Selected quad for the lemma: death_n
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A44678
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A funeral sermon for Mrs. Esther Sampson the late wife of Henry Sampson, Dr. of Physick, who died Nov. 24. 1689 / by John Howe ...
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Howe, John, 1630-1705.
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1690
(1690)
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Wing H3026; ESTC R19694
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24,476
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33
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end the importance whereof was such as that it ought to transcend any regard to the welfare of mens bodies but not to exclude it which we now come briefly to shew in the next place viz. 2. That tho' compassion towards an infirm creature under bodily distemper was not the principal inducement unto this cure it was a real one Our Lord doth really compassionate the frailties of those that relate to him while they dwell in mortal flesh He himself bears our sicknesses He has a tenderness towards them even while he doth not think it fit actually to release and set them free which makes way to what was proposed in the last place to be insisted on as preparatory to the intended use 4. That in what way soever our Lord Jesus works a release for them that are most specially his own from their bodily distempers he doth it in mercy to them He lets their affliction continue upon them in mercy greater mercy indeed than would be in an unseasonable deliverance But when he sees it a fit season to give them a release that is an unquestionable mercy too tho' it be not in such a way as appears such to vulgar eyes It is more easily apprehensible to be from compassion if he relieves a poor pained weak languishing sickly creature by giving renewed strength and ease and health in this world But when the release is by death as in the case we have under our farther present consideration it is hard to perswade that this is done in mercy that there is compassion in this case There is 't is true in this a manifest disparity but not a disadvantageous one Is it a less thing to release an holy soul from the body than from bodily distempers It can only be so in the opinion of such blind moles of the earth as the children of men are now generally become But let the case be considered according to it's true and real import Why a recovery from sickness is but an adjournment of death 't is but death defer'd a while When there is a release wrought in such a way as this in which hers was wrought whom God hath lately taken from amongst us here is a cure not only of one bodily distemper but of all not only of actual diseasedness but of the possibility of ever being diseased more here is a cure wrought not only of infirmity but of death for the Saints conquer death by suffering it Yea a cure not of death only but of mortality of any liableness to death so as it can never touch them more Yea further not only of bodily diseases but of Spiritual too far worse and more grievous than all bodily diseases whatsoever a cure of blindness of mind deadness and hardness of heart of all indispositions towards God his ways and presence towards the most spiritual duties and the best and most excellent of our enjoyments The body of Sin and the mortal body are both put off together The imprisoned soul is set free and enters upon a state of everlasting liberty is releast from the bands of death of whatsoever kind and in the highest fullest sense shall reign in life thorough Jesus Christ. What is the decease of a Saint but a translation out of a valley of death a Golgotha a place of Skulls a region where death reigns into the region of perfect and everlasting life It is not to be called death simply or absolutely but with diminution 't is death only in a certain respect when in an higher and much more considerable respect When in an higher and much more considerable respect it is a birth rather a dying out of one world and a being born at the same time into another a much more lightsome a purer and more glorious world The soul is cured in a moment of whatsoever was grievous or afflicting to it and the body put into a certain way of cure of being made from an earthly mean mortal thing heavenly spiritual incorruptible and immortal from a vile a glorious body like Christs own and by that power by which he can subdue all things to himself Phil. 3. 21. And now for Use. I. Learn That there is no inconsistency in the case that the same person should be at once the subject of long continued bodily affliction and of divine compassion These are reconcilable things sickly languishings under which one may be ready to fail and compassions that fail not This is a common Theme but the due consideration of it is too little common Let it now be considered with impartial equity and with deep seriousness Do you think the all-comprehending mind of the Son of God now first began to pity this daughter of Abraham While he was not yet ascended this attribution is given him Otherwise no doubt than as a false complement Lord thou knowest all things Since his ascension we are assured he hath a feeling of our infirmities so as to be toucht with them a continuing sympathy remembring the inconveniences of that state he had past thorough as she once non ignara mali c. and is always ready therefore to do the part of a faithful and merciful high Priest Before his descent we must with equal reason suppose him to have an entire prospect of the sad case of wretched mortals in this miserable world of ours What else made him descend And after that he was descended this mark could not but lye still before the eye of his divine mind to which all his works were known from the beginning of the world Yet the cure is defer'd the release is not given till the appointed season When it is the case of any of you to be afflicted with long sickness and to feel the tediousness of a lingering disease count upon it that it may be so as 't is like it hath been with divers of you Do not then permit the matter to the censure of an incompetent partial Judge If you consult flesh and blood if sense be to pronounce in the case and give judgment how hard will it be to perswade that you are not neglected in your languishings that your groans and faintings are unpity'd tho' you are so plainly told that whom the Lord loves he chastens Are you not ready to say how can this stand with being at the same time the object of divine pity If he pity me would he let me lye and languish thus in so miserable a plight day after day and year after year Yes these things very well agree and I would fain shortly evince to you that they do Why 1. His Compassion may sufficiently be Evidenc'd in another kind and by another sort of instances Sure it will speak compassion if he frequently visit his frail infirm creatures and by his visitation preserve their spirits if he support them if he refresh them this is grace My grace shall be sufficient for thee saith he to the great Apostle when he refused to release him from that thorn in the
we should suppose that he may some way or other perniciously agitate the humours in humane Bodies 't is no harder a supposition than that he should so variously from the images in the fancy by which he tempts for herin surely he comes nearer us and is more inward to us 7ly Nor is it less supposable that God should in some instances permit the Devils to follow their inclinations in afflicting his people than wicked men to follow theirs which in the general carry them to the same thing when he knows how to turn the one to after-advantage as well as the other But we have no ground to think notwithstanding all this that the wisdom and goodness of Providence will ordinarily permit that this Agency of the Devil in the mentioned cases should be altogether in a contra-natural way but only by so moving and acting with natural causes that he may be also obviated through the ordinary blessing of God by natural means and causes too Much less is it reasonable that diseases should be themselves reckon'd very Devils as was the opinion of the Gnosticks of old wherein they much concurred with the Manichees and whom together with them the more honest-minded Pagan Plotinus so copiously confutes though that that was more anciently a common Opinion the Septuagints rendring the word that signifies Plague by the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in several places of Scripture seems to intimate But the commonness of such an Opinion in a dark time signifies nothing to sway ours this way or that But whatsoever hand the Devil may be supposed to have in their afflictions or sicknesses that belong to God we are in the 2d place sure That our Lord Jesus has a most kind hand whensoever it is in their release which though it were here in a more extraordinary and immediate way and besides the course of nature the disparity in this case signifies nothing to the lessening of the favour towards those whom he vouchsafes to relieve in other cases for the influence that he has in ordinary cases is as truly divine If the cure of a diseased person be wrought by his blessing upon ordinary natural means his cooperating with nature is less amazing but not less effectual or less kind as also the efflux from God is for his own part as real when he works with second causes as without them and as immediately reaches the effect in both the senses of immediateness whereof so much noise is made in the Schools And we must further know our Lord Christ is now the universal Regent of all Nature even as he is the Christ the world being devolv'd into his hands and all power being given to him both in Heaven and Earth He is Lord of all When therefore any of you are sick it is by his disposal if you are recovered out of that sickness Nor is his Agency less or lower whether it be by blessing a Medicine or working a Miracle His power and love are the same either way And know there is an honour and acknowledgment due from Christians to their great crucifi'd Lord who hath founded a dominion over this world in his blood who died and revived and rose again that he might be Lord of living and dead Therefore you are to reckon you are beholden to Christ for all your recoveries and all your refreshings that you meet with amidst the many infirmities and frailties of this your present mortal state And if the release be by death as the case is which we now have specially to do with that universal power of his over all lives must be understood immediately to reach to that case too It is he that measures lives that lengthens them out and cuts them shorter at his own pleasure And as to those that are more peculiarly his own it is a more peculiar and favourable superintendency that he has over that affair even of their very dying Their death is precious in his sight He with a most gentle tender hand unties the knot of Man releases and receives the dislodging Soul Lord Jesus receive my Spirit as dying Stephen speaks But 3ly We are to consider how far our Lord Jesus his compassion concerns him in such cases or wherein that may move him to interpose in them so as in this case he did And here two things are to be asserted 1st That his compassion has not supream and principal influence in this Case 2ly That yet it hath real influence That it hath not supream or principal influence in such Cases And this doth really require to be more principally insisted on as of greater importance to narrow terrene minds that are apt to measure all things by themselves and in reference to their own little Sphear and compass and to themselves only in their present State as they are inhabitants of this Minute Spot of Earth as if all things ought to bend and yield to their present convenience and accommodation here whereupon they wonder when they are sick and in pain God doth not presently relieve and ease them and think they should do so for any Friend or Neighbour if it were in their Power Know therefore 't was not from compassion as the solitary or as the chief inducement that our Lord did work this release for this Daughter of Abraham That cannot be supposed For he can never be understood to make a creature and the advantages of a Creature his Supream end That would have been to invert the order of things to dethrone God and deifie man and had been it self a real sort of that Idolatry which was one among the many horrid evils which he purposely came to redress and give remedy to in this apostate degenerate World He had a greater inducement i. e. That he might diffuse the Glory of God among the Children of Men and that he might give evidence thereby to the Truth of his own Mission and prove most convincingly that he was the Messiah the Son of God the very Person that was anointed and sent about that great undertaking to recover Gods rights in this lapsed World to bring about a reconciliation between God and Men. And upon this account when he wrought cures upon mens Bodies it was out of an higher compassion to their Souls And tho' even this it self of saving Mens Souls was not his highest design but the Glory of God as we shall see further by and by yet it being truly design'd by him and more principally than their bodily ease and relief this was an apt means to this his lower end For whereas in order to this he was to manifest himself a Divine Saviour 't was requisite he should give a joint and an equal demonstration of the two things which his being so implies his Godlike Power and Love The former alone it did not serve his purpose to shew which he might have shewn as much by inflicting plagues on mens bodies as working cures by striking them with blindness lameness c. as by giving them