such great and important Work to do we had need double our diligence and if we 'll take this course we shall have no Reason to complain of the Shortness of our Lives for he that does the work of Fifty or Threescore Years in Seven or Eight and Twenty is happier than he that lives so long in the world Oh let 's earnestly endeavour to make such daily advances as that our Work may be at an End as soon as our Day 2. Let us often think of and seriously set ourselves to prepare for an approaching Night We are all my Friends endued with a Power of Foresight Let 's in this case make use of it Let 's think with our selves that as surely as 't is now Day with us 't will e're long be Night as surely as we now live shall we shortly die and let 's endeavour to yield to the Power of such a Thought Whenever we are tempted to Delays to Negligence Indifference and Remissness in our Grand Concern Let 's think how swiftly the Night is hasting towards us and how earnestly Death is pursuing after us and let 's act as those that are in expectation of it Let 's resolve with holy Job that we 'll wait all the days of our appointed time till our change come Job 14. 14. Let 's not be so foolish as to hear of others Deaths without reflecting on our own To accompany others to their graves without thinking that we must shortly follow them Let 's Live in the day time as those that have night in their view When the labouring Countreyman sees the night approaching he 'l put to all his strength and vigorously endeavour to finish his undertaken work ere the sun go down Let us do so too and then be our day longer or shorter our Night will be comfortable We may lift up our Heads with joy But on the contrary how doleful will our night be if we work not in the day time How dismal a thing will it be at the close of our Lives to find just cause for this Reflection that we have liv'd in vain without doing that for which God sent us hither What Horror and Amazement will then seize upon us What can we then expect will support or cheer us What Rage and Despair will possess us Would we not have this to be our case Then let us by doing our work in the Day prepare for the Night that 's coming And Oh what account shall we be able to give to the God that sent us hither if we mind not the Work for which he sent us If we can find time now for every thing else but to mind our main Concern how shall we dare to look God in the Face another day How can we think we stand before his Bar to give an account for all our Power and Capacity Time and Opportunity of Working for our Calls Admonitions and warnings to apply our selves to our work for all our allurements and enticements Helps and assistances to work Oh how shall we then stand speechless if now we remain idle Then be confounded if now we are negligent Oh then if we love our selves if we desire to be Happy Let us by doing the work of him that sent us while the day lasts prepare for that night which approaches in which no work can be done but we must receive our Wages And thus much may suffice for general Improvements And now that I may follow this present Stroke of Providence whither it seems more particularly to direct its Voice give me leave to address my self to you my Brethren of the Younger Sort whom God is pleased to call to publick Work in his Vineyard One of our small Number 's gone and he none of the inconsiderablest neither God set him a Work for a little while and then call'd him away and hath not this a Voice and that to us particularly Our Deceased brother and God by him seems to cry aloud to all of us to work the works of him that sent us while 't is day ere the night overtake us The work my brethren to which we have set our hands is sacred and awful 'T is enough I profess seriously to make our hearts to ake and our Knees to tremble to set our selves solemnly to think upon it 'T is difficult work Difficult in it self and more peculiarly so by reason of the circumstances of the time wherein our Lot is cast It hath ever indeed been difficult to bear up Gods honour in the world to vindicate his truths from contempt to engage men heartily in his service and to bring Souls to Heaven But how are the difficulties encreased upon us thro' the desperate malignity of many the Lukewarmness and indifference of most The peevishness and morosness of some and the Giddiness and wantonness of others Alas for us what shall we do to promote that Wisdom that is from above that is pure and peaceable and gentle and easy to be entreated full of good fruits without partiality and without Hypocrisy in the Age we live in in which the wisdom of the world so much prevails and true Religion is so like to expire 'T is true Our Reverend Fathers thanks be to God do as yet bear the Brunt of the Day and God grant they may long do so But alas the Prophets dont live for ever any more than others Within a few years they 'll all drop off and the burthen will lie on young shoulders And what shall we then do What shall we do to stem that Tide of Atheism and Irreligion that hath overflown us What shall we do in opposition to the Scepticism by which we find so many unravell'd and undone What shall we do to recover the Power of Godliness of which our Fathers tell us so much tho we can see so little it being almost lost What shall we do to root out those Prejudices which have so long been rivetted in many peoples minds What shall we do to pacific those angry Heats and stop those raging Contentions vvhich have continued so long till they have almost eat out the Spirit and Life of Religion What shall we do to revive True Generous Catholick Christianity Our Difficulties seem rather to grow than diminish And shall we not then out of a sense of the great opposition we shall meet with on all sides take great care to qualifie dispose and fit our selves for the Great Work that will lie upon us by treasuring up of Knowledge daily laying aside of Prejudices our selves and taking up nothing but upon good Grounds by studying the things that make for Peace on all hands by arming our selves vvith resolution to go through good report and bad report to be above Smiles and Frowns and aboveall by keeping up an intimate Acquaintance vvith that God vvho gives us a Commission and vvho alone can give us assistance and success And yet in the mean time the Day we have to work in is short and uncertain We know
not but our Work may be at an end as soon almost as we begin and therefore we have need carefully to improve all opportunities of Service and to work apace It is indeed enough to surprize us vvhen we consider all things to think that God should have rais'd up so many of us in so discouraging Times as we have pass'd through that he should have given us any tolerable competency of Fitness for his Service and that he should in any measure own us in it But alas my Brethren let 's not be too confident God can nip budding hopâ— he can if he pleases just show us to the World and then snatch us away again Let 's take care leâ—t we by our sins provoke him to lay us aside as Vessels wherein he hath no pleasure Let 's work therefore for God without Self-seeking Let 's take care to recommend Religion to others by our Lives Let 's love as Brethren and studiously strengthen and no ways weaken one anothers hands Let 's apply our selves diligently to our Work and let this Instance of our Mortality quicken us Let 's often think this Work of ours will soon be at an end in which if we have been faithful we shall be amply rewarded for we shall shine as Stars in God's Right Hand If we have been idle negligent and careless our punishment vvill be proportion'd to our sin Let 's not be so fond as to feed our selves with hopes of a long time of use and service to come but in the Day let 's foresee our Night Let 's seriously bethink our selves that Death will soon seize us and summon us to Judgment Our Souls will take their flight and leave our Bodies behind and we must be beholden to our surviving Friends to do that last Office for us which we are now going to do for the Relicks of our Deceasâ—d Brother Mr. SAMVEL STEPHENS Of whom I shan't say much to you though I could if I thought it needful As for his Family ' t vvas Noble and Honourable in Heavens Blaâ—â—â—ry it having been successively employed in the Work of the Ministry ever since the Reformation his immediate Father only excepted Which Gap the Two Brothers would have made up if both had liv'd But blessed be God that hath spared us One Branch of so Worthy a Stock As for the Person of the Deceased he was design'd for the Ministry from his Younger Years and had as Good Advantages all along for the acquiring the needful Accomplishments for it as this Land vvould afford to those under our Discouragements Which Advantages he so Well Improv'd as at length to become a Workman that needed not to be asham'd He had a Sense of Religion instill'd into him in his early Days about the Fourteenth or Fifteenth Year of his Age ever since which time he hath been observed by those that knew him to have had a very tender Conscience He vvas noted for his frequency in Prayer even while a School-Boy the serious performance of which Duty argues the Greatest Love to God of any He had a most awful Sense of the Ministerial Employment which those with whom he had any intimacy will readily testifie He was very backward to begin to preach though by his most Judicious Friends judg'd sufficiently qualified and earnestly prest thro' his great humility and unwillingness to rush into such a work And I could tell you of a Worthy Divine to whom he to his dying day us'd for the most part to read his Notes before he 'd Venture with Them into the Pulpit His Spirit hath many a Time been so over-awed by a sense of the Sacredness of the Work he was engaged in that he hath been afraid to persist in it and almost perswaded to turn his Thoughts another way And indeed he was humble and modest to a Fault His Natural Temper exposed him somewhat to Melancholy and one thing that tended to make his Life uneasie was his great Scrupulosity and fear of offending God in the smallest matters where others could apprehend no danger But in this he was on the safest side tho the most uncomfortable But he had the happiness to be able to conceal his inward Trouble from the Observation of the World by a free pleasant and cheerful Conversation by which he avoided discouraging others of which he was fearful I look upon him to have had as much of True Generosity in his Natural Temper as most I know He from his heart scorn'd to do any Thing that was mean or base or servile and abhorr'd every Thing that in the least lookt like undermining He ever retain'd a most grateful sense of the Kindness of those Worthy Gentlemen and others who were his Friends and was always ready to the utmost of his Capacity himself to do any Office of Kindness for any Having been for some years employ'd occasionally in the Preaching Work of the Ministry it so pleased God that a Mortal Distemper seiz'd him which depriv'd the Church of an useful Servant and us of a Fellow-Labourer that might have been very helpful His Distemper with Violence seiz'd his head the Rage whereof was Visibly increased by those awful Thoughts of Eternity wherewith he was possessed I mention this the rather that I may thence take occasion to warn those who will defer and put off their great work to a Dying Bed from this Instance and others of the like nature often to be met with to see their folly and grow wise For several days before he dy'd his Distemper deprived him of the free use of his Reason and so it happens in many Cases who then in his Wits would put off the Great Work he was sent into the World for to such a Time And yet this may be the case of any one of us Our Eternal State may be irrevocably fixt even before we die and we absolutely incapacitated to do any thing in our Soul-Affairs But I hope and believe our deceased Brother's Work was not then to do but was finished before After that his Natural Strength which was very great had for some days grappled with a malignant Fever he was forc'd to yield a Rent was made his Soul took its flight and left his Body lifeless in the Eight and Twentieth Year of his Age. His Work 's soon done but not too soon for him who I hope is happy We are now going to commit his Body to the Earth there to lye and rot which will shortly also be the Case of every one of us His Toil and Warfare and Combat and all painful Work is at an end He 's taken away from those Evils which we may live to see For who knows what is coming upon us We may for ought we know meet with miseries that we little think of before we dye But blessed be God that we have another Life of Rest and Peace and Joy in hope and that tho we cant know what will befall us here yet we know this assuredly That Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord for they rest from their labours and their Works do follow them FINIS Books Printed for and Sold by Abraham Chandler THE Mourners Companion or Funeral Discourses from several Texts 8vo Price bound 1 s. 6 d. Death a Deliverance A Funeral Discourse to bind up with the Mourners Companion Sacramental Discourses on several Texts before and after the Lords Supper together with a Paraphrase on the Lords Prayer 12ves Price bound 1 s. 6 d. Practical Reflections on the late Earthquakes in Jamaica Sicily Malta c. with a particular Historical Account of those and Divers other Earthquakes Price bound 1 s. 6 d. The Day of Grace Or a Discourse concerning the Possibility and Fear of its being past before Death Shewing the groundless Doubts and mistaken Apprehensions of some as to their being finally forsaken and left of God with the dangerous Symptoms and Approaches of others to such a sad state in Four Sermons from Psalm 81. 11 12. Serious Reflections on Time and Eternity with some other Subjects Moral and Divine To which is annexed an Appendix concerning the First Day of the Year how observed by the Iews and may best be employed by a serious Christian. All Six by Mr. John Shower * Viz. That of Beza reserv'd at Cambridge Heb. 9 27. Jam. 3. 17. Rev 14.13
whom our Happiness lies we must know our Apostacy from him with its sad Effects we must know the Means of our Recovery and use them And here comes in Jesus Christ whom we must know and use in all his Offices We must know what He was by the Father design'd to do for us what Advantages he hath procur'd us and on what Terms To which Terms we must take care to come up we must heartily return to God through his Son give up our selves to our Lord Redeemer's Conduct obey the Laws that he hath given us use all the subordinate Means that he hath appointed us believe and trust in the Promises that he hath made us follow the Example that he hath set us and depend on the Assistance of that Spirit which he hath purchased for us We must be continually fighting against the three grand Enemies of our Happiness the Flesh the World and the Devil we must improve all our Faculties Talents Abilities Mercies Relations and Enjoyments for God like Accountable Creatures and do all the Good we can to Others This is the Work that lies upon all our hands without doing which we live in vain we answer not the Ends of Life But besides this General there 's Special Work to which God calls some And this is either Ordinary or Extraordinary and each of them is of several sorts which I shan't stay to enumerate but among them all there 's none more Awful Sacred and Tremendious than the Ministerial Employment and none lie under a greater necessity of Diligence Care and Industry none stand in need of more Assistance from Above than those who are call'd to and employ'd in it That is a Work indeed in it self unfit for Humane Hands and yet it must be undertaken and done when God calls to it and his Goodness is wonderfully seen in spiriting and fitting any mortal Men in any tolerable Degree for it assisting them in it and carrying them through it But 't is but few who have a genuine Call to such Work as this nor are all fit to Judge of the Dueness of a Call to it But to the former we are all Call'd and we must do it 't is required of every one of us by God that sent us hither And so much for the Second Observable III. The Third thing observable is this That God gives us a Day in which we may do our Work We must work the Works of him that sent us while it is Day Which implies that we all have a Day to work in God is not in any case like the Egyptian Task-masters who requir'd Bricks without Straw He 'll give us Time to do the Work he 'll require at our hands The great Difficulty here is with reference to those who die in Infancy or at any time before they come to Years of Discretion What Time may in be demanded have such as they to do any Work in Whereto I reply That God expects no Work of any sort of any for which he gives not Time and Capacity As to the Eternal State of Dying Infants if that be farther enquired into we can say no more than this That those of them who sprang from truly Pious Parents are reckon'd as a Part of their Parents and therefore their Parents right acquitting themselves in the Work that God set them is available for their Good But as for those of them whose Parents are Irreligious who have not done the Work for which God sent them into the World the Scriptures give us no Account and therefore we may and should be content to be ignorant what becomes of them But as for us my Friends we have a Day afforded us and therefore afforded that we may Work in it In whatsoever sence well take the Day we have it we have Life prolong'd Offers and Seasons of Grace continued God's Patience waiting and his Spirit striving Some of us have had a long Day of it We blessed be God have Time and Health and Strength Oh! that we had Hearts to do our Work IV. A Fourth Observation is this That this Day of ours is but short We must Work while it is Day That implies it won't last long Which it 's manifest is principally meant of the Time of Life which is but short And this is a common Theme of Complaint with some yet as much Forgotten and Overlook'd by others as if they did not believe it How mournfully shall we hear some complain that we no sooner pass through helpless Infancy and inobservant Childhood and come after much Pains and Toil to get some tolerable Fitness for Service in the World but we are presently gone our Days at an end And yet how carelessly and negligently do the most live just as if they thought their Day would last always But what little Reason is there for the former Complaint when our Day suffices for our Work And how unaccountable is the latter Instance of Folly when our Day if prolong'd to the utmost Period is so exceeding short If we 'll but look into Scripture we shall see things brought in as Emblems of it that are the most short brittle and fading that the whole Creation can furnish Let 's consult the Experience of Mankind in all Ages and see if our Working-time be not short How easily may a Man when the Sun Rises in the Morning fore-see its Setting when the Light will be succeeded by Darkness the Day by Night As easily may we while in Health and Strength and Vigour fore-see an approaching Death How short is our Day compar'd with the Days of Eternity even infinitely less than a single Moment compar'd with the whole World's Duration Nay what is our Day now to that of those who liv'd in the first Ages of the World but as a short Dream compar'd to a long Summer's Day This Point were easily illustrated and prov'd but it needs neither so much as Improvement And so doth V. The Fifth Observable which is this That our Day is not only Short but Uncertain For thus much that Passage also implies We must work while it is Day Which seems to intimate that it may for ought we know last but a very little while it may expire e're we are aware And can there be any thing more evident than this when so many Thousands of unforeseen Casualties Disorders or Distempers may put an end to it Let 's look abroad into the World and we shall find some of all Ages daily Dying Who then can tell at what Age his Day may end at what time his Sun may set I need look no further for a sensible Conviction of this than the Corps before us the Looking on which may and will if we consider Circumstances satisfie us all that our Day 's uncertain But yet VI. In the Sixth and Last place though that be Uncertain this is most Certain That a Night will sooner or later overtake us all in which no Work can be done but we must receive our Wages Let our Day