Selected quad for the lemma: death_n
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A81869
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Altum silentium or, silence the duty of saints, under every sad providence. An occasional sermon preached after the death of a daughter, by her father: viz. / By John Durant preacher of the gospel in Christ's-Church Canterbury.
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John Durant, b. 1620.
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1659
(1659)
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Wing D2670; Thomason E2136_1; ESTC R208350
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19,134
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62
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something of a publick nature but as to Aaron more of a private And truly as to a private temporal affliction this of Aarons was very heavy You all know that As Children are sometimes great Comforts So often times sad afflictions The sin of our Children's lifes and the suddennesse of our Children's deaths make sore afflictions Aaron might at present reflect upon both and that reflexion no doubt was his affliction But although he was troubled yet he carryed it wisely and well He covers his sadnesse with silence His practise is our Pattern upon it I build my Point And 'pray now mind it Let the dealings of Gods providence be never so sad we must be silent we must hold our peace What Aaron did now David did afterwards in Psal 39.9 I was dumb I opened not my mouth because thou didst it This therefore I would stand upon and oh that God would strengthen me to speak it to you That it is our great duty under the saddest providences to hold our peace I shall onely speak one word of caution to prevent a mistake about the Point and so go on And the Caution is but this I am not now speaking of all our duties that are incumbent upon us in the day of adversity in the hour of afflictions no my Brethren there are many duties besides this when the Lord afflâ—ct's there are many duties to be done Indeed here are two duties that I find are to be done in this Chapter in our afflictions and in a desire endeavour to do these duties by the light and strength of the Lord in this Scripture am I this day present which otherwise I had not been to Preach unto you For I find it was Aarons duty in his affliction to do his work and to be submissively silent before the Lord. These are the duties I meet with here as I said in this Chapter the one in the Text the other in the 12. ver where it is said and Moses spake unto Aaron and to Eleazar and unto Ithamar his sons that were left Take the meat-offering that remaineth of the offering of the Lord made by fire and eat it without leaven besides the Altar for it is most holy The meaning of it is They are dead but go thou about thy work do not keep off from the Lord's service do not let God lose that which thou owest to him This is a great duty indeed for us to go about the work of God in our place whether Minister or Magistrate or other It 's our fault and folly under our affliction we are apt Child-like to lye down and cry Joshua lay upon his face when he ought to have been up and doing his businesse Josh 7.10 O Sirs whatever God layes upon us let not us lay aside our duty Let us strive to do while we suffer Cast not off any duty that God requries and which our place calls for even under the greatest affliction This is one maine peece of Satans policy by affliction to make us cast off duty But certainly we must not say as it is Verily I have cleansed my heart in vain washed my hands in innocency for all the day long I have been plagued and chastned or as it is in the Hebrew my chastisement was every morning Psal 73.13 14. No we must not entertain such thoughts But whatever affliction the Lord brings morning or evening we must do our work all the day long That besides others is a great part of our duty in the day of adversity But I shall speak to this in the Text. Two things I would do First 1. Shew you wherein this duty lyeth what it is to be silent and to hold our peace under sad providences And 2. Why this is so great a duty For the first what 's this silence what 's this holding our peace We have mention'd in the Scripture a two fold silence the Phrase is used in a bad sense in a good sense there is a sinful and there is an obediential silence There is a sinful silence and a sinful holding the peace which is not our duty but sin and so is not required of us and this is four-fold 1. A sottish silence 2. A sullen silence 3. A Stoical silence 4. A self-soul secret afflicting silence But you and I must take heed of these and therefore I will shew you the rock that you might not come near it 1. There is a sottish silence Some hold their peace because like fools they know nothing observe nothing can do nothing This doth not become the Lord's people they should be sensible not sottish Jeremiah complaines of such a sottishuesse in the 4. Chap. 22. vers For my people are foolish they have not known me they are sottish Children they have no understanding c. What was this sottish silence will you look back to the 19. vers and that will open it where saith Jeremiah My bowels my bowels I am pained at the very heart my heart maketh a noise within me I cannot hold my peace because thou hast heard O my soul the sound of the Trumpet the Alarme of Warr. Jeremiah observed God he saw a Storm understood a Judgment he was not sottish his bowels melted for it but my people are sottish c. As if he should fay Though I am sensible they are sottish There is a sottish silence beware of that If the Lord smite be not as a Sott that sees nothing who therefore does not speak because indeed he cannot we must hold our peace not as dumb-men but as duty-men He is not wise nor dutiful that cannot speak and is therefore silent But he is both that can but yet refraines Sottish silence is a sin not a duty But then there is 2. A sullen silence A silence that as we say of some they are dumb because they are dogged they do not speak because they are sullen and will not speak That should not be our frame a sullen silence when we refrain from good word's that was David's fault in the 2 verse of the 39. Psal When he said I held my peace even from good We may say The Lord hath given and the Lord hath taken and say Lord what 's my duty c But to say as Jeremiah once said in the 20. Chap. 8 9 I 'le speak no more in his name because the people took on at what he said that was a peece of his failing And truly its a great fault under our affliction not to speak at all we may and must speak to God and Man To God in duty to man both to ask advice and to open our case for counsel and comfort He that holds his peace as sullen and dogged sinneth and this silence is to be avoided I presse it not upon you Nay I advise you against it But 3. There is a Stoical Silence Schollars know what was the opinion of the Stoick's They were silent shall I say out of a high humour it was an humour
come to grieve us Death strikes but once and that stroke relieves us Therefore my parents dear take heed of weeping Crosse And mind my happinesse more then your own great Losse This is all I 'le say to make the reckoning eaven Your dearest mercy is not too good for heaven Hasten to me where now I am possest With joyes eternal in Christ my onely rest Secondly The designes of God in all the sharp afflictions He exercises his Children with are glorious As 1. the purging away of their sins Isa 1.25 2. The making of them more partakers of his holinesse Heb. 12.10 3. The tryal of their graces Job 23.10 4. The communication of more of Himself and of his love to their souls Hosea 1.14 5. The multiplying of their spiritual experiences 2 Cor. 1.4 5. 6. The crucifying of their hearts to the world Now finis dat amabilitatem facilitatem mediis and the world to their hearts Gal. 6.14 7. To draw them to look and six their souls upon the great concernment of another world John 14.1 2 3. 8. That heaven may be the more sweet and precious to them at last 2 Cor. 4.16 17 18. Rom. 8.17 18. How sweet is a calme after a storme and summer dayes after long winter nights 9. To make them more and more conformable to Christ their Head Rom. 8.17 10. That sinners may at the last be found dumb and speechlesse 1 Per. 4.17 18. Now Is there not enough in these glorious ends and designes of God to make his people sit mute under the sharpest tryals Surely there is Why then don't they sit silent before the Lord Thirdly All the mercies you enjoy were first the Lora's before they were yours and alwayes the Lora's more then they were yours 1 Chron. 29.14 All things come of thee and of thine own have we given thee The sweet of mercy is yours but the Sovereign right to dispose of your mercies is the Lora's Quicquid es debes creanti quicquid pores debes redimenti Bern. Whatsoever thou art thou owest to him that made thee and whatsoever thou hast thou owest to him that redeemed thee Say as Hierom adviseth a friend of his in the like cause Thou hast taken away whom thou hast given me I grieve not that thou hast taken them but praise the Lord that was pleased to give them You think it but just and reasonable that men should deal with their own as they please And is it not much more just and reasonable that God should do with his own as he pleases Fourthly That God that has taken one might have taken all there are several left though one be taken Job you know was a none-such in his generation and yet the sentence of death was past upon all his Children at a clap and under this sad clap Job does not blaspheme but blesse He does not murmur but worship's He accuses not God but cleares God of injustice under the saddest and severest stroaks of justice Job 1. Geographers write that the City of Syracuse in Sicily is so curiously sâ—ituated that the Sun is never out of sight The Sun of mercy is never out of your sight though one mercy be gone yet you have several that remain and this should make you mute Themistocles invited many Philosophers to supper the owner sends for one half of those necessaries that he was using Can you endure this disgrace said the Philosophers Yes said he very well for he might have sent justly for them all the application is easie Oh! let not nature do more then grace Fifthly and Eastly Under sharp afflictions we ought carefully to look that natural affections don't hinder the exercise of gracious dispositions though we may weep 1 Thes 4.13 yet we may not weep out either the eye of faith or the eye of hope though you may water your flowers yet you may not drown your flowers They that wep't yea that wep't much Acts 21.13 14. yet said The will of the Lord be done Jacob doted too much upon his Joseph and his affections were too strong for his Judgment when upon the sight of the bloody coat he refused to be comforted Gen. 37.33 34 35. and said I will go down into the grave unto my son mourning And David was too fond of his Absalom when like a puny-baby he wept and said O my son Absalom my son 2 Sam. 18.33 2. my son Absalom would God I had died for thee O Absalom my son my son The Egyptians mourned for Jacob 70 dayes but Joseph though he had more cause mourned but 7 dayes because he had more grace and better hopes of Jacob's eternal welfare then the Infidels had In the midst of all your tears keep up the exercise of grace and then you shall not mourn that you have mourned That your own is no sooner in your hand is onely from the remisness and delatoriness of him into whose hands you had ordered the Coppy To conclude That you and I and all others into whose hands this Sermon may fall may live up and live out the following discourse under all the changes that has or shall pass upon us is the earnest desire and hearty prayer of him who is your entire friend and servant in our dearest Lord Tho. Brooks THE Silent Soul UNDER Sorest Tryals The tenth Chapter of the book of Leviticus the last clause of the third verse And Aaron held his peace THese word 's they are a hint to us of the holy Carriage of Aaron under the hand of God The Lord had laid upon him an affliction very sad but the Lord gave him a carriage very sweet and sutable to it I think I may say God spake to Aaron bitterly but He made no reply at all Nay the Text saith Aaron held his peace I shall shall make no other preface Three things you may consider in the verse 1. The person which was Aaron the Lord's Minister But remember this by the way that Aaron must be look't upon not as a Minister but as a Saint so that what he did we must all do 2. The action which was this He held his peace 3. The occasion which is contain'd in the former part of the verse And which you may translate Then And truly the occasion is that which gives most light to the action Aaron had lost two Children at one blow and God told him He would be sanctified He would be glorified Aaron upon this message and upon this occasion layeth his mouth in the dust and held his peace So that there is this plain Point ariseth from the words Doct. That under the saddest afflictions that can befall us we must hold our peace or thus It 's the duty of the Lord's people whatever He doth to them to be silent Aaron held his peace Afflictions are of two sorts spiritual and temporal Temporal likewise are of two sorts publick private Now this was no spiritual affliction but rather temporal And it had in it