when Godly Ministers and Christians are taken away but there is a senselesness upon the Spirits of those which are left behind Isaiah 57.1 The righteous perisheth and no man layeth it to heart and merciful Men are taken away none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come They neither mind who is gone nor what is to come Here is an excellent Person gone a Man of whom the World was not worthy and there are doubtless many to be found among us that do not lay such a Providence to Heart He is dead but what of that no body shall live always He is gone e'en farewell He we could spare more of them They did never Value the Life and Labours of such a Man nor are they Concerned at his Death But I do advise every one of you and others also to beware of such a Spirit as this We find in the Scriptures that ordinarily when the Saints dyed there was great Lamentation because thereof When good old Jacob dyed the very Egyptians mourned for him threescore and ten dayes Gen. 50.3 When Moses dyed the Children of Israel wept for him in the Plains of Moab thirty dayes Deut. 34.8 When Stephen had been Stoned to Death Devout Men carried him to his Burial and made great Lamentation Acts 8.2 But though Joshua had been an excellent Man true to his trust and resolved for God and his Service and Honour though he had gone before them as their Prince and Leader and given them the Possession of the Land of Canaan yet when he dyed we do not read of one Tear that was shed over him nor of one Groan nor Sigh that was poured out upon him And if you do but Consult the History you will see that not long after the Wrath of God brake in upon that People We are not Ignorant that there are those among us that are glad at Heart when such Men as He are taken away He was a Dissenter say they and a Schismatick which is more than they can prove and such as he they look upon as the troublers of Israel and disturbers of the Peace the Burdens and Pests of the places in which they live These are the Men that stand in their light and would stop them in their full career of Profaneness and they hate them because they cannot away with that Reformation which these men preach up and would fain promote and perfect and upon this account these wretches when such men dye will ring a Peal instead of a Knell and when they are buried could sind in their Hearts to leap and dance upon their Graves Well since it is so God will take these men away and give unto those Enemies their desire they shall be troubled with them no longer He knows of another place and better where these his Servants will be welcome There are myriads of Angels and Saints in Heaven that will rejoyce in their Company but what will follow hereupon These mens departure from hence is no other than a making of way for some tremendous Judgment to come in their room The Inhabitants of Sodom were as much vexed with Righteous Lot for his preciseness as he was with them for their profaneness and detestable abominations and they had a great mind to be rid of him Well saith God you shall see two Angels come from Heaven to send him out of Sodom He linger'd a while but at length he goes and now they hoped a good Wind would blow after him and they should have fair Weather too and they had it but it did not last long the Sun rose gloriously upon them but it soon sate in a dark Cloud in a Bed of Sorrow Gen. 19.24 25. When Lot entred into Zoar the Lord rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of Heaven And he overthrew those Cities and all the plain and all the Inhabitants of those Cities and that which grew upon the ground I will add but one Instance more which single and alone will be sufficient evidence Our Lord and Saviour came to his own but his own received him not seeing in him no jorm nor comeliness for which he should be desired They looked on him as the only Person that stood between them and their prosperity and would if tolerated bring a storm upon them if they should suffer him to live and go on the Romans would come and destroy their City whereupon they would have Barabbas a Thief released and Jesus crucified well what followed their fear did not indeed enter at that door but it came in at another when the Messiah was cut off the Romans came their Temple was burnt their City turned into a ruinous heap and the Inhabitants were destroyed with a most dreadful destruction Know my Friends the Saints and Servants of God are the Pillars of the Earth the Bail to the World that shall continue no longer than till God hath finished his Number called his Elect and prepared his called Ones for Glory The World is no more than a Stage upon which he acts his great and gracious design concerning those whom he hath chosen from among the rest of Mankind and set apart for himself and when that is throughly accomplished the stage shall be taken down A Criminal Woman for some Villany committed by her is condemned to dye but being found with Child she is reprieved till she hath brought forth and then sent to the Gallows and Executed So this World which lies in Wickedness is condemned to the Fire once it was drown'd by a Deluge but not washed from its filth therefore its end is to be burned only it is continued till all the Children of God be brought forth Hereupon my Counsel is that all who have a Kindness for England or a love for themselves would take notice of such dispensations and lay them to their Hearts And in particular as to this Providence which hath been ordered out to you who are the Members of this Congregation I do heartily commend to you a serious reflection upon it together with a deep and afflicting sense of the hand of God therein God hath been pleased to take away from you your Excellent Pastor that Good Shepherd who led you into green Pastures and by the Waters of stillness and who as it is said of David in the 78 Psalm 72. fed you according to the integrity of his heart and guided you by the skilfulness of his hands I need not perfume his Name which is a precious Oyntment nor spend any of the little time which is left in commending to you him who was so well known and so exceeding dear therefore I will only say this in short He was a very gracious and holy Man I doubt not to say an Israelite indeed greatly set for the Interest and Honour of God and much in Communion with him He had received a plentiful Unction from the Holy One and was rich in Spirituals and indeed in all my Converses with
him I found him to be of a sweet affable and loving Temper by means whereof his Grace was the more taking being like a Diamond set in Gold He had good Natural parts which were cultivated and improved by acquired Learning He had found mercy to be faithful having been so all along to his great Lord and Master his Cause and Interest standing his ground like a Rock unshaken in the days of soarest and most violent Temptation nor would he touch tho he saw others swallow down those things which his Conscience told him would prove defiling to himself or snares and stumbling-blocks unto others yet was he a Man of peace he would study it advise it and pray for it and follow it with all men so far as ever he could go without forsaking of Truth and Holiness that he was bound to be dear over while he was true to his Principles and held on his way he was no Incendiary He was a very modest Person cloathed with Humility as his upper Garment in which he walked up and down I never saw him without it You know full well and are ready to testifie that he was an industrious painful Labourerer in God's Vineyard and as he laboured so he longed for the Life Salvation and Spiritual Progress of his Hearers traveling in birth to see Christ formed in them He was a Workman that needed not to be ashamed his Pulpit was a witness to his pains with you and his Chamber to his Prayers for you in the former he wrestled with you and in the latter with God on you behalf And as he preach'd so he walk'd commending his Doctrine by his practice was he an Angel to and in the Church he was a Saint in the street being in his Conversation a singular Ornament to the Gospel and an Excellent Pattern to them that knew him But he is gone here you shall see his Face no more and hear his Voice no more Having finished that Work which his great Lord and Master had given him to do he was by that grim Messenger Death sent for and carried to his last and everlasting Home the Presence-chamber of God the habitation of his Holiness and Glory where he hath received that Crown of Righteousness which was laid up for him It is well with him very well Eternally well so well that he would not have it better for he hath fulness of Joy and Pleasures for evermore at the right hand of God he is at rest in the Bosom of his Lord being satisfied with his likeness and taking his fill of Love Only his Body lies sleeping in its Bed of dust but rests in hope of a comfortable awaking and blessed Resurrection when it shall stand up from the dead shake off its dust arise and shine being made like unto Christs most glorious Body no longer a clog and impediment to the Soul but an Help-meet fit to accompany it in all its great and blessed Employments and Operations The loss is yours and indeed it is a great one it becomes you to be intimately sensible of it and to bewail it Weep not for him but for your selves and for your Children Secondly Learn from hence one singular piece of Wisdom and good Husbandry in Improving your faithful Ministers and others the precious Saints of God while you have them among you Blessed be God tho many are called up to a better State yet there are many left behind but they are only sojourners here for a short season the time will come when they must be gone too the Number of their dayes is with God who hath appointed and fixed those bounds which they cannot pass As for the Fathers where are they and do the Prophets live for ever No no Experience tells you that they do not and they themselves are ready to tell you that they would not And indeed it is a thousand pities that they should as matters do now stand It is pity they should alwayes carry about them a Body of death which is worse than Death it self that they should be alwayes groaning under Corruptions and conflicting with Temptations What! alwayes upon hot and hard service and never have the Victory and Triumph It is pity they should alwayes live in a dirty stinking World in an ungrateful and malicious World It shall not be no it shall not be God hath graciously provided a better Place for them and better Company and incomparably better Things than ever they could have met with here Well do you think of this feriously frequently and manage your selves accordingly Your late Pastor was snatched away from you on a fudden as if Heaven had been longing for him and in a kind of Haste to have him there and it may be quickly so with reference to others as well as to him none hath a Lease of his Life And be not offended if I propound one Question to you which is this Doth it not this day wound some of your spirits to think your Minister is gone and you have not Improved him as you might and ought to have done If a Friend lend you an excellent Book for a Week or Month will you let it lye by on a Shelf or throw it into a Corner and not read it God lends you Faithful Ministers gracious Friends and Relations that you may get good by them and be the better for them if you will not make use of them their very remembrance will be a terrible sting in your Consciences Let me commend to you the Wisdom and Practice of Elisha he had an inkling of his Masters leaving him and that more than once 2 Kings 2. The Sons of the Prophets that were at Bethel said unto him Knowest thou that the Lord will take away thy Master from thy head to day And so again said the Sons of the Prophets that were at Jericho Well his Master carried as if he had a Mind to shake him off three times he would have had him staid behind Tarry here I pray thee for the Lord hath sent me to Bethel v. 2. and so again v. 4. and yet again v. 6. but all would not prevail still Elisha answered As the Lord liveth and as thy Soul liveth I will not leave thee But he kept with him and his Eye fixed upon him and by that means obtained a double portion of his Spirit We need not a Spirit of Prophecy to let us understand that we shall be taken from one another The Scripture assures us that it is appointed for all Men once to to dye and there is never a pore in our Body but what may serve as a door little indeed but wide enough to let Life out and Death in therefore while you have those with you by whom you may get good for your Souls make all the advantage of them that you can Do thus with your Fellow-Christians your Godly Neighbours and Acquaintance those with whom you walk in an holy Communion and in breaking of Bread and in Prayers You are all of
concerning his Peoples bad Actions so that there shall be no abiding breach between him and them upon that score what is it that he cannot doe He that hath done that in which lay the greatest difficulty cannot be posed and non-plus'd by the less viz. the satisfying of his People concerning his Dispensations of Providence and carriages towards them as in blasting their Estates and making them melt as snow before the Sun in breaking to pieces their Relations and making them to sit solitary and alone in taking away their Comforts and rendering their Lives bitter and a burden to them in putting out that Light in which they had rejoyced for a season smiting their faithful Shepherd who had fed them with sound Knowledge and Understanding These things and all others God hath made Provision for and will satisfie his People about though he condescends therein to them not being responsible to his Creatures Dan. 4.35 He doth according to his Will both in the Army of Heaven and among the Inhabitants of the Earth and none can stay his hand or say unto him What dost thou Yet thus he lays by Majesty as it were and stoops to dust and ashes thus he will deal with them after he hath dipt his Pen in Gall and written bitter things against them at which they are troubled yea startled The next thing I shall do is to shew you how necessary this is for us though it be altogether Mercy Grace throughout in God For there are apt to be in good men under dark and afflictive dispensations very undue and unbecoming Thoughts and Motions a filthy scum arising Possibly you have found in your selves something of that nature under the late Providence which at present you may think proper and right what you are very well able to justifie just as it was with Jonah in his extravagant Heat his Passion had so blinded his Eyes and conquer'd his Reason that he told God to his Face Jonah 4.9 I do well to be angry even unto death But when these very Persons are returned to themselves their furious heat is abated and they afterward become more composed and sedate and enjoy a due calmness of spirit and thereupon come to reflect on themselves they will see cause to blush before God to condemn themselves and to be ashamed of their words and actions I will give you an Instance or two First In such Cases they are very forward to enter the Lists and Dispute with God When his ways are out of their sight his Providences so many Riddles and Mysteries that they cannot Interpret when the Hand of God comes near to a Man and toucheth him to the quick bleeding him in a Master-Vein and taking away from him that which was the desire of his Soul and the Delight of his Eyes There are irregular and unchild-like Workings in him though at another time you would not have thought there had been any such thing in the Man but let God have us'd him at his Pleasure let God have tumbled and tossed him up and down as he would he would still have fallen upon a square and when this and that and the other was gone he would have possessed his Soul in Patience but alas we find it with him as with Water that hath for some time been in a Glass while it stands still it looks pure and clear but if one stir and shake it then that filth riseth which lay before at the bottom undiscern'd and now 't is all over disturb'd and roil'd So here the Christian hath had some Disappointment or Loss something or other by which his Spirit is wounded and that puts him quite out of Humour and now he thinks himself able to deal with God and as I said would argue the Case with him Thus it was with the Weeping Prophet Jerem. 13.10 Indeed he laid down this as an Eternal Truth that would not admit of any question Righteous art thou O Lord Yet he thought there were some things that he might Animadvert upon and be bold to discourse with God about Let me talk with thee of thy Judgments Yes do so Jeremy but when thou dost set a Watch before the door of thy Lips and have a Care thou dost not transgress Well he turns Questionist Wherefore doth the way of the wicked prosper Wherefore are all they happy that deal very treacherously And Afflicted Job went beyond him and rose too high Job 23.3 4 5. O that I knew where I might find him that I might come even to his seat I would order my Cause before him and fill my Mouth with Arguments I would know the VVords which he would answer me and understand what he would say unto me But know it is far more becoming of Man and profitable for him to deal with God in a way of humble Submission and fervent Supplication than in a way of Dispute for in this way God will certainly be too hard for Man and teach him better Manners as he did Job whom he brought upon his Knees and made throw down his Weapons and cry Peccavi Job 40.4 Behold I am Vile both really so and in mine own Eyes VVhat shall I answer thee I will lay my hand upon my mouth and so for the future Seal up my Lips as one that do not know what to say and have already offended in saying I did not know what Let all the Earth keep silence before him but vain Man would be Wise And so Secondly There is apt to be even in good Men themselves something of a Tumultuous and Discontented Spirit rising up against God because of his Providences forming in their Minds very unworthy and unbeseeming Thoughts of him Exceeding dishonourable Thoughts which do wretchedly reflect upon God and Religion this we see too too plainly in Holy Asaph Psal 73. He first looked abroad round about him and there saw the Ungodly of the World free from those Troubles with which many better than themselves were exercised and filled with all manner of Delights Prospering and Flourishing increased in Riches and having more than Heart could Wish then he turn'd home and consider'd how Matters stood there and he found himself roughly handled Being plagued all the day long and chastened every morning and upon this he was almost ready to run with the Herd to throw up all and cast Dirt in the Face of Godliness by laying down this Vile Assertion Ver. 13. Verily I have cleansed my heart in vain and washed my hands in innocency Only God was graciously pleased seasonably to step in with his preventing Kindness and to Recover him again and bring him to his right Mind by making him to see and consider the tendency of such a speech Ver. 15. If I say I will speak thus behold I should offend against the generation of thy Children By this you see what need good Men have of a Corrector Now in the next place my Business will be to shew That before God hath done with his People He