Selected quad for the lemma: death_n
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A63882
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A sermon preached before the King on Easter-Day, 1684 by Francis Lord Bishop of Rochester ...
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Turner, Francis, 1638?-1700.
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1684
(1684)
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Wing T3283; ESTC R38918
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14,934
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35
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the reason he has left will rather oblige him to sit down under a wild suspicion that his Life is a waking Dream that the Heaven and the Earth and all things else about him are but false representations made by some hidden accursed power that is always deluding his fancy and that there is nothing in the World but the Devil and himself fit Companions for one another And having thus discours'd Historically of the Matter of Fact which the Prophet delivers in the Text I shall now proceed to consider but very briefly of the Mystery of Faith the consequence or effect of these great things that Christ either did or suffered for us so the power of his Resurrection as St. Paul calls it is also set down in these words He shall revive us He shall raise us up again and we shall live in his sight He shall come unto us as the rain as the latter and former rain unto the earth This Similitude is taken from a thing that is most common that is Rain and yet this Philosophical or at least this Experimental Age will allow me thus much That the richest Notes and the most undoubted Conclusions in the Book of Nature are such as we draw from the most vulgar and therefore the most constant Observations Therefore of all the Similitudes upon which the Divine Prophecies and Parables in the Old and New Testament are turn'd and form'd there are no Comparisons so frequently used as these between the products of Nature and the growth of Grace between the Fruits of the Earth and the encrease of heavenly Vertue and Glory in the humane Soul and Body no temporal Blessings are so often promis'd or so constantly perform'd to put us in mind of the Spiritual as the sending of the former and the latter rain the shining of the Sun on the just and on the unjust the watering the earth and blessing it and making it very plenteous The Church is every where represented as God's Husbandry as God's Vineyard and Christ himself is by himself resembled to a Corn of Wheat that fell into the Ground and dy'd as if he had said The Corn of Wheat this my Body the Corn of Wheat which falls into the ground and dies this is my Body which is given and broken for you To the same intent and purpose 't is observable that the Ceremony of waving the Sheaf of the first-fruit of the Harvest on the next day after the Feast of the Passoever was appointed in the Law of Moses as a significant Type of the Resurrection or of Christ's reviving and raising our mortal Bodies as His Sheaves with him and 't is yet more observable that God's peculiar Providence over-ruling the blind Jews to defer their Feast until Saturday that year when our Saviour suffered order'd it so that they wav'd the Sheaf exactly on the first Easter-morning when Christ arose But these effects on our Bodies are not the only or the greatest effects of Christ's Resurrection the Power and Wisdom of God in it is greater still in comparison of this Wisdom the Apostle counted all things no better than dung good only as that is to manure the Ground to prepare it for that good Seed and for this blessed Rain that should come upon it that was all that all the knowledge of the World was good for to those who knew not Christ But of what consequence now to our Souls as well as our Bodies is the Knowledge and Belief of this prime Fundamental Article The summ of all this Because Christ did and suffered all this for us therefore did God his Father give him by the Holy Spirit a power to raise up himself first and then all that are his with all manner of Resurrections both of Soul and Body from all manner of Deaths to which they were obnoxious Therefore the Scripture in some places uses the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is his full and intire Resurrectim the whole 6th of the Romans and most of the 5th is upon the force of his Passion and his Resurrection where 't is made the Idaeal Cause the very similitude and pattern of our Resurrection and more than so a vital influence is supposed to be derived from him upon us to assimilate or make us like him as well in our Souls as our Bodies that as we have been planted together in the likeness of his Death we shall be also in the likeness of his Resurrection For this implanting viz. in our Baptism supposes a drawing of Vertue from Christ and is secur'd on his part to our lives end there is imply'd not only our Obligation but our Ability by the power he gives us that we also should walk as he did after this day forty days together in newness of life supposing that none can raise their hearts from the World and be thus renewed but by thinking on these things And this falls in with my third and last Part the Obligation upon our parts or the Condition imposed upon us if we mean to reap advantage from this revealed Doctrine of Christ's Resurrection and ours then must these Principles be pursued extreamly home and we must go on throughout the whole course of our lives to practise accordingly Then shall we know if we follow on to know the Lord For in the very next words to those of my Text the Prophet takes up this lamentation O Ephraim what shall I do unto thee O Judah what shall I do unto thee For your goodness is as a morning cloud and as the early dew it goeth away It seems that these men whom the Prophet had to do with were men of good intentions but so they say Hell it self is full of good intentions that is 't is full of those that one time or other intended to do well but here was their great mistake they thought the great work was done as soon as it was but intended Alas we are apt to take every faint endeavour and every feeble attempt for overcoming the World But then shall we know if we follow on to know the Lord that is if we proceed in taking just pains with our selves till we love what we know or else we know nothing yet as we ought to know He that loveth not knoweth not God for God is love That Jesus Christ came into the World to save Sinners this is not only a faithful saying but avowed with good reason by the Apostle to be worthy of all men to be received but every thing in Nature is received according to the capacity and figure of the worthy or unworthy Receiver Our Christian Philosophy 't is a most noble speculation Angels delight to pry into it Unbelievers themselves will acknowledge in their sober moods that our main Body of Divinity is a piece of magnificent Wit admirably refin'd and strongly knit together But because they want a soul for it to ponder and contemplate these great and amazing Truths till they come to practise as they ought therefore the men
Matter of Fact that was not seen with ones own eyes suppose it be done in the next room to be so undeniably witnessed as shall abundantly supply the want of ocular demonstration Lastly I assume That if we can be sure of any Matter of Fact which we did not see with our own eyes then we may be infinitely surer of the wonderful Works of Christ and especially of his Glorious Resurrection That Christ was openly crucified or nailed to a Cross before a multitude of Enemies That after exquisite pains he gave up the Ghost Then to make all sure That he was thrust into the vital parts that the water gush'd out of his side without which Cooler he must needs have been parch'd to death if he had not undergone many deaths before that the Apostle St. John who saw this with many others bare record That their record is true That the Enemies of Christianity knew it to be so uncontroulably true as to the point of this Dying that scarce any Jew or Heathen has ever been so impudent as to deny the certainty of his Death That this extraordinary Person so publickly executed was closed and sealed up in a Sepulchre and his Body guarded by Orders thus strictly issued forth Ye have a Watch go make it as sure as you can That after three days he appeared alive again in the same Body That he appeared several times in divers places to many Spectators at once to above five hundred Persons That he had threatned his Foes beforehand that he would unbar the Gates of Death let them do what they could to debar or hinder him for it was their own Deposition before Pontius Pilate himself Sir we remember that this Deceiver said while he lived The third day I will rise again That he provok'd some that believed not for joy and some that obstinately disbelieved to feel his Pulse to handle and see the print of the nails and to thrust their hands into his side till the most incredulous man assented whether he would or no These Matters of Fact were immediately proclaim'd and preach'd to all the World by such Eye-Witnesses every where as not only were ready to seal it with their bloud That this Testimony of theirs was true but God also set to his Seal That many of those who were ready thus to lay down their lives and who took it upon their deaths that they saw Christ raised from the Dead should themselves be enabled to work undeniable Miracles and even to raise the Dead No wonder then if the Gospel spread so fast For if a man of God how contemptible soever should revive but one Malefactor after he had been openly put to death it would not be many Months e're the whole World would have an account of it But then their working of Miracles as a demonstration that their Witness was most true who affirmed they had seen Christ risen comes to be as unquestionably asserted by many other Eye-Witnesses and by so many others that had it from the mouths of these they made up a Noble Army of Martyrs who lov'd not their lives in comparison of this Truth which they advanc'd by their deaths viz. That they had seen the Apostles or Apostolical men confirming the Word by Signs following And lastly That there were such a Glorious Company of Martyrs such as endured a thousand indignities and as it were died often with this Testimony of Jesus in their mouths this Testimony I say of the Martyrs is confess'd and acknowledged by all the adverse Parties no Jew no Pagan no Persecutor of Christianity no Atheist no Devil had ever the hardiness to deny what themselves had inflicted and for what these men had suffered And all this put together were enough one would think to secure the Doctrine of the Resurrection and by consequence the Christian Faith No It is said That one man may possibly deceive or be deceived If one then two then three then thirty then thirty thousand then all the whole Company of Martyrs Truly 't is extremely hard to conceive that in things so gross and palpable and of highest consequence any one man of common sence could be impos'd upon much less deceitfully impose on others and those that were dearest to him where he could have no imaginable interest to do so as it was in this Case of the Primitive martyr'd Christians But what if humane Nature might admit of this highest depravation of sence and reason in one single Example What if an Heap of Corn being poured out at randome on a large Threshing-Floor it may happen after many tryals that some of the Grains may fall into some regular Figure would it follow thence that this whole World of Beauty and Order could have been composed by a casual motion of Atoms What if a Printers Characters being thrown together at all adventures it may come to pass after ten hundred thousand essays that such of the Letters may accidentally meet as may make up the two or three first words of my Text yet could it enter into the heart of man to think it possible for them so to be joined by mere chance as to make up all this Divine Prophecy of Hosea or to put the Case yet higher to make up all the Sacred Volumes of the Old and New Testament To cut the matter short Can Chance produce effects as wise as any God can produce But if all reason abhors the Atheist's wild supposition That such blind Causes as an Heap of Corn or a Printers Letters that have no greater tendency one way than another should produce effects so extravagantly wise by Chance only then if we follow the Grain of the same Argument and pursue it home it runs more clearly and ends in a more infallible Conclusion against the Deists as they love to style themselves or the Disbelievers of the Resurrection and Christianity than against the Atheists For that a World of knowing and rational Beings or Men at least of common sense that have a natural appetite an inseparable inclination to their own happiness which those inanimate things have not that all of them could act so extreme unnaturally in an Affair that concerned all their good in this life as well as in the next as all of them wilfully to deceive the Children of their own Bowels or all of them to be so senselesly negligent as to suffer themselves to be perpetually abused when they needed but open their eyes to discover the imposture if there had been any in these Matters of Fact this is utterly impossible to conceive and is really beyond the reach of all imagination If it be possible I say but if still if it be possible for any very considering man to debauch his Reason into a real disbelief of the Resurrection and of those things which are most surely believed among us and upon many infallible Proofs as St. Luke declares that man can have no reason in the world to conclude there is any thing real nay all