Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n
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A45686
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A funeral sermon preached upon the death of Mrs. Rebecka Goddard, November the 13th. 1692 At Joyners-Hall. By Tho. Harrison.
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Harrison, Thomas, fl. 1700.
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1692
(1692)
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Wing H910A; ESTC R213017
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15,833
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28
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latter he gives Worship Secondly From his Expressions Ver. 21. Words are or ought to be the Interpreters of our Hearts and a Comment upon our Actions Least some observing Job in such a Posture might think that he was beside himself and thrown into a Frenzy by these doleful Tidings he declares the Frame of his Heart and the meaning of these forementioned Actions by these following Expressions Naked came I out of my Mothers Womb and naked shall I return thither These Words are as I conceive used by him as an Argument to support his own Spirit under his present Afflictions q. d. Altho' I am now in a Naked Condition stript and depriv'd of mine outward Comforts yet I have no Cause to Murmur for I brought nothing into the World neither can I carry any thing with me out of it and then says he in the Words of my Text The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away blessed be the Name of the Lord. These Words may be divided into two general Parts 1. Two Propositions The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away 2. A natural and necessary Inference and Conclusion from them both Blessed be the Name of the Lord. I shall speak to both First Two Propositions or Assertions 1. The Lord gave 2. The Lord hath taken away First The Lord gave q. d. The Lord gave me those Outward Comforts and Enjoyments that Wealth those servants and Children which I lately had but am now bereaved of From hence I shall Observe Doct. That all our Outward Comforts and Temporal Enjoyments come from and are the Gift of God God is the giver of every good and perfect Gift James 1.17 Not only of the best and most perfect Gifts but also of those that are good and perfect in their kind Temporal as well as Spiritual and Eternal Blessings are streams flowing from this Fountain of Goodness In the Prosecution of this Point I shall do two things First Lay down some Explicatory and Demonstrative Propositions Secondly Present you with some Practical Applicatory Inferences First I shall lay down some Explicatory and Demonstrative Propositions First Prop. The God is the efficient Cause of all our Creature Comforts Every good thing that we enjoy is God's Creature for as every Creature of God is good so nothing is good but what is his Creature Sin which is essentially evil is not God's but the Devil's Creature Our near and dear Relations must own God only for their Creator Though Parents are the Instrumental Causes yet God is the Principal Efficient Cause of their Children's Beings though their Bodies were formed of their substance yet they were formed by God's Omnipotent Arm by him they were fearfully and wonderfully made Psal 139.14 and he animated and informed them with a rational Soul therefore is he called the Father of Spirits Heb. 12.9 and the God of the Spirits of all flesh Numb 16.22 Hence Second Prop. God hath an Original Right to and Propriety in them He must needs be the sole Proprietor of those things whereof he is the sole Creator Those Bodies and Souls must needs be his who derived their Being from him The first Cause of every thing hath an unquestionable Dominion of Propriety in it upon the score of Justice By the Law of Nations the first Finder of a Countrey is esteemed the Rightful Possessor of that Countrey And the first Inventor of an Art hath a right of exercising it Thirdly All the Outward Comforts which we enjoy were bestowed upon us by God they being Created by him and he being the rightful Lord of them we cannot enjoy them 'till we receive them from him The Right and Title which we have to them is not Primitive but Derivative Some of our Relations at least might have had an Existence and yet we might not have had an Interest in them Hast thou a good Husband or Wife as God's Creating Power gave them being so his wise and gracious Providence made them thine He allotts one Person for a Conjugal Union with another and by his Providence and that sometimes very strangely and wonderfully brings about and effects it Fourth Prop. All those excellent Qualities which any of our Outward Enjoyments are the subjects of whereby they are rendered very Comfortable and Delightful to us proceed from God All the natural and acquired Endowments of the Body and Mind which endear Relations to us as Beauty Ingenuity a good Natural Temper and Disposition as well as Grace which is a supernatural Endowment of the Soul are bestowed upon them by the Fountain of all Perfections He curiously formed their Bodies and dignified their Minds with these Intellectual Qualities Fifthly Whatsoever we receive from God flows from the Free Grace and Sovereign Goodness of God This is indeed the proper Notion of a Gift It is a good thing freely bestowed upon us When we receive some good from another which he is not Obliged to give us it may properly be styled a Gift Now in this sense all our Temporal as well as our Spiritual Enjoyments are the Gifts of the Supream Being He is under no Engagement or Obligation to any of his Creatures but what he voluntarily and freely enters into and lays himself under We are less than the least of his Mercies and unworthy of the smallest of his Favours Have any of us a Wife Children or any other Relations which greatly add to the Comfort of our Lives we must say concerning them as Jacob did to his Brother Esau concerning his Children these God hath graciously given thy Servant Gen. 33.5 Sixth Prop. When God bestows any Outward Comforts upon us he doth not divest himself of nor make over unto us an absolute Propriety in them Among Men there are several sorts of Gifts or several ways of giving Sometimes Men cannot be said to retain any Right to those things which they have given unto another All the right to the Gift passeth over from the Giver to the Receiver by Vertue of the Donation and the Person that gave it cannot without a Breach of the Rules of Justice reassume it without the Receiver's full Consent But other things are so given by Men that they still retain their right to and Propriety in them or indeed they are rather lent than given We have an Instance hereof in Places of Profit and Trust which are bestowed by Princes upon their Favourites during their Pleasure This Donation is not absolute so as to divest the Sovereign of his Right to them for he can take them away when he pleases without committing any Act of Injustice And of this latter sort of Gifts are those outward Comforts which we receive from God He did not divest himself of the Propriety when he granted us the Use Our Relations are His and not Ours even when they are in some sense Ours Though they may be Ours in opposition to Men yet they are not Ours in opposition to God they are granted us only for our Use as the Coller of
World let us as much as in us lies endeavour the Salvation of their Souls and let us strive to receive what good we can from them for we know not how speedily Death may make a separation between us and them Thirdly Hence I Inferr That when we enjoy any Outward Comforts we ought to be continually expecting and preparing for the loss of them Let us not think that we shall always enjoy them but look upon them as fading and uncertain let us endeavour to wean our selves from them to use them as if we used them not In this respect let those who have Wives and Children be as if they had none That Affliction which comes unlookt for usually comes unprepar'd for The more loose we sit from our outward Comforts when we have them the more easily shall we part with them Jacob could better part with his ten other Sons into the Land of Egypt than with his Benjamin that almost brought his grey Hairs with Sorrow to the Grave No wonder if we immoderately grieve for those things when absent which we immoderately Love when present By dying daily to them let us prepare to follow them to their Graves Fourthly I Inferr How unreasonable it is for us to be surprized when any of our outward Comforts are removed from us These fiery Tryals should not be thought strange of by us for no strange thing hath happened to us If we thought them durable we were mistaken about them and if we thought them uncertain and vanishing why should we be surprized when they disappear It was an excellent saying of a Heathen when one told him of his Son's Death Sciebam me genuisse mortales I knew that I begat Mortals O Parents did not ye know that your Daughter O Husband did not you know that your Wife was a Mortal be not then surprized at her Dissolution Fifthly and Lastly Hence I Inferr That we ought all of us to prepare for our own removal from our Relations As our Relations who are Comforts to us so we who are Comforts to them are fading Dying Creatures How soon our living Relations may walk the Streets in Mourning for us as we have done for those who are already gone to their long Home we know not The daily Instances of Humane Frailty which are given us should put us upon Considering and Preparing for our latter End that we may not be hurried from our Relations Embraces into everlasting Flames but may enter into Abraham's Bosom Let none of us deferr the great Work of Preparation for Death for we know not how soon we may enter into its gloomy shades Job's Children were snatcht away suddenly and so are many others Death is not always usher'd in with the formality of a long and lingring Sickness Our deceased Friend did not lye long upon her Bed of languishing but was quickly carried off the Stage by that Distemper which seized upon her It is not long since she was Worshipping God with us in this Assembly and now she is gone into the Congregation of the Dead Therefore be ye also ready for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of Man cometh Matth. 24.44 Let not those who are Young put off this Business of highest Concernment to Old Age for young ones are often taken away by the stroke of Death Our Deceased Friend was like a pleasant Flower in her blooming Age blasted by the Wind of Death the Days of her appointed time were but few before her Change came Remember therefore your Creator Oh young Ones in the dayes of your Youth for it may be ye may not live 'till Old Age comes Your Maker may soon take you away Get an Interest in Christ who hath abolished Death and brought Life and Immortality to light by the Gospel So when you come to dye may ye chearfully resign your Souls to him and he will receive them into his Divine Embraces Whatever your Judgments are now when you come to lye upon a Death bed you will think an Interest in Christ more valuable than the whole World if you are not extreamly stupified The Hopes which our Deceased Friend had of this carried her comfortably through the Valley of the shadow of Death Thus much for the first Proposition Second Prop. That when we are deprived of any of our Outward Comforts we must acknowledge the Efficiency of God therein The Lord hath taken away Whoever is the Instrumental God is the Efficient Cause of all our Afflictions The Manichees of old tell us of two Beginnings or two Gods the one a good God and the other an evil God the former they asserted to be the Author of all Good and the latter to be the Author of all Evil the former they called A giving God and the latter A taking God But my Text will sufficiently confute that horrid Notion for Job ascribes the Donation and the Removal of his Outward Comforts to the same Divine Being as the first Cause of both and indeed it was necessary that he should do so because there is but one God Yea many Heathens taught better Doctrine than these Hereticks for they feigned that their great Jupiter had two great Vessels placed at the Entrance of his Palace whereof the one was filled with Good and the other with Evil and these he dispensed according to the Dictates of his own Will among the Children of Men. But not to trouble you with Poetical Fictions the Scriptures frequently assert this Truth says God Isa 45.9 I form the light and create darkness I make peace and create evil I the Lord do all these things Says the Church Lam. 3.38 Out of the mouth of the most high proceedeth not evil and good When any of our dear Relations are taken away by Death they fall by the stroke of God's Hand says God to the Prophet Ezekiel Son of Man behold I take away from thee the Desire of thine Eyes with a stroke Ch. 24. v. 16. The Diseases of which our Relations dye are only the means w hereby God brings about his designed End even their Dissolution These Winds God holds in the Hollow of his Hand and lets them loose at his pleasure to blow poor Mortals from the River of Time into the Ocean of Eternity and this is no Impeachment at all to Divine Goodness Punishments themselves are not Moral Evils in the Person that inflicts though they are Natural Evils in the Person that suffers them I need not insist farther upon the Proof of this Point but shall present you with some Inferences from it First Hence I Inferr That when we are Threatned with the Privation of any of our Outward Comforts it is our wisest and safest way to apply our selves to God for the Continuance of them We may allowably pray for and deprecate the removal of our Temporal Enjoyments provided we do it with Modesty and Humility with these necessary Limitations If it be agreeable to his Will If it may be for his Glory and our good to