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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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Esses and Sword and other Ensigns of the Chief Magistrate in the City pass through many Hands in regard of the Use of them but the Propriety remains in the Community and Body of the City I shall now Secondly Present you with some Practical Applicatory Inferences First Hence I Inferr That God is more excellent and consequently ought to be more highly prized and valued by us than any of our Outward Comforts The Donor must needs transcend the Gift in Worth and Value It is impossible for us perfectly to Conceive how far God transcends in Excellency those good things which we receive from him And the more excellent any Object is the greater share ought we to give it in our Esteem and Love We are all too prone to set up our outward Comforts in competition with God to set them down in the Throne of our Hearts a Seat only becoming the Father of Spirits Let us make all our Temporal Enjoyments strike Sail to that Supream Being who gave them let him be the Darling of our Souls and the Sovereign of our Affections Secondly Hence I Inferr That we ought thankfully to ascribe the Glory of all the good things which we enjoy to God We must not Sacrifice to our own Net nor burn Incense to our own Drag We must not attribute those outward Comforts which we are partakers of to our selves or any of our Fellow Creatures as the principal Causes of them but must own them to be the Gifts of God and bless his Name for them His Goodness to us Calls for our Thankfulness and his Soveraignty over us Calls for an higher Elevation of it A Smile from a Prince is more valued and thought worthy of greater Gratitude than a Present from a Peasant What is Man that Thou so great a Soveraign art mindful of him to bestow this or that Favour upon him is but a due reflection upon every Blessing that we receive Thirdly Hence I Inferr That all our Outward Comforts should be Improved by us to the Glory of God Nothing is more reasonable than that he who is the first Cause should be the last End than that what is bestowed upon us by Divine Bounty should be Improved by us to God's Glory We ought not to Napkin up but to lay out our Talents and such are all our Outward Comforts we receive them as Stewards and therefore must be accountable for them to our Supream Lord. O that when he shall Call us to give an Account of our Stewardships and we must be no longer Stewards we may give up our Accounts with Joy and not with Grief I proceed now to the Second Proposition laid down in my Text The Lord hath taken away There seems to be something of difficulty in understanding this Assertion You will be ready to say Was it not told Job by the Messengers that the Caldeans and Sabeans came and took away his Cattel and plunder'd and pillaged his Estate that the Fire consumed his Sheep and his Servants and the Wind blew down the House upon his Children and had not Satan a hand in all this How then could Job charge this upon God Doth not this look like the Blasphemy which the Devil expected out of his Mouth I Answer Hereby Job only sets forth the Supream Power and Sovereignty of God in ordering all things and shews that the Devil Wicked Men and other second Causes could not have effected these things without a Divine Concurse And this was no Stain to the Holiness of God nor any reflection upon his Justice for that Action which is impure and unrighteous in the Creature is holy and righteous in God Tho' Men injuriously dispossess us of our outward Comforts God doth it justly tho' Men's Ends are base and sordid God's are Noble and Excellent From this Branch of the Words I shall present you with the two following Propositions First That there is a Vicissitude and Vncertainty in all our Outward Comforts and Temporal Enjoyments Secondly That when we are deprived of any of our Outward Comforts we must acknowledge the Efficiency of God therein First Prop. That there is a Vicissitude and Vncertainty in all our Outward Comforts and Temporal Enjoyments Though spiritual Blessings are stable and durable these Gifts of God are so without Repentance that they shall never be taken away from us yet Vanity is written in legible Characters upon all our Temporal good things They are not only Vanity because they cannot satisfie us while we have them but because they are transitory and short-liv'd When our Mountain seems to stand strong it is a vain thing for us to say We shall never be moved We may upon this account say of all Outward Comforts in general as the Wise Man doth of Riches in particular They are not because they make themselves Wings and fly away as an Eagle towards Heaven Prov. 23.5 Job had Cattel and Children but now they were all gone from him our living Comforts are dying Comforts Death frequently rends those from Men's Embraces who were of all Mortals nearest and dearest to them this is a Truth which almost every Day 's Observation will sufficiently demonstrate to us Do not we see them who had Children one day Childless the next and those who had Wives one day to be Widdowers before the next Let us strike this Rock and see whether we cannot fetch Water from it let us look into the Bowels of this Lyon that we may find some Honey in it let us consider what Improvement may be made of this doleful Truth First Hence I Inferr How unreasonable it is for any of the Children of Men to place their Happiness in the fruition of Temporal good things This is a great evil under the Sun that which the generality of Mankind are guilty of but did they act like reasonable Creatures they would not place their Felicity in those things which are fading and uncertain but in those things which are durable and lasting Oh that I could disswade my self and you from this Piece of Folly Have we Relations who are extraordinary Comforts to us let us not make them our chief good nor esteem them our highest Happiness for within a few dayes their Breath may be stopt and how miserable shall we then be not only in reality but even in our own Apprehensions then shall we say with Micah when the Danites had taken away his Idol and his Priest What have I more Judges 18.24 Let us make God our highest Happiness and place our Felicity in Conformity to and Communion with him and in the Fruition of him who is an unchangable and an everlasting good whose Perfections never leave him and who never leaves any that truly enjoy him Secondly Hence I Inferr That we ought diligently to improve our Outward Comforts while they are continued with us I shall instance particularly in Relations Let us do what good we can to them let us Instruct them in the things of God and the great Concerns of another
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