Selected quad for the lemma: death_n
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A59579
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Tanḥumim, or, Divine comforts antidoting inward perplexities of mind in a discourse upon Psal. XCIV, ver. 19 / by T. Sharp ... ; with some short remarks upon the author.
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Sharp, Thomas, 1633-1693.
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Wing S3007; ESTC R15146
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256,568
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440
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themselves both think and speak highly of themselves and by consequence basely scornfully slightingly of those that are not like themselves in Wickedness and therefore of those qualities that difference both Parties speak well of Wickedness that denominates and delights them but ill of Godliness which they oppose yet both perhaps under the disguise of other Names plausible for their one Wickedness disgraceful for Holyness as the manner and guise of the World alway has been and will be this has not a little of guilt and grief in it Sin is asham'd of its own Name and therefore sights against Goodness under borrowed Colours transferring its own title to that which it opposes and it cannot but be grief to an Innocent to suffer under the notion of a Malefactor to have his Name murdered as well as his Person whilst his Adversaries add Ignominy to Cruelty but especially it afflicts his Soul that God and Religion and Holiness suffer in the repute of the ignorant and sequacious Multitude which is led in its judgment of things by the Hand rather than Head by the power and opinion of its Masters without making any disquisition or inspection into the reality of matters taking all upon trust whether it be true or false good or evil A Beast that with a strong Bridle and sharp Spurs will ride freely Blindfold post hast into Hell but is infinitely malapert and restive in the course toward Heaven its Eyes like those of a Fly consisting of infinite little dim Atoms without a due proportion of Brains of their own to govern them and therefore are as wild and wanton in their motions To this may I join the trouble which the Psalmist seem'd to be affected with through other perverse speeches of those wicked Persons which though not so expresly yet may implicitly seem to relate to Pride because interpos'd between the mention thereof and the effect of it in Boasting ver 4. How long 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shall they pour out as a Fountain does Water and speak 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which properly signifies things hardned with age yet upon the point to be remov'd and pass away as may be gathered from the use and signification of its root These hard things they spoke I take to refer unto others chiefly as what follows did to themselves 1. Hard things in Enoch's Prophecy recited Jude 15. were spoken against God May not our Psalmist refer to that Prophecy which no doubt came to his knowledge either by Tradition or the Prophetick Spirit If so then may they possibly be those recited ver 7. or such like false Atheistical Blasphemous against God his Providence VVord VVays People 2. Hard things Psal 31.18 were spoke against the Righteous proudly and contemptuously in Reproach ver 11. and Slaunder 13. whence his Eye was consumed and his life spent with grief ver 9 10. To this Head then may we reduce all those troubles which arise from the Persecution of the Tongue Threatnings Aspersings Defamations Detractions Censurings uncharitable rash Judgings Mockings and Deridings and cloathing Goodness and good Men with Reproaches branding them with odious Names contrary to their real Nature speaking all manner of Evil Matth. 5.11 3. Persecution which here was bloody and barbarously cruel ver 5 6. They break in pieces thy People O Lord and afflict thine Heritage they slay the Widow and the Stranger and murther the Fatherless Wherein both their Inhumanity and base Cowardice manifest themselves in that they rage against the weak impotent and friendless that have none to plead for succour relieve and help them alive or revenge them when dead This is justly imputable to Dreg and Saul The former by killing the Priests of the Lord 1 Sam. 22.18 did exceedingly afflict God's Heritage and People and brake them in pieces and made many Fatherless and Widows and afterward murdred them in a savage unparallell'd manner ver 19. and when he had done boasted of it Psal 52.1 as the Wicked here if that was not the same fact Saul also slew the Gibeonites 2 Sam. 21.1 2 5. call'd Strangers 2 Chron. 2.17 These may be here understood as well as Proselytes Here then David lost his Friends and Favourers by a violent Death and hither may we refer the loss of Friends and Relations by a natural Death A cause of Grief as just as common But especially to this Head belongs the troubles for the Miseries and Calamities both of Church and State When the Gates of Sion mourn we are but ill Members thereof if it create not some kind of Sympathy in our Hearts 4. Atheism disbelief of God's Omniscience and Providence Ver. 7. Yet they say the Lord shall not see neither shall the God of Jacob regard it This was indeed the spring of all their other Sins and therefore as Asaph in another like case was affected with it Psal 73.11 They say how doth God know and is there knowledge in the most High c So here is David very much concern'd about it and so much the more because Divine Vengeance seem'd to be concern'd so little ver 1. whence he spends the 4 following Verses to evince and convince them of the infinite unlimitable Knowledge of God whereas he contents himself with a bare mentioning their other Sins without such reasoning against them And indeed any serious Heart that duly ponders its dependance for Life Motion and Being upon God will be tenderly sensible of all Affronts put upon him will not with patience indure that he should fall under Disparagement As a dutiful Child will hear untoucht the Reproaches cast upon a Stranger or any other rather than its Father He who can be content that God should go less than infinite in all Perfections can be well pleas'd that he should not be God and that the World be depriv'd and destitute of his Government and Providence which would be the greatest mischief to it conceivable Better infinitely that the whole Universe should be hurry'd back again into its Primitive Chaos and Confusion than God be lessen'd in any one of his Excellencies If ungodly Souls disavow any Divine Attribute and seek to rob God of the honour of that without which a good Man cannot live or live comfortably 't is a Dagger at the Heart and wounds the very Soul and so ought to do in all that are tender of the Glory of their Creator For our own sakes we have reason to abhor Atheism in every degree and form of it because if there were not a God or if he were not of infinite Understanding we were of all Creatures most miserable not only as depriv'd of our true Felicity and the hopes of it for how should he reward us did he not know or regard us and our Integrity but we should fatally be expos'd to all the vilest Indignities and most deplorable Calamities the Wit and Rage of Men and Devils could devise and inflict upon Earth and since their and our Beings are altogether incorruptible as far as
Pet 2.4 To love thy self into Sobriety or Prudent self Government to cloath thy self with a Robe of Righteousness and Mercy in thy dealings with Men is not enough is not the full and adequate Doctrine and Duty taught by the Grace of God which brings Salvation Titus 2.11 There must be superadded not only a denying Vngodliness so as to crucifie it but a living Godly leading a Religious Life towards God in Love Faith Fear Honour Universal Acknowledgment out of Conscience For what Conscience in dealing well with Men and ill with God that is with the Subjects fairly and not with the Soveraign What Conscience in breaking the first Article betwixt God and Man which is to give him the sole command in his House thy Heart that living Temple which is the sum of the First Commandment What Conscience to dwell in his House and pay him no Rent No external Acknowledgment and Worship in Publick in thy Family in thy Closet the sum of the Second Command What Conscience whilst tender of thy own Name to be regardless of Gods forbid in the Third Command What Conscience in stealing time from God's reserved part when he allows thee so much beside the Fourth Command violated Be never so sober just free kind to Man-ward if thou respect not God O my Soul thou hast no Conscience For where there 's no Godliness there can be no Conscience Oh make it thy first and main business to approve thy self to God Thou canst never be true to thy self or Man if thou be a Traytor to God Thou hast no greater assistance in thy dutifulness to Men than a due regardfulness of God Thou canst have no better evidence of a due regardfulness of God than thy conscientious dutifulness to Men. Thou forfeit'st the reputation of thy Religiousness towards God if thou be not Righteous towards Man and of thy Righteousness if not Religious Like Hippocrates's Twins these are born and act and sicken and die together That 's the 4th ingredient of the Psalmist's Character he upheld universal Innocency and Integrity of Conscience CHAP. VII The Subject of Comfort Publickly Spirited c. True Christianity c. 5. THis Holy Man was of a Publick Spirit living under a Catholick sence of and care for the common concerns of the Church of God Lamenting its Miseries ver 5 6. longing and praying for its redemption from them by the Power and Justice of God ver 1 2 3 4 20. and encouraging his own and its hopes thereof by a serious reflection upon the Divine Attributes ver 1 2 8 9 10 11. Providences ver 12 13. and his own particular experience ver 17 18 19 21. withal by a Prophetick Spirit foretelling it ver 14 15 23. all which are plain in the Psalm and plain demonstrations of a Heart enlarged in its desires and endeavours for Publick Good A good Soul is not well at ease when the Servants of God are ill at ease The Sufferings of the Church are made its own by a sympathizing Spirit which is afflicted in all its Afflictions and cannot enjoy Prosperity or it self in Contentation when God's Children are groaning under the Cross Mourns with Mourning Rejoyces with rejoycing Sion and uses its interest in Heaven to work upon the Bowels of the ever-blessed Son of God that he may demonstrate his tender Commiserations toward his own Members in Misery by turning the course of his Providence And that this is a proper method to Comfort we see Isai 66.10 11. Rejoyce ye with Jerusalem and be glad with her all ye that love her rejoyee for joy with her all ye that mourn for her that ye may suck and be satisfied with the Breasts of her Consolations that ye may milk out and be delighted with the abundance of her Glory God had a People a Heritage which though Afflicted and broken in pieces here ver 5. yet he would not cast off nor forsake either in respect of Affection or Communion ver 14. So neither must we For 't is by Vertue of our Union and Communion with that Body and its Head that all those comfortable Spirits and Influences are derived to us which refresh and revive us I confess 't is through our internal and spiritual Confederation and Fellowship but he that values and receives benefit by this cannot despise and vilifie the External Hence our Psalmist here as a Member vitally joined to the Body and partaking of a common Sense does not only comfort himself and it with the consideration of the inviolableness of that Union and Communion which was of a spiritual Nature ver 14. nor only reflects upon those external Ligaments and Bonds which ty'd together so numerous a People into one single Heritage or Church but also was grievously afflicted for those external breakings in pieces rents and disunion of parts though involuntary which were the fruit of the outward Violence and Rage of Persecutors So should we But then Oh what Affliction would have rent his tender Heart in the view of those voluntary tearing in pieces the Seamless Coat of Christ the Divisions and Breaches we make amongst our selves Those Fractions were only some kind of dissolution of their Civil Political Union ours of the Ecclesiastical and Wounds are most dangerous in the most noble Parts State Factions are not more to be dreaded than those of the Church because these have more immediate respect to the Soul and God Lamentable are the Miseries of a Civil War where Thousands Born Bred up Nourished by one common Mother Brethren by Stock Blood Condition Cohabitation Membership of the same Body Politick perhaps of one Name and Kindred and Family of the same Body Mystical the Church Blind and Dumb and Deaf to the Cries and Shreeks and Wounds and Groans and Deaths of their own proper Limbs in a barbarous drunken rage tear off their own Skin Flesh and Bones rive open their very Hearts to let out Spirit Life Strength Soul hurl one another down to Hell under their Sin in a deluge of Blood and worry themselves by piece-meal into eternal Damnation And are the Church Digladiations in the Christian World less deplorable when those whose respite from everlasting Burnings cost no less than the Blood of God who are denominated from that most venerable Name wash'd in the same Laver of Regeneration Members of the same Spiritual Body privileged with the same most excellent Gospel and Covenants of Promise and would every one be ready to tear out his Heart that should dare to tell them that they shall not each possess the blessedness of an unspeakably glorious Heaven where therefore as in a Center they must meet if their hopes fail not When these I say who thus concenter and agree in their Titles Royalties and Expectations are so far from combining in the common profession and practice of Unity Love Peace Goodness Vertue Godliness Brotherly kindness Charity as to grind one another into Atoms bite and devour one anothers Hearts by bloody Animosities Reproaches