humble us for our former Sins and direct us what to do for the time to come that our Speech our Conversation may be more profitable than it has been 1 Cor. 15. 58. Eccl. 9. 10. Fourthly Let us live so that our Examples may do good whilst we live and when we are dead For every Man that has the Spirit of Christianity i. e. a generous and a publick Spirit will not only be concerned for himself but for others and not only for the present but for the future Generation And as in this luxurious and most wicked Age of ours there is like to be transmitted to Posterity a great number of very bad Examples so it should be the Care and Endeavour of every good Man to prevent their mischievous influence by doing what in him lies to mend the World We live indeed in a time wherein the most part of People can talk very well but never was there any time in which there was less Practice It is a most easie thing to discourse well but none but a true Believer can live as he ought to do according to the Gospel which requires an universal and a shining Holiness Our Actions and Examples will have a more powerful efficacy than our Words and whilst the one does but touch the Ear the other will penetrate into the very Souls of those that observe us and render themselves Masters of their Approbation even almost whether they will or not We are obliged to have a great regard to the Salvation of our Neighbours and there is no course more likely to succeed than this They will easily follow us when we take them by the hand and advise them to go in no other way but in that where we go our selves When we are fervent in our Prayers it will shame their Coldness when we are serious in our attending on the Word the sight of our seriousness will make them more attentive and our Heat of Affection may kindle some Sparks of Love to God in their colder Hearts and the necessity of a good Example seems to be greater in Cities than in other places for as one observes Du-bose Serm. p. 495. It is certain that great Towns are ordinarily great Theaters of Vices as the Multitude is more numerous so wicked Examples are more frequent Sin hardens it self by the number and authorizes it self by the quantity of Accomplices And as the Fire burns more by a great heap of wood or coals put together so the Ardour of Sin warms and inflames it self by a great Throng of Persons that communicate to one another their criminal Affections Besides in vast and populous Cities they have more Liberty to sin because it is less observed and taken notice of as a Serpent conceals it self among a multitude of Bushes Whereas in little Villages the least faults are soon minded many times in greater places very great Enormities are not discern'd and it concerns us also whom God has raised from the Grave to be more exact in our Course for People will look with a more curious Eye upon us that are recovered to see what we do when they will not it may be look so much to the hand that heal'd us As the People câ—me more to see Lazarus that was risen than Jesus that reviv'd him from the Grave much people of the Jews came not for Jesus sake only but that they might see Lazarus also whom he had raised from the dead Joh. 12. 9. Wicked men are punish'd in Hell for all the Evil they have done 〈◊〉 the World and for all that they have been the cause of it is a new addition to their torments to think how many are going to the same miserable place whose damnation will lye at their door As 't is commonly said that Dives requested of Abraham that some messenger might be sent to warn his Brethren lest they came to the same place not from any Love to their Souls for there is no such Charity in Hell but from a fear that if they came to the same torment his own misery would be the greater for having been in a great measure the cause of theirs by his bad Example And on the contrary 't is a great pleasure to those in Heaven to think that they have been any way instrumental to the Glory of their great Lord and that the Seeds that by good Instructions and holy Example they threw upon the World flourish into Fruit when they are dead Thus they blossom in the dust and their Actions as 't is fabulously reported of some of the Bodies of the Popish Saints send forth a sweet perfume after Death to all the places round about The Saints of God do good indeed to the World when they are gone not by Intercession as Mediators for us but by the good Works which they performed here below and tho their Works follow them to increase their reward yet the remembrance of them stays behind It is hardly to be imagined how far the power of a good Example does diffuse its self when the person that gave it is removed from the World It does encourage others to Religion and to a perseverance in it seeing it has no new difficulties but only those which others have conquered who are now at rest with God Therefore are we commanded to be followers of them who through Faith and Patience have inherited the Promises Heb. 6. 6. We are to follow their Faith considering the end of their Conversation Heb. 13. 7. Those of us that have been so happy as to have had a Religious Education tho we are depriv'd of our Parents yet we full well remember their serious pathetical Exhortations how they did earnestly intreat us to fear God and keep his Commandments We can remember how they set some portion of their time apart every day for Reading the Word and secret Prayer and the other Duties of Religion and when we are gone if we have been truly sincere others cannot but remember our Example Your Children and Servants will greatly mind what you do that are the Master of the Family and you either very much promote or hinder their Salvation for which you must be answerable to God in the approaching day of Judgment Is it not a Credit to your Reputation when your Servant and Apprentice shall thus remember your Example and say Oh how Conscientious was my Master in his Buying and Selling how afraid was he of imposing upon others or of cheating them with many good words whilst he had deceitful intentions in his heart How afraid was he lest the business of his Trade should Justle out Religion or the Shop be an hindrance to the Duties of his Closet or of Family Prayer How careful was he to set aside some of his Gains for the Charitable Relieving of the Poor As to you that are Parents your Children will certainly mind more what you do than what you say If you Sanctifie the Sabbath and are serious in your Service to God you may
longing Soul It is then upon the Mount and sees his smiling Face and would fain always see it it is loth to come down to the meaner Employments of this World and when the necessary Affairs of the present Life call it away it comes from the pleasant Work shining with brighter Grace and Holiness It is a thing of more Honour to You than a thousand honourable Titles that You keep up constantly the worshipping of God and reading the Scriptures in your Families Morning and Evening and indeed it is an Arrogance in those to call themselves Christians who neglect so sacred and so considerable a part of our holy Religion And your good Example in the due practice of these excellent Things will have a powerful Influence upon your Children and what you now do they will also do if they live to have Families and the sight of Religion in you will convey to them a greater Approbation and a more easy practice of it God has bless'd you with a numerous and an hopeful Offspring whose present and future Welfare I do with an undissembled Affection most heartily desire By their Seriousness their Ingenuity and their good Inclinations they give us cause to expect that though they are now as Olive-plants round about your Tables yet that they will hereafter refresh the Hearts of many more besides your own Families And that as it is expressed in Psal. 144. 12. Your Sons may be as Plants grown up in their Youth that your Daughters may be as Corner-Stones polished after the Similitude of a Palace I question not but the Prayers that you send up to Heaven for them will procure the Blessing of the Divine Providence which is the richest and the best Inheritance It is a Blessing of God that you have so many living Images of your selves in whom you see your own Life renewed And you are so happy as to have your Quivers full of them May they all live to be your Comfort and to maintain Religion in the World God has been pleas'd to give You several Instances of the Vanity of this World by the Deaths of several of your Relations some of which died in their most hopeful Youth and in the Flower of their Age whilst their Friends promised themselves a long Comfort and Delight in their Conversation who had they lived might have been of great use to their Country and to the Church of God And one Relation you lost by a way that was very afflicting to you but advantagious to him He died unseasonably as to us for we needed his Prayers and his good Example but his Death was seasonable as to himself for I do not doubt but he was prepared for it He died much beloved and greatly bewailed Those that knew him could not but esteem and value him for the Assableness and Civility of his Temper the Conscientiousness of his Dealings the Sincerity and Heartiness of his Expressions the good Order that he kept in his Family and for that Uprightness and unaffected Religion that appeared to all that observed his Conversation I may without any shew of Flattery say he was one of those good Men for whom many would have died could they have exchanged their meaner Lives for his more serviceable Life He died by a may somewhat terrible to Flesh and Blood but which by Faith he overcame His Zeal for the Liberties of this City and which he shewed whilst he was in an honour able Station rendred him obnoxious to those Persons then in Authority who gave liberty to their Revenge to fall upon those who knew not how to flatter or commend or promote their Arbitrary Designs It was a thing below him to use such sneaking and such unchristian Arts for Honour or for Safety There is nothing can satisfy his Friends for the loss of so excellent a Citizen so good a Man and so sincere a Friend but the consideraon of that Providence which tho it be mysterious and severe for the present yet will hereafter appear to have been very wise and very good to all those that love God Tho the Loss his Friends sustained by his removal from them be great yet it cannot but be a Satisfaction to them to consider that he was happy in his Death He is gone to that God that as he said himself knew his Innocence and to a Place where there are no false Accusations and where he and his holy Friends shall never part again This and much more than what I have said is due to the Memory of so great and so good a Man whom it is impossible for a true Lover of his Country ever to forget My Zeal to the remembrance of those Persons which I have mentioned and whom I honoured and esteemed together with the Respect that I ought to express to them has drawn me to a much greater Length than what I at first intended and tho when I consider the multitude of your Affairs both publick and domestick I am afraid I have too much presum'd upon your Time in this Dedication yet the Experience that I have often had of your Candour makes me to believe that you will forgive even so criminal a Presumption God has given you plentiful Estates and which is as great a Mercy Hearts to use them You have often been Eyes to the Blind and Feet to the Lame There are many hundreds whom your Charities have refresh'd the Blessing of those that were ready to perish has often come upon you And you have made the Hearts of the Desolate to sing for Joy And it is no small support of your Prosperities to have many praying for you to God and who are the more earnest as having been greatly obliged by you I do now thank you for all the many Kindnesses that I have received from you both in my former Health and in my late sore Affliction I thank you for Visiting me in my low Estate tho the greatness of my Pain and the anguish of my Thoughts allowed me not to take such notice of so great an Honour as otherwise I should have done I have often said when I was greatly afflicted That I should neither see you nor any others of my Friends till the great Day and till the Heavens were no more And God alone by his Soveraign Goodness hath brought me from the lowest Pit It was to manifest my Thankfulness to my great Deliverer that I preached the following Sermons in a Place where were many of my Friends many that had prayed for me many that had continued their Kindnesses to me when I could no way be serviceable to them and to whom I can make no other Requital than by praying for them and endeavouring to live to the Glory of that God for whose sake both you and they so kindly remembred me In these Discourses you will find a Relation of some part of my Affliction It is impossible to relate the whole of it for my Sorrows were beyond expression I have not here
immortality to light and with that Saviour who is the great Prophet and Teacher of the Church who came from Heaven and is now gone thither and we may fully rest and Acquiesce in the discoveries that he has given us of that Countrey for he knew it very well was very faithful in the discharging of his office and does not impose upon us any thing that is either false or incredible by our Holy Prayers we are to maintain a Commerce with him and with that World and by our frequent going thither in our Meditations we may gain a clearer knowledge of it Though there are no bounds on which our thoughts can terminate but onely the Revelations which God has been pleas'd to make in his own Word What is above those Heavens and that Firmament that we see there 's none can tell us but God and our Saviour who are there For when Men have abstracted their Thoughts with as much industry as they can from All that is material and sensible when they have refin'd their Understandings to the greatest spirituality and pored never so long upon the state of separation they will still remain in the dark about it And he is the most happy Man who in the sincere performance of the Duties of Religion can resign his Soul to Christ in Death and trust him though he is to be removed to a strange and a new World For immediately after he is loos'd from the Body he will understand more in an instant then all the most Learned in this World have ever understood by the labour and diligence of many years Secondly That which renders the continuance of Time to us wherein to prepare for Death a great Mercy is because we are to dye but Once and upon the well or ill doing of it depends our future Happiness or Misery It is a great Mercy that we have time wherein to make ready for our last Combat for if we lose the Battle once we are overthrown for ever it must not be fought over again It is a Mercy that we have leisure to compleat our journey well for we must never travel over the same Road again There will be no second Edition wherein to Correct our former Errors when a period is once put to the last Line of Life Oh what Faith what Courage what Strength is necessary to Conquer the Fears of Death and Death it self If men fail in their Trades they may by the kindness of their Friends be set up again if they have suffer'd Losses by Shipwrack by Fire or by Plunder they may be repaired but a Soul once lost will remain so for ever 'T is a long long Eternity that succeeds our Time if we should live on Earth as many Hundred years as the most Aged live Months it would bear no proportion with that vast and endless duration Whoever compares the shortness of our present state with the continuance of that into which we enter when we are to dye cannot but esteem the being brought back from the Grave to be a great Mercy If you have been careless of hearing at one season you may hear the Word again at another if you have heretofore been cold in your Prayers you may now excite your Hearts and pray with more fervour but if you once dye ill you must never mend so concluding a Miscarriage All the Tears we shed cannot give Life to the Body from which the Soul is fled All the Anguish of Miserable Souls cannot procure for them another Tryal They that are once cut down must never be planted by the Rivers side any more There is hope of a tree if it be cut down that it will sprout again and that the tender branch thereof will not cease though the root thereof wax old in the earth and the stock thereof die in the ground yet through the scent of Water it will bud and bring forth boughs like a plant But man dieth and wasteth away yea man giveth up the ghost and where is he Job 14. 7 8 9 10. Reason 5. Those who are brought up from the grave have cause to be thankful because by that means they have more opportunity to be serviceable to the Glory of God and to be useful in the World Meerly to live is not a thing very desireable considering how many Miserie 's there are in Life to what Evils and Inconveniences our Bodies are obnoxious and that the pains which they may suffer may be both very long and so secret that none can understand either what they are or how to remove them But it is a most desirable thing to Live when we can thereby obtain the Ends that are truly Great and Noble For First Hereby a man may do good to others He may teach the Ignorant reduce the wandring and by the sincerity of his Counsel by the zeal of his Prayers and the Lustre and Holiness of a good Example advance the power of Religion Our Lives are not our own they are Gods by a double title both of Creation and Redemption they are to be us'd for him who preserves or takes them away as he will Not onely Ministers but every private Christian is obliged by the Name he bears and by the Relation that he has to the holy Society of Believers and to the Kingdom of Christ whereof he is a Subject to enlarge it by all good ways that he can and every man is the more obliged to this when God has bestow'd a new Life upon him When we are near to the Gates of the Grave and look back and see with how little Zeal and Diligence we had spent our time and how little we had done for him who blest us all our dayes then we are enclined most earnestly to beseech him that he would grant us another Tryal and that then we would improve it much better than we did our former time and when he does grant us what we have askt then it should be our great indeavour not to frustrate and disappoint the designs of his Goodness and Mercy Then must we teach transgressors his way telling them how dreadful thing it is to fall into the hands of the living God Then we may tell the Healthful what Sickness is what we have found it to be by our own Experience then we may tell them how it makes very uneasie and troublesome Companions of our now beloved Bodies How it deprive us of all our Pleasures and Recreations in the day and of our rest at night That all their Friendships Conversations and Merryments without true Religion are altogether vain and not onely so but they leave a sting of guilt behind when the sweetness that once allur'd is gone away We may warn them to provide for the dayes of darkness and for the many Miseries of Life that will sooner or latter overtake them When we are Recover'd we can tell the Diseased of the Goodness and the Power of God that they can never be so distressed but that it is still
Love will produce the most sincere and constant Obedience For that which is the sole effect of a slavish Fear as it will be forc'd so it will continue but a little while We are his own by a double Title by that of Creation and by his innumerable Preservations We are his by the common Care of his Providence that maintains our Life and more his by the manifestations of his extraordinary Power and Kindness when he brings us from the Grave What can we poor Creatures give to so good a God for all his Mercies we are below the possibility of a Recompence But however we must give him our most earnest Desires our most painful diligent Endeavours our frequent Meditations our highest Praises our very Souls and all that is within us seeing he is pleased to require nothing else His must be all the Motion all the Being all the Strengh that we have and to divert any part of these from his Use is both Ingratitude and Sacriledg We must not be like the greatest part of Seamen that are very devout whilst the Storm lasts but when 't is over they return to the same Sins At his Command we must part with our dearest Sins with our earthly and our sensual Inclinations with our Pride and our Follies and deny our selves And there is more true Thankfulness express'd in one Act of Self-denial than in twenty Thanks giving-Days without it Leaving of Sin is not only the way to Thankfulness but the proof of it So many Sins as the Love of God constrains us to leave so many Songs are as it were presented to God For every slain Lust is a gratulatory Sacrifice And Men will rather than do this run to all the toilsom Pomps of a ceremonious Gratitude and outward Ostentations for 't is much easier to perform a thousand external Duties than to kill one Sin A Man will more easily part with all his Goods and Substance than he will cut off a right Hand or pull out a right Eye What can a miserable Beggar add unto a Prince that gives him an Alms What can we by our mean Acknowledgments return to the Mighty God But they are such things as he requires and which we are bound to give 'T is usually after some very great and remarkable Deliverance the next Enquiry of a Soul that is under the Power of Religion What shall I render to the Lord for all his Benefits What shall I do that may bear some proportion with so great a Mercy What Thing what Service is there that I may set about to testify my Thanks to my gracious Benefactor O can I ever do too much for that God that has done so much for me I have born Chastisement I will not offend any more That which I see not teach thou me If I have done Iniquity I will do no more Job 34. 31 32. And we must expostulate with our selves as he in Ezra 9. 13. And after all that is come upon us for our evil Deeds and for our great Trespass seeing that thou our God hast punished us less than our Iniquities deserve and hast given us such Deliverance as this should we again break thy Commandments It is a very great Blot that is left upon the Memory of so good a Man as Hezekiah though in that far unlike himself that 2 Chron. 32. 25. he rendred not again according to the Benefit done unto him for his Heart was lifted up Let us often set before our selves that most earnest Exhortation of our Apostle Rom. 12. 1. There are two things that should render our Obedience after the Receipt of very great Mercies such as is this of being brought from the Grave more sincere and uniform for if we do it not 1. It will greatly aggravate our after-Sins and make them more sinful as it was with Solomon after the Lord had appeared to him twice 1 Kings 11. 9. Not to use that Life and Strength for God which he hath given us is to fight against him with his own Weapons to affront him with his own Royal Bounties There is no Contempt of which he will be so sensible and at which he will be more displeased than when we despise the Riches of his Goodness which should lead us to Repentance Rom. 2. 4. To sin against a patient and a loving God is inexcusable against a God that has helped us in our Troubles that by the wonderfulness of his Mercy has been vastly better to us than our feeble Hopes and our unbelieving Fears How often have we said that we should one day fall by this or that Distress and he has held us up from our Birth to this very time How often has his Justice seiz'd us for our Sins and call'd upon him to cut us off and his Mercy has interposed and saved our Lives How often hath the Idleness and Unfruitfulness of our former Health and the base Impatiencies and Murmurings of our later Sickness provoked him to destroy us but he has not done it he has spared no Pains he hath tried us both by Affliction and Prosperity by his gentle and his louder Voice by Judgments and by Mercies to do us Good How often have our Iniquities made him to draw his glittering Sword and yet his Compassions have sheath'd it again when we have been in all appearance very near to the killing Blow How many others has his Displeasure struck dead whilst he suffers us that were as great Sinners as they were to live He has waited upon us from Sabbath to Sabbath from Year to Year He hath stayed many long Years to see if we would repent He has beseech'd and entreated us to forsake our Sin crying to every one of us Wilt thou not be made clean when shall it once be We have wanted nothing God has maintained us all our days and shall we sin against Goodness and Love it self such great such undeserved Love Shall we affront his mildest and most tender Attribute Shall we trample on his Forbearance and on his very Bowels God forbid When he has tried so many several Dispensations with us when he has tried us both by gentle Usage and severe Stroaks by his Frowns and by his Smiles shall we be no better The Day is coming when our sore Calamities will force us to cry Mercy Mercy Lord. Let us now prize that whereof we shall then stand so much in need If we abuse his Mercy what Plea can we hope to make It will sink and overwhelm us and no Reflections will be so terrible as those that cause us to remember how we did forsake and sin against a good and a patient God this will wound and cut us to the Heart and we shall be continually upbraided with that stinging Question Deuter. 32. 6. Do ye thus requite the Lord O foolish People and unwise and give him cause to say of us as in Isaiah 5. 3 4. 2. Our not yielding Obedience to God after he has brought us from the Grave may
us at our Coasts and at our own Doors this gracious God has kept it off And if we repent we shall not perish You in London have seen your Civil Liberties rescued from the Grave in which they might have laid very long had not he raised up our present Protestant King to be that glorious Instrument that should give them a Resurrection Our Country after a long Sickness and Indisposition under which a few years ago we were afraid it would have languisht quite away has begun to recover and it is our Wish and Prayer that by the same Goodness and Power of God that has turned our Captivity it may at length flourish with a perfect and compleat Recovery For indeed it is not so as long as there are still so many Blasphemies and execrable Oaths to be heard in our Streets as long as there is so much heedlesness and irreverence in our Assemblies so much Injustice and Deceit in our Shops so much Omission of Prayer in our Families so much Luxury and Riot at our Tables so much Profanation of this Holy day But to this we hope the Zeal and the Care of our Magistrates will at length put a stop But whilst these things continue tho blessed be God we are much better than we once were yet still these will be ill Symptoms upon us What cause of Joy should we have if the Mercies we have already received were sanctified and improved Oh what a Joy would it be if God would save England with a Spiritual Deliverance if he would save us from those Sins that expose us to his Wrath And if we would in our particular stations do all we can to promote such a Salvation which would be much more glorious than what we have yet seen Then indeed we should have cause to turn our days of Humiliation into days of Praise If we would forsake our strange Sins we need not fear in the least to be punisht by People of a strange Language and which we understand not We need not fear all the powers of the World nor all our Enemies if we did not cherish the worst Enemy of all in our own bosoms I mean our Sins and if which God avert we should still continue to cherish these they will rout us without another Enemy Let us obey and love that God that has so wonderfully preserved and continued our Peace that so there is no crying out nor complaining in our Streets That has made all things to be still with us while the Nations round abound have heard the Voice of Spoilers and the Noise of bloody Wars Let us take heed lest we forget our Deliverer lest we abuse his Goodness lest we forsake our own Mercies There are no Judgments so severe which we have not all deserved and which we may not fear but yet there are no Mercies so great for which we may not hope if the large Experience that we have of the Goodness of God in our frequent Deliverances have their due influence upon us and if he be for us as he will then be who can be against us Jer. 3. 22 23. Return ye backsliding Children and I will heal your backslidings Behold we come unto thee for thou art the Lord our God Truly in vain is salvation hoped from the Hills and from the multitude of Mountains truly in the Lord our God is the Salvation of Israel The Fifth SERMON Psal. 30. ver 3 4. O Lord thou hast brought up my Soul from the Grave thou hast kept me alive that I should not go down into the Pit Sing unto the Lord O ye Saints of his and give thanks at the Remembrance of his Holiness ANOTHER Way whereby you are to improve your Recovery from Sickness is to take heed that you do not overmuch value your Bodies Look upon them as still obnoxious to great Pains and let that abate your too great Indulgence to them This I know is not a very pleasant direction because as there is nothing for which our sensible Nature has a greater abhorrence than Pain so there is nothing of which we are more unwilling to think and when by any ways 't is brought to our remembrance we endeavour to turn it off by turning to some other Discourse or avoiding those places where by the Groans or Tears of the Sick we shall be forced to remember it whether we will or not Few People care to talk of Sickness till they are sick or of dying till they come to dye They make much shorter Visits to the diseased than to those in health not only because they are afraid of troubling their Friends by their Discourse which is likely enough but principally because this is more unpleasant than their other Visits It is very advisable therefore that we render those Evils which we cannot avoid familiar to us by frequent Meditations and this will diminish their formidableness and violence tho indeed when a Man has thought never so long pain will be pain still a thing that whenever it comes will cause indelightful sensations in our Spirits The Body by its near alliance will communicate to the Soul a perception of all the Meseries it suffers and when the one half of a Man is ill the other half cannot fare very well It was the peculiar Vanity of the Stoicks as some observe That they would be philosophizing after the rate of Angels and discourse without considering that their Bodies are one half of their Natures and that their Souls are not disengaged from Matter and by consequence have sensual Appetites too gross to be satisfied by bare Thoughts and Reflections and sensitive Pains too sharp to be allayed with Words and Subtilties When we consider what Evils our Sickness brought upon these poor frail Bodies of ours surely we should never too much doat upon them when all the Care we can use will not preserve them from the Grave He that is proud of his Body is as foolish as if he should doat upon a Flower which an unseen Storm may deprive of all its Glory or which if it be let alone and meet with no accident will of its self wither and deay Or as if he should admire a Stream of Water and the Bubbles that are upon it which in the very moment of our Admiration slide away and stay not for our Praise or our Love Or as if he should fall in Love with some of those brighter Clouds which roul above our Heads and which for all their taking Brightness will quickly disappear It would abate that tenderness and delicacy wherewith we treat our Bodies if we did but leisurely consider what strange Miseries may afflict them before the period of this mortal Life It is a sad Reflection as one says to consider that when Life is so short and so fading so much of so little should be worn away in Misery and Torment Some indeed by a particular Dispensation and a most favourable Providence are allowed to pass into the other World without
have good hope that they will be so but if you are immoderate in your Recreations your Eating Drinking or your Apparel 't is very likely they will be so and what flames will it add to your misery to think that you were the Cause of their Everlasting destruction And how will you bear it to hear their Cries and bitter Expressions when they shall Curse you for not having given to them good Instructions and seasonable Warnings and an holy Example by which they might have been enabled to fly from the Wrath to come You may now do much more good by practising one Command than by causing to learn all the Ten And though you be so poor that you have no Riches or Estate to leave them yet you may leave your Prayers and your good Example to the next Generation We commonly say of a rich covetous Miser That he will never do any good whilst he lives and we may say of him and all others that are not true Christians That they will never do any good when they are dead for when they dye they are like Nero they leave abundance of poison behind them they infected the Air with their Oaths and Blasphemies when they lived and when they are gone the Contagion spreads and their ill President meeting with corrupt Nature which inclines all Men to what is bad does convey its Venome to several others that they left behind What an Impression many times does an unbecoming Word leave upon the Hearer for many years after Much more does the Remembrance of an ill Example Thus their evil Works prove Factors for the Devil and inlarge his Kingdom when they are rotting in the Grave Whereas if you be zealous for God the remaining Flames of your Zeal may awaken some luke-warm and slothful Christian to do what you have done For he may thus argue If that holy Man prayed so hard and strove so much what cause have I to pray and strive for I have a Soul to save as well as he And as the Gate was strait to him so will it be to me and as 't is impossible to handle Perfumes without bearing away part of the scent so it should be to converse with you without savouring of your Goodness You should so live that others may reap the benefit of your holy Life when you are gone As the Earth does not lose the Vertue of its Beams when the Sun is set that Heat and Warmth and Vegetation which it has given to Herbs and Plants does remain and its Influence is felt when it is no longer to be seen thus you will be as Herbs and Flowers which when they are gathered are medicinal and yield juices healthful and necessary to the Body or as the Corn which when it is cut down is serviceable for Food and Nourishment Thus every Man may so contrive it that he may be serviceable to the World when he does not live in it any more Thus the Apostles spread a most diffusive Light by their Holiness and Doctrin which all the Malice of Hell and all the Rage of Tyrants has not been able to extinguish but though they shone with an extraordinary Brightness yet every Believer is a Child of Light every Believer is a Star of great use and benefit tho one Star differeth from another Star in Glory tho he be never so obscure yet he may be beneficial as a Pearl or a Diamond tho it be set in Lead does not cease to be of great Value Thus your Name will be as sweet Ointment delightful and dear to others Whereas if we be wicked we shall have the same Fate with Jehoram who died without being desired 2 Chron. 21. 20. Thus I say our Examples will do more good than many bare Instructions As Souldiers will be more animated and forward when they see one Example of couragious Fighting before their Eyes than by a thousand Rules that teach them the Policies and Designs of War Thus I have shewed you what Improvement those that are recovered and brought from the Grave ought to make of it and what mischief will ensue if they do it not and indeed it is a Mercy to the World that the Lives of ill Men are so short for as one hath lately observed the World is very bad as it is so bad that good Men scarce know how to spend fifty or sixty years in it but how bad would it probably be were the Life of Man extended to six seven or eight hundred years If so near a prospect of the other World as forty or fifty years cannot restrain Men from the greatest Villanies what would they do if they could as reasonably suppose Death to be at three or four hundred years off If Men make such Improvements in Wickedness in twenty or thirty years what would they do in hundreds and then what a blessed place would this World be And to excite you to be the more careful in the improving of your Sickness Let me add these three following Considerations Cons. 1. How many are dead since you were first ill How many excellent Ministers whom you must never hear again How many of your dearest Friends are now in the cold Grave with whom you cannot now discourse and whose Faces you shall never see till the Great Day Many have sunk in a Calm and several among us have outliv'd a Storm Many have perished with less pain and less violent diseases than those which some of us have had This should engage us to make suitable returns to that God who has spared us when he hath taken them away Cons. 2. This Improvement of our Sickness and Recovery will exempt us from the Number of those hateful People that are not only no better but a great deal worse when they are brought out of Distress than they were before and 't is generally thought that of a thousand People that make large Promises in their Sickness there are scarce fifty that keep their Word and perform their Vows when they are recovered Those good Purposes which they had were the Product of their Fears and when those are over their intended Goodness does also vanish away Cons. 3. This good Improvement of your new Life may ingage God to prolong your time to an honourable old Age. For though we can merit nothing at his Hands yet if we labour hard in his Service it may be he will not cause our Sun to go down at Noon but continue us in his Vineyard till the Evening of the Day I now proceed briefly to consider the fourth Verse Ver. 4. Sing unto the Lord O ye Saints of his and give thanks at the Remembrance of his Holiness From these Words I shall insist on this Proposition That Person that has received wonderful Deliverance from Death ought not only to praise God himself but to excite and call upon others to praise God with him And all the Servants of God should be most willing to joyn in the return of thanks for any Mercy