Ezeh 16.50 so when som are extraordinarily delivered that is allso ascribed to his soveraignty and befalls the wicked as wel as the righteous as scripture shews us I have overthrown some of you as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah and ye were as a firebrand pluckt out of the burning yet have ye not returnd unto me saith the Lord. Amos. 4.11 So that the experience of all ages verisies Salomon's words which ate interpretative not exclusive of providence and shews how things goe ordinarily under its conduct when he saith all things come alike to all there is one event to the righteous and to the wickâ—d Eccles 9.2 The same manner of afflictions and death materially befalling the one as the other By which unseeming providence God secures his people from the rage and malice of Sathan and wicked men in this world which would not be habitable for saints if they were certainly known and keeps off the scandal of Religion none knowing who are sincere or only hypocritical and mens coming to him for base ends whereby we should have more professors but worse Christians It being sufficient for his people's security that he knows them perfectly and makes a difference between them and the wicked of the world in the same providence where we can make none in his fatherly affection to them therein in his intention direction and ordering thereof for their good and in his issuing all in their eternal salvation 2 As we must not judge amis of God's proceedings so neither must we rashly judg of those so taken away Either of the cause like the Barbarians that judged the Aposte Paul a murderer from the viper fastning on his hand thinking he would fall down dead suddenly of which I have spoken in the reasons or of their eternal state and condition For if the life be good no manner of death is bad and if the life be bad the death is seldom good no evil of punishment but only of sin abates God's fatherly affection to his children but rather increases it or any way lessens their interest in his favor witnes Abel and all the Prophets to Zacharias slain between the Temple and altar Stephen and all the Apostles and Martyrs and best of men in all ages I know but one place of scripture that looks like judging mens eternal state by temporal judgments and that is of Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities about them suffering the vengeance of eternal fire Jude 7. Which yet is not meant of the next world in hell thô being the worst we read of and not ten righteous amongst them are damned most of them as Christ that knew intimates when he saith Math. 11. it shall be more tolerable for them than Corazin at the day of judgment the degree implying the kind but only the duration of the judgment in this world and as an emblem of the day of judgment when God shal bring a diluviam ignis as Irenaus calls it or rain hell out of heaven upon the world that now is and of the punishment of the wicked as the Psalmist alluding therto tells us this shall be the portion of their cup Ps 11.6 Learne we then to goe no further than scripture that speaks sparingly of mens eternal state and never that I know of concludes damnation from God's punishments here but allways from mens sins unrepented of and let us make no conclusions upon such false grounds nor presume to ascend Christs tribunal in condemning any to eternal punishments Pererius and others are too bold in asserting all the old world that were drowned except infants were damned For not to mention their number that world in all probability being as populous as the present and granting the generality were even of the sons of God that had corrupted their ways yet scripture speaking only indefinitly it is not for us to make it universal that all had or that nome repented upon the flood 's approaching allbeit God only establisht covenant with Noah and his family as afterwards with Abraham and his as the best in their generations Nor lastly must we censure the Relations of any suddenly taken away as if it were for som extraordinary sins that God so deals with them Which was the fault of Job's three friends For the devil whom God ordinarily restrains of his will more than wicked men in regard of his great malice and power and his being in termino or condemnd thô not fully executed whereas men are here only in via or probationers in reference to their future judgment having accused Job falsly and being by God extraordinarily permitted his pleasure on all he hath for the tryal and exercise of this noble champion begins with his estate knowing Job would have valewed that less if he had before lost his children then destroys them allso suddenly sparing the wife that was in his power who it should seem was none of the best for his second in this combat And his friends knowing these things and seeing his bodily sufferings allso to be very great allthô the loss of his children seems his greatest outward affliction his personal being greater in his inward troubles of spirit than bodily for thô he was greivously sore and pained yet not heart-sick or in dainger of death they in stead of comforting him add affliction to the afflicted censure him as unrighteous and think to prove him so by this argument That he that is sorely afflicted of God is either an open sinner or secret hypocrite this Job denies and disputes it with them and Elihu moderates determining God's favor and afflictions to be consistent which God confirms and shews his displeasure against the others Let this example of these good men's censoriousnes keep us from playing the Criticks in such cases and to judge nothing before the time either of God or men rashly lest he deal with us after our folly but stay till this dust that blinds us be blown out of our eyes and then shall we see clearly the reason of all at the day of the revelation of the righteous judgment of God Rom. 2.5 5 For Application to those especially concernd in the loss of their deare Relations that they bear it Christianly I need say the less of this because many have said so much tho the practise of most is not answerable and especially those that are surprized For the suddennes thereof discomposes our minds makes us inconsiderate and laying aside the rule both of scripture and reason comply with present sense quarelling with God as Jonah for the loss of his guord or any thing next us as the cause thereof as Job's wife with her husbands religion and the good widow with Elijah for the sudden death of her son 1 Kings 17. Briefly therfore 1 Eye God as the author and orderer of all that befalls us His soverainty power goodnes justice wisdom c. in the kind manner measure time and issue of afflictions David was dumb in silence opened not his mouth in murmuring
and we Christians ought and should and for which God is pleased to use them in his Church For thô we have the law that discovers sin and condemns sinners to eternal punishments and the Gospel that tenders us pardon and eternal salvation yet so great is our unbelief and the love of our lusts that we litle regard them till God awaken us and lets us see and feel experimentally by outward or inward troubles or both the evil of our sins and how destructive they are to us and therby bring us to condemn and loath them and our selves for them and valew his mercy through Christ for pardoning them For which ends he makes use especially of those that are most powerful to convince men of and affect them with his justice sins hainousnes the sinners desert and need of mercy Of which kind are those punishments which are generally inflicted on all apparently according to his threatnings wherein are seen the greatnes of the offence God's resolution to punish his power and impartiality in punishing great as well as small so that none can flatter themselves with hopes of impunity And those that have the offence legibly written upon them so that all may read the sin in the punishment and see God's equity therein whereby he is justified and the offender condemned even by himself as well as others as we find among the very heathen Judges 1. v. 7. And those punishments that are great and so shew the greatnes of the offence justice never proportioning them greater but mercy mitigating them to less than the offenders deserts All which kinds of punishment concur in death as most clearly appears by the scriptures which declare God's threatning thereof before and sentencing all it to it after for our apostacy Gen. c. 2. and c. 3. as a suitable punishment for our wilful despising of life virtually promist in the threatning of death and that which shews us the greatnes of our offence in that it is the greatest of punishments comprehending all other miseries as life it deprives us of all other mercies Rom. 6 23. And yet more signally do all these appeare in the kinds of death we this day celebrate the mother bringing forth in sorrow because the woman was first in the transgression and dying for her having transgrest and the litle infant for that only So that its better for us to goe to this house of mourning than feasting as Solomon saith Eccles 7 2. for that is the end of all men and therefore will be thine and mine and the living will lay it to heart intimating the reason of that being the end of all from the usefulnes thereof to the living that seriously will confider it as a spectacle of their own mortality whereof sin especially original was the moral cause whatever were the natural together with the manner thereof in regard of their inward and outward man How bitter therfore should the remembrance of and sorrow for our first transgression be to us and all other sins as proceding from it especially our wilful and deliberate offences which are as so many approbations of our first parents apostacy whereby we have so often declared we should have done as they did had we been in their place how hardly soever we are apt to think and many allso to speak of them And how acceptable should Christ be to us as the only Mediator to bring us back again to God from whom we have fallen and reconcile us to him whom we have offended who by his death hath redeemed their souls from destruction that will embrace him taken away sin the sting of death strength from the law to condemn them eternally sanctified the grave to their bodies by his own lying in it and by his resurrection given them assurance of their victory over it in their bodies rising again and being fashioned like to his glorious body For it is this our apostacy from God at first that brought in this sad separation of all our comfortable relations both spiritual between God our father and us and natural between husband and wife parents and children kindred and friends and soul and body at last here and both from happines for ever hereafter and also intaild upon us all miseries which are more in this life than can be numbered and greater in that to com than can be exprest And Christ only that makes up again the union for his people in spiritual relations his father ours himself our husband all his brethren and fisters and all necessary comforts in natural relations in this life and soul and body to meet again and both with happines for ever freeing us from eternal miseries and all those temporal which he procures not to work together for our good 4. That such as are taken away by untimely death may be examples and warnings to the living 1 To deter them from the like sins where they were notorious and the cause of their punishment every example of punitive justice being a fulfilling of the threatning of the law on the Offender and vertually a threatning for the like offence to others This course God took especially with his Church in its infancy training them up as we doe our children with temporal threats and promises mercies and judgements whereas now in its maturity under the Gospell on a better covenant he uses more especially spiritual promises of grace and salvation and threatnings of spiritual and eternal punishments and deals with us accordingly the more powerfully to allure us to holines and deter us from wickednes Yet in regard we are still men of like passions and no less moved with examples he declares this to be the end of all such temporal judgements to us Christians and requires us to make this use of them 1 Cor. 10.6 The Israelites suddenly destroyed several times in the wildernes saith the Apostle were our examples to the intent we should not lust after evil things as they allso lusted commanding us to avoid their sins thereafter mentioned and declaring that all these things happened to them for ensamples or types and are written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the world are come v. 7. 11. Thus the untimely death of many of the Corinthians for their profanation of the Lord's supper is recorded that we should beware thereof 1 Cor. 11. v. 30. So allso when the crime is apparent in the punishment as Paul's being guilty of stoning Stephen in his being stoned by the Jews and drawn out of the city supposing he had been dead thô he was miraculously revived or at least restored Acts 14.19 20. And this use we are to make of those extraordinary examples of God's judgments that fall out in all ages and nations for execrable murders perjury and dreadful imprecations great persecution and oppression c. wherein histories abound and †Reinold's God's Revenge of murder Camerarii opere subcisiva centur 1. c. 86. contur 3. c. 3 33 34 36.38 Gorrutius de providentia l.
so that as he hath right by Creation and continual preservation of all his Creatures to govern them as he pleases so his understanding being infinite his will just and his power almighty his government in all he doth must needs be most excellently perfect But who hath known the mind of the Lord or been his counceller and acquainted with his secrets for which reason we should with the Apostle humbly adore them and not vainly enquire after them presumptuously prying into those things which belong not to us O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom aed knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his Judgments and his ways past finding out Rom. 11.33 34. But thô we must not be curious to know what we ought not we must not be careless to know what we ought Scripture frequently requiring us to observe God's dealings incouraging us thereto and condemning the neglect thereof Let us therefore proceed more particularly and for the understanding these riddles of Gods Providence plow with his Heifer the Sacred Scriptures wherin we have a multitude of examples for our instruction and rules also for our direction that we may wisely consider his doings as we are commanded These kinds and manner of Death are considerable in reference to God the persons that Die and the Living that survive As they come from God so they are in themselves Punishments for the breach of his law but very different in their causes and effects according to the diversity of the subjects they are inflicted upon or that are therein concern'd which we must carefully regard lest we dangerously mistake For which end we must consider I. That as all God's glorious Attributes whereby he is pleased to display himselfe are equally in him so those that relate to his government are alwayes jointly though unequally exercised in his works in this world even those that to us seem most opposite as his Mercy and Justice which are singly exercised in the world to come Even the Devils have some Mercy and Patiance mixt with Justice at present being reserved in chains as malefactors unto Judgement for greater Punishments who yet feel so great that they believe and tremble for fear of their future Jude 6. James 2 19. And in the greatest severity towards Men God in wrath remembers some Mercy even to the worst that he suddenly destroys besides the remnant that he saves in warning them before delaying till their iniquities be full and mittigating their Punishment in taking them away none suffering to the utmost here nor none so much hereafter as they should had they lived longer ' to treasure up more Sins against the day of Wrath as the old World Sodom and Gomorrah the Amorites Amalakites and many others But though Justice be very apparently the chief reason of some Punishments especially those extraordinary commonly called Judgements and such as are general yet for the most part especially in particular and ordinary cases God hath many other reasons and greater than that we imagine some of which though unkown at present are yet well known afterwards If not here to be sure hereafter when we shall see a distinct exercise of those Attributes that here are mixt so that there will be no Atheists or Unbelievers of Gods Justice in Hell nor no mistakes of Gods Judgment and Mercies in Heaven In the mean time from this manifold Wisdom of God and the mixture of causes joyntly acting in this Life we may see the fundamental ground of our mistaking Gods dealings with us here and learn to take heed that we separate not those reasons which appears not to us from those which seem most apparent and so divide where we should only distinguish which often arises from our narrow conceptions of the great and holy God and his ways judging of him too often by our selves thô he hath told us that his thoughts and ways are not ours but as the Heavens are higher than the Earth so are his thoughts and ways higher than ours in Pardoning the Penitent which is the choicest of Mercies however they be otherwise dealt with in this World Isa 55.7 8 9. So that though we must take notice of Gods Justice in all Punishments acknowledging our Sins to have deserved greater yet not only and as separate from his goodness and Mercy which may be greater therein for any thing we know though not so manifest at present lest we mistake the Righteouss God in these his judicial dispensations Lam. 3 18-26 In the next place let 's consider the dieing Persons themselves and they are either Righteouss or Wicked there being no middle state and consequently their Death is an entrance into their future Happiness or Misery Now in regard we cannot judge of the Spiritual and Eternal condition of those that die suddenly but by their lives ' for us to conclude either way of them as is too customary from the manner of Death seeing all these externals fall alike to all is great uncharitableness on the one hand or gross presumption on the other To be sure if they belong to God it is more in Mercy to them than in Justice as in freeing them from the fear of Death that King of Terrors as Job calls it or future backslidings and loss of God's Favour which is worse to God's People than Death it self his loving kindness to them being better than Life or taking them away from the evil to come and many other ways unknown to us And is more eligible to those prepared then a lingring in regard of its end and for a greater good as the sudden cutting off an Arm or a Leg to save the Life so that the Apostle groand earnestly desiring it not for that he would be unclothed or desired only to die but for its consequents to be clothed upon that Mortality might be swallowed up of Life 2 Cor. 5. v. 4 Though to the wicked or unprepared this circumstance is a sad aggravation as I suggested before and the best of God's Servants in the want of Assurance cry with David to God O spare me that I may recover strength before I go hence yet to them there is more fear than danger their great and blessed Physitian so mixing the poyson of Death with stronger ingredients that sometimes are cordials to comfort them and always means to cure them perfectly of all their and Sins Miseries so that Death in general of what kind soever is reckoned amongst the privilidges of Believers in subordination to their future Glory 1. Cor 3.22 As to the surviving the Death of Relations and Friends in what manner soever is to be accounted an Afflilction in the general but very different many ways according to the qualifications of the Dead and Living their nearness in Relation dearness in Affection kindness and other circumstances aggravating or extenuating the loss and according to their future use both as to Temporal and Spiritual good and their being Sanctified accordingly or otherwise not improved But herein we must
with clear circumstances there we may judge of the chief reason or cause though there be several others concurring that we may make better use of examples as Scripture teaches us 1 Cor 10 5-10 Otherwise we must take heed of rushing into God's Secrets which belong not to us and only eye the general ends to make use of his Providences accordingly As where great and crying Sins goe before and the end is demonstration of Justice there we may see that 's the chief cause especially in extraordinary Punishments whereof we have many examples in Scripture And where also such Sinners are threatned there also truth appears in their being Punished as the Egyptians first born Ahaziah Joram Ahab Jezebel c. So when the Sin is clearly visible in the Death a Haman's Agag's and innumerable others that shed Man's Blood and accordingly have their own unexspectedly shed Or when destruction follows at the heels of great Sins as the three thousand Israelites slayn for the molten calf Exod. 32. and while the flesh was between their teeth the wrath of the Lord was kindled against them Numb 11. and Herod immediatly simitten and eaten of worms Acts. 12. And yet when the vindication of Gods laws and ordinances is manifested to be the end its hard to say whether his love to the truth and ordinances of his institution be not the chief reason thô justice be more discernable for we must not judge all those that are simitten and destroyed even by God's immediate hand to perish eternally And therfore it is observable that as God never appeard so terribly as at the giving the law from mount Sinai so his wrath was never so hot nor such severity used as against the first trangsgressors to assert the honor of his laws and make them more regarded afterwards As in the first idolatry after their promulgation Exod. 32 10. At the first burnt-offerings when Nadab and Abihu offered strange fire that is common and not from the altar there went out fire from the Lord and devoured them the punishment suting to their sin Levit. 10. As afterwards Numb 16. when Corah and others descended from Levi endeavoured to make the priesthood common to all the Levites v. 10. and Dathan and Abiram Reubenites and others the politick power of Moses and the seventy elders newly establisht by God Ch. xi common with the rest the earth opened her mouth and swallowed them up v. 32. and fire from the Lord consumed the two hundred and fifty that offered inconse v 35. whose censers God commanded to be used for a sign and memorial thereof v. 38. and 40. and for the peoples murmuring at this dispensation fourteen thousand and seven hundred of them dyed of the plague v. 49. So when God appoynted the punishment for presumtuoussins the first offender the man that punishment sticks on the sabbath day is by God's appoyntment stoned to death Numb 15. Thus God vindicated the honour of his ark with smiting the Philistines and after it's returne above fifty thousand of the men of Beth-shemesh shewing thereby that the ark was the same thô it had been among the uncircumcised and the effects of feare were answerable 1 Sam. c. 5. and c. 6. and after that Vzzah for his rash taking hold of it thô as seems to us for a good end for the oxen shook it so that David was affraid and we may suppose the people much more 2 Sam. 6. And thus allso God vindicated the honor of Christianity at the first planting of the Gospel in smiting Ananias and Sapphira so that great feare came upon all the Church and upon as many as heard these things Acts. 5. But where no notorious crimes preceed and other particular ends than justice appear there sudden death is the Occasion and God's love to his truth and messingers that declare it or servants that profess or suffer for it the chief cause and reason thereof As the widow of Sarepia's son raised to life by Elijah by which he is acknowledged a man of God and the word of the Lord in his mouth truth 1 Kings 17. the Shunammite's son by Elisha whose miracles resembled his master Elijah's 2 Kings 4. So Lazarus's as Christ declares to the messinger his sisters sent to him This sicknes is not unto death thô in its nature and next end it was yet not irrevocably as they feared but for the glory of God that the son of God might be glorified thereby intimating that this of Lazarus should be used as a means of glorifying God and his son in miraculous raising him again to life and therby confirming his office of Messiah and Doctrine of the Gospel as we read it did most eminently Jâ—hn 11. And the noble army of Martyrs whom God brings forth as his Champions for the truth shewing the power of his grace and their sincerity that they doe not serve God for wordly things as the devil slanderd Job but love him their Savior and his truth above their own lives and making their death which their enimies count ignominious honourable to him religion and themselves and using it to quite contrary ends than their persecutors design namely the increase and confirmation of his Church and people I have been the longer upon these extraordinary examples both to cleare the truth in the general and the several kinds of sudden death and allso in the ordinary cases that now follow to be more particularly spoken of For by a parity of reason it will follow that as God makes different use of like providences suting them to different ends and making them occasions and means of different effects in wonderful variety according to his infinite wisdom and power so he hath accordingly particular reasons that are just and weighty for his dispensations thô unknown to us except he discovers them as his justice in extraordinary punishments for enormous offences or his goodnes mercy and other causes when it is otherwise So that where no sins or ends and effects more than common there we are not able nor ought we to judge of God's reason why these rather than others are suddenly taken away either by diseases as apoplexies convulsions and the like or by pains as women in travel or by wars fire water and other accidents these things falling alike to all for if the kinds of death or any temporal punishments were infallible signs of God's hatred and temporal blessings of his love we could never reconcile God's word we are bound to believe with the works of providence which are but the fulfilling of it and the execution of his purposes In such cases therefore when God exercises us as Job who is set forth to us as a pattern of patience in dark providences prayed shew me why thou contendest with me c. 10. and waited for the end of the Lord so should we God many times dealing with us as Christ said to Peter what I do thou knowest not now but thou shalt know hereafter As any one hearing Solomon's
ye or they shall know that I am the Lord. And experience shews us that while things goe on smoothly and evenly as men suppose they should all run along with them and are apt to judge them the effects of humane counsels and actions in the use of such means as conduce thereunto but when any thing happens above or contrary to their thoughts and expectations and is accomplisht by such means and in such a manner as they could not think of or imagin and cannot find out any satisfactory reason for then they looke above and beyond natural causes and acknowledg the finger of God Who frequently deals with us in our lives as Jacob with Joseph's sons crossing his hands contrary to exspectation and in our death allso making one or other that we thought should live drop down dead unexspectedly whereby we are put to a stand and look on as all the people did at Amazah's and consider whence this came and not satisfying our selves concerning any visible cause of this difference are ready to acknowledg an invisible power and providence in both the parts of it viz preservation and government in preserving us and others that were as likely to die and taking away those that were as likely to live So that God's extraordinary providences being the great witnesses of himself to the world it becoms our duty to eye and acknowledge him in them accordingly his wisdom in contriving such a concurrence of causes and circumstances as we never thought on his power in executing what we never feared his mercy in sparing greater sinners his justice in cutting off whom and when he pleases and his dominion over all ruling high and low rich and poor together so that as men see or may see so let them say among all nations that the Lord most high reigneth over all the inhabitants of the earth II. That all men may see more clearly that their times are onely in God's hand Ps 31 15. or in his sole power his constant care and custody and his disposal at his pleasure All its true have or may have a notional knowledg of this from the light of nature and those in the Church most fully from Scripture but this is too weak to make us look beyond the course of natural causes above to him who hath the ordering of them all so as to keep the eye of our souls habitually fixt upon him as we ought He is therefore pleased somtimes to use such providences in great daingers deliverances and deaths so circumstantiated as therein we may acknowledge his hand and thereby gaine such experimental knowledg of him and his dealings with us as will lead us to the owning and acknowledging of him and seconded by grace set up his soverainty in our souls For it is not so much death in it self that affects us because it is common as the remarkablenes of it one way or other which leaves an impression upon us and raises our sluggish minds to consider from what hand such a blow should come Who except som few Relations think themselves concernd at the death of weak infants and sickly persons or aged But when the young are taken away in the flower of their age or the strong that were most likely to live are dead on a sudden and laid in the dust or the great and rich that have all means possible to preserve them are cut down like the gras and wither as the green herb these are so many sensible demonstrations to convince us that our times are not in the hands of second causes or meerly casual and fortuitous seeing these are so frequent but onely in God's who disposes of them as he pleaseth Time indeed strangly wears out the present sense we have of these things but God is pleased so often to give us such pregnant examples hereof as if we duly regard them are not only sufficient to renew the former impressions upon us but afford us stronger convictions of this truth This improvement of such providences would bring us as Moses desired the Israelites to acknowledg God as the cause of our lives and length of our days who gives them at his pleasure and for his pleasure continues them that orders them as he pleases and cuts them off when he pleases and to depend upon him continually for them and with holy Job not to charge God foolishly but whether he gives continues or takes away still to bless the name of the Lord. As we learn this lesson more or less so we shall find it accordingly not only thus useful but also comfortable to us by the assurance God's people have thereby that in all times tryals and changes they are allways in the hands of their tender father that knows their frame and remembers they are dust thô the wicked that will not be instructed are in the hand of God as a Judge whose sentence and execution they shall not escape Considering that if our times were in Satan's or our enimies hands they would swallow us up quick or in our friends power they would not suffer us to depart and be with Christ which is far better or in our own we should in our discontents be weary of them and ready to cry out as Moses Elijah Job Jeremiah and Jonah have don now Lord take away my life rather than patiently wait his pleasure III. That sin may be imbittered and mercy embraced and particularly our first apostacy from God and our Savior and the means of recovery For as God's sentencing man to bodily penalties after his first sin for good to his soul was to humble him for that and all other sins that followd upon it and make him feare his justice by seeing and feeling such effects of it and fly to his grace and mercy through the promised Messiah so his inflicting them must therfore be accordingly accounted a means for these ends conjointly The All-wise God knowing what prodigious blindnes of mind and security of heart followed sin in us is therfore pleased for our awakening to use outward punishments ordinarily these being only visible and so fitter to have influence generally on all men and being allso more feared by the secure world than those inward and spiritual judgments on the soul So that the very heathen who being through their forefathers seperate from the Church are ignorant of the causes and manner of the entrance of these punishments by the fall and much more of Christ and so account death because common to all a debt to nature and the grievous accidents thereof punishments only for actual offences yet by these external judgments they may and should be brought and when extraordinary and general often are to feare God's justice and fly to his mercy in the general tho they cannot make that especial use of them for those higher ends and in subordination to especial grace that Scripture declares and which the Jews who have the Old Testament shewing the fall and clearly testyfying of Christ thô they wilfully reject him