Selected quad for the lemma: death_n
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A51226
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Of the vvisdom and goodness of Providence two sermons preached before the Queen, at White-Hall, on August 17, 24, MDCXC / by John Moore ...
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Moore, John, 1646-1714.
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1690
(1690)
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Wing M2551; ESTC R20154
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24,694
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71
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we have conquered should rally their Forces assault us afresh and sometimes prove too many for us and often so terrifie us as to make the Victory hazardous so that we are fain to cry out with the great Apostle O wretched creatures that we are who shall deliver us from this body of Death Who shall deliver us from the Tyranny of our impetuous Lusts which are always labouring to get the Rule over us and would lead us captive into the Gates of Death We have not strength enough in our selves nothing but the Grace of God and the cherishing Influences of his Holy Spirit will enable us to get the Mastery over our own Rebellious Appetites So difficult it is for the Spirit to conquer the Flesh and to drive Satan out of his strong-holds who will dispute every Pass and contend every point with us and never yield while we allow him the least encouragement O what fears must be injected into the hearts of faint and timorous Christians by their being constantly plyed with such implacable Adversaries To serve God indeed is their real desire and they love him with all their hearts but despair holding out under these furious and hourly attacks of the Powers of Hell They dread they shall fall away in this day of heavy tribulation and would give all they were worth to be secured from the danger and trouble of their Temptations Now in the next world these Sorrows and Fears and Dangers which are here so frightful and so constant will all be at an end And what an undisturbed Peace and equality of Temper will the Mind possess when it is got past the hazard of all kinds of Temptation when the Flesh shall be entirely subject to the Spirit and make no further opposition to its reasonable dictates and there shall be nothing which can raise the least commotion or disorder within it but it shall abide in an uninterrupted course of Innocence and behold all its Enemies lying slain before it as the Israelites did with Joy and Triumph look back upon the drowned Egyptians floting on the Red Sea And as we shall be freed from the Power of Sin so we shall get rid of all the Vexations Grievances and Miseries of this world many of which are the natural fruit and proper effects of our sins We shall be strangers to the drudgery and labours which are so necessary to get a Livelihood in this earthly state and to all the fears and cares which are needful to preserve our Gains and to convey thâ—m down safe and entire to our Children and Posterity Neither Poverty nor Contempt nor Disgrace will threaten us neither the Covetousness of men will lessen our Plenty nor their Perverseness disturb our Peace nor their Cruelty bring any Hardship upon us We shall meet with no Difficulties to perplex our Thoughts nor Dangers to exercise our Fears but abide in a state of perpetual Love and Friendship with all our fellow-creatures And as in the Regions of Heaven we shall get above the Power of Temptation the Malice of ill men and all the Calamities of the lower World so shall these infirm crazy and fading Bodies which stand in need of daily supplies to repair their decays and which minister fuel constantly to our Passions be changed into Incorruptible Heavenly and Immortal ones which will not solicite and make the Soul uneasie with their hunger nor clog and burden it with their weight nor discourage and grieve it with their gross and melancholly fumes nor spot and defile it with their Lust We shall know nothing more of Diseases nor Pains and Aches nor Hunger nor Thirst They hunger no more neither thirst any more for the Lamb which is in the midst of the Throne shall feed them and shall lead them unto living Fountains of Waters Then we shall be clothed with Robes of Beautiful Light and the Righteous shall shine as the Stars of the Firmament for ever In that Holy Place our Desires will be gratified our Appetites will have full satisfaction our highest expectations will be answer'd and all our hopes turn'd into Fruition But notwithstanding every capacity of our nature will be filled with its proper pleasure yet they shall never be glutted but as the Favours of Heaven increase so will our Faculties be more and more enlarged to receive them And although there shall be no end of our Joys yet their perpetual abode will never cloy us who shall to all Eternity be improving into a greater Likeness of God and still attain thereby to a higher and more quick and sensible Relish of our Heavenly Delights Then we shall be admitted into the most desirable and pleasing Company We shall converse with Angels and be of the Society of all the Holy Men who have been so renown'd in their Generations and have set those admirable Examples of Godliness and Virtue There we shall sit down by our nearest and most dear Relations whose departure hence was so terrible and grievous to us by our best Friends Neighbours and Acquaintance and love and rejoice together and praise the Lord for the great good which by our mutual Piety we did one to another O then we shall behold the Glorious Face of our Ever-Blessed Redeemer who sacrificed his own Blood to rescue us from the Power and Guilt of our Sins and to bring us into this most illustrious Habitation And that which swallows all the Powers of our Imagination we shall come into the Presence of the great and mighty God and see him as he is and for ever be taken up in rapturous contemplations of the inconceivable brightness and splendor of his Infinite Majesty Now when we duly consider that these shall be the unexpressible Rewards of our slight and short Afflictions will it not appear most just and reasonable that we should submit to the Will of God in all things As nothing will tend more to God's Glory so nothing will agree more with our Interest or more produce true Comfort and Peace in our Minds than thankfully to receive all that God gives and patiently and meekly to bear the loss of all he takes away who will so infinitely recompence all our sufferings for his sake in the next life And since God has provided such Joys for our Souls in the other State O that he would quicken our Desires and help our Endeavours to prepare our selves for them Seeing he hath been pleased to chuse our Bodies for Temples for his Holy Spirit to dwell in O that he would free them from all Malice and Impurity and chase away every strange and filthy Lust from his chosen Habitation O that we might have so lively a sense of the Goodness of the Lord and of the Infinite Advantage we shall gain therefrom as not to give sleep to our eyes nor slumber to our eye-lids until from the bottom of our Hearts we had repented of every sin until we had worked up our Souls to an utter hatred of it and obstinately resolv'd to
to the will of his Merciful Father They therefore who would bear troubles well must live in a constant expectation of them and in their good days lay up a stock of Christian Graces against the Winter of Adversity They I say who in the height of their Prosperity will often and seriously reflect upon the great change that either by Losses and Pains or certainly by Death in a short time will overtake them and provide themselves with the suffering-Virtues against that dark season will be so far from having their spirits sink at the approach either of Afflictions or Death it self that it will raise them above the World and mount and carry their Hearts and Affections to God who is the Centre of all sound Peace and solid Joy How happy are those souls who when the World most smiles upon them do not trust it but furnish themselves with the Humility and the Meekness and the Patience of Jesus against the evil day that as no Sickness or Trouble can much surprize them so neither can it greatly or long discompose their minds but they discern the Finger of God in it and turn it to their spiritual advantage And they therefore count it joy when they fall into Temptations i. e. suffer affliction for they are assured that God will not suffer them to be tempted above what they are able If they are troubled on every side yet they shall not be distressed if they are perplexed they shall not despair if they are persecuted they shall not be forsaken if cast down they shall not be destroyed SERMON II. III. THAT if we equally consider things we shall be constrain'd to acknowledg That God's Goodness and Mercy do appear in our greatest Sufferings and this will be evident from the following Reasons 1. Because if we look upon God as the Supreme Lord and Owner of the World who alone has the Right of all we shall find our selves to be but Tenants at will for every thing that we have And if God has given us nothing but during pleasure then let him take it away when he pleases he can do us no wrong Our Life that makes us capable of his other Favours our Health which makes life comfortable our Relations our Estates our Ease and Peace are all the free Gifts of the Bounty of him who had not the least Obligation to us and if he revoke them all or any of them we receive no Injury for he does but resume his own Right Insomuch as if God strips us of all down to nothing he will but leave us in the state he found us Wherefore we ought to be so far from charging him with unkindness for any temporal Evil that we must own it is his singular Goodness we have been permitted the Enjoyment of so many of his Blessings such a long time 2. We cannot but acknowledg the Goodness of God in our Troubles and Losses when we consider him as the great Judg of the Lives of Men and examine the Conditions upon which he was pleased to grant the use of his Creatures unto them and the Punishments he has threatned to inflict upon the disobedient Upon this Examination it will be plain to the greatest Sufferers that God has been merciful in that they in many particulars have broken the Conditions of the Covenant which was made between him and them and he has not taken the whole forfeiture There is no breach of God's Law in any great instance made coolly and deliberately but it does deserve not only a temporal punishment but the pains of Hell should God deal with us according to the measures of strict Justice Now when he who if he proceeded strictly against us might pass the Sentence of Death upon us and shut us out of his presence for ever does but gently correct us with such chastisements as are proper to reform our faults and cause us to grieve we have offended our best Friend What can we do but admire his Goodness and magnify the riches of his Mercy towards us If God did not let sinners who have lived a great while securely in their iniquity at length feel the weight of his Justice they would lay aside all fear of his Power and fall into ruin beyond a possibility of being recover'd But yet we may observe That there is a plentiful mixture of Mercy in the Punishments which God first inflicts upon the greatest sinners and that he does not proceed to high degrees of severity until their hearts are so hard that lighter Afflictions would make no impression upon them Wherefore when very bad Men are brought to Repentance by a terrible Judgment they discern God's Goodness in nothing more than the terrour which attended the Judgment wherewith he corrected them because they are sensible it would not have reclaim'd them from their wicked Courses had it been of a milder sort God then tempers Judgment with Mercy that as the contemplation of the one may preserve in Mens minds an awful regard of his Majesty so the consideration of the other may keep them from running into despair Where Sinners are become bold more of his Justice is requisite to make them dread his displeasure and to acknowledg the infirmities of their own Nature but on the contrary where such a tenderness is found in the Consciences of Men that they are extream fearful of their condition notwithstanding to the best of their ability they sincerely endeavour to serve him he is so far from putting any unnecessary hardship upon them that he letteth forth the treasures of his Compassion upon their disturb'd Souls does scatter their groundless fears and refresh and cherish them with his Mercies There is no want of proof to convince Men that as all the temporal evils they suffer are less than in rigour of justice God might lay upon them so they never overtake them before they are necessary either to make them reflect upon the Errors of their own ways or to put a stop to others in a bad Course The Servants of God who have been renowned for their Piety and whose holy deeds and glorious sufferings in the Cause of Religion have been recorded by the Holy Ghost for the imitation of the Followers of Christ and the support of all afflicted Saints these eminent instruments in the work of the Lord I say have ever been so sensible of their own frailty as to dread the Divine Justice They never did presume to insist upon their own Righteousness when they came before God as if they had lived with such exactness according to his Laws that he could not afflict them without being injurious They were not such strangers to themselves as not to be conscious that in a great number of respects their behaviour came short of perfection which alone can justify a Man Wherefore we shall never find that they appeal to their Innocence when they have to deal with their Righteous Judge but full of the apprehension of their guilt they cast themselves at his