Darts, as cause us even to cry out, I am weary of my Life. Yea, but are we as willing to die, as, weary of Life? Our Death will then soon set us where we cannot be reach'd by the Fist of Wickedness; and where the Perfect cannot be shotten at. It is said in Rev. 14.13. Blessed are the Dead which die in the Lord, they rest from their labours. But we may say, Blessed are the Dead in the Lord, inasmuch as they rest from the Devils! Our dying will be but our taking wing: When attended with a Convoy of winged Angels, we shall be convey'd into that Heaven, from whence the Devil having been thrown he shall never more come thither after us. What if God should now say to us, as to Moses, Go up and die! As long as we go up, when we die, let us receive the Message with a joyful Soul; we shall soon be there, where the Devil can't come down upon us. If the God of our Life should now send that Order to us, which he gave to Hezekiah, Set thy house in order, for thou shalt die, and not live; we need not be cast into such deadly Agonies thereupon, as Hezekiah was: We are but going to that House, the Golden Doors whereof, cannot be entred by the Devil that here did use to persecute us. Methinks I see the Departed Spirit of a Believer, triumphantly carried thro' the Devils Territories, in such a stately and Fiery Chariot, as the Spiritualizing Body of Elias had; methink I see the Devil, with whole Flocks of Harpies, grinning at this Child of God, but unable to fasten any of their griping Talons upon him: And then, upon the utmost edge of our Atmosphære, methinks I overhear the holy Soul, with a most heavenly Gallantry, deriding the defeated Fiend, and saying, Ah! Satan! Return to thy Dungeons again; I am going where thou canst not come for ever! O 'tis a brave thing so to die! and especially so to die, in our time. For, tho' when we call to mind, That the Devils time is now but short, it may almost make us wish to live unto the end of it; and to say with the Psalmist, Because the Lord will shortly appear in his Glory, to build up Zion. O my God! Take me not away in the midst of my days. Yet when we bear in mind, that the Devils Wrath is now most great, it would make one willing to be out of the way. Inasmuch as now is the time for the doing of those things in the prospect whereof Balaam long ago cry'd out Who shall live when such things are done! We should not be inordinately loth to die at such a time. In a word, the Times are so bad, that we may well count it, as good a time to die in, as ever we saw.

      Corollary V.

      Good News for the Israel of God, and particularly for his New-English Israel. If the Devils Time were above a thousand years ago, pronounced short, what may we suppose it now in our Time? Surely we are not a thousand years distant from those happy thousand years of rest and peace, and (which is better) Holiness reserved for the People of God in the latter days; and if we are not a thousand years yet