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A48777
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The death of God's Moses's [sic] considered being the substance of a sermon preached at the funeral of Mr. Francis Johnson, minister of the gospel, sometimes fellow of All-Souls, and afterwards Master of University Colledge in Oxford, who died in London, October the 9th. 1677 / by J. Ll.
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J. Ll.
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1678
(1678)
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Wing L2617A; ESTC R42135
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17,380
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24
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THE DEATH OF Gods Moses's CONSIDERED Being the substance of a SERMON Preached at the Funeral of Mr. Francis Johnson Minister of the Gospel sometimes Fellow of All-souls and afterwards Master of University Colledge in Oxford Who died in London October the 9th 1677. By J. Ll. He being dead yet speaketh Heb. 11.4 LONDON Printed for and are to be sold by Thomas Parkhurst at the Bible and Three-Crowns over against the Great Conduit at the lower end of Cheapside 1678. THE EPISTLE TO THE READER READER THis Sermon when Preached was not in the least designed for thy view but by a true friend of the deceased Person much against my inclination is violenced out of my hands into the Press The triteness of the Apology will likely enough make it less believed but sure I am wheresover how often soever it hath been false here it is very true If I deserve not thy belief and so I am denied it I cannot help it Though the discourse doth not assuredly the subject and the worthy Minister deceased abundantly deserves to be known and published In it thou wilt find somewhat more and possibly somewhat less than was Preached Som will judge here is too much and some it may be too little Censure as thou pleasest or rather as thou oughtest Labour with me to imitate his vertues who is gone and if this Sermon shall prove instrumental to the reformation and preparing of any for the serious hour of death I shall be very thankful and I pray God it may I earnestly beg young Ministers their favourable interpretation as well as conscientious consideration of the last use I presume onely humbly to advise my Juniors nor them neither as though I thought not some so as to years much my Seniors otherwise Nor is my advice intended for any more or further than it is for my self if none else have any need of it I am glad of it and hope they will pardon me that I have used the Plural if I ought to have used the Singular Number What any full fraught with humor that yet want ability to be Criticks who have more Brow than Brain and more Forehead than Head more Supercilious Confidence than Modesty and Understanding shall say or think of it I am not at all solicitous THE DEATH OF GOD'S MOSES'S CONSIDERED Joshua 1.2 Moses my Servant is dead YOu may possibly wonder why I chose such a Text concerning so great and so publick a person as Moses was to speak of and from him whose death is the sad occasion of our coming here this day but when you know and remember how great and publick a person he also hath been in former days though of late years buried in obscurity and of what Magnitude this Star that is fallen was who in his last Winter stormy nights of trouble and persecution was indeed inveloped in the clouds as if quite set and for ever disappeared yet in fairer times gave as great a light in his lesser Sphere and shone as much in his more confined Orb as did Moses in his greater When you have thought of this you will need no Rhetorick to perswade you to abate your marvel but readily think the Text enough adapted to the Providence and sure it cannot be much amiss to ground his Euneral Sermon who as if repute and estimation were some great afflictions and to be likely to be valued according to his deserts were to be in danger studiously concealed himself and his great worth from being known and honour'd to ground it I say upon him who was hid in an ark of Bulrushes Joshua to whom God here speaks is supposed to have writ as this Book which goes under his name so the later end of the former from the mention of the death of Moses When God spoke these words to Joshua whether when the thirty days of mourning for Moses were expired as some think or whether after the elapsing of a longer time as seems probable from the last clause of the 6. v. of the 34. of Deut. is uncertain The words are the great God's little and short yet full and comprehensive account of the great man Moses and in them we have two parts 1. His Life My servant 2. His Death is dead He wore out and bestowed all his life in the Service of his God and so died His obedience was not interrupted by any chasin of idleness or apostacy but as he lived Gods servant he took care to die so He would not die without living nor live without dying his As to his name Moses called by the Egyptians Hermes by Manetho Osarseph by the Grecians with a small alteration of the Hebrew as some think Museus Whether he was first named by Pharaoh's daughter being an Egyptian in that language Monies which signifies the same with Moses whether it be derived from Mo water and Hyse Kept or as seems most likely from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he drew because he was drawn from the water side with a prophetick intimation how he should draw the Israelites out of Egypt and how much he should rule the Element of Water in their behalf and draw them through it as he was drawn from it Which name or at least the thing signified by it Orpheus seems to allude to in that verse which is upon a good reason understood of him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or whether Pharaoh's daughter being instructed by Moses his mother and sister that he was an Hebrew learnt this name from them and so gave it him Whether he had any other name given him before upon his Circumcision and whether that was Joachim as Clemens Alexandrinus thinks possibly from Numerius the Philosopher who says he was so called or whether he was called Melchi that is my King after his reception into heaven as the same Clemens Alexandrinus fancies and many such like questions of him are uncertain not worth our while to dispute but this is certain that a great man he was so great that some of the Jewish Rabbies because it is said Deut. 34.7 That when he died his eyes were not dim nor his natural force abated say that therefore he was an Angel and did not properly die and others of them that with his rod he wan'd off the Angel of death insomuch that had not God himself taken away his soul with a kiss he could not have died So great was he in the Jews esteem that they would not look upon him as man and therefore was he privately buried and for ever hid that they might not worship him as God as some conjecture who from the Apocryphal writings conclude that was the cause of the dispute between Michael and the Divel about the body of Moses Jude v. 9. and it is not improbable A servant of God he was and a very great and eminent one and yet die he must and though he was so great and there was no Prophet in Israel like to him yet He that is the least Minister in the Kingdom
succeeding Ministers of the Gospel which is one of our proper concerns to consider at this time and therefore from the notice God takes of the Death of Moses we also have taken notice of the death of his Successors and have observed that his Moseses dye But 2. Further to explain the Text and the Doctrine I shall describe Moses and prove to you that he was God's Servant and I do both these 1. By some of his actions particularly as 1. The Series of Miracles which by the Authority and Command of God he wrought in Opposition to the Aegyptians and in Defence of the Israelites Exod. 4.16 to whom as well as to Aaron he was instead of God he had the command of Heaven and the Water and Earth and the Meteors of the Air and therein as well as in other things was a clear Type of our blessed Saviour The Wind and the Sea obeyed him and seemed to have succeeded or rather exceeded Adam in his Original Power The Animals come at his Call to infest the Egyptians march in Battalia to Pharaoh's Court conquer and force him to yield and surrender without any more words upon the Kings refusal he sends an army of Sensitives to subdue him as he after victualed the Israelites with a regiment of Quails and a shower of Manna Exo. 16. He had the disposal of the King of Terrors killed and saved alive whom and what he pleased and yet even he maugre this strange authority he had over must be subject to the Empire and feel the stroke of death This great Moses also died 2. He conquered Amalek for the Israelites and yet himself used no weapon nor no hostility Ex. 11. 13. when the lifting up of his hands did more injure the Amalekites and more befriend the Israelites than the lifting up of Joshua's and his armies and there was as much fear of the falling of Moses his hand as there was of the hosts of Israel and because his hands were steady therefore Joshua discomfited Amalek and his people 12 13 v. yet for all this great service he did God and his Church he was not exempted from mortality this so triumphant conqueror and so select a Servant of God is dead 3. He fasted fourty days and fourty nights and so typified our blessed Lord whose meat and drink was to receive and do his Fathers will and one would think having lived so long notwithstanding the decayableness of nature without continued sustenance he would prove for ever after as some Jewish Rabbies fancy he did death-proof and immortal but no it was appointed also for him to dye 4. He wrote by the inspiration of God the beginning the first five Books of the holy Scriptures if they hear not Moses Luk. 16.31 says our Saviour and the Apostle when Moses is read 2 Cor. 3.15 that is that part of the Scripture which was written by him One of the Fathers seems to understand by the five words of the Apostle in the 1 Cor. 14.19 the five Books of Moses as if he were preferring the preaching the necessary injunctions of the law before the miraculous gift of tongues Moses some think was born A. M. 2373. and wrote before Homer the first Grecian writer 540 years before Sanconiathan the first Phenician writer 200 years though in Phenicia some I suppose falsly conjecture letters were first found out He was the first man the Holy Ghost ever inspired in writing yet and though he ever lives in those writings he must die 2. The second way I proposed to describe Moses and prove him the servant of God was by the Characters the Scriptures give of him and we find in the Word of God that 1. He was a man of prayer an Israelite indeed that always conquered men and prevailed with God had even what he would of him and in some sense reversed the decrees of Heaven Numb 32.10 11 14. So powerful was he in prayer that when God absolutely and peremptorily designs the ruine of a people he makes it appear by this Argument that Moses Jer. 15.1 if he were praying for them should not be able to retrieve them q. d. he who once did strangely pray my mind toward this people should now fail to do it And what a strange spirit of prayer had this second Moses whose departure from us hath brought us here this day what an unheard of fluency of tears word and matter would he altogether pour upon his hearers how would the Rhetorick of his boyling affections and most serious earnestness disturb and yet greatly recommend the oratory of his words have you not seen rivers of tears running down his eyes when he hath been confessing and praying for you with what brokenness of spirit with what self-abhorrency and with what deep reverence would he speak to God 2. Moses was a man of learning which he imployed for God Acts 22. he was versed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians which it is likely was then couched in Hieroglyphicks if as some think they had not then the use of letters which were not then invented or at least they had them not though its possible they might have had them from the Phenicians as they from Abraham So was our Moses though he made no pompous shew of it Amongst other of his excellencies in learning he was well read in controversies particularly he was an able defender of the Truth against the growing and so much improved errors of Arminianism and his learning was the more lovely and valuable because richly enameled with modesty for as 3. Moses was a modest man who could by no means be perswaded to think himself fit for so worthy an employment as God designed him Exod. 4.10 13. so was our Moses his thoughts of himself were as little and as low as were his accomplishments great and high He was so far from blurting out his knowledge in all companies or waiting his opportunity to be guilty of ostentation as some do that with too great care he hid his eminent parts from the view of all and just like Moses as his modesty was if there was any unequalness in his graces one of his most resplendent vertues So the excess of it was his most apparent infirmity How hardly was he drawn and how difficultly tolled into that wortk which he was prompted too by his free and religious education and wherein he did far surpass and excel most of the most famed Preachers and what could be the reason of this his very injurious unwillingness to be publick what but a too modest sense I speak what I know I say a too modest sense of that unfitness which from him was always at remotest distance But to hasten we find in Scripture that 4. Lastly Moses was a very meek and patient man above all the men which were upon the face of the earth amongst the many close and unkind provocations of a stubborn and refractory people and very uncivil affronts that were put upon him by the obstinate