Selected quad for the lemma: death_n
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A45688
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A sermon preach'd at the funeral of Capt. John Briggs at Dunstable, March 23, 1694/5 by Thomas Harrison.
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Harrison, Thomas.
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1695
(1695)
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Wing H912; ESTC R40945
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17,078
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32
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warning Let us therefore speedily seek that City which is above Would you O Sinners get a Title to this Habitation then come to Christ and sincerely close with him It is not to be purchased with your Money nor procured by your Labour if you accept of Jesus you shall freely receive it if you persist in your stubborn Rejection of him you shall never obtain it Heaven is a purchased Possession Christ hath bought it with the invaluable Price of his precious Blood and if he become yours that shall be yours also You will have a sure Title to it which can never be lost but will issue in an actual Possession of it If you lay hold of Christ with the Hand of Faith while you live you may securely commit your Souls into his Hands when you come to die and say with expiring Stephen Acts 7.59 Lord Jesus receive my Spirit Fifthly I infer That Saints should diligently endeavour to get an Assurance of the happy Disposure of their Souls after their Separation from their Bodies This is not unattainable by them this will not be unprofitable to them It is their Duty to labour after it and an Attainment to it will be very beneficial and advantagious to them This will comfort them under all the Frailties and Infirmities the Perishings and Decays of their outward Man and mightily sweeten all the Troubles and Afflictions wherewith they are exercised during their continuance in it This will familiarize Death and render its Approach welcome to them Death is terrible to Nature the Soul is naturally unwilling to leave its old dwelling-place Nature cannot but abhor a Dissolution besides violent Pains do ordinarily attend the taking down of this Earthly Structure But they can embrace the King of Terrors with Joy and holy Triumph who are able to say with the Apostle 2 Tim. 1.12 I know whom I have believed and I am perswaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that Day We ought to give Diligence to make our Calling and Election sure for so an Entrance shall be ministred unto us abundantly into the everlasting Kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ 2 Pet. 1.10 11. But if we want this Assurance we cannot comfortably walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death But what Trouble will possess our Spirits if when our Souls are going to be unclothed of their Earthly House we know not whether ever they shall be clothed upon with an House which is from Heaven If when they are launching into Eternity we know not whether they are entring into a bright or a black Eternity In order to our obtaining this Assurance let us seriously and diligently search our Hearts and try our Ways put forth direct Acts of Faith upon Christ and beg of God to shed abroad his Love in our Hearts by the Holy Ghost Sixthly I infer What vast Obligations Believers are under to their Blessed Lord How highly are they obliged to him who descended from his Imperial Throne tabernacled among us dwelt in an House of Clay and submitted to a Dissolution that he might procure for them an eternal Habitation with himself in the highest Heavens By dying he conquered Death so as to render it a blessed Gain and Advantage to them and to give them cause to triumph over it in their sharpest Encounter with it How should we love and live to that blessed Jesus through whom we are more than Conquerors over our last Enemy who is gone to Heaven to prepare a Place for us and will receive us into it that where he is there we may be also Seventhly I infer That a Believer's Conversation ought to be in Heaven Shall we not be frequently conversant in that glorious Place where we hope eternally to dwell Seeing we are Strangers in the Earth we should live like those who know they have no continuing City here Let us endeavour frequently to mount up on the Wings of our Thoughts and Affections to the excellent Glory Lastly I infer That the Saints have a solid Ground of Comfort under the Death of their godly Relatives We cannot but mourn to see those Structures wherein we took Pleasure laid in the Dust and going to be a Feast for Worms to think that we shall see the Desire of our Eyes no more in this World But shall we not be comforted when we consider that their Souls are gone into a far better Habitation than they dwelt in while they cohabited with us that they have exchanged our Embraces for Christ's that they are now triumphing and rejoicing in the Heavenly Mansions that the Loss is only ours they are Gainers by their Departure and e're long we shall go to them and dwell with them for evermore I shall conclude with an Address to the near Relations of our Deceased Friend I must acknowledg your Loss to be very great it is no small Affliction to be depriv'd of such a loving Husband and indulgent Father yet you ought not to mourn as those who have no Hope They who observ'd his Conversation might from thence take knowledg that he had been with Jesus He adorn'd the Doctrin of God his Saviour He was a burning and shining Light in the Place where Divine Providence fixt him Therefore you have no Ground to question his Exchange of an Earthly for an Heavenly Habitation and the Church Militant for the Triumphant Assembly of the First-born Were it put to his Choice whether he would stay where he is or return to you he would prefer the former to the latter You ought humbly and silently to acquiesce in God's Sovereign Will who is righteous in all his Ways and holy in all his Works and to depend upon him who hath promised to be an Husband to the Widow and a Father to the Fatherless Let me exhort his Children to an Imitation of that excellent Example which he hath set them and to a Remembrance of and Compliance with those wholsome Instructions which he hath given them These Advantages you are now deprived of but a serious Reflection upon them may be beneficial to you if not they will aggravate your Guilt It had been better for you to have descended from a Turk or Pagan than from such an Eminent Christian as your deceased Father was if you prove degenerate Children How sad will it be if he who put up so many Prayers for your Salvation before the Throne of Grace should testify against you to the Aggravation of your Condemnation before the Tribunal of Justice He is gone before you must follow after how soon you know not Death hath made three Breaches in your Family within the compass of a few Years and shall not these frequent Warnings put you in mind of your own Change O get an Interest in Christ that will be more valuable than the Estate which your deceased Father hath bequeathed to you so you may be able to say when you come to die We know that if our Earthly House of this Tabernacle were dissolved we have a Building of God an House not made with Hands eternal in the Heavens FINIS
Aerial or Aetherial but the Imperial Heaven is here intended This is a place far superior to the Earth and therefore an Entrance into and Abode in it is sometimes mentioned as comprehensive of all that Felicity which is possest by those that inhabit it When the Soul of a Believer quits its Earthly Tabernacle it mounts up as on Eagle's Wings to the Heavenly Temple This is the Habitation of God's Holiness there the great Jehovah in a special manner dwells there are the brightest Discoveries of the Divine Splendor and the highest Adorations given to his most Excellent Majesty There the glorified Courtiers do not behold him through a Glass darkly but see him face to face In that Building dwells and reigns the Lord Jesus the Mediator of the New Covenant When we shall be absent from the Body we shall be present with the Lord 2 Cor. 5.8 The Heaven must receive him until the times of restitution of all things There dwell an innumerable company of glorious Angels far more glorious than any of the Princes of this World and all the Spirits of Just Men that are made perfect This is not an Habitation of Violence and Oppression for no unclean thing can enter there The Inhabitants of this House are out of the reach of Satan and his malicious Off-spring they are not expos'd to the Hostile Attempts of the roaring Lion of Hell or his Whelps upon Earth They are liable to no troublesome Changes Heart-breaking Exercises perplexing Disappointments corroding Cares or sinful Infirmities This is a delectable and secure Habitation here is fulness of Joy here are Rivers of Pleasures which constantly refresh the glorified Soul In this House is Light without Darkness Day without Night Joy without Sorrow and Singing without Weeping The Soul that enters into this House hath the most intimate Fellowship with God the Master of it and a refreshing Communion with the blessed Angels and Saints who cohabit with it therein All things in this House are sutable to the Grandure and Magnificence of the Structure And when the Saints Bodies shall come forth from their Houses of Silence and Darkness and be reunited to their Souls they shall be received together with them into the Heavenly Jerusalem and shall share with them in the Felicity of that blessed Seat 3. It is described from its Duration Eternal This I conceive is predicated of this Heavenly Habitation in opposition to the Frailty of our Earthly Tabernacles which must be dissolved and then all our Temporal Comforts and Delights will vanish we shall no longer enjoy them The Celestial City hath immoveable Foundations it is subject to no Decay or Dissolution its Duration will run parallel with the Ages of Eternity And the Glory of that Place will last as long as the Place it self it is called a never-fading Crown an Incorruptible Inheritance and an Everlasting Kingdom The Divine Being in the Vision and Fruition of whom the Happiness of glorified Saints principally consists is to everlasting Moreover their Abode in this House will be as lasting as the Building they shall never be dispossest of or expell'd from it Tho the first Adam was driven out of an Earthly Paradise yet the spiritual Seed and Off-spring of the second Adam shall never be expell'd the Heavenly One And when their Bodies shall rise from their Beds of Dust they will live to die no more Death will have no Power to demolish these curious Fabricks for it shall be swallowed up in Victory 1 Cor. 15.54 This Mortal shall then put on Immortality Tho a little time wastes and consumes our Bodies in their present State yet there shall be no Diminution of their Excellency and Beauty in an endless Eternity when we become the Children of the Resurrection These Buildings will be always kept in their Vigor and Glory by the immediate Power of the supream Architect I proceed Fourthly To the comfortable Knowledg and Assurance which the Apostle and other Christians had concerning their present Right to and future Fruition of this Blessedness We know Herein we may consider the Subject We and the Predicate know 1. The Subject We. The Apostle here speaks only of those that were real Christians who had sincerely closed with and were united to the blessed Jesus they only have a Right and Title to and therefore they only have ground to expect and hope for this glorious Habitation They who come not under such a Character have reason to fear that when their Earthly Tabernacles shall be dissolved their Souls will enter into a different Habitation An House indeed contrived by infinite Wisdom and framed by Almighty Power and an eternal House but not in Heaven but in Hell an House where there is Blackness of Darkness inconceiveable Grief and intolerable Torment an House prepared for the Devil and his Angels wherein the Wicked must cohabit with and be tormented by those Apostate Spirits who left their Primitive Habitation for evermore An House wherein they shall be Exiles from God's comfortable Presence and every thing that is either really good or esteemed so by them But I conceive the Apostle speaks not here of all Saints for tho they may know and have ground to hope that when their Souls are dislodged from their Bodies they shall enter into this blissful Habitation yet all Believers have not attained to this Knowledg and Assurance thereof Clouds and Darkness do overspread some gracious Souls and they are filled with many Doubts and Fears concerning their spiritual and eternal State But he speaks concerning himself and some other Christians who had attained to and were in the Exercise of this Knowledg This leads me to the second thing viz. 2. The Predicate know This Knowledg here spoken of is a certain Knowledg a firm and full Perswasion that when their Bodies should be dissolved their Souls should be received into Heaven There are several things included in this Knowledg viz. a firm Belief of a future State of Blessedness provided for the Saints and into which they shall enter after Death This might be known from the Holy Scriptures wherein we have a sufficient Confirmation of this sacred Truth Moreover a firm Perswasion that they were interested in Christ and made meet for the Inheritance of the Saints in Light This they might know by comparing themselves with those Marks and Characters of the Heirs of Salvation which were laid down in sacred Writ by the lively exercise of their Faith upon Christ and by the Testimony of the holy Spirit bearing witness with their Spirits that they were the Children of God Lastly an Assurance of their Preservation in a State of Grace to a State of Glory This they might fairly collect from the Word of God wherein there is a full account of the Everlastingness of the Covenant of Grace the Immutability of Divine Love the Efficacy of Christ's Death together with the Constancy and Prevalence of his Intercession and the perpetual Residence of the holy Spirit the Earnest of