those Sins which have provoked God to make this sore breach upon us and the whole Church after several others each of which was very deplorable but all together much more are and ought to be for a Lamentation Have we not cause to apprehend some Judgment approaching and that these Dear Servants of God are taken away from the evil to come O labour after Perseverance in the Profession of the Truth and to make good Proficiency in the ways of Godliness So shall you see the Face of your Pastor again to your mutual Joy and shall be a Crown to him in the day of Christ when he shall stand forth and say Behold I and the Children which the Lord hath given me Encourage and strengthen each other your being deprived of so considerable an Help should put you upon the more diligent Improvement of those Advantages which remain Your Concord and Harmony your Holy and Unblamable Deportment your humble Supplications to Almighty God for the Aids of his Holy Spirit to your selves and for a double Portion thereof upon those that succeed in the room of this once gracious and now glorified Saint and Minister may be a propitious Token to us that our God will not utterly forsake us that he hath Mercy in store for us and will give us a Nail in his Holy Place I shall remit you for a concluding Passage to Heb. 13.7,8,9 Remember them which have the Rule over you who have spoken unto you the Word of God whose Faith follow considering the end of their Conversation Jesus Christ the same yesterday to day and for ever Be not carried about with divers and strange Doctrines for it is a good thing that the Heart be established with Grace not with Meats which have not profited them which have been occupied therein Verse 17. Obey them that have the Rule ever you and submit your selves for they watch for your Souls as they that must give account that they may do it with Joy and not with Grief for that is unprofitable for you Verse 20 21. Now the God of Peace which brought again from the Dead our Lord Jesus that great Shepherd of the Sheep through the Blood of the everlasting Covenant make you perfect in every good Work to do his Will working in you that which is well-pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ to whom be Glory for ever and ever Amen FINIS Books Printed for Tho. Parkhurst at the lower end of Cheapside MR. Baxter on the New Testament 1. The New Creature Opening the Nature Properties and Necessity of that great Work of the New Creation upon the Souls of Men. 2. Family Altar A Treatise to promote the Worship of God in Private Houses 3. The Best Intall Or Dying Parents Living Hopes for their Surviving Children 4. Meetness for Heaven Discovering the Nature and Necessity of Habitual and Actual Meetness for Heaven here By Mr. Oliver Heywood Minister of the Gospel Above Thirty Discourses on several Doctrinal and Practical Subjects just finishing from the Press in large Follo of the late Reverend and Learned Divine David Clerkson Annotations on the whole Bible by Mr. Matt. Pool and several other Learned Divines the third Edition with large Contents to the Chapters and a Concordance Mr. Baxter ' Life written by his own Hand publish'd by Mr. Silvester is at the Press A Body of Practical Divinity in about 176 Sermons on the Assemblies Catechism by Tho. Watson formerly Minister of St. Stephens Walbrook An Earnest Call to Family Religion Being the Substance of eighteen Sermons By Samuel Slater Minister of the Gospel
this Eminent and Faithful Servant of Christ as if it were a full and perfect Character of him No that would require a larger compass and an abler manage than I can give it This may suffice to be spoken at the present to the honour of Divine Grace manifesting it self in so useful an Instrument May it also provoke us to bless God for him and kindle in us an Emulation of his Attainments and of the Success that attended his Labours 2. The second Inference concerns the surviving Relations A just Sense all ought to have of this great Loss and therefore it may well be indulged to you that are the greatest Sufferers by it But let us not mourn as those that have no Hope but rather as Persons assured that his Soul whose removal we lament does already shine as a Star of the first Magnitude and enjoys the Blessed Reward of all his Labours The Stroke indeed is heavy the Breach is wide and never to be forgotten never I fear to be repaired upon every account But seeing our Loss is his Gain why should not his Gain be our Comfort He is exalted to an higher Orb and moves in a more glorious Sphere than ever And if God receive Glory from him in a more excellent way and he also be dignified and made Happy after a more excellent manner than was possible on Earth Why should you or any of us Repine It was a removal that must be at one time or another and God hath determined this to be the fittest Season Do you therefore acquiesce in what he hath done and study to improve this Providence to a greater Fitness for your own Change Though his presence be withdrawn his Example his Instructions and his Prayers I hope will be always beneficial to you and in some measure supply the want of it The same God that made his presence useful can make his absence so and he it is that must do all 3. The third Inference respects the People from whom he was taken And they are of two sorts First Such as have not turned to Righteousness notwithstanding all the earnest Calls and Invitations which this Ambassador of Christ hath given them They have been like the deaf Adder that stoppeth her ear which will not hearken to the Voice of the Charmer charm he never so wisely I must needs say you have lost one of the most promising Seasons that ever any enjoyed for the Conversion of your Souls You shall hear the Voice of this powerful Orator no more for ever He must sollicit warn exhort you no more O recollect the moving Language the Holy mellifluous Oratory wherewith he would have conquered your obstinate Hearts that he might espouse you to one Husband Jesus Christ How did he pursue you from time to time longing to see Jesus Christ formed in you Are you not ashamed and terribly afraid what will become of you when you consider how many he prevailed upon and yet you remain in your Sins O that the remembrance of these things might so revive upon you that being dead he may yet speak to the awakening and saving of your Souls Nay How Happy would it be yet for you and what an Alleviation to your present Grief if the Sense of God's Displeasure in taking away this great Light from us might cloath his Funerals with the Virtue of an Ordinance so as to effect that Blessed Change upon you which was in vain attempted by all other means Know you not that you must give a strict account of all the Sermons you have heard and of all the Convictions you have had under his Ministry Hear all you that are Drunkards Fornicators Unrighteous Sabbath-breakers all that are Covetous all that indulge their Furious Passions or that live in any other Notorious Sin and know that you even you must turn unto Righteousness or perish everlastingly O dare not then to meet this Servant of Christ at the great Judgment-day in an unconverted State for if you do he will be a swift and terrible Witness against you How will he be ready to say Lord these are the Wretches that I so often so long and so earnestly treated with about the Salvation of their precious Souls and all in vain I required them in thy Name and in obedience to thy Authority to repent and turn I besought them I conjured them by the Mercies of God by the Meritorious Bloodshed of Jesus Christ by the invaluable Worth of their own Immortal Souls I opened the Gospel-Covenant to them I shewed them the terms of Life I set the Promises and Threatnings Life and Death Heaven and Hell before them I directed them to seek the Aids of thy Holy Spirit I told them of this very day when they and I should meet at this thy Tribunal to receive an irreversible Sentence but they believed not my Report I travelled over them I spent my Labours and Life upon them to have broken their Adamantine Hearts I sought to find out acceptable words even words of Truth I endeavoured to shew them their Misery and to discover the Remedy provided in the Gospel But all that I could obtain was a verbal Commendation Lo I was unto them as a very lovely Song of one that hath a pleasant Voice and can play well on an Instrument for they heard my words but they did them not Sinners when this cometh to pass lo it will come shall you not then know to your Cost that a Prophet hath been amongst you Ezek. 33.32,33 What will ye do in the day of Visitation and in the Desolation which shall come from far to whom will ye flee for help and where will you leave your Glory Isa 10.3 The other part of the People from which he is taken consists of those that have turned to Righteousness Many such went before him to possess that Glory which was revealed to them and for which they were prepared by this Blessed Instrument These have already experienced the Truth of what he told them and are Partners with him in the Sacred Pleasures of Paradise My business therefore is with those that are left behind in this Vale of Tears And of such I say Blessed are ye of the Lord. You have cause to praise God that ever you saw his Face or heard his Voice and shall praise the Free and Rich Grace of God to all Eternity You sustain a mighty Loss in that you must not be brought up under his Wing whose Labours first begat in you the Seed and Principle of the Divine Life I know you will be more sensibly affected with this Loss than others because of the Love you bare to him as to a Spiritual Father and that you will as you have just cause honour his Memory whilst you have a day to live But this is not enough for Persons in your Circumstances Your Dear Pastor is ravished from you Death hath silenced him and bereaved you But should not you and I then search our Hearts and be humbled for