Selected quad for the lemma: death_n
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A52250
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A sermon preached at the funeral of Mr. Joseph Aleine by George Newton ...
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Newton, George, 1602-1681.
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1672
(1672)
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Wing N1047; ESTC R16860
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20,159
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39
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are come If God carry you aside into a Wilderness and strip you naked there of any mercy as if he meant to Iash you to the purpose your ways and your doings have procured you these things such is your wickedness Believe it you have sinned some way or other against the mercy which the Lord takes from you They are our sins against the Ordinances of the Lord that cause the Lord to take away our Ordinances from us They are our sins against the Ministers of Christ in that capacity as Ministers that provoke him to remove our Ministers from us Yea many times to take away the Candlestick and Light together You may take up the Lamentation of the Church this day The Crown is faln from our heads wo to us for we have sinned They are our sins that Weaken and impair and kill our Ministers who are indeed the Churches Crown and the glory of Christ. Sometimes we overvalue them and then we kill them with kindness Sometimes we undervalue them and then we kill them with neglect and make them do their work with grief Sometimes we are untractable and unthankful and unfruitful and God calls away his workmen out of the Vineyard that will yield no better fruit Nay sometimes we decline and grow remiss and cold and flat we lose our love to God and Christ and then he takes away our Beloved comforts from us And let me tell you some of you have backslidden grievously and sonsibly abated of your former zeal and holiness and strictness in the ways of God Yea sinned scandalously to the dishonour of Religion and the Gospel This greived our dear Brother who will grieve no more now I had it from his mouth and pen how tenderly he took some late miscarriages and how near they went to him These things brought him low among you who was low enough before and made him to bewail many who have manifestly sinned and have not repented as the Apostle speaks 2 Cor. 12. 21. Oh how it wounded him after so many labours and so many sufferings for your establishment and confirmation to see such declinations and backslidings He might have said with the Apostle 1 Thess. 3. 8. Now I live if you stand fast in the Lord If not I die and dead he is Oh my dear friends what have your sins done what hath your barrenness and your unfruitfulness and your Backsliding done I know you lov'd him with a very high affection and have made it to appear in many outward declarations to your great praise But the best way to shew your love to the true Ministers of Christ who seek not yours but you who seek not profit and applause but Fruit is to bear their just reproofs and to be amended by them to hear and obey them in their regular directions to follow all their good Examples for the Ministers of Christ are Samplers to the flock Samplers must be wrought after And in a word to bring them in the return of all their labours in holiness and holy walking that they may see the travel of their souls and be satisfied Nothing but this will satisfie them and make them do their work with Joy I know you lov'd him as there was cause enough you should but say in truth have you Improv'd him I am assur'd that many of you a considerable number have Improv'd him to the utmost of your power That you have made the most you could of his indefagatible and incessant pains among you That you have gather'd up the very Fragments of the Bread of life and pik'd up the very Crums that nothing might be lost That you have eyed his exemplary Conversation and walked according to your pattern And this I make no question is no small comfort to you in this doleful day But have you all done this Are there no secret Stitches at the hearts of any of you upon this consideration He spent his strength indeed among you he wasted and consumed himself that you might flourish But tell me have there been answerable fruits among you of holiness and obedience when he fed you have you prosper'd he got a poor lean wither'd Body that you might have fat Souls And are you all fat and well likeing Oh what lean souls have some of you who have attended on his Ministry even to his dying day How hath your rich and fat pasture been cast away upon you So that our Brother might have said in reference to many as the Prophet did I have spent my strength in vain However he is glorious with his God But I am very much afraid that many of you will find this holy Witness who is now ascended Witnessing against you when the day of trial comes Dear friends Be not offended if I tell you that your sins have had a stroke in the sickness and the weakness and the death of your deservedly beloved Minister They were our sins that killed Christ he was bruised for our iniquities and broken for our sins He bare our sins in his Body on the Tree And so they are our sins that kill the Ministers of Christ. You have often seen your Saviour slain before you by and for your sins Now you have seen a holy Minister of his slain by the same hands And yet your sins have still to do more such work and the Lord knows where it will end There is no Execution done upon them who have done such dreadfull Execution in our view Oh let your hearts break and your tears run down till your lusts be broken mortified and destroyed or else they will break you and destroy you If you have any love to Christ to the Ministers of Christ or to your selves you may see cause enough to weep though not for our deceased Brother yet for your selves and for your sins That 's the first thing then weep for the sins that you have done 2. For the Judgments that now you may be like to suffer To this our Saviour referth in the Text Weep for your selves and for your children That is for the extremity of wrath and deletery vengeance that is about to come on you and them Even so say I to you my Brethren with the Apostle James 5. 1. Go to now weep and howl for your miseris that shall come upon you Oh let not that complaint of the Prophet Isaiah 57. 1. be renewed against you The Righteous perisheth and no man layeth it to heart and merciful men are taken away none considering that the Righteous is taken away from the evil to come Our dear Brother now deceased was a Righteous man yea a Preacher of Righteousness The Lord you see hath taken him away oh what evil is to come When such as he are hous'd what dreadful stormes may there be like to fall Brethren the holy Ministers of God are the peoples life-guard The Chariots of Israel and the Horsmen thereof 2 Kings 13. 14. They are anointed Cherubs that Cover They are a Shelter and a Covering from the
A SERMON PREACHED AT THE FUNERAL OF Mr. JOSEPH ALEINE BY Mr. GEORGE NEWTON late Minister of Taunton in Somersetshire Rev. 14. 13. Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth yea saith the Spirit that they may rest from their Labours and their Works do follow them LONDON Printed and are to be Sold by Nevil Simmons at the Princes-Arms in St. Pauls Church-yard 1672. Luke 23. 28. Daughters of Jerusalem weep not for me but weep for your selves and for your Children WHat Subject fitter for this sad Occasion then a Theam of Weeping what Language can we better speak or more agreeable to the dark Providence that we are under then Sighs and Cries and Lamentations how merciful was God to him whom he hath taken to himself and how severe to us in this Stroke and oh what hard and stupid hearts have we should we be so insensible of Gods heavy Indignation and our irreparable Loss as to give him just occasion to Complain as in Jeremiah 5. 3. I have smitten them and they have not grieved You of this Congregation have reason to sit down in bitterness because the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with you And to cry out as sometimes Joash did over Elisha 2 Kings 13. 14. My Father my Father the Charists of Israel and the Horsemen thereof And as Rachel once to weep and hardly to be comforted because he is not And for my own part I shall take up David's Lamentation over Jonathan with David's Affection 2. Sam. 1. 26. I am distressed for thee my brother very pleasant hast thou been unto me But methinks I over-hear him who being dead yet speaketh calling upon us in our Saviours Words Weep not for me As for my own part I have Rest for Labour Joy for Sorrow Peace for Trouble Ease for Pain I feel no aking Bones no falling Fits no strained Sinews no Distortions no Convulsions in the Grave And for what I find in heaven you shall know when you come thither My refreshing time is come God hath now wiped clean away every Tear from my Eyes and every drop of Sweat from my Face and every sad thought from my Heart And therefore I forbid your tears for me Weep not for me But if your swelling Passions must have vent Consider whose the Loss is Alass it is not mine but yours And therefore turn the Stream into the right Channel Weep not for me but weep for your selves and for your children These were our Saviours words sometimes in which he puts a stop upon the sorrow the tears of those who wept too much even at the Death of Christ himself Dead he was in Law already condemned by Pilate delivered to the Roman Band to guard him to the Place of Execution Such tragical appearances are usually attended with a Multitude of Lookers on and by how much the greater and more remarkable the person is who is to suffer so much the greater is the Concourse And hence it was that such a heap of people followed Christ on whom the eyes of the whole Nation of the Jews were fixed though with different affections Some to secure him from a rescue some to mock him and deride him some to gaze upon the Prisoner and to observe his carriage in his dead March some to see the Execution Among the rest there were a sort of people that bewailed his Death of whom it is observed that they exprest their grief in tears I make no question there were men that wept but because women usually have moister brains and less command upon their passions and so are more inclinable to vent their sorrow in a flood of tears then men especially because their passions are not much regarded neither so that there was no fear or danger though they were free and open in their sorrow Hence it is that there is no notice taken of any other tears but theirs in the Verse before the Text and that our Saviour turns himself and directs his Speech to them in the words that have been read Daughters of Jerusalem weep not for me but for your selves and for your children Now in this Speech of Jesus Christ we have especially to be considered two things a prohibition and a permission In the first place we have the prohibition of our Saviour in which he forbiddeth them to weep Daughters of Jerusalem weep not for me And in the second place we have his permission in which he alloweth them to weep but weep for your selves and for your children And yet you see he doth not cross himself neither he doth not here command and forbid the same things in the same respect but in relation to a diverse object In relation to himself he forbiddeth them to weep weep not for me In relation to themselves he alloweth them to weep but weep for your Selves and for your Children The total final and irreparable ruine of Jerusalem was near at hand our Saviour had it in his eye when he spake these words He wept apace for this himself but a little while before as you may see Luke 19. 41. He beheld the City and wept over it First he beholds it with his eye and then his eye affects his heart Wo and alass saith he while in a pang of holy pity and compassion the tears come flowing down his cheeks If thou badst known even thou at least in this thy day the things which belong unto thy peace but now they are hid from thine eyes And therefore he alloweth them to weep for this who were to have a share and portion in that dreadful desolation But for himself who willingly submitted to the death which he was leading to and all the other circumstances of his passion who was beloved of him who had appointed and designed him to it who was God as well as Man and therefore able to endure it and to overcome it too and who was shortly to be rescued from the jaws of death and so triumphantly to enter into Glory He forbiddeth them to weep weep not for me but weep for your selves and for c. So that the purpose of our Saviour is not wholly to suppress but to rectifie their sorrow They wept for him out of a childish kind of pity but they wept not for their sins nor the unseen calamities that were about to come upon them And therefore Christ endeavours to withdraw their sorrow from the wrong and fix it on the right object And to this end he shâ—ws them why they should not weep and why they should Weep not for me but for your selves and for your children Two Observations lie before us in the Text. The first That it is not unlawful nor unfit sometimes to express our grief in tears The second That we are very subject to misplace our grief and to mistake the ground and object of our sorrow I shall speak to these in order beginning with the first Doct. That it is not unlawful nor unfit sometimes to express our grief in